The Tyranny of Tradition

I wanted to start the New Year off with some valuable, insightful nuggets of wisdom from the most quoted man in American history, Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Here are a few particularly brilliant ones that have touched me at nearly every level of my being.  Hopefully, you can carry these words with you as we embark on a journey into another year of wonder and beauty.   This is my gift to you, dear reader.  May they fill your days with sunshine and your nights with endless darkness.  

“A dreamer is a person who is asleep and is thinking about things.”

“A man of genius is a man who can find a way to make large amounts of money in a short period of time without going to federal prison.”

“If you follow the path, you will eventually find the thing you were looking for.  Unless that thing is at the beginning of the path.  Then, you’ve missed it.  But, you can always go back.  Unless there is a gate that automatically closes when you go through it.  Or guards.  With rifles.”

 “Make sure that you live each and every day as if you were going to be hit by a bus at any second.”

“Live your dreams, except for the one where you are trapped in a cow’s stomach.”

“Thoreau spent a night in jail and a few years in the woods and suddenly he has something to say.  No one has ever gotten more out of less suffering.  Y’all act like he was Job or something.”

“As we grow old, we tend to wrinkle more.  Like a shirt.”

“Democracy is a good way to get people to go along with absurd rules and even believe they had some role in their creation.  If that doesn’t work, tell them they are going to hell if they don’t obey.”

“Children are vile.  Except in soup.”

“Don’t waste your life on useless things like going to work, personal hygiene or repairing misunderstandings. Live as if you are going to die and you don’t really want anyone at your funeral.”

“Finish each day as if it’s 11:59 PM.”

“A confident man is someone who catches fire and asks for a cigarette.”

“Live in the sunshine every moment of the day or night.  Drink water directly from the ocean.  Eat poorly prepared, undercooked meat.  Pretend no rules apply to you.”

 “Nothing can bring you peace except for the extinction of the other 7 billion parasites around you.”

 “Nothing great was ever achieved without a fawning and deluded public.”

“Shallow men believe that getting hair restoration will make them attractive to 22-year-old women.  Smart men know that it’s better to pay them directly.”

 “The world belongs to those who have lots of money.  Or an army.”

 “Tis a good person who would be willing to give up a kidney to save a friend.  Tis an idiot who would give up a lung.”

 “We all boil rice differently.”

 “Whoso would begin a quote with the term “whoso” is probably trying to say something that is pretty simple but might appear to be more complex due to the use of arcane language.”

 “It’s easy to be misunderstood when you mumble.”

“For every genius, there are 100 men smarter than him who have bad breath.”

“When times are difficult, buy gold and help no one.”

“The reward of doing something well is watching someone come along and carelessly screw things up.”

 “Remember that guy who sat behind you in health class in 10^th grade and stuck a paperclip up his nose and had to have surgery.  He now runs a bank.”