Ten Favorite Joan Fuster Aphorisms
(Fuster was a Catalan writer whose aphorisms specialized in comedy and contradiction, wry and playful enough that, even at their darkest, most cynical, or most morbid, they seem to recommend life, almost the opposite of the suicide aphorisms of Hermann Burger. These are all from Fuster’s book Final Judgements, translated into English by Mary Ann Newman.)
Reject on principle anything that is defined as ineffable, mysterious, or simply esoteric. All cows are black in the dark.
An honest intellectual begins by writing a sentence. The rest of his oeuvre will be nothing more than a series of rectifications of what he wrote the first day.
The mirror accuses you. Look closely and you will see how.
The worst thing about plagiarism is not that it is theft, but rather that it is redundant.
The origin of the gods is not just fear, as Eustace said. It is also an instinct for rebellion. In symmetry with the spontaneous need to pray is the spontaneous need to blaspheme.
Not only a person’s richness of thought, but also the complexity of their sentimental nuances, depends on their command of vocabulary and syntax. We think we feel to the extent that our language allows.
Paul Valéry. Yes, yes, whatever you all say. But you can’t eat diamonds.
Violence engenders violence. But—let us not forget—tolerance also engenders violence, and despair engenders violence, and—above all—truth engenders violence.
There are two kinds of Christians—two ways to express any ideology: those who tend to remember that “whoever is not with me is against me” (Math., XII, 30) and those who believe that “whoever is not against us is with us” (Luke, IX, 50).
Plan ahead. Make sure your shroud is in your size.
— February 23, 2023