One risk of literary brevity is obscurity.
After great music I prefer hearing silence.
A courageous comedian risks dangerously bad jokes.
Housework requires starting over again every day.
On cigarettes and then stairs smokers puff.
Once he stopped smoking, heirs survived him.
Snobs refuse to know their servants’ names.
Never name-drop gratuitously, our President advised me.
Sexually reticent, she contracted an experienced surveyor.
All social polling reflects the pollsters’ interests.
To terminate cigarette smoking, wet your matches.
New love becomes a surprise to octogenarians.
Ideologues avoid facts that deny their “truths.”
Some gifts are best purchased for oneself.
From whomever you borrow, don’t necessarily lend.
Handsome people you notice; charming notice you.
Parents make virtues of their children’s vices.
In selecting juries, many called; few chosen.
Only an official patron pays genius regularly.
From the “opposite sex” expect contrary opinions.
All art’s inconsequential until critics think otherwise.
In rewarding artists politicians think themselves sophisticated.
Widows always know where their husbands are.
The economy of art has no measures.
Nothing’s anyone whose death no one known.
What doesn’t become bigamy inevitably remains monotony.
The deepest passions are getting and begetting.
Marriage makes infidelity more risky and costly.
Obnoxious children made an argument for spanking.
Some wedding dresses are worth more often.
Supply of truths always exceeds any demand.
Returning as oneself is a reincarnation nightmare.
“Homeless” people are home less than others.
“Marriage” is a word becoming a sentence.
Anyone starting at the bottom can’t sink.
Whoever is sleepy at work retires early.
All generalizations have exceptions, including this one.
Churches exploit funerals to attract new audiences.
An “artistic temperament” only an amateur cultivates.
Enjoy the pleasure of outliving your enemies.
Reflections in a mirror have partial truth.
To curious people love offers personal discoveries.
Leaders depend upon followers appreciating their backsides.
Laughter delivers a rhetorical punch internationally understood.
Respect for unfamiliar truths informs much humor.
If “love is blind,” marriage restores sight.
The only cure for laziness is work.
Intellectuals blame crime on everyone except criminals.
To Father Time does Mother Nature succumb.
Women despise Achilles as the first heel.
Before friends an intellectual can think aloud.
A straight smile can straighten out difficulties.
Spontaneous laughter makes one drunk without alcohol.
Harder work increases likelihood of better luck.
Sensitive lovers imitate not harmony but counterpoint.
Deceitful people are in turn easily deceived.
An epigram’s a wisecrack that’s remembered longer.
Politicians you don’t admire; statements you do.
Only those lazy can know they’re ill.
Successful lying requires a perfectly pitched memory.
Sick is anyone wishing to be rich.
Most “something”s that prompt belief are nothing.
The principal activity of America is activity.
Universities offer personal instruction unavailable in books.
Anybody can win races entered by none.
Only with push can anyone develop pull.
Shysters die from swallowing their own lies.
Skilled photographers can make ugly people handsome.
Crazy people lack any sense of tragedy.
Some laugh frequently to display their teeth.
Before entering a hospital, plan to live.
Don’t trust judgments by anyone under sixty.
Clever are those who conceal superior cleverness.
Charity appeals to the ego of benefactors.
Nothing’s a bargain to those who’re broke.
A surgeon takes pains to lessen pains.
An aptitude for exactitude marks a perfectionist.
Exercise’s work for which you’re not paid.
Worry not about nothing in the bank.
Premature death is a cause of unemployment.
People walking backwards discover where they’ve been.
Wear a contraceptive on every conceivable occasion.
People trying to fool others fool themselves.
Consider a lie to be opportunistic truth.
For company bon vivants prefer bon servants.
An egomaniac hears only his own speaking.
Editors enjoy having writers waste their time.
Life’s goal is more than having anything.
A fear of death keeps everyone alive.
If nothing’s bought, nothing need be returned.
A lawyer’s truth is a persuasive fiction.
Only if heard can truth become true.
When God has died, social workers prosper.
Pretenders have talent for pretending they’ve talent.
Rejecting invitations to seduction epitomizes oral contraception.
History’s kind to historians who write it.
Every day represents a sampling of eternity.
Don’t we wish that generals were lazier.
Only parents get hated by children more.
A prison lacks any place to hide.
Consider jogging to hear heavy breathing again.
I’m alive because I refuse to die.
One day is too long to waste.
Whoever’s greedy for money’s likewise for pigritude.
