Category: Aphorisms and Observations
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It’s a House, not a Home
Don't talk like a realtor unless you are one. And even then . . .
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The Game of Life
The game of life is 'sudden death' with the time control unknown.
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Do You Drive Your Car to Fill Your Tank?
No? Then why do you live to eat?
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Death
Death is a journey to a destination the existence of which cannot be known prior to arrival.
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Preparing to Die
Some want to die; some wait to die; some fear to die; some don't care whether they live or die. The philosopher prepares to die.
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Envy Again
How little you must know about me to envy me! Would you envy me had you trod my paths and had thereby come to appreciate the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" (Hamlet, Act III, Scene I) that found in me their target? Your envy, an ugly sin and deadly, is bred in ignorance which,…
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Envy
How little you must be to envy me!
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Language and Intellectual Honesty
Precision in the use of language is the beginning of intellectual honesty.
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It Can’t Be Legislated
Respect for the rule of law cannot be legislated. A law that mandated respect for the rule of law would presuppose the very respect without which it could not be an effective law. Such respect is among the moral prerequisites of the positive law.
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Doubt
It can be corrosive, but also cleansing.
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Live Long
There is work to be done, and it may be that it can only be done here.
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Against Spiritual Self-Help
Because we are spiritual beings, we pray. Because we cannot be lamps unto ourselves, we need to.
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Self-Discipline and Self-Indulgence
To the self-disciplined, the satisfactions of self-discipline far outweigh the pleasures of self-indulgence. If you don't agree, then I will presume you to be self-indulgent.
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A Foolish Notion
Foolish is the notion that the truth must not be spoken if it could possibly be used to harm someone or hurt his feelings.
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The Long and the Short of It
The young, their lives ahead of them, think life is long; the old, their lives ending, know that it is short. Why knowledge in the second case? Because the old, some of them anyway, are surveyors of life and not mere livers of it. This suggests that the old who lose themselves in the quotidian…