Streams of Thought: Aphorisms in Prose and Poetry

By Donald Patrick Redheffer

From the author of Musings of a Meandering Stream, Streams of Thought offers innovative, provocative concepts that challenge the mind and inspire thought. With piercing wit and wisdom, Redheffer tackles a wide range of subjects such as agnosticism, beauty, doubt, hypocrisy, marriage, religion, science, sex, sin, and everything in between in over 1,100 original aphorisms.

An indifferent student yet widely knowledgeable, he has said that he never let school interfere with his education. At the age of seventy, he began to write down his thinking in aphoristic form. These aphorisms are faithful to his unique perspective on life. Most of all, these ideas will encourage the reader to think.

Absence Absence makes the heart ponder, Is love to last or will it flounder?

Absence puts friendship on the side, No way to nourish that which is denied. Writing A writers greatest asset is a great reader.

Writing aphorisms becomes an obsession, a magnificent obsession that drives one to explore every aspect of the human condition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 22, 2009
• ISBN: 9781440175763

Donald Patrick Redheffer

Donald Patrick Redheffer is a graduate of DePaul University. Although he is a retired teacher of mathematics, his first loves are philosophy and poetry. The author of three previous books, he is also an accomplished nature photographer. He is a native of Chicago, where he now resides with Joselita Velasco.

