Lake Musings

"All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

-Schopenhauer

"There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous."

- Napoleon Bonaparte

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

We treat each other with exceeding courtesy;
we say, it's great to see you after all these years.

Our tigers drink milk.
Our hawks tread the ground.
Our sharks have all drowned.
Our wolves yawn beyond the open cage.

Our snakes have shed their lightning,
our apes their flights of fancy,
our peacocks have renounced their plumes.
The bats flew out of our hair long ago.

We fall silent in mid-sentence,
all smiles, past help.
Our humans
don't know how to talk to one another.


-Wislawa Szymborska

"What is the single thread that runs through all your teaching and pulls it all together?"
- student

"Look into your own heart. Discover what it is that gives you pain. And then refuse to inflict that pain on anybody else."
- Confucius

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."
- Matthew 7:12

"...thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
- Leviticus 19:18

"This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you."
- Mahabharata 5,1517

"No one of you is a (true) believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself."
- Sunnah

"That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Law; the rest is commentary; go and study it."
- Hillel

"Rabbi, which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets."
- Matthew 22.36-40

"For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun."

"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."

"Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun."

"And remember her (Mary) who guarded her chastity whereupon We (God) breathed into her of Our spirit and caused her, together with her son (Isa - Jesus), to become a symbol of Our Grace to all people."

"In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms."

“[The evil days of old age come] and one fears heights, and perils in the street; when the almond tree blooms, and the locust grows sluggish and the caper berry is destroyed, because man goes to his lasting home; and mourners go about the streets…” Ecclesiastes 12:5

"Immoral means cannot bring moral ends, for the ends are pre-existent in the means."

`Sci-fi can be succinctly defined as speculation, whether based on established scientific facts or on logical pseudo-facts consistent with the framework of the fiction in question, involving smelly green pimply aliens furiously raping or eating, or both, beautiful naked bare-breasted chicks, covering them in slime, red, oozing, living slime, dribbling from every horrific orifice, squeezing out between bulbous pulpy lips onto the sensuous velvety skin of the writhing sweating slave-girls, their bodies cut and bruised by knotted whips brandished by giant blond vast-biceped androids called Simon, and written in the Gothic mode.'

"Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm."

"Film is truth 24 times a second, and every cut is a lie."

"Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear."

For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:

Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree.

"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave, ... It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen cry peace, peace - but there is no peace. The war is actually begun ! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms ! Our brethren are already in the field ! Why stand we here idle ? What is it that gentlemen wish ? What would they have ? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death !"

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not selfseeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! -- how consoling in the depths of affliction!"

“The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”

"Anyone who looks with anguish on evils so great, so repulsive, so savage, must acknowledge the tragedy of it all; and if anyone experiences them or even looks on at them without anguish, his condition is even more tragic, since he remains serene by losing his humanity."

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President."

"Insane asylums are filled with people who think they're Jesus or Satan. Very few have delusions of being a guy down the block who works for an insurance company."

A leader "ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred."

"I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."

"Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake."

"Children are innocent and love justice, while most adults are wicked and prefer mercy."

In Praise of Feeling Bad About Yourself

The buzzard never says it is to blame.
The panther wouldn't know what scruples mean.
When the piranha strikes it feels no shame.
If snakes had hands they'd claim their hands were clean...
On this third planet of the sun.
Among the signs of bestiality.
A clear conscience is Number One.