Category: Aphorisms and Observations
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Inappropriate Niceness
Most of us prefer nice people to surly pricks. And no doubt we should all try to be nicer to our world-mates. But there is such a thing as inappropriate niceness. I am following at a safe distance the motorist in front of me. Then said motorist brakes for a jaywalker, not to avoid hitting…
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The Aristotelian and the Old Man
For the one, potency is reduced to act; for the other, potency is just reduced.
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Slow Thoughts in a Fast Medium
There is a bit of a paradox in my project, the blogging of philosophy. Sauntering along life's byways, cooling his heels at the margins of society, the philosopher bids us slow down! Whither the headlong mad rush? Quo vadis? Take thought, he suggests, take heed. Socrates knew how to stand stock still in the scene…
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Anti-Commie Haiku
Utopic heads in fog,They broke real eggsFor an unreal omelet.
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How to Judge a Blog
A weblog should be judged, not by the color of its 'skin,' but by the character of its content.
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Our Exigent Predicament
What do we lack? Not much — just knowledge, resolve, goodness, and reality. Our minds are dark, our wills are weak, our hearts are foul, and we are soon to vanish from the scene entirely.
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Pro Bono
Lawyers sometimes work pro bono. When they do, they are not paid for their services. May we infer that when they are paid, they work pro malo?
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In Today, Out Tomorrow
If Putnam in a hundred years will be where Lotze is now, why read Putnam rather than Lotze?
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The Sweet Waters of Lethe
It is often pleasant to remember that an unpleasant memory has not been recalled in a very long time.
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Whittaker Chambers on Beethoven
Whittaker Chambers (Witness, p. 19) on the Third Movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony: . . . that music was the moment at which Beethoven finally passed beyond the suffering of his life on earth and reached for the hand of God, as God reaches for the hand of Adam in Michaelangelo's vison of the creation.…
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Life’s Chess
The opening is hopeful and the middle game absorbing. But then comes a series of checks culminating in mate.
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Fugitive Thoughts
Have a good thought? Write it down, don't trust your memory! It is not only time that flies.
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The Urge to Scribble
You got out of bed to write down another of your wretched aphorisms? Thereby compromising your rest? Is not sleep's oblivion superior to the pseudo-reality reachable by words? And will you make of that an aphorism? Well, now that you're up you may as well relieve the pressure on your bladder too.
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Carpe Noctem
Would that we could seize and record the fugitive thoughts that patrol the strange no-man's-land between sleeping and waking. We have learned to seize the day, and the children of the day, but night's offspring elude us.
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Why Forgive?
Because we ourselves need to be forgiven. "But I have never done anything that requires forgiveness." Really? Then please forgive me for considering you either a liar, or an amnesiac, or self-deceived, or morally obtuse.