Interchangeable’s the sequence of monogamous and monotonous.
A porous mind can’t remember fomenting grudges.
Obey gravity, much like every other law.
Clear consciences depend upon a bad memory.
Inheritance taxes lessen the value of death.
Some comedians invent jokes; others remember them.
Whatever’s funny embodies a hidden subversive truth.
Is God’s patience proof of His existence?
Whoever expects nothing will surely be surprised.
Winning regularly depends upon wanting to win.
More you err the less you err.
Living’s the best prerequisite for further life.
No true hero ever calculated his heroism.
Every artist was at first an amateur.
Only in dictionaries does success precede work.
Insurgent guerillas dissipate unless they conquer territory.
“Money talks” until silence must be purchased.
Older fools have survived more instructive experience.
Advice becomes cheap when supply exceeds demand.
Between vice and versa, don’t be torn.
Dare not “duke it out” with dukes.
Instructional manuals depend upon literacy and faith.
Pleasure can be more troublesome than trouble.
Doctors understand only complaints they can alleviate.
More are killed from obedience than rebellion.
Former world champions are still called “champ.”
Education teaches how to transcend the present.
Everyone plays in one or another band.
The truth of aphorisms can be weighed.
Who’s who’s now who’s he or she.
Nearly all celebrity writers get quickly invisible.
Rise early; work late; make a fortune.
Most young writers promoted as “promising” poop.
Whoever refuses to climb ladders can’t descend.
Prefer filling hours to letting them pass.
Computers increased the number of words preserved.
Tortoises that scarcely exercise have longer lives.
Indecipherable handwriting can represent code to oneself.
Money’s everything that tax collectors haven’t filched.
Good books survive as great authors fail.
In both heaven and hell, I’ve family.
Certain people are successful until they aren’t.
Accept unremunerated awards only to upset antagonists.
True intellectuals work at thinking and rethinking.
Humorists can’t lie because lies aren’t funny.
Power depends upon superior information and persuasion.
Ideologies establish connections devoid of any foundation.
Historical understanding is more credible than foresight.
Nothing can go bankrupt that already is.
Some questions implicitly incorporate the best answers.
A job devoid of aggravations isn’t a job.
Between things known and unknown are doors.
Time’s an idea whose moment has gone.
Predatory’s the animal who finds conquering pleasurable.
Only incompetence makes homemakers or writers retire.
The most memorable wit incorporates unfamiliar truth.
Deflation’s the aim of witty social criticism.
Press agents function as their clients’ wordsmiths.
“Craftsmen” pretend to know nothing about Art.
Warfare’s welfare for otherwise unemployable young people.
Preplanning too thoroughly inhibits discovery and surprise.
Superior quality is a prerequisite for continuity.
Knowledge: what you learned after you learn.
Hard study doesn’t necessarily result in learning.
To make money, forget about exploiting vagrants.
“Temperamental” people are more temper than mental.
Even in art museums, power ain’t pretty.
A toy gun’s the safest defensive weapon.
A plagiarist adopts sooner than give birth.
In rooming houses are rumors easily spread.
Some gossips have a sense of rumor.
A sadist without a masochist stabs air.
Schizoid minds are less split than scattered.
Patriotism represents the veneration of real estate.
Nicer guys who finish remain nicer guys.
Laughing while you work makes work easier.
No earthly entity’s owned any land forever.
Prehistory happened before the advent of historians.
If accused of “lying,” some won’t sue.
In his umbilicus no one finds much.
Forecasts: what happened before will happen again.
No gambler believes a racehorse is smarter.
Marrying for money precedes divorcing for love.
A yawn reflects an irrefutable critical judgment.
Accountants require prophets to make a profit.
Beyond social climbers’ reach is any top.
Consider a single woman as a whim.
With divorce the state intrudes into marriage.
Heirs take ancestors for what they had.
Wealth’s a disease that not contagious enough.
People who are disadvantaged aren’t necessarily indigent.
Swill is a contraction for “is willing.”
Whatever teaches can’t be dismissed as useless.
Gardening’s for people who enjoy bending over.
Respectability’s the outward appearance of common opinion.
Ideologies are individual opinions after they’re merchandized.
Charlatans know they can’t risk being honest.
Making money takes intelligence; inheriting it, not.
Only great lovers inspire great love letters.
A prig’s more vanity than he needs.
A pedant has more knowledge than anyone needs.
Narcissists play to a gallery of themselves.
