"The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back."
Abigal Van Buren

"The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind ins only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking."
A. A. Milne

Julia Butterfly Hill - Interview in Sun Magazine on activism
and the health of the planet:
"It is impossible not to make a difference. Every choice we make leads toward health or disease, there is no other direction. The question is not "how can one person make a difference?" The question is "What kind of difference do I want to make?"

"The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice."
Arthur Schopenhauer

"A man's face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man's thoughts and aspirations."
Arthur Schopenhauer

"Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax."
Arthur Schopenhauer

"Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them."
Lily Tomlin

"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company."
Lily Tomlin

"be not the last to try the new nor the first to discard the old" James K Polk

"AFTER experience had taught me that the common occurrences of ordinary life are vain and futile, and I saw that all the objects of my desire and fear were in themselves nothing good nor bad, save in so far as the mind was affected by them; I at length determined to search out whether there were not something truly good and communicable to man, by which his spirit might be affected to the exclusion of all other things: yea, whether there were anything, through the discovery and acquisition of which I might enjoy continuous and perfect gladness for ever."
(Spinoza)

"Life Can never be exactly as we want it to be" (The Shirells)

"Tolerant, but not stupid! Look, just because you have to tolerate something doesn't mean you have to approve of it! ..."Tolerate" means you're just putting up with it! You tolerate a crying child sitting next to you on the airplane or, or you tolerate a bad cold. It can still piss you off!"
South Park

"Life is a series of tradeoffs."

"Man is not the creature of circumstances.
Circumstances are the creatures of man."

"Who knows? Who cares?" (my then two year old daughter with her shoulders hunched and her palms up)

No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up. ~Lily Tomlin

"Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the room." Jonathan Swift

"Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot." Clarence Thomas

"The hardest job kids face nowadays is learning good manners without seeing any." Fred Astaire

Comic Book Guy: Human contact - the final frontier.

Homer: Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." - Benjamin Franklin

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government." - Thomas Jefferson

"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte

And the rest of my favorite quotes have wording that would not pass through GW.

Except this one:

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog."

I don't know who the author was, but it's a very true statement. It's the power of your heart, your spirit and courage that can overcome... not necessarily your size.

"Romantic love is mental illness. But it's a pleasurable one. It's a drug. It distorts reality, and that's the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw. " also Fran Liebowitz (this one has been a favorite for years)

One more from her
"I believe in talking behind peoples' backs. That way, they hear it more than once."

"When I was born I owed twelve dollars."
George S. Kaufman

I use this one with all my 12 step sponsees.

"O mischief, thou art swift. To enter in the thoughts of desperate men"... Shaky spear

"honey get off the cross we need the wood" (anonymous)
heard in many a coffee shop after 12 step meetings sometimes even during them!

(Albert Einstein)

"All I know is what I read in the papers , and thats an alibi for my ignorance.".....Will Rogers

"An economists guess is liable to be as good as anybody elses."....Will Rogers

"Peoples minds are changed through observation and not
through argument.".....Will Rogers

Arthur Schopenhauer

I'm so glad I never feel important, it does complicate life! Eleanor Roosevelt.

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die. Eleanor Roosevelt.

Yes. I admire Eleanor Roosevelt.

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America 's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America 's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, "the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."
~ Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006

I don't have a mic in my hand but I am giddy.

O mangi questa minestra, o salti dalla finestra

Another family favorite:

Sta zitto e mangia

My father would always say:

"get up boys, you can sleep when you die"

gawd, I hated hearing that on Saturday morning!

Roy Schenk.

"The illusions which exalt us are dearer than a thousand sober truths."

Albert Camus.

"For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."

Thomas Jefferson.

Ellen Glasgow

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could be better changed in ourselves.

Carl Jung

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

Confusius

Paul Rodrigeuz

I've had a few arguments with people, but I never carry a
grudge. You know why? While you're carrying a grudge, they're
out dancing.
Buddy Hackett]

"Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy."
Aristotle

"There's nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child."
Frank A. Clark

"Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil."
Plato

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Groucho Marx

vgkg
:)

"You could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." Bill Bennett.

"When I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or whatever, 'm just like, 'Oh shut up' I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining." �"The Glenn Beck Program,"

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
Oscar Wilde

- Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell

altered last word to post it.

Treat those who are good with goodness, and also treat those who are not good with goodness. Thus goodness is attained. Be honest to those who are honest, and be also honest to those who are not honest. Thus honesty is attained.
Lao Tzu

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
Marcus Aurelius

Charles Darwin

Oscar Wilde.

