Aphorisms (short written work)

[Alexander]

Latest version (dynamic document)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17Dkl-zb7iJN-1g1mxZq6Apfq19ingy0Rn_vuS7Gzzcg/edit?usp=sharing

I have a preference for aphorisms. I like aphorisms as I feel a single line can contain more wisdom in it than an entire book. I thought I would write down some of the lines I have coined (or stolen) over the years.

Practical
1. If you want to know the true nature of someone, don’t give them adversity, give them power.
2. The more things change the more they stay the same.
3. When suffering: don’t find fault, find a remedy.
4. Those who have an abundance will receive more; those who have little will have even what little they have taken away. This applies most to money but also to many other human affairs. Always remember this hard principle.
5. An exercise: think of the things you are grateful for and list them.
6. No one values health till it’s lost.
7. The ancients said, “character is destiny.”
8. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
9. In youth, one is healthy but has no money: in old age, one is wealthy but loses health.
10. Money flows uphill, adversity rolls down.

Wisdom
11. Man must seek wisdom above all else.
12. Wisdom is the most elusive of the virtues.
13. Wisdom is gained first by listening: taking in much from many sources; distilling it, filtering it, and coming to truth.
14. The most neglected power is discernment. Discern the true from the false, the sincere from the insincere. Cultivate this. Then, associate with the wise and noble teachers, and you will make progress.
15. People need to have a little devil in them. The ones you should worry about are those without. It means they bury it. They are all the more dangerous, because the devil is always there; when it comes out it, will be all the worse.
16. Experience teaches us that the cruel competitive harshness of nature is true: but so, too, is the kind morality that humans and some animals aspire for. The intersection of these two forces is what gives life its dynamism.
17. There is a line of Ben Franklin I have remembered after many years. He wrote, “[Cultivate] humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”
18. God plays a cruel game on women. In youth they are spoiled with attention, but are immature. When they age, they become serious enough to use this gift, but then lose it.
19. Women’s conflict with men is intended to drive men to self-awareness. As long as a man lacks self-awareness, his relationships will be destroyed. When he acquires self-awareness, he will be able to order not only his own life, but everyone else’s. This is the path to tranquility.
20. Partiality is the sin of a dog: to love one and hate another. It is the way of nature. It is job of the master to discipline the dog to see all as one.

