Poetic Writers

             Seeing Off Master T'an

             By Meng Chiao (751-814)

A poet suffers making poems —
Better to waste your efforts trying to fly!
My whole life, a spirit of useless squawking,
Bare, leafless twigs hang from cold branches,
Cast off as though a tiny ball of spittle.
Step after step you beg
For scrap after scrap of clothing.
Those who have relied on poetry for a living
Since ancient times have never gotten fat.
This old man, hungry from poetry, is not bitter,
But your suffering tears fall like rain.
— Stephen Owen (tr.), in Sunflower Splendor,
Wu-xchi Liu/Irving Lo (eds.), pp. 158-159.

                     Call to Arms
           By Lu Hsün (1881-1936)

Take up the pen: fall into the net of law;
Resist the times: offend popular sentiments.
Accumulated abuse can dissolve the bones,
And so, one gives voice to the empty page.
— William R. Schultz (tr.), in Ibid., p. 508.

Gertrude Stein on Ezra Pound. "A village explainer, excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not."
— The Almanac of American Letters, Randy F. Nelson (ed.), p. 166.

Richard Wilbur on Edgar Allan Poe. "Poe's mind may have been a strange one; yet all minds are alike in their general structure; therefore, we can understand him, and I think he will have something to say to us as long as there is civil war in the palaces of men's minds."
— Ibid., p. 171.

Tennessee Williams on William Faulkner. "I felt a terrible torment in the man. He always kept his eyes down. We tried to carry on a conversation but he would never participation. Finally he lifted his eyes once to a direct question from me, and the look in his eyes was so terrible, so sad, that I began to cry."
— Ibid., pp. 171-172.

John Dos Passos. "If there is a special hell for writers, it would be the forced contemplation of their own works.
— Ibid., p. 173.

William Faulkner. "The only environment the artist needs is whatever peace, whatever solitude, and whatever pleasure he can get at not too high a cost."
— Ibid., p. 173.

Benjamin Franklin. "Write with the learned. Pronounce with the vulgar."
— Ibid., p. 173.

            On Love
In that little ugly hut
I'd like to burn down,
on a spread of rotten bedding
fit for the trash,
entwined in those
ugliest of ugly arms —
may they break! —
you're sleeping, I suppose —
and because of you every hour
of the madder-red day,
all through the night
black as leopard-flower seeds,
till the floor beneath me
creaks and groans,
I lie tormented!
                  ENVOY
It is I poor thing,
who burns up
my own heart that makes me
long for you so!
— From "Six Anonymous Choka," in From the Country of Eight Islands,
Hiroaki Sato/Burton Watson (trs. & eds.), pp. 77-78.

Years to come
will there be those
who wish they'd known me too? —
like me, letting their mind
dwell on the past

While I gaze far off,
thinking on and on
about this world of ours,
a white cloud vanishes
in the empty sky
— Saigyo (1118-1190), from "Sixty-Four Tanka," in Ibid., p. 168.

Dig Deep

     The spiritual aim is reached neither by many works, nor by few, but by grace alone. As the saint Ibn 'Ata-Allah says in his counsels: If you were destined to reach Him only after the destruction of your faults and the abandonment of all your claims, you would never reach Him.... He absorbs your quality into His and your attributes into His and thus brings you back by means of what comes to you from Him, not by means of what comes to Him from you.
— Kennerth Cragg, The Wisdom of the Sufis, XLII, pp. 40-41.

     It was related of Sari al-Saqati of Baghdad, who had a shop in the bazaar, that when the word came of a fire in which his shop was burnt, he said: Then I am set free from the care of it. Later, there came word that his shop was intact but those around it had been destroyed. Then Sari gave all he possessed to the poor and took the way of a sufi.
— Kenneth Cragg, Ibid., XLV, p. 41.

     One came to the Beloved's door and knocked. And a voice from within whispered: 'Who is there?' And the lover answered: 'It is I.'

     Then the voice said: 'There is no room in this house for thee and me.' And the door was not opened to him. So the lover went back into the desert and fasted and prayed. At the end of a year, he returned once more to the Beloved's door and knocked.

     And the voice from within said again: 'Who is there?' This time, the lover, having learned self-renunciation, answered: 'It is thyself.' And the door was opened.
— Kenneth Cragg, Ibid., LXXIX, p. 56.