You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old.
George Burns

Never continue in a job you don't enjoy. If you're happy in
what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner
peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you
will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.
Johnny Carson

If by chance some day you're not feeling well and you should
remember some silly thing I've said or done and it brings back
a smile to your face or a chuckle to your heart, then my purpose
as your clown has been fulfilled.
Red Skelton

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.
Confucius

"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung".
Voltaire

"Each one of them is Jesus in disguise."
Mother Theresa

"Whatever you did unto one of the least, you did unto me."
Jesus

"When you blame others you give up your power to change".
Author Unknown

*

Bears repeating.

The Lovin' Spoonful

"Do You Believe In Magic"

Do you believe in magic?
In a young girls heart
How the music can free her
whenever it starts

And it's magic
if the music is groovy
It makes you feel happy like an old time movie

I'll tell ya about the magic
It'll free your soul
but it's like trying to tell a stranger 'bout rock n roll

If you believe in magic, don't bother to choose
If it's jug band music or rhythm and blues
Just go and listen
It'll start with a smile
It won't wipe off your face no matter how hard you try
Your feet start tapping
And you can't seem to find
How you got there
So just blow your mind

If you believe in magic
Come along with me
We'll dance until morning, just you and me
and maybe, if the music is right
I'll meet ya tomorrow
so late at night

We'll go a dancin' baby then you'll see
all the magic's in the music and the music's in me, yeah

Do you belive in magic? Yeah.
Believe in the magic in a young girl's soul
believe in the magic of rock n roll
Believe in the magic that can set you free
Ohhhh, talkin' bout magic

Do you believe like I believe?
Do you believe in magic?
[repeat]

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
William Shakespeare

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
William Shakespeare

Albert Camus.

Frank Lloyd Wright.

Thankfully, the girls are fine!

Pliny the Elder

Oh don't I know that one!

The comments had me in stitches, better than the story of two idiot teen girls!

Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.
Alfred Hitchcock

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
William Shakespeare

Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot conceal himself!
Confucius

I was thinking of this very quote last tuesday night, after a select board meeting, when a gentleman who happens to be on many of the bigger committees in town, including our Economic Developement Corporation, came up to me and told me I should run for selectman next year. What the hell do I know about being selectman!!

As for quotes, let me impart these two, by which I live my life:

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're probably right"

Henry Ford

"Here's to you, and here's to me.
May we never disagree.
But if we do,
Screw you.
here's to me."

Anonymous

Albert Camus

Anne Sullivan

These are bagpipes. I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equalled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig.
Alfred Hitchcock

Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.
Alfred Hitchcock

May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
George Carlin

The reason I talk to myself is that I'm the only one whose answers I accept.
George Carlin

Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?
Dwight D. Eisenhower

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Only Americans can hurt America.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world are going to have to give in and give it to them.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

War settles nothing.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at creation.
(Phyllis Theroux)

Now if it would only stop raining and warm up 10 degrees... (Me)

"Who knows? Who cares?" (my then two year old daughter with her shoulders hunched and her palms up)

I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.
Andrew Jackson

In England the judges should have independence to protect the people against the crown. Here the judges should not be independent of the people, but be appointed for not more than seven years. The people would always re-elect the good judges.
Andrew Jackson

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.
Andrew Jackson

Mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges... which are employed altogether for their benefit.
Andrew Jackson

Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.
Andrew Jackson

The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none.
Andrew Jackson

Unless you become more watchful in your states and check the spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that... the control over your dearest interests has passed into the hands of these corporations.
Andrew Jackson

Michael Jackson

The meaning of life is contained in every single expression of life. It is present in the infinity of forms and phenomena that exist in all of creation.

Michael Jackson

W. Grenfell.

Attributed to john Steinbeck.

"I must go over into the interior valleys. - There
are five thousand families starving to death over
there, not just hungry but actually starving. The
government is trying to feed them and get medical
attention to them, with the Fascist group of
utilities and banks and huge growers sabotaging
the thing all along the line, and yelling for a
balanced budget.

In one tent there were twenty people quarantined
for small pox and two of the women are to have
babies in that tent this week. I've tied into the
thing format he first and I must get down there
and see it and see if I can do something to knock
these murderers on the heads. Do you know what
they're afraid of? They think that if these people
are allowed to live in camps with proper
sanitary facilities they will organize, and that
is the bugbear of the large landowner and the
corporate farmer. The states and counties will
give them nothing because they are outsiders.

