The Kung Foole Proverbs

Leaves Upon a Stream

These are the collected proverbs of one Philip the Foole. He moved on to Jest on a different plane, on April 14, 2013.  As spectrum eulogized: The Jester’s cap sits empty; no one can replace the Foole.

The collection as it appears here is copied from the Fetlife pages of archivist spectrum153.  Fetlife pages are not indexed by major search engines, but this page is.

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“Jesters do oft prove prophets” – Shakespeare
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Through a strange set of events, I became the Archivist for the Kung Foole Temple, charged with collecting and preserving the Ancient Kung Foole Proverbs.
Philip the Foole originally indicated that these should be allowed to float down the river and disappear, like leaves. The current seems to have tossed them up on this bank.
-^-^spectrum-^^-
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Test of Enlightenment: If you feel warm and brotherly toward a pile of warm dog shit lying in the road, then you may or may not be enlightened.
– Ancient Kung Foole Saying

For the samurai to learn,
There’s one thing only.
One last thing.
To face death unflinching.
He did that.
– Ancient Kung Foole Saying (and epitaph for my own beloved friend.)

“Safety Rules are Written in Blood.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Saying

Tell the truth (or as much of it as seems safe.) You will eventually end up with a group of people around you that you don’t have to lie to.
– Ancient Kung Foole Sayings

If there’s no cheese in one branch of the maze, try a different branch
– Ancient Kung Foole Sayings

Show me the “enemies lists” a person’s name appears on and I’ll tell you who sie is.
– Ancient Kung Foole Saying

It is said that the Kung Foole priests can walk through walls.
Looked for, they cannot be seen.
Listened for, they cannot be heard.
Touched, they cannot be felt.
But when they apply the art of Tongue Foole, there’s no doubt as to their location.
– Ancient Kung Foole Saying

Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“Take this as your fixed abode – The center cannot hold.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Security is learning to ride the whirlwind.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb from “The Wizard of Oz.”

“It costs exactly what you have. How could there be any other way?”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

It is said that the Kung Foole priests can walk through walls. Looked for, they cannot be seen. Listened for, they cannot be heard. Touched, they cannot be felt. But take away their lock picks and tie them up with some snug leather restraints and they’re not going anyplace.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Always know where your dowel is.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

It is said that the Kung Foole priests can walk through walls. This may or may not be true. It is certainly true that while high on endorphins and other ancient herbs, they often walk into walls.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Peace through superior firepower.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

The best way to learn a throw is to be thrown a thousand times.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

I’m sorry if I hurt you little darling.
I thought for a second there, you moved.
– Ancient Kung Foole Country Western song.

Take this lifesaver.
Now stick your tongue through it.
That’s _all_ I want to see.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Whoopie Goldberg

The Islamic mystics called the Sufi have a classic story about a Dervish who was captured by a giant ogre. The Dervish told the ogre he had magic that made him stronger than the giant. The giant suggested a nap. The Sufi, suspicious, rolled out of his bedroll, arranged the blankets to look like they were still occupied, and hid in the cave. The giant woke up, took a log, and smashed the dervish’s blanket seven times, then went back to sleep. The Sufi got back in bed and called out: “Oh giant, your cave is comfortable, but I have been bitten seven times by a mosquito. Please do something about it.” The giant then decided it was safer to leave the Sufi alone. Next morning, seeking to test the master, the giant threw him a cow hide and asked him to fetch water for tea. The Sufi, who could not have lifted the hide in any case, dug a trench to a nearby stream. The giant, impatient, filled the cowhide himself and made tea. Then he asked the Sufi why he was taking so long with the trench if he was so strong. The Sufi said: “I am using the minimum effort required to do this task properly. Besides, I knew that you are such a creature of habit that you would use your old method in any case. Doing things right takes time.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Idries Shah

If people want to be part of an “Inner Circle” the polite thing to do is to form a ring around them.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

A weapon for every range, a belt for every occasion and a kata for every arrangement of the furniture.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Bricks don’t hit back
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb
Still, don’t get your throat in the way of a technique that can snap a brick.
– Another Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Your living room can be the bridge of Magellan’s ship, or you can watch another ballgame.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

This is my body.
God is food.
A mighty hot dog is our God.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

People who engage in religious persecution never call it religious persecution.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

One day a student showed up late for class at the Kung Foole temple.
The Master made the student come to the center of the mat and repeatedly slap the Master in the face.
The student was never late for class again.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Paint on the outside of everything – “I am the Living God.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

A cat, when asked how many lives he’d used up, said “It’s bad luck to keep count.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Don’t get married for six weeks after taking ecstasy.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

The larger the sample size (n) the more confident you can be that your sample mean is a good representation of the population mean. In other words, the “n” justifies the means.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“When evolution is outlawed, only outlaws evolve”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb once used as an excuse by Elf to stare at the front of a T-shirt.

A single skilled chemist, working alone, can produce forty to sixty million hits of LSD in one weekend. That gives hir more real evolutionary power than the government of Switzerland. Well, no, not Switzerland, they have the banks. But — the government of Finland, let’s say.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Terence McKenna.

If you meet the Buddha on the road, hit him in the face with a pie.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

A kata for every arrangement of the furniture.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

One blanket, woven of many brightly colored fibers.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

He calls all those things “odd” which are beyond his comprehension, and thus lives amidst an absolute wilderness of oddities.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by E.A. Poe

The presence of counterfeits indicates the existence of real gold, except in the case of free e-mail porno pix.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

The middle names of Bob are numberless. I vow to laugh at them all.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Cop and blow is the name of the game.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“Of course the Dharma-body of the Buddha was the hedge at the bottom of the garden. At the same time, and no less obviously, it was these flowers, it was anything that I — or rather the blessed Not-I — cared to look at.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Aldous Huxley (In “The Doors of Perception” – an account of Huxley’s first mescaline trip).

