On Men and Women
Men need women so as to be reminded of all the unpleasant things they’d much rather ignore but know they shouldn’t.
There is no greater shock to a man's delusional self-esteem than when confronted by a woman's ability to see through any and all bullshit.
The ruthlessness of women is a necessity born from the brevity of their beauty and the urgency of their fertility.
Women are not as interested in what men do as where it gets them.
All male endeavors are vain in the eyes of women unless it betters one's status.
Women will patiently let men self-indulgently talk on and on about their accomplishments and what they do because they know that the only reason men do all the ridiculous things they do is to earn the esteem and attention of women.
Never trust a man who despises women. A man never despises women unless he is a failure as a man.
When an issue arises between a man and a woman, men don't understand why women bring up things that don't seem relevant. This is because men take a situation on its own merit and block all else out, whereas women always see a far bigger picture. For women, every new situation is yet more material to add to older material in their ongoing assessment of the overall worth of a man.
For women, man is always a work in progress. They are constantly shaping and reshaping the sculpture of his character from the raw materials of everyday occurrences and events.
Pride often urges us to continue loving the person who has dumped us. The romantic notion of hopelessly clinging to an unrequited love is merely our way of convincing ourselves that it was actually them who was unworthy of us and not the other way around.
Men’s courage only begins where civility ends. Women’s courage is oblivious to civility, but always acts within its parameters.
Once a woman has given a man her love, nothing short of an insult can decline it, and nothing short of complete exclusivity can satisfy it. This is because when a woman gives her love, she gives her whole self.
Every woman has a sense of shame, but there is not a single woman that cannot be made shameless.
When men think women are being irrational and illogical they make the mistake of paying attention to mere words, when instead they must pay attention to everything else: mood, body, emotions, tone, gaze and movements. Women are too complex to express themselves merely through words. Every woman is a symphony.
Women will be interested in art and poetry as long as they feel they have been its inspiration — if not as an individual, then at least as Woman.
No woman has sex gratuitously. If she does, it’s out of a lack of self-respect. It’s undignified for a woman not to make a man squirm like the worm he is, otherwise not even the worm would respect her.
A woman will commit herself in bed only to the extent that her man commits himself out of bed.
Women pride themselves with their men; men pride themselves through their women.
For women, being civil is only ever a matter of convenience; for men it is often a matter of cowardice.
Too much self-esteem is the unfortunate result of a good upbringing.
Women are assured a meaning to life by the simple fact that they know their instinctive task is to find the best mate, procreate, and raise their offspring as well as they possibly can, knowing that she’s done her job if she believes her child is better than all others, or at least right up there with the best of them. A man, on the other hand, spends his whole life searching for meaning in books, adventures, conquests, achievements, promotions, fame and politics, only to find, in the end, that his whole reason for existence can be summed up in an ejaculation.
If you can’t love a woman, then at least love Woman. If you're frustrated as a man, then at least be proud as Man.
If it weren't for the show of sincerity, gossip would be unforgivable.
The excessive display of affection we show each other is expiation for all the nasty things we have said behind each others' backs.
If we had any idea what our best friends really think about us, we would realize just how lucky we are that we are friends and not enemies.
The rules of social etiquette serve as the natural parameters of feminine pursuits. Living rooms are where they reconnoiter; restaurants, brasseries and cafes are where they engage; parties and events are their battlefields; men and recognition are their spoils of war.
Any two girls can meet and immediately talk about feelings and relationships, and any two guys can meet and immediately talk about sports. Men tend to talk about things they do to get women, women tend to talk about things they do to keep men.
When you tell someone you love them, you’re also telling them that they should love you.
A relationship is about talk, sex, souvenirs and laughter — in fact, anything that will prolong and avoid a coming face to face with the inevitable fate of any relationship: boredom.
We all need our loved ones so that we may better love ourselves. To declare love for ourselves is so ridiculous that we must find others who will declare that love for us.
The more we grieve the loss of our loved ones, the more we are grieving our dependence on them.
Sometimes the shape of a person’s foot or the luster of their hair or the way their hips sway when they walk, or the way their lips part when they smile, is a far more powerful reason to love them than whether or not they are kind, generous, moral, or even capable — or willing — of loving you in return.
We all love one person in our lives, yet many people play the role of that person as they come and go through the years.
The trick to staying ahead in a relationship is to always say a little less than you want to say, but always do a little more than you think is expected of you.
On Intelligence
Intelligent people can never have too much time on their hands, even though they know they shouldn’t.
Every simple answer is a parody of simplicity and a travesty of intellect. As for every complicated answer, that’s just a travesty of wit.
Knowledgeable people see the complexity of things, intelligent people see the simplicity of them.
Intelligence is the feeling of companionship with oneself, but it is only really appreciated when it is shared.
Stupidity is something we avoid seeing in ourselves, but find in abundance in others.
An overabundance of intelligence will lead to indecision, and even inability, unless one can learn how to be stupid, and when.
Arrogance is the privilege of the talented and the whimsy of the mediocre.
Humans are granted, a priori, cleverness, but not necessarily intelligence. All human creation is clever, but its uses are often not very intelligent.
The “genius” is an excuse created for the self-preservation of the ego. By attributing extraordinary and even mystical qualities to exceptional people, we make our own cerebral laziness acceptable by deeming it normal.
Cunning is the intelligence of the untalented and the revenge of the inferior.
Anything of genius can only be accomplished in your twenties. After that, your mind is too well developed, your skills too well honed, your ideas too sound, your temperament too even. In short, you become well-balanced, and thus, unremarkable.
A man with a rich mind is a man who has freed himself of all pettiness. He has ascended a height from which all possessions, jealousies, accomplishments, rivalries, competitiveness, greed and ambition seem so small and distant that it's as if they belong to a strange and alien world that is not his own.
Intelligence is the only thing nobody can ever have a sense of humor about. Our intelligence is something we hold sacred, and even its mere mention is often taboo.
We will attest to a person's cleverness, smartness, knowledge or wit, but never to their intelligence.
Knowledge is the best way to simulate intelligence. That’s why we’re always suspicious of knowledgeable people.
It’s ironic that only the intelligent can tell us what bliss stupidity must be. Obviously intelligence does not go well with pusillanimity.
Knowledge is a burden we cannot ignore, nor ever undo. Thus we must be careful in its appropriation so as to avoid its misappropriation of us.
To understand something profoundly, we must not only gain knowledge of its contents, but more importantly, its discontents. What we don’t know always defines what we know more completely than what we know ever can.
Human knowledge is attained not through action but reaction, going back to an eternally unfulfilled – and unfulfillable – action.
We cannot expect objectivity from people when it comes to knowledge and understanding; we can only expect them to be aware of the impossibility of objectivity.
