Handwritten: Your Favourite Quotes

[txomsy]

Thanks for the encouragement. I will try to comply, as I do also have a penchant (pen chant?) for stoicism and "absurdism".

 

But, before going ahead, please do all ye consider that

 

Of course I'm crazy, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. I'm mad, but not ill.

Werewolf Bridge

Robert  Anton WIlson

Principia Discordia

 

Actually I am not sure where did i get this quote from, I cannot find it now in the Principia Discordia, it may have been taken from The Illuminatus Trilogy which often refers to the Principia Discordia. Or maybe yes. O well. I'm a crazy old man after all, I might be entitled to some oddity or another.

 

 

 

Sorry for the terrible penmanship, and ink bleeding, and blobs. I can't remember which pen or ink did I use in this one, but certainly my hand wasn't steady.

[inkstainedruth]

Wow.  It's been YEARS (decades, really) since I read the Illuminati series.

A few years ago I seriously PO'd a guy I know off when I told him I'd read The Da Vinci Code (which he claimed was the best book he'd ever read... ) and he asked me how I liked it.  And I said, "Well, if you want conspiracy theories, I've read the Illuminati trilogy; and if you want historically based conspiracy theory I've read..." [forget the title now].  "And if you want ARTISTIC historically based conspiracy theory I've read The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco...."

And the guy looked at me and said "So, what you're saying is that you're a literary snob...."  And I had to sort of plead guilty. 

But Geez Louise -- I read the Illuminati stuff when I was maybe *12*....  And truthfully, when I read The Da Vinci Code I kept wondering when the Illuminati were gonna show up.  Only to find that they had been dealt with in Angels and Demons.  Which, if I had read it FIRST, I NEVER would have read The Da Vinci Code at ALL -- it was TERRIBLE.  Just bad, and badly written at that (although still better than a certain best-selling soft-core porn series that apparently started life as bad Twilight fan-fic.... )  Got through 3 pages of the first one and it was SOOO badly written I was glad I was standing at a store display, and hadn't actually spent MONEY on it....

Reminds me of the time my mom's editor (back when Mom was doing the bodice rippers) got a project dropped in her lap when the previous editor for a series left the publishing house.  And my mother had to insist that she read the first five books in the series (again, effectively soft-core porn, I think) to match the style.  And HER editor said "Oh, you really DON'T want to...."   Apparently the first five books had been done by two guys (not sure if together or in succession) -- but it was a case of the (original) editor working "very very very very closely" with the authors...  aka basically re-writing the drivel.  And my mom's name appears NOWHERE (it was under a house name and all credits were to the publishing company), and the $6K she got paid?  That went to my parents' tour of Mainland China in 1980....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[txomsy]

Let us go for a light quote

 

The Enlightened take things lightly

Principia Discordia

 

 

A reminder we can always take things with humor.

 

@inkstainedruth I learned about the Illuminatus Trilogy later, but found it pretty amazing. Maybe somewhat heavy at times, but overall entertaining and engaging. Besides, my remembrances of the literary hits of the times is that many would demand going beyond the first third of the book before one was engaged in the story (authors would devote time to set up a complex context, complex characters and produce alternate views so that when they turned full gear on, the story would be more powerfully engaging).

 

Many modern hits are designed to, say, enter into matter quickly even if it is at the cost of shallow characters. Personally, I think a golden middle path is possible where complex characters and situations develop progressively as the story unfolds, but that requires a deeper mastering of narrative techniques.

[txomsy]

This one reminds me of that related adage "Common Sense, the less common of all senses" and helps remember that we should always be skeptic about our own opinions.

 

Common sense is what tells you that the world is flat.

Principia Discordia

 

[inkstainedruth]

Ha!  Good one!

Reminds me of an essay I read once, written by Isaac Asimov -- the premise being that the world was flat only in that the technology to measure it in the round had yet to be invented.

Apparently the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, either -- it bulges out (forget precisely where) someplace in the Southern Hemisphere).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[ParramattaPaul]

7 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Ha!  Good one!

Reminds me of an essay I read once, written by Isaac Asimov -- the premise being that the world was flat only in that the technology to measure it in the round had yet to be invented.

Apparently the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, either -- it bulges out (forget precisely where) someplace in the Southern Hemisphere).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

As memory serves from course taken many decades ago, it is further a round horizontally at the equator than it is vertically across the poles.

[txomsy]

Yes, it is a geoid (an spheroid that is flatter at the poles) plus, as @inkstainedruth mentioned, according to measures of gravity on the earth surface there is a bulge, postulated to be the remain of a cosmic event around India (if memory serves me well).