But the crops of any part of this state could not
be harvested without them. - The death of children
by starvation in our valleys is simply staggering.
- I'll do what I can. - Funny how mean and little
books become in the face of such tragedies."

John Steinbeck

Letter to Elizabeth Otis (1938), as quoted in
Conversations with John Steinbeck (1988) edited
by Thomas Fensch, p. 37

- Marry Pettibone Poole

"To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow."

- William Faulkner

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them. ~Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away. ~Raymond Hull

"You know when I said I knew little about love? That wasn't true. I know a lot about love. I've seen it, centuries and centuries of it, and it was the only thing that made watching your world bearable. All those wars. Pain, lies, hate... It made me want to turn away and never look down again. But when I see the way that mankind loves... You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and... What I'm trying to say, Tristan is... I think I love you. Is this love, Tristan? I never imagined I'd know it for myself. My heart... It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it's trying to escape because it doesn't belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I'd wish for nothing in exchange - no gifts. No goods. No demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine."
- Yvaine, "Stardust"

"Stardust" novel wiki

Stardust (2007) IMDB

More than one commentator has mentioned that science fiction as a form is where theological narrative went after Paradise Lost, and this is undoubtedly true. Supernatural creatures with wings, and burning bushes that speak, are unlikely to be encountered in a novel about stockbrokers, unless the stockbrokers have been taking a few mind-altering substances, but they are not out of place on Planet X. The form is often used as a way of acting out the consequences of a theological doctrine. The theological resonances in films such as Star Wars are more than obvious. Extraterrestrials have taken the place of angels, demons, fairies and saints, though it must be said that this last group is now making a comeback.
We want wisdom. We want hope. We want to be good. Therefore we sometimes tell ourselves warning stories that deal with the darker side of some of our other wants.
Literature is an uttering, or outering, of the human imagination. It lets the shadowy forms of thought and feeling - heaven, hell, monsters, angels and all - out into the light, where we can take a good look at them and perhaps come to a better understanding of who we are and what we want, and what the limits to those wants may be. Understanding the imagination is no longer a pastime, but a necessity; because increasingly, if we can imagine it, we'll be able to do it.
- Margaret Atwood, "Why We Need Science Fiction", "The Guardian"

"There's no real objection to escapism, in the right places... We all want to escape occasionally. But science fiction is often very far from escapism, in fact you might say that science fiction is escape into reality... It's a fiction which does concern itself with real issues: the origin of man; our future. In fact I can't think of any form of literature which is more concerned with real issues, reality."
- Arthur C Clarke

Khalil Gibran
"When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth......

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself."

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully."
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

I love this one, Ingrid! It describes exactly what happens to people who live their life receiving entitlements.

"Socialism: Ideas so good, they have to be mandated!" Author unknown

F.S. Fitzgerald.

"One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid."
James D. Watson

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That's how we funded the GI Bill. That's how we created the middle class. That's how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That's how we invented the Internet. That's how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that's the reason I'm running for President -- because I still believe in that idea. You're not on your own, we're in this together.

President Barack Obama from the White House website in context.

From the PBS series I Claudius.

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661).

I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing.
Johnny Carson

I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.
Steven Wright

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.
Albert Einstein

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
Albert Schweitzer

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend.
Plautus

We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.
Joseph Roux

A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.
Michelangelo

Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.
Khalil Gibran

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.
Twyla Tharp

Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.
Stephen Sondheim

Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.
Gertrude Stein

Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.
R. Buckminster Fuller

I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours.
John F. Kennedy

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
Albert Einstein

The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it.
Edward R. Murrow

Origins of War - and Peace

Play clip (excerpt): The Lion in Winter

In the year 1183, Eleanor of Aquitaine's (Katharine Hepburn) annoyed, despairing lecture to her sons about the origins of war -- and peace, and how humans were barbarians:

Oh, my piglets, we are the origins of war, not history's forces, nor the times, nor justice, nor the lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor ideas, nor kinds of government, nor any other thing. We are the killers. We breed wars. We carry it like syphilis inside. Dead bodies rot in field and stream because the living ones are rotten. For the love of God, can't we love one another just a little? That's how peace begins. We have so much to love each other for. We have such possibilities, my children. We could change the world.

