Thoughts on What We Think We Know

"Every breakthrough in knowledge can be traced to someone who was confused by the facts."


"It is unlikely that a man will freely debate an idea that he worships on the Sabbath."


"I can believe that evolution produced in the walrus an insulating layer of blubber, but did it really produce in man an insulating automatic dual-control heating and cooling system?"


"What we know for sure about the author of the Bible is that he did not need to publish to get tenure."


There are truths so threatening that we must first deny them and only then misconstrue them, as in "What you say is not true, and even it were true..."


"A man who comes to his own conclusions must be ready to defend his sources."


"Know thyself, which is easy enough to do when you're married to an authority on the subject."


"Looking back, you realize that most all your questions would have answered themselves if you had only stopped interrupting."


"No matter how reclusive we tend to be, we picture the after-life as a community of souls. It is one thing to seek privacy in this life; it is another to face eternity alone."


"Listen to your kids. Children are largely self-explanatory."



~ Robert Brault

A Few Thoughts on Husbands and Wives

"The first job of motherhood is to get a child safely to the stage where its father is ready for fatherhood."


"Marriage is nature's way of ensuring that a woman picks up some mothering experience before she has her first child."


"There is a sense of danger a man feels in romance that he doesn't feel in marriage, marriage being the danger."


"A woman will marry a man for what he has, or she will marry a man because she is all he has."


"What to do about the divorce rate? Well, maybe couples performing the wedding act could use a marriage control device."


~ Robert Brault

Thoughts Progressively Ponderous

"As a means to success, determination has this advantage over talent -- that it does not have to be recognized by others."


To the student I would say, "Life is principally multiple choice, but at the end there's a tough essay question."


"If you feel you are down on your luck, check the level of your effort."


"The trick to getting things done is to list things to do in doable order."


"When you have brought up kids, there are memories you store directly in your tear ducts."


"If you can remember it without tears, it wasn't happiness."


"At my age you not only have bittersweet memories, you make bittersweet plans."


"Of what use to understand the nuances of everything and the essence of nothing?"


"Every day is conquerable by its hours, and every hour by its minutes."


"What is it that we all believe in that we cannot see or hear or feel or taste or smell -- this invisible thing that heals all sorrows, reveals all lies and renews all hope? What is it that has always been and always will be, from whose bosom we all came and to which we will all return? Most call it Time. A few realize that it is God."


~ Robert Brault

An Art Lover Goes to Paris

Joan and I fulfilled a dream last October, finally making it to Paris. Our primary destinations were the Louvre and the Impressionist exhibits at the Musee d'Orsay and the Tuileries Gardens. A highlight of our visit was a side trip to the Monet gardens and lily pond at Giverny (Zhiv-er-nee).


The autumn glow of Giverny
Shown velvet soft on you and me,
No breeze astir, no gust to sway
The lily pond of Claude Monet.


We stood at the foot of the lily pond, looking across at the Japanese footbridge. I glanced from the actual scene to the Monet print in my hand. It seemed, as I compared the impression to the reality, that Mother Nature had not quite captured it -- a strange reversal indeed. I realized then that I had long ago fashioned from Monet’s impression my own imagined reality. And it had little to do with the lily pond at Giverny.

The artist gazes upon a reality and creates his own impression. The viewer gazes upon the impression and creates his own reality.


**********************************************************************************


There is this instant nostalgia you feel as a couple in Paris. It is the sense that you are creating a memory. The words from Casablanca, “We will always have Paris,” seem to have been written for you alone. The feeling builds as you stroll up the Champs Elysees toward the Arc de Triomphe. The avenue seems endless; the Arc looms in a blue haze, seeming always in the far distance. You move as if in slow-motion, the focus of some hidden camera, other strollers just figures in a blurred background.


Paris seemed our private "parc"
For us alone its charm beguiled
For us the Champs stretched to the Arc
For us the Mona Lisa smiled.


At the Louvre, the crowd gathers in a semicircle, roped off to a distance of about 25 feet from DaVinci’s masterpiece. People jostle to get to the front, so as to turn to a friend’s camera and get a photo of themselves with the Mona Lisa in the background. If you stand off a bit and take in this scene, the Mona Lisa seems to look past the crowd, her eye catching yours, her enigmatic smile intended for you personally.


I imagine the young Madonna Lisa del Giocondo posing for her famous portrait, and it occurs to her that in all her life to come, whenever she gazes into a looking glass, she will behold the Mona Lisa – and a strange little smile comes across her face.

~ Robert Brault

A Few Weekend Thoughts

"Born to loving parents and grandparents, we imagine that the world is full of people who will place our happiness above their own. We discover, if we are lucky in our lives, that there is exactly one more."


"Youthful idealism is the belief that that portion of our parents' wealth not being used to put us through college should be distributed among the needy of the world."


"Often what seems a kindness is just someone acting in their official capacity as a human being."


"Be careful of selfish motives. You can mistake them for principles and end up dying for them."


"There is seldom a martyr to a cause fully understood."


"Separating your prejudices from your principles is a bit like eliminating flaws from your character. You can only hope that there is something left."


~ Robert Brault

Thoughts of a Godseeker

"I am a godseeker and will die a godseeker, and my fate will be the test of God's mercy."


