Theoretical Ken

Piet Hein (1905-1996) was a Danish poet and scientist with wide ranging interests. He is known to a wider public for his thousands of short, aphoristic poems called Grooks (Gruk in Danish) and creations like the games of Hex, Nimbi, Qrazy Qube, and the Soma cube. He advocated the use of the super ellipse curve in city planning, furniture making and other realms. He also marketed housewares based on the Superellipse and Super-egg.
(from Wikipedia.)

I came across the Grooks of Piet Hein a few years ago, and I was recently reminded of how much I really liked these clever poems.

Here is a sampling of Piet Hein’s Grooks.

T.T.T

Put up in a place
where it's easy to see
the cryptic admonishment
    T.T.T.
When you feel how depressingly
slowly you climb,
it's well to remember that
    Things Take Time.

THE ROAD TO WISDOM

The road to wisdom? - Well, it's plain
and simple to express:
    Err
    and err
    and err again
    but less
    and less
    and less.

More Grooks:

ARS BREVIS

There is
one art,
no more,
no less:
to do
all things
with art-
lessness

AN ETHICAL GROOK

I see
  and I hear
    and I speak no evil;
I carry
  no malice
    within my breast;
yet quite without
  wishing
    a man to the Devil
one may be
  permitted
    to hope for the best.

THE EGOCENTRICS

People are self-centered
to a nauseous degree.
They will keep on about themselves
while I'm explaining me.

MANKIND

Men, said the Devil,
are good to their brothers:
they don't want to mend
their own ways, but each other's. 

LIVING IS -

Living is
    a thing you do
now or never -
    which do you?

THE PARADOX OF LIFE
Philosophical grook. 

A bit beyond perception's reach
I sometimes believe I see
that Life is two locked boxes, each
containing the other's key.

THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF GASTRONOMY

There's a rule for proper doses
in the dinner-eaters lore:
one should stop the filling process
while one still has room for more. 

And if someone at the table
had reminded me before -
Hallelujah! I'd be able
to absorb a little more.

Many more Grooks can be seen here.

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