by Mardy Grothe
Never say never, for if you live long enough,
chances are you will not be able to abide by its restrictions.
Swanson added: “Never is a long, undependable time, and life is too full of rich possibilities to have restrictions placed upon it.” She went on to clarify her meaning by writing: “In 1921 I told myself and millions of fans that I would never marry again. I have had four husbands since then.”
Oxymoronic and paradoxical language is often used when people are attempting to counter one truth about the human experience with a countertruth. Take the example of a favor, which is formally defined as “A gracious, friendly, or obliging act that is freely granted.” Given such a description, the idea of someone doing you a favor would appear to be a real benefit, right? Well, yes. At least most of the time. But H. L. Mencken once offered a counterview:
Never let your inferiors do you a favor—it will be extremely costly.
By pointing out that a favor can also occasionally have some very real costs attached to it, Mencken has dipped his toes into paradoxical waters. His observation illustrates a time-honored anonymous observation on the subject: “A paradox is a truth standing on its head to get our attention.”
Paradoxical language is often used to say something in a clever as well as a thought-provoking way. In each of the following admonitions, you will find a fascinating internal contradiction:
Never drink unless you’re alone or with somebody.
Never miss an opportunity to make others happy,
even if you have to leave them alone to do it.
Never let your schooling interfere with your education.
The last quotation is commonly attributed to Mark Twain, and often in the variant version, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” While the sentiment does have a Twain-like quality, nothing resembling it has ever been found in his works. It should be viewed as a made-up quotation—by some very clever person, I might add—that was attached to Twain because it sounds like something he might have said.
And speaking of spurious quotations attributed to a famous individual, they don’t get much better than this one:
Never trust a man who has not a single redeeming vice.
This quotation is almost always attributed to Winston Churchill, but he never said anything like it. The original notion can be traced to Benjamin Disraeli, who said that William E. Gladstone, his longtime political opponent, was “a man without a single redeeming vice.” Since we think of virtues as being redeeming, not vices, a redeeming vice is an oxymoron. As with the Twain attribution a moment ago, this clever quip is normally attributed to Churchill because, of all our modern heroes, it seems to fit him best. Churchill was deeply suspicious of people who presented themselves as overly virtuous, and he always gravitated toward people who—like himself—had a few vices that validated their membership in the human race. One might call them redeeming vices.
Over the years, intellectuals have especially loved self-contradictory humor. In the 1920s, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr demonstrated this time and time again. Shortly after receiving the Nobel Prize in 1922, Bohr invited a number of people to his country cottage. One guest, noticing a horseshoe hanging on a wall, teasingly asked, “Can it be that you, of all people, believe a horseshoe will bring you good luck?” Bohr replied: “Of course not, but I understand it brings you luck whether you believe it or not.” In perhaps his best-known observation, Bohr once said:
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.
This remark, which became a kind of signature line for Bohr, doesn’t contain an internal contradiction so much as it contradicts the normal order of things—or in this case, the way things are most commonly viewed. Normally, we would say that people think more clearly than they talk. Bohr turned that idea around to describe the problems that can occur when people who are verbally facile can sound good even when they lack a full understanding of what they’re talking about. The problem is especially apparent with politicians. In a 1987 article, the New York Times attributed a nearly identical observation to White House chief of staff, Howard H. Baker: “Never speak more clearly than you think.”
Here’s yet another example from a Nobel Prize–winning physicist, Paul Dirac:
Never believe an observation until it has been proven by theory.
Normally, scientists don’t believe a theory until it’s been proven by observation. By spinning that notion around, Dirac found a clever way to critique scientists who become so enamored with the beauty of their theories that they ignore or explain away evidence of a contrary nature. His saying has become one of the scientific world’s most popular quotations.
Continuing our look at contributions from Nobel laureates, Bertrand Russell once proposed ten principles and rules of conduct that he would “wish to promulgate as a teacher.” Some were phrased positively (“Be scrupulously truthful”) and some negatively (“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion”). But perhaps the best one was expressed paradoxically:
Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
By referring to the end of thinking as a success, and not the tragedy that it truly is, Russell was offering a thought that fits perfectly into our present discussion—and in the process created one of the most powerful admonitions ever delivered.
The love of paradoxical humor is not restricted to intellectuals. The favorite joke of professional golfer Ken Venturi was:
There are two great rules of life:
never tell everything at once.
By stating that there were two rules of life, and then stopping after only one, Venturi was employing a beautiful self-contradiction—and proving that cerebral humor is not the sole province of brainiacs.
In the remainder of the chapter, I’ll present more admonitions and rules of living that fit into the oxymoronic and paradoxical domain. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys ideaplay as well as wordplay, you can expect to have a good time.
Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.ANONYMOUS
This saying was likely inspired by a well-known passage from the Talmud: “If you add to the truth, you subtract from it.”
