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Back on August 4, 2020, I was exploring the idea of Bringing previously unknowable ideas into your conscious view. “The method I am presently pursuing is to find general answers to problems highlighted in quotations with the intent to bring these ideas into direct conflict with other very different ideas that I have generalized from other sources of quotations. It is expected that from this intentional conflict new ideas that have never been thought before will spring forth.”
The ideas I have been using for the last few days and below are stylized modernizations of two-hundred-year-old ideas. I am intending to create a large batch of these kinds of numbered ideas with page and idea number links. For example, the first idea below would be labeled Maxims #3-1 “Useful things defend themselves with warnings, beautiful ones with stabs.”
In Philosophers Squared – Charles Darwin-1 would be “The universe we observe … pitiless indifference.”
To make this system work it will be necessary for me to go back to numerous posts and number the paragraphs. This new method of discovering new ideas is growing more complex, but possibly more useful.

  1. Useful things defend themselves with warnings, beautiful ones with stabs.
  2. Better to walk in shit than swim in it.
  3. Choose shoes that fit the feet, then the feet won’t struggle to fit the shoe.
  4. You can choose to dine with philosophers and their salty writings, or with courtesans and their sugary talk.
  5. When a foot slips you usually recover, but when your tongue does you often don’t.
  6. It’s better to lose a renter and keep the house in good condition.
  7. It’s more comfortable to be in heaven hatless than in hell with a crown.
  8. It is easier to keep the door locked than try to push the devil out the door when he’s gotten in.
  9. Improve your goals with foresight and rehearsals.
  10. Work with things that get the job done, then upgrade.
  11. Enjoy the cookies you have and leave the pie in the sky.
  12. It’s always here and now that can be used, but when that’s gone so is its use.
  13. When in a stew, the best is at the bottom.
  14. Buff your new brass to look like old gold.
  15. Choose your appointments for mid-week and mid-morning.
  16. Plant your trees and kids where there are sunshine and expanses to grow.
  17. Begin with a smile and laugh and end with a laugh and a smile.
  18. Blind men choose their wives for helpful companionship, not appearances.
  19. A healthy old body is a nourished partner built by a healthy mind.
  20. That unread Shakespeare in your bookcase would be more useful as a doorstop.
  21. Some grow wiser by looking into the future, others grow stupider by looking at the past.
  22. Apple trees that bear the most fruit will need the most propping.
  23. Boys who drink to soothe a little pain will be in drunken agony by forty.
  24. Even if you are as smart as a fox, don’t cheat the law or Mother Nature.
  25. Bribes are universal but it’s usually called a business transaction.
  26. If you find your tongue is tied, it’s your honest self telling you to shut up.
  27. Don’t sing happy songs to a man falling from the burning building.
  28. Don’t stuff your cash in a holey pocket.
  29. Don’t burn your house because it stinks of smoke.
  30. A well-trained body knows how to do reflexively what needs to be done.
  31. Often the perfectly played poker hand loses money.
  32. Busy-bodies who search for bad behavior to report are compelled to talk fast.
  33. Catch fish with a hook and sheep with a crook.
  34. The wind in your face is nature reminding you that you’re alive.
  35. Apples and tomatoes may be red when ripe and wonderful to eat but so are peppers.

These ideas are not necessarily wise, or reasonable, or funny, or stupid, but are intended to explore a specific idea deep enough to create controversy.