PART THREE: APHORISMS (MAXIMS)
1. Evil is the root of all goodness.
2. The truth of an obsession is the illusion of
free-will.
3. Where men of similar capabilities are concerned
the man just past his prime is naturally inferior to the one just approaching
it.
4. Sleep is our natural drug.
5. Women teach men the true value of man just
as men teach women the true value of woman.
6. Just as man represents the positive principle
of life without being entirely positive, so woman represents its negative
principle without being entirely negative.
A creature who was entirely the one thing or the other would be unable
to exist.
7. Procreation is a virtue of 'the negative',
copulation a vice of 'the positive'.
8. There are many so-called philanthropists who
help one section of humanity chiefly by hindering another.
9. One lies just as much by feigning emotions
as by not telling the truth.
10. Nothing is more certain than death, but, then
again, nothing is more uncertain than when it will come.
11. A man who shoulders more responsibility than
he can reasonably carry is being just as irresponsible as one who doesn't
shoulder enough.
12. Truth is never more difficult to accept than
when it comes from the lips of someone we dislike.
13. Were it not for the demerits of the ugly one
would never be able to appreciate the merits of the beautiful. A man who loves beauty should never be one to
rid the world of ugliness!
14. One should always be a good despiser for the
sake of those whom one admires.
15. Ignorance is the root of all knowledge.
16. One would only have the right to consider all
men equal if one had never felt either inferior or superior to anyone.
17. Astrology is to some extent a substitute for
the Intervention of
18. Were it not for our folly it is highly
doubtful that we would take as much interest in wisdom as we do.
19. If there is anything worse than the spectacle
of an uneducated man who is ashamed of his ignorance, it can only be that of an
educated one who is ashamed of his knowledge.
20. The human kind is no more a particularly
pleasant species than it is a particularly unpleasant species. It is a combination of both.
21. Where physical love is concerned, it is
mainly the man who gives and the woman who takes. But where emotional love is concerned, it is
mainly the woman who gives and the man who takes.
22. There is no good and evil beyond the actions
of living beings.
23. Sky is an illusion of the day, space a truth
of the night.
24. One can relate to something in everyone, to
everything in no-one.
25. What one says about other people usually reflects
what one thinks about oneself.
26. A man who lacked a capacity for cruelty could
never be genuinely kind.
27. One always overlooks the things one's memory
remembers when criticizing it for something it forgot.
28. In order to compensate women for the fact
that men are generally physically stronger than themselves nature has generally
taken care to endow them with more spirit.
29. Truth is the object of science, illusion the
subject of art.
30. We are more readily inclined to forget the
wrongs we have done to others than to forget the wrongs others have done to us.
31. Our virtues are often vices in disguise.
32. A rich man with bad health is more
unfortunate than a poor one whose health is good.
33. Just as we are ignorant of the extent of our
knowledge, so we have no knowledge of the extent of our ignorance.
34. As a rule the head
prevails over the heart in man, the heart over the head in woman.
35. A deeply emotional man is as unusual as a
highly intellectual woman.
36. Just as one would soon find the daylight
intolerable if it wasn't frequently interrupted by the dark, so one would soon
find goodness intolerable if it wasn't frequently interrupted by evil.
37. Nature is a sovereign power that will not
tolerate being dictated to by man.
38. Where emotion was high the memory is long.
39. If women possess more vivid memories than men
it is primarily because they are more emotional.
40. It is as foolish to apply religious criteria to
science as to apply scientific criteria to religion.
41. It is better to be rational than irrational
but, all the same, one shouldn't endeavour to be too rational.
42. There is a conservative element in every
'radical', a radical element in every 'conservative'.
43. Just as atonal music is against tonality, so
an atheist is against theism.
44. An atheist may be someone who disbelieves in
the existence of God, but he isn't necessarily one who disbelieves in the
Devil.
45. The harder one works the easier one plays.
46. If the future stands in an antithetical
relationship to the past, then the present must stand in a like relationship to
the absent.
47. People differ as widely in their conception
of good and evil as in their conception of truth and illusion.
48. The only consolation for being a realist in
practice is to become an idealist in theory.
49. There is nothing painful in life which
doesn't ultimately contribute towards one's pleasure in it.
50. For all her emancipation and new-found power,
woman remains - and will doubtless continue to remain - in the service of
man. Every 'negative' principle exists
in a like serving capacity.
