Piet Hein Quotes

CANDLE WISDOM
If you knew
what you will know
when your candle
has burnt low,
it would greatly
ease your plight
while your candle
still burns bright.

Love while you've love to give.
Live while you've got life to live.

A WORD TO THE WISE
Let the world pass in its time-ridden race;
never get caught in its snare.
Remember, the only acceptable case
for being in any particular place
is having no business there.

Knowing what / Thou knowest not / Is in a sense / Omniscience. -Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF GASTRONOMY
There's a rule for proper doses
in the dinner-eaters lore:
one should stop the filling process
while one still has room for more.
And if someone at the table
had reminded me before -
Hallelujah! I'd be able
to absorb a little more.

Lovers meander in prose and rhyme,
trying to say-
for the thousandth time-
what's easier done than said.

ON PROBLEMS
Our choicest plans
have fallen through,
our airiest castles
tumbled over,
because of lines
we neatly drew
and later neatly
stumbled over.

THE FINAL TOUCH
Portrait of nobody in particular
Idiots are really
one hundred per cent
when they are also
intelligent.

PRESCRIPTION

A bit
of virtue
will never
hurt you.

It ought to be plain how little you gain by getting excited and vexed. You'll always be late for the previous train, and always on time for the next.

THE WISDOM OF THE SPHERES
How instructive
is a star!
It can teach us
from afar
just how small
each other are.

SMALL THINGS
& GREAT
He that lets
the small things bind him
leaves the great
undone behind him.

Losing one glove is certainly painful, but nothing compared to the pain, of losing one, throwing away the other, and finding the first one again.

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No - not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're hoping.

PRAYER to the sun above the clouds.
Sun that givest all things birth,
shine on everything on earth!
If that's too much to demand,
shine at least on this our land.
If even that's too much for thee,
shine at any rate on me.

Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back.

REFLECTION ON SIZE
Small people often overrate
the charm of being tall;
which is, that you appreciate
the charm of being small.

Nobody can be lucky all the time, / so when your luck deserts you in some fashion / don't think you've been abandoned in your prime, / but rather that you're saving up your ration

I'd like to know
what this whole show
is all about
before it's out.

THE CURE FOR EXHAUSTION
Sometimes, exhausted
with toil and endeavour,
I wish I could sleep
for ever and ever;
but then this reflection
my longing allays:
I shall be doing it
one of these days.

MEETING THE EYE
You'll probably find
that it suits your book
to be a bit cleverer
than you look.
Observe that the easiest
method by far
is to look a bit stupider
than you are.

As Eternity has reckoned There's a lifetime in a second

Mankind
Men, said the Devil,
are good to their brothers:
they don't want to mend
their own ways, but each other's.

Art is solving problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer.

It isn't enough to exasperate others. You have to remember to gladden yourself!

ASTRO-GYMNASTICS
Go on a starlit night,
stand on your head,
leave your feet dangling
outwards into space,
and let the starry
firmament you tread
be, for the moment,
your elected base.
Feel Earth's colossal weight
of ice and granite,
of molten magma,
water, iron, and lead;
and briefly hold
this strangely solid planet
balanced upon
your strangely solid head.

BRAVE
To be brave is to behave
bravely when your heart is faint.
So you can be really brave
only when you really ain't.

MAKING AN EFFORT
Our so-called limitations, I believe,
apply to faculties we don't apply.
We don't discover what we can't achieve
until we make an effort not to try.

THE ROAD TO WISDOM
The road to wisdom?
Well, it's plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.

Here is a fact
that should help you fight
a bit stronger
Things that don't
actually kill you outright
make you stronger.
Put up in a place
where it is easy to see
the cryptic admonishment
T.T.T
When you feel how depressingly
slowly you climb
it's well to remember that
Things Take Time.
Problems worthy
of attack
prove their worth
by hitting back!

A bit beyond perceptions reach I sometimes believe I see that life is two locked boxes each containing the other's key