Month: January 2008

The Purist

I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, “He never bungles!”
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
“You mean,” he said, “a crocodile.”

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

The Noble Nature It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night — It was the plant and flower of Light. In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures life may perfect be.

To make your unknown known – that is the important thing.

Landscape: I

(for thomas a. clark)

alongthehorizongrewanunbrokenlineoftrees

Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. “Immortality” may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

Better worlds (I suggest) are born, not made; and their birthdays are the birthdays of individuals. Let us pray always for individuals; never for worlds.

There is no such thing as darkness; only a failure to see.

Samson Agonistes: I test my bath before I sit, And I’m always moved to wonderment That what chills the finger not a bit Is so frigid upon the fundament.

Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public RECORDS to be True.

Writers can redeem a wasted day in two minutes; alas this knowledge leads them to waste their days like no one else.

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

Owen’s Bracelt

Our senses, without reason, are naught worth;
Nor reason, unless faith do set it forth:
Neither is faith without love to be deemed,
Nor is love without God to be esteemed.

There Was a Little Girl There was a little girl, Who had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, She was very good indeed, But when she was bad she was horrid.

There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.

You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.

The first king was on horseback The second was a pillion rider. The third came by plane. Where was the god-child? He was in the manger With the beasts, all looking The other way where the fourth Was a slow dawning because Wisdom must come on foot.

To divide one’s life by years is of course to tumble into a trap set by our own arithmetic. The calendar consents to carry on its dull wall-existence by the arbitrary timetables we have drawn up in consultation with those permanent commuters, Earth and Sun. But we, unlike trees, need grow no annual rings.

T. T. T. Put up in a place where it’s easy to see the cryptic admonishment T. T. T. When you feel how depressingly slowly you climb, it’s well to remember that Things Take Time.

It’s a good thing to turn your mind upside down now and then, like an hour-glass, to let the particles run the other way.