To do what you do not wish to do is to do only what should not be done, without a good enough reason.

He who is deemed to be eccentric in the monkey-house generally looks ridiculous, dresses ridiculously, and walks in a very peculiar way; and people will always wonder why he does it, whatever he does, although he obviously can’t help himself.

People like a bit of independence occasionally, but if they can’t get that a bit of conformity usually does the job just as well.

To really understand people you need to become devious, to become devious you need to have been imposed upon by people in some way.

If ever you find yourself being ignored in bars by complete strangers you’ve probably just left your third eye of enlightenment open.

After reaching a certain age shyness becomes an abomination of the spirit: a meaningless act abhorrent to everyone. While once it is rid of the one freed of it, is often just left wondering when and how to act promptly enough to avoid being categorized as being introverted.

Those who find you amusing may not have your best interests at heart, but at least you’ll never lack for an appreciative audience.

The trick is in knowing when to act at the right time; if you miss this truth often enough then you’re just too late.

You may come to wonder why people can wear a hungry, pinched expression so often, until you see it reflected in the mirror once too often in yourself.

If you don’t give anything but your best, you’ll never have to live with the utter despair (or even the mildly irritating disappointment) of personal failure.

If you say something stupid you’ll be left wondering why you said it; as it’s the thing no one forgets and everyone will mark you by.

Vicious gossip––the thing that can travel faster than you can run after it to catch up on the latest thrilling instalment.

There are the users and there are the abusers and precious little in between to choose from without being thought a fool.

There’s nothing wrong with being a two-faced fucker, almost everybody gets along nicely by it.

Your friends, if you have any, will always try to use you to advance their own ends; if you know this in advance nothing they do or say will surprise you.

Contempt may be earned, but between friends it is a secretive force, and therefore, in some respects at least, it is a betrayal of trust.

There are people who believe that truth is relative to the facts available, and if this is so there is no such thing as ultimate truth. Knowing this won’t make you live one day longer.

You can learn only so much about the way things are, before you begin to forget exactly what it was all about.

Complacency is for the man who has all the time in the world––and possibly also has a social disease.

An abject failure first learns to crawl, then he learns to bleat, then he learns to giggle, then he perceives the eyes of the world upon him.

If you can eventually find a way to blame somebody else for your mistakes, then, eventually, anything is possible for you to achieve.

Humanity has always used their monkey’s instincts first in preference to their sense of morality, as morality takes too long to think about.

As the bonds that bind you tend to grow tighter the more you struggle against them, why then struggle against them? Go with the flow instead.

Old men must look at themselves in the mirror and see the young man peering out at them, straining to get out and grab some tight young arse.

Being loopy over normality can be a perfectly logical thing to be, it’s just not reasonable.

Practical solutions to your problems are not made in the heads of other people, as they are just an appreciative audience.

Advice doesn’t have to be relatively true to be taken into account, before kicking the advisor in the groin over it.

Cynicism is a natural result of discovering humanity is usually as cynical about itself, as, by observation, cynics like to perceive humanity to be.

Cynicism often fills a credibility gap in the way people perceive the world, usually by being too honest about the way people perceive each other in it.

Personal freedom must be an interesting ethical quandary to people who think it’s a natural democratic principle.

Advice can also be a blatant attempt at subtle manipulation that’s just gone too far to be believable, except by those who wish to be told what to do.

Some people like to substitute nastiness for advice; the thing here is to appreciate the apparent paradox and laugh it off.

Whenever sincerity appears in an argument, cynicism will generally fail to surrender without at least taking the victory with it.

Truth has a relative value, one that varies the more often you repeat it to an appreciative audience.

Ideally, being cynical entails looking for something fishy with a situation and then immediately finding it without too much trouble.

Never believe in the honest opinion of an honest fellow who is just being honest with you.

Sometimes a man may wonder what a gorgeous woman could possibly be thinking of if it is not about sex. But possibly this is just about points of view on the way out of town.

When people can finally start to make you laugh, then you might also just about bear to begin to laugh at yourself.

Worldly wisdom: usually something slightly dirty and demeaning, best found hidden away amid the entrails of ignorance and distaste.

You may never come to realize how stupid you can be, until you can come to see it for yourself.

Some people will prey for you without you even asking them to; they are right buggers, one and all.

An atheist cannot prey for the souls of those who are not atheists; but if he could, he’d do so, because he’s that sort of guy.

