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The Critical Spirit Never Knows When To Stop Meddling.

-Mason Cooley

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The Critical Spirit Never

Mason Cooley

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The Critical Spirit Never Knows When To Stop Meddling.

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Critical Spirit

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The Flesh Of Past Lovers Looks Both Familiar And Strange.

When Love And Adventure Are Finished, It's Nice To Have Getting And Spending To Fall Back On.

After Ages Of Bombast, The Rhetoric Of Virtue Has Become Ironic And Shy.

Most People See No Reason To Stop Arguing Just Because An Issue Has Been Decided.

Ideas About Life Organize Perception; Names Of Emotions Organize Sensations; Rules Of Syntax Organize Thought. But Pain Comes On Its Own.

Attacking A Belief Can Be The First Step Toward Embracing It.

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

The Critical Spirit Never Knows When To Stop Meddling.

Critical Spirit

Theory Now: Concern For Truth Must Not Hobble Our Discussion.

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

My Mother's Mild-eyed Sadness Looks At Me From The Eyes Of Those I Love.

In An Aphorism, Aptness Counts For More Than Truth.

Infallibility And Invincible Ignorance Are The Same Thing.

The Present Necessarily Betrays The Past.

Failure Makes Us Envious. Success Makes Us Greedy.

Life Just Keeps Unfolding, Ignoring Our Praise Or Blame.

Smooth White Skin Invites Something That Will Leave A Trace, A Kiss Or A Slap.

The Madness Of Love Can Always Be Suspended--to Cook Dinner Or Catch A Plane, For Instance.

Lechery Is Secretive, But Must Finally Reveal Itself To At Least One.

At The End Of Every Diet, The Path Curves Back To The Trough.

Envy Awakens At The Sound Of A Distant Laugh.

Comedy Distances Pain, But Leaves Signs Of It Everywhere.

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

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

I Dream Of Vague Shapes That Hint Of My Heart's Desire.

Gossip Is Dying Out Because Fewer And Fewer People Care To Talk About Anything Besides Themselves.

Boredom And Fear Keep Us Working And Obeying The Laws.

Our Most Important Decisions Are Made While We Are Thinking About Something Else.

I Would Enjoy Experiencing The Hollowness Of Success At First- Hand.

Moo May Represent An Idea, But Only The Cow Knows.

Youth Demands More Than Ordinary Life. Age Clings To It.

Shaw Writes As If It Were Always Midday.

Bravery Despite Defeat Is Praiseworthy. Victory Despite Cowardice Is Beyond Praise.

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

Lying Just For The Fun Of It Is Either Art Or Pathology.

Retirement Requires The Invention Of A New Hedonism, Not A Return To The Hedonism Of Youth

I Am Now Old Enough To Make Common Cause With My Predecessors Against My Successors.

Middle-aged Adolescents Are A Libel On The Real Thing.

Stated Clearly Enough, An Idea May Cancel Itself Out.

Great Talkers Are Trying To Fill The Gap Between Themselves And Others, But Only Widen It.

Melancholy Is As Seductive As Ecstasy.

As The Tenor Roars His Passion, I Think Sadly Of My Spreading Middle, And His.

Virtue Sometimes Pretends. Vice Is Always Sincere.

Outside Literature, High-flown Sentiments Are Merely Exasperating.

Energy Falls Just Short Of Being Joy.

After Desolation, Grief Brings Back Our Humanity.

The Villain May Be Good Looking, But His Smile Is Never Quite Right.

Giving Out Crowns To Everyone Will Not Make A Nation Of Kings.

Cynicism Is Full Of Naive Disappointments.

Romance Is Tempestuous. Love Is Calm.

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

Guilt Agonizes Over Trifles, Ignores Habitual Wrongdoing.

Why Do We Never Expect Dull People To Be Rascals?

A Fastidious Taste Is Best Indoors, Away From Nature And The City.

Never Lie In Writing.

The Ninety Percent Of Human Experience That Does Not Fit Into Established Narrative Patterns Falls Into Oblivion.

With Decrepitude, Longevity Has Overshot The Mark.

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

The Worship Of Mammon May Be Vulgar Or Immoral, But It Persists While Other Religions Falter And Disappear.

Title Deeds Generally Outlast Poems.

When I Go Out, I Hope To Leave The Worst Of Myself At Home.

I Gulp Down My Pleasures, Chew Over My Miseries.

The Grand Style Is Available Now Only In Old Poems, Museums, And Parodies.

Pain Pays No Attention To Moans Or Excuses.

Jealousy Is Inconsolable Because It Cannot Know The Beloved

When Death Comes Too Near, Comedy And Tragedy Fall Silent.

