Some Aphorisms

A Pagan Almanac for July 23, 2012

Lunar Cycle: Fifth day of the waxing Moon

Rome: This day is sacred to Neptune

Athens: Hekatombaion 5

Martyred on this day
In 1632, Alison Nisbet of Hilton
In 1650, Barbara Fischeria of Augsburg
They died in our name. Let us remember theirs.

William Blake wrote:
Children of the future Age
Reading this indignant page,
Know that in a former time
Love! Sweet Love! was thought a crime.

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Because of a technical glitch (my thumb drive seems to be scrambling files), I cannot post Part III of “Looking for the Craft” today. In fact, at the moment, the diabolical thing seems to have scrambled every file that might possibly be relevant to that stream of thought. So I will post something entirely irrelevant.

A great truth is a truth whose exact opposite is also a great truth. (Neils Bohr)
A miracle is always called a coincidence by an atheist.
Absence of structure is the perfect tyranny. (C.S. Lewis)
Any true statement is either a tautology or a paradox, but of the variety of false statements, no man knows the end.
At first this sentence will seem trivial, but soon it will become obvious. (G. Baldwin)
Death is nature’s way of telling us to slow down.
Eating a frog restrains sexual passion. (Albertus Magnus)
Every time you think you know what truth is, it changes.
Gresham’s law of the arts: bad taste is always louder than good taste.
He who waits to inherit shoes will long go barefoot.
If frogs grew fur, the world might be safe for chinchillas. (Leslie White)
If you don’t want to be arrested, never do anything illegal.
If you don’t want to get shot, stay well away from the target.
If your faith does not make you happier, you need to find out what’s wrong.
It is dangerous for frogs to try to play with bulls (Leslie White).
It is wise to speak as little as possible to the great.
Knowledge is not power, and self-knowledge is not freedom.
Metaphosphor: a metaphor that enlightens
Music is a compromise between chaos and monotony. (Lejaren Hiller)
No Greek sacrifices a camel or elephant to the gods—because Greece does not produce camels or elephants (Porphyry, who was here quoting someone much brighter than himself. This principle explains a great deal about human religious practices)
No matter how complicated human beings and human societies seem to be, you can be sure that, in fact, they are even more complicated.
Ontology recapitulates philology. (A. Kelly)
Science is the opium of the suburbs. (W. B. Yeats)

The glass is falling hour by hour,
the glass will fall forever,
but if you break the bloody glass,
you won’t hold up the weather. (Louis Macneice)

The well know more about being sick than the sick know about being well.

Truth is a naked woman (Robert Graves)
Truth is a naked man! (Priscilla Bates)
Nothing is ever simple. (A. Kelly)

What has a front has a back: the bigger the front, the bigger the back.
Wisdom, in practice, is the ability to see the obvious. For example, it is obviously foolish to want fame, fortune, and power, but most people do want them.
You cannot step into the same river once. (Apologies to Herakleitos)