A unique perspective on life from a 20th century polymath

Piet Hein was a Danish polymath. He invented a variation of the Rubik's Cube called the Soma Cube, designed board games, and won architectural contests. He published aphorisms in local newspapers when Germany occupied Denmark in WWII. Read some of his intriguing aphorisms 👇

Abstractions, blueprints, and strategies often fail when they meet the messiness of reality:

"Our choicest plans

have fallen through,

our airiest castles

tumbled over,

because of lines

we neatly drew

and later neatly

stumbled over."

Don't love your words too much, lest you become a superfluous writer:

"Long-winded writers I abhor,

and glib, prolific chatters;

give me the ones who tear and gnaw

their hair and pens to tatters:

who find their writing such a chore

they only write what matters."

The toil of keeping up with news steals the energy that you can use to make the news:

"He who aims

to keep abreast

is for ever

second best."

Great problems resist immediate answers. Initial failure might suggest that one has at least picked the right problem:

"Problems worthy

of attack

prove their worth

by hitting back."

Give great attention to great problems, and look away from what won't matter in the long-term:

"He that lets

the small things bind him

leaves the great

undone behind him."

On scholars that aim to attain respect by making simple matters harder than they are:

"To make a name for learning

when other roads are barred,

take something very easy

and make it very hard."

The world doesn't only reward cynicism, it rewards naivete too. Someone unburdened by past knowledge and corresponding cynicism might perform better than someone carrying the weight of the past:

"Naive you are

if you believe

life favours those

who aren’t naive."

For impatient people:

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 only way to win in the present is to have past lessons and future goals.

"You'll conquer the present

suspiciously fast

if you smell of the future --

and stink of the past."

The present becomes valuable only once you're learning from the past, and aiming at a future.