We understand more about depression than elation.
Individuals who think themselves superior usually aren’t.
Death is no less natural than life.
Remorse grows if left long to simmer.
Self-defined radicals don’t expect a natural death.
For obtaining a loan, fame’s weak collateral.
Dignity you obtain when you forget trying.
A prophet without honor fails to advertise.
Where most sin, some want to experiment.
Whoever censors jokes should be buried alive.
Delayed surgery’s more dangerous than urgent care.
Ambitious artists compete with their earlier selves.
Poetry’s no purpose but passion, pure passion.
Funds are what a fundamentalist wants most.
A clique’s a cabal that’s gone senile.
Few survive fame, which survives for few.
Experience teaches that what looks easy’s difficult.
Intelligence is acquired after you need it.
Fame epitomizes something created out of nothing.
Blaming oneself becomes a prerequisite for praise.
While love passes, desire for it doesn’t.
With fame and prosperity come new friends.
Prudence: never say more than is required.
Walk backwards slower than you walk forwards.
Every religion’s as good as its adherents.
Trust you own smarts over anyone else’s.
Whoever tries the hardest has negligible competition.
Wiser older people don’t live long enough.
Well said is said sooner than later.
Deny any stage that disallows your performance.
Failure is the path of least persistence.
Too many nobodies pretend to be everybody.
Learn to live lives you didn’t choose.
Some vices we spurn; others spurn us.
Fashionable people become comfortable when herded together.
Most religions epitomize philosophy augmented by superstition.
The promise of death is unencumbered leisure.
Where there’s will there’s a wrong way.
Hopeless become those freed of all illusions.
To be influential, tell a fresh truth.
In failure, you’re free; in coveting, enslaved.
Wise parents know who’s not their child.
Yesterday little, today more, and tomorrow nothing.
No one walks naturally when critically observed.
Several glib aphorisms can undermine an aphorist.
Whatever’s only tasted might be inadvertently swallowed.
Obstacles are placed to block others’ movements.
Wiser’s the fool who knows he’s foolish.
Being one among many’s an unfortunate fate.
For those knowing nothing, jargon becomes necessary.
“Tradition” is cultural necrophilia that’s culturally acceptable.
Every “paradise” needs at least one serpent.
Feet aren’t felt when shoes are comfortable.
Whoever proclaims himself “a genius” isn’t one.
Avant-garde philosophers made philosophy their principal subject.
The more you judge, the less you love.
Witty thoughts come from seeing ideas obliquely.
Whoever never attempts anything can’t screw up.
Science defines what’s clear; philosophy, whatever’s unclear.
Whoever gains illegitimate power becomes legitimately paranoid.
Who’s unable to recognize variety is limited.
For better luck, congratulate fates, not yourself.
Drudgery’s intrinsic in every vocation that’s loved.
A choice not made reflects your decision.
From nonexistent gods, don’t expect better fortune.
If no euphoria in heaven, come back.
Many things judged “priceless” can be purchased.
Whoever’s carried to goals hasn’t reached them.
Dividing an inheritance unmasks the worst people.
Whoever’s devout in faith will become unfaithful.
Too much gravity makes a shallow mind.
Dark’s not dark to those looking closely.
To be humbled’s not to become humble.
Impatient people demand patience from their friends.
Whoever’s afraid of himself will fear others.
Make more opportunities than are offered you.
Eternal are peaceful battles against entitled authoritarians.
Academics and politicians talk and more talk.
Marxism’s a religion whose heaven is inaccessible.
Geniuses imagine as normally intelligent people can’t.
No original mind is devoid of error.
In professions, failures are sorted, not segregated.
Only religious people can switch their faiths.
To make new enemies, befriend their enemies.
By his cock may a man propagate.
Visionaries make more vivid history than factota.
Don’t favor foul company over being alone.
As reputation increases, capacity to deliver declines.
A conservative fears anything not thought before.
Never accept what is gained from surrendering.
Whoever knows more in advance knows better.
Wiser’s the fool reluctant to recognize foolishness.
Awake makes you conscious of your thoughts.
From pioneers the weaker followers fall away.
Within himself everyone carries agents of dissolution.
Only the most ambitious can fall far.
Whoever remembers faith can be faithful again.
Only other dupes can a dupe persuade.
Master your will to be servant’s conscience.
Inevitable in human competitions are unequal results.
Scholars cite their sources; artists surreptitiously appropriate.
