What is so

Even what is so is only provisionally so.

Every moment

Every moment contains a birth
and at least one death.

The price & the cost

The price of life is to grow a soul;
the cost of death is to lose it.

The new thing

If the old thing satisfies you, you'll be less likely to notice the new thing.

What is real

If only what is real were as committed to realism as we are.

Memories

Memories are scars.

Is also

The truest tradition is also a lie.

More sense

Our lives make more sense as narrative threads than as autonomous individuals.

Not wrong

People who interpret something differently than you do are not necessarily wrong. This fact does not, however, imply that they are not wrong.

If not the chair

If someone whose behavior or ethics we found wanting made a chair, would we reject the chair, claiming it was tainted? If not the chair, then why a work of art?

New poems

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Blame

Should we blame the one who lights the match for another's disappointment that it goes out again?

Difficult to reconcile

What is difficult to reconcile may have been mistakenly conceived as oppositional.

Validation

Validation is retroactive. Don't look for it along the way.

Judgment

I am less concerned with an excess of judgment than with a dearth of it.

Objectivity

Objectivity is always subject to the correction of an objectivity of a greater scope.

A narrative

Enjoy a narrative; never trust it.

Never acceptable

It is never acceptable
to view a human being as capital.

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Another way

Every life finds another way to fail.

The meaning

The meaning in a compulsory act exists for the one who compels, not the one who is compelled.

The pronouncement

The pronouncement of a belief is not the same as the discovery of a truth.

Part of the problem

If you are content with a solution
you are part of the problem.

The most we can say

The most we can say with certainty of what is is that it is (and sometimes not even that).

All things

All things depend on us to put them into words.

On hope

Hope is a powerful seasoning, a terrible staple.

Credit

We are loathe to give credit to those who gave us our opinions.

Progress

Where progress is the goal,
stalemate is a loss.

Tell me

Please just tell me;
stop telling me you are showing me.

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The poet's voice (Montaigne)

Let the poet's voice lose all its measure and joints, its character will not be changed by this; even the fragments will be beautiful.

Montaigne

Absurd

Absurdity is inevitable;
inevitability is absurd.

Also

He who bends can also break.

The first vision

The first vision of the oracle is that he'll be ignored.

The reassurances of an enemy

Some people demand the reassurances of an enemy to validate their belief that they matter.

There is a beauty

There is a beauty even in the blade of the executioner, though rare is the one who can appreciate it.

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On love

Love is something nature came up with to distract young men from their missions of destruction.

An enemy

Anyone who has to demonize their enemy
does not have an enemy worthy of the name.

The art

The art is in the failure of the art.

Special attention

Pay special attention to the things you think are true but can't believe.

Expectation

Someone's expectation is not an obligation.

Dissonance

Dissonance is the fuel that feeds cognition.

Always

Always is always almost always.

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Guilt

If everyone is guilty, then the definition of "guilt" is at fault.

How?

How can I make do only with everything that is?

Against purity

Purity only ever where necessary.

Study everything

Study everything together with its counter-example.

On resolve

Is resolve admirable in and of itself, or only when mated to a laudable purpose?

The significance

The significance is established by the arrangement; the relevance in the context.

The truth

The truth that lies like marrow in a bone in contradiction is the most delicious, if not the most nourishing.

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Sensitivity & passion

Sensitivity and passion fare poorly in isolation.

The fool is the one

The fool is the one who follows the false.

Can be

Every error can be explained;
every explanation can be in error.

Sweet

Even the bitterest resolution is sweet.

Try

Try to achieve, not to acquire.

Interruption

There is no act unenhanced by interruption.

For distraction

We traded instruction for distraction.

Misinformation

Misinformation gestates misfortune.

Also

Artistic failure is also art.

Hate

When all other emotions have been ruined, have faded away, hate will remain.

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After the rain

Worse

Government-sanctioned crime will always be orders of magnitude worse than any crime an individual may commit.

Sovereignty

All sovereignty is an immoral—and ultimately impractical—construct.

A quest

Life is not a quest.
Life is a quest for a quest.

Organizing principle

Any organizing principle, to be ethical, must first be true.

Innovation

Innovation is the highest sacrament.

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Home

Home is a habit of love.

Looking at the world

The natural world is easy to look at;
the human world, less so.

Life

Life is framed like a riddle
while, in fact, it is a shaggy dog story.

Relentlessness (Bernhard)

This characteristic relentlessness of mine is rooted in my extremely complicated nature which is always striving toward simplicity but by that very effort keeps moving more and more and further and further away from simplicity, dealing with others as it does myself, capable only of relentlessness and thereby driven very quickly to exhaustion.

Thomas Bernhard, Correction

Mystery

Mystery lures, but it doesn't nourish.