Appears in the books, 75 Life Lines and ALL: A James Broughton Reader
Everything is perfect as it is
except for the things that haven’t yet got it right.
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Nothing is new. Everything is renewal.
Life’s major challenge: getting reborn often enough.
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Since we are formed of cosmological dust
let’s clasp one another and kick up a storm.
Only to the enraptured does the prophetic speak.
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If you feel completely at a loss
you are probably on the right track.
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Since nobody knows the meaning of existence,
the limits of the universe, or the cure for a cold,
we are free to delight in the mysteries of ignorance.
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Innocence is the holiness of sagacity.
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Believe in the unbelievable. Enliven the unlikely.
Always carry change for the unchangeable.
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What distinguishes one human from another:
the capacity to love and the ability to wonder.
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Wonder is my pleasure, love is my elation,
friendship is my hobby, rapture my vocation.
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People live in their wrongheads,
not in their right minds.
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Most minds oscillate between sense and nonsense.
The rest don’t oscillate at all.
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People who take a dim view of life
dwell in murky doldrums.
The easiest thing to find is fault.
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Many nobodies who have studied nothing
are busy teaching it to everybody else.
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Everyone needs a hole in the head
to let out the pollution.
The lowest common denominator sinks lower every day.
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A dull prospect befogs the road to derring-do.
Exchange your mind for one with a better view.
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Men are windowless monads
waiting for someone to raise their blinds.
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People don’t grow up. They just get taller.
People don’t change. They just get more so.
Adults are deteriorated babies.
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I love all men, except for those I can’t stand.
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When there’s nothing you can do about anything,
do everything you can.
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Muster the agile and compassionate.
Educate a humanity that will not embarrass the earth.
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Stand firmly, sit serenely,
mutter profoundly, sing recklessly,
dance all the way to your death.
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You are capable of extraordinary actions:
you can pee, sneeze, fart, puke, snore, shiver.
Are you sufficiently amazed by your mechanisms?
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Your soul goes out to the ends of your toes.
Go with it!
It walks around everywhere on two legs.
*We contain as much as we can imagine.
When we dance we jiggle the stars.
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Make your own home in left field. There’s more room there.
Everybody wants to be in the right.
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Never disown your mad superstitions,
bad habits, unclad fantasies,
Those are the riches of your personality.
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Three cheers for agony, muddle and euphoria.
Without them there would be nothing to read.
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The greatest enemies of the public good
are education, religion and the law.
What’s good for the public it never gets:
riotous living and peace of mind.
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The heavy-handed and the leadfooted
keep crowding one another off the dance floor.
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Dreary food is the main cause of social unrest.
Winedrinkers know the merriment of the blessed.
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Governments are a conspiracy of the mad and the inane.
Pass laws for the abolition of laws!
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Don’t fall asleep at the wheel of fortune.
Don’t exercise, dance. Don’t diet, chuckle.
Don’t tell people what not to do.
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Crazy old men are essential to society.
Otherwise young men have no suitable models.
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Be fond, not wary.
Fear of love is fear of the sublime.
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Every penis is on the firing squad of creation.
Every penis wants to belong to a new Adam.
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Never resist any temptation. Except celibacy.
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Be generous with joy and juicy with ripening.
Amplitude is the shape of splendor.
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Enrich your repertoire of useless acts.
Watch waterfalls, sniff lilacs,
reply to meadowlarks, attack artichokes.
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It is harder to love the world than denounce it,
harder to embrace existence than to renounce it.
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Reality isn’t made of concrete. It’s a seminal soup.
Savor it, swim in it, season it with piss and vinegar.
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Your instincts are mythical heroes
eager to launch impossible adventures.
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Do not die without learning what you can accomplish.
Fervor is eager to explode in all of your molecules.
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Misery is not an ultimate truth.
Authentic wisdom is a laughing matter.
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Happiness takes a risk, misery plays it safe.
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Wisdom is the least popular goal of humanity.
To be wise one must be foolish, foolhardy and foolproof.
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Overthrow the tyranny of the humorless.
Commit the dead serious to funeral homes.
Trust only what opens, what reveals, what lights up.
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Everything that is, is Light.
Except on very dark days.
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Make florid mistakes. Laugh more and wash less.
Eat more chocolate than beans. Fuck often.
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Desires are not bushes to be pruned.
A man is not meant to be a bonsai.
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Life’s essentials:
champagne, furry slippers, foreplay.
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Buddha was a nil-boy killjoy.
Life is not a suffering duty.
Desire awakes the sleeps of beauty.
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Cultivate your own form of workaday lunacy.
Otherwise you can’t feel at home in the world.
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If you soften your brain, it won’t get brittle.
Add nuts when you go bananas.
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When you have to fight fire with fire,
go jump in the lake.
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Open your jocular vein! Spurt jocosity!
Laughter like garlic is a flavorsome cure-all.
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Offend the righteous: ramble, dawdle, dabble.
And picnic in the cemetery.
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Introduce your heart to all the practice of hilarity
or the Good Life will prove a lifelong rarity.
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Sexual orgies are less harmful to society
than political parties.
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More and more profligacy!
How else shall we connect?
One good fuck is worth a hundred debates.
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Sexuality is the sport of the gods.
Eternity is in love with orgasm.
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We fall in love in order to experience
bodily upheaval and spermatic visions.
This causes us to shudder and sweat,
exude gummy verbiage and sprout wings.
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Love should unite mankind,
not split it up into exclusive couples.
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Two things for lovers are a must:
equality of soul and a mutual lust.
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Hook up some chariots of chum.
We are already late for the camerado races.
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Leave pigeonholes to pigeon droppings.
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Change everything, except what you love.
Love everything that changes your mind.
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To keep from feeling degraded by the times
bathe in a brook, sleep in a barnyard,
hula in the office, somersault in church.
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Come live with me and be my life
and we shall have no need of wife.
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Reaching what you can is not enough.
Reach what you cannot!
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Strengthen lofty connections.
Muses and angels want to be called on,
gods appreciate a pat on the back.
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God is man’s largest diversion.
And man is God’s favorite toy.
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Recipe for the creative life: remove safety belts,
plug loopholes, burn down safe retreats,
get reborn often, compose like a frolicsome child,
and never ask the end.
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Serve forth your ripeness before it rots.
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Live Love Laugh Leap
Sing Swim Sink Sleep