If there’s no cheese in one branch of the maze, try a different branch.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb
If there’s no cheese in the maze, blow up the maze. What the hell did the maze ever do for you?
– Ancient PMS Proverb by DLynn

If he calls himself a Master, he ain’t.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

The brain is the largest sex organ and intelligence is the ultimate aphrodesiac.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“I believe that just as we regard freedom of speech and religion as fundamental rights, so should we regard freedom of self-medication as a fundamental right; and that, instead of mendaciously opposing or mindlessly promoting illicit drugs, we should, paraphrasing Voltaire, make this maxim our rule: I disapprove of what you take, but I will defend to the death your right to take it.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Dr. Timothy Leary

I don’t recommend illegal drugs, guns, insanity and violence to everyone, but they’ve always worked for me.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

Catherine the Great was a Voltaire Groupie. They corresponded regularly for over twenty years.
– Ancient Kung Foole Factoid contributed by one of my delightful penpervs.

The way to improve the signal-to-noise ratio is to post signal, and to encourage others who do.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“I’m not here to rock the boat. I’m here to sink the fucking boat.”
– Putney Swope

Now this is the law of the jungle
As old and as true as the sky
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper
But the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that circles the fig tree
The law runneth forward and back
For the strength of the pack is the wolf
And the strength of the wolf is the pack
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by R. Kipling

To the Victor belongs the Spoiled.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

King Henry (to prostitute): “You were wonderful.”
(Aside to Thomas Becket): “You always have to tell them that. Even when you pay them.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“I weep for you,” the Walrus said,
“I deeply sympathize.”
With sobs and tears he sorted ou
Those of the larget size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
“You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?”
But answer came there none-
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Lewis Carroll

Reporter: What is your artistic vision?
Showgirls’ Director: I like to take pictures of naked women.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Nietzsche is pietzsche.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Hai, Calypso
I sing to your spirit
The men who have served you
So long and so well.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by J. Denver

Nobody’s getting out alive and you can’t take it with you. Chill and have a beer.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by D.B. Cooper, Tibetan Buddhist Master and Harley Mechanic

Always tell the truth. Or as much of it as seems safe. You will eventually end up with people around you who you don’t have to lie to.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee,
Greenest state in the land of the free”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by D. Crockett

Ancient Kung Foole Proverbs, like sushi, are best when served fresh.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Listen for the echo.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

I read alt.sex.bondage and exchange feeble twitticisms with my penpervs. In doing this I am practicing Kung Foole, I am living Kung Foole. No wordy discussion is necessary, nor any explanation.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (with apologies to D.T. Suzuki)

Cheap and meaningless sex is still pretty good.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Woody Allen

A man should aspire to be the helpless victim of the furious rage of a beautiful woman.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Swineburne (Posted on the dungeon wall of Chicago Pro Domme Margaret Morecock)

Erotic poverty is a sin against the Divine.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock

Never say “I love you” when “That was a great blow job” would be more accurate.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Mr. Jynx.

Never beat your wife with your sword. It shows a lack of respect for the sword.
– Ancient Samurai Saying
Show respect when you beat your wife with your sword.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

No sound in the world is more satisfying than the crunch of your enemy’s skull under your teeth after you’ve given him the chance to back off and he’s refused it.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by D.B. Cooper, Tibetan Buddhist Master and Harley Mechanic

Becket: Tonight you can do me the honor of christening my forks.
King Henry: Forks?
Becket: Yes, from Florence. New little invention. It’s for pronging meat and carrying it to the mouth. It saves you from dirtying your fingers.
King Henry: But then you dirty the fork.
Becket: Yes, but it’s washable.
King Henry: So are your fingers! I don’t see the point!
Becket: Well, it hasn’t any practically speaking, but it’s refined, it’s subtle, it’s very…..un-Norman.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“I love to conquer men’s asses.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Mistress Sherri

The Joker can run an excellent simulation of the mind of Batman. Batman, however, has absolutely no clue as to what goes on in the mind of the Joker.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“Top me, slave boy. Do it now.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock

“Being bisexual automatically doubles your chances for a date on a Saturday night.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Woody Allen

A dominatrix once came to the Kung Foole Temple. The night janitor of the temple said: “Show me your Kung Foole.” The domme sat down in full lotus posture to meditate. The night janitor tied her into this position with way more rope than was really necessary, then beat her with a cane, shouting: “We don’t need any more stone Buddhas!”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

A Zen priest once came to the Kung Foole Temple. Seeking to annoy him, the night janitor asked: “Why did the Buddha cross the road?” Without missing a beat, the Zen priest said: “To get to the same side.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

We will pray with those old Druids
They imbibe fermented fluids
And dance naked through the wuids
And it’s good enough for me
Give me that old time religion…
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Pete Seeger

Hey Torquemada! Wadda ya say?
I just got back from the auto-da-fe.
Auto-da-fe? What’s an auto-da-fe?
It’s when ya know ya hadn’t oughto
But ya do it anyway.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Mel Brooks

Show me a dom/me who won’t eat their sub and I’ll show you a sub I can steal.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

No matter how spicy you like your food, someone will tell you that it is too hot and someone else will say it is too bland. Season to your own taste.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Never bet on Star Trek trivia if your opponent speaks Klingon.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Oh! Oh! Oh what a night!
Oh what a garden of delight!
Even now that sweet memory lingers
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Paul Simon

“Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without the first, you really want them to be dumb and lazy.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Warren Buffet

“It is important for a man’s sexual development that he learn what it feels like to be penetrated. This is the ritual deflowering of the cow herds by the milkmaids…”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock

Playfully, you hid from me.
All day I looked.
Then I discovered I was you,
and the celebration of That began.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Lalla – mystic poet and nude table dancer.

