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Nature, it seems, is the popular namefor milliards and milliards and milliardsof particles playing their infinite gameof billiards and billiards and billiards.Piet Hein
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A WORD TO THE WISELet the world pass in its time-ridden race; never get caught in its snare. Remember, the only acceptable casefor being in any particular place is having no business there.Piet Hein
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Lovers meander in prose and rhyme, trying to say-for the thousandth time-what's easier done than said.Piet Hein
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Put up in a placewhere it is easy to seethe cryptic admonishment T. T. T When you feel how depressinglyslowly you climbit's well to remember that Things Take Time.Piet Hein
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After all, what is art? Art is the creative process and it goes through all fields. Einstein’s theory of relativity — now that is a work of art! Einstein was more of an artist in physics than on his violin. Art is this: art is the solution of a problem which cannot be expressed explicitly until it is solved.Piet Hein
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Art is solving problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer.Piet Hein
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DREAM INTERPRETATION Simplified.Everything's eitherconcave or -vex, so whatever you dreamwill be something with sex.Piet Hein
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Living isa thing you donow or never --which do you?Piet Hein
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PRAYER to the sun above the clouds. Sun that givest all things birth, shine on everything on earth! If that's too much to demand, shine at least on this our land. If even that's too much for thee, shine at any rate on me.Piet Hein
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WHO IS LEARNED? A definition One who, consuming midnight oilin studies diligent and slow, teaches himself, with painful toil, the things that other people know.Piet Hein
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Losing one glove is certainly painful, but nothing compared to the pain, of losing one, throwing away the other, and finding the first one again.Piet Hein
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THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF GASTRONOMY There's a rule for proper dosesin the dinner-eaters lore:one should stop the filling processwhile one still has room for more. And if someone at the tablehad reminded me before -Hallelujah! I'd be ableto absorb a little more.Piet Hein
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THE WISDOM OF THE SPHERESHow instructiveis a star! It can teach usfrom afarjust how smalleach other are.Piet Hein
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CANDLE WISDOM If you knewwhat you will knowwhen your candlehas burnt low, it would greatlyease your plightwhile your candlestill burns bright.Piet Hein
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ASTRO-GYMNASTICSGo on a starlit night, stand on your head, leave your feet dangling outwards into space, and let the starry firmament you treadbe, for the moment, your elected base. Feel Earth's colossal weight of ice and granite, of molten magma, water, iron, and lead;and briefly hold this strangely solid planetbalanced upon your strangely solid head.Piet Hein
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THE CURE FOR EXHAUSTIONSometimes, exhaustedwith toil and endeavour, I wish I could sleepfor ever and ever;but then this reflectionmy longing allays: I shall be doing itone of these days.Piet Hein
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VITA BREVIS A lifetimeis morethansufficiently longfor people to get what there is of itwrong.Piet Hein
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BRAVETo be brave is to behavebravely when your heart is faint. So you can be really brave only when you really ain't.Piet Hein
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Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back.Piet Hein
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ON PROBLEMSOur choicest planshave fallen through, our airiest castlestumbled over, because of lineswe neatly drewand later neatlystumbled over.Piet Hein
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MankindMen, said the Devil, are good to their brothers:they don’t want to mendtheir own ways, but each other's.Piet Hein
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A PSYCHOLOGICAL TIPWhenever you're called on to make up your mind, and you're hampered by not having any, the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find, is simply by spinning a penny. No -- not so that chance shall decide the affairwhile you're passively standing there moping;but the moment the penny is up in the air, you suddenly know what you're hoping.Piet Hein
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PRESCRIPTION A bitof virtuewill neverhurt you.Piet Hein
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WHAT PEOPLE MAY THINKSome people cowerand wince and shrink, owing to fear ofwhat people may think. There is one answerto worries like these:people may thinkwhat the devil they please.Piet Hein
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Whenever you're called on to make up your mind, and you're hampered by not having any, the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find, is simply by spinning a penny. No - not so that chance shall decide the affairwhile you're passively standing there moping; but the moment the penny is up in the air, you suddenly know what you're hoping.Piet Hein
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As Eternity has reckoned There's a lifetime in a secondPiet Hein
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Nobody can be lucky all the time, so when your luck deserts you in some fashiondon't think you've been abandoned in your prime, but rather that you're saving up your ration.Piet Hein
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The road to wisdom? Well it's plain and simple to express: Err and err and err again. But less and less and less.Piet Hein
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If no thought your mind does visit make your speech not too explicit.Piet Hein
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The road to wisdom? Well it's plain And simple to express: Err And err And err again But less And less And less.Piet Hein