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.. 335 - MISTAKES, PART 2

One learns from mistakes, but not necessarily more than without them.
We all make many more mistakes than we are aware of.
The hardest part of learning from mistakes is recognizing and admitting them.
Some mistakes we recognize after we make them, some as we make them, and some even before we make them.
To admit a mistake can be humiliating, to repeat it is annoying and infuriating, and to keep repeating it is soon depressing.
Mistakes of commission plague the fools, and of omission the wise.
It sometimes takes only a small mistake to open the door for big ones.
Even a single mistake sometimes earns a reputation as incorrigible.
To make mistakes is much easier than to correct them and to disown them.
What turns out in the end to have been a mistake was often a solution until then.
Whereas “too late” is a mistake with a finality to it, “too early” is a mistake that often can still be repeated.
There are small mistakes, and there are big mistakes. And then there are those one must live with.
Looking for reasons to do something is flirting with a mistake. Looking for reasons for having done something is to have made it already.
A mismatch makes flaws out of virtues, and liabilities out of assets, but rarely works the other way around.
Stupidity makes it difficult to recognize and correct mistakes. And so do pride and vanity.
Some mistakes can be corrected and some can’t, and they are often difficult to tell apart until they are made.
Mistakes made before are easier to avoid in theory, and more likely to be repeated in practice.

Week.. 336 - RIGHT & WRONG, PART 6

However right, right imposed by might never feels right at the receiving end.
Some things we do because it is right to do them, and some because we want to do them. And many of the first are the second in disguise.
Right, it would seem, goes more often against the grain than wrong.
Right and wrong are not always a matter of choice.
Who is right and who is wrong is often what matters and the problem, not what is right and what is wrong.
When we react too much, and do not act enough, the casualty is usually the right thing to do.
Doing what is right can be a challenge, but knowing right from wrong is often the real problem.
There are few absolutes in matters of right and wrong, and as many conflicts between right and right as between right and wrong.
Nothing is right or wrong all the time and everywhere.
People often coexist because there is no other option. And so do right and wrong.
Being right is often just a matter of pride rather than of being of any use.
Right and wrong are as often pretexts and excuses for conflict as they are the causes of it.
Right has many cheerleaders; wrong, many followers.
Compromise means finding similarities and overlooking differences between right and wrong.
Many more people recognize and appreciate profitable better than right and beautiful. And act accordingly.

Week.. 337 - RIGHT & WRONG, PART 7

The first rule of getting along with others is to recognize that they can be different without being wrong.
A perfect execution only makes a wrong decision worse.
Tolerated, wrong often wins squatter’s rights.
We readily admit that people are different, yet find it more difficult to accept that what we think is right may not be right for them.
Wrong also has often valid reasons, and right is on occasion in need of rationalization.
The best is to do what is right; second best, not to do what is wrong.
Being wrong is as often the reason for success as being right is the reason for failure.
Fortunately, being blameless is not a requirement for disapproving of what is wrong.
Oddly enough, people are often more inclined to believe that what they have been told is right or wrong than to trust their own experience and judgment.
It is wrong to use a wrong a wrongdoer is guilty of to punish him for some other wrongs, and it is an admonition that will always fall on deaf ears.
Doing the wrong thing for the right reason may be all right with conscience, but not with the law, and vice-versa.
Convenient and inconvenient offered, respectively, as right and wrong are common but, to our discredit, right and wrong sold as convenient and inconvenient are not uncommon either.
To be right and to be practical can sometimes take a lot of savoir-faire to reconcile.
The less room between too little and too much, the more just right becomes a challenge and a problem.
People are often willing to invest in what is wrong, but generally feel entitled - only to be disappointed - to what is right.
Everybody has a sense of right and wrong, but it being subjective rather than objective in most of us is what makes it a problem.

