[An excerpt from the Chuang Tzu]

Cook Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. At every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee – zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou music.

“Ah, this is marvelous!” said Lord Wen-hui. “Imagine skill reaching such heights!”

Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, “What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now – now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint.

“A good cook changes his knife once a year-because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month-because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness into such spaces. There’s plenty of room – more than enough for the blade to play about in. That’s why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.

“However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I’m doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety until – flop! – the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away.”

“Excellent!” said Lord Wen-hui. “I have heard the words of Cook Ting and learned how to care for life!”

“The beautiful thing about jazz is that if you say you’re playing it well and can get a critic or two to say you’re playing it well, and if you look like you’re playing it well, enough people will go along with you to make up an audience. The trick is to do it all with a straight face.”
– John McNeil

As told by Leo McGarry to Josh Lyman, on The West Wing:

This guy’s walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out.

A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, ‘Hey you. Can you help me out?’ The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

“Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, ‘Father, I’m down in this hole can you help me out?’ The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

“Then a friend walks by. ‘Hey, Joe, it’s me can you help me out?’ And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, ‘Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.’ The friend says, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.’

“An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark – that is critical genius.”
– Billy Wilder

From the Talmud, a collection of Jewish writings in the 1st and 2nd century:

Be very careful if you make a woman cry, because God counts her tears. The woman came out of a manís rib. Not from his feet, to be walked on. Not from his head, to be superior. But from the side, to be equal. Under the arm, to be protected, and next to the heart, to be loved.

“We die only once, and for such a long time.”
– Moliere

“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.”
– Robert Frost

“A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life.”
– Slow Food International Manifesto

“There are very few people who don’t become more interesting when they stop talking.”
– Mary Lowry

haru tatsu ya
gu no ue ni mata
gu ni kaeru

[spring begins–
more foolishness
for this fool]
– Kobayashi Issa, 1823