Improved communication facilitates social organization and obedience.
The measure of civilization is civilized people.
Every day the same questions go unanswered.
Fear of war isn’t worse than war.
Great artists are answerable to other artists.
Bureaucrats epitomizes rule by no one visible.
Beware of corporations profiting more from war.
Children delight married people more than marriage.
In a medical dystopia hypochondriacs are kings.
All claims to racial superiority are swampy.
Not even the womb’s eggs are equal.
The American Constitution commands uniquely superior authority.
Education is every state’s initial weapon.
Equal results only totalitarian institutions can produce.
Equal is the ambition to be unequal.
A lie’s a fib devoid of nuance.
Only men could imagine women as inferior.
Every child selects favorite aunts and uncles.
Strangers become friends before friends become strangers.
Whatever’s greatest is not necessarily the best.
Writing jokes for money is less fun.
Whatever’s truly original is off everyone’s map.
Art evolves apart from individual artists’ efforts.
Power is the capacity to buy friends.
Whoever sleeps beside a lion stays awake.
Thinking is intrinsically more dangerous than thoughts.
Whenever books are burned readers are singed.
Nuclear weapons make the entire world vulnerable.
From short memories do addicted gamblers suffer.
Advertising exploits not taste but its absence.
What distinguishes “personal fitness trainers” from prostitutes?
Writers who don’t read can’t quote others.
Sooner live your faith than preach it.
Aphorisms teach rereading as they require it.
We accept hope but act on fears.
Citations for authority reflect disrespect for oneself.
Reading clears as it clutters the mind.
To a passionate reader, reading is living.
For every move should be a reason.
Identifying heresies is prerequisite to knowing truth.
Some comprehend by thought; others, by image.
A good theory is a stepping stone.
Hypotheses are the necessary prerequisites to syntheses.
Most crazy people don’t know they’re nuts.
Imaginative are ideas no one else offers.
Geniuses imagine that they were born smarter.
A bluff that is denied instead evaporates.
To the next thought do intellectuals go.
Celebrities want public interest in private lives.
Understanding what’s alien is prerequisite to accepting.
No truth spreads unless it is heard.
Few object that nuns pledge to purity.
Within truth is embedded evidence for itself.
No truth told should hurt a teller.
Don’t resist accepting truths you didn’t expect.
People afraid of making enemies can’t befriend.
Experience changes minds more often than reason.
Time and space are empty until filled.
Once a celebrity, a writer becomes limited.
Great literature tells readers what they’re missing.
Writers making myths of themselves exploit sentiment.
Though authors are inherently egotistical, so what?
What exactly did literature’s “lost generation” lose?
Anything can be rewritten–not necessarily bettered.
My friends know me; others, my books.
“Unpublishable” is not synonymous with definitively “unread.”
Very few writers, once established, deviate dangerously.
Young people rarely understand what elders think.
Thoughtlessness is childish, even in older people.
Observant people see what others are thinking.
People should be equal, even if different.
Everyone’s as old they look upon awaking.
Distinguishing good from evil wiser people do.
Kind to kittens, be tougher with tomcats.
Shouldn’t easier divorce make marriage more popular?
Can sentences be as perfect as arithmetic?
Most concerted actions balance honor and interest.
Imbibers especially are smarter in the morning.
Whoever lacks critics must be a nonentity.
How much deviance must a “lunatic” exhibit?
Mad men regard everyone else as crazier.
Dictatorships function to make the majority silent.
Anyone better, if not best, becomes lonesome.
Bums disrupt the obligation to love everyone.
Whose bread I eat deserves my song.
Myth’s a religion believed by a few.
Loneliness is the company of alien people.
Heavy classical music is an incomparable opiate.
A city’s hermits disappear behind other hermits.
Opinion represents intellectual and critical exercise.
Prejudice shapes opinions undermined by insufficient information.
From a distance can confusion look orderly.
Attentive individuals can identify another’s underlying motives.
Only thick mist makes a mountain vanish.
Whoever employs you thinks he’s mastered you.
True nonconformists represent a minority of one.
Swimming against a stream epitomizes tougher work.
Fatigue is the least addictive slipping pill.
Statistics, like lawyers, support any paying client.
Respect for moral power measures a society.
Treat symptoms to avoid more serious problems.
Apology should reflect more love than fear.
Reports of real miracles are usually third-hand.
Everyone’s susceptible to religious qualities of sorts.
Strong is any reputation that survives poverty.