puppets and masters who are who who's in charge
What purpose what end who is small who is large

power relinquished power misused information false
for advantage repeated till reality lost

so many have none prosperity for few
no outlet for anger from frustration for you

protection domination at home and abroad
image degraded the recovery hard

Value uneven quality askew
less good and abundance what to do

greed drives the ones that have much and want more
no heed for old saying Watch what you wish for

microscopic life supports life above
without the lesser they undo what they wove

unbalance dissipates like water seeking it's level
hoarding too much leaves no room to revel

true balance and fairness to all rich and poor
is the way our plenitude will restore

the one in the mirror who can it be
what is the difference between you and me

hold up your hand look past it you "see"
through your fingers our body a vessel of thee

live true to the self that the inner mind knows
the one that sees others the same as it grows

We say "rest in peace" is that what peace is
at the end what is left are we really free

by Don Case on Sunday, August 7, 2011

abundance, affluence, assets, belongings, bounty,
cache, capital, cash, clover, commodities, copiousness,
cornucopia, dough, estate, fortune, funds, gold, goods,
hoard, holdings, lap of luxury, long green, lucre,
luxuriance, luxury, means, opulence, pelf, plenitude,
plenty, possessions, profusion, property, prosperity,
prosperousness, revenue, riches, richness, security,
stocks and bonds, store, substance, substantiality,
treasure, velvet*, worth

The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown--
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

Robert Louis Stevenson

"Socialism never took root in America because
the poor see themselves not as an exploited
proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed
millionaires."

John Steinbeck

I have come to believe that a great teacher
is a great artist and that there are as few as
there are any other great artists. Teaching
might even be the greatest of the arts since
the medium is the human mind and spirit.

John Steinbeck

I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly
vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am
convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.

John Steinbeck

If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to
the poor people. They're the only ones that'll
help - the only ones.

John Steinbeck

Many a trip continues long after movement
in time and space have ceased.

John Steinbeck

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
― Rumi

"The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
― Rumi

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”
― Rumi

“Knock, And He'll open the door
Vanish, And He'll make you shine like the sun
Fall, And He'll raise you to the heavens
Become nothing, And He'll turn you into everything.”
― Rumi

"Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison
When the door is so wide open?”
― Rumi

"Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others' faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear.”
― Rumi

“This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor...Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
― Rumi

I could post a million quotes from Rumi. And I praise Khaled Hosseini for introducing me to his wisdom. Those who don't know, Rumi is Muslim.

"What does reincarnation mean?"
A cowpoke asked his friend.
His pal replied, "It happens when
Yer life has reached its end.
They comb yer hair and warsh yer neck,
and clean yer fingernails,
and lay you in a padded box
Away from life's travails.
* "The box and you goes in a hole
That's been dug in the ground.
Reincarnation starts in when
Yore planted 'neath a mound.
The clods melt down, just like yer box,
And you who is inside,
And then yore just beginning on
Yer transformation ride.
* "In a while the grass'll grow
Upon yer rendered mound,
"Till some day on yer moldred grave
A lonely flower's found.
And say a hoss should wander by
and graze upon this flower,
That once was you, but now's become
Yer vegetative bower.
* "The posy that the hoss done ate
Up with it's other feed,
Makes bone, and fat, and muscle
Essential to the steed.
But some is left that he can't use,
And so it passes through,
And finally lays upon the ground -
This thing, that once was you.
* "Then say, by chance, I wanders by
And sees this on the ground.
And I ponders, and I wonders at
This object that I found.
And I thinks of reincarnation,
Of life, and death, and such.
And I come away concludin': Slim,
You ain't changed, all that much.
Wallace McRay"

"The government should aid the rich, and the rich will take care of the poor."

Andrew Jackson must have been deeply disheartened not only by the realization of the reality of what was but also the vision of what was to be.

Could the probablity have been directed to a more positive, lasting result if something different would have taken place at a vital point in history?

Personally, I think not. It would still be the greatest power, that of human failings, at the wheel.

"Though the colored man is no longer subject to barter and sale, he is surrounded by an adverse settlement which fetters all his movements."

"In his downward course he meets with no resistance, but his course upward is resented and resisted at every step of his progress."

"If he comes in ignorance, rags and wretchedness he conforms to the popular belief of his character, and in that character he is welcome; but if he shall come as a gentleman, a scholar and a statesman, he is hailed as a contradiction to the national faith concerning his race, and his coming is resented as impudence. In one case he may provoke contempt and derision, but in the other he is an affront to pride and provokes malice."

Frederick Douglass
September 25, 1883

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.
Voltaire

All war is deception.
Sun Tzu

Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.
Lao