“I’ve joked in the past about the weirdo oxygen-snorting fish who advanced evolution. But let’s be honest. Some fish aren’t ready to sniff oxygen.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Dr. Timothy Leary

“If you have to go away to come maybe you need to be elsewhere to begin with.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock

Never say anything more predictive than “Watch this!”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

The only thing worse than being a bottomless pain slut is being a Top-less pain slut!
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by KingDiaper

Sometimes … all I need is the air that I breathe and to love you.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by K.D. Lang A verse from her “Drag” album which comes strangely to mind.

You can’t turn an ocean liner on a dime.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers… Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls… But the only thing that worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge…”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)

“Look Ruth,” I said, sounding surprisingly normal, “these mushrooms are stronger than I expected. … Then I was gone into the fabled optical department. Nile palaces, Hindu temples, Babylonian boudoirs, Bedouin pleasure tents, gem flashery, woven silk gowns breathing color, mosaics flaming with Muzo emeralds, Burma rubies, Ceylon sapphires. Here came those jeweled serpents, those Moorish reptiles sliding, coiling, tumbling …
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Dr. Timothy Leary (Flashbacks)

“The spirit of erotic perversity is like boiling water. It requires the continuous application of energy.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Upon reading the Bible, we find it full of prodigies and miracles. It gives an account of a state of the world and of human nature entirely different from the present: of our fall from that state: of the age of man, extended to near a thousand years: of the destruction of the world by a deluge: of the arbitrary choice of one people, as the favorites of heaven; and that people the countrymen of the author: of their deliverance from bondage by prodigies the most astonishing imaginable: I desire any one to lay his hand upon his heart, and after a serious consideration declare, whether he thinks that the falsehood of such a book, supported by such a testimony, would be more extraordinary and miraculous than all the miracles it relates …
…. we may conclude that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by David Hume (“Of Miracles,” in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748)

Take the best parts from each religion. The Christians have some absolutely first-rate Christmas carols. The Jews have some very tasty deli products. Zen Buddhists have that neat whack-with-a-stick tradition. Goddess worship will improve your chances of getting laid by dominant hippie chicks. The Whirling Dervishes can spin to ecstacy without drugs (only if absolutely necessary, of course). If you’re going to take up Shiva worship, bring plenty of extra wrist cuffs.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Love is like a star of heaven
Burning in the endless sky
When it falls, it bursts asunder
As it lives, so shall it die.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Mason Williams

“It takes a special kind of butch to wear a Victorian lace skirt…”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock

When you shake hands with a buyer, keep a hundred dollar bill folded up in your palm. That man will never be too busy to shake your hand.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Philip the Foole’s grandfather, the most successful salesman in the history of one of America’s largest corporations.

“If you snooze, you lose.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his grey locks
“I kept all my whips very supple
By the use of this ointment – one shilling the box
Allow me to sell you a couple?”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (almost) by Lewis Carroll

If you play rough sports, you get a few bruises.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Foole: Riding in the back of Davo’s van with Lady Foole and Fnord’s human slaves while Fnord enthusiastically whipped me with the Dreaded Koosh Flogger was one of the most deeply religious experiences of my life.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

I awaken with delight.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
“I am leaving, I am leaving”
But the fighter still remains …
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Paul Simon

In the clearing stands a jester
And a lover by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every love that laid him down
And cut him till he cried out
In his passion and his zest
“I am coming, I am coming”
For the jester’s still the best …
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Arrow Blue

Two manta rays mating off the coast of Maui, gently brushing their wings together. My lower lip softly strokes your clit.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Play for control of the center of the board. The combinations play themselves.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

A poet once committed suicide to gain the attention of critics. His work was judged to be without value.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
…. If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb, from “Evangelists of Gor” (Corinthians 1:14:34-37)

Carpe noctum! (Seize the night!)
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Remind yourself that when you die, your “in basket” won’t be empty.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Richard Carlson (In “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, and it’s all Small Stuff.”)

I don’t claim that every single word in the Bible is utter, mind-rotting rubbish. For example, if the Bible advocated smallpox vaccination (it does not say anything so useful, of course) I would not automatically be in favor of smallpox. However, if such a petty, vengeful tribal war god as the Bible portrays actually existed, I would feel it was my ethical obligation to destroy him.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

DNUA (Do not use abbreviations.)
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Inch time
Foot gem
This day will not come again
Each moment is worth a precious gem
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Don’t dream it. Be it.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”

It’s time to kick ass and chew bubble gum. And I’m all out of gum.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Duke Nuke’em

Scoundrels often go about garbed as angels or gurus.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Pat Califia (in Bitch Goddess: The Spiritual Path of the Dominant Woman)

Sometimes the Universe reaches down and says: “You are getting too damned cocky, Cupcake.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock

If one person calls you an ass, laugh it off. If a dozen people who seem to be fairly sound thinkers in most other respects call you an ass, get fitted for a saddle.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Some say love
It is a river that drowns the tender reed
Some say love,
It is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love
It is a hunger, an endless aching need
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Bette Midler

Don’t sweat the small stuff – and it’s all small stuff.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

I’m not sure what Tantra is, but when we are together I come closer to it than I ever thought I’d get.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock

Anybody can top with a cane. Now a twig…
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock

I know I’ve made some rather poor decisions lately, but I’m alright now, Dave.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Hal 2000 (after killing the entire crew.)

Aikido Master (loudly, to class of magic/rainbow/crystal/healing types):
Brush by. Blend with opponent’s ki.
(very softly, to crash test dummy Foole, giving barely perceptible elbow pulse to ribs during entry.)
You understand “Brush by?”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“This pathetic dweeb has never seen any hot lesbian sex and he never will. Let’s close the door and leave him kneeling outside while we play.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock

…. do not conform to stereotypes. Know that they’re there – and then use them like any other writer’s tool. They are made to be tampered with, stretched, pasted in to fill empty spaces, plastered over little gaps. Stereotypes are the Silly Putty of writing. Beware of making them the duct tape.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Laura Antoniou (Leatherwomen III)

Never question your lover’s taste in lovers.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Drugs are regulated in part because our society doesn’t like it when people engage in quests for transcendental experiences …
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Pat Califia (in “Doc and Fluff: The Dystopian Tale of a Girl and Her Biker.”)

