SOME RUMINATIONS
Leon Zeldis
ACTING
If all the world’s a stage, where the hell is my prompter ?
ACTION (see also REACTION)
Waiting for the right time to do something is the surest way to do nothing.
Acts speak louder than words, but sometimes I don’t understand the language.
ADVERTISING
If advertisements had to be truthful, the profession would disappear.
ADVICE
Advice is what many give, few listen and none follow.
Be the judge in a duel, the trainer in the army, the commentator in politics, the umpire in a game, the art critic and the professor in everything else.
AGE
Age is counted not in years but in fears.
AMBIGUITY
Avoid ambiguity, except in certain cases.
`
AMBITION
Ambition, like scratching, can never be satisfied.
If you are poor and want to be rich, you are ambitious; if you are rich and want to make some more money, you are a greedy bastard.
AMERICA
The English like to hunt foxes; Americans hunt witches. Since there are none to be found, they invent them, giving them different names each time.
Americans are hated because they are so successful and so generous. Success provokes envy, and generosity breeds greed.
ANALOGIES
Analogies are misleading, like linking ants with elephants because they share some DNA.
ANARCHISTS
Anarchists think that demolishing a house they can build a better one with the rubble.
ANXIETY
Whistling in the dark may not be advisable; it may attract predators.
ART
When art became divorced from beauty, the artist became a mechanic.
Mixing colors, like mixing words, if not done in the right proportions results in a muddy chaos.
ATHEISM
Atheism is the religion of the morally challenged.
ATTENTION
If you pay attention, what’s the currency?
ATTITUDE
Small change has little value, both in attitudes and in money.
BEAUTY
In many languages, what is beautiful is also good: Bello e Buono, Belle et Bon, Bello y Bueno. In Latin “pulcher” and in Hebrew “yaffe” mean both good and beautiful.
When art became divorced from beauty, the artist became a mechanic.
BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS
Nothing is an end in itself. Every end is the beginning of something else.
BORE
A bore
Is the man who talks more.
BUSINESS
An ethical businessman is as rare as a panda, and has about the same
chances of survival.
CHANGE
Small change has little value, both in attitudes and in money.
CHARACTER
The sum total of a man is constant, the higher up he climbs, the smaller he becomes.
CHARITY
The highest form of charity is education.
COMPETITION
In a race, being the second is equivalent to being the last.
CONVICTIONS
Only convicts stick to their convictions.
DEATH
Despite their infinite powers, gods die with surprising frequency.
DEFINITION
To de-fine is to set limits, ends (fine). Therefore, God cannot be defined.
EDUCATION
An educator is an architect of minds.
Education is the highest form of charity.
Education means not telling somebody that his argument is wrong, rather telling that his argument opened the door to a wealth of other possibilities.
ENEMIES
If an enemy offers you his hand, look well what’s he holding in the other one.
The flea would like nothing better than having a painless bite.
FAME
What do Rudolf Christoph Euken and Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler have in common? Both won the Nobel Prize for Literature. What do Franz Kafka and Aldous Huxley have in common? They never did.
FEAR
Old age is measured not in years but in fears.
FLATTERY
Rare is the man who does not believe a flatterer, while claiming to despise him.
FREE WILL
God writes the score, but you are the conductor.
FRIENDS
A good friend knows your weaknesses, but does not remind you of them.
FUTURE (see also TIME)
The future is like the past, only worse.
GOD
It is not the fact that the starry sky is beautiful that proves the existence of God, but the fact that we are capable of appreciating its beauty.
Even a simple thing like magnetism can only be observed through its effects. How, then, could we pretend to know God, if not through His effects, like the fact that we are able to distinguish between good and evil?
GRATITUDE
Take nothing for granted, nobody owes you anything; so express your gratitude for everything you receive, also from your friends, even from your spouse.
GOOD AND EVIL
There is no good or evil in nature, they are only applicable to the thoughts and actions of men,
HEALTH
Bad thoughts are dangerous for your health.
HEAVEN
If heaven is above, and hell is below, what’s in the middle? The world with a mixture of both.
IGNORANCE
Knowledge is limited; ignorance, on the other hand, is boundless.
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence is circular. The super intelligent and the super idiot often shake hands.
INTOLERANCE
The root of intolerance is ignorance. What and whom you ignore, first you fear, then you hate.
INVENTIONS
Every invention begets an improved version.
KNOWLEDGE
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially when handling explosives.
JOURNALISTS
While the journalists races to meet his deadline, the writer’s deadline is his death.
The journalist serves uncooked food to his hungry readers.
LIES
Too many explanations hide a lie.
LIFE
Have you noticed how different a piece of music can sound under different conductors? God writes the score, but we are the conductors.
Many people spend their life waiting for the right moment to do something. It generally comes too late.
LONELINESS
The sharpest loneliness is felt when you are among many people.
LOVE
You can say you love somebody without words, with a kiss or a hug, with a wink or a laugh, a look of admiration or a sigh of contentment.
What women love is to feel loved
What men love is to feel admired.
Hug and kiss frequently your partner in life. Love is a fire; it may burn out at any time if not stoked. But never lose hope; it may be rekindled, albeit with great effort.
