Archive: November 2009

Bo Fowler loves aphorisms; he fiddled with the form in college, penning his own sayings on transparent strips of paper and leaving them inside crusty books in the university library; and aphorisms helped him woo his wife-to-be. Fowler is also the author of the novel, Scepticism Inc. He says he “intends to write one hundred novels and then die.” All this information comes from a letter included with a copy of Notes from the Autopsy of God, a compact collection of more than 1,500 of Fowler’s fulsome and funny fulminations against faith. Fowler follows in the footsteps of antithetical, anti-theological philosophers like Nietzsche, though the potshots he takes at God are generally quite genial. Yes, life can seem quite meaningless, and there’s nowhere we go after we die, but here are some interesting things to think about in the meantime.

When we measure time we only waste it.

Thank God prayers are not answered.

What a monumental effort it would take to leave no trace at all.

We volunteer for our destinies unaware.

The normal is just the alien grown accustomed to us.

Never settle for contentment.

Believe in your doubts.

This month a new, revised, and slightly expanded edition of Simon May’s aphorisms is published: Thinking Aloud, from Alma Books. May (see page 343 of Geary’s Guide) is a fellow in philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. He was also co-organizer of the first meeting of the World Aphorism Organization in London last year. He is an expert on and fan of Nietzsche, from whom he picked up a few tricks in the art of writing aphorisms with philosophical twists. May is also the author of Atomic Sushi, a travel account of Japan. Below is a selection from Thinking Aloud, but first my favorite Mayism: “To succeed, one must question the value of one’s works, but never the value of one’s work.”

The better one knows someone, the harder it is to recognize them.

Modesty shields us from others, humility from ourselves.

Not all impatience is a vice, but all vices may be forms of impatience.

Few of our deep problems can be resolved; most must be outgrown.

Chance, like a lover, is one of those awkward things of which we must be simultaneously slave and master.

What cannot be taught always needs the greatest learning.

We can deeply love what we do not know, but we cannot deeply know what we do not love.