Play is something done in all seriousness only if you
already know that those whom you play with know this already, and play the
game.
It is not necessary to thank anybody for nothing it’s when
he wants to take it back without payment that you have to complain to someone.
There is a general consensus among intellectuals that their
ignorance is better than a fool’s knowledge. Happily, though, they can never
prove it.
One should be wary of those who come to you at a bad time
and make it worse; which is a good reason to ignore most people.
One should be careful of those who run along the street; it
is not that they are in a hurry, which is excusable, but that they have nothing
better to do than to run to where they are going, and so are already too late
to arrive in a more appropriate manner.
It is not always necessary to know where you are, exactly,
but it is probably vital to know you’re on the same planet as everybody else,
if not on the same plane of existence.
It is a truth that generally remains unrecognised by those
who do not have it that advantage stays with those who work for it; anybody
else can generally go and do the washing up.
As those in the know know they do not know, what then do
those who do not know know, nothing? But, at least, they would know this.
I would not say that great teachers are not good at teaching
what they know, only that they definitely do not like their teachings being
rejected by those who don’t.
Failure is that personal attribute which enables complete
strangers to comment upon the failures and short fallings endemic in the
neglect or omission of expected or required action within a failure’s entirely
wasted life.
One of life’s greatest fallacies is that when people see a
man drowning they’re likely to throw him a lifebelt. They’re more likely to
throw him an anchor.
The world wouldn’t be a fair place to live without being
able to blame someone or other for one’s troubles, so one would probably
deserve all the blame one gets.