Love is not a worn out feeling slowly fading into routine, but a marvelous beginning repeated again and again.
Like fire, love needs continuous stocking.
Love should be examined with a magnifying glass; offences, with a telescope.
MAN
Man is the only animal who has regrets.
MANAGEMENT
Treat your personnel like your machines: oil them frequently.
The golden rule of management: find someone you can trust he’ll make mistakes, then appoint him as your junior assistant.
MAPS
The map of the human mind has many “terra incognita” regions.
MARRIAGE
The secret of a good marriage is three things: love, mutual respect, and a joint bank account.
Two pieces of furniture characterize a good marriage: a good table to enjoy the food, and a good bed to enjoy the love.
MARTYRS
Martyrdom is one of nature’s natural selection processes.
MEANING
If you mean what you say, what does it mean when you say nothing?
MEDITATION
While meditating, don’t forget to wipe your nose.
If you break the silence, what are the broken pieces called?
MEN AND WOMEN
Men insist on being the master; women master by being insistent.
What women love is to feel loved
What men love is to feel admired.
MIRACLES
Miracles happen all the time. We are just blind and don’t recognize them for what they are.
MOB
A mob is a wild beast.
MOVIES
Cinema is an industry of imbeciles, by imbeciles, for imbeciles.
(with excuses to Abraham Lincoln).
Nothing is wrong with movies that a few millions less could not cure
Hollywood’s true name is Holloweed.
MURPHY’S LAWS
The tool you need to finish an urgent job is the one you lent to a neighbor who is currently abroad.
MUSIC
God writes the score, but we are the conductors.
NEUTRALITY
Neutrons are not attractive.
NEWSPAPERS
Newspapers are to books as a circus band is to a symphony orchestra.
OLD AGE
Old age is measured not in years but in fears.
Like paper, the soul withers, and turns dry, crackling and wrinkled.
There are three problems with old age: bad memory is one, and there are two more.
OPINIONS
Without opinions there could be no art.
OPPORTUNITY
Opportunity knocks only once, but what if it knocks you out?
PAINTERS
Expressionist painters shout with the eyes.
PESSIMISM
A pessimist sees every problem through a macroscope.
PHILOSOHY
Doing philosophy is like driving a car without a steering wheel.
POETRY
The difference between prose and poetry is that prose conveys knowledge, while poetry conveys feelings.
Writing a poem is like opening a present. We assume there is something nice inside, perhaps beautiful, but until we finish unwrapping it we never know.
Every poet is a mystic manqué.
Poetry is an asymptotic road to truth.
The art of the poet is to make a forest out of a few trees.
POPULAR WISDOM
Popular wisdom can be positive or negative. When negative, it’s called superstition.
PRAYER
God hears silent prayer loud and clear.
PREJUDICE
Men treasure their prejudices and protect them against the truth.
PROMISES
Never trust a man who smiles while making a promise.
PSYCHOLOGY
Everybody is a little bit mad, only in different ways.
RELIGION
Religion demands skepticism to blossom, the same as a flower needs the sun. Too big a dose kills both.
RESOLVE
I decided that I must be more resolute. I’ll start tomorrow.
SCIENCE
At very small and very large scales, science approaches religion.
SELF IMPROVEMENT
Improving the world is beyond the powers of most men, but improving oneself anyone can do.
The key to self-improvement is self-respect. When you realize that you are the most important person in your life, you will try to make this a better person.
SILENCE
Silence and darkness bring up ominous thoughts.
Silence, like space, is infinite, but like bodies in space, only sound gives it meaning,
SINCERITY
There is sin in sincerity.
SMILES
Never trust a man who smiles while making a promise.
A smile is like a flower, it gladdens the heart, but sometimes it’s poisoned.
SWORDS
Like ships and buildings, swords have souls; that’s why they have names, like Excalibur and Tizona.
TACT
Learn to be tactful, all you foul-mouthed morons.
TEACHING
Teaching is the best teacher.
TECHNOLOGY
The next technological revolution will be invisible.
TELEVISION
Soap operas wash out your brain.
Television: where a few words are worth a thousand pictures.
THOUGHT
Thoughts are like fruit: consume them only when they are ripe.
Fruitful thought grows into action; otherwise it proves to have been barren.
We live physically in the world, mentally in our minds. You don’t like living in a dirty home. Avoid, then, polluting your mind with dirty thoughts.
Bad thoughts are dangerous for your health.
TIME
The young count time in years; adults, in months, old men in days, and then in hours.
Time has two dimensions: the material one and the mental one.
The present is an imaginary boundary between the dead past and the unborn future.
To live looking at the clock stretches the hours and shortens life.
Memories are lifeboats in the shipwreck of time.
TRADITION
Tradition should act as a compass, not an anchor.
We should act as a boatman; moving forward while looking back.
TRAVEL
Travel expands the mind and shrinks the wallet.
TRUTH
Many truths are just opinions stated with great confidence.
WAR
If you look at it well, war is always raw.
WOMEN (See also MEN AND WOMEN)
What women love is to be loved.
Women like to buy shoes, because they are less expensive that jewels, and have the same effect on other women.
YOUTH
The youths count time in years; adults, in months, old men in days, and finally in hours.