Winter - 冬

Brrr. It's so cold.  But one good thing about winter is that spring is around the corner, to think optimistically.

おお寒い、寒い。でも冬のいいところは春の来るのが鼻の先と、これ楽観的見地。

12/17/19

Capitalist Farce

In this capitalist democracy, the poor is granted a full right and the rich deems to claim an equal right proportionate to the size of its wealth. Oh, what a farce. 

04/08/19

Propagandist

A political leader, inevitably a propagandist, is often a blatant fake news broadcaster. 

Loss of Reason

When irrationality rules, violence prevails, and power is absolute. 

Protest

Protest is ineffectual unless that to which it is directed manifests a principle. Without resistance, it is like a punch on a curtain instead of a wall.  A government decree that lacks consistency is, alas, immune to protest.

Seeing eye - 見る目

もの見る目は見たいものを見る。

見たものを描写する言葉とおなじように、見る目も選択校閲するもの。

Seeing eye sees what it wants to see. 

No less than words describing what the eye sees, the eye itself also selects and edits.

Fashion In and Out

  

"La mode, c’est ce qui se démode,” often attributed to Coco Chanel, was actually first said by Jean Cocteau. Fashion is what goes out of style.  So it is, indeed.  What is out of fashion, if worn with taste, can be very fashionable.  This I believe and practice.

すたれてファッションでなくなるものがファッション。これはココ・シャネルの引用としばしば思われてますけど、もとはジャン・コクトーの言葉です。ほんとその通り。すたれたファッションも、上手に着こなせば、おしゃれになる。これはあたし信じて常にしてます

Picasso and Me

Si l'on sait exactement ce que l'on va faire, a quoi bon le faire?
 - Pablo Picasso.  Oui, oui, d’accord.  Absolument

If we knew exactly what we were going to do, what is the point of doing it?  — Picasso.  Yes, yes, I agree.  Absolutely.

Foolhardy

A foolish action which may be foolhardy proves to be so only in retrospect, so foolishness in itself is not foolhardy.  It’s fun.

Admonition

 I'm very fond of this Japanese saying:

意見聞くなら頭を下げろ、そうすりゃ上を通り越す。
Bow your head when you listen to an admonition; it will then go past over you.

Wise fool

The price of being intelligent is the pain of living among fools; the reward of being a fool is the pleasure of continuously learning from others.  

Zealots

Zealots sadly never realize, for the most part, that they are zealots, in the belief that they are only zealous, that is, passionate and dedicated to the cause they espouse, blind to other causes espoused by others.  If they had eyes to see them. . . buy they don’t and that’s why they are zealots.

Divine Folly

God, creating the human beings, must have decided to make them foolish enough -- and they are so foolish most of them, with even the more perfect among them failing to be without failings -- so that they will all be unfailingly prone to sin, for without sinners he (or perhaps she) will miss the glory of exercising the almighty power to forgive.

Equinox

Knock, Knock, Equinox,

Tme to bring me balmy breezes?

You like my spring frocks?

03.20.12

The Wall

The wall is a hill
without its sloping sides.
It shields the view beyond it.
To see what’s there,
you have to climb up to the top.

Kindness - 親切

Kindness well-intentioned, when obtrusive, becomes intrusive.
親切の積りでした事でも押しつけがましくなると迷惑になる。

Wit

Anyone who fails to distinguish between ”joke” and ”wit” proves to be a nitwit who will surely see no wit in what is said here.