Aphorisms
A while back a friend introduced me to Vectors by James Richardson - a nice little book of aphorisms and very short essays. He's a wise guy, I think (both Richardson and my friend :)). Here are a few that I especially liked:
Later you will not want it. Does that mean you should take it now, or let it go?
I trick myself into sins I could not forgive myself for intending. If I could depend on myself for a little mercy, I would perhaps not have grown so expert in the self-deception that makes it so difficult minute to minute to know what I am really doing.
You keep track of your worth on some wildly cyclic stock market that will soar in fantasy, crash at a cold glance. Other people think you never change.
Say too soon what you think and you will say what everyone else thinks.
More dangerous than the worst is the pretty good you can no longer tell from the best.
So many times I've made myself stupid with the fear of being outsmarted.
I am not unambitious. I am just too ambitious for what you call ambitions.
The days are exactly alike in that they repeat nothing exactly.
I'm sitting here bored, trying to understand. No: trying to remember that everything is a mystery.