Aphorisms

APHORISMS

Even the desert blooms.

Flowers grow a very great distance from the sun.

Twisted logic is the tendrils of an evil spirit.

A partial truth is always more dangerous than unalloyed truth or a varnished lie.

When you do not say what you mean, you cannot be trusted in anything you say.

Guess what?—“a white lie” is a racist idiom.

Deepest blue, the desert sky is untainted, barren because it harbors no rain.

Eternity does not distinguish between the fresh-faced moon and the world-weary sun.

In a street fight a sword is mightier than a pen.

Whoever said a dog’s bark is worse than his bite hasn’t been bitten.

Good governance is hard to find.

A penny invested is a penny gambled.

A soap that floats has value only inside a bathtub.

The government that lacks transparency evades accountability and in all probability has something to hide.

The law used to perpetrate crime and to sanction impunity for crime is the misrule of law.

Propaganda is the gruel eaten by prisoners of the state.

Politicization of the judiciary weakens it, ensuring that those who have less in life will have even less in law.

Intelligence with integrity is fair-mindedness, without integrity it is venality.

The purpose of education is to teach not only critical thinking but also historical thinking, so that all citizens develop the capacity to evaluate ongoing changes from the standpoint of past transformations.

Today the biggest single reason for famine is war.

Anyone who lies is doing the devil’s work. It is his telltale signature.

Genuine democracy, which subsists in the democratic values and principles internalized by the people, is subverted when criminal leaders controvert the laws embodying the people’s deepest aspirations for freedom from tyranny.

A good book is a good friend you engage again and again.

The Apostle Paul inveighed against scoffers, calling them fools, yet he did not suffer the Gehenna threatened by Jesus.

A government of values and principles is degraded by a regime of patronage and corruption.

An untimely death waylays the conversion of the damned.

Democracy is a work in progress, fascism a work in regress.

Forgetfulness is the incomprehension of those who misconstrue the past.

Remembrance is the vision of the future.

Kindness’ roots are nourished by compassion.

Cruelty is a volcano. It thrives on the magma of abuse.

He who does not take a stand sits on his rights.

The heart makes up its reasons.

The right to information is a necessary check against the abuse of power. It is an essential means whereby the oppressed seek, pursue, and obtain redress for just grievances.

You can’t have fake news and democracy, too.

Charity culminates in humanity.

Originally published in Cacti Fur (April 25, 2018)