     The problems of Art. New artists have been obtained. These do not object to, and indeed argue enthusiastically for, the rationalization process. Production is up. Quality-control devices have been installed at those points where the interests of artists and audience intersect. Shipping and distribution have been improved out of all recognition. (It is in this area, they say in Paraguay, that traditional practices were most blameworthy.) The rationalized art is dispatched from central art dumps to regional art dumps, and from there into the lifestreams of cities. Each citizen is given as much art as his system can tolerate. Marketing considerations have not been allowed to dictate product mix, rather, each artist is encouraged to maintain, in his software, highly personal, even idiosyncratic, standards (the so-called "hand of the artist" concept). Rationalization produces simpler circuits and, therefore, a statement in symbolic logic. The statement is then "minimized" by various clever methods. The simpler statement is translated back into the design of a simpler circuit. Foamed by a number of techniques, the art is then run through heavy steel rollers. Flip-flop switches control its further development. Sheet art is generally dried in smoke and is dark brown in color. Bulk art is air-dried, and changes color in particular historical epochs.
— Donald Barthelme, Sixty Stories, "Rationalization," p. 130.

Writing Rite

     Purely formal criticism of Sophocles, by rule, is an impertinence. "All arts aspire to the condition of music"; what this means was illustrated by (I think) Schumann. He was once asked by a man who had just heard him play one of his compositions what it meant. "I will tell you," said Schumann, and he played it again. the form was the meaning; and so it is with Sophocles until it is shown that he was incapable of expressing himself properly. Any fool could "improve" the Ajax, but only by making it mean something that Sophocles thought not worth saying. The diastrous notion that the artist is one who makes pretty things has been "the beginning of many evils to the Greeks."
— H.D.F. Kitto, "Middle Tragedy: Sophocles," in The Proper Study: Essays on Western Classics, Anderson & Mazzeo (eds.), p. 86.

     The natural human tendency towards forgetfulness and confusion normally produces error, but in poets it may produce poetic truth. Their unconscious mind is full, not only of imaginative impressions, but also of a latent reason. The "hooked atoms" combine according to it. The reason in it all is missed, because it is too quick, and too compressed and elliptic. Poets seem to talk nonsense because they talk so much truth all at the same time.
— Matthew Arnold, "An Essay on Marcus Aurelius," in Ibid., p. 199.

     (A life without a purpose is a languid, drifting thing; — Every day we ought to renew our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let us make a sound beginning, for what we have hitherto done is naught; — Our improvement is in proportion to our purpose; — We hardly ever manage to get completely rid of one fault, and do not set our hearts on daily improvement; — Always place a definite purpose before thee; — Get the habit of mastering thine inclination.)
— Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ, in Ibid., pp. 227-228.

     What more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service? Art thou not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, and dost thou seek to be paid for it, just as if the eye demanded a recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking?
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, in Ibid., p. 239.

     A bird rose over their heads with a leaping flight that made it seem as though its black was bouncing against the bright sky. The foolish noise and motion precipitated their thoughts. They were broken into a new conception of life. They perceived that God is war and his creatures are meant to fight. When dogs walk through the world cats must climb trees. The virgin must snare the wanton, the fine lover must put the prude to the sword. The gross man of action walks, spurred on the bloodless bodies of the men of thought, who lie quiet and cunningly do not tell him where his grossness leads him. The flesh must smother the spirit, the spirit must set the flesh on fire and watch it burn. And those who were gentle by nature and shrank from the ordained brutality were betrayers of their kind, surrendering the earth to the seed of their enemies. In this war there is no discharge. If they succumbed to peace now, the rest of their lives would be dishonorable, like the exile of a rebel who has begged his life as the reward of cowardice. It was their first experience of religious passion, and they abandoned themselves to it so that their immediate personal qualities fell away from them. Neither his weakness nor her prudence stood in the way of the event.
— Rebecca West, "Indissoluble Matrimony," in Blast I, Wyndham Lewis (ed.), p. 110.