"What is missing in man's quest to understand the universe is someone else's point of view."


"Eventually, in our quest for knowledge, there will be one thing left to understand, and when we come to understand it, it will change our understanding of everything else."


"In nature we see where God has been. In our fellow man, we see where He is still at work."


"No one ever knew the will of God without thinking he knew it better than everyone else."


"We see the devil's hand in that which tempts others, not in that which tempts ourselves."


"In our study of the cosmos, there has never been a mystery that a larger mystery would not explain."


"Religion and science have this in common -- that they are both irresistibly attracted to an unexplainable idea that explains everything else."


~ Robert Brault

The Family Dictionary: Selected Entries

Friends: people who disagree without being disagreeable.
Family: people who disagree for the purpose of being disagreeable.


Family: people who stick essentially the same nose into each other's business.


Cousin: someone you see twice a year, the second time to return their dish.


Sibling: someone you have nothing in common with, frequently mistaken for you.


Family Friend: someone who, as a kid, you never knew who they were except they always brought the macaroni casserole.


Your Own Apartment: a place where you can be sick in the bathroom at 1 AM without your mother knocking at the door and asking if you're all right.


Inlaws: people with a common low regard for your spouse's judgment.


Spouse (female): someone who, before every wedding and funeral, reminds you of how you're related to your own second cousins.


Second Cousins (male): two men who meet at weddings and funerals who never remember how their wives said they were related.


Rule of Relatives: the more distant the relative, the longer the Christmas card describing what their family has been doing all year.


Great Uncle: someone at whose wake you know you're too close to the casket if strangers keep telling you they're sorry for your loss.


~ Robert Brault

Thoughts on Time, Life and Garden Paths

"Time is a figure eight, at its center the city of Deja Vu."


"Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden."


"An optimist is someone who thinks that things may be spinning into control."


"As an American, I do wonder where the country is going, especially when the President flies over in Handbasket One."


"Shall I redirect my life's journey because down some sideroad might be some trifle I'm entitled to?


"We are kept from our goal not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal."


"Am I some ant that I should drop what I have gathered to pursue every crumb in my path?"


"You know you're seriously trailing the pack when its leader comes up behind you, taps you on the shoulder and asks directions."


"I have been led up many a garden path but never more pleasurably than by a child. With such joy is the surprise sprung. With such delight my gullibility uncovered. I am happily the wiser for these trips up a garden path. I continue to learn stuff."


"Why be saddled with this thing called life expectancy? Of what relevance to an individual is such a statistic? Am I to concern myself with an allotment of days I never had and was never promised? Must I check off each day of my life as if I am subtracting from this imaginary hoard? No, on the contrary, I will add each day of my life to my treasure of days lived. And with each day, my treasure will grow, not diminish."


~ Robert Brault

A Note to the Artists in my Readership

I'd like to mention that there are now 64 of my quotes on Robert Genn's wonderful site, The Painter's Keys. While not exclusively a collection of art quotes, they contain much of what I have written here on the subjects of painting and photography, and they have the merit of having been chosen selectively by Mr. Genn's staff. I'm proud to be represented there.

Thoughts on Self, Solitude and Sundry

"No matter how many hours you spend in front of a mirror, you never see the look in your eyes that attracts your lover."



"We never quite forgive our mother for knowing all our hiding places, beginning with the very first."



"The difference between friends and pets is that friends we allow into our company, pets we allow into our solitude."



"Bereft of friends, I retreated deep into myself. Actually, my Lab and I retreated deep into ourselves."



The most challenging question I've been asked at a cocktail party? "So, what do you do when you're not making conversation?"



"Sometimes we regret, more than any words spoken, a silence not broken."



"Charisma is a fancy name given to the knack of giving people your full attention."



"To become a grandparent is to enjoy one of the few pleasures in life for which the consequences have already been paid."



"I do not doubt that an ant colony is efficient. I just wonder if it completely addresses privacy issues."



"And I, I took the road less traveled by. I was using a GPS system."



~ Robert Brault

Thoughts That Got Away From Me

From time to time, I have posted thoughts here that I subsequently deleted, feeling that they were too grim or too pretentious. But, in four instances that I know of, such thoughts were picked up by The Quote Garden and have achieved some small circulation on the internet. So I might as well acknowledge them. Here they are.

"We are each of us born into the arms of mortality, the Lord recognizing our need to be held."

"If I choose abstraction over reality, it is because I consider it the lesser chaos."

"It is the fancy of every mortal that being cradled in the arms of mortality is a safe place for the time being."

The fourth I present here a bit revised:

"Among those born into chaos, some will imagine an order and become scientists; a few will recognize the chaos and become abstract artists; most others will turn to faith for understanding; and the rest will become lost souls."

And, to relieve the gloom, a few thoughts on the wry side:

"A relative is someone in whose presence there's a subject you don't dare bring up."


"Family: a group of people bound together by the same blood and the same ongoing argument."


"If minutes were kept of a family gathering, they would show that "Members not Present" and "Subjects Discussed" were one and the same."


"A family dinner is a gathering of strangers who always sit in the same place."


"There is a bond forged between people who have hid under the same bed from the same parents."



~ Robert Brault