Getting Ready: The Show Girl Scratches Her Breast And Shakes Out Her Feathers.

Asceticism Without Religion Is Just Another Way Of Cultivating Peculiar Sensations.

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

Victimization Has Its Privileges, And I Want Some.

Sleaze Is A Point By Point Refutation Of Elegance.

Comedy Defends The Commonplace; Tragedy Explodes It.

The Chair As Ideas Fits Only The Bottom As Idea.

Self-inflicted Misery Smirks Under Its Crown Of Thorns.

Manly Men And Womanly Women Are Still Here But Feeling Nervous.

The Suburbs: Signs Of Life, But No Proofs.

Mind And Body Obstruct One Another's Pleasures.

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.

Conscious Thought Is The Tidying Up At The End.

Old Among The Young, Poor Among The Rich, I Adopt An Air Of Indefinable Superiority.

My Aspiration Now Is To Get By Luck What I Could Not Get By Merit.

Our Troubles Keep Us Going.

A Frog In Love Would Not Be Enchanted To Learn That Her Beloved Had Turned Into Prince Charming.

First Literature Came To Refer Only To Itself, The Literary Theory.

Literary Theory

Silence Kills Scandal.

Seeing My Malevolent Face In The Mirror, My Benevolent Soul Shrinks Back.

People Believe That Photographs Are True And Therefore Cannot Be Art.

As Night Falls, Every Joy Glows Brighter.

A Sure Cure For Boredom: Fast Until You Are Ravenous.

Self-hatred Is Sometimes Appropriate.

Truth-telling Frightens Me. Lying Confuses Me.

Telling The Truth

The Ugly Can Achieve An Absoluteness Beyond The Reach Of Beauty.

Self-deception Is Nature; Hypocrisy Is Art.

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

Boredom Strives To Detach, But Finds Itself Stuck.

Preserving Tradition Has Become A Nice Hobby, Like Stamp Collecting.

Don't Tell Me It's Raining When You're Peeing On Me!

The Shades Of Respectability Begin To Close About The Greying Head.

Beggars Market Their Incapacity.

For Some, Bottles Of Liquor Gleam Like The Towers Of Eldorado.

Shameless: Punish Me For My Desire If You Will. It Burns Still.

A Quiet Fool Can Go Undiscovered For A Long Time.

The Eros Of Advertising Is Lurid But Not Specific.

Ironic And Jittery, We Are Puzzled By The Old Heroes With Their Fighting, Boasting, And Cocksure Lovemaking.

The Educated Can Listen Impassively To Almost Anything.

Out Of Power, Marxism Can Develop Critical Intelligence; In Power, It Quickly Becomes Stupid.

Scholarship Can Find Little To Say About The Obvious.

Aimless Drifting Also Fulfills An Intention.

Sincerity Guarantees Nothing But Itself.

Sex Is Not Imaginary, But It Is Not Quite Real Either.

Old Age Likes Indecency. It's A Sign Of Life.

Telescopes And Binoculars Endanger The Ever-distant Sublime.

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

The Sorrow Of Not Being Movie Stars Overwhelms Millions.

Even In Rapture, Part Of The Mind Watches.

The Horizon Is More Than A Convention Of Landscape Painting, Less Than Truth.

Landscape Painting

Go Ahead And Voice Your Criticisms, But Don't Expect To Be Invited Back.

Sex And Writing Live On Playful Cruelties.

Promiscuity Is Like Never Reading Past The First Page. Monogamy Is Like Reading The Same Book Over And Over.

Lead The Reader Toward The Thought, Then Stop A Little Short.

Original Sin Reassures Us That Our Slip Was Not The First.

I Am Too Impatient To Wait For Temptation To Come To Me.

I Know God Exits, But I Don't Know Where.

Even Boredom Has Its Crises.

Chastity Is Now Treated As A Sexual Problem.

I Keep Eating For Fear I Will Be Hungry.

Living Too Long Exacts A Painful Price.

If The Current Is Right, One Can Drift To Success.

Mild Brown Eyes Beckon Me To The Past, But Memory Provides No Clue.

Modernism: The Books Are As Hard To Understand As Life Itself.

The Noisy Vacancy Of Youth, The Quiet Vacancy Of Age.

Young Poets Bewail The Passing Of Love; Old Poets, The Passing Of Time. There Is Surprisingly Little Difference.

Lovers Never Want To Say "i Love You" At The Same Moment. Hence All The Love Stories.

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

Thought Maps Existence; Fantasy Colors It.

After An Argument, Silence May Mean Acceptance Or The Continuation Of Resistance By Other Means.