Inch time
Foot gem
This day will not come again
Each moment is worth a precious gem
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Fiat justitia ruat caelum. (Let justice be done though heaven falls.)
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

On up and away and a ga and a go-go.
Escape from the weight of your corporate logo.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Frank Zappa

Funny face, with serious eyes,
Dare I peer below your disguise?
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by malskept

I want a sensitive man. One who will cry when I hit him.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb on a button on Margaret Morecock’s dungeon wall.

People say that I’m out of touch with reality. That I’m insane.
Sometimes I forget things. Who I am. Where I am. Unimportant things.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by The Tick

Five hundred trips and they’ve all been bummers. But I ain’t givin’ up.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by the Forty-year-old Hippie.

“What did you use for the fuse?”
“Cannon fuse.”
“Where’d you get that?”
“My cannon.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (from “Tremors”)

“…I read Faraday’s ‘Chemical History of a Candle,’ a set of six Christmas lectures for children. The point of Faraday’s lectures was that no matter what you look at, if you look at it closely enough, you are involved in the entire universe.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Richard P. Feynman, in “The Meaning of it All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist” Helix Books, Reading, MA, 1998

Six hundred miles ‘tween here and Memphis
There’s a dozen men along the way
“Never stop and let ’em do no lookin.”
That was what my Daddy used to say.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by the New Riders of the Purple Sage (from “Whiskey”)

I fought the law and I won.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by D.B. Cooper, Tibetan Buddhist master and Harley mechanic

The Buddha rests as comfortably in the slippery, winking eye of my strap-on as he does in your lotus, Cupcake.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock

Everything in moderation, including excess.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

If you plan to start a food business, don’t plan to see the people you were having dinner with who suggested the idea to you for the next several years.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Tanith T., over dinner.

You can always make something a little bit worse, and therefore a little bit cheaper.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Roar Joshu’s “MU!!!” like a lion filling heaven and earth and you will really annoy the librarian.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you. I mean if I went around saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bink had lobbed a scimitar at me they’d put me away.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Monty Python

One-two, one-two and through and through the vorpal blade went snicker-snack.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Acrostic is a poem form
Containing a device
Rhyming’s not essential, it
Only makes it nice
Sometimes it is difficult
To write Acrostic muse
It took a lot of patience
Composing this for youse
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Mason Williams

Ordinary men hate solitude, but the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Lao-Tzu

STella moves like a gentle breeze among the homeless, crazy street people, imperceptible as the slowly moving shadow of a tree. As I watch, she levitates, turns invisible, and walks through walls. I bow in deep respect.
“Cheap theatrical effects” growls STella.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

BRAHMA

If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again. …

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Ralph Waldo Emerson

If I had my life to live over, I’d spend way more time doing BDSM.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Do virgins taste better than girls who are not?
Are they saltier sweeter more juicy or what?
Do you savor them or wolf them down on the spot?
Do virgins taste better than girls who are not?
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by the Bedlam Bards

Says she I’m a lady and you are a Smithie
You have brought your hammer and anvil with you?
Well I looks on the bed, I sees whips chains and shackles
And reassures her that I knows what to do
….
From sundown to sunrise we bastied each other
we bastied each other, oh Lord it was true
Come morning the cock crew we stared at each other
And realized then we’d forgotten to screw!

Oh Lassie, come beat me, come beat me!
Oh Lassie, come tie me up too!
Oh Lassie, come beat me, come beat me!
We’ve no’ done it right if we’re not black and blue!
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (Beat Me) by the Bedlam Bards

“I studied a little bit a long time ago.”
– Response by a Korean 7th degree black belt to Foole’s question on whether he’d studied martial arts.

“Once you’ve got their money, never give it back.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Yes, I am a masochist.
What are you going to do about it,
lit-tle
contemptuous little finger flick by shackled wrist
Boy?
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock

In the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage
For food and fame and wooly horses’ pelt.
I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,
And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt.
….
Then I stripped them, scalp from skull, and my hunting dogs fed full,
And their teeth I threaded neatly on a thong;
And I wiped my mouth and said, “It is well that they are dead,
For I know my work is right and theirs was wrong.”

But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole shrine he came,
And he told me in a vision of the night:–

“There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right!”

– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Rudyard Kipling

Foole: “What is this rock on your table, Relic Monger?”
Relic Monger: “You have a keen eye, Sir Foole. It happens that this is the very rock that David used to slay Goliath. And it’s yours for a mere quarter.”
Foole: “That is indeed a bargain for such a Holy Relic. I’ll take it. But what is this feather sitting next to it?”
Relic Monger: “Why, this is a magic feather. If you wear it behind your ear it protect you against all manner of scoundrels and swindlers. And it is a mere quarter.”
Foole: “I’ll take it.”
Relic Monger: “You are indeed a shrewd bargainer Sir Foole! Would you care to try these magical bean bags? They are said to impart dexterity.”
Foole: “I can juggle! It’s a miracle!”
Crowd presses forward to purchase the magical bean bags.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

She turned me into a newt!
A newt?
I got better.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Monty Python

“Philip, you are such a fag.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock, on hearing of my fisting party adventure.

