Found on an index card labeled "Ong's Laws":

The longer you wait to throw something away, the sooner you will have immediate and urgent need for it.

Everything used to be something else. (E.g., a bone in the inner ear having to do with hearing in human beings evolved from a bone serving originally as a support for the gill slits of a fish; horses' hooves evolved from claws; etc.).

Total verbal explicitness is impossible. (This statement is also self-referential.)

and from cards labeled "aphorisms, etc.":

When you add to what you know, does this mean that what you don't know has diminished?
Of course not. Now what you don't know includes how your new knowledge relates to other knowledge of yours as well as to what you still don't know.
What you don't know is bottomless and is getting deeper.

Diminishment of our powers by illness, old age, etc., should be accepted wholeheartedly as coming from a loving God. But to accept such diminishment, we must struggle against it as best we can. Jesus did not volunteer for crucifixion, although he accepted it out of love of his Father and of humankind. If we do not struggle against the diminishment, we are not truly accepting it. [dated 3-8-91]

"Back to your roots"? Roots grow out of the visible tree as much as the visible tree grows out of its roots.

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