Favorite Aphorisms From Readers

Recently I offered up several of the aphorisms I fall back on in daily life and asked my wise and worldly readers if they had any to share.

Sometimes I forget just how great my readers actually are.

Herein, some of the best of the bunch. And keep ’em coming!

“Change is not a four-letter word.”

“‘Try’ means it’s hard!”

Reader-provided context: “My stepdaughter, EJ, said this when she was very young (5 or 6 years old) and was resisting going to sleep one night. Her dad/my partner said something like, ‘I need you to try to go to sleep now.’ And she said, ‘OK, Daddy, but “try” means it’s hard.’ Out of the mouths of babes …! This is my go-to line in almost all life circumstances that aren’t easy. It works! (Plus it’s cute.)”

“But have you tried trying?”

Reader-provided context: “My colleague said this once in a meeting. Our team has found this saying to be an immediate way to inject levity into discussions of the seemingly intractable status quo in higher education.”

“Calm is not other people.”

Reader-provided context: “While other versions of this saying exist, this one’s all me. It arose when I was preparing a slide deck for a talk I was giving a few years ago. I went to Pexels, my stock photo source of choice, and searched on the word ‘calm.’ I took a screenshot of some of the search results. What do you notice? THERE ARE NO GROUPS OF PEOPLE. Apparently, calm is not other people.”

“You never know what someone else is going through.” Closely related: “Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides.”

“Sometimes you just have to let the train wreck happen and pick up the pieces afterwards.” Closely related: “Some people just have to stick the fork in the socket for themselves.”

Reader-provided context: “When someone in power is insistent on doing it their way, regardless of facts and logic to the contrary, it’s best to let go and start anew after the disaster makes the case for you.”

“Even a blind squirrel trips over an acorn now and then.”

“It’s not the mouth that says it, it’s the mind that interprets it.” Closely related (and true): “It’s not what you say, it’s what they hear.”

This one needs reader-provided context: “My main touchstone was E. M. Forster’s ‘Only connect.’ [Friend’s], by way of Renaissance printer Addus Manutius, was ‘Festina lente’ (or ‘Make haste slowly,’ a variant of your ‘Don’t just do something; stand there.’) She had a needlepoint of that motto, stitched for her by her mother-in-law, hanging on her office wall.”

“To list is to limit.”

“At crucial moments of choice, most of the business of choosing is already over.” (Iris Murdoch, by way of a reader.)

“Always strive to be the dumbest person in the room.”

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

“If something is not worth doing, it’s not worth doing well.”

“God gave you two ears and one mouth, so you should listen twice as much as you talk.”

“It’s not that you don’t know the answer; it’s that you don’t like the answer.”

“Self-awareness is unevenly distributed.”

“Fearlessness is not being afraid. Courage is being afraid, but acting anyway.”

“Students don’t do optional.” (Kay McClenney)

For all of its quirks, higher ed is subject to all the same human foibles as any other endeavor. There’s something comforting, if frustrating, in that.

If you have one to share, please send it along to deandad (at) gmail (dot) com. Thanks!