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Chastity Is Now Treated As A Sexual Problem.

-Mason Cooley

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Chastity Is Now Treated

Mason Cooley

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Chastity Is Now Treated As A Sexual Problem.

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The Hysterical Find Too Much Significance In Things. The Depressed Find Too Little.

Every Farewell Combines Loss And New Freedom.

The Aphorism: A Platitude That Swerves, Or Slides All The Way Around.

Methodology Is Applied Ideology.

Rage Is Exciting, But Leaves Me Confused And Exhausted.

Innocence Is Thought Charming Because It Offers Delightful Possibilities For Exploitation.

A Blocked Path Also Offers Guidance.

I Was Once In Love With Books. Now They Go Their Way And I Go Mine.

If We Knew Enough, Fortune Would Turn Out To Be Nature.

Art Chooses Its Constraints.

Even Cats Grow Lonely And Anxious.

The Right Time To Die Is Never Exactly Now.

The Lazy Manage To Keep Up With The Earth's Rotation Just As Well As The Industrious.

Nothing Easier Than To Confuse Busyness With Goodness.

Our Civilization Is Shifting From Science And Technology To Rhetoric And Litigation.

As Night Falls, Every Joy Glows Brighter.

What I Eat Turns Into My Body. What I Read Turns Into My Mind.

The Higher The Moral Tone, The More Suspect The Speaker.

The Language Of Pornography Is Abusive, That Of Romance Adoring. Both Are Addressed To A Fetish.

Looking Backward At What Has Been Lost, I Feel Sad, Then Indifferent, And At Last Relieved.

Plato's Symposium Shows That Flirtation And Philosophy Can Further One Another.

Intelligence Without Power Cannibalizes Itself.

Self-satisfaction And Self-pity Are Both Condemned. What Are People Permitted To Feel About Themselves?

Awakening In The Morning Returns Us To Life, And To Awareness Of Death.

Beauty Is Lyrical. Ugliness Is Elegiac.

Political Correctness Is Driving Machismo Underground And Recalling Effeminacy From Exile.

Lovers Do All The Talking And Writing. What Are The Beloveds Thinking?

Moderation Shifts When Extremes Do.

Complainers Rule Out Happiness, Mentioning It Only As Something Lost.

Stutters And Snorts Are Meaningful But Not Usually Referential.

Indifference Is An Excellent Substitute For Patience.

Many Attempt To Harvest What Was Never Planted.

In Conversation, Everyone Sits In Confident Judgment On The World.

Carnal Knowledge Is As Forgettable As The Other Kinds.

Carnal Knowledge

Ladies And Gentlemen Are Supposed To Be Looked After By Others, Like Children And Pets.

As A Comforter, Philosophy Cannot Compete With A Good Dinner.

Travelling Carries Me To The Surface, Away From The Deeps Of Home-thoughts.

In New York, Pretending To Be Above The Struggle Means No Seat On The Bus And A Table Next To The Kitchen.

Withhold Admiration From A Narcissist And Be Disliked. Give It And Be Treated With Indifference.

Asceticism And Celibacy Can Conceal Many Incapacities.

The Aphorism Offers A Momentary Sense Of Mastery Over Some Confusion Or Unhappiness.

When Love Ends, We Cry Out Against Destiny. When Friendship Ends, We Cry Out Against Our Friend.

Sign At The Orgy: Bodies Only.

The Neuroses Parody The Virtues.

A Modest Demeanor Arouses Thoughts Of Seduction.

The Sheen Of Ocean Gleams On The Blue Fish-plate.

I Am Only Interested In Money Because Everyone Else Is.

Nonsense Is Socially Ok, But Not Stupidity.

Orgies Are An Early Form Of What Will Someday Become Sex By Committee.

Rule Of Religion: Purpose Breathes Even In Dirt And Stones.

In Art, A Dress Is Never Just A Dress; Nor In Life Either.

The Man Of Sensibility Is Too Busy Talking About His Feelings To Have Time For Good Deeds.

Faith Moves Mountains, But You Have To Keep Pushing While You Are Praying.

To Be Fulfilled, A Prophecy Needs Lots Of Flexibility.

Sacred Texts Always Offend Reason.

My Thought Has Been Shaped By Books; My Desires By Pictures.

At The Dinner Table, If You Can't Think Of Anything To Say, Sit Quietly. Don't Throw Rolls, Or Chew On Your Napkin.

The Pointless Ferocities Of Intellectual Life Shock Businessmen, Who Kill Only To Eat.

The Question You're Not Supposed To Ask Is The Important One.

Imprudence Relies On Luck, Prudence On Method. That Gives Prudence Less Edge Than It Expects.

When My Expectations Are Exactly Fulfilled, I Feel That Something Uncanny Has Happened.

Drugs Bring Us To To The Gates Of Paradise, Then Keep Us From Entering.

Respectability Is Joining Chastity In The Museum Of Dead Issues.

Self-conscious? Try A Wig, A Corset, A Veil, A Beard. Or Cultivate Shamelessness.

Human Nature Is A Scoundrel's Favorite Explanation.

Vulgarity Is Innocent; Urbanity Is Not.

Attachments And Bereavements Are Inseparable.

You Know You're In Love When You Stop Comparing.

Death Is Just Around The Corner. If Only It Would Stay There.

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The Powerless Worship Luck And Fate.

Understanding Replaces Imaginary Fears With Real Ones.

Too Timid To Talk Back, I Shot My Adversary.

Once I Find The Right Maxim To Apply, I Feel That I Have Done All That Can Be Expected Of Me.

Those Who Follow Where Their Genitals Lead Them Often Wind Up In Tedious Company.

Early Every Morning An Old Woman Goes To The Market To Curse A Grocery Clerk, Who Curses Back.

