Piet Hein Flashcards
I see and I hear and I speak no evil; I carry no malice within my breast; yet quite without wishing a man to the Devil ...
one may be
permitted
to hope for the best.
One paramount truth our society smothers in petty concern with position and pelf: It isn't enough to exasperate others; you've got to remember ...
to gladden yourself.
Some people cower and wince and shrink, owing to the fear of what people may think. There is one answer to worries like these: ...
people may think
what the devil they please.
Put up in a place
where it’s easy to see
the cryptic admonishment
T.T.T.
When you feel how depressingly
slowly you climb,
it’s well to remember that
…
Things Take Time.
You’ll probably find
that it suits your book
to be a bit cleverer
than you look.
Observe that the easiest
method by far
…
is to look a bit stupider
than you are.
The heavens are draining, it's raining and raining, and everything couldn't be wetter, and things are so bad that we ought to be glad: ...
because now they can only get better.
We ought to live
each day as though
it were our last day
here below.
But if I did, alas,
I know
…
it would have killed me
long ago.
Our so-called limitations, believe,
apply to faculties we don’t apply.
We don’t discover what we can’t achieve
…
until we make an effort not to try.
Philosophers
must ultimately find
their true perfection
in knowing all
the follies of mankind
…
-by introspection.
To be brave is to behave
bravely when your heart is faint.
So you can be really brave
…
only when you really ain’t.
To make a name for learning
when other roads are barred,
take something very easy
…
and make it very hard.
Love while you’ve got
love to give.
Live while you’ve got
…
life to live.
No cow’s like a horse,
and no horse’s like a cow.
…
That’s one similarity, anyhow.
Anxieties yield
at a negative rate,
increasing in smallness
…
the longer they wait.
There is one art, no more, no less: to do all things ...
with art-
lessness
Shun advice
at any price -
that’s what I call
…
good advice
Problems worthy
of attack
prove their worth
…
by hitting back
If virtue
can’t be mine alone
at least my faults
…
can be my own.
He who aims
to keep abreast
..
is for ever
second best.
People are self-centered
to a nauseous degree.
…
They will keep on about themselves
while I’m explaining me.
On Thoughts and Words I. If no thought your mind does visit, make your speech ...
not too explicit.
We are taught to live,
we are
taught to feel.
We are taught to conform and conceal.
We are taught so well
what we
ought to feel ...
that we cannot feel what we feel.
To many people artists seem undisciplined and lawless. Such laziness, with such great gifts, seems little short of crime. One mystery is how they make the things they make so flawless; another, what they're doing with ...
their energy and time.
You draw the near things nearer by making clear things ...
queerer.
I concentrate on the concentric rings produced by my pen in the ink. The thing that distinguishes thoughts from things ...
is that thoughts are harder
to think.
Solutions to problems are easy to find: the problem's a great contribution. What's truly an art is to wring from your mind ...
a problem to fit
a solution.
Original thought is a straightforward process. It's easy enough when you know what to do. You simply combine in appropriate doses ...
the blatantly false
and the patently true.
Wisdom is
the booby prize
given when you’ve been
..
unwise.
THE OPPOSITE VIEW For many system shoppers it's a good-for-nothing system that classifies as opposites stupidity and wisdom.
because by logic-choppers it’s
accepted with avidity:
…
stupidity’s true opposite’s
the opposite stupidity.
Who is Learned?
One who, consuming midnight oil
in studies diligent and slow,
teaches himself, with painful toil,
the things that other people know.
