Quotes by Jon K. Hart wisdom epigrams maxims sayings
Quotes by Jon K. HART

THE BEST THINGS I EVER SAID!
and 60+ more!
Some definitions in our Dictionary qualify too.
And see Quotes on Love and identity --half by JKH.)
And see Grampaw Grouch, too.)

(All copyright JKH; permission given to use,
but only with attribution.
Paraphrases & precedents are noted.)
Up-date: Oct 12, 08: Click to skip down to the funny stuff.

The latest:

  • When choosing your beliefs... If you believe that 45% of people are stupid, and 45% are merely ignorant, a compromise between their beliefs is not the wisest stance!
  • Courage is easy if you're in enough denial!
  • Ambition will take you far. Too much ambition will destroy you before you get there.
  • Every dangerous precedent began with small tempting advantages.
  • A huge temporary good can easily be outweighed by a small but long-term harm/evil.
  • Too much of what you think you know is what you've convinced yourself is true --for subconcious reasons.
  • Ignoring a fact does not change the fact.
  • You can accumulate so much stuff that you hafta start buyin' stuff you already have, because you can't find it among your other stuff!
  • The path to enlightenment is thru disidentification, & identification w "the larger self" --Gaia.
  • You cannot realize who you are until you realize that it doesn't matter, and all is lost.
  • Homo Sapiens is not the self-aware one, but is the one with that *potential.
  • Part of any good plan has to be that plans have to be able to change.
  • If a result was not from a decision of yours, it was a happenstance, not an accomplishment. You may feel fortunate, but not proud. Or... you may feel unfortunate, but not guilty.
  • Women nest --men den.
  • You want to be tolerant, but you want not to tolerate an evil; but to do that, you first have to judge it to be evil --then you're judgemental!
  • When we find out about how intelligent other species actually are... it's much like Mark Twain's story about the kid who went off to college, and when he came back, was surprised at how wise and smart his Dad had become!
  • Make any advice as short as possible, 'cause they're tryin' to not hear it!
  • "Mad" and "angry" have totally different meanings, but the fact that people confuse them tells us much about the similarities in outward appearance, and the inappropriateness and futility of anger.
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    1. This, I think, is my #1 best (it's quoted all over the web):
      The essence of wisdom is to maintain suspicion about what you want to be true. And *most suspicious of what you most want to be true. The same can be said: The essence of the Scientific Method, or Zen....
      . . An extraordinary desire, then, requires extraordinary suspicion. And to paraphrase a current thought (not mine), so as to contrast the above: The essence of stupidity is to exactly repeat an action and expect a different result.
      . . Easy version: Beware of the beliefs that you want to be true!

      Remain open to the possibility that things may be as we want them not to be. Examine your desires.

    2. . Wisdom is incomplete before the contemplation and acceptance of the Ultimate Threat --death. Enlightenment may be the culmination of a preliminary version of DABDA --Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. I wanna throw in: "disidentification"! ...as #4 or 5.
    3. Nothing can prevent you from learning the truth so much as the belief that you already know it. What you want to believe is too easy to believe. You can't just have a nice idea & call it truth 'cause you feel so strongly about it. A debate should be decided by the quality of the evidence, not by the intensity of opinion about it. Lack of proof is not proof of falsity (that line after Sagan). The lack of a definitive explanation does not invalidate the existing data. A simple mind feels that *their lack of understanding constitutes disproof in itself! They think that their failure to understand an idea... is proof that the idea is wrong.
    4. SUPERSTITION: To observe a simple reality in a complex system, and think you see a complex system in a simple reality --and assign an intention and motivation to the thing.
    5. Timidity is the mother of convention.
    6. Stability is not achieved by immobility --try to sit on an immobile bicycle!
    7. If you cannot develop & practice your own principles of ethics, you are not redeemed by asking an authority for commandments.
    8. In differing minds and methods, there is more ego than efficiency.
    9. Statistics require "miracles". (see miracle.html)
      . . It would be a miracle if things which fools would call miracles did *not happen.