Mind Mend

I wonder what feelings inspire a man to complain of "having nothing to do." I am happiest when I have nothing to distract me and I am completely alone.
     If a man conforms to society, his mind will be captured by the filth of the outside world, and he is easily led astray; if he mingles in society, he must be careful that his words do not offend others, and what he says will not at all be what he feels in his heart. He will joke with others only to quarrel with them, now resentful, now happy, his feelings in constant turmoil. Calculations of advantage will wantonly intrude, and not a moment will be free from considerations of profit and loss. Intoxication is added to delusion, and in a state of inebriation the man dreams. People are all alike: they spend their days running about frantically, oblivious to their insanity.
     Even if a man has not yet discovered the path of enlightenment, as long as he removes himself from his worldly ties, leads a quiet life, and maintains his peace of mind by avoiding entanglements, he may be said to be happy, at least for the time being.
     It is written in Maka Shikan, "Break your ties with your daily activities, with personal affairs, with your arts, and with learning.
— Kenko, Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa), #75, Donald Keene (tr.), pp. 66-67.

A man who was famous as a tree climber was guiding someone in climbing a tall tree. He ordered the man to cut the top branches, and, during this time, when the man seemed to be in great danger, the expert said nothing. Only when the man was coming down and had reached the height of the eveas did the expert call out, "Be careful! Watch your step coming down!" I asked him, "Why did you say that? At that height he could jump the rest of the way if he chose."
     "That's the point," said the expert. "As long as the man was up at a dizzy height and the branches were threatening to break, he himself was so afraid I said nothing. Mistakes are always made when people get to the easy places."
     This man belonged to the lowest class, but his words were in perfect accord with the percepts of the sages. In football too, they say that after you have kicked out of a difficult place and you think the next one will be easier you are sure to miss the ball.
— Kenko, Ibid., #109, pp. 92-93.

Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing in it to steal.
     Ryokan returned and caught him. "You may have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift."
     The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.
— #9, The Moon Cannot Be Stolen, in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, Paul Reps (ed.), p. 12.

     Hoshin, who related this story, told his disciples: "It is not necessary for a Zen master to predict his passing, but if he really wishes to do so, he can."
     "Can you?" someone asked.
     "Yes," answered Hoshin. "I will show you what I can do seven days from now."
...."Seven days ago," he remarked, "I said I was going to leave you. It is customary to write a farewell popem, but I am neither poet nor calligrapher. Let one of you inscribe my last words."
     His followers thought he was joking, but one of them started to write.
     "Are you ready?" Hoshin asked.
     "Yes, sir," replied the writer.
     Then Hoshin dictated:

     I came from brilliancy
     And return to brilliancy
     What is this?

     The poem was one line short of the customary four, so the disciple said: "Master, we are one line short."
     Hoshin, with the roar of a conquering lion, shouted "Kaa!" and was gone.
— #10, in Ibid., pp. 13-14.

     Jiun, a Shingon master, was a well-known Sanskrit scholar of the Tokugawa era. When he was young he used to deliver lectures to his brother students.
     His mother heard about this and wrote him a letter:
    "Son, I do not think you became a devotee of the Buddha because you desired to turn into a walking dictionary for others. There is no end to information and commentation, glory and honor. I wish you would stop this lecture business. Shut yourself up in a little temple in a remote part of the mountain. Devote your time to meditation and in this way attain true realization.
— #20, A Mother's Advice, in Ibid., p. 24.

     Sagen Shaku, the first Zen teacher to come to America, said: "My heart burns like fire but my eyes are as cold as dead ashes." He made the following rules which he practiced every day of his life:

     In the morning before dressing, light incense and meditate.
     Retire at a regular hour. Partake of food at regular intervals. Eat with moderation and never to the point of satisfaction.
     Receive a guest with the same attitude you have when alone. When alone, maintain the same attitude you have in receiving guests.
     Watch what you say, and whatever you say, practice it.
     When an opportunity comes do not let it pass by, yet always think twice before acting.
     Do not regret the past. Look to the future.
     Have the fearless attitude of a hero and the loving heart of a child.
     Upon retiring, sleep as if you had entered your last sleep. Upon awakening, leave your bed behind you instantly as if you had cast away a pair of old shoes.
— #22, My Heart Burns Like Fire, in Ibid., p. 26.

French Wit

Wisdom is to the soul what health is to the body.
— De Saint-Réal, in French Wit, Wisdom & Wickedness, J. De Finod (ed.), p. 9.