As Soon As I Hear Of A Right, I Want It.

Anyone Who Feels Like A Fool Has Made A Good Beginning.

Only Death Rescues Us From Dying.

The Magic Of Procedure: Do This After That And Thus Before So; Then Your Wish Will Be Granted.

My Neglected Duties Crowd Around Me In My Dreams, Murmuring.

The Simple Life Is Not A Simple Life.

Yawns Are Hard To Refute.

Secrets Die When Kept Or Revealed. They Live By Being Faintly And Uncertainly Repeated.

The Routines Of Tourism Are Even More Monotonous Than Those Of Daily Life.

Monotonous Life

Nostalgia Keeps Dissolving The Ironic Narratives In Which I Have Contained My Past.

A Crisis Unmasks Everyone.

In The Museums, Everything Is In Quotation Marks.

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As A Dream Comes True, It Falls Flat.

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The Novel Avoids The Sublime And Seeks Out The Interesting.

Fruitless Striving Breeds Less Despair Than Inaction.

I Am Invigorated By Work, Wasted By Pleasure.

The Desire To Perform Impedes Conversation.

Sacred Or Not, Sacrifice Is An Ugly Business.

Disillusionment Is Not Truth.

Disillusionment

In Retirement, Only Money And Symptoms Are Consequential.

Now Defined As Art, The Totem Has Lost Cult, Taboo, And Custom.

The Interest In Wisdom Is Fading. Soon There Will Not Be Enough Left To Support The Aphorism, Even Though It Tries To Amuse By Half-mocking The Wisdom It Propounds.

Never Invite To Dinner: Those Who Won't Decide Until The Last Minute; Those Who Come More Than Half An Hour Late; Those Who Want To Bring Along Two Or Three Friends; Drunks; Monologists; Those Who Stay Until Three O'clock In The Morning; Those Who Think That Conversation Means Having An Argument; Those Who Take A High Moral Tone; Those Who Are Stupid, Ugly, Or Dull. Enforcement Of These Rules Will Enable One To Eat Alone Every Night In Comfort.

Matter-of-fact Descriptions Make The Improbable Seem Real.

The Present Necessarily Betrays The Past.

As Desire Recedes, The World Becomes Clear, Pale, And Empty.

Pain Narrows Consciousness; Pleasure Blurs It.

Every Work Of Art Changes Its Predecessors.

When Courtesy Fails, Be Nasty, Brutish, And Short.

The Lonely Become Either Thoughtful Or Empty.

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God Has Replaced Sex As The Unmentionable.

The Ancient Mariner Seizes The Guest At The Wedding Feast And Will Not Let Go Until He Has Told All His Story: The Prototype Of The Bore.

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Yearning Wants Mostly To Perpetuate Itself.

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The Realism Of Failure, The Romance Of Success.

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To Avoid Doing Anything, Wait For The Right Circumstances.

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Energy Falls Just Short Of Being Joy.

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When Money Disappears, We Soon Understand The Power Of Absence.

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Always Late: Thus I Make You The Prisoner Of My Freedom.

Show Enough Regret, And Your Refusal Will Inspire Gratitude.

Austerity Causes Constipation; Excess, Diarrhea.

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Wit Saves Us From Being Swallowed Whole By Life.

Never Lie In Writing.

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Unlike Art And Sex, Money Always Arouses Interest.

Children Use All Their Wiles To Get Their Way With Adults. Adults Do The Same With Children.

Beauty Compels Us; Reason Merely Cajoles.

My Obsessions Used To Be My Protectors, But Now They Have Taken Me Prisoner.

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Always Leave Room For The Reader To Supply Meanings.

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Cruelty Is Softened By Fear, Not Pity.

The Novelty We Want Is Always Close To The Familiar.

In The Present Age, A Man With Harmonious Ideas Is Regarded As Out Of Touch.

Good Deal: Justice For You, Mercy For Me.

It Is Hard To Tell Truth, And Hard Not To.

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Generosity Knows How To Count, But Refrains.

Working Cuts Down On Both Folly And Wisdom.

Satire Is Born Of The Cities It Denounces.

As An Elder I Mistrust The Wisdom Of Age.

Even In Rapture, Part Of The Mind Watches.

If Success Is A Habit, It Is A Hard One To Acquire.

Congratulations

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The Morose One Refuses To Smile Even When He Has Just Had His Teeth Cleaned.

The Bathroom Scale Knows Nothing Of Extenuating Circumstances.

My Intentions Go One Way, My Desires Another. Thus I Feel Both Self-indulgent And Deprived.

Worrying Is As Futile As Boredom, But Harder Work.

Expenditure Now Attracts Fame As Conquest Once Did.

Clouds Of Flavors And Savors Float Around The Thing-in-itself.

I Create My Social Existence By Earning And Spending.

Both Faith And Cynicism Make Judgment Too Easy.

Duty Is Whatever Opposes Inclination.

Why Not - Is A Slogan For An Interesting Life.

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It Is Possible To Interpret Without Observing, But Not To Observe Without Interpreting.

Mind And Body Obstruct One Another's Pleasures.

Comedy Distances Pain, But Leaves Signs Of It Everywhere.

In Bridge Clubs And In Councils Of State, The Passions Are The Same.

The Rich Are Never As Possessed By Their Riches As The Poor Are By Their Poverty.

Excuses Change Nothing, But Make Everyone Feel Better.

Our Punning Minds Rejoin What Logic Has Separated.

Art Can Make Chaos Seductive.

I Am Easy-going Right Up To The Borders Of My Self-interest.

Life Is Struggle And Sleep.

Beggars Market Their Incapacity.

No Use Saying Necessity Is Making A Mistake.

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