Spiritual
21. What vanity human life is. We are fools, seeking wealth and power that have no value.
22. I had a memory for many years which I thought was of a piece of lost media. I realize now it must have been a dream. It was a memory of three birds. Two male birds were fighting over a large-breasted female bird. The dream was a long sequence about their fighting and violence and injuries, all over courting the large-breasted female bird. I realize now the meaning. It was a prescription about the vanity of sexuality, materialism, and human affairs.
23. Plato divided humans into metals: the bronze (concerned with money, food, and sex), the silver (concerned with honor, power, and glory), and the gold (concerned with wisdom, virtue, and transcendence).
24. Plato is the supreme philosopher, as his teaching brings us to the transcendent.
25. Plato did not say everything openly; his true teaching must be unpacked.
26. Plato said the world is organized according to universal principles: justice, truth, and good. Study the particular to study the universal.
27. I was pondering this idea: matter is neither created nor destroyed. If this applies to physical matter, what, then, does it mean for spiritual matter?
28. I was pondering this idea: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If this applies to the physical, how would it apply to the moral? Does every pleasure create a debt? Does every suffering require a pleasure?
29. Search and find; with no seeking there is no finding.
30. I have spoken to some who act as though they speak with authority on spiritual matters, but they have never investigated these matters seriously. If they sought knowledge on physics, they would consult a physicist; on history a historian. Yet these people presume they have certain knowledge on spiritual matters. (And indeed, experts in the spiritual are all the rarer.)
31. Christ was right when he said one must “lose to find, and die to live.” One cannot find the lover searching by day at his convenience: one must search at night and in a fever.
32. You must go down to go up.
33. If there is no quest, there will be no grail.
34. To give to another with no expectation of getting something in return is the most powerful singular act of the human being. To practice it is transformative. Do not neglect charity. It is a spiritual formula: it is why Christ said to rich man, “give away all you have and follow me, then you will have treasure in paradise.”
35. The human condition brings poverty. The question is: how to deal with it? If there is spirit, the struggle against poverty builds it. It is the most noble path; there is no other way.
36. It is true that like attracts like. Seek friends who are wise to become wise; seek the noble to become noble. Expect to associate with the same company in the end.
37. There is a quote of Whitman I have remembered after many years. Whitman wrote once, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, I am vast, I contain multitudes.”
38. Know a tree by its fruit. The good bear good fruit; the evil, evil.
39. I woke up from my dream yesterday holding the thought “beauty will save the world.” My dream-mind found it meaningful. So meaningful I kept repeating it, over and over, so my awake mind would hear it.
40. The world is for the living. Engage with them, and know the dead through them. The dead are the living: and the dead are not far.
41. This human world is a hell-plane, one of the most radical of all worlds. Only a fool would try to prolong his time here.
42. People try to prolong life, but the longer you live, the more you lose a sense of who you are.
43. The human condition: man enters babbling, and leaves the same.
44. It is a joy to forget. It is a joy to remember. And it is a joy to forget.
45. Soon I will forget who I am. As will you. Then we will become something else, or someone else.
46. Every man living is sentenced to death. It is why life should be used in the preparation for death.
47. Philosophy is the preparation for death. Fools who define it otherwise are not philosophers.
48. Old age, sickness, and death are the divine messengers that should rouse the human being to action. How indolent we are. The medievals called it “acedia,” spiritual negligence and sloth.

The divine
49. It seems all logic shows we are One that has divided itself into Many. What a wonder of wonders this illusion is.
50. Examine the world carefully. Just as there are four seasons, repeating in a cycle, so, too, humans cycle through birth, youth, old age, and death.
51. What does it mean to be outside of time? A second is a millennium, a millennium a second. An eternity is contained in a moment, a moment in eternity. To emerge from this would be like what?
52. God loves the damaged, forgotten, and broken.
53. God loves drunks and fools.
54. The wise should appear foolish to please God.
55. Truly, the joy of two lovers is the closest most will get to the divine.
56. Examine the world. There is money: but the pursuit of money as the highest end leads to despair. There is sex: but the pursuit of it as the highest end leads to despair. These facts suggest transcendence – supreme truth and beauty – are the ultimate principles. Nature itself demonstrates a divine order.
57. Some say human civilization is always advancing. Others say that it simply changes: that in each age we solve some problems, but in doing so create new ones. There is truth to both points of view.

[Tad]

Alexander, that is a great collection. Thanks for sharing. I also absolutely agree that a few lines of wisdom can be way more powerful than an entire book.

From Dhammapada:
101. Better than a thousand useless verses is one useful verse, hearing which one attains peace.

[Alexander]

Alexander, that is a great collection. Thanks for sharing. I also absolutely agree that a few lines of wisdom can be way more powerful than an entire book.

From Dhammapada:
101. Better than a thousand useless verses is one useful verse, hearing which one attains peace.

thank you for the reply. I write all these things but very rarely get feedback they are making a (positive) impact. I assume it is the same for most writers on mysticism & similar topics

[Alexander]

I wrote 2 new sections for it since July. I posted the link above (it doesn't let me paste the whole thing in the OP) which contains the latest version.

I thought to share it here, as this is one of the few places that I feel might be able to fully appreciate this

[rougeleader115]

A very nice collection Alexander. You make me feel as though I should have done something similar. We need varied collections like this to give us insights into things we haven’t read or thought to investigate. So I thank you 🙏🏾

[Alexander]

Thank you brother Namaste