Drunkenness is an existentialist’s fruitcake sort of experience; one only acceptable when you’re drunk enough to fully appreciate it.

Solutions may exist to all of man’s moral dilemmas; which is not to say that you might like them.

Men will produce reasons as evidence for certain conclusions they wish to establish, but will fail to state precisely why they wish to promote them.

Even if you don’t believe in dumb luck but you simply get unlucky anyway, you may still be in a very good position to wonder just who is screaming.

To tell a little white lie in the blackest of circumstances, is almost as efficacious as telling a complete and utter lie when it’s quite unnecessary.

You should at least try to exploit the weakness of others about you for your own benefit. As what else would such a thing be there for if not for that?

The average man is scared stiff of being categorized as being different from the rest of humanity; as a result, he may not be as stupid as he seems.

The greatest freedom a man has in his society is to be able to do as he’s told; any other way of doing things is generally to be frowned upon.

Conform, or die; for if you die, you cannot conform.

I have always had a liking for aphorisms, that ancient literary style and educational tool which conveys much meaning in a tight, easily digestible, pertly philosophical and occasionally witty way. And so, as and where I could manage, I have also used this literary template to express my own thoughts and ideas freely here, maybe even clearly; along with adapting and altering other people’s ideas and opinions as I found them lying around, and as I felt was appropriate to my own slightly cynical agenda in scribbling down this notebook. However, on the other hand, for me to indulge unduly in plagiarism while producing this type of introverted writing is not really my intention here, nor much my cup of tea either. As plagiarism is a mean, lowbrow thing to do, and so something any would be literati should only do to his own kind. Anyway, I don’t regard myself as any type of real writer, but merely as a philosophically-minded note taker; but then, to be honest, possibly even an idealistically flawed individual, just casually casting around for some sense of purpose; and then, in the process, taking quick notes on whatever meanings and purposes I ceased to believe in on trust alone. I expect that I’m simply more interested nowadays in finding out how things really work in the world at large, and then using that (hopefully) sharper understanding to best advantage. Or at least, for what it’s worth, for getting what I like and what I want when and where I want it, out of whatever private activity-time I’ve got left to live, before I become an old bag of bones like so many others before me. Which, despite my being a bit of a self-centred cynic at heart, I’m sure everybody else likes to do the same sort of thing just as much as me, only he or she just won’t admit it to anybody except himself or herself; but which, I think, under the circumstances is a very fair way to act after all.

Outgoing, friendly people know that this conveniently directs attack towards the introverted, unfriendly people.

Whenever a man chooses to ruin himself it will give rise to some form of comment in some form or another; but you don’t have to like it, just take note of it.

It gives the average man great pleasure to see the other fellow fall flat on his face, and the more the merrier.

If you renege on an obligation without a good enough reason for doing so, it may even be construed as an indication of your own weakness—and rightly so.

You don’t have to have a reason to cut someone’s eye out with a beer glass, but there are reasons for it or it wouldn’t happen.

An act of betrayal is one you should know you are committing, or else you won’t get the full benefits of its effects.

Some men’s irises can have little white curly-whirly growths in them; you can point this out when you see it.

You can be hit simply because you’re a human target, as human targets are always there to have their vitality taken away from them.

A big deal is worth hitting someone over, which is something not a lot of people appreciate.

People you trust make up good reasons for failing you, while keeping their real reasons to themselves.

Some people become cynics in the modern sense, and that is justified too, if not in the classical sense.

In truth, the truth should never be spoken of outright; meanwhile, the lie should always be perpetrated upon the unwary, if only to teach them the true meaning of truth.

One of the most convincing ways of avoiding eye-to-eye contact with people you don’t like is to stare into the whites of their eyes while you’re about it.

The cynic with a morose mentality does seem to like being cynical, possibly because he can be cynical with a lighter heart.

It’s cynical to use a case of mild melancholia as an excuse to be cynical, but it still doesn’t change anything.

There is a surreptitious moral doctrine: never tell the subject what’s cooking, especially when he’s begging for it.

It becomes apparent after a while that many people are just mean: they do mean things, they think mean, and are mean in their outlook; if you don’t fully appreciate this then their actions are not always straightforwardly obvious.

You should know that there’s usually a reason that some things happen to you and others don’t, but knowing that is no damn use at all if you still don’t know what that is.