A Small Map of Experience by Leonidas Donskis

The aphorisms in this book range from a sentence to micro-essay in length. Many run to paragraph length. My definition of an aphorism prohibits an aphorism to turn a page or break into a second paragraph. (The book's subtitle does state they are 'reflections and aphorisms'.)

In the foreword to the collection, Donskis says, “[Aphorisms] rise up out of authentic experience—from silence and pauses, from stopping oneself so that a thought is not drowned by a flood of words and pretentious expressions. A person who speaks too much is unlikely to succeed in writing aphorisms and maxims.”

The entries in this collection are numbered but not grouped under any topic headings. They may have been arranged carefully, they may be chronological; all we know is they move in and out various themes and realms of thinking. Also, in the collection, Donskis gives us some variations on the thoughts of others:

    Variation of Milan Kundera

    When our memories die, so do we.

Donskis is a philosopher, social thinker and commentator, as well as a politician (elected to the European Parliament). Many of the aphorisms touch on the great themes of moral and political philosophy.

    Tolerance is the understanding that I was not born to edit other people’s lives and thoughts—that I must spend my life editing myself.

There are frequent entries regarding art and literature, too.

    Great art dissolves our illusions about the importance and truth of the present.

Like many writers from smaller European countries, having undergone the twists and turns and tortures of western history, he recognizes the hard facts of our human circumstance when it comes to power and the struggle for human dignity.

   What is one’s homeland? The place where one becomes a parent, or where a parent was killed?

Here are some more aphorisms by Leonidas Donskis…

13
Some artists are perfect products of their age, while others actively help to create it. These are two aspects of the same social dynamic: either one reflects one’s time or becomes and alternative to it. Each is equally important to the social and political thinker.

39
One loves that which one is afraid to lose and does passionately that which can be interrupted at any time.

59
Identity is the fragile dream of being like those whom you would like to identify, while preserving your own uniqueness.

61
Rembrandt and Shakespeare are geniuses of the same order. They painted the story of the human soul in every shade—from wretchedness to greatness.

63
There are two types of genius. One is an author who creates an original canon out of nothing or from some fragment of his or her own experience. The other is a pilfering magpie who weaves all the interesting and sparkly things of that era into new combinations. It is enough to compare Dante and Shakespeare, Bach and Mozart, Masaccio and Filippino Lippi, Hals and Johannes Verspronck, his Dutch colleague and competitor.

76
We think that happiness lies in the fulfillment of great dreams and ambitions. But in truth it lies in the details of everyday life—everyday sounds, colours, favorite objects, old books, music albums, a cup of tea in the morning. It is only when we lose these things that we grasp their true worth.

105
Idealism is realism about the past or the future.

110
A young conservative is a premature misanthrope. An old socialist is a late-blooming visionary. How are they related? They both dislike the age they are and the age they live in.

115
Talent is the ability to write tens or hundreds of pages in the hope of suddenly producing that one sentence that will make it all worthwhile (and easy to discard the rest).

127
“Nobody” is not someone who is unknown, but someone who doesn’t want to know anything—not someone who is unimportant, but someone for whom nothing is important.

136
Rhetorical excess or deathly silence—these are two fragile and barely discernable bulwarks between the superfluity and absence of thought.

167
A friend is someone with whom one does not have to justify one’s existence.

—Leonidas Donskis, A Small Map of Experience: Reflections and Aphorisms (Guernica Editions, 2010), translated by Karla Gruodis.