Month: June 2007

Magna est Veritas

Here, in this little Bay,
Full of tumultuous life and great repose,
Where, twice a day,
The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes,
Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town,
I sit me down.

For want of me the world’s course will not fail;
When all its work is done, the lie shall rot;
The truth is great, and shall prevail,
When none cares whether it prevail or not.

The older I get the faster I was.

Every artist was first an amateur.

On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness

The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.

The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust.

The grizzly bear, whose potent hug,
Was feared by all, is now a rug.

Great Caesar’s bust is on the shelf,
And I don’t feel so well myself.

It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous.
Resign yourself to be the fool you are.

There is nothing more practical than a good theory.

Entropy

The woodman weighs up the oaks; the calendar, the years; the pamphlet, hatreds; the boxer, his teeth; the locksmith, bolts; the sweet maker, fondant bonbons; the jeweller, chalcedonies; the tamer, the elephams; the coiffeur, combs; the hatter, turbans; the impresario, new prodigies; the ridingmaster, white stallions; the juggler, full spheres; the conjurer, empty spheres. The weight of things requires attention, though it may be we feel little anxiety at the supposed law of matter’s ruin, for in the end all things re-unite: the years in the rings ofthe oaks, the look of hatred in the teeth, the fondant bonbons in the cakeholes of keyholes, the precious stones in the finery of the elephants, the combs beneath wound cloths, the hoarse prodigies in galloping fame, and the spheres with the spheres in topological bouquets.

Now everything is clear.

The Rescue

In drifts of sleep I came upon you.
Buried to your waist in snow.
You reached your arms out: I came to
Like water in a dream of thaw.

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

In court, as a young barrister:

Judge: I have read your case, Mr Smith, and I am no wiser now than I was when I started.
Smith: Possibly not, My Lord, but much better informed.

Do not take from me what you cannot give.

Said to Alexander the Great who had gone to see Diogenes, who at time was lying in the sun. Standing in front of him, Alexander, the most powerful man in the world, made an offer to the philopsopher, saying “Whatever you ask of me, I will be pleased to give to you”. In response to this remarkable offer Diogeens requested that Alexander should stop blocking his sunlight before adding the statement above.

In reply Alexander stated that “If I was not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes”

Introduction To Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed; and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying.

Good actions ennoble us, we are the sons of our own deeds.

The Sun

I stayed up all night
Thinking about the sun
Then in the morning
It dawned on me

There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.

A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns.

You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God; you shall not have both

A Lilliputian Ode on their Majesties Accession

Smile, smile,
Blest Isle!
Grief past,
(At last)
Halcyon
Comes on.
New King,
Bells ring;
New Queen,
Blest Scene!
Britain
Again
Revives,
And thrives.
Fear flies,
Stocks rise;
Wealth flows,
Art grows.
Strange Pack,
Sent back;
Own Folks
Crack Jokes.
Those out
May pout;
Those in
Will grin.

Great small,
Pleas’d all.

God send
No End,
To Line
Divine,
Of George and Caroline!

on the coronation of George II in 1727

I will either find a way or make one.

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

The sorrow of socks

Some socks are loners –
They can’t live in pairs.
On washdays they’ve shown us
They want to be loners
They puzzle their owners,
They hide in dark lairs.
Some socks are loners –
They won’t live in pairs.

I’m not a fan of classification. It’s very difficult to come up with a classification scheme that’s useful when what you’re most interested in is things that don’t fit in, things that you didn’t expect.

Nobody is completely useless; they can always serve as a bad example.

Sir

Saturday morning, although recurring at regular well foreseen intervals, always seems to take this railway by surprise.

beginning a letter of complaint to the station-master at Baker Street station.

Lavender’s Blue

Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly,
Lavender’s green
When you are King, dilly dilly,
I shall be Queen

Who told you so, dilly dilly,
Who told you so?
‘Twas my own heart, dilly dilly,
That told me so

Call up your friends, dilly, dilly
Set them to work
Some to the plough, dilly dilly,
Some to the fork

Some to the hay, dilly dilly,
Some to thresh corn
Whilst you and I, dilly dilly,
Keep ourselves warm

Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly,
Lavender’s green
When you are King, dilly dilly,
I shall be Queen

Who told you so, dilly dilly,
Who told you so?
‘Twas my own heart, dilly dilly,
That told me so