Never do anything for the first time.ANONYMOUS
This saying, often called “a bureaucrat’s maxim,” emerged in England after WWII and quickly caught on in America. The saying captures a stereotype about bureaucrats: they are so interested in preserving the status quo—and, of course, their jobs—that they are opposed to any and all forms of progress. In 1961, the saying was presented as “the motto of the world’s unhappiest man” in Advise and Consent, playwright Loring Mandel’s dramatization of Allen Drury’s 1959 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel.
Never let your sense of morals keep you from doing what is right.ISAAC ASIMOV, from a character in Foundation’s Edge (1982)
Never pray for justice. You just might get some.MARGARET ATWOOD, in Cat’s Eye (1988)
Never be naïve, no matter how naïve you are.RUSSELL BAKER
Another important rule of affair-having:
Never be discreet at the office.DAVE BARRY, in his 1987 book Dave Barry’s
Guide to Marriage and/or Sex
Even though office affairs are generally conducted discreetly, everybody seems to know about them. Barry offers a novel solution to the problem.
Never bet on a sure thing
unless you got enough money to get you back home.GENE BARRY, in a 1959 episode of
the TV western series Bat Masterson
If it was a “sure thing,” of course, one wouldn’t have to worry about money to get back home, so this was Masterson’s way of sending an important oxymoronic message: a sure thing is rarely a sure thing. From 1958 to 1961, Barry played “Bat” Masterson, a dapper western gunman-turned-lawman. According to NBC publicists, Masterson’s nickname came from his fondness for batting bad guys over the head with his gold-knobbed cane (it was not true, but it did give the television series a new plot element).
Never forget what you need to remember.GARRETT BARTLEY
Never answer an anonymous letter.YOGI BERRA
Many of Berra’s best lines were not intended to be funny, and this one was clearly not a deliberate attempt at paradoxical phrasing. File this under inadvertent oxymoronica.
Never work before breakfast;
if you have to work before breakfast, get your breakfast first.JOSH BILLINGS (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
Never give up your right to be wrong.DR. DAVID D. BURNS
The right to be wrong phrase shows up fairly frequently in human discourse, but rarely is it expressed so provocatively. Burns, the author of Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (1980), believed that perfectionism and the fear of making mistakes stopped people from growing. He wrote: “Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person.”
Never give up on an idea
simply because it is bad and doesn’t work.GEORGE CARLIN, in Brain Droppings (1997)
This was one of a number of “Rules to Live By” that Carlin offered in the book. With heavy irony, he added: “Cling to it even when it is hopeless. Anyone can cut and run, but it takes a very special person to stay with something that is stupid and harmful.”
Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.CLAUD COCKBURN
Cockburn (pronounced KOE-burn) was an Oxford-educated English journalist who aroused controversy because of his Communist sympathies. Under his own name and some pen names, he wrote a number of nonfiction works and novels, including Beat the Devil, which was ultimately adapted by Truman Capote into a 1953 Humphrey Bogart film, directed by John Huston. This quotation is usually attributed directly to Cockburn, but he was simply passing along a line he heard (some sources attribute it to Otto von Bismarck, but there is no evidence he ever said it). In Yes, Prime Minister (1986), Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn wrote: “The first rule of politics: Never Believe Anything Until It’s Been Officially Denied.”
Never leave the house without an umbrella . . . or with one.
It’s your choice.STEPHEN COLBERT, in his 2007 book
I Am America (And So Can You)
Never drink black coffee at lunch;
it will keep you awake in the afternoon.JILLY COOPER, in How to Survive from Nine to Five (1970)
Never Make the First Offer (Except When You Should) DONALD DELL, title of his 2009 guide
to effective negotiating, written with John Boswell
Never take a solemn oath. People think you mean it.NORMAN DOUGLAS
Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn’t be done.AMELIA EARHART, attributed
This is one of Earhart’s most frequently quoted observations, even appearing on her official tribute website. It’s a wonderful thought, but has not been found in her works.
Never cook with wine bought at a grocery store and labeled “cooking wine.” ESQUIRE MAGAZINE EDITORS, in The Rules:
A Man’s Guide to Life (2005)
Never accept an invitation from a stranger unless he offers you candy.LINDA FESTA
Never listen to what I say; listen to what I mean.SUE FIEDLER
Never lend books, for no one ever returns them;
the only books I have in my library
are books that other folks have lent me.ANATOLE FRANCE
A Code of Honor:
Never approach a friend’s girlfriend or wife with mischief as your goal.BRUCE JAY FRIEDMAN
This comes from Friedman’s The Lonely Guy’s Guide to Life, a 1978 book that inspired Steve Martin’s 1984 film The Lonely Guy (screenplay by Neil Simon). After offering this high-minded code, Friedman wryly added: “There are just too many women in the world to justify that sort of dishonorable behavior. Unless she’s really attractive.” In his book, Friedman also offered another admonition that is very similar in structure:Never be possessive. If a female friend lets on that she is going out with another man, be kind and understanding. If she says she would like to go out with the Dallas Cowboys, including the coaching staff, the same rule applies. Tell her: “Kath, you just go right ahead and do what you feel is right.” Unless you actually care for her, in which case you must see to it that she has no male contact whatsoever.