To remain virtuous, a man has only to combat his own desires: a woman must resist her own inclinations, and the continual attack of man.
— Laténa, in Ibid., p. 15.

Prejudice is the reason of fools.
— Voltaire, in Ibid, p. 19.

In external cares we spend our years, ever agitated by new desires: we look forward to living, and yet never live.
— Fontenelle, in Ibid., p. 19.

Under the freest constitution ignorant people are still slaves.
— Condorcet, in Ibid., p. 22.
 
Shun idleness: it is the rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.
— Voltaire, in Ibid., p. 24.
 
Alas! what does man here below? A little noise in much shadow.
— Victor Hugo, in Ibid., p. 30.

Solitude causes us to write because it causes us to think.
— Mlle. de Guérin, in Ibid., p. 31.

Use, do not abuse: neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
— Voltaire, in Ibid., p. 34.

The moment past is no longer: the future may never be: the present is all of which man is the master.
— J.J. Rousseau, in Ibid., p. 35.

Everything falls and is effaced. A few feet under the ground reigns so profound a silence, and yet, so much tumult on the surface!
— Victor Hugo, in Ibid., p. 44.

Prosperity unmasks the vices; adversity reveals the virtues.
— Denis Diderot, in Ibid., p. 55.

Patience is the courage of virtue.
— Bernardin de St. Pierre, in Ibid., p. 56.

Promises retain men better than services. For them, hope is a chain, and gratitude a thread.
— J. Petit-Senn, in Ibid., p. 58.

How can we expect another to keep our secret, when it is more than we can do ourselves?
— La Rochefoucauld, in Ibid., p. 83.

Truth is the sun of the intelligence.
— Vauvenarques, in Ibid., p. 88.

In order to do great things, we should live as though we were never to die.
— Vauvenarques, in Ibid., p. 115.

Everybody gives advice: some listen to it, none apply it.
— Alfred Bougeart, in Ibid., p. 127.

The heart has reasons that the reason does not understand.
— Bossuet, in Ibid., p. 135.

Those who always speak well of women do not know them enough; those who always speak ill of them do no know them at all.
— Pigault-Lebrun, in Ibid., p. 143.

Why should we complain, since we are so little moved by the complaints of others?
— Alfred Bougeart, in Ibid., p. 148.

Many wish to be pious, but none to be humble.
— La Rochefaucauld, in Ibid., p. 163.

He who reckons ten friends has not one.
— Malesherbes, in Ibid., p. 174.

There are men who pride themselves on their insensibility to love: it is like boasting of having been always stupid.
— S. de Castres, in Ibid., p. 177.

To please, one must make up his mind to be taught many things which he already knows, by people who do not know them.
— Chamfort, in Ibid., p. 178.

The conversation of women in society resembles the straw used in packing china: it is nothing, yet, without it, everything would be broken.
— Mme. de Solm, in Ibid., p. 182.

It takes twenty years to bring man from the state of embryo, and from that of a mere animal, as he is in his first infancy, to the point when his reason begins to dawn. It has taken thirty centuries to know his structure; it would take eternity to know something of his soul: it takes but an instant to kill him.
— Voltaire, in Ibid., p. 211.

It costs more to satisfy a vice than to feed a family.
— Balzac, in Ibid., p.213.

Life is long enough for him who knows how to use it. Working and thinking extend its limits.
— Voltaire, in Ibid., p. 219.

What prevents us from being natural is the desire to appear so.
— La Rochefaucauld, in Ibid., p. 236.

Imagine That

Fools and intelligent people are equally harmless. It is half-fools and the half-intelligent who are the most dangerous.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from Proverbs in Prose, in The Permanent Goethe, Thomas Mann (sel. & ed.).

What we do not understand, we do not possess.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ibid.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ibid.

Everything that liberates the mind without giving us control over ourselves is ruinous.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ibid.

One is never deceived, one deceives oneself.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ibid.

There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science. Both, like all that is lofty and good, belong to the whole world and can be furthered only by the general free interaction of all those living in a given time, with constant regard to that which is preserved and known to us of the past.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ibid.

Everyone hears only what he understands.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ibid.

In the work of destruction all false arguments avail, but not in the work of construction. What is not true, does not build.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ibid.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
— Samuel Johnson, 1777.