      . . Assumptions are guaranteed to be wrong in some kind or degree.
    10. Ignorance is the first and last enemy of man.
    11. A 4AM wakeup-thot: Short version: In our sicks and psychs, we regain all but a bit of our losses, and retain only a bit of our gains. The remains define our character.
      . . (Long:) In our sicknesses and psychologies, we regain all but a bit of our losses, and retain only a bit of our gains. In the accumulation of those leftovers, leaden and light, some cancel out, and their weight and balance --and how we deal with them-- is both the baggage and the character of our lives.
    12. "Hart's Deadly Virtue Law: Evil is done in proportion to initiative and ignorance multiplied by righteousness multiplied by altruism and again by orthodoxy. The best I can say it is this: The greatest of evils, indeed, perhaps all evils, are compounded of accidents of birth or circumstance, of ignorance, of ego, and of virtue taken to prideful extreme." (after Forrest Church, UU minister, in a Bill Moyers TV interview.)
      That last (virtue to excess) is by far the major source of evil. These things compound not by addition, but multiply each other; a negative synergy. More harm is done by those who try to help than by those who try to harm.
    13. Reading everything can make you wise. Believing everything you read can make you crazy.
    14. Having a common enemy makes for risky allies and fake friends.
    15. In contradiction... is a path to wisdom.
    16. The obstacles in your path are a necessary part of progress up the path.
    17. The extreme opposite of a bad thing is usually a bad thing too!
    18. Great ideas are ALWAYS ahead of their time --or they wouldn't BE great.
    19. If you agree completely with either side of any polarized issue, you are not well-informed, not thinking well, or both. The people that democracy should most fear are those who wave their own flag the hardest --even if it's your flag!
      . . (If every informed person disagrees with what I want to be true, it must be a conspiracy!)
    20. The fear of rockin' your boat will sometimes expose you to the rare wave that will swamp it.
    21. Hart's "One thing" corrolary: Given that you "can't do just one thing", consider that everything you see done also has prior causes, impinging factors, and multiple actors. Setting blame is arbitrary. So you can't observe just one thing, either.
    22. Orthodoxy is the opposite of toleration. . Even tolerance implies a judgement --that you judge it tolerable.
    23. To do good things (& avoid bad things) merely because you are told to... is not virtue.
      To scrupulously avoid all evil for a lifetime has not a shred of virtue in it... if it was done to comply with an order, or for the approval of another (explicit or assumed).
      Virtue is not a perpetual fight against an intrinsic evil. It is merely awareness! ...awareness of how we (each, or as a planet) are better off with this action, not that one.
    24. The stronger a person's self-image of virtue, the greater the evil they are capable of.
    25. Sin is incongruity... not "at one" with your basic nature. The greater our idealism, the greater & more often we feel "sin". This is a good thing.
    26. If you want communion with the world, you must also take some responsibility for all the evils of the world, because you share the DNA of those who do it. The genes that influence others . influence you too.
    27. Doing what you're told is not a search for truth! Believing what you're told is irresponsible.
    28. Discussion is the whetstone for sharpness of mind! That takes grit of various textures. / Sharpening doesn't happen without friction (but welcome it).
      . . So go! --Boldly think where you have never thought before!
    29. An open mind, like an open door, lets a lot of trash blow in along with the good stuff. If you want to keep it open, you have the con-committment to sweep the trash back out. To keep an open mind, you must throw the trash out of the way!
    30. All the religions think that everybody else's idea of God is wrong, and they're all probably right.
    31. Something not in resistance to a force does not feel that force. (It's not just physics --there's something very Zen in that!) So... resistance is futile. Personally, you may acknowledge the force and not feel pushed, if you accept that that direction is the best way to go! If you push, you'll lose your balance.
    32. A saint is one upon whom some kind of power is thrust (probably against their will)... and is not corrupted.
    33. Tact is the interface between suppression and honesty. Ideally: the careful expression of obvious feedback, sometimes with anger in the foreground, but with some obvious love or kindness in the background.
