Shaw’s Quandary
George Bernard Shaw
There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.
Socrates’s Law
Socrates
The life which is unexamined is not worth living.
Walton’s Second Law
Izaak Walton
No man can lose what he never had.
Zeno’s Law
Zeno of Elea
The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.
Aesop’s Adages
Aesop
Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything (’Juno and the Peacock’). A half a millenium later, the Roman poet Virgil put it this way in his Eclogues: “We cannot all do all things.”
Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched (’The Milkmaid and Her Pail’).
Familiarity breeds contempt (’The Fox and the Lion’). Later authorities on human nature also have amended this one. Thus Mark Twain held that “Familiarity breeds contempt … and children” (Notebooks) while Goodman Ace noted that “Familiarity breeds attempt.”
The gods help them that help themselves (’Hercules and the Waggoner’). This has been repeated with slight variations by others including Aeschylus (”God loves to help him who strives to help himself”) and Ben Franklin (”God helps those who help themselves”).
It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow (’The Ant and the Grasshopper’). This message also appears in the Bible: “Go to the ant thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise: Which having no guide overseer or ruler Provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest” (Proverbs 6:6-8).
Slow and steady wins the race (’The Hare and the Tortoise’). Or, as Samuel Johnson phrased it in Rasselas: “Great works are performed not by strength but by endurance.”
The smaller the mind, the greater the conceit (’The Gnat and the Bull’).
United we stand divided we fall (’The Four Oxen and the Lion’). Benjamin Franklin embellished this thought when he warned his colleagues at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: “We must indeed all hang together or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” (This was in reply to John Hancock’s comment that “It is too late to pull different ways; the members of the Continental Congress must hang together.”) Abraham Lincoln came closer to Aesop’s original formulation with “A house divided against itself cannot stand” (speech, June 16th 1858).
We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified (’The Old Man and Death’). Oscar Wilde expressed the same thought in An Ideal Husband: “When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.”
Donohue’s Law
Joseph Donohue
What’s worth doing is worth doing for money.
Forbes’s Law
Malcolm S. Forbes
Money isn’t everything as long as you have enough.
Franklin’s Law
Gene Franklin
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.
The Approval Seeker’s Law
Rozanne Weissman
Those whose approval you seek the most give you the least.
Wilde’s First Law
Oscar Wilde
In this world there are two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants and the other is getting it.
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