Whatever you believe to be true is true, or becomes true within limits to be determined experimentally and experientially. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Dr. John C. Lilly

How do you feel about your creation now Dr. Frankenstein?
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Police Chief: “I am shocked to learn that gambling is going on in this establishment.”
Casino Employee: “Your winnings, Sir.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (from Casablanca)

This motley garb gave me my lovely lady
It opened up her eyes and ears to me
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (with apologies to John Denver)

When you’re stuck for an idea, call a meeting with some smart people.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

You got anything better to do?
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Keep in mind always the present you are constructing. It should be the future you want.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Alice Walker

I eat when I’m hungry, I drink when I’m dry.
If the devil don’t get me, I’ll live till I die.
– Ancient cowboy proverb (Rye Whiskey)
“Whoever wrote that is not far from enlightenment.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Zen Master, on hearing the cowboy song “Rye Whiskey.”

She said: “Reality check, Philip. I am naked and tied to a torture table. We are both tripping. You are stabbing a sharp dagger into my breast. Do you think this is safe?” Questions like this are very annoying to a priest of Quetzelcoatl.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

One of the hot leather lesbians said: “I don’t usually get along well with men, but you don’t seem like a man.” Of course not. I’m just a hot leather lesbian with a dick. Now bend over and grab your ankles, bitch.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

I had him by the throat. One of my feet was braced on the bench. He was thrusting his body back as hard and fast as I was thrusting in. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to strangle him, but I had him just right: I could throttle him into dizziness, almost to passing out, into a vast, almost-orgasmic plane where he would feel like he was getting butt-fucked on a cloud in heaven. I could keep him there or bring him back just by varying the pressure. The powerful feeling of having him in my hands was filling my heart as well as my cunt.
Suddenly I was acutely aware that I did not know his name.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Carol A. Queen, “The Leather Daddy and the Femme,” in Pat Califia’s “Doing it for Daddy.”

He was brought across in 1228.
He preyed on humans for their blood.
Now, he wants to be mortal again
To repay society for his sins
To emerge from his world of darkness
From his endless, forever night.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Lacroix, the senior vampire from the superb Canadian vampire cop t.v. show “Forever Knight.” Printed text can’t begin to convey the sarcasm that Lacroix puts into the line “to repay society for his sins.”

“Cyberspace is a very large pond, and consequently attracts an awful lot of pond scum.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Tanith T.

If two people think the same on everything, there’s only one person thinking.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Owa
Tagoo
Siam
– Ancient Kung Foole Mantra by Mr. Natural

…. luckily I didn’t go into the mountain
I went over the cliff
I knew it was the end
I looked down
I thought
Wow! Some trip.
…. I knew it wasn’t the best song I ever wrote. But I didn’t have time
to change it.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Arlo Guthrie

Yippie yee, yippie yi, yippie yo-ti-kai-yay,
He who lives by the gun
Will go the same way
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

The Indian (to a newcomer): So, have you stopped beating your wife yet?
Newcomer: (face flushing red with fury) Who told you I was beating her??!!
D.B. Cooper: You did. Just now, asshole.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by D.B. Cooper, Tibetan Buddhist Master and Harley Mechanic

“Ecrasez l’infame!” (Destroy the infamous thing!”)
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Voltaire

Matrix (Arnold Schwartzenegger): holding bad guy dangling over cliff by one ankle Do you remember, Solly when I promised I was going to kill you last?
Solly: That’s right Matrix! You did! You did!
Matrix: letting go I lied.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Arnold Schwartzenegger

It’s amazing what you can do with a cheap piece of meat.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (from “Eating Raoul”)

These country DJ’s all think I’m an outlaw
They’d never come to see me in this dive
Where the bikers stare at cowboys
Who are laughing at the hippies
Who are loading up their greasy .45’s.
– Ancient Kung Foole Country & Western song (last line modified from “Who are hoping they’ll get out of here alive” by D.B. Cooper, Tibetan Buddhist Master and Harley Mechanic)

Honey, when you base your life on a fictional story, there’s a name for it. Religion.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Arrow Blue

It takes around 1,000 tries to get one right, so I’d advise you to get started right away.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by the Lone Stranger

“Always keep Ithaca in your mind. To arrive there is your ultimate goal. But do not hurry the voyage at all.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by C.P. Cavafy

“Bi, poly, switch. I’m not indecisive, I’m greedy.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by NBarnes

Win or lose, there’s always Huyperian beetle snuff.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Quark (Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, #65)

Never underestimate a femdom named “Fluffy.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness. Well, OK, maybe not the best minds. Just the bunch of twisted, drooling, cackling sicko perverts that hung out on SSB.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Our Corporate Christmas Motto:
If I had my way, every fool who goes about with “Merry Christmas” on his lips would be boiled in his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by E. Scrooge

Bus driving is more useful than Zen.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by the Zen bus driver

Take the best parts from each religion. The Christians have some absolutely first-rate Christmas carols…
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Sometimes the doctors can help. Sometimes they can’t.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Frank Zappa (after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.)

When a Zen master eats an apple, he eats the whole apple.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Cargo Cult Science
In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas–he’s the controller–and they wait for the airplanes to land. They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Richard P. Feynman

The Night Janitor of the Kung Foole Temple was once asked why the Temple did not use belt ranks. He gestured to the students doing their forms.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Don’t try to break a brick in public until you can break two bricks in private.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Puff the magic dragon, lived by the sea
And frolicked in the Autumn mist in a land called Honalee.
Together we should sing it.
It’s just a children’s song,
And if you do not know the words …
You had better learn them.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Peter, Paul and Mary

When I eat an egg in the morning, I don’t need to eat the whole egg to realize that it is rotten.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

