Piet Hein

“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.”

“CANDLE WISDOM If you knewwhat you will knowwhen your candlehas burnt low,it would greatlyease your plightwhile your candlestill burns bright.”

“DREAM INTERPRETATION Simplified.Everything's eitherconcave or -vex,so whatever you dreamwill be something with sex.”

“Put up in a placewhere it is easy to seethe cryptic admonishmentT.T.TWhen you feel how depressinglyslowly you climbit's well to remember thatThings Take Time.”

“Living isa thing you donow or never --which do you?”

“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.”

“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.”

“THE WISDOM OF THE SPHERESHow instructiveis a star!It can teach usfrom afarjust how smalleach other are.”

“Lovers meander in prose and rhyme,trying to say-for the thousandth time-what's easier done than said.”

“Art is solving problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer.”

“Nature, it seems, is the popular namefor milliards and milliards and milliardsof particles playing their infinite gameof billiards and billiards and billiards.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”