Week.. 338 - MISTAKES, PART 3

It takes the light of day to make some mistakes, and the dark of night to recognize some.
Mistakes due to stupidity are unavoidable; those owed to weakness are inexcusable.
Those who keep making the same mistake generally find room for new mistakes as well.
A mistake is longer remembered than something done right.
Many mistakes are made according to logic and with past experience as a guide.
Mistakes of ignorance are easier to correct than those of judgment.
Sometimes we learn from mistakes, sometimes we rationalize them, and much of the time we are not even aware of them.
On the whole, the rich can better afford mistakes than the mighty.
For those who do not or cannot learn, mistakes are not experience but only mistakes.
The costlier the mistake, the stronger the temptation to recoup, and the greater the risk of making the same mistake again.
An open mind is, among other things, sometimes a mistake waiting to be made.
Someone else’s mistakes are easier to recognize than our own, and we often must depend on others to tell us about ours.
Good judgment is of little avail when chance determines what is a mistake and what is not.
Caution reduces the number of mistakes made but, carried too far, becomes a mistake itself.
Learning from mistakes is sometimes the easy part, and recognizing them first the difficult one. And pride is often the culprit.
There is always time enough to make mistakes, but not always time enough to correct them.
No matter what, there is always a mismatch between the importance of what we do and the time, effort, and resources we invest in it.

Week.. 339 - LAWS, RULES, & EXCEPTIONS, PART 1

We seek not only protection in laws, but less dependence on trust as well.
The gap between legal and criminal is sometimes not much wider than that between the stated purpose of laws and the manner in which they are applied.
Laws that respond to changes more than they make them are jurisprudence of hindsight without foresight.
On occasion, contradictions are inevitable, and the law cannot successfully deal with them without being contradictory itself:
When proof is not available or possible, the law must settle for plausible.
The law is a frequent accomplice of revenge.
In practice, the law is a means much more than a guide.
If to be Christian is to forgive, the law is yet to be baptized.
A law enforced only because it is the law is a bad law.
Laws and rules are membership dues the individual pays to society.
The law is a weak remedy for an absence of conscience.
The law sometimes finds innocent when conscience says guilty. And vice-versa.
The law is blind only in name when used selectively.
Laws change when power shifts, or when the interests of those in power change.
Laws are observed not because they are right or agreed upon, but because they are enforced.
At best, the law expresses justice as those in power see it. At its worst, it only protects and promotes their interests, biases, and prejudices at the expense of others.
Most rules have a practical origin, but many survive and endure by becoming habits and traditions.
Rules and laws are generally late in arriving, and invariably late in departing.
Change without rules is a source of problems. And rules that do not adapt to change soon become a problem themselves.
Exceptions are common, but it is foolish to count on them.
Little flexibility is possible without exceptions, but many rules and laws are made ineffective by them.
No law is flexible enough to satisfy everybody's idea of justice. Nor is it meant to be.

Week.. 340 - JUSTICE, JUDGES, JURIES, & WITNESSES, PART 1

Justice is a fiction when the victor decides what it is.
Laws are less about justice than about entitlements.
Justice is about what is desirable, but the law is about what is possible.
We judge justice, but we feel injustice.
As a rule, there is more bargaining than justice in a settlement.
Justice and revenge may coincide, but that does not make them the same.
Justice will claim it is blind and objective but, being dispensed by people, it will always be biased and subjective.
The satisfaction in seeing justice done comes largely from the retribution it brings.
The louder the calls for justice, the more they betray a thirst for punishment.
To say the least, justice is uncertain when anger is present.
For the loser, a penalty is a foregone consequence. Justice is not.
When the verdict is based on prejudice or on assumptions evidence is only a prop or, at best, an afterthought.
The verdict depends on questions no less than on answers.
What makes the jury system credible is not the absence of bias among jurors, but their biases neutralizing one another.
A witness has lost the protection of ignorance.
In the courtroom, it is what he says that makes a witness, not what he knows.
On the stand, a witness becomes a participant.
Eager or reluctant, a witness is suspect.

Week.. 341 - LAWS, RULES, & EXCEPTIONS, PART 2

An honest person is not necessarily law-abiding, nor is a law-abiding one necessarily honest, for the law and integrity can be at odds.
The objective of education is largely prevention; that of the law, no less correction.
In large measure, the law picks up where upbringing and education have failed.
A rogue thinks for himself. A law-abiding citizen often does not.
The law has many more penalties than rewards.
By design, the defense limits itself to what exonerates the accused, and the prosecution to what incriminates him. By law, they are both permitted, nay, expected, to misrepresent the truth.
At best, laws are in search of justice.
Some laws are assertions, some are concessions.
Laws can be improved much more easily than people.
It is safer to follow the letter of the law than its intent.
As a rule, the letter of the law outlives its intent.
Justice is relative; the law, merely imperfect.
It is risky to count on the law to tell a white lie from a damnable one.
In the eyes of the law, putting up with what is wrong is more likely to be condoning than patience.
What is done is often considered less important than that it be done by the rules.
The individual disobeys society’s rules at his own risk, but never questioning its own rules puts society itself at risk.
Some games, like wars, are played not by one set of rules, but by the rules of several or all participants, i.e., without rules.
The living are not judged by the rules that the dead are remembered by.
Wisdom is questioned and ignored more often than rules, for they are backed by enforcement, and wisdom is not.
To think that man’s rules can supersede those of nature is arrogance that never goes unpunished.
In theory, the legislature writes the rules, the judiciary interprets them, and the police enforces them. In practice, every one of them, invited or not, has a hand in the roles of the other two.
Even when rare, exceptions are sufficient to validate our fears, doubts, and superstitions.

