From a Hollow Eye

UNKEMPT THOUGHTS (160 pp.)--Stanislaw J. Lec--St. Martin's Press ($3.75).

This book sells for $3.75 and contains 382 aphorisms. Hence the pithy thoughts of Stanislaw J. Lee, Polish poet and satirist, are worth about 1-c- apiece. A penny for your thoughts, Lec.

sbAll is in the hands of man. Therefore wash them often.

sbDo not ask God the way to heaven; he will show you the hardest one.

sbSome like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe in what they understand.

Stanislaw J. Lec believes in almost nothing. He is 53. When he was 31, he was interned in a Nazi concentration camp. Every internee was eventually killed by the Germans except the handful who escaped. Lec got away in a stolen uniform.

In the 17th century La Rochefoucauld's maxims were full of bee stings and rare perfumes. Lec's often have the smell of burnt flesh and of sickly sweet gas, the feel of barbed wire, and a vision of the world from a hollow eye.

sbI always fear unloaded rifles. They used them to smash heads.

sbWhen you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.

Yet his swift little thoughts are not entirely a cadence of despair. Some are funny. Some show a very individual and perplexing insight. Others are uninspired. Occasionally, there is a surprising glimmer of positivism. Random samples:

sbImpartiality is not neutrality--it is partiality for justice.

sbHe who limps is still walking.

sbDo I have no soul as punishment for not believing in the soul?

sbHe wears a hair shirt but is fussy about its cut.

sbI give you bitter pills in sugar coating. The pills are harmless; the poison is in the sugar.

sbYou can spit on yourself without opening your mouth.

sbWhen I eat sardines I sometimes tremble that I may be biting a Jonah from the bible of the little people.

sbThe moment of recognizing your own lack of talent is a flash of genius.

sbWhen no wind blows, even the weather-vane has character.

sbValue your words. Each one may be the last.

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