Some aphorisms

... Life could be much better if we had it's source code. -- Wintermute, in alt.comp.virus

See also ... I've learned ...
Advent Litany
Litany and Hope
Instructions for Life
Some Heinlein thoughts
Prayers in a Time of Need
Free Will and the Omnipotence of God

Edmund Burke, Courage, Character, Benj. Franklin, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire, Jos. Addison, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, some longer quotations

Wise people, though all laws were abolished, would lead the same life. -- Aristophanes

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom: The first helps you make a living; the second helps you make a life. -- Sandra Carny

Chance favors the prepared mind. -- Louis Pasteur

Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart.

Judge each day, not by the harvest, but by the seeds you plant.

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand, and melting like a snowflake. -- Sir Francis Bacon

If you have two pennies, spend one on bread to give you life, and one on a flower to give meaning to your life. -- Ancient Chinese Proverb

Hospitality meets its greatest test when a new idea drops by uninvited.

The man who trusts men will make fewer mistakes than he who distrusts them. -- Cavour

If a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest. -- Proverbs, 29:9

A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows. -- St. Francis of Assisi

Provision for others is a fundamental responsibility of human life. -- Woodrow Wilson

Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -- Harold Whitman

He who marries the Sprit of the Age will be a widower in the age to come.

Action without study is fatal. Study without action is futile. -- Mary Beard

No one grows old by living -- only by losing interest in living. -- Marie Beynon Ray

Simplicity doesn't mean to live in misery and poverty. You have what you need, and you don't want to have what you don't need. -- Charan Singh

The three grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for. -- Alexander Chalmers

Circus performers know that they can break their necks falling into a net; it is the uncertainty which keeps them skillful and careful. They know also that the net can save their lives; it is this confidence which makes them daring. -- S. Helen Kelley

Who lives without folly is not so wise as he thinks. -- Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Happiness is a journey, not a destination. So ...
Work like you don't need the money,
love like you've never been hurt,
and dance like no one is watching.

"Make lots of money", "enjoy the work", "operate within the law": choose 2. -- Brian Anderson

Edmund Burke

Courage

Character

Benjamin Franklin

Mostly from Poor Richard's Almanack

Bertrand Russell

Voltaire

Joseph Addison

Jonathan Swift

Mark Twain

More Twain here

Longer Quotations

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, -- often the surfeit of our own behavior, -- we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail; and my nativity was under Ursa major; so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. King Lear, Act I, Scene ii.

I would recommend to everyone that admirable precept which Pythagoras is said to have given to his disciples: "Pitch upon that course of life which is the most excellent, and custom will render it the most delightful." Men whose circumstances will permit tham to choose their own way of life are inexcusable if they do not pursue that which their judgment tells them is the most laudable. The voice of reason is more to be regarded than the bent of any present inclination, since, by the rule above mentioned, inclination will at length come over to reason, though we can never force reason to comply with inclination. Joseph Addison

Once I found out the secret of the Universe. I have forgotten what it was, but I know that the Creator does not take Creation seriously, for I remember that He sat in Space with all His Work in front of Him and laughed. -- Lord Dunsany, "The Hashish Man"


Visit some resources for Christian wisdom, the Waverly Presbyterian Church page, some idiosyncratic poetry pages, or return to the Boar Ring Page. you may also visit some guy jokes, my personal home page, or the maintainer's site map.
























This page has been seentimes since March 1, 1999.