Week.. 342 - JUSTICE, JUDGES, JURIES, & WITNESSES, PART 2

Revenge is personal, justice impersonal and sometimes the more cruel for it.
In every courtroom there are four versions of justice: that of the prosecution, that of the defense, that of the judge, and that of the jury. And often even the last is not unanimous.
Tailored clothing and individualized medicine are all to the good, but made to measure justice is discrimination, to put it mildly.
The injustice inflicted on those we care for is the justice those we hate richly deserve.
To protect the people, justice must often be protected from the government.
Justice that trades is compromise at best, and is not justice any longer.
The match of justice and force is not one of mutual attraction but of mutual need, i.e., it is a marriage of convenience.
Laws can be legislated, but justice cannot.
Justice goes by the board when the verdict is intended as a lesson or to make a point.
Some individuals will always try to create a just society, and the people will always defeat them.
Often used against injustice, the bayonet has yet to bring justice.
On the scales of justice it is all too often the sword and the coin that provide the weights.
Not rarely, someone or something is put on trial and convicted only to exonerate someone or something else.
Others may judge us by what we do, but conscience judges us by what we think and feel as well.
Awaiting sentencing is usually worse than serving time.
To be a witness is, for all practical purposes, to have lost one’s innocence.
On the witness stand, it is safest neither to withhold information nor to volunteer it, but to provide it on request.

Week.. 343 - CONFESSIONS

Some confessions are made to avoid making some other ones.
Confessions are meant to be heard, not used. But only a fool counts on it.
Confessed, a secret that corrodes from within will often only add fire from without.
Confession is much overrated as a relief for a guilty conscience.
Admitting to oneself is on occasion risky. Confessing to others always is.
Confession may soothe the conscience of the sinner, but not as much as the confessor confessing to the same sin.
A genuine confessor is available. He does not advertise his services.
Confessing in church evades public condemnation. Confessing to the police invites prosecution. And confessing to a reporter deserves conviction.
Confessions may be good therapy, but are a bad habit.
Man confesses to help himself, often only to seal his conviction.
For most people, most of the time, confession is not a cure, but only a palliative.
A true confession is not what the suspect is coerced to admit and the prosecutor wants to hear, but what is corroborated by facts.
Confession is followed more often by punishment than by forgiveness.
A remorseful man is at the mercy of his conscience. A remorseful man who confesses is at the mercy of his confessor.
When a noble motive is claimed confessions are apt to sound like bragging.
When people are pressed to confess or to admit something, it is seldom for their own good.
The most valuable confessions and admissions are those one makes to oneself.
The strong live with their secrets; the weak confide and confess.
In privileged doctor-patient or attorney-client communications the interests of the patients and the clients on occasion come second. Confessions in church are no different.

Week.. 344 - CONSCIENCE, PART 1

The law and public opinion can be harsh judges of our actions, but our conscience never ceases to sit in judgment of our intentions as well.
It is not those with a clear conscience that are not bothered by conscience, but those who do not have it.
Having no conscience never stopped anyone from appealing to the conscience of others.
Though conscience may be no less a source of good deeds than generosity, and a more reliable one at that, there is little warmth in it.
An over-active conscience will make even the innocent feel guilty.
But in a saint and in a fanatic, conscience will yield when survival is in question.
Right and good are often at odds, with conscience left in a dilemma.
Vanity pays attention to the opinion of others, conscience to one’s own.
Conscience has more grapples to hold us back with than wings to soar with.
People may boast about their conscience, but no one enjoys it.
Conscience is a harsh master to those beset by doubts.
Pride without conscience is at best only vanity.
Conscience remembers, with a sting to prove it.
No one complains about his conscience’s loss of memory.
Conscience reminds us of what we should do and, even more, of what we should have done.

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. In 1988 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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