Your Big Toe and Other Basic Facts:
The Wisdom of Sanés

One day, in the twelfth year of my life (that would be about 1959), I was privileged to be present, with pencil in hand, when the great and wise Sanés spewed forth with his 25 proverbs.  The text was originally published in 1973.  Sanés himself has chosen to remain anonymous, and continues to this day to ponder the facts of life and the universe and to meditate on his big toe.

It is with honor and pleasure that I present to you the complete original text of the thought-provoking words of the wise man, Your Big Toe and Other Basic Facts: The Wisdom of Sanés.

  1. Think no evil.
  2. Wisdom is of age and thought.
  3. The mirror reflects the evil of the soul.
  4. If you can reach the ceiling, you are tall.
  5. If you can curl your big toe around the top of the Matterhorn, you truly do have a big toe.
  6. If you can curl your big toe around the base of the Matterhorn, you have a colossal big toe.
  7. If you can curl your big toe around the base of the Matterhorn, you have funny looking shoes.
  8. The pen writes better than the sword.
  9. Black is bluer than red.
  10. If you can curl your big toe around the base of the Matterhorn, you have a big toe comparable to a boa constrictor.
  11. If your brain is funny-shaped, it is warped.
  12. If you go into an unfamiliar pitch black room, look at the light switch before you turn it on.
  13. Your foot stinks if it has a foul odor.
  14. If you are not sleeping, chances are you are awake.
  15. If you can stick your big toe through a quarter-inch hole, you have no right to call it a big toe.
  16. It is difficult to see snow falling if you are inside a big pot of boiling water.
  17. A sharply pointed head is hard to come by for a man of thirty-seven.
  18. Archibald Moltwater is a typical name.
  19. To think is to meditate; to meditate is to ponder the problems of the world.
  20. If you can stand on your head balancing a pencil on your big toe, you look kind of silly doing it.
  21. Youth is sought by the greedy; but with age comes wisdom, and with wisdom the key to the good in life.
  22. Seek goodness and ye shall find it.
  23. The future of man lies in his willingness to smell a rose.
  24. A shoe is to cover the sole, but a shoe will not hide an evil soul.
  25. Time is but the passage of a stinking foot over the forehead of an Egyptian mummy.
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Copyright 1973, 1996-2007, BJ Swartz
kelta@keltaskavern.com