aphorist

Aphorist's Corner Weekly

by Igor D. Radovic

Foreword

Aphorisms, like epigrams, apothegms, maxims, axioms, proverbs, sayings, adages, bon mots and many other familiar quotations are examples of meaning and clarity enhanced by brevity. But, sadly, concise and to the point are waging a losing battle in our modern age of verbal overkill and ubiquitous, round-the-clock media babble. All the same, aphorisms and related forms, on a par with poetry, are without peer in their capacity to cut, in a sentence or two, and sometimes in most unexpected ways, to the heart of a subject that learned volumes often leave only more confusing and obscure. Eclectic, long on substance, experience and common sense, and short on empty verbiage, they are also thought provoking, easily remembered, and within the reach of any audience. Yet, for all that, aphorisms remain a comparatively and undeservedly neglected literary genre. Aphorist's Corner Weekly pays a modest tribute to it by reminding us that whatever is worth saying can usually be said better, and to better effect, with fewer rather than with more words.

As its name indicates, Aphorist's CornerWeekly (http://home.earthlink.net/~iradovic/aphorist.htm) is regularly updated. New text - this author's own attempts at aphorisms and brief personal comments on a broad variety of topics of general interest - is added every week as old text is simultaneously removed, for a rolling total of ten weeks. The views expressed in these observations are largely a matter of opinion and, admittedly, occasionally resort to overstatements and understatements to make a point, and they may sometimes err on the side of both the obvious and the ambiguous. But, more importantly, they also reflect, to the extent possible, a deliberate and sustained effort to avoid preconceived ideas and generalizations, so that they may lead to conclusions rather than be preceded and influenced by them, even if at some risk of ignoring experience, of too easily giving in to first and superficial impressions, and of courting contradictions. Whether this risk was worth taking the readers will judge by themselves.

Sources:

Week.. 384 - LOVE, INFATUATION, & AFFECTION

Love is but frustration for those insisting on it always making sense.
Love is both discovery and blindness.
Even when given unconditionally, love is painful when not returned.
Infatuation does not recognize the ordinary, love rationalizes it, affection tolerates it, and indifference shrugs it off.
Love is announced by infatuation with great fanfare, but often doesn’t follow in infatuation’s steps.
The infatuated think they have fallen in love with a person, but it is mostly with an illusion of their own making.
Infatuation thrives on what one imagines a person to be, but love endures on what the person is.
Without affection, faithfulness is a cold embrace.
Where there is mutual affection, separation is long on fond memories and short on those that aren’t.
No quality or asset in a spouse, or even all of them put together, amount to much without mutual affection.
Mutual affection does not make living together easy: It only makes it easier.
It takes a lot of consideration and attention to replace a little affection.
Affection that cannot be bought and must be earned is the one that is both the most expensive and the best bargain.
Without outlet, the need to give affection turns into bile.
In many families, and on many occasions, gifts are substitutes for affection.

Week.. 385 - EMOTIONS & FEELINGS, PART 2

We may listen to reason and be impressed by wisdom, but we are as likely to be moved by emotions.
Emotions, more than reason, are the keystone of understanding human nature.
Our thoughts are no less easily confused by our emotions than our emotions are by our thoughts.
Emotions may lead reason astray, but without them reason is often both blind and without a guide.
It is often easier to explain our reasons to others than our emotions to ourselves.
People may seem to see the same thing differently when, in fact, they only feel differently about it.
Illogical as this may seem, in a relationship of two people it is possible for one person to feel close to the other, and for the feeling not to be reciprocated.
More than we suspect, how we feel is what we believe.
Man is better and much more experienced at expressing and conveying to others his emotions than his thoughts.
To be callous is easy, to be tough is not, and emotions - absent in the first but not in the second - are what makes the difference.
Thoughts are easier to conceal than emotions.
Venting one’s emotions and trying to influence others often go together, but seldom serve each other well.
Emotions not only affect our judgment; they also influence what we remember.
Some are good at suppressing and shaping their emotions, and some only at not showing them. The first reason with themselves; the second only control themselves.
Emotions that are repressed seldom disappear, and must be suppressed.
Different reasoning means disagreement, but different feelings often make strangers and foes.

