Marx Karl - A dictionary of thought

Surely their response to given impulses was undue, strikingly undue, in the eyes of living mediocrities. The nights of the truly outstanding are inhabited by demons, idols and visions. But without their fantasies and dreams, a dull place the normal era would be. Treat gently the abnormal; he may carry some subtle talent under the cloud of his peculiarities. ABOLITIONISM The white man took willingly the black man as burden, but hesitates to take him as friend. ABSENCE Makes a good seasoning but a poor staple.

Absence increases fondnessand ends in forgetfulness. THE ABSOLUTE As far as morals are concerned, what matters is only our awareness that they are relative to time, place and government. ACCEPTANCE By hasty multitudes is a point against rather than for an ism. ACCIDENTS Man proposesand a blind goddess disposes. ACTIONS Speak loud but sometimes a whisper is more welcome. ADHERENCE Preconceived notions are the hardest to give up.

ADJUSTMENT The adjusted are so completely oriented within themselves that nothing can penetrate that wall of egocentricity except what they chew and digest. ADMIRATION Is a balm when known, an offense when shown. Who fails to admire will never love. ADOLESCENCE Neither infancy nor childhood, but adolescence is decisive in the making of man. The tastes, physical and mental, fostered in those days will determine the rest of the living years. ADVENTURE Nothing is more intriguing than the soul of a fellow man.

Man will search for starlings in foreign lands and pay no heed to the lark at home. The greatest adventures are experienced in the soul of man, not across oceans or deserts. ADVERSITY Is Gods helpmate and the Devils handmaiden. ADVICE Is poor service indeed if given by those who lack sense of direction. Advice should be given by the example of the accomplished, not by ones own meager experience. AFFECTATION They act like characters in a book, only they read the wrong book.

AFFECTION Affection is the only cure for a lonely soul. AGE Is but one step from youth. Let the flippant remember they may even fumble that one. Age is a time for work, since most of the pleasures of youth have guttered out. Mans true age lies in the life span ahead of him, not the span behind him. Age is no cause for veneration.

An old crocodile is still a menace and an old crow sings not like a nightingale. Age is wasted on the tired. It is the most precious time of life. Wisdom grows with the years but not in a barren soul. Gray hair is a sign of age, not wisdom. Some days we are ten years older than on others.

A fool gets more hardened with age, a wise man gentler. The greatest tragedy of old age is to live on into a generation without peers. AGGRESSION How quick the sand of life runs out, and even the wasting is made doleful by mans impatient eristics. AGNOSTIC A timid person attempting to hide his insecurity under a metaphysical cloak. He is gnostic about himself but agnostic about everything else. AGRICULTURE Is a profession, not a way of life.

AHIMSA This, the Hindu principle of non-killing of cows and other animals, has led to the killing of hundreds of thousands of Indian Moslems who ignored it. How often a religious tenet so drifts away from the original spirit that it leads to its opposite. ALCHEMY Superstition of yesteryear is the science of today. What science of our time will be the superstition of tomorrow? Laugh not at yesterday; tomorrow may have the laugh on you. ALCOHOLISM Societys legitimatized drug addiction. ALMS Were the early expression of social consciousness.

The man who refused alms then is the cynic of our era. AMATEUR It is by the quality of his mistakes that you recognize the amateur. AMBITION Is a mongrel seed. You never know what will come of it until it is too late: the tree of life or poison ivy. Great ambition has sometimes destroyed the one it possessed, but raised mankind a step or two. AMERICA Was erected with material that the builders had rejected: adventurers, refugees, criminals, bonded persons, slaves, the hunted and the outcasts.

Its glory is the nimbus that forever hazes about the down-trodden. America has freed the world and the world cannot forgive her for that. AMUSEMENT Is the keyhole through which you can watch man unobserved. ANCESTOR WORSHIP May not only lead youth to search amid their heritage for the lasting values, but may tend to make older people prove their virtues by todays deeds. ANCESTRY Is something we all have, but an odd few insist upon it as their very own. ANGELS May be a figment of imagination, but devils are for real; I have met too many of them to doubt it.

Angels are in the heavens, I am sure, because there are deeds done by mortals that are difficult to explain by the mortal nature of man. The angels of self-sacrifice and everlasting devotion, of courage and tendernessthey must be fluttering about in the winds high above, sometimes taking on the face of man and his flesh. Why did the Lord make so few winged ones and so many that crawl? I dont know if the angels have wings; I am sure the devils do, they move about so fast. ANGER Who never feels anger never cares. Anger is the big brother of compassion. ANIMAL A tiger may be ferocious but only man carries grudges from kin to kid.

Man has succeeded in cowing almost every beast except his fellow man. Animals have no conscience. If they did, they would be better than people. Animals we all are, but they live for today, we for a tomorrow. ANTICIPATION Nothing really ever happens; anticipation is its own reward. ANTIQUITY They talk down its glory to flatter their own drabness.

APOLOGY People will apologize for stepping on each others toes, but not for crushing each others hearts. APPAREL The drab tunic of the proletarian dictators is no less offensive a mockery of good taste than the gaudy uniforms of the sheiks of Araby. APPARITIONS Frighten us no more. No ghosts can match the horrible deeds of those this side the grave. APPETITE At the table of life some few forget in their hasty grab for wealth that shrouds have no pockets. APPLAUSE Plays the Siren on the ocean of life, sweet lips and subtle poison.

Alexander, Attila, Hitler, Stalineach sacrificed a generation on the altar of vanity. Some can handle it and are stimulatedothers just get drunk. APPROVAL By a fool is worse than rejection by a sage. ARGUMENT Those who are dead-set to win are likely to mark their cards. A knave can win over a sage, if a fool is the referee. The philosophical mind never wishes to win an argument, but rather the truth.

Argument is a sure sign of conversation gone sour. Some argue to prove a point, others to prove themselves. ARISTOCRACY Leaning on ancestors proves most often that aristocracy hardly ever outlasts its first generations. A horse does not become a thoroughbred by chewing its bats without snorting, nor a man by genteel handling of knife and fork. What was good in aristocracies is long disappeared and what is left is good for nothing. There are no old families.