LUCK is a crossroad where preparation and opportunity meet.
— Anon.

To err is human, but when the eraser wears out ahead of the pencil, you're overdoing it.
 — J. Jenkins.

Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not the fish they are after.
— Henry David Thoreau.

So You Say

Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.
— La Rochefoucauld , in The Last Word, Louis Kronenberger, p. 18.

Flattery is counterfeit money which, but for vanity, would have no cidculation.
— La Rochefoucauld, in The Last Word, Louis Kronenberger, p. 18.

Weakness, not vice, is virtue's worst enemy.
— La Rochefoucauld, in The Last Word, Louis Kronenberger, p. 20. 

By the time men are fit for company, they see the objections to it.
— The Marquis of Halifax (George Savile), in The Last Word, Louis Kronenberger, p. 39. 

One must do more, think less, and not watch oneself live.
— Chamfort (Sebastien Roch Nicolas de Chamfort), in The Last Word, Louis Kronenberger, p. 76. 

To totally block a given effect requires a force equal to that which it cost. To send it in a different direction, a trifle will often suffice.
— Lichtenberg, in The Last Word, Louis Kronenberger, p. 92. 

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.
....
There is strong shadow where there is much light.
....
Viewed from the summit of reason, all life looks like a malignant disease and the world like a madhouse.
....
There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in The Last Word, Louis Kronenberger, p. 110-112. 

There is a pleasure in madness, which none but madmen know.
....
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
— Hazlitt, in The Last Word, Louis Kronenberger, p. 130-131. 

Solitude is impracticable, and society fatal.
....
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
....
A man of genius is priveleged only as far as he is a genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.
....
It is a luxury to be understood
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, in The Last Word, Louis Kronenberger, p. 148-149.

Logic and consistency are luxuries for the gods and the lower animals.
....
A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.
— Samuel Butler, in The Last Word, Louis Kronenberger, p. 165-166.
 
...."Romanticism," Nietzsche himself remarked, "is only an emergency exit from ill-functioning reality"; and .... "One must pay dearly for immorality: one needs must several times die while still alive." .... "Women understand children better than men do, but men are more childlike than women." .... "A married philosopher belongs to comedy."
— Friedrich Nietzsche, in The Last Word, Louis Kronenberger, p. 181.

The thought of suicide is a great consolation; with the help of it one has got through many a bad night.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, in The Last Word, Louis Kronenberger, p. 184.

Practically Cynical

Lucidity is the only vice which makes us free — free in a desert.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 12.

If disgust for the world conferred sanctity of itself, I fail to see how I could avoid canonization.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 25

He who hates himself is not humble.

For a long time I have lived with the notion that I was the most normal being that ever existed. This notion gave me the taste, even the passion for being unproductive: what was the use of being prized in a world inhabited by madness, a world mired in mania and stupidity? For whom was one to bother, and to what end? It remains to be seen if I have quite freed myself from this certitude, salvation in the absolute, ruin in the immediate.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 26.

Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.
                                      ________________

When Mara, the Tempter, tries to supplant the Buddha, the latter says, among other things: "By what right do you claim to rule over men and over the universe? Have you suffered for knowledge?
     This is the crucial, perhaps the sole question we should ask ourselves when we scrutinize anything, especially a thinker. There is never too great a distinction made between those who have paid for the tiniest step toward knowledge and those, incomparably more numerous, who have received a convenient, indifferent knowledge, a knowledge without ordeals.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 27.

Explosive force of any mortification. Every vanquished desire affords us power. We have the more hold over this world the further we withdraw from it, the less we adhere to it. Renunciation confers an infinite power.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 33.

All these poems where it is merely the Poem that is in question — a whole poetry with no other substance than itself! What would we say of a prayer whose object was religion?
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 35.

Each of us believes, quite unconsciously of course, that he alone pursues the truth, which the rest are incapable of seeking out and unworthy of attaining. This madness is so deep-rooted and so useful that it is impossible to realize what would become of each of us if it were someday to disappear.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 37.

A work is finished when we can no longer improve it, though we know it to be inadequate and incomplete. We are so overtaxed by it that we no longer have the power to add a single comma, however indispensable. What determines the degree to which a work is done is not a requirement of art or of truth, it is exhaustion and, even more, disgust.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 50.