The night janitor of the Kung Foole Temple once attended a lecture by Chilean acidhead/mystic/con man Oscar Ichazo, the guru of a school of experimental mysticism called Arica. He led the “school song” in his heavy Spanish accent:
Ichazo: “God is eternal, He is in all of us. He is in everything. He is One without second …”
Female student: Why do you refer to God as male?
Ichazo: I deed not say “He ees een all of us.” I said “Ees een all of us.”
From that day forward, the school song became: “God ees eternal. Ees een all of us. Ees een everything. Eees One without second…”
It wasn’t just coincidence that this guy was the guru.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Gordon Liddy and I are the only two convicted felons from the Sixties who have definitely not been rehabilitated.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Dr. Timothy Leary

Hippie Dude: (to Foole) You wanna smoke some reefer and get high, man?
Foole: Dressed in psychedelic shaman cap & bells, blood singing, falls to floor of day-glo paisley schoolbus in helpless fit of laughter
Hippie Dude: (to D.B. Cooper) Like, what’s he on man?
D.B. Cooper: (deadpan as always): He quit smoking pot when he discovered real drugs.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

I went and I returned. It was nothing special. Rozan famous for its misty mountains; Sekko for its water.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Trim your nails, go real slow and use way more lube than you think you need.
– Ancient Kung Foole fisting advice

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive. …” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest,to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

sigh of utter happiness I never thought I’d have such a great experience as a bottom. I always figured I’d have to somehow act submissive, which I am really bad at. It’s my great good luck that our Humble Jester likes topping bossy, bitchy, sarcastic smart-asses. – Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock

Lady Foole: What are you watching on video?
Foole: Robert Redford in “The Horse Whisperer.”
Lady Foole: That’s a chick flick that even I wouldn’t watch. Pretending to be sensitive again, are we?
Foole: You know my methods, Watson.
Lady Foole: You’re not fooling anyone.
Foole: I rather enjoy the roping and branding bits.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Submission ain’t fer sissies.
— Ancient King Fool proverb

Bondage will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no bondage.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (almost) by the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers

Nothing difficult was ever easy.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Groucho Marx

Some folks only sigh when their boundaries are overstepped. I snarl. Deal.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Leona Joy – The Lioness who kneels.

From “Battle Raven”
by Catt Kingsgrave-Ernstein

I am one sword out of many
I am one face out of three
The Maiden, Crone and Mother
Stand united within me
….
Bring the lightning to my sword
Lashing, living in my hand
And bring warning to the horde
That here the Battle Raven stands
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by The Ravens (from “Rise With the Moon”)

Always keep a supply of Steven Davis’ sicfic on hand in case your securely tied-up partner asks you to read them a bedtime story.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

It is wise to seek humor in all things, lest others do it for/to you.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Alcore Nilth

If you can’t laugh at yourself, someone else is going to do it for you, and you’re not going to enjoy it nearly as much.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Harry Ugol

Logon to Usenet
Firefly phosphors on the screen
Another flamewar
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Kryptonian bad guy in Superman movie: “Kneel before Zod!”
Lady Foole (doing her impression of Al Pacino in “Scarface:” “I want you to meet my leetle friend, Zod.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

A Zen priest once asked the widow of a famous master for her permission to write a biography.
“Oh yes, yes,” she said emphatically. Tell many funny stories.”
The writer objected that another very famous, very serious Zen guy had said that no one should write about the master who had not experienced his samadhis (deep states of meditation)
“Good!” she said clapping, with delight in her voice. “There’s your first funny story!”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by David Chadwick (from: “Crooked Cucumber – the Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki”)

King Arthur: Who is your lord?
Dennis the Mud Gatherer: I told you. We don’t have a lord. We’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two-thirds majority in the case of …
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Monty Python

What you believe to be true is true, or becomes true within limits to be determined experimentally and experientially. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Dr. John C. Lilly

Aikido Master: Stretch out fingers in front of opponent’s eyes. He flinch back and fall.
Foole: But Sensei, what if he doesn’t flinch back?”
Aikido Master: looking concerned That very bad. If he no flinch back, maybe hit eyes on fingers.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

There is no such thing as an unstoppable technique. If one existed, there would be no martial arts. Everyone would simply use that technique.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“Did you ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb used by Gene Hackman to confuse and disorient a suspect during an interrogation in “The French Connection.”

A warrior was once shot with a poisoned arrow. He refused to let the doctor treat him until the doctor could tell him who shot the arrow, where it was made, and what specific kind of poison was on the arrow point.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“Well, here you are, naked and tied up with duct tape in an abandoned warehouse, about to be tortured by a serial killer.”
“Mmmmm. Right where I want to be.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

D.B. Cooper (;appraising Foole’s gift of a “Jolly Roger” kite);: Isn’t that a little too much truth in advertising?
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

It was the kind of place that made that phase “dive” sound like a refreshing plunge into a clear stream. It was dark and dirty, during a time when the world was becoming bright and clean. The floor was unwashed and sticky with matter that it didn’t pay to think about, as your shoes velcroed across the floor. You felt but didn’t hear that sound, though, because the talk and the glassware and the noises from under the floor drowned out such things. Yeah, under the floor… was the dungeon, down a wobbly wooden staircase in the back. The slings suspended from the ceiling beams down there made the floor creak in the bass register, as they rocked back and forth, while the moans and yells of those under the lash provided the treble.
Nobody knew these days who Dan had been. Maybe the first owner, maybe the last. Bolo, the huge barkeep, was bald and of indeterminate gender, and definitely Not Dan. Rumor was that whatever Bolo’s Real Name was, it had a Ph.D. after it. None of the Denizens gave a shit.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (from “Dan’s Den – The Retrieval”) by Spectrum

