Mason Cooley (1927–2002) was an American aphorist. He was professor emeritus of French, speech and world literature at the College of Staten Island. He was also an assistant professor of English at Columbia University from 1959 to 1967 and an adjunct professor from 1980 to 1988. He received his B.A. from San Diego State University and his Ph.D. from Oxford.
Source: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by Mason Cooley
Logic teaches rules for presentation, not thinking.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Thinking, Logic
Magic lives in curves, not angles.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Magic
If suffering brought wisdom, the dentist’s office would be full of luminous ideas.
—Mason Cooley
Indifference is an excellent substitute for patience.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Apathy
Logic and fact keep interfering with the easy flow of conversation.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Logic
Few friendships could survive the moodiness of love affairs.
—Mason Cooley
Indifference creates an artificial peace.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Apathy
There are different rules for reading, for thinking, and for talking. Writing blends all three of them.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Thinking
Reality is the name we give to our disappointments.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Reality
Fastidious taste makes enjoyment a struggle.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Enjoyment, One liners
Listening to people keeps them entertained.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Listening
Opportunity knocks, but doesn’t always answer to its name.
—Mason Cooley
Astrology: do we make a hullabaloo among the stars, or do they make a hullabaloo down here?
—Mason Cooley
The routines of tourism are even more monotonous than those of daily life.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Tourism, Travel
Jealousy is inconsolable because it cannot know the beloved
—Mason Cooley
Arrogance frowns; pride smiles.
—Mason Cooley
Thinking about the universe has now been handed over to specialists. The rest of us merely read about it.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Thinking
Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Compassion
The educated do not share a common body of information, but a common state of mind
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Sharing
At the end of every diet, he path curves back to the trough.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Diet
Vacations prove that a life of pleasure is overrated.
—Mason Cooley
Nostalgia keeps dissolving the ironic narratives in which I have contained my past.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: The Past
I keep eating for fear I will be hungry.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Eating
Lust and greed are more gullible than innocence.
—Mason Cooley
For many, immaturity is an ideal, not a defect.
—Mason Cooley
Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Procrastination
I am skeptical in principle, gullible in practice.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Cynicism
Travelers never think that they are the foreigners.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Perspective
Irony regards every simple truth as a challenge.
—Mason Cooley
Faith moves mountains, but you have to keep pushing while you are praying.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Faith
Love begins with an image; lust with a sensation.
—Mason Cooley
Unemployment diminishes people. Leisure enlarges them.
—Mason Cooley
Topics: Unemployment