Whereas any sentence one has to write requires a pretense of invention, it takes little enough attention  to enter into a text, even a difficult one. To scribble a postcard comes closer to a creative activity than to read The Phenomenology of Mind.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 51.

What a bore, someone who doesn't deign to make an impression. Vain people are almost always annoying, but they make an effort, they take the trouble: they are bores who don't want to be bores, and we are grateful to them for that: we end by enduring them, even by seeking them out. On the other hand, we turn livid with fury in the presence of someone who pays no attention whatever to the effect he makes. What are we to say to him, and what are we to expect from him? Either keep some vestiges of the monkey, or else stay home.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 76.

A free man is one who has discerned the insanity of all points of view; a liberated man is one who has drawn the consequences of such discernment.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 91.

Painful or wounding questions asked by the uncouth distress and anger us, and may have the same effect as certain techniques of Oriental meditation. Who knows if a dense, aggressive stupidity might not provoke illumination? It is certainly worth as much as a rap on the hand with a stick.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 111.

The unusual is not a criterion. Paganini is more surprising and more unpredictable than Bach.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 118.

What makes destruction suspect is its facility: anyone who comes along can excel in it. But if to destroy is easy, to destroy oneself is less so. Superiority of the outcast over the agitator or the anarchist.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 138.

"....the feeling of being everything and the evidence of being nothing." I happened across this phrase in my youth, and was overwhelmed by it.
     Everything I felt in those days, and everything I would feel from then on, was summed up in this extraordinary banal formula, the synthesis of expansion and failure, ecstasy and impasse. Most often it is not in a paradox but in a truism that a revelation appears.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 172.

Man has said what he had to say. He should rest now. But refuses, and though he has entered into his "survivor" phase, he figits as if he were on the threshold of an astonishing career.
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 176.

That I can still desire proves that I lack an exact perception of reality, that I am distracted, that I am a thousand miles from the Truth. "Man," we read in the Dhammapada, "is prey to desire only because he does not see things as they are."
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 188.

To shake people up, to wake them from their sleep, while knowing you are committing a crime and that it would be a thousand times better to leave them alone, since when they wake, too, you have nothing to offer them....
— E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born, p. 202.

Take a Hard Write

     The lotus is a very unusual flower, large and beautiful, but grows in very muddy water. When it blossoms there is no dirt, no mud ... only beautiful flowers ... so fragrant! Dirt doesn't cling to the lotus. When we were small we used to throw mud on the flowers just to watch it roll off. Dirty water rolls off in beads, as if the petals are made of wax. We can learn from this.
     We go through muddy water in our life. This should not stop us from blossoming. We can have turmoil, conflict, disappointment, whatever dark muddy things, but still we can blossom. A Chinese proverb says, "He who has tasted the bitterest of bitterness can be a man above men." From this we see that our turmoil and conflict and even our pain have their value. They add to our growth, develop our character, and teach us compassion.
— Lily Siou, in Diary of the Way, Ira Lerner, p. 89.

....Why does one not like things if there are other people about? Why cannot one make one's books live except in the night, after hours of straining? and you know they have to be your own books too, and you have to read them more than once. I think they take in something of your personality, and your environment also — you know a second hand book sometimes is so much more flesh and blood than a new one — and it is almost terrible to think that your ideas, yourself in your books, may be giving life to generations of readers after you are forgotten. It is that specially which makes one need good books: books that will be worthy of what you are going to put into them. What would you think of a great sculptor who flung away his gifts on modeling clay or sand? Imagination should be put into the most precious caskets, and that is why one can only live in the future or the past, in Utopia or the Wood beyond the World. Father won't know all this — but if you get the right book at the right time you taste joys — not only bodily, physical, but spiritual also, which pass one out above and beyond one's miserable self, as it were through a huge air, following the light of another man's thought. And you can never be quite the old self again. You have forgotten a little bit: or rather pushed it out with a little of the inspiration of what is immortal in someone who has gone before you.
— T. E. Lawrence, in Letters to Mother, Charles Van Doren (ed.), pp. 66-67.

