The "duck out of water"
might just take to flight.
Tag Archives: Epigram
FIVE WISE LINES [November 2025]
A thing is mighty big when time
Zora Neale hurston; Tell my horse
and distance cannot shrink it.
…if you want to be elected, it is better
hunter s. thompson; Better than sex
to be Mean than to be Funny.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile,
jesus; Matthew 5:38-40
go with him twain.
The only gamblers who will talk openly
Kit chellel; lucky devils
are the ones who don’t make money.
The successful ones keep their mouths shut.
To live a creative life,
joseph chilton pearce
we must lose our fear of being wrong.
FIVE WISE LINES [October 2025]
I had better never see a book
ralph waldo emerson; The american scholar
than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit,
and made a satellite instead of a system.
Free should the scholar be, — free and brave.
Ralph waldo emerson; The American Scholar
If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it is lethal.
Paulo coelho
What you’re supposed to do when you
Maya angelou
don’t like a thing is change it.
If you can’t change it,
change the way you think about it.
Don’t complain.
No man ever steps in the same river twice,
Heraclitus
for it’s not the same river
and he’s not the same man.
FIVE WISE LINES [June 2025]
…we should not be too confident in our belief of anything.
cicero; tusculan disputations
No matter what plans you make,
Rumi; Mathnawi II
no matter what you acquire,
the thief will enter from the unguarded side.
Be occupied, then, with what you really value
and let the thief take something less.
Very little is needed to make a happy life;
Marcus aurelius; Meditations
it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
I possess, but I am not possessed by her;
aristippus [according to Diogenes laertius in
since the best thing is to possess pleasures
without being their slave,
not to be devoid of pleasures.
lives of the eminent philosophers]
Do not fear the gods.
philodemus; Herculaneum papyrus
Do not fear death.
What is good is easy to attain.
What is painful is easy to endure.
[Often referred to as the four cures of epicurus]
“Epigram for Wall Street” by Edgar Allan Poe [w/ Audio]
I'll tell you a plan for gaining wealth,
Better than banking, trade or leases —
Take a bank note and fold it up,
And then you will find your money in creases!
This wonderful plan, without danger or loss,
Keeps your cash in your hands, where nothing can trouble it;
And every time that you fold it across,
'Tis as plain as the light of the day that you double it!
Five Wise Lines from George Carlin [April 2025]
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot,
and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
Isn’t making a smoking section in a restaurant
like making a peeing section in a swimming pool?
I don’t believe there’s any problem in this country,
no matter how tough it is,
that Americans,
when they roll up their sleeves,
can’t completely ignore.
Here’s all you have to know about men and women;
women are crazy,
men are stupid.
And the main reason that women are crazy
is that men are stupid.
I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete.
It’s so fuckin’ heroic.
FIVE WISE LINES [December 2024]
Today as in ancient times
Mei Yaochen in Poets’ Jade Splinters
it’s hard to write a simple poem.
To be undefeated lies with oneself;
Sunzi in The ART of War (孙子兵法)
to be victorious lies with the enemy.
A buddha is an idle person.
Bodhidharma; Bloodstream Sermon
He doesn’t run around after fortune and fame.
What good are such things in the end?
Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.
Epicurus
Take more time, cover less ground.
Thomas Merton
“Proverbs of Hell” [3 of 3] by William Blake [w/ Audio]
The apple tree never asks the beech
how he shall grow, nor the lion the horse
how he shall take his prey.
The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.
If others had not been foolish we should have been so.
The soul of sweet delight can never be defiled.
When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion
of Genius. Lift up thy head!
As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves
to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse
on the fairest joys.
To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
Damn braces; bless relaxes.
The best wine is the oldest,
the best water the newest.
Prayers plough not; praises reap not; joys laugh not;
sorrows weep not.
The head Sublime, the heart Pathos,
the genitals Beauty, the hands and feet Proportion.
As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish,
so is contempt to the contemptible.
The crow wished everything was black,
the owl that everything was white.
Exuberance is Beauty.
If the lion was advised by the fox,
he would be cunning.
Improvement makes straight roads,
but the crooked roads without Improvement
are roads of Genius.
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle
than nurse unacted desires.
Where man is not, nature is barren.
Truth can never be told so as to be
understood and not to be believed.
Enough! or Too much.
* * *
The ancient poets animated all sensible
objects with Gods and Geniuses, calling
them by the names and adorning them with
properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes,
cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged
and numerous senses could perceive.
And particularly they studied the Genius of each
city and country, placing it under its mental deity.
Till a system was formed, which some took
advantage of and enslaved the vulgar by
attempting to realize or abstract the mental
deities from their objects.
Thus began Priesthood.
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
And at length they pronounced that the Gods
had ordered such things.
Thus men forgot that all deities reside
in the human breast.
Five Wise Lines from Fireflies by Rabindranath Tagore
In the drowsy dark caves of the mind / dreams build their nest with fragments / dropped from day’s caravan.
From the solemn gloom of the temple / children run out to sit in the dust, / God watches them play / and forgets the priest.
The wind tries to take the flame by storm / only to blow it out.
The same sun is newly born in new lands / in a ring of endless dawns.
When death comes and whispers to me, / “Thy days are ended.” / let me say to him, “I have lived in love / and not in mere time.” / He will ask, “Will thy songs remain?” / I shall say, “I know not, but this I know / that often when I sang I found my eternity.
Fireflies by Rabindranath Tagore is in the public domain and can be read at sites such as:
Fireflies is available at PoetryVerseFive Wise Lines from Tsurezuregusa by Kenkō
There is much to admire, though, in a dedicated recluse.
Kenkō Yoshida, Essays in Idleness (No. 1)
Going on a journey, whatever the destination, makes you feel suddenly awake and alive to everything.
Kenkō Yoshida, Essays in IdleNess (No. 15)
You can find solace for all things by looking at the moon.
Kenkō Yoshida, Essays in Idleness (no. 21)
Something left not quite finished is very appealing, a gesture toward the future.
Kenkō Yoshida, Essays in Idleness (No. 82)
It’s in easy places that mistakes will always occur.
Kenkō Yoshida, Essays in Idleness (No. 109)
CITATION: Kenkō Yoshida & Kamo no Chōmei. 2013. Kenkō and Chōmei: Essays in Idleness and Hōjōki. London: Penguin. 206pp.










