Archives - April 2005

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.

If it weren't for baseball, many kids wouldn't know what a millionaire looked like.

Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.

We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic.

Here's a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once.

If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?

Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.

Real joy comes not from ease or riches or from the praise of men, but from doing something worthwhile.

There's something intrinsically therapeutic about choosing to spend your time in a wide, open, park-like setting that non-golfers can never truly understand.

Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear.

Save a little money each month and at the end of the year you'll be surprised at how little you have.

The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand.

A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.

The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.

In case you're worried about what's going to become of the younger generation, it's going to grow up and start worrying about the younger generation.

Assert your right to make a few mistakes. If people can't accept your imperfections, that's their fault.

Be careful that victories do not carry the seed of future defeats.

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.

Poetry should please by a fine excess and not by singularity. It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a remembrance.

Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.

Politeness and consideration for others is like investing pennies and getting dollars back.

I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead.

A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.

The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.

The future is an opaque mirror. Anyone who tries to look into it sees nothing but the dim outlines of an old and worried face.

One has a greater sense of intellectual degradation after an interview with a doctor than from any human experience.

You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.

Justice does not come from the outside. It comes from inner peace.

Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.

Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.