    34. Without suppression, a desire is a decision.
    35. There's far less difference between people's sex-drives than there is in their different *suppressions* of drive.
    36. Caution; many steppingstones lead DOWNwards.
      . . That "absolute power corrupts absolutely" tells us not just about politics or evil people, but about the human condition, and --most importantly-- what to watch out for in one's self. . Avoid power. Power corrupts, therefore the wise person avoids power --in others AND himself or his groups --even nations.
      . . It's safer to have *fictional heroes.
    37. Teach a child the important things with much simple speech. Teach an adult the important things with much profound silence --because, #1: you don't know --which is a good thing to tell them. #2: you think you know --which is a terrible thing to teach them, because you (& I) probably don't.
    38. Dictator/bully: A coward, psychopath, or paranoid with power.
    39. Most people wait till the crowd makes up their minds, while the crowd waits for a charismatic leader to make up theirs!
    40. What lacks criticism never lacks corruption. (Be it a person or huge institution.) There is no uncriticized power that does not practice abuses of it.
    41. Most people think that they don't need religion, or ethics --just going to church is enough. (after many)
      . . Religion is often a mask on fear.
      . . Contraception --the Pill vs "rythm method": you intend to do something that a religious law says you can't. If they say you can accomplish the exact same thing in another way, aren't they saying that the intention was ok in the first place?! Isn't intention the essential thing here?
      . . Most people go to church in a desperate search for things God agrees with them about! BUT... if He hates the same people you do, it's a sign you made up your version of "him"!
    42. If it takes a suppressive effort to believe, then that effort is not laudable, it's laughable. An effort to understand, however, is laudable. To even begin to understand, there must be evidence to contemplate.
      . . In the face of contrary evidence, increasing the strength of your conviction does not improve the validity or quality of that belief --it only increases its foolishness! If there's no proof of A or B, it's exactly as foolish to say A exists as B, even if A is later proven to exist.
    43. There's no degree of ignorance that can't be compounded by the desire not to understand. Many people are the trees they can't see the forest for. (...and don't even want a clue!) It's a waste of energy to debate with someone whose philosophy needs to misunderstand yours, or whose points depend on ignoring the proven evidence.
      . . Dropping out of an argument is not losing the argument, even if the other party thinks it is.
      . . Few things are not a matter of degree.
    44. Doubt is the skill by which we become adults. When doubt is killed, dogma of all kinds can grow & fester in the mind. It's self-defeating to start with a mere belief, and forever carefully seek only the answers that won't blow your belief apart.
      . . You cannot really know or understand something until you have first doubted it... thoroughly and actively.
    45. The mere existence of a result does not prove any certain conjecture as to its cause.
    46. Just because you have no doubts doesn't mean you know anything.
    47. An answer phrased as a probability does not require an act of faith, which is why I reject any other answer. ... Perhaps it is just the degree of probability that determines what is 'faith'.
    48. A strong belief in anything will have an effect, thus proving the effect of the belief, but nothing about the truth of the belief.
    49. An axiom is either a well-said truth, or a lie so sacred that it has never dared be questioned.
    50. Conception clouds or colors perception. (What you already think about "it" determines or modifies what you see when you look at it. Perception is pure; concepts corrupt it.) If you can't take your self out of it, you can't be part of it! To the degree that you see the symbol, you've missed the real thing. To perceive, de-conceive.
      . . Reality, science, and Gaia/Zen spirituality have this in common: that all see things as nature insists they are, rather than as modified by the trip thru human perceptions and pre-conceptions and mis-conceptions.
    51. Desire to believe is not reason to believe. (Your need for X to be true does not help it be true.)
    52. Scientifically, a premise can be taken by logic to a lesser uncertainty, but at the same time, never get an iota closer to a greater certainty.
    53. The fear that creates an authoritarian: "If I don't control everything, then, by definition, everything will be out of control!"
