Top 64 Piet Hein Quotes
#1. Knowing what / Thou knowest not / Is in a sense / Omniscience. -Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)
Piet Hein
#2. ABREAST
He who aims
to keep abreast
is for ever
second best.
Piet Hein
#3. 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.
Piet Hein
#5. Nature, it seems, is the popular name
for milliards and milliards and milliards
of particles playing their infinite game
of billiards and billiards and billiards.
Piet Hein
#7. The universe may be as great as they say. But it wouldn't be missed if it didn't exist.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#8. Mankind
Men, said the Devil,
are good to their brothers:
they don't want to mend
their own ways, but each other's.
Piet Hein
#9. THE WISDOM OF THE SPHERES
How instructive
is a star!
It can teach us
from afar
just how small
each other are.
Piet Hein
#10. 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.
Piet Hein
#11. A bit beyond perceptions reach I sometimes believe I see that life is two locked boxes each containing the other's key
Piet Hein
#12. WHO IS LEARNED? A definition
One who, consuming midnight oil
in studies diligent and slow,
teaches himself, with painful toil,
the things that other people know.
Piet Hein
#13. Love while you've love to give.
Live while you've got life to live.
Piet Hein
#14. Hint And Suggestion : Admonitory grook addressed to youth
The human spirit sublimates
the impulses it thwarts;
a healthy sex life mitigates
the lust for other sports.
Piet Hein
#15. We shall have to evolve problem-solvers galore since each problem they solve creates ten problems more.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#16. SMALL THINGS
& GREAT
He that lets
the small things bind him
leaves the great
undone behind him.
Piet Hein
#17. Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back.
Piet Hein
#18. When you feel how depressingly slowly you climb, it's well to remember that Things Take Time.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#19. 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.
Piet Hein
#20. VITA BREVIS
A lifetime
is more
than
sufficiently long
for people to get what there is of it
wrong.
Piet Hein
#21. Foes of what's cooking see no worth behind it. Those that are looking for nothing will find it.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#22. I am a humble artist moulding my earthly clod, adding my labour to nature's, simply assisting God. Not that my labour is needed, yet somehow I understand, my Maker has deemed it that I too should have Unmoulded clay in my hand.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#24. People are self-centered to a nauseous degree. They will keep on about themselves while I'm explaining me.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#25. Experts have their expert fun ex cathedra telling one just how nothing can be done.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#26. Art is solving problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer.
Piet Hein
#27. TIMING TOAST
Grook on how to char for yourself
There's an art of knowing when.
Never try to guess.
Toast until it smokes and then
twenty seconds less.
Piet Hein
#29. PRESCRIPTION
A bit
of virtue
will never
hurt you.
Piet Hein
#30. 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.
Piet Hein
#32. 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.
Piet Hein
#33. 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.
Piet Hein
#35. 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.
Piet Hein
#36. 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.
Piet Hein
#40. We ought to live each day as though it were our last day here below. But if I did, alas, I know it would have killed me long ago.
Piet Hein
#41. Taking fun as simply fun and earnestness in earnest shows how thoroughly thou none of the two discernest.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#42. THE FINAL TOUCH
Portrait of nobody in particular
Idiots are really
one hundred per cent
when they are also
intelligent.
Piet Hein
#44. Freedom means you're free to do just whatever pleases you; if, of course that is to say, what you please is what you may.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#45. A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT
Stomach-ache can be a curse;
heart-ache may be even worse;
so thank Heaven on your knees
if you've got but one of these.
Piet Hein
#46. It isn't enough to exasperate others. You have to remember to gladden yourself!
Piet Hein
#47. I'd like to know
what this whole show
is all about
before it's out.
Piet Hein
#48. 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.
Piet Hein
#49. 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
Piet Hein
#50. ON PROBLEMS
Our choicest plans
have fallen through,
our airiest castles
tumbled over,
because of lines
we neatly drew
and later neatly
stumbled over.
Piet Hein
#51. True wisdom knows it must comprise some nonsense as a compromise, lest fools should fail to find it wise.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#52. The noble art of losing face may one day save the human race and turn into eternal merit what weaker minds would call disgrace.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#53. 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.
Piet Hein
#54. The way to grow grand is not: to demand. In life's every field you are what you yield.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#55. As Eternity has reckoned There's a lifetime in a second
Piet Hein
#56. Lovers meander in prose and rhyme,
trying to say-
for the thousandth time-
what's easier done than said.
Piet Hein
#57. REFLECTION ON SIZE
Small people often overrate
the charm of being tall;
which is, that you appreciate
the charm of being small.
Piet Hein
#59. Art is always of fixed, determined solutions - not things that might as well be different.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#60. Wherever there is a single solution, that solution must always achieve some kind of maximum.
Piet Pieterszoon Hein
#61. DREAM INTERPRETATION Simplified.
Everything's either
concave or -vex,
so whatever you dream
will be something with sex.
Piet Hein
#62. 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.
Piet Hein
#64. WHAT PEOPLE MAY THINK
Some people cower
and wince and shrink,
owing to fear of
what people may think.
There is one answer
to worries like these:
people may think
what the devil they please.
Piet Hein
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