Reduced Reflections

by Tan Kheng Yeang

Overview

The human experience is not a sum total. It is an ever-growing compendium of knowledge, forever changed by the contributions of each person’s life, and as humans we are tasked with sharing what we know. Reduced Reflections, by author, philosopher, and engineer Tan Kheng Yeang, is the ultimate expression of Yeang’s rich, original perception of humanity and the world. Yeang had a long engineering career involving extensive civil construction projects in China and what is now known as Malaysia; upon retirement he returned to his first loves of literature and philosophy and is now widely published. At times humorous, thought-provoking, heartwarming, and heartbreaking, Reduced Reflections promises to entertain and enlighten casual readers as well as the consummate philosopher. The volume can be opened to any page for a few quick one-liners, and it can also be read through its alphabetical presentation, revealing to us matters of the heart and soul, of social conscience, of nature, of learning—everything under the sun of the human experience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781426954221
Publisher:	Trafford Publishing
Publication date:	04/18/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	201 KB

Read an Excerpt

Reduced Reflections

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By Tan Kheng Yeang

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2011 Tan Kheng Yeang
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4269-5420-7

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Chapter One

A

ABSENCE

Absence is a slow manufacturer of apathy.

One is more concerned with a neighbour one sees daily than with a relative in a distant country.

One should always try not to be absent when one should be present.

The absent make easy scapegoats.

ABSENTMINDEDNESS

We can say one is absentminded when one goes around searching for the shoes that are on one's feet.

Absentmindedness is the penalty imposed on the mind for its crime of concentration on one subject.

People given to fits of absentmindedness have to learn not to be embarrassed by the ridiculous situation in which they are apt to find themselves.

ACCIDENT

Laxity fashions accidents.

A happy accident gives twice as much joy as a happy incident.

He who does not enter a jungle will not accidentally encounter a tiger. Accidents can be courted or avoided.

If a person has a tendency to run into distressing accidents, he blames them on his bad luck. He should sit down and analyse them, and he may then discover that they are due at least partially to his character.

ACCURACY

Practise accuracy at all times, even when it is not absolutely required.

Accuracy gives an impression of truth.

Accuracy is the virtue of mathematics par excellence. It is not so perfect in other connections, but it can be made sufficient for most purposes.

ACQUISITION

The acquisition of money is the raison d'être of most people.

The acquisition of knowledge is what should give the greatest satisfaction.

The acquisition of an evil habit is the prelude to self-destruction.

ACTING

Everyone acts a part in life, for left to nature, he would not be behaving as he does.

Acting is pretence elevated into an art.

ACTION

Action brings thought to the masses.

Action, to be most effective, must be informed by effective thought.

Whatever you do, do it dispiritedly—and you will never live a happy life!

To do one's best is not difficult if the little that one does ordinarily is the best one can do.

It is not always easy to do nothing, for total inaction is alien to human nature.

It is good to review frequently one's actions, scrutinizing the mistakes and faults so as to avoid repetition of them.

A person of action is one given to making firm decisions, whether right or wrong—usually wrong.

ADMIRATION

Numerous are the persons whom the world admires, but few are the truly admirable.

People only admire what they can appreciate.

ADMISSION

One who readily admits guilt does so because he thinks he will not be punished for it.

ADVENTURE

Adventure is more exciting in the recollection than the experience.

Before setting out on an adventure, a sensible person fortifies himself with some courage and much equipment.

Adventure never appears as romantic as to the stay-at-home.

Adventure without an objective is merely bravado.

ADVERSITY

Fallen prosperity embitters a person; adversity that has never known better days is resigned.

Adversity is enjoyable only to the prosperous.

Adversity wears its best aspect in a life of dignity.

Adversity makes it ironic for a person preoccupied with the struggle for daily needs to think of the sublime.

Adversity does not engender crime. It is not adversity but lack of moral fibre that is the cause. Attribution of a crime to adversity does not excuse it.

ADVERTISEMENT

Advertisement transforms bad products into good ones with its magic wand.

Advertisement is the sire of popularity.

Big advertisement speaks small worth.

Advertisements are concerned principally with commodities, but they reflect the prevailing beliefs about life and its purpose.

If there were not so many advertisements, they would be less exasperating.

ADVICE

The best advice is actual aid.

Advice is apt to be freely dispensed because it costs nothing. For the same reason, it is seldom sought and still more rarely taken.

The advice that the giver gives is usually what the recipient already knows.

Advice can be of such a nature that if adopted, it works injury. It needs to be weighed before it is practised.

AFFECTATION

Affectation is always bad, even affectation of what is bad.

Affectation of behaviour, deemed elegant, never fails to excite derisive amusement.

AFFECTION

Affection is never wrong.

Affection generates affection.

The tragedy of affection is when it comes to an end.

Affection is the sunshine of the mind.

Affection is a treasure more difficult to acquire than gold.

