Archive: August 2007

Daniel Liebert grew up in St. Louis in what he describes as “a very verbal Jewish family.” The table talk of his childhood was filled with proverbial expressions and Yiddishisms, echoes of which can be heard in his own aphorisms. “If grandma had a beard, she’d be grandpa,” was an oft-cited explanation for why something happened to be the way that it was. Instead of going to college, Liebert embarked on a Whitmanesque wandering through Europe, Africa and the Middle East, eventually settling in Cairo for several years during the 1970s. He’s been a stand-up comedian and joke-writer; now, he writes poems. Liebert came to aphorisms through humor; he once penned the sayings on bumper stickers and buttons for a living. His most famous line: JESUS IS COMING—LOOK BUSY. As a former stand-up comic, Liebert cites Stanislaw Jerzy Lec as his biggest influence. Lec is “the essential bridge between my comic sense and my philosophy,” he says.

If you like these aphorisms, more of Mr. Liebert’s musings can be found in Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorists, out on Oct. 2…

Any grail, long sought, becomes a holy grail.

Flour, too, grinds down millstones.

Extreme old age cheapens one’s death.

Nature has laws but no lawyers.

Placebos are highly addictive.

Seeing a play on opening night is like having sex with an hysterical and exhausted virgin.

The poorer we are, the more valuable our money.

The mind is more kitchen than library.

Daniel Liebert grew up in St. Louis in what he describes as “a very verbal Jewish family.” The table talk of his childhood was filled with proverbial expressions and Yiddishisms, echoes of which can be heard in his own aphorisms. “If grandma had a beard, she’d be grandpa,” was an oft-cited explanation for why something happened to be the way that it was. Instead of going to college, Liebert embarked on a Whitmanesque wandering through Europe, Africa and the Middle East, eventually settling in Cairo for several years during the 1970s. He’s been a stand-up comedian and joke-writer; now, he writes poems. Liebert came to aphorisms through humor; he once penned the sayings on bumper stickers and buttons for a living. His most famous line: JESUS IS COMING—LOOK BUSY. As a former stand-up comic, Liebert cites Stanislaw Jerzy Lec as his biggest influence. Lec is “the essential bridge between my comic sense and my philosophy,” he says.

If you like these aphorisms, more of Mr. Liebert’s musings can be found in Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorists, out on Oct. 2…

Any grail, long sought, becomes a holy grail.

Flour, too, grinds down millstones.

Extreme old age cheapens one’s death.

Nature has laws but no lawyers.

Placebos are highly addictive.

Seeing a play on opening night is like having sex with an hysterical and exhausted virgin.

The poorer we are, the more valuable our money.

The mind is more kitchen than library.

Waiting. It happens so often, so imperceptibly, and in the strangest locations—at elevators and intersections, by bedsides and telephones, in dentists’ offices and train stations. Stop whatever you are doing, even for an instant, and waiting instantly takes its place. It leaks in, like water, to fill up every available space. But waiting is not a passive state. Is a seed waiting before it germinates? Is a bird waiting as it incubates its eggs? These little intervals—between one breath and the next, between a missed opportunity and a second chance—are hard work, periods of intense activity, frantic preparation.

He also serves who only stands and waits

John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost.

What we do while doing nothing cannot be done in haste.

This abbreviated essay originally appeared in the September issue of Ode, on newsstands now.

Entering his ninth decade, Beston Jack Abrams has discovered a new passion; move over jazz, opera and the Chicago Bears, make room for aphorisms!

Mr. Abrams began composing aphorisms about two years ago. After leaving the Army, he graduated from Northwestern University in 1949 and became a pharmaceutical salesman. He retired in 1990, but Mr. Abrams’ idea of retirement consisted of starting his own pharmaceutical trademark company. Nowadays, he helps his wife, Tybie, run her dotcom (devoted to American-made gifts for grandchildren) and he spends several days a month in nursing homes—entertaining residents by playing CDs of the music, and reciting the lyrics, of Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Cole Porter.

He and his wife “are aghast at the state of our nation, entranced by our grandchildren and grateful for our enduring vitality,” Mr. Abrams writes. “Tybie thinks I am quirky, too studious, sing too many songs for which I’ve forgotten the words, while I think I am endlessly charming. With words we pursue and sometimes capture reality; on with the chase.”

Some glimpses of reality caught in Mr. Abrams’ aphoristic snare:

At the start of an enterprise, risk is invited; as it succeeds, it is avoided.

Solitude is a teacher; loneliness, a terror.

Solitude must be sought; loneliness comes unbidden.

Insult is less hurtful than disregard.

A low IQ is not always essential for an unintelligent act; frequently a high IQ will do nicely as well.

A peaceful life requires a tolerance for contradictions and foreigners.

In comparing the corrupt with the incompetent, choose the former; at least they know what they’re doing.

Complete arrogance is the result of incomplete data.