2009 :: Issue 5/Fall :: Haunting Memories
Grains of Salt
Stephen Wallace Coltin
The Sun is a brilliant light,
but light must be carried underground,
and only a candle can serve.
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Patience isn’t waiting for something.
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Great works of art create the illusion, not of reality, but of fiction; it is only when we believe we are a safe distance from the battle that we begin to discard our shields.
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Self-contempt is the highest form of pride.
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You can’t judge a book by the book.
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A wise man acts because he has something to do,
not because he has to do something.
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Liars are always the last to hear the truths they speak.
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The Sun does not rise; the Earth rotates:
Nothing is created; everything is revealed.
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Where there’s a way, there’s a will;
only the inevitable is ever truly possible.
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Every man’s philosophy is his own;
it will never fit anyone so well as himself,
and, even then, it will begin to pinch.
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Dualism is the highest form of thought;
monism is unthinkable.
If you think there is a difference
between dualism and monism,
you are a dualist.
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Who is moved by angels is moved by devils.
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Have you been blinded in the darkest depths?
You will be blinded in the light, as well.
Look around you now.
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Our broken songs are half-composed,
and we ourselves, half-composed;
we sing ourselves,
and sing ourselves completely.
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Great truths are dropped from great heights,
so they are sure to crush a few egos.
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The courage to jump is also the fear of not jumping.
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If suicide is cowardly,
how much more so is the fear of death?
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Good men find their greatest pleasure in being virtuous,
while the rest of us find great pleasure a virtue.
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Nothing teaches,
and nothing prejudices,
like experience.
Humility works hard to satisfy its pride.
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Over-dependence on rules leaves you at the mercy of exceptions,
but an open mind is as clever as a sharp one.
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All truths are contextual,
all wisdom contingent;
metaphors lack corners.
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A small hope is a cold comfort, warmed between praying hands;
or a grain of sand within an oyster, slowly nursed into a pearl.
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The greatest tragedy of human existence is not that things change, but, that they change before we’ve grown tired of them, and refuse to change long after we have.
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When we need a reason to forgive,
a reason can always be found.
The trick is not needing one.
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Some people take the hint,
and some people take the hit.
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The key to happiness?
Demand nothing of yourself
and settle for anything.
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Crime may make a man a criminal,
but only conscience can make him guilty.
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They wear crosses like anchors around their necks,
and fall on their knees like ships run aground;
their hands, joined in prayer, fork the sand:
“Lord, deliver us from oceans, though we be ships!”
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Silence is wise; speaks no lies.
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We generally reproach a man for the immodesty of his suffering when it is ourselves who cannot bear so much as the suggestion of it.
The horizon recedes on the crest of an eternal dusk.
The wisdom of the earth is lofty in the underworld.
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To speak or not to speak;
that is the question.
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Mother God is unconditionally loving,
Father God makes impossible demands;
where they meet, a Messiah is born.
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A thousand unlocked doors between us,
but I still search for a key.
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Every work of art is an affirmation, however dark and brooding. It may be that the greatest affirmation is provided by the darkest work, for, here, the artist affirms creation even in the midst of the blackest pitch, shrinking neither from the darkness, nor the work of expressing it; while despair never lifts the brush, and hope scarcely feels its weight.
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His words were clay,
but his thoughts were silver.
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It is superfluous to judge a man
if he is guilty in his own eyes,
and ridiculous if he is not.
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Pride covets virtue, vanity covets her appearance.
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Substance is the height of style;
good form takes the form of the good.
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We walk clumsily in another man’s shoes,
when we’ve yet to remove our own.
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“All is One.”
There is nothing else worth knowing and understanding.
The rest are details; for the tourists!
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An aphorism is a finale, in a nutshell.