Foole, sitting in a beautiful rose garden, meditating/hallucinating, hears an angelic voice: “This is the Holy of Holies!”
Foole is awestruck, bows to the ground.
Workmen (hallucinated) start carrying away obviously fake prop rose bushes.
Director’s voice yells “Cut! Strike the ‘Holy of Holies’ set!”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Gangster: “I want to commission a picture of a nude toreador girl being charged by a bull with a man’s head.”
Feynman: “Well, uh, it would help me a little if I had some idea of what this drawing is for.”
Gangster: “I want it for my business establishment.”
Feynman: “What kind of business establishment?”
Gangster: “It’s for a massage parlor: you know, private rooms, masseuses — get the idea?”
Feynman: “Yeah, I get the idea.” … “Suppose the cops come in and they see this picture, and you’re claiming it’s a massage parlor.”
Gangster: “OK, OK, You’re right. I’ve gotta change it. What I want is a picture that, if the cops look at it, is perfectly OK for a massage parlor, but if a customer looks at it, it gives him ideas.”
Feynman: I figured out how to do it. I would draw a slave girl in imaginary Rome, massaging some important Roman — a senator, perhaps. Since she’s a slave girl, she has a certain look on her face. She knows what’s going to happen next, and she’s sort of resigned to it.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Dr. Richard P. Feynman (from “The Art of Richard P. Feynman: Images by a Curious Character” compiled by Michelle Feynman)

“…what I have written here is a silly, misleadingly unscholarly piece, designed to infuriate.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Dr. Geoffrey K. Pullum (from “The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax”)

“What Tutu Pele like take, she take.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by an elderly Hawaiian after the Volcano Goddess “Auntie” Pele accepted his offering of a bottle of vodka and then burned his house down anyway.

After several years had passed, the Zen priest returned to the Kung Foole Temple. Still seeking to annoy him, the Night Janitor wrote him a note: “Why did the Buddha cross the road?” The Zen priest wrote back: “Not to go anywhere special.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“Seven years of college down the drain.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by John Belushi (from “Animal House,” after entire fraternity got kicked out of school)

Odds that a U.S. adult believes the Sun orbits the Earth: 1 in 4.
Odds that a U.S. adult cannot read a bus schedule: 1 in 2
Odds that a British adult does not know that the U.S. was once part of Britain: 1 in 3
Odds that a U.S. adult cannot name any country the U.S. fought against during World War II: 1 in 3
– Ancient Kung Foole Factoids

“There in the middle of this mall is the Washington Monument, 555 feet high. But if we put a 1 in front of that 555 feet, we get 1555, the year that our first fathers landed on the shores of Jamestown, Virginia, as slaves. In the background is the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorial. Each one of these monuments is 19 feet high. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd president, and 16 and 3 make 19 again. What is so deep about this number 19? Why are we standing on the Capitol steps today? That number 19, when you have a 9, you have a womb that is pregnant, and when you have a 1 standing by the 9, it means that there’s something secret that has to be unfolded.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Statistics by Louis Farrakhan (quoted in Martin Gardner’s “Notes of a Fringe Watcher,” Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 1997.)

“Ah, but the strawberries! That’s, that’s where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, and with, with geometric logic, that, that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Humphrey Bogart (as Captain Queeg in “The Caine Mutiny.”)

The last time I saw you, you looked so much bolder,
My famous black strap-on rammed up to my shoulders
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Margaret Morecock (after Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat”)

Nazi Officer (;gathering up diamonds offered as bribe by Oskar Schindler and putting them in his pocket);: I am not saying that I am accepting them. All I say is I am not comfortable with them on the table.
– Ancient Kung Foole Business Ethics (from “Schindler’s List”)

Itzhak Stern (;munitions plant manager);: We’ve received angry complaints from the Armaments Board. The artillery shells, tank shells, rocket casings – apparently all of them have failed quality control tests.
Oskar Schindler: That’s to be expected. Startup problems. This isn’t pots and pans. This is a precise business. I’ll write them a letter.
Stern: They’re witholding payment.
Schindler: Sure. So would I. So would you. I wouldn’t worry about it. We’ll get it right one of these days.
Stern: There’s a rumor you’ve been going around miscalibrating the machines. …
Schindler: If this factory ever produces a shell that can actually be fired, I’ll be very unhappy.
– Ancient Kung Foole Business Ethics (from “Schindler’s List”)

Politician: Start a rumor that my opponent has sex with farm animals.
Advisor: But that isn’t true.
Politician: That’s OK. Let him deny it.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

As the bell tone fades
Blossom scents take up the ringing
Evening shade
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Basho

“Her English is too good,” he said. “That clearly indicates that she is foreign.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Professor Henry Higgins (in My Fair Lady)

If you want to find out where your armor is weak, check your bruised spots.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Peter, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milk Bar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Anthony Burgess (from: “A Clockwork Orange – being the adventures of a young man whose principle interests are rape, ultra-violence, and Beethoven.”)

Some Baptist ministers are men who cheat on their wives.
Therefore all men who cheat on their wives are Baptist ministers.
Some serial killers are sexual sadists.
Therefore all sexual sadists are serial killers.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

When you are considering hiring someone, ask yourself: “Will hiring this person raise the average I.Q. of my group?”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Bill Gates

They wouldn’t listen to the fact that I was a genius
The man said “I got all of them that I can use.”
Now I got them steadily depressin’
Low down, mind messin’
Workin’ at the carwash blues.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Jim Croce

The contemporary World War on Drugs is nothing more nor less than the modern manifestation of the millennial struggle between state power and individual freedom; between the proselytizers of purely symbolic simulacra of religion – propagandists of what Blake called “pale religious lechery” – and the practitioners of the real thing – for religion is an experience, not merely a “social activity with mild ethical rules.” This War on Drugs originally started as a War on Religious Experiences, and it is nothing new…
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Jonathan Ott

“Step up to Red Alert!”
“Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Rimmer and Kryten, (from Red Dwarf)

Fleeing the Cylon tyranny, the last battlestar, Galactica, leads a ragtag, fugitive fleet on a lonely quest – a shining planet, known as Earth.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“The French don’t care what they do actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Professor Henry Higgins

I am the Universe’s center.
No subtle critics can confound me.
For how can other viewpoints enter
When all the rest is all around me?
– Ancient Kung Foole grook by Piet Hein

I move in circles to keep the water flowing over my gill slits while I feed.
– Ancient Kung Foole Flame by Trystilarn

A society which has failed to produce a desire for its continued survival in one of its members has failed in a very important aspect of behavioral engineering.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by psychologist B.F. Skinner

The first time you try anything is not going to be a masterpiece of flawless presentation.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

The one way in which every town is most alike is in their absolute certainty that they are not like any other town.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

We took these islands by force and treachery – the same way Kamehameha took them.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

How can I tell that the past isn’t a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)

If an apple is magnified to the size of the earth, then the atoms in the apple are approximately the size of the original apple.
– Ancient Kung Foole Perspective by Richard P. Feynman (in “Six Easy Pieces.”)