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Contents

A Few Thoughts …

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Prologue

Ability

Abnormality

Absence

Abstraction

Absurdity

Academia

Accuracy

Achievement

Actions

Activity

Actors

Adaptation

Addiction

Administration

Advantage

Adventure

Adversity/Prosperity

Advertising

Advice

Affectation

Affinity

Aging

Agnosticism

All

Aloofness

Ambition

America

Ancestry

Anticipation

Anxiety

Aphorisms

Apology

Appearance

Appeasement

Applause

Appreciation

Argument

Arrogance

Art

Aspiration

Atheism

Attention

Authority

Autobiography

Balance of Power

Beauty

Belief

Best Seller

Betrayal

Bias

Bigotry

Birth

Boasting

Books

Boredom

Brevity

Brotherhood

Business

But

Carelessness

Causality

Caution

Censorship

Certainty

Chance

Change

Character

Charity

Charm

Childhood

Choice

Civilization

Class

Cleanliness

Clergy

Cleverness

Cliché

Coincidence

Commerce

Committees

Common Sense

Communication

Compensation

Compliments

Conceit

Confession

Conformity/Nonconformity

Conscience

Consensus

Consistency

Contentment

Contradictions

Convention

Conviction

Courtesy

Creativity

Credentials

Crime

Criticism

Cruelty

Curiosity

Custom

Death

Defeat

Deference

Definition

Democracy

Dependency

Deprivation

Desperation

Destiny

Diplomacy

Disappointment

Disguise

Disillusionment

Dissent

Distance

Dogmatism

Doubt

Doubt/Faith

Dreams

Drinking

Duty

Ecstasy

Education

Envy

Equality

Equivocation

Erudition

Eternal Life

Evolution

Expectation

Experience

Face

Fairies

Fairness

Faith

Fame

Farewell

Faults

Flirting

Flowers

Followers

Folly

Forgiveness

Friendship

Futility

Gambling

Genius

Gifts

Goals

God

Gossip

Government

Grammarians

Greatness

Hatred

Heaven

Hell

Heresy

Hero Worship

Heroism

History

Honesty

Honor

Hope

Humanity

Humility

Husbands

Hypocrisy

Idealism

Ideals

Idleness

Ignorance

Imagination

Immortality

Infancy

Inheritance

Inhumanity

Innocence

Insurance

Intelligence

Interviews

Intolerance

Intuition

Jealousy

Journalism

Judgment

Juror

Law

Law and Morality

Learned Fools

Learning

Liberty

Lies

Life

Life and Death

Literature

Love and Hate

Love and Poetry

Love and Silence

Love and Wisdom

Loyalty

Machines

Malice

Manners

Marriage

Marriage and Divorce

Martyrdom

Mathematics

Maturity

Maxims

Medicine

Memory

Mercy

Minorities

Miracles

Miser

Moderation

Modesty

Money

Morality

Motives

Natural Law

Nature

Necessity

Neurosis

Newton and Einstein

Nonsense

Normality

Oratory

Order

Originality

Pacifism

Parenting

Parting

Party

Passion

Past/Present/Future

Patience and Impatience

Patriotism

Peace

Philanthropy

Philosophy

Photography

Piety

Platitude

Pleasure

Poetry

Politics

Possessions

Posterity

Postulates

Power

Power and Wisdom

Praise/Blame

Principles

Privacy

Procrastination

Profundity

Progress

Promises

Proof

Proverbs

Puritans

Purpose

Questions

Quotations

Reading

Religion and Science

Remembrance

Respect

Rights

Satiety

Satire

Scandal

Science and Math

Science and Religion

Secrets

Seduction

Self

Self-Denial

Self-Esteem

Self-Image

Self-Interest

Self-Knowledge

Self-Love

Self-Portrait

Self-Reliance

Self-Respect

Shakespeare

Shame

Sharing

Silence

Simplicity

Sin

Slavery

Sleep

Smiles

Smoker

Soldier

Solitude

Sorrow

Soul

Sports

Status

Stoicism

Strategies

Strength

Success

Suffering

Suspicion

Tact

Taking Sides

Temptation

Theory

Thought

Time

Tongue

Unhappiness

Unspoken Words

Vanity

Vengeance

Verbosity

Vice/Virtue

War/Peace

Winning

Wisdom

Wit

Writing

Epilogue

About the Author

A Few Thoughts …

Love is beauty with the timeless grace

Of deep devotion beyond the aging face.

So close, they seem to breathe a single breath,

Pray for a love beyond the touch of death.

A penchant for accuracy tests the bonds of friendship.

Reason advises and life revises.

The loquacity of old age may be a cry for attention in a world that no longer cares.

As the dark shadow of age approaches,

Many find solace in the invisible, intangible, and improbable.

Only a brute can stand before truth with no tears.

Vengeance prompts virtue to embrace vice,

Making a victim twice.

Acknowledgments

My sincere gratitude goes to those who gave me the encouragement to write this book. Special thanks to my fiancée, Joselita Velasco, for typing the text; and to Robert Smythe for proofreading.

Foreword

Streams of Thought is the second book of aphorisms crafted by Donald Redheffer. Written with an incisive view of life, the thoughts contained will provoke and challenge the reader.

This work contains over 1100 aphorisms, many in poetic form, but all reflecting the poet’s love of the language.

Over 300 topics are covered, including advice, agnosticism, beauty, death, doubt, hypocrisy, marriage, prayer, reason, religion, science, sex, and sin.

The author’s ideas are often controversial, reflecting his lifelong questioning of the conventional wisdom. The reader may not agree with all these sentiments, but he will likely respect the kind of mind that thinks this way.

Above all, these aphorisms will get the reader to think and to view these subjects in a new way. By seeing these matters from a philosophic perspective, the reader may learn to reject simplistic thinking for a more challenging questioning of life’s complex issues.

Robert Smythe

Lifelong friend

Prologue

Streams of thought are best traversed

By thinking long and writing terse.

Ability

1. The recognition of ability is as rare as ability itself.

2. Failure to perform is not an unmistakable sign of latent ability.

Abnormality

3. Oh, to be abnormal, to wage peace and love truly.

Absence

4. Absence makes the heart ponder,

Is love to last or will it flounder?

5. Absence puts friendship on the side,

No way to nourish that which is denied.

Abstraction

6. Abstraction is the hallmark of intelligence, a process of leaving out more and more details in pursuit of quintessential truth.

Absurdity

7. We assign meaning where none is forthcoming, creating a world to suit our fancy.

8. Religion answers life’s eternal quest,

Why we are here and at whose bequest?

Reason wonders how this all can be,

The whole wide universe designed for you and me?

9. Laugh at yourself and bring your critics to tears.

10. Absurdity abounds in a world that should not be.

11. To ignore the absurd, one must be unemployed with a stipend.

12. We cling to absurdities that sustain us.

Academia

13. Academia rejects uncredentialed creativity, representing education without being educated.

14. Academic truth full of established thought,

Finds comfort in schools, classes, and degrees;

Dare not bring into question what is taught,

Their world confined to bookish pedigrees.

Accuracy

15. A penchant for accuracy tests the bonds of friendship.

16. Kindness knows the exact moment to be inaccurate.

Achievement

17. All is consigned