It began as the GODFATHER OF MATH, evolved into the GOODFATHER OF MATH. Now this. Go figure...

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The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for five seconds and think for ten minutes = G. CARLIN...Stain glass, engraved glass, frosted glass
–give me plain glass = JOHN FOWLES ... Music is the mathematics of the gods=PYTHAGORAS ... Nothing is more fluid than language = R. L. SWIHART
I cannot live without the oxygen of laughter = DAWN POWELL ... !!! ... But laughter cannot survive without the hydrogen of gravitas = PAUL OLIVERIO
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Saturday, August 31, 2019

The Swift Reader Of Books

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We  have discovered
a shorter and more prudent method
to become scholars and wits,
without the fatigue of reading
or of thinking.

The most accomplished way
of using books at present is twofold: 
either first to serve them
as some men do lords:
learn their titles exactly,
and then brag of their acquaintance.

Secondly, which is indeed
the more profound
and more polite method:
to get a thorough
insight into the index
 by which the whole book
is governed and turned,
like fishes by the tail

To enter the palace of learning
at the great gate requires
an expense of time and forms.

Therefore men of much haste
and little ceremony are content
to get in by the back-door. 

For the arts [and sciences]
are all in a flying march,
and therefore more easily subdued
by attacking them in the rear. 

Physicians discover the state
of the whole body by consulting
only what comes from behind. 

Men catch knowledge
by  throwing their wit
on the posteriors of a book,
as boys do sparrows with
flinging salt upon their tails.

And human life is best understood
by the wise man’s rule of regarding
the end.

Thus are the sciences found
like Hercules' oxen:
by tracing them backwards.

And the old sciences unravelled
like old stockings by beginning
at the foot.
***   

A Tale of a Tub
(1704)

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Footnotes
The italics within the body of the text
were included in the original manuscript,
over three hundred years ago

But extremely minor changes were made
to the entire text by Bloggy Verio,
less than thirty minutes ago
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