The Critic Roams Through Culture, Looking For Prey.

As A Youth, I Sought Out Decadence; As An Elder, I Try To Avoid Decay.

The More Powerless People Are, The Longer They Are Kept Waiting.

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

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

The Beginning Sets The Rules.

A Skyscraper Is A Boast In Glass And Steel.

No Chaos, No Creation. Evidence: The Kitchen At Mealtime.

Our Punning Minds Rejoin What Logic Has Separated.

Against Classical Philosophy: Thinking About Eternity Or The Immensity Of The Universe Does Not Lessen My Unhappiness.

If I Had Found The Words I Was Looking For, I Would Not Have Read So Much.

In New York, One Must Collapse To Be Indolent.

The Philosophy Of Hedonism Means Little To Lovers Of Pleasure. They Have No Inclination To Read Philosophy, Or To Write It.

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

You Are So Tactful That I Have No Idea What You Want.

Like Love, Grief Fades In And Out.

Perhaps Fortunately, No One Has Ever Found Out What It Would Be Like To Have All His Wishes Fulfilled.

Nobody Likes To Offer Stupidity As An Excuse.

Vanity Well Fed Is Benevolent. Vanity Hungry Is Spiteful.

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

Children Enjoy Inflicting Pain Until Unhappiness Teaches Them Tenderness.

Realism Absorbs The Ideal By Adding A Few Small Imperfections. Example: It Paints A Few Specks Of Mud On The White Gown Of The Lady In The Garden.

The Beginning Of Self-knowledge: Recognizing That Your Motives Are The Same As Other People's.

Comedy Is Hostile To Profundity, And Brings Everything To The Surface.

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

In Psychoanalysis, Only The Fee Is Exactly What It Seems To Be.

The Extravagance Of Intellect Outstrips The Extravagance Of Desire.

My Strengths Make Me Contemptuous. My Weaknesses Make Me Charitable.

Like Other High Subjects, The Law Gives No Ground To Common Sense.

I Am Only Interested In Money Because Everyone Else Is.

In Philosophy, The Principles Are More Interesting Than The Examples. In Literature, The Examples Are More Interesting Than The Principles.

Was There A Little Time Between The Invention Of Language And The Coming Of True And False?

All History And Art Are Against Us, But We Still Expect Happiness In Love.

History And Art

Expensive Advertising Courts Us With Hints And Images. The Ordinary Kind Merely Says, Buy.

Politicians Love Change, But Of Details Only.

Disappointment Proves That Expectations Were Mistaken.

The Realism Of Failure, The Romance Of Success.

Every Literary Critic Believes He Will Outwit History And Have The Last Word.

Without A Little Negligence, Life Would Be Intolerable.

Don't Stare Into A Mirror When You Are Trying To Solve A Problem.

Unlike The Ambiguity Of Life, The Ambiguity Of Language Does Reach A Limit.

The Haiku Lets Meaning Float; The Aphorism Pins It Down.

Every Parent Can Imagine The Joys Of Child Abuse.

Idleness Makes People Feeble And Peevish. Work Makes Them Stalwart And Prone To Anger.

If A Problem Is Insoluble, It Is Necessity. Leave It Alone.

We Understand Through Resemblance.

Unlike The Actual, The Fictional Explains Itself.

When Science Drove The Gods Out Of Nature, They Took Refuge In Poetry And The Porticos Of Civic Buildings.

Unemployment Diminishes People. Leisure Enlarges Them.

One's Fetishes Are Fascinating, But Not Because Of Their Beauty Or Significance. The Same Could Be Said For One's Genitals, Or One's Children.

The Aphorism Sometimes Casts Off Cynicism And Expresses Strong Feeling.

Symbolism Erects A Facade Of Respectability To Hide The Indecency Of Dreams.

While We Are Reading, We Are All Don Quixote.

We Worship The Aesthetic, But We Do Not Have Faith In It.

Journalism Never Admits That Nothing Much Is Happening.

Moralists Love To Discourse On The Hollowness Of Success; About The Hollowness Of Failure They Are Silent.

The Truths I Shun Follow Me, Mumbling.

Pornography And Cooking Shows Have Created Two New Spectator Sports.

Mathematics: Silent Harmonies. Music: Sounding Numbers.

The Meaning Of Today Will Not Be Clear Until Tomorrow.

I Have Tried Being Surreal, But My Frogs Hop Right Back Into Their Realistic Ponds.

Boredom Turns To Panic If My Beloved Leaves Before The Usual Time.

When Medusa Looks In The Mirror, She Sees The Lady Of Sorrows.

Our Detachments Move Us Toward Freedom And Death.

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