Week.. 386 - EMOTIONS, FEELINGS, & DESIRES

For wounds to heal, and emotions and passions to subside, time often needs the assistance of distance, and vice-versa.
Emotions are often preceded by thought, but not as often as thoughts by emotions.
Emotions have no need of facts to reach conclusions.
Emotions generally make themselves more obvious than understandable.
The right and wrong of reason seldom coincides with that of emotions
Reason makes sense, but emotions steal the show.
A song awakens emotions as much as it expresses them.
Emotions can make a monster, and absence of them even more so.
A clear distinction between opinions and emotions in large measure exists only in our vocabulary.
Finding support in what is devoid of feeling is cold comfort.
Their own plight awakens some and blinds some to the plight of others.
Desire is long, gratification short.
Man’s desire is woman’s most effective make-up.
Many desires are no more than memories.
Desire masquerades too often as love for love not to be sometimes suspected of being a disguise for desire.
Gratified, desire dissipates, but love only grows stronger.

Week.. 387 - LOVE, PART 6

Love is made of give and take, not just one or the other.
To jealousy, love and possession are inseparable.
To a would-be lover, friendship offered in return for love is no better than indifference, if that.
Life depends on many trivial needs being satisfied, and love is no different.
Love is often the reason for lies, and for believing them as well.
A man in love must count on luck, for his judgment is often apt to fail him.
Love without respect is love with short-term prospects.
Pure love is the stuff of fiction and poetry. Mixed feelings are the reality.
Love offered as gratitude, favor, or compensation leaves a sour taste on both sides of the transaction, for it is not love.
People change and perceptions evolve, and no one - however faithful - falls in love and remains in love with the same person.
Disagreements may put love to the test, but boredom will erode it and destroy it.
Love without frustration is a figment of the imagination.
That there is love is for the loved one to know, not to be told.
Love confessed rings more true than love professed.
Remaining a puzzle to each other is what keeps some lovers in love.
True love knows when to say no.
There is more hormones and less poetry to young love than lyrics give them credit for.
Love is not a constant; much of the time it barely prevails.
To endure, love needs allies, not least rationalization.

Week.. 388 - LIKES & DISLIKES

Whatever people like, someone will soon try to make them pay for it.
To think that some can be liked and some disliked and yet all treated equally is but a delusion.
The more we like people, the more we are annoyed by what we perceive is wrong with them.
At work, it helps to be respected. But at home, it is even better to be liked.
We like those who put us at ease. We like them even more when they bring out what is good in us.
It is generally easier to find something to dislike in those we like than something to like in those we dislike.
To like people is easier than to live with them. Indeed, to like them one must often work at it.
To express one’s likes is a human need, more than equalled by the need to express one’s dislikes.
Over-indulged, likes turn easily to dislikes.
People indulge themselves more than they like themselves.
There is no less self-indulgence in dislikes than in likes.
Disliked, unlike liked, is seldom given a second chance.
Virtue makes people more respectable than likeable.
Few likes and dislikes are kept in check for want of rationalization.
Sympathizers are usually more outspoken and less circumspect than accomplices, and often pay a price for their sympathies while accomplices go scot-free for their participation.

Week.. 389 - FRIENDS & ENEMIES, PART 1

However well-intentioned, a fool is never his own best friend.
People will sometimes wonder about their friends, but seldom have any doubts about their enemies.
Would that friends were as reliable as foes!
Anybody can be one’s enemy, but not one’s friend.
Reminding others of or bringing out what they don’t like in themselves never made anyone their friend.
Friends will say one thing about a person, and enemies the opposite, and though they disagree they both can be right.
There are few steady friends in uncharted territory.
The best friendships are those enjoyed not for what friends do for us, but for what they are.
A reward and test of true friendship is to be able to see through someone else‘s eyes as well.
Some friendships put to the test turn out to have been mere acquaintances.
A friend is often ignored with impunity, but not a foe.
Beware of those who seek friends more than they want to be friends.
From friendship to enmity takes less time and effort than from enmity to friendship.
No one is surrounded by as many enemies as those beset by demons within.
It is too late to look for friends when one can no longer find allies.
Friendships are earned, alliances are bought.

Week.. 390 - FRIENDS & ENEMIES, PART 2

Old friends are like old shoes - one must part with them when they are most comfortable.
Many a friendship is better than those it binds.
‘Tis better to offend a friend today than to lose him tomorrow.
Old friendships, among other things, make it easier to cling to and to live in the past.
The mighty need friends no less than the weak. And frequently more.
A true friend will try to help us even if he does not please us.
Circumstances create friendships much more than deliberate efforts do.
Times are bad when one can’t count on friends. They are worse when one can’t count even on enemies!
He still needs friends who has no enemies.
It being useful is not what makes a friendship valuable.
A hand extended in friendship is seldom spurned when it holds a gift.
Among the enemies of one’s enemy one is more likely to find allies than friends.
Many more people are more friendly than friends.
Ironically, enemies have often more in common with each other than with their allies.
When we pray for our enemies, it is on the condition that they will see things our way.
He who has been wronged by many has acquired many enemies as well.

