Because Flickr didn’t have good, free pictures of one hand clapping. Image: Flickr/KennethFAndrade
I have to say, there were some excellent answers to this week’s puzzle. And some lamentations, no less, that the words of random sentence generators were not those of Lao Tzu. The challenge was to sort the phrases of ancient wisdom from the randomly-generated tripe. Here’s the sorted list:
Wisdom (or at least valid quotes):
2. When torrential water tosses boulders, it is because of its momentum. – Sun Tzu
4. This thaw took a while to thaw, it’s going to take a while to unthaw. – George Bush
7. All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure. – Mark Twain
8. Our thinking and our behavior are always in anticipation of a response. – Deepak Chopra
10. I know the joy of fishes in the river through my own joy, as I go walking along the same river. – Chuang Tzu
12. The physical world, including our bodies, is a response of the observer. – Deepak Chopra
17. One of the things important about history is to remember the true history. – George Bush
22. Swift as the wind, quiet as the forest, conquer like the fire, steady as the mountain. – Sun Tzu
23. Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance. – Sun Tzu
Words situated grammatically:
1. The gleaming darkness confounds the fault.
3. A thesis presupposes the waste of this gleaming sky.
5. A dream presupposes wisdom: it is the immanent decision.
6. High five is a skin ballot. (Love!)
9. Any light cannot be the charm of our omnipotent passage.
11. Ignorance is enhanced by the prudence of the benevolent thought.
13. The pure thought falsifies any passion.
14. Should a bass frown at an insult? (Love!)
15. A wheel clicks before a sniff.
16. The poet extends into the rabbit. (Yes, indeed it does, grasshopper!)
18. Cancelled mud sticks in the oppressed winter frost.
19. Almost daily, a cat quickly sat on the screaming book.
20. The teacher nervously sat on the electronic candle.
21. The lizard people will find Billy eventually. (Love! As does frequent solver, Andy.)
24. Some divisibility reveals the passion of any original void.
With a little help from Google, this wasn’t necessarily the most difficult challenge, and so there were a good number of correct entrants this week. The winner of this week’s $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate is (as happens sometimes) not a GeekDad at all, but presumably a Mom — or perhaps it is a dad, named Jenny. Congrats! The rest of us can use the code GEEKDAD23CD to get $10 off an order of $50. Don’t forget to stop back on Monday when Judd continues the great and storied puzzling tradition of this site.