Ah, dear Mother, is any time left us in which to be happy? I dare not hope so. To be forty, under a conceil judiciaire [a financial trustee], with immense debts, and finally, worse than all, my will gone; ruined! Who can say if the intelligence itself be not dried up? I know nothing. I cannot know anything, since I have lost even the ability to make an effort.
     Before all, I want to say something which I do not say often enough to you, and which you no doubt do not know, most of all if you judge me by appearances; it is that my love for you grows without ceasing. I am ashamed to confess that that love does not give me strength enough to raise myself. I look at the past years, the awful years, and spend my time reflecting on the brevity of life; nothing more! and my will rusts more and more. If ever man knew, in youth, bile and hypochondria, that man is myself. Yet I  long to live, and would fain taste a little security, glory, and contentment with myself. Some terrible thing says to me: Never, and again something else says, try.
     With so many plans and projects, accumulated in the two or three portfolios I dare no longer open, what am I likely to achieve? Perhaps nothing, it may be.
— Charles Baudelaire, Feb. of Mar. 1861, in Ibid., p. 186.

     Do you think that deeds of wrong fly up on wings to heaven, and then someone writes them on tablets of Zeus, who looks upon the record and gives judgment upon men? Why, the whole heaven would not suffice for Zeus to write men's sins thereon, nor Zeus himself to consider them and send a punishment for each.. No; Justice is here, close at hand, if you will but see it.
— Euripides, Melanippe, frag. 506, in Greek Religious Thought, F. M. Cornford, p. 154.

We are all dullards in divinity; we know nothing.
— Anaxandrides, Canephorus, in Ibid., p. 248.

Hear, Hear!

      "Formerly, among the Persians, dinner time was at a set hour only for kings: as for all others, their appetite and their belly was their clock; when that chimed, they thought it time to go to dinner. So we find in Plautus a certain parasite making a heavy do, and sadly railing at the inventors of hour-glasses and dials, as being unnecessary things, there being no clock more regular than the belly.
     "Diogenes, being asked at what times a man ought to eat, answered, 'The rich when he is hungry, the poor when he has anything to eat.' Physicians more properly say, that the canonical hours are,
     "'To rise at five, to dine at nine,
     To sup at five, to sleep at nine.'"
— Rabelais

