Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Maxims, Mottoes, Epitaphs, etc.

  • Arguments Don’t Have Testicles!

    Prepared lines come in handy in many of life's situations.  They are useful for getting points across in a memorable way and they  make for effective on-the-spot rebuttals.  A mind well-stocked with prepared lines is a mind less likely to suffer l'esprit d'escalier.  Suppose a feminist argues that men have no right to an opinion…

  • Misheard Maxims

    I asked the Gypsy Scholar for more dueling maxims and he gave me a misheard maxim instead: Absinthe makes the heart go founder which inspires me to coin: Abstinence is no mark of a rounder. We 'need' to compile a list of misheard  lyrics such as 'There's a bathroom on the right,' for "There's a bad moon on…

  • Vero Possumus

    Yes we can!  (. . . lob a few cruise missiles at Syrian military installations in a futile attempt to save face after yammering about a red line.)

  • Dueling Injunctions

    "Dont' hide your light under a bushel." "Don't cast your pearls before swine." "Haste makes waste." "He who hesitates is lost." Others escape me at the moment. UPDATE (7 September). Jeff Hodges and Kid Nemesis come to my aid.  Jeff contributes: "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." "Out of sight, out of mind." Jeff adds, "According…

  • Edith Bone (1889-1975)

    On Myself Here lies the body of Edith Bone.All her life she lived alone,Until Death added the final SAnd put an end to her loneliness. (The Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs, ed. Grigson, 1977, p. 221) I am reminded of Eleanor Rigby. Dr. Edith Bone was another of those who early on looked to…

  • A Modest Epitaph

    Here lies Professor X. As he is buried here, his name is buried in the scholarly apparatus of the enduring, though rarely consulted, annals of scholarship. Indeed, he has already become a forgotten footnote to a debate itself teetering on the brink of oblivion. And yet it can be said that he made a contribution, however…

  • The Four Gs

    Conservative: God, guns, gold, grub Libertarian: guns, gold, grub, grass Liberal: government, government, government, government.

  • Epitaph for Two Brothers

    Here lie two brothersWhose lives were enmityLiving proof now deadConsanguinity's not affinity.

  • Forgive

    Forgive lest ye be unforgiven.

  • Sinatra’s Epitaph

                              The epitaph on Frank Sinatra's tombstone reads, "The best is yet to come." That may well be, but it won't be booze and broads, glitz and glamour, and the satisfaction of worldly ambitions that were frustrated this side of the grave. So…

  • A Whore’s Epitaph

    One stone sufficeth (lo what death can do)Her that in life was not content with two. John Hoskyns (1566-1638) (Epigrams and Epitaphs, Faber & Faber, 1977, p. 18)

  • Epitaph for a Man Named ‘Felix’

    Here lies one inaptly namedHis faults minor, he knew no fameGeneral opprobrium he did not warrantBut happy he decidedly wasn't.

  • Requite Good with Good

    Requite good with good; evil with justice.

  • Political Anagram

    Malcontent liberal:  abnormal intellect.

  • Overheard at the Chess Club

    "Analyze long, analyze wrong."  To which the kibitzing philosopher added, "In life as in chess."