Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Maxims, Mottoes, Epitaphs, etc.

  • Study Everything, Join Nothing

    What does my masthead motto mean?  I have been asked. One correspondent opined that it is "inhuman." Do I live up to this admonition? Or am I posturing? Is my posture perhaps a slouch towards hypocrisy? It depends on how broadly one takes 'join.' A while back I joined a neighbor and some of his…

  • Two Measures of Personal Success

    One measure of success is how far you've gotten, and the other is how far you've come.  The second is the better measure. On the occasions when you feel you haven't gotten very far in life, tell yourself, "But look where you started from, and what you had to work with, and the obstacles you…

  • Age Quod Agis

    Age quod agis is a well-known saying which is a sort of Latin call to mindfulness: do what you are doing. Be here now in the activity at hand. Legend has it that Johnny Ringo was an educated man.  (Not so: a story for later.) But so he is depicted over and over. In this scene from Tombstone, the best…

  • Every Day . . .

    . . . throw something away.  That is one of my self-admonitions.  A truly radical approach to de-cluttering, however, is Swedish Death Cleaning. Curiously, I came across the just embedded hyperlink while doing a search on the question whether Swedes have a death wish, given their foolishly warm embrace of Muslim immigrants. This embrace makes…

  • The Near Occasion of Annoyance

    If you want to be annoyed, life supplies the materials. But if you value peace of mind, you are free to sweep the irritant dust right out of your mind. Even better is to not let it in. A good maxim: Avoid the near occasion of annoyance. And that implies: Avoid unnecessary socializing.

  • Meglio l’uovo oggi . . .

    . . . che la gallina domani. Better the egg today than the chicken tomorrow. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

  • Epitaph

    Too obscure To be forgotHere lies one real Enough to rot.

  • Epitaph on a Pessimist

    I'm Smith of Stoke, aged sixty-odd,     I've lived without a dame From youth-time on: and would to God     My dad had done the same. Thomas Hardy, 1840-1928. The Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs, ed. Grigson, 1977, p. 186.

  • Nulla Dies Sine Linea: Bad Medieval Latin?

    No day without a line. Should it be nullus dies sine linea?  I don't know. The maxim in the form nulla dies sine linea entered my vocabulary circa 1970 from my study of Kierkegaard. The Dane had taken it  as the motto for his prodigious journals in the sense of 'No day without a written…

  • Memo to Pope Francis the Foolish

    First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.

  • Nescit Vox Missa Reverti

    The once hooked ever lives in lack,And the once said never finds its way back. (The Collected Poems and Epigrams of J. V. Cunningham, Chicago: The Swallow Press, 1971, p. 104)

  • Ambition Beyond Ability

    He who is ambitious beyond his abilities courts unhappiness.

  • The ‘Liberal’ Speaks

    If it ain't totalitarian, then it ain't government!

  • Political Action and the Principle of Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien

    Attributed to Voltaire. "The best is the enemy of the good."  The idea is that one should not allow the pursuit of an unattainable perfection to impede progress toward an attainable goal which, while not perfect, is better than the outcome that is likely to result if one seeks the unattainable. Here is another formulation,…

  • Unsuccessful in Love

    The Collected Poems and Epigrams of J. V. Cunningham, Chicago, The Swallow Press, 1971. Epigram 57 Here lies my wife. Eternal peaceBe to us both with her decease. Epigram 59 I married in my youth a wife.She was my own, my very first.She gave the best years of her life.I hope nobody gets the worst.…