Aphorisms (Castellano)

To mock Cervantes' character is to fall into redundancy. You don't need to be a Quixote to justify your existence, it would suffice not being part of the windmills.
I don't trust those who never have enough time to establish a dialog. I don't trust those who read and write in a lazy way. I don't trust those computer idiots who read line-by-line and take more than one paragraph as a presumptuous prose to justify that they are not able to catch the idea in a speech. I'd spend some more time in telling you why but I don't trust you.
Salvador Dalí said that to be a good painter you need to be a bit stupid. After twenty years dedicated to the music I ended up thinking the same about being a good musician. After more than half a life trying all kinds of people I came to the same conclusion about being a good person.
Living in the present: three days ago you decided to turn left. The day before yesterday you took the same decision, yesterday the same and the same today. Without realizing it, after a long ride, you are now in the same place as three days ago. But four days older.
Even being his right-hand man he wasn't able to shut up in front of the last arbitrary rule taken by the despotic leader.
“But, general…, why?!”
“Culture is in our ideals,” answered the dictator.
Fortunately, I've never witnessed it; being a child I was told that if you tie a cord with a can to the tail of a cat, the cat thinks that it's being chased and does not stop running until it falls dead. I find interesting to look for analogies in which a human being is the victim of this kind of deceit, especially in my own life, aware that fear often nests in ignorance. Surely I'd find more than one looking at the lives of those who enjoy doing that to a cat.
It's ever been unquestionable for me that the subject is, by far, more interesting than the object. In fact, if I had to leave right now the only I'd carry with me would be the nice memories of those moments I've shared with others without caring too much if working, dinning or playing cards. As an illustrative example: I've never found any sense in having sex with a prostitute. It'll seem a contradiction but—perhaps deceived as anyone by what psychologists call “projection”—I feel I'm talking objectively, from my own sane ambition and selfishness, therefore I suppose I'm not more mature than those who see others as simple utensils.
Curriculum Vitae: even those who threw the newborn baby into a dumpster experienced motherhood.
Since reason is my law, being right does nothing but frustrate me.
Lots of sayings, even biblical proverbs, discourage arguing with idiots. But don't follow this strictly unless you enjoy talking to yourself the whole day. Or writing.
Arguing for or against any religion is a nonsense—I assume everyone is able to understand this without further explanation. But don't blame yourself if you fall into this trap, it's not always easy to distinguish those who argue to clarify from those who do it to sell. At the end of the day, every argument ends up being swallowed by this “black hole” that religion is. In a world where “Why” and “What for” are conspicuous by their absence, headed by economy and seconded by politics, religion rules as it pleases, in some cases disguised as science, to look modern. We have enough history on our backs, enough empirical evidence that it's barely been a platonic dream: scientific thinking is never going to have the last word.
Who really understands current global status quo realizes that, in most cases, the constructive option is to stop constructing.
Distinguish the unnecessary to avoid useless movements towards better effectiveness. That's to be wise.
“It's easier to think negatively,” I heard someone to say. How does this theory explain most optimists are idiots?
I've lost count of how many tried to give me life lessons and teach me humility at the same time, even within a few minutes of meeting me!
The myth tells us Prometheus stole the sacred fire from the gods and gave it to his creation. Clearly he didn't act with “forethought” and well deserved Zeus' punishment: has there been man on Earth able to really benefit from power or, at least, to live amicably with it?
Unlike lawyers, politicians and people in general, a philosopher doesn't speak or argue to defend himself or his immediate benefit, it's not his goal to defeat an opponent, to win. A philosopher confronts truths like a kamikaze, aware that, whether renouncing worldly benefits or surrendering to an enemy, achieving his goal always means losing.
Your best friend was perhaps condescending; hiding how repulsive it was for him to discover that you had your own point of view, he simply pretended to listen.
An inexperienced young man tries to advise someone much older. After twenty years without seeing each other, they meet again, and the old man, to put the other to the test, reminds him of that talk. “I don't remember anything,” replied the young man, “if you do, it's surely because my advice was wise.”
Masturbation passed from being considered sick and shameful (even unhealthy, not so long ago) to embrace all aspects and levels of our existence.
Of course, in theory, everything done by humanity can justly be considered part of what we call culture. But what I personally and intimately prefer to believe that culture is (or should be), lives only in the consciousness of a few minds.
P.S. to Hobbyists: surely many programmers have suffered anecdotes similar or analogous to that of the famous free software guru with the printer in that artificial intelligence laboratory. However, the lack of freedom does not seem to affect most people at all.
It's funny to hear from a scientist that this or that species is at risk of extinction, even funnier are the supposed ecological measures many people propose and implement in this regard. For example, the case of a woman in Catalonia who claims to be saving a native goat from the area by breeding it on her farm and utilizing (commercializing) its meat and milk; “If you want to save a species, eat it,” she argues. Not to mention those who believe they're saving the dog by adopting it as a pet or the owner of a castrated cat who believes to help prevent abuse of animals by consuming soy burgers. Alas, my lost androids of modernity! The increasing process of degradation and destruction of life on this planet by our hands began thousands of years ago, when we became sedentary; the belief that any idea or measure born from us can reverse, slow down or palliate this process comes from the same misconception that generates it in a first instance.
“By their fruits ye shall know them,” said Matthew. Who would need faith if this judgment were fair!
It has always happened to me that when I have mastered a subject I don't need it anymore. God uses these tricks to remind us that we have no power or authority over anything. That's why it concerns me–despite I'm not too old–the feeling that I'm starting to learn how to live.
