Everything – A book of Aphorisms
By Aaron Haspel
“Aphorisms are often derided as trivial, yet most people rule their lives with four or five of them.”
Top Ten:
Read a lot: think some: write a little
The Dunning-Kruger effect is especially pronounced in people who know what the Dunning-Kruger effect is.
We are what we fear to appear to be.
Our awareness of what we deserve, but lack, is surpassed only by our blindness to what we have, but do not deserve.
Of all the lies taught in school, the most vicious is that one ought to perform boring tasks diligently.
One reads so as not to believe everything one reads.
The last heresy is orthodoxy.
Most problems are imaginary, and many real problems can be solved by redirecting the attention devoted to the imaginary ones.
The parable of the drunk looking for his keys under the street lamp, where the light is better, explains vast swaths of intellectual history.
A relentlessly cheerful, upbeat, can-do attitude is a highly effective form of bullying.
Other Highlights:
Schooling
Americans take no interest in education but are obsessed with schooling.
Every business dreams of answering “How much does it cost?” with “How much have you got?” Only college achieves it.
Reading
Many books are least likely to be read by the people who would profit most by reading them.
It takes half a lifetime to learn to read slowly.
Writing
More is lost in translation from thought to page than from one language to another.
Any remark sufficiently clever will eventually be attributed to someone sufficiently famous.
If you write for any other reason that than to discover what you think, you are just wasting everybody’s time.
Thinking
The serial disciple is often mistaken for an independent thinker.
One certainty is often exchanged for another, doubt for certainty occasionally, certainty for doubt almost never.
Most people, on most matters, are not, in fact, entitled to an opinion.
The struggle to assimilate a new idea without disturbing the old ones is hideously physical, like becoming a werewolf.
Erring
Untried beliefs are the most firmly held.
Today we believe everything, except what we are told.
To follow your heart is exactly what people who are skilled at manipulating your emotions want you to do.
Computing
The magic of compound interest, natural selection, and many other misunderstood phenomena is the simple algorithm, iterated indefinitely.
Lying
If you think about whether you are genuine, too late.
The expert liar rarely misstates a fact.
It’s easier to speak the truth than to hear it.
Mating
If you want to kill your marriage, talk about it.
It matter less if you love you wife than if you like her.
When a man publicly declares that he loves his wife he means he doesn’t like her.
Working
Jobs are like jail, except with time added for good behavior.
Restaurants fail more frequently than gas stations because no one dreams of quitting his corporate job to open a gas station.
To manage people effectively you must not only accept but praise work that you could have done better yourself.
Working on an easy task when you capable of a hard one is a particularly insidious form of procrastination
Getting
The very rich and the very poor both spend most of their time thinking about money.
Ruling
The less you are contradicted, the stupider you become. The more powerful you become, the less you are contradicted.
Nobody says “it’s the law” about a good law.
Self-Loving
Demanding respect is the infallible sign of not deserving it.
If it has never crossed your mind that you might be stupid, you are.
Being
Better deceived than distrustful
What we call maturity is mostly fatigue
Seeming
Whatever you think you like – are you sure you like it? Or do you like being the sort of person who likes it?
Guilty pleasure: What you are afraid your inferiors might like.
Taste is quality divided by expense.
Remembering
History is apocryphal
Today we hear silence as our ancestors heard music.
Nothing
The best possible recommendation is from someone who hates it for a reason that would make you like it.
We all suffer from a variety of psychiatric disorders, which used to be known as personality.
The likeable never know whether they are liked for themselves or for their likeability.
When God wants to test you, He sends a person of good character who shares none of your opinions. When God wants to punish you, He sends a person of bad character who shares all of your opinions.
People who do not say what they mean usually do not know what they mean.
To hate something properly you must have like it once.
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