Piet Hein Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ABREAST
He who aims
to keep abreast
is for ever
second best. — Piet Hein

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

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

Here is a fact
that should help you fight
a bit stronger
Things that don't
actually kill you outright
make you stronger.
Put up in a place
where it is easy to see
the cryptic admonishment
T.T.T
When you feel how depressingly
slowly you climb
it's well to remember that
Things Take Time.
Problems worthy
of attack
prove their worth
by hitting back! — Piet Hein

Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back. — Piet Hein

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

Knowing what / Thou knowest not / Is in a sense / Omniscience. -Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996) — Piet Hein

PRESCRIPTION

A bit
of virtue
will never
hurt you. — Piet Hein

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

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No - not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're hoping. — Piet Hein

Lovers meander in prose and rhyme,
trying to say-
for the thousandth time-
what's easier done than said. — Piet Hein

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

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

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

ASTRO-GYMNASTICS
Go on a starlit night,
stand on your head,
leave your feet dangling
outwards into space,
and let the starry
firmament you tread
be, for the moment,
your elected base.
Feel Earth's colossal weight
of ice and granite,
of molten magma,
water, iron, and lead;
and briefly hold
this strangely solid planet
balanced upon
your strangely solid head. — Piet Hein

SMALL THINGS
& GREAT
He that lets
the small things bind him
leaves the great
undone behind him. — Piet Hein

THE FINAL TOUCH
Portrait of nobody in particular
Idiots are really
one hundred per cent
when they are also
intelligent. — Piet Hein

VITA BREVIS
A lifetime
is more
than
sufficiently long
for people to get what there is of it
wrong. — Piet Hein

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

DREAM INTERPRETATION Simplified.
Everything's either
concave or -vex,
so whatever you dream
will be something with sex. — Piet Hein

I'd like to know
what this whole show
is all about
before it's out. — Piet Hein

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

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

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

REFLECTION ON SIZE
Small people often overrate
the charm of being tall;
which is, that you appreciate
the charm of being small. — Piet Hein

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

THE WISDOM OF THE SPHERES
How instructive
is a star!
It can teach us
from afar
just how small
each other are. — Piet Hein

Love while you've love to give.
Live while you've got life to live. — Piet Hein

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

A bit beyond perceptions reach I sometimes believe I see that life is two locked boxes each containing the other's key — Piet Hein

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

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

As Eternity has reckoned There's a lifetime in a second — Piet Hein

It isn't enough to exasperate others. You have to remember to gladden yourself! — Piet Hein