Acute Angles: A FEW DEEP THOUGHTS

by David Fidelman

Every once in a while one comes across Profound Thoughts that should be shared with other people. They may have been read or heard somewhere, found on the internet, seen in greeting cards, or made up. The source may have been forgotten or never known, but the thought remains in one’s memory. Here are a few favorites:

• If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.
• For the most part we do not change as we get older but become more of what we always were.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson: You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon will be too late.
• Will Durant: Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a good thing to say.
• It isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you out. It’s the grain of sand in your shoe.
• Women should put pictures of missing husbands on beer cans.
• It’s all right to take risks if you’re sure that everything will turn out OK.
• Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
• The marvels of modern technology include the development of a soda can which, when discarded will last forever, and a $17,000 car which when properly cared for will rust out in two or three years.
• If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
• Yasutani Roshi: The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.
• Bulgarian proverb: If you wish to drown, do not torture yourself with shallow water.
• Tom Stoppard: Every exit is an entry somewhere else.
• We must protect the strong from the weak.
• Alfred North Whitehead: We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
• Chinese proverb: Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.
• Diogenes: We are more curious about the meaning of dreams than about things we see when awake.
• Oscar Wilde: It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.
• Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a receipt.
• Men and nations will act rationally when all other possibilities have been exhausted.
• The difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers is that Mechanical Engineers build weapons and Civil Engineers build targets.
• Good news is just life’s way of keeping you off balance.
• Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
• Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
• Ockham’s Razor: Given a choice between two theories, choose the one which is simpler.
• George Santayana: One real world is enough.
• Woody Allen: I’m astounded by people who want to "know" the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.
• Alfred North Whitehead: The "silly question" is the first intimation of some totally new development.
• John Lennon: Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
• Yogi Berra: How can you think and hit at the same time?
• G.K. Chesterton: You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
• William Saroyan: The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.
• Don Marquis’ Archy the Cockroach: Now and then there is a person born who is so unlucky that he runs into accidents which started out to happen to somebody else.
• Somerset Maugham: The Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
• A husband must learn never to argue with his wife. He might win – then he’s really in trouble.
• It’s hard to be nostalgic when you can’t remember things.
• If you think you are healthy, you haven’t had enough tests done.
• Margaretta W. Deland: A pint can’t hold a quart – if it holds a pint it is doing all that can be expected of it.
• TV’s Frasier Crane: She’s a beautiful woman with a figure to die for. Do you think I’m so shallow as to be interested in her mind?
• An idea isn’t responsible for the people who believe in it.
• Cowboy saying: Never squat with your spurs on.
• Someday e-mail, voice mail and fax will be replaced by a new form of communication called talking face to face.
• Old Yiddish saying: If a man’s time hasn’t come, even a doctor can’t kill him.
• Tao Te Ching: The more you know the less you understand.