Some Morals from Aesop's Fables:
Some begrudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.
Appearances often are deceiving.
Honesty is the best policy.
Flatterers are not to be trusted,
Don't bite the hand that feeds you!
Beware of the promises of a desperate man!
There is no arguing a coward into courage.
Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.
It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow.
It is one thing to propose, another to execute.
Any fool can despise what he cannot get.
It is not safe to trust the advice of a man in difficulties.
An old trick may be played once too often.
The smaller the mind the greater the conceit.
He who has many friends has no friends.
Necessity is our strongest weapon.
Lean freedom is better than fat slavery.
The greedy who want more lose all.
A needy thief steals more than one who enjoys plenty.
Liberty is too high a price to pay for revenge.
United we stand; divided we fall.
They who neglect old friends for the sake of new ones
      are rightly served when they lose both.
Gratitude is a quality not limited to man.
Slow and steady wins the race.
One good turn deserves another.
Trouble comes from the direction we least expect it.
He that finds discontentment in one place is not likely to
     find happiness in another.
In choosing allies look to their power as well as their
     will to help you.
Too many disagreements have naught but a shadow for a basis.
One man's meat may be anothers poison.
They who voluntarily put themselves under the power of a
      tyrant deserve whatever fate they receive.
As in the body, so in the state, each member in his proper
     sphere must work for the common good.
Let well enough alone!
He who is once deceived is doubly cautious.
Try to please all and you end by pleasing none.
False confidence is the forerunner of misfortune.
Beware of the insincere friend!
It is better to drink second at the spring than to furnish
     food for the vultures.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
He who does a thing well does not need to boast.
Gossips are to be seen and not heard.
Even a fool is wise — when it is too late!
He laughs best that laughs last.
Many go out for wool and come home shorn.
A bird in the cage is worth two on a branch.
To be satisfied with one's lot is better than to desire
     something which one is not fitted to receive.
The ignorant despise what is precious only because they
     cannot understand it.
He who prays hard against his neighbor brings a
     curse upon himself.
A man may smile, yet be a villian.
Men often mistake notoriety for fame.
The child is father to the man.
There is always someone worse off than yourself.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The best liars often get caught in their own lies.
A bad temper carries with it its own punishment.
The true value of money is not in its possession but in its use.
If you must revile your neighbors, make certain first
     that he cannot reach you.
It is safer to know one's guest before offering him hospitality.
Treachery is the basest crime of all.
He who cries loudest is often the least hurt.
It is time to criticize the works of others when you have
      done some good thing yourself.
Even the wildest can be tamed by love.
A level path is pleasing to the laden beast.
Misery loves company.
A change of scene does not change one's character.
The gods help them that help themselves.
Some men can blow hot and cold with the same breath.
If you want a task well done, then do it yourself.
Half a loaf is better than no bread.
We learn by the misfortunes of others.
Self-conceit leads to self-destruction.
Only fools fight to exhaustion while a rogue runs off with the dinner.
One good plan that works is better than a hundred doubtful ones.
Clothes may disguise a fool, but his words will give him away.
Stretch your arm no farther than your sleeve will reach.
Hypocrisy is the cloak of villainy.
Quality is more important than quantity.
He who seeks a compliment sometimes discovers the truth.
Industry sometimes pays unexpected dividends.
In union there is strength.
It requires more than wings to be an eagle.
Too often we despise the very things that are most useful to us.
Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
Those who take temporary advantage of their neighbors
      difficulties may live to repent of their insolence.
Persuasion is better than force.
Liars are not believed even when they tell the truth.
Uninvited guests are often most welcome when they are gone.
Beware of a friend with an ulterior motive.
Know thy place and keep it.
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
Do boldly what you do at all.
Spare the rod and spoil the child.
The laws of hospitality are not to be broken with impunity.
Those who live on expectations are sure to be disappointed.
A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.
Avoid too powerful neighbors.
There is no profit in blaming you foolish mistakes
     on foolish advisors.
You are judjed by the company you keep.
We are but sorry witnesses in our own cause.
In dangerous times wise men say nothing.
There is no eye like the master's.
There is as much malice in a wink as in a word.
Many may share in the labors but not in the spoils.
Don't believe all that you hear.
Every truth has two sides.
Enemies' promises are made to be broken.
Don't trust a friend who is liable to desert you
     when trouble comes.
You can't please everyone.
Vanity carries its own punishment.
They who enter by the back stairs may expect to be
     shown out at the window.
Do not denounce the genuine, only to applaud an imitation.
Grasp at the shadow and lose the substance.
He who compasses the destruction of his neighbor often
     is caught in his own snare.
It is better to bend than to break.
How sorry we would be if many of our wishes were granted.
Unless the seed of evil is destroyed it will grow up to destroy us.
He who plays a trick must be prepared to take a joke.
He who tries to outsmart his neighbor winds up by
     outsmarting himself.
The humble are secure from many dangers to which the
     proud are subject.
Happiness is not to be found in borrowed finery.
Example is the best precept.
Magnificent promises often end in paltry performance.
To do the right thing at the right season is a great art.
Yield to the caprices of all and you soon will have
     nothing to yield at all.
Too much cunning overreaches itself.
Those who pretend to be what they are not, sooner or later,
     find themselves in deep water.
It is too late to whet the sword when the trumpet sounds.
They are foolish who give their enemy the means of
     destroying them.
Don't covet more than you can carry.
Braggarts usually get themselves laughed at in the end.
The best laid-out scheme often has a kickback.
Think twice before you leap.
He who will not allow his friend to share the prize must
     not expect him to share the danger.
Pride goeth before a fall.
He winds up friendless who plays both sides against the middle.
No gratitude is to be expected from the wicked.
A bribe in hand betrays mischief at heart.
He who incites strife is worse than he who takes part in it.
It is difficult to see beyond one's own nose.
Trust not in him that seems a saint.
When our neighbor's house is on fire, it is time
     to look at our own.
Physician, heal thyself!
Thy pride is but the prologue of thy shame.
A willful beast must go his own way.
What is bred in the bone will never be
     absent in the flesh.
Men are too apt to condemn in others the very things
     they do themselves.
They also serve who only stand and wait.
Figures don't lie, but they won't make a hen lay.
Throw no stones into the well that
     quenched your thirst.
There is a time and place for everything.
— Morals from Aesop's Fables