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APHORISMS (1)

I devised the name "Punks" to describe those of my invented "pithy" sayings that were a cross between puns and witticisms in aphoristic form.  Here is a first selection.  Link to the second selection is located at the foot of this page.

These are all, to the best of my knowledge and memory, original, but I accept that after more than half a century of amassing quotations, I may have indulged in flattery by plagiarism, in which case my thanks and acknowledgements to the original sources, who may themselves, of course, not have been truly original.

Advice that is free is worth every penny.

 Advice that is free is overpriced.

 Hard work avoided is often opportunity missed.

 A bird in the hand . . . can be very embarrassing

 He who can does, he who cannot plagiarises.

 Many are culled but few are frozen.  

                              Some Counter-injunctions

 Don't be blinded by musterbation.

 Clear your mind of can't.

 Make war on won't.

 Don't communicate oughtism.

 They say?  Who they?

 When you know you’re in the right you can afford to keep your cool; when you suspect you may be in the wrong, you can’t afford to lose it.

 Now that I’ve discarded expectorations, spats are a thing of the past, he said phlegmatically.

 Is curtship sex without foreplay? Or little ado about something

 The Battle Hymn of the Republic deals with the grapes of wrath;

the Book of Esther deals with the gripes of Ruth.

 The smaller the purse, the more vicious the fight.

 With some people you spend time, with others you invest it.

 “They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old” might have been said by Tony Benn of New Labour.

 I remember the time when Microsoft meant a miniscule flaccid male organ.

 He who hesitates gains a stitch in time.

 A stitch in time . . . ravels the furl’d knot of sleep.

 Isn’t it ironic how often a yes-man makes a negative contribution.

 The flower smells sweetest when it’s about to die.

 The worst timekeepers always have the best excuses.

 Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental

 When you get right down to it, the question that remains is: “Am I going to be up to it?”

 Fishing for a complement (may be said of any practitioner)

 Stay flexible.  Become too rigid and you lose your holisticity. 

The simile stayed frozen on her lips.

 Life was composed of a series of days filled with countless unforgiving moments

 Life is all stings and gadabouts

 The incurable in pursuit of the unendurable.

 Listen to the harmony as well as the notes.

 Some ethnic kosher restaurants have opened in Golders Green:

Thai: Chuts Pah

Japanese: So Su Mi

Indian: Kashmir in Toches

Brazilian: Villa Lobbos

Turkish: Oy veh Izmir.

 Heidi Fisher advert: "Executive Club for quality Jewish" could make me seriously anti-semantic.

 There is life after Beth!

Beth: where is thy sting?

The gripes of Ruth

 When life hands out freebies, keep an eye open for the invoice.

He kept his head while all about were losing theirs'. - and - He ended up a foot taller than everyone else.

A mini conversation may be more effective than a talking jag.

 We diminish our case when we increase our words.

 You hear what I'm saying, but are you listening?

A surface concern may disguise a deep-rooted anxiety.

 I'm Much Better [Title of article on communication]

 By giving an illness a name we run the risk of treating the symptom rather than the cause.   The act of identification may seem to be sufficient in itself.

 If we listen too hard, we are liable to hear our own thoughts.

The most insidious form of flattery is self-deception.

I have just written my own obituary.  It reads: "I intend to live long enough to read this obituary notice."

There is an involuntarily arrogant assumption on the part of computer buffs and internet users that everybody is as "connected" as themselves.  The truth is that they form a very small minority of the world's population and probably are unable to access anybody else of similar interest other than that of computers and the Internet.

 Getting up a head of self esteem.

 If it hurts, why do it?

 The art of modelling: It's all done with mirrors (or: What you see is What you get).

 Yesterday is a memory; tomorrow is a dream; today is reality.  

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