51. What Christians call 'faith' is to be found
to some extent in every man, though not necessarily within the context of
Christianity.
52. Better to be materially poor but rich in
spirit than materially rich but poor in spirit.
53. The material universe only exists because
there is a spiritual universe behind it - astrology in relation to astronomy.
54. It is as inconceivable that the Universe
should be entirely rational as that it should be entirely irrational. It can only be both.
55. Mind is a consequence
of matter, not something that exists in an antithetical relationship to it,
like a space, a vacuum, or a void. It is formed in and by the brain.
56. Never forget that the two chief functions of
the mind, viz. dreaming and thinking, are interrelated, so that he who dreams
well is all the better qualified to think.
57. The path of wisdom lies in naturalness. Only the jungle of artifice obscures it.
58. The perfect humanistic society is always
evenly balanced between competition and co-operation.
59. No man can consider himself wise who does not
accept his folly.
60. One should beware of regarding life and death
as antithetical. For the only real
antithesis to life is the not-life, the only real antithesis to death is -
birth.
61. Were it not for the strength of our pride, it
is highly doubtful that we would be able to survive life's many humiliations.
62. Shame of ignorance is a mark of ignorance,
not of knowledge.
63. If there is a limitation to human knowledge
it isn't something of which we should feel ashamed, any more than a bird should
feel ashamed for being unable to fly above a certain height.
64. Inasmuch as it is the duty of politics to
take care of the 'body' of a nation, it is the duty of religion to take care of
its 'soul'.
65. Doctors and psychiatrists exist in a negative
relation to politicians and priests. For
whereas the former endeavour to rid the individual of his sickness, the latter
endeavour to maintain the health of the community.
66. Status is usually conferred upon a man in
proportion to the extent of his intelligence, upon a woman in proportion to the
extent of her beauty.
67. One inevitably pays for one's abstract
thought with the coinage of concrete experience.
68. To the true Christian a Satanist is less of
an enemy than an atheist.
69. There is nothing a comedian is more serious
about than the telling of jokes.
70. If one could reverse time one might not make
all the same mistakes again, but one would certainly make a lot of new ones!
71. Were it not for his illusions, a scientist
would be in no way qualified to deal with truth. Likewise, were it not for his truths, an
artist would be in no way qualified to deal with illusion.
72. There are a number of grounds for believing
that people of different race but similar temperament have more in common with
one another than people of different temperament but similar race.
73. The ego rules by
day, but the soul rules at night.
74. The 'objective man' is as much a figment of
the imagination as the 'subjective man'.
One can only be both.
75. A tolerable life is always found between
multitude and solitude, never exclusively in either extreme.
76. There is nothing more attractive to the eyes
of a natural man than the sight of a beautiful woman. But, conversely, there is nothing more
unattractive to him than the sight of an ugly one.
77. Even in the most intimate of relationships,
what we know about a person is usually a very limited affair compared with what
is ordinarily concealed from our knowledge.
78. The act of prayer is man's most sublime form
of egotism. Through it the weak
individual attains to a personal relationship with 'The Almighty'.
79. Sleep is the one phenomenon that no man grows
tired of.
80. One best respects the essentially feminine in
women by despising woman.
81. Only a teacher can regularly ask a question
to which he already knows the answer without feeling particularly eccentric.
82. There is only one certain remedy for a man
who doesn't work in accordance with his desires - namely, neurosis.
83. When we cannot boast of our successes we take
a perverse pride in grumbling of our failures.
84. To die for a cause is usually to give birth
to an effect.
85. It is rather
difficult for human beings to appreciate, but the fact nonetheless remains that
cats have absolutely no desire to regard themselves as 'cats'.
86. Those who endeavour
to take delight in that which doesn't deserve to be delighted in ... inevitably
weaken their ability to take delight in what does.
87. There are some things which it is important
to take for granted in order not to take everything for granted.
88. If it is true to say that we often forget
much of what we intended to remember, it is no less true to say that we often
remember much of what we intended to forget.
89. It is questionable whether any great artist
has ever been ahead of his day. In matters
relating to his art, most of the public have usually been behind it.
90. A truly great artist should possess the
ability to arouse the aesthetic sensibility of even the most philistine
temperament.
91. Those who imagine that art should mirror life
inevitably cast a poor reflection upon themselves.
LONDON 1977 (Revised 2012)
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