Week.. 391 - ACQUAINTANCES, PARTNERS, & ALLIES

Friends exchange confidences. Acquaintances trade gossip.
To be in need is the sieve that separates friends from acquaintances.
Superficial contacts are the key to many good relations of long standing.
A malicious neighbor is a foe, but a thoughtless companion is a menace.
No partnership long survives that is not based on mutual dependency.
A partnership between outstanding and mediocre is far more likely to function at the level of the latter than of the former.
An ideal partner always puts “we” before “I.” He is also a fictitious character.
A partner that is also a friend makes a better partner, but not every friend makes a suitable partner.
Someone always ready to take the blame makes a partner that is more agreeable than useful.
An ally will call himself a friend, but a friend has no need to call himself an ally.
Alliances are to friendships what interests are to loyalty.
The weak know their friends, the mighty their allies.
In war and in business, allies and partners are potential competitors and enemies that common interests have temporarily brought together.
In every coalition there are agreements and disagreements, and every coalition will invariably fail if it devotes more attention to the latter than to the former.
Benefits are something one may want to share with allies, but that one must often divide with opponents.

Week.. 392 - LOYALTY & BETRAYAL, PART 1

More loyalty is to be found in instinct than in reason.
However disparaged and derided, blind loyalty is much more in demand than loyalty of the conditional kind.
Eliminate bias, interests, and pride, and precious little remains that is done only out of loyalty.
Were loyalty always to depend on the beneficiary deserving it, there wouldn’t be much of it left.
In time, some leaches turn out to be loyal, after all.
Being needed is a source of loyalty one can count on.
For a cause, loyalty is a one-way street: It expects it from its followers, but owes it only to itself.
Like goods and services, loyalty is judged by results, not by promises and intentions.
In practice, loyalty often means complicity.
Though it may not seem to be the case, critical and truly loyal are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are inseparable.
To have been betrayed is yet another reason for being hated.
Embracing the different or the new sometimes feels like, and on occasion is, betraying the old.
It is truly surprising how many people feel betrayed by others but refuse to take responsibility for themselves.
No one is so disillusioned and discriminated against that he cannot feel and be betrayed time and again.
With no one to feed on, many a leach will claim to have been abandoned and betrayed.
A rejection by someone in authority is apt to become a joke or impertinence when coming from an underling.
Knives that stab in the back are not knives that are sharpened in public.

Week.. 393 - LOYALTY & BETRAYAL, PART 2

Loyalty easily transferred is no loyalty at all.
Loyalty is a commitment, not a contract.
Sacrifice and pain, not reward and pleasure, are the measures of loyalty.
Many a loyalty does not outlive dependency.
Loyalty is not rare, but much of it is the loyalty of the parasites.
Loyalty doesn’t mean always agreeing with someone, right or wrong. But it means being by his side, right or wrong.
Blind loyalty is the betrayal of oneself.
Loyalty makes virtue out of many a wrong.
In the short run loyalty and interests can be at odds. But not for long.
A man always loyal but on one single occasion will still be branded and remembered as a traitor.
Unconditional loyalty is much more in demand than it is respected.
The more choices, the more loyalty is at risk.
Loyalty merits gratitude, but service must be paid for.
One should not count on the loyalty of those with firm convicitions on right and wrong and the courage to stand up for them.
Loyalty to something or someone is often but an excuse for the betrayal of something or someone else.
Newly won independence from those who care and one cares for is freedom sometimes tinged with feelings of betrayal.
A man never betrayed by others is more than lucky, but one that never betrayed himself is most rare.
In both love and friendship disagreement on occasion feels like betrayal.
However profitable, treason never made anyone a winner.
The only traitor more resented than the one who follows his interests is the one who obeys his conscience.

Biographical Note

Dr. Radovic was born in former Yugoslavia. His early education was in France and Yugoslavia. He spent World War II under Nazi occupation, followed by several years under the Titoist communist regime in Yugoslavia, where he studied Law and Civil Engineering. He escaped from behind the Iron Curtain in 1951, and worked in Western Europe and in South Africa before coming to the United States and completing doctoral studies (Industrial and Management Engineering) at Columbia University in New York City. In 1965 he joined the United Nations and served in various capacities relating in the main to economic development and cooperation and involving extensive international travel. During this period he also taught at Columbia a graduate course on problems of industrialization in less developed countries. He retired from the U.N. as Director of the Department for Special Political Questions, Regional Cooperation, Decolonization and Trusteeship. Dr. Radovic resides on the West Coast, and divides his time between the U.S., Canada and, occasionally, Australia. He is currently working on a new manuscript.

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