 

http://icgem.gfz-potsdam.de/vis3d/longtime

 

That is why the last quote was interesting: the Universe is much weirder than we  usually naïvely think. I'll have to also dig up THHGTG quotes for this. But for now, let us not forget Rev. Lady Mal's words, a circulus in probando (circular logic) example easily proven if one assumes one is always right (which most of us do most of the time); and remember, this is from a parody work, so take it lightly (as if enlightened) :

 

Everybody I know who is right always agrees with me.

Rev. Lady Mal

Principia Discordia

 

[dms525]

I may have posted this quotation before, but it seems a propos ...

 

 

David

[abstract49]

On 12/2/2022 at 8:21 AM, txomsy said:

Thanks for the encouragement. I will try to comply, as I do also have a penchant (pen chant?) for stoicism and "absurdism".

 

But, before going ahead, please do all ye consider that

 

Of course I'm crazy, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. I'm mad, but not ill.

Werewolf Bridge

Robert  Anton WIlson

Principia Discordia

 

Actually I am not sure where did i get this quote from, I cannot find it now in the Principia Discordia, it may have been taken from The Illuminatus Trilogy which often refers to the Principia Discordia. Or maybe yes. O well. I'm a crazy old man after all, I might be entitled to some oddity or another.

 

 

 

Sorry for the terrible penmanship, and ink bleeding, and blobs. I can't remember which pen or ink did I use in this one, but certainly my hand wasn't steady.

I love this one.  Sort of reminds me of an old outlaw country song [Hank Williams, Jr?]:  I've always been crazy, but it's kept me from going insane!

[txomsy]

That is a great line. I'll look up the song tomorrow when I have time.

[txomsy]

Another aphorism that looks like circular reasoning but exploits a common pitfall: we tend to think of communal words as different entities than the components that make them up. And forget we cannot have one without the other.

 

And when men come free, then mankind will be free.

Principia Discordia

 

[txomsy]

I bet you are tired of so many Principia Discordia quotes. Maybe it is time for another change, to look forward, celebrate our successes and not procrastinate...

 

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

Dale Carnegie

 

[txomsy]

If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company.

Jean-Paul Sartre

 

 

 

 

Added: Reminds me of this other quote by Robert Owen (1828):

All the world old is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer

 

Edited December 8, 2022 by txomsy
Add Robert Owen quote at bottom

[abstract49]

Everybody around here is crazy, except you and me, and sometimes I wonder about you.

[txomsy]

Don't wonder about me. I am.

 

And now a pessimistic quote from Arthur Schopenhauer about whom to trust about ourselves.

 

Your friends will tell you that they are sincere; your enemies really are. Let your enemies' criticism be a better medicine to be used as a means of self-knowledge.

Arthur Schopenhauer

 

 

Which I personally find interesting for two reasons: first, it makes me wonder what it really means to be a good friend, and second, it reminds me that I often and wrongfully ignore unwelcome criticism, dismissing it as hatred without considering if it may have some true foundation.

 

Notwithstanding that sometimes some people will come up with false accusations just to gain an edge or feel better.

[txomsy]

Another denunciation of the ad hominem attack, so commonly used in discussions to defend weak (or indefensible) arguments. Something to remember when we speak, but most of all, when we listen:

 

Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.

Socrates

 

[txomsy]

Today I bring up a quote from the Kalevala, the Finnish epic, on discretion:

 

Thus, the wise and worthy singer sings not all his garnered wisdom; better leave unsung some sayings than to sing them out of season.

Epilogue

The Kalevala

 

[txomsy]

This is from a different epic, Argentinian "Martín Fierro", written by José Hernández. If I remember well, this is from the advice by gaucho (sort of a poor, illiterate, itinerant cowboy from the pampas) Martín Fierro to his sons:

 

There are men who, of their science,

Have the head full.

There are sages of all kinds.

But I say, though unwise,

Better than learning much

It is to learn good things.

 

Hay hombres que de su cencia

Tienen la cabeza llena.

Hay sabios de todas menas.

Más digo, sin ser muy ducho,

Es mejor que aprender mucho

El aprender cosas buenas.

Martín Fierro

José Hernández

 

[txomsy]

A Latin quote (a distic actually)

 

Aliis prodesse

Si prodesse aliis studeas, tibi proderis insi.

At nisi ames alios, et te quoque nullus amabit.

 

If you strive to benefit others, you will benefit yourself.

But, if you do not love others, no one will love you either.

 

 

 

 

I realize I made a mistake and wrote prodesse ipsi instead of proderis ipsi . Memory (and Latin) seems to be flailing me...

[A Smug Dill]