Mason Cooley Quotes

Preserving tradition has become a nice hobby, like stamp collecting.

An imprudent enemy is less dangerous than an imprudent friend.

Intelligence complicates. Wisdom simplifies.

The passions are the same in every conflict, large or small.

Do as you like--if you know what it is.

Dieting is our last tie with asceticism.

Always late: thus I make you the prisoner of my freedom.

When I am bored with myself, I try to find someone to listen to me.

Writing about an idea frees me of it. Thinking about it is a circle of repetitions.

Asceticism without religion is just another way of cultivating peculiar sensations.

Some live in a state of passionate indecision.

Like a frog, the aphorist waits for something to fly by that he can catch with his tongue.

Sulking is silent because speaking would reveal its folly.

Against classical philosophy: thinking about eternity or the immensity of the universe does not lessen my unhappiness.

Aphorisms are not true or false, but pointed or flat.

I would enjoy experiencing the hollowness of success at first- hand.

The family is on its way out; couples go next; then no more keeping cats or parrots.

The mind demands rules; the facts demand exceptions.

Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.

The Muses inspire art and pretend not to notice when Mammon buys it.

The little suckings and smackings of the perversions are the sounds of joyous infancy.

Curiosity engenders both science and scandal.

Some eras worship infancy; some, the aged. None as yet has adored middle age.

In the game of love, the losers are more celebrated than the winners.

Arrogance rides triumphantly through the gates, barely glancing at the old woman about to cut the rope and spring shut the trap.

My noisy denunciation trails off in doubt.

Vanity is easily duped. Ambition, not.

Young girls giggle with nervous delight at the erections they inspire.

In an aphorism, aptness counts for more than truth.

My young friend supposes his ingenuousness is merely a ruse.

Comedy defends the commonplace; tragedy explodes it.

Unlike art and sex, money always arouses interest.

An old man drinks tea and reads the newspaper--forgetting age for a moment.

The critical spirit never knows when to stop meddling.

Title deeds generally outlast poems.

Every time I change the way I explain myself to myself, I have to rearrange the story of my life.

We sometimes find truth, but more often it finds us.

Attaining even mediocrity is often a struggle.

Taste refers to the past, imagination to the future.

I put second things first, and then worry about first things.

Your words and my words are the same, but not our meaning.

Bad faith makes the most of every ambiguity.

It is hard to tell truth, and hard not to.

A laughing Lear would be monstrous. Not so a laughing Romeo and Juliet.

Moo may represent an idea, but only the cow knows.

A beautiful woman peers out her window, as full of envy as the harridan who peers up at her from the street.

Avant-garde art jousts with propriety, but takes care never to unseat it.

In bridge clubs and in councils of state, the passions are the same.