AGE

Age must affect the body but need not affect the mind.

Every age is right in its way.

The assumption that when people attain a certain age they should be retired to lead an idle and possibly dependent life because they are presumed to be useless is absurd. They should work as long as they are willing and able to do so.

Old age is an achievement in itself. Every person is young once, but not every person lives to be old.

AGREEMENT

Agreement with others may ensure popularity, but if it is at the expense of intellectual honesty, it is reprehensible.

In business and in politics, people should be as wary of those who agree with them as of those who disagree with them.

The most truculent person does not disagree with his boss.

AIR

About the only thing that all people enjoy in common is the air.

ALARM

A person easily alarmed lives in misery.

ALCOHOL

It's odd that people should destroy themselves with drinking. Alcohol does not drown sorrow but augments it; it does not confer pleasure but engenders misery.

The idea that an ability to stand alcohol is manly is preposterous; what is there manly in swallowing a liquid that makes a person stupid?

Wine in moderation resembles a sportive breeze; in excess, a raging tempest.

Of all the things ingested by humans, alcohol is the silliest.

ALTRUISM

Altruism is service rendered to others without thought of return. This is the highest virtue.

Group loyalty—be it to family, school, association, party, community, or country—is the most popular of virtues because it is the most selfish.

Altruism is the rarest of jewels.

AMATEUR

To do for love what others do for money makes the amateur superior to the professional.

Great work always breathes the spirit of the amateur.

It is customary to speak derogatorily of amateurs, for it is assumed that they possess less knowledge or skill than professionals. But many a professional is merely an amateur who has achieved success.

AMBITION

Ambition for external distinction is far more popular than ambition for internal greatness.

Ambition gives force to character and meaning to practical life. In its absence, life tends to be dull.

Ambition cannot be the bedfellow of modesty.

An ambition achieved loses the enchantment of an ambition entertained.

An ambition that depends on money for its success has to jump over two hurdles: money and success.

AMUSEMENT

The best amusement is one that contains a serious core.

What is an amusement to one person is a bore to another.

Constant amusement soon palls and later appals.

Some amusement to one's taste is the tonic of life.

Perpetual pursuit of amusement is frivolity run riot.

ANCESTRY

It is idle speculating over one's ancestry, and it is meaningless boasting of it. Everybody has to stand on his own feet.

We owe to our descendants what we owe to our ancestors.

ANGER

Anger is not immoral, but it is unpleasant.

Anger gushes from unsure superiority.

An angry person is like a boiling kettle of water.

ANIMAL

The astonishing variety of animal forms shows nature's usual prodigality.

Animal life is a tragedy and nature's mistake. Life should not have been made to feed on life.

ANSWER

One who answers yes when it should be no is submissive; one who answers no when it should be yes is perverse.

Giving a sensible answer to a foolish question is rarer than giving a foolish answer to a sensible question.

ANTIQUE

An antique is a modern treasure.

APPAREL

Apparel is the most apparent thing about a person.

One of the vagaries of fashion is to wear clothing that suggests lack of clothing. It would seem that the purpose of being clothed is to be unclothed.

APPEARANCE

Appearance may correspond with reality and it may not. Knowledge of appearance is instantaneous; knowledge of reality is slow. Taking appearance for reality is a common mistake. If only reality were always as it appears, life would lose its problems.

An ugly appearance spontaneously breeds an adverse reaction; but seekers after truth should conquer their prejudice, for the hideous may conceal the valuable.

APPEASEMENT

Love a tiger and it will still eat you. There are some natures that are incorrigible.

The appeasement of a bully only serves to make him a greater bully.

An aspiring conqueror who has the upper hand is as likely to be softened by appeasement as a raging storm by cowering trees.

APPROPRIATENESS

Action that is appropriate to the time and place will not engender baleful repercussions.

An appropriate remark can save a nasty situation.

An appropriate action may thwart a peril.

Only a fictional character could know the appropriate thing to do under all circumstances.

ARGUMENTATION

Argumentation is the art of presentation and concealment.

Every belief has arguments for and against it.

Argumentation is a futile way of arriving at the truth. No one is ever convinced by it unless he wants to be convinced.

Crooked arguments are far more common than the valid, and they are just as persuasive to the holders of the belief in support of which they are advanced.

Citing an authority or appeal to popularity is not valid argumentation, but they account for the opinions of the generality of mankind.

A vociferous person makes a spectacle of himself and convinces nobody.

ART

Art is an addendum to nature.

Art is the product of the interaction between personality and the external world.

Art is creative only in the sense that it produces fresh patterns of ideas. It does not create something out of nothing or even transform the tangible.

Art is its own purpose. It should not mainly promote extraneous objectives like those of the state or religion.

Although it is not the aim of art to subserve morality, neither should it be its aim to subserve immorality. Degenerate artists are degenerate people, and their art cannot excuse their character.

ASPIRATION

The nature of his aspirations is the criterion of a person's mind.

A lofty aspiration ennobles the lowliest person.

Those who fail in the attainment of their aspirations need not regret overmuch, for these failures have given meaning to their lives.

ATTACK

To attack an unprepared opponent by surprise smacks not of cleverness but of deceitfulness.

In an emergency, the best weapon of attack is the one at hand.

To attack without adequate preparation is folly.

ATTEMPT

Few even attempt to be great.

Effort can never be wasted, for at least it brings experience.

To attempt to accomplish an ideal and fail is better than to accept supinely the actual circumstances.

When undecided, make an attempt.

Effort makes one alive.

Success may elude someone who makes an effort, but it will certainly not come to one who makes none.

ATTENTION

A scandal gets more attention than a good deed.

Nothing wounds a professor's vanity more than lack of attention on the part of his students.

ATTITUDE

A person may have little direction over circumstances, but he can control his reaction. His attitude determines whether the circumstances conquer him or he conquers the circumstances.

One's attitude towards life influences what one will make of it.

ATTRACTION

There is no idea so ludicrous that it fails to attract believers.

The things that attract a person reveal his innermost being.

One should not be ensnared by valueless attractions.

AVERAGE

The average does not give a true idea of heights and depths.

In many things, it is not the average that matters but the heights attainable. The average standard of painting in a country in a particular age is of no interest to anybody; what captivate our minds are the great works of art.

B

BABEL

The world contains a veritable Babel of languages. It is astonishing to see how every community, however savage, could create a language. The multitude of existing languages—with their varying degrees of complexity and difficulty, and all equally unsystematic—divides the human race into labelled division. The label of language produces a Babel of incomprehensible communication.

BABY

A baby is a bundle of untroubling trouble to its mother.

The helplessness of a baby is its strength. None but a hardened scoundrel would injure it.

BACKBITING

Backbiting is the sister of scandal-mongering.

Backbiting is a poisoned dart thrown from ambush.

BADNESS

Nobody is bad in every respect.

What is bad to one person may be good to another.

It is an unfortunate fact that with progress in knowledge, the bad do not vanish. They merely change their modes of operation to suit the new conditions and utilize the latest techniques.

BAFFLING

Much that is baffling can be overcome by determination.

The mind should remain unbaffled by a baffling situation.

BAIT

Fish fall for bait because they can't think; humans fall for bait though they can think.

Bait is danger in disguise.

Bait is brother to deceit.

One should be on guard against an attractive offer without sufficient reason to justify it.

BALANCE

A balance of interests is difficult to maintain. One group will always try to gain more than another.

He who can balance his income and expenditure in inflationary times is hardly less remarkable than he who can balance himself on a tightrope.

BANK

A bank is an unproductive institution for making money from money.

BANQUET

Many people like banquets, especially when they are invited to them.

A banquet is only as good as one can enjoy it.

A banquet is for show; a simple meal of one's favourite food tastes better.

BARBARISM

Barbarism is an ignoble stage of society, and revival of its characteristics is about as sensible as a Barmecide feast.

To stigmatize as barbarism a civilization of which one knew nothing was common in previous ages. It smacked of barbaric ignorance.

BARGAIN

To buy something cheap for its kind is a bargain, but it is not a good bargain if one would normally purchase a more inexpensive article just as serviceable for one's purpose.

BEAUTY

Beauty is nature's signature.

Visible beauty is a matter of appearance, of the harmony of parts, of form, shape, and colour.

Beauty is its own justification; it need have no purpose, no value expressed in other terms.

Beauty perceived by the eye is dazzling; apprehended by the intellect, sublime.

All beauty is transient, whether it pertains to living things or inanimate phenomena.

Human beauty is the normal par excellence. It is the image projected from the physical traits that are characteristic of a people.

BEGGAR

A beggar does not indulge in repartee.

BEGINNING

Many a good beginning stops there.

To end at the beginning of an enterprise is wise if one realizes that one has made a mistake and there is no point proceeding further.

To begin and to end are difficult undertakings.

It is better to have a bad beginning and a good ending than a good beginning and a bad ending.

Everything should be judged by taking into consideration its entire course from beginning to end.

BEHAVIOUR

Behaviour can be character revealed or character concealed.

People behave differently towards different persons.

Few persons deliberately formulate a code of behaviour, and if they did, they could not enumerate all the details. Nobody's behaviour is consistent, except in a novel.

Every person has the behaviour demanded by his character. This does not mean that his behaviour is an accurate reflection of his character, for one of his traits is dissimulation.

To behave well out of character for a short time is easy; to keep it up is difficult.

If you want others to behave well, first do it yourself.

Behaviour cold as a refrigerator is not charismatic.

Unusual behaviour always elicits adverse comment.

In any society, much of the conduct viewed as sensible is senseless.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Reduced Reflections by Tan Kheng Yeang Copyright © 2011 by Tan Kheng Yeang. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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