I like my men simple
And rough to the touch
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by k’Shandra

“The Godfather” is the I Ching.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (from “You’ve Got Mail.”)

If you were queen of pleasure,
And I were king of pain,
We’d hunt down love together,
Pluck out his flying feather,
And teach his feet a measure,
And find his mouth a rein.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Swinburne

Out in the West Texas town of Laredo
I fell in love with a young Sufi girl
Nightime would find us in dervish cantinas.
Music would play and Felina would whirl
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Happy trails to you …
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Dr. Timothy Leary

“(;Bill Gates); would be a broader guy if he had dropped acid …
– Steve Jobs
“But I did.”
– Bill Gates
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

There once were two gibbons from Ghana
Who fucked as they shared a banana
The tree limb then broke
So they quickened their stroke
Fell through a warp in the space-time continuum and ended up in Montana.
(Talk about a deus ex monkeyna.)
– Ancient Kung Foole Limerick

Slave bells ring, are you listening?
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Bing Crosby

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Robert Frost

Perhaps I can call a temporary halt by reporting the episode which caps all earlier uses of the Aphorism. Properly enough, it was another giant, this time, Freud, who clarified its import, once and for all. It came to pass when Stekel, that unwanted disciple of Freud and regarded by him as a conscienceless pretender to science, tried to make self-interested use of the Aphorism. Stekel had become thoroughly persuaded that his ideas surpassed those of the master. He liked to express this by saying, with arrogant modesty, that a dwarf on the shoulders of a giant can of course see farther than the giant himself. Comes then the giant’s grim crusher when he hears of this claim: “That may be true, but a louse on the head of a astronomer does not.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Otsog by Robert King Merton (from “On the Shoulders of Giants.”)

I keep getting richer
But I can’t get my picture
On the cover of the Rolling Stone
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show

An army without profanity couldn’t fight its way out of a piss-soaked sack.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by General George S. Patton

Now you have such good taste in your women for sure
They always are pretty. They always are pure.
But your notion of dining it makes us all flinch
Your favorite entree is a barbecued wench
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by the Bedlam Bards, “Do virgins taste better than girls who are not?” on “Take out the Trash.”

Oh the moonlight gleamed off her handcuffs
As she gave me the back of her hand
And the whip cracked down as I lay there
Tied up with her black leather band.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (Black Leather Band) by the Bedlam Bards

The map is not the territory.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

“What did he want?”
“He wanted what all men want.”
“He wanted you to dress like Wonder Woman, tie him up with your golden magic lasso, and force him to tell the truth?”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (from “Back to School.”)

In a neat little town called Gomorra,
By cruel distress I was bound
And many’s the hour of happiness
I spent there while I was tied down.

Well, She liked to go strolling down Broadway
On a short leash I couldn’t go far
Reined in by that frolicsome damsel
With the tattoo and the dagger-shaped scar
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (Black Leather Band) by the Bedlam Bards

It has been my experience that if you hang out with the right bunch of twisted, drooling, cackling, sicko perverts and tell them your erotic fantasies, they are not likely to remain fantasies.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

I’m a picker, I’m a grinner, I’m a lover, I’m a sinner
I play my music in the sun
I’m a joker, I’m a smoker, I’m a midnight toker
I get my loving on the run
You’re the cutest thing I ever did see
I really love your peaches, gonna shake your tree.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Steve Miller (The Joker).

There’s a man who lives a life of danger
To everyone he meets, he stays a stranger
With every move he makes, another chance he takes
Odds are he won’t live to see tomorrow.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (from “Secret Agent”)

Does she show great enthusiasm when you mount her?
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb (from “Little Big Man.”)

Walk me to the corner
Our steps will always rhyme
You know my love goes with you
As your love stays with me
It’s just the way it changes
Like the shoreline and the sea
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Leonard Cohen

“Is this a game of chance?”
“Not the way I play it.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by W.C. Fields

“Taking the kitty out for a walk.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Tanith T.

That’s really the first wave – when it hits me, the way his eyes are looking at me when he says that simple thing, “Ok.”. That’s my world, at that moment. This man that I care so much for, that I adore, has just agreed to be tortured, not only for me, but by me.
It is more romantic than a hundred red roses.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb by Akasha

Kung Foole Proverbs, like sushi, are best when served fresh.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Foole (in response to groans and complaints from students after having them erase a “creative” project from their computers): In “Seven Years in Tibet” the monks make an elaborate sand painting to represent the impermanence of things. A Chinese officer marches through the painting and kicks it to bits with his boots.
Student: So, in this scenario, you would be the Chinese officer?
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Foole (to Lone Stranger, while standing on hotel balcony observing hot leather muscleman): “Tell me the truth, Masked Man, doesn’t he do anything for you?”
Lone Stranger: “Nope.”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Alive and well.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Your own true mantra calls to you.
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb

Master Nansen was washing clothes.
A monk said: “Is the master doing such a thing?”
Holding up the clothes, Master Nansen asked: “What is to be done with them?”
– Ancient Kung Foole Proverb