Do you want to play with advantage? Let them win!
God is a child. We are his toys.
It doesn't matter how much money you manage. Either stream or great river you'll just see the water pass by.
Not even a mother is unconditional. It's all about how you live, you coexist, you negotiate. Someone who in our eyes is intelligent in this sense may end up gaining our trust or even our loyalty.
My late mother used to say “Misery is not poverty.” Above livelihoods, skills and circumstances, folk knowledge condemns its neighbor for its psychology.
Simply put, the way men distort the truth to justify their vices and whims is disgusting.
I think my wife and I have been good parents. The proof is we decided not to have children.
Logic doesn't solve problems but abstraction. Amputating a leg simplifies your body but not your life.
How we're going to understand each other! A sparrow is killed by captivity, a canary by freedom.
Life taught me that to eat you have to kill, as well as that, in general terms, the one who really does the best for himself in the long run also benefits others.
For the prize “to be right” they compete, so they strut their knowledge in front of the audience. Oblivious to my motives, it baffles them not to see me bark, growl like them for that gnawed bone, they don't understand that for me to win is to be wrong, to grant. Then, naked, in front of myself, my prize is the Truth.
This has been a recurrent situation in my life: individuals who, not understanding me, have despised me, belittled me or even expressed feeling "pity" for me. A problem that is exhausted in itself has no solution, we can not help but feel pity for those who suffer from it, however these individuals have inspired me rather frustration.
The most experienced blacksmith won't be able to improve a hammer if he loses the notion of what it's useful for.
As someone with a strong vocation at an early age I realized that's not easy to find what you're looking for. You can spend half a life digging just to find out there is nothing there. So, even knowing that charlatanism and vice reign in this world, I don't hurry to belittle what is offered to me on the way.
The pattern changes not a minute before or one after but just when I begin to feel able to predict. And I don't speak of a specific occasion, this has always happened to me with everything throughout my life. How can I interpret this recurring experience that's not like the pat on the shoulder of an intelligent entity reminding me again and again that neither science nor chance have the last word? For historical reasons, as long as I can not think of a better one, God is a good nickname.
It may be the opposite of what it seems to be…, or vice versa. :-)
Not a few confessed to me, some had to overcome their pride in doing so, that they considered me a genius. Others, I could say the rest, saw me and treated me like a fool. Significant is there was no middle ground. I usually don't pay attention to these popular ratings, but thinking twice, maybe I should, especially because geniuses are seen as fools by those who don't understand them. And because those of genius and fool are not mutually exclusive conditions.
After hurting yourself and failing again and again, seeking pleasure in excesses, eventually you mature and discover the pleasure of balance.
It's true what a popular saying of my country affirms: “Dios aprieta, pero no ahoga” (literally: God takes you by the neck and squeezes, but not to the point of suffocating you.) Isn't this a form of torture?
I'm naked inside, that is the worst indecency.
“Honest” are those who know how to lie.
When you dream about making up with someone you haven't seen nor been on speaking terms for years is because, deeply in your mind, you're burying him alive.
metastasis: man conquer outer space, find and colonize other planets with life.
“You are an asshole, like everyone else.”
“I'm an asshole, but not like everyone else.”
Children are born for the same reason dead are mourned: selfishness.
True love:
“What happens with you, Mary?” asks Joseph.
“I don't know.”
“Have you fallen in love with someone else?”
“I did, many years ago, with someone or something I imagined.”
Do not forgive them, Father, they know exactly what they're doing.
“Art is cosmos' voice.”
“Nice saying. Who is it from?”
“It's cosmos'. It whispered it to my ear just now.”
I've never felt like I owned anything or anyone, not even myself. I've never had the ambition to compete, to win. I enjoy a kind of freedom that's unknown to most mortals.
In our modern world, to survive means to be able to brainwash yourself into believing your goals are legit.
In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is a nobody.
Perfection is a fetish of mediocre people.
Arrogance, ignorance, stupidity are just circumstantial, the actual foundation of our fascist world is collective denial.
I'm going to know what really matters to you the day that, in that, I see you do the exact opposite of what most do.
No revolutionary movement comes from people. It's some politician implementing a conveniently adapted version of an idea borrowed from a thinker. If the revolution takes place and succeed it's just to end establishing a new more profitable slavery system. You'll hear those arguing about the thinker's original idea, others blaming the twisting made by the politician but the true is that this recurrent sad phenomenon we observe along all human history is primarily determined by people's nature, this is why it's unavoidable.
In this world there are those who have no head and those who have but do not use it. It would sound funny if I didn't say it with total objectivity.
What makes someone think that he says what he thinks when he does not think what he says?
Culture is not something you plan to do, it's just an unavoidable consequence of living.
The path that they show you as the easiest and fastest is the one that leads you right to the slaughterhouse.
There's no evil that lasts a hundred years (but a replacement is not long in coming.)
There is only one scenario in which I can imagine an optimistic vision of this world plausible (as I always clarify, I am referring to the world as man has degraded it,) a circumstance even more fanciful than time travel: being able to live going backwards, against the clock.
Today everyone assumes that the hammer has to also serve as a fishing rod, thermometer, telephone… A few years ago I met someone who seemed to understand how harmful this approach is but my relief turned into greater frustration when I saw the poor fool, in his desire to simplify, removing the handle from the hammer.
It's silly to expect to earn the respect of those who don't respect themselves.

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