    54. Conformity is tyranny --even if you're the policeman of and against yourself.
    55. Oppression creates obsession. ...especially when a natural drive is oppressed. ("Suppression" fits too)
    56. Often, one concentrates on molehills of problems, so as to avoid seeing the mountains! (Is this proof of a degree of obsession?)
    57. All Psychotherapy should be based on socio-biology.
    58. Anything less than a psycho-therapeutic interaction involves some degree of platitude-avoidance. (& deception?)
    59. A dramatic imagined/dreamed experience can be as psychologically damaging as a less-dramatic real experience.
    60. Every change toward your desires makes you more individual; every "should" you accept makes you less so. Full individuality (enlightenment?) requires having no shoulds.
    61. In life, your attitude determines a good part of your altitude.
    62. People cannot agree --in fact, they cannot disagree-- unless all the terms are defined.
    63. Philosophy is little more than defining your terms. Many philosophers keep their jobs, or sell books, by inventing new terms for others to understand.
    64. A hermit is one who can live with guilt and isolation easier than with shame and society.
    65. The fool may surpass the genius in his awe of the ineffable.
    66. A sad truth has more value than an exciting lie. (after Maeterlinck)
    67. It takes a touch of decay to reveal the character in a person or place.
    68. There is no challenge, no delight, in the effort toward a sure thing.
    69. A self-definition is also a self-limitation. Be not a person only of your own era, situation, or geography. Be effected by --& relate to-- everybody, everywhere, every-when. Be of more than one culture, and revel in yet others.
      THE REST OF THE BEST
    70. It's amazing how many interpersonal problems would be simply solved:
      . . Hart's two basic communication rules:
      . . If you wanna know what someone else knows... ASK them!
      . . If you want someone else to know what you know... TELL them!
    71. Something gained gives you something to lose.
    72. To paraphrase Arthur Clarke, "Any species of sufficiently advanced evolution is indistinguishable from a god." [debatable, sure.]
    73. Much better: Any coincidence, given enough time to happen, is indistinguishable from magic. (after Arthur C. Clarke. His: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is...")
    74. Given the extreme age of the universe, any life that exists is very likely to be either like bacteria... or gods.
    75. You never know when your next chance will be your last chance.
    76. Enlightenment requires a state of UN-(not DIS)-belief, a kind of a healthy fugue state; an "unconcerned doubt". It requires a rejection of requirements! And an unconcern about rejections. And a lack of thought about being unconcerned....
    77. It's ten times harder to change a belief than it was to accept it in the first place.
      It's 100 times times harder to unlearn a "fact" than it was to learn it in the first place. Paraphrase of (Josh Billings?): "It ain't whatcha don't know that's the most trouble, it's whatcha know that akshuly ain't so."
    78. Geography enculturates. (The environment determines much of people's activities.)
    79. The difference between a career and a job . is much like the difference between a wedding proposal and a proposition!
    80. I am becoming a better man... very slowly. I'm timing it so that I'll be just perfect on the day I die!
      . . We all choose our deaths ...at least, between old age and pot luck.
      . . If you cannot learn to live, learn to die faster. Of what use is dying so slowly?
      . . (If by no other,) Our graves are dug by the hands of the clock.
    81. A first marriage is just for practice. The license for a first marriage should be more like a learner's permit!
    82. Prose transmits ideas; poetry conveys feelings, passions, understanding.
    83. Both language and art are attempts to recreate in another person... the ideas and emotions of the speaker or artist. As language is a medium of communication of ideas --perhaps with emotion behind them-- art is a medium of communication of emotions --perhaps with ideas behind them. Sometimes, as provocation, the ideas behind the emotion is obscured. That is abstract art.
    84. Power unbalances, and absolute power unbalances absolutely. (after Lord Acton, obviously)
    85. Mystery? Absence of evidence is not mysterious or exciting.
    86. A fact --a mere datum-- may throw a new & different light upon a thing, that shows it to be more than what it first seemed by eye --or even something not at all what it seemed.
    87. Deprivation enables! (ahhhh... kinda hurts my brain...!)
    88. Your illusion of separateness is merely that your nerves extend only as far as your skin.
    89. "I" am not really the body, even the brain --I am just the awareness.
    90. Over-thought can impose a false order onto reality.
      Awareness accepts nature's order. Thinking is over-rated.
    91. Full awareness of reality is the greatest prayer and adoration.
    92. Reality is never what you imagine. (i.e. if it's your imagination, it can't be reality. Get it?)
    93. What is the truth? That you cannot know the truth, including this one.
    94. Defining terms the hair-splitting way: What is "faith" but a vow not to ask reality about its true nature (via scientific test/logic). Faith --in anything-- is purposeful, voluntary ignorance.... in support of some fantasy. (distinguished from "trust")
      . . Faith is a baseless belief in something you merely want to be true. ("Baseless" meaning "no evidence for it".) This confuses mere desire with fact, which any intelligent person can see past.
    95. A person enslaved is --by default-- morally superior to the enslaver. This goes for not only literal slavery, but for that of the mind as well --propagandists take note.
    96. The trouble with virtue is that there's not enuf temptation in it!
    97. Mysticism was the first virtual-reality.
    98. Those with their heads in the sand also seem to have sand in their heads! (like a line I saw somewhere.)
    99. Superstition is a baseless belief in something you're afraid might be true. Maybe a weak believer will do something in his life differently --to conform-- just in case. This is the very definition of hypocrite.
    100. Religion so often gets in the way of spirituality.
    101. Spirituality is a feeling of awe automatically engendered by superstitious fear --or-- engendered by contemplation of something grand in a different way than yourself-- such as nature.
    102. To vastly over-simplify, "enlightenment" might be an awareness of the pure reality that is hidden from our awareness by the colors of our preconceptions. (I know, ya gotta read that a couple times, but it's worth it.)
      Would you want to hear: "I'll do as you say because you got the gun"? . "I'll do as you say because I was told to"?
      Wouldn't you rather hear: "I'll consider doing as you say because you are a good and wise person." Wouldn't any sane conception of a god would want the same from you?
    103. It is courage: to speak your convictions when all others have sold theirs. (A "sale" may be all interior --to a facet of the personality in greater denial. e.g.: a fundamentalist who learns about evolution, and would believe it, except that his greater, given "belief" is in contradiction.)
    104. Be a pilgrim, not a colonist. (See "Avoiding Decisions")
    105. An independent person cannot feel abandoned;
      a secure person cannot feel rejected.
    106. Metaphor: what was the spontaneous development of life on Earth but... a virgin birth?!
    107. People criticize TV's sound-bite mentality. But what's the classic Bartlett's Quotations but a collection of sound-bites on paper?
    108. Never read or eat faster than you can digest. I learned how to read in my single-digit years, but how to digest it only much later. (I let some of it pass much faster than others.)
    109. Intuition is worthless, because all but 2% of it is foolishness. To know which 2%... is genius!
    110. There should be NO science textbooks --at least no hardback ones.
    111. Understanding does not prove forgiveness; but forgiveness necessitates understanding. Understanding is the greater part of forgiveness, understanding gives respect, and respect is the greater part of love.
      Love is the assurance of empathic caring and passion for and from someone whose happiness is stimulated by your own. (NOT the desperate need to be desperately needed.)
    112. Happiness is a subset of simple satisfaction.
    113. Giving respect... earns respect. The best way to get it is to give it.
    114. Realizing the humanity of others . expands our own.
    115. Know others, so that you might understand yourself.
      Every decision you make is also a decision about who you are, who you will be, and who you won't be. You're not required to be who you were. There's mud at the bottom of ruts. So don't dwell IN your problems --as on a bumpy road, the ride is often smoother at higher speed.
    116. Would it be worth starting a relationship that would not be painful to end?
    117. Jealousy is the surest way to lose what you fear losing. Censorship is a sure way to get more of what you are working to get rid of.
    118. There's a dilemma in taking great "pride" in the fact that one has achieved "humility"!
    119. Money isn't everything, but it's ahead of whatever's in third place!
    120. We are all cynical enough to less appreciate what we get too cheaply or easily.
    121. Most hate is externalized self-hate. And, to some degree, so is resentment and opinionated criticism.
    122. Paranoia is vanity run amok!
    123. Mass humanity might be better known as Homo Sophomore (wise-fool).
    124. Man is the measure, but only of arrogance.
    125. The poverty of riches: we have more means than ends. Happiness requires not only having the means to your ends, but knowing the ends to use your means to get to!
    126. You and/or your teacher have failed if, in class and ever after, you are only a pupil. The best teachers stimulate our natural brain-hunger, then show how we can satisfy it.
      . .
    127. Mankind is divided less by oceans and deserts, than by accidental beliefs in nations and religions.
    128. We can seldom prevent a current war, or next year's... only those of the next decade. You cannot win a war you're in. From fistfights to World Wars, combatants are divided only into big losers and lesser losers!
    129. That person is free who would be the author of the laws he lives by.
    130. To change a person, or society, find what they need (not want) and fulfill it!
    131. Nature's big double-bind on reproduction/over-population:
      "You must do what, if you're very successful at, may kill you all!"
    132. All life is a parasite of the photon particle & the chlorophyl molecule (one to many times removed). . What good are we to the molecule, or to any animal in between the photon and our esophagus?
    133. Hart's Postulate: Postulates cannot be defined. (?!)
    134. Memories are role-regressors. Going back takes you back.
    135. To feel in such a way that you could not possibly find words for the feeling --that is something!
    136. Each human grouping differs in culture --not just from cultures beside it-- but from the group it includes, or includes it --therefore, I am somewhat a "culture of one".
    137. The bigger the city, the weaker the community.
    138. I like civilization, that's why I'm revolted by big cities.
    THE LIGHTER SIDE
    1. (Especially in the midwest..) Hart's Goodbye Law: You must say goodbye at least three times before you can actually leave or hang up.
    2. I'm nothing if not concise. However, I usta try so hard to be even more concise, that I conveyed nothing.
    3. The hole is part of the doughnut. If there was no doughnut... what would you call the hole? And why? And how would you know where it was?!
    4. All men should issue a blanket apology for even having been teenagers.
    5. My wife likes to talk to me after sex, but if I'm not in the mood, I just leave my cellfone off! (after Rodney Dangerfield.)
    6. "I think my paranoia's out to get me!" (It's a double, y' see --self-proving.)
    7. Things are sure to get worse as soon as we think they can't, and give up trying to prevent them getting worse.
      . . Hey; things are sure to level off... as soon as they hit bottom!
    8. I'm gonna start a procrastinator's club... someday.
    9. When a "project" fails, it was an "experiment".
    10. Is there a "fluous" that isn't "super"?

    11. A perfectionist makes great pains.
      An ascetic tolerates great pains.
      A pessimist amplifies great pains... and gives them to other people.
      A sadist just gives great pains to other people.
      A masochist likes great pains.

    12. Pains are not comparable. ("Any pain fills" ~Logotherapy author)
    13. A menial sin is naughty, but can be fun if you work at it.
    14. Till recently, in the proposing and accepting of marriage, he made his first big decision just as she made her last!
    15. Genitals are merely like belly-buttons; some are innies, some are outies!
    16. Sex without committment feels like a bed without blankets; a saddle without a horse. (Or is it a horse without a saddle? Ya get a ride, but it hard to stay there!)
    17. In the more important ways, the U.S. seems impoverished by its wealth.
    18. Too many people think: It is better to give than perceive problems. (A Bierce-y definition!)
    19. As a pessimist: Humans will do nothing but right only when they haven't the power to do wrong.
    20. If ya don't really need it, it can't be cheap enuf.

    All original to JKH, except as noted.

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