Snippets of Wisdom ADVICE FOR ALL AGES FROM THE SAGE OF SAGES
Joseph Mileck Pensive Oasis Press
Table of Contents 1 The Beginning
2 Age of Exploration
3 Age of Relationships
4 Age of Reason
5 The Final Chapter
Chapter 1
the
Beginning
1 The Beginning
If they know not better, teach them better.
4
Dawn means struggle and twilight promises rest. ~ An only child is a lonely child. ~ Human beings are larvae not butterflies. ~ In childhood all is novel, in old age all is habit. 5
1 The Beginning
Bad behavior rewarded is bad behavior perpetuated. ~ Teaching spells giving and learning spells growing. ~ If they know not better, teach them better. ~ To invest in education is to invest in the future. 6
To teach is to enlighten, to preach is to frighten. ~
To blame is to shame, to praise is to raise.
7
Chapter 11
Age of Exploration
2 Age of Exploration
Whatever you do will reflect you. ~ It is the different who make a difference. ~ Happiness comes from within and not from without. ~ Each is what each chooses to be. 10
Reality obligates and dream liberates.
11
2 Age of Exploration
But to play is to waste away. ~ To do takes effort and time, to wish takes neither. ~ Worm, squirm and learn. ~ Adversity can be both calamity and opportunity. 12
Life is reach not grasp. ~ Better to play fair and lose than to cheat and win. ~ To do well is to feel well. ~ Never to venture is never to fail and never to succeed. 13
2 Age of Exploration
Achievement should be coupled with service.
14
Tomorrows are shaped by todays. ~ Life is a thorny rosebush. ~ Work is invigorating, indolence is debilitating. ~ Not to know oneself is not to know others. 15
2 Age of Exploration
Persistence is a lever for every endeavor. ~ What one is is less important than what one does with what one is. ~ To fail to extend oneself is to fail. ~ Curiosity together with thought makes possibility of the impossible. 16
Nothing is possible or impossible until it is tried. 17
Chapter 111
Age of Relationships
3 Age of Relationships
Not to know oneself is not to know others. ~ If not at peace with the self, peace with the other is unlikely. ~ The self-relationship is the most important of human relationships. ~ Erotic love is short-sighted and intoxicating, platonic love is clear-sighted and exhilarating. 20
Comfort and solace are found in togetherness. Love is life’s leaven. ~ A love that possesses is a love that distresses. 21
3 Age of Relationships
A fight though won, leaves nothing done. Forgiveness is the milk of understanding. ~ Tomorrows are shaped by todays. ~ Empathy is a friendly bridge, antipathy is a hostile ridge. 22
It is the heard that is heeded and not the said. ~ Quarrel blinds, discussion binds. ~ Criticism invites antagonism. ~ Silence is very telling. 23
3 Age of Relationships
Kind words and helping hand praise and respect command. 24
Goodwill invites goodwill and malice breeds malice. ~ Enjoy agreement and appreciate disagreement. ~ To appease is not to solve but to please. ~ Know before passing judgment. 25
3 Age of Relationships
Good deeds spread good seeds. ~ Generosity leaves one with both less and more. ~ Laughter lightens and anger tightens. ~ Civility makes for tranquility. 26
Giving is twice rewarding. ~
To serve others is to serve the self.
27
Chapter 1v
Age of Reason
4 Age of Reason
Change is life’s sole constant. ~ To be too open-mined is to be empty-headed. ~ Some plants grow best in rocky soil, as do some humans in bitter toil. ~ Hope, laughter and sleep the blues at bay do keep. 30
To be just is always to be correct, To be correct is not always to be just. Struggle and strife are the stuff of life. ~ Less can be more and more can be less. 31
4 Age of Reason
Most work to live, some live to work. 32
Less can be more and more can be less. ~ To have everything is to have nothing. ~ Difference makes a difference. ~ Better a healthy mind and a healthy body than a healthy purse. 33
4 Age of Reason
Every change is a challenge. ~
A brain not used is a brain abused. ~ Life’s not meant to be a seamless revelry. ~ Struggle and strife are the stuff of life. 34
Improvement demands decision and movement. ~ To become more informed, more reflective and more humane is to become more human. ~ We do to learn and we learn to do. ~ To do takes effort and time, to wish takes neither. 35
4 Age of Reason
Look before you walk and think before you talk. ~ Each makes his/her own weather. ~ Sow and harvest, don’t just play and stray. ~ Let every day be for both work and play. 36
To be too certain is to be a curtain. ~
Treasure life for what it is and not for what it could be. 37
Chapter V
the
Final Chapter
5 The Final Chapter
Memory preserves what time destroys. ~ One can learn as long as one can squirm. ~ Rest is won when labor’s done. ~ Time is timeless. 40
Good health is true wealth. Everything comes and goes and nothing is here to stay. ~ Years alone wise do not make. 41
5 The Final Chapter
To mull is in due time to cull. ~ The passing years bring passing joys and passing tears. ~ Life has no U-turns. ~ Death is life’s most poignant reality. 42
For the old, the old is the familiar and the familiar is comfort. Time and memory distill what was the present. ~ Where there are shadows, there is light. 43
5 The Final Chapter
Don’t die before you are dead. Death is freedom, a release abhorred. ~ Self-realization is self-fulfillment. 44
The dead are not dead until they’re out of one’s head. ~ Death is life’s only certainty. ~ For death there is no cure. ~ Let live what wills to live, let die what cannot survive. 45
5 The Final Chapter
While all do age, 46
l
but few become sage. 47
Snippets of Wisdom was compiled by Mary Wheeler and designed by Julia Marsh. The booklet was first printed in Berkeley, California in an edition of 12 copies. Portions of Snippets of Wisdom have appeared throughout Joseph Mileck’s many published works and can be found on Amazon. Copyright 2017 Š by Joseph Mileck. All rights reserved.
for Joseph Mileck, Master Epigrammist on the occasion of his 95th birthday