Theologies are inherently more radical than philosophies.
Without resistance no one can be excellent.
One irrefutable truth is that “we are….
Only by accepting risk can anyone succeed.
True prophets believe they created the sky.
After every true revolution is a counterrevolution.
Most tyrants swear obedience to higher authorities.
A saint’s a heavily whitewashed sinner.
Whoever prevents nuclear war is a winner.
Rarely are opportunities offered at opportune moments.
Should suicide be considered “a victimless crime”?
States can’t “protect” people from killing themselves.
Whether anything is ridiculed is no measure.
Don’t butcher anything that can’t be cut.
Most revolutions were unimaginable until they succeeded.
War’s principal beneficiaries are makers of munitions.
Focused people succeed until they fail, inevitably.
Some religion’s better than none at all.
Any lucrative religion should be rendered bankrupt.
Dismiss religions causing more hate than love.
Any religion claiming absolute truth loses faith.
Any religion run by astute businessmen survives.
Respect ministers for their opposition to sin.
Mystics pray science will prove them true.
Whoever speaks forever desires recognition by posterity.
Rare is a reputation that survives poverty.
Whoever “plays by ear” can’t read music.
A philanthropist gives publicly and filches secretly.
No one keeping secrets acknowledges having any.
Whoever doesn’t know better thinks he’s best.
Except for money, prefer quantity over quality.
Original minds invent more than they select.
Natural’s the economical way to finish anything.
Another Adam and Eve humanity desperately needs.
The ideal defensive weapon’s an invisible shield.
Reason pierces an issue after sentiment encircles.
To be original, first know what’s done.
“Reason” is cover for passion and prejudice.
“Theology” offers reasonable conclusions from a myth
Whoever regrets nothing is destined for downfall.
Visionaries see what no one else does.
Empty has been a day without laughter.
Clichés embody truths that are repeated terminally.
Every writer keeps secrets from his readers.
Dishonest are intelligent people who look dumb.
Stupidity can be blocked, but not defeated.
No one’s so smart he’s not foolish.
No one recognizes his own body’s odor.
Assume that no psychiatrist can read minds.
If your therapist doesn’t show improvement, quit.
Both insomnia and dreams stimulate unfamiliar thoughts.
Most answers were learned without anyone’s questioning.
A contented person watches trains pass by.
Don’t let anyone tell you poverty’s impossible.
Every general wants more troops to command.
For few moves no precedents ever existed.
Some lives require more thinking than others.
Indiscriminately tolerant are individuals lacking convictions.
Technologies make people tools of their tools.
Thinking’s the interminable pursuit of evasive truths.
To survive and to beget are primal.
Look for motive in those praising fulsomely.
Every immortal writer needs his Jim Boswell.
Strategists must assume war could begin tomorrow.
What we’ll never know we can’t imagine.
Desire for fame is a vain vanity.
Reluctant is anyone to express unique truths.
Don’t believe that truth prevails; ‘taint so.
An unfamiliar truth overcomes a listener’s distrust.
Commend public officials who die without assets.
Peace starts with oneself; acquisition gains little.
Ambition and avarice compromise individual integrity.
Avarice defines a scoundrel; patriotism, his excuse.
Making piece is harder than keeping it.
Any text devoid of idiosyncrasy is forgettable.
Befriend a disbeliever before trying to persuade.
Diamonds are coal bits burnished over centuries.
Only what’s truly mine can’t be filched. ∎ 1
-
An editorial meta note relating to ordinals
Added at the behest of the author:
A careful reader of this heptagram list
Would notice there are 490 of them.
(Not counting this editorial commentary, of course
As to not have infinite meta regress).
Why 490 and not any other number?
Leviticus 25:2 dictates seven year cycle,
A harvest rite, perhaps dubious (or, recycle?).
An order of magnitude of Sabbath, basically.
Similarly, Yobel is seven seven year cycles.
Order of magnitude, making forty nine years.
All this relates to the Metonic cycle.
(After Meton of Athens, but I digress).
Don’t get me started on 7 references.
Seven stages of man; sole Mersenne safe prime…
Point is: 490 = 7 * 70.
As Peter in Matthew 18:21 – 22.
“how often … As many as seven times?”
“not … seven times, but seventy seven-times.”
490 is the Hebrew equivalence of “תָּמִים”.
Meaning, innocent, perfect, completed, and so on.
Hoping this illuminates rather than obfuscates, [ed].