Up in the cold and misty hills covered with dew-dripping trees, where there are no straight paths and getting anywhere is a matter of ducking under branches and dodging lumps and boulders, there's a village full of dull and illiterate people. They've spent so long with their animals and root vegetables that they've taken their animals as guides on how to live. So they stick to their troughs and hutches, and it's rare for any of them to get an urge to wander. Holidays pass with fishing in the rivers or watching their televisions. Sometimes they even venture down to the sea, but only to look at it briefly before going back home.

But there was one interesting feature existing in the middle of this region of blockheads, and that was an old, damp and withered sage. Called "Iron-scar" for his large red facial scar, like the burn of a hot clothes-iron, he lived on the side of a rocky gully in a pauper's brick box. Reputedly dumber than the villagers, denser than the rocks, nevertheless it was said that he was a sage.

Perhaps it was a case of Chinese whispers, where words went around and around and around. Gradually they became embellished until someone decides to make a publication. However it happened, I found an old rough-printed copy dated a few decades back, with no author's byline or publisher. They didn't have any other name but "Old Iron-Scar's Sayings". I thought it worth sharing on the internet. Just a village-ful of animal sense, perhaps, but I like it.

Kelly Jones

If you stand by the shore, the waves of the sea come and go, but if you sit up in the hills, they sound constant, like a stream of traffic on the highway.

 

Brains muddle memories with new stuff. It's like old grime stuck to the saucepan. What's happening now has never happened before. You got to stop remembering.

 

Young excited folk turn into old boring folk because they become repetitive.

 

I think like a hot-pot cooker, over a long time the ideas stew slowly. I add this and that, and eventually it tastes like a Christmas dinner to end all Christmas dinners.

 

Jesus was a harsh man. Most men are. But at least they don't have a million allergies.

 

If you're depressed, go for a cold swim. Slap yourself across the face. It takes a bit of a shock to bump the needle across the repeating groove in a scratchy record.

 

When I go walking in the village, the young men look terrible, but all the women are strikingly happy and run about. We live in superficial times.

 

Only an ordinary bastard can be a philosopher. You can't be a philosopher and know deeply about life and nature in the university. That's why all the young students are such morons.

 

A young fella riding a bike up from the west coast had broken the rear rack stays with heavy bags and it was sitting on his brakes, clamping them onto the wheel. But he didn't fix it. He kept riding standing up on his pedals. Talk about making life hard for yourself.

 

People in cities are madder than an old hermit who talks to himself all day long.

 

I don't keep up to date. It's all for people who don't know what to do with themselves.

 

One dollar is a bigger thing to a person with no other money, than two thousands for someone with one thousand. The more money you have, the less you have.

 

A wealthy fellow who spends millions to help others, tomorrow everyone believes he stole it all from the poor. And a charmer, too, tomorrow everyone believes he's a liar.

 

A good man is like all the different forms of water. He fits the situation, but he's the same deep down.

 

Never trust a man who talks fast and loud. He's trying to make sure you can't follow his tracks.

 

Instead of teaching children how things work, they teach them about what's cool. But fashions are just superficial stuff, and a long way from reality. How can a society like that have a future?