Introductory Pages
GLOBAL
© COPYRIGHT ©
ALEXANDER PETER DUKES
LONDON 2022
The author asserts
all legal and moral rights under
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
to be identified as the author of this work
First Edition
Alexander Peter Dukes
is a barrister-at-law and a member of
the Inner Temple at the Inns of Court in London.
After a career primarily as a constitutional lawyer,
he is now a writer of aphorisms on many subjects.
Special thanks to Mike Watt
for all his help and encouragement
PREFACE,
APHORISMS & LAYOUT
Resulting, on the one hand,
from events, experience or observation,
and on the other, from theory or speculation,
this ebook of a thousand plus original aphorisms
endeavours to convey ideas of varying complexity
in concise, easily accessible form.
Covering a diversity of subjects,
each aphorism is allocated a separate page
on an identical black background.
But depending on length of wording
and category or mood of issue,
several fonts are used in various sizes
as well as five different colours.
According to authoritative sources,
an aphorism is a short pithy statement or maxim
that defines, expresses, encapsulates or illustrates
a principle or precept. Among several features,
traditional opinion holds that an aphorism
should be self-contained – i.e. stand alone
in the articulation of its essential meaning
without being dependent on
any other piece of writing, which is exactly what
most of these aphorisms do. However, many gain
additional significance from their context.
For all of the topics covered in this ebook
are expressed in the form of longer or shorter
groups of roughly related aphorisms
developing the philosophy of its overall theme.
To reduce visual distraction
individual pages remain unnumbered.
Anyway, computers, tablets and ereaders, etc.
usually indicate page number.
In contrast, to assist navigation and search,
groups of aphorisms are named and numbered
and appear under the banner of
five chapter headings which,
with largely consonant content,
are colour coded accordingly –
White – covering practical topics
such as politics and science;
Blue – focusing on psycho-emotional issues;
Red – dealing with conflict and aggression;
Purple – concentrating on religion and spirituality;
Green – featuring the natural world and evolution.
OVERALL THEME
Saving the Earth
by identifying
the kind of problems
that prevent
Saving the Earth
THEME IN COLOUR SUMMARY
Exceptionally for a composition of aphorisms,
a theme is developed from beginning to end
which may loosely be described as follows:
Things in the world and universe exist,
or in part happen because human beings
are emotionally or psychologically flawed,
and consequently often behave very badly,
but hope for a better future,
not least by saving the Earth.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS
FIRST CHAPTER –
QUESTIONABLY WHITE
1. What is or isn’t what – i.e. politics
2. History
3. Leaders
4. Democracy
5. Boundaries
6. Money
7. Racism, etc.
8. Cosmology, science
and information technology, etc.
9. Law and love,
morality, sex and libido,
family and friends
10. Concerning reality, principles
and the relationship between
science, religion and philosophy,
and between the objective
and subjective
SECOND CHAPTER –
DEBATABLY BLUE
11. Conscience and Integrity
12. Consciousness and the Unconscious
13. Wisdom, etc.
14. Imagination, memory, forgiveness, genes,
choice of thought and dreams, and freedom
15. Intelligence
16. The Psyche
THIRD CHAPTER –
REGRETTABLY RED
17.War
18. Extremism, totalitarianism,
love and hate and the virtue of vice
FOURTH CHAPTER –
OPTIMISTICALLY PURPLE
19. God
20. Love
21. Faith
22. Religion, Science & Reason
23. Belief
24. Atheism
25. Paradise and Afterlife
26. Subatomic Particles, The Arrow of Time
and how to live forever
27. Sin
28. Religions and the Moral Instinct
29. Miracles
30. Seeing Stars