Never make forecasts, especially about the future.SAMUEL GOLDWYN
Like Yogi Berra, Goldwyn fought a constant battle with the intricacies of the English language, often creating his own examples of inadvertent oxymoronica. Known as “Goldwynisms,” they include such classics as, “Include me out,” “I can give you a definite perhaps,” and “A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”
Never try to sleep.PETER HAURI & SHIRLEY LINDE
This counterintuitive advice appeared in No More Sleepless Nights (1990), a self-help sleep guide. Hauri, the director of the Mayo Clinic Insomnia Program, and his coauthor, a bestselling medical writer, explained: “‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’ may work in many areas of life, but it doesn’t work at all in sleep.”
Never debate the undebatable.JAY HEINRICHS, in Thank You for Arguing (2007)
Heinrichs described this as “Argument’s Rule Number One” in his book, subtitled What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion. In attempting to persuade others to a point of view, he was offering time-honored advice: keep focused on the goal and never get sidetracked by extraneous issues.
Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap;
it will be dear to you.THOMAS JEFFERSON
This was the last of four neverisms in A Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life (the first three were discussed earlier in the politics & government chapter). “Dear” in this instance doesn’t mean something one cherishes, but something that will eventually cost you, or become expensive.
Never criticize Americans.
They have the best taste that money can buy.MILES KINGTON
Most people would say that good taste is something that cannot be purchased, so in this remark, the popular British columnist was taking an ironic swipe at Americans—and their belief that money can buy anything.
Never give the same speech once.HARVEY B. MACKAY, in Swim with the Sharks
Without Being Eaten Alive (1988)
Instead of creating a speech for every new occasion, and wasting valuable time in the process, Mackay recommended giving an existing winning speech to a new audience.
Never lose faith in your doubts.MARY MAGGI
Never get a mime talking. He won’t stop.MARCEL MARCEAU
Never underexaggerate.ALAN MYNALL, quoting his father, Dennis Mynall
Growing up, English artist Alan Mynall said he often heard this admonition from his father. Of the advice—which turns the saying never overexaggerate on its head—Mynall said: “In two words, he offered probably the most subtle philosophy and potent advice ever given to a son.”
Never lend any money to anybody unless they don’t need it.OGDEN NASH, a rule for bankers,
in The Face Is Familiar (1954)
Never believe anybody who says you can trust him implicitly.PATRICIA T. O’CONNER, in Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s
Guide to Better English in Plain English (2009)
This appeared in a section where O’Connor recommended giving the death sentence to certain clichés, like “trust implicitly.”
Never be unfaithful to a lover, except with your wife.P. J. O’ROURKE, in Modern Manners: An
Etiquette Guide for Rude People (1983)
This bit of twisted but clever logic appeared in a section called “Code of a Gentleman.” In a section on “drinking etiquette,” O’Rourke offered yet another paradoxical rule:
Never refuse wine. It is an odd but universally held opinion
that anyone who doesn’t drink must be an alcoholic.
Never live in the past; there’s no future in it.KALMAN PACKOUZ (with an assist from Charles Shores)
The firs
t thing you do is to forget that I’m Black. Second, you must never forget that I’m Black.PAT PARKER
This fascinating couplet comes from Parker’s 1978 poem “For the White Person Who Wants to Know How to Be My Friend.” In the original poem “I’m” was rendered as “i’m.” To avoid confusion, I’ve taken the liberty of presenting it in the standard manner.
Do you wish men to speak well of you?
Then never speak well of yourself.BLAISE PASCAL, in Pensées (1658)
Never touch your eye but with your elbow.ENGLISH PROVERB
Since we cannot touch our eye with an elbow, this saying attempts to add some levity to the age-old advice about not touching your eye with anything at all. A related Chinese proverb advises: “Never pick your nose or your ear but with your elbow.”
Never trust a woman who mentions her virtue.FRENCH PROVERB
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.WILLIAM SAFIRE
This tongue-in-cheek recommendation was inspired by the George Orwell line, “Never use a long word when a short one will do.” In this parody, the rule is laid out and violated in the same breath. In a 1979 “On Language” column, Safire provided a number of these “perverse rules of grammar.” In Fumblerules: A Lighthearted Guide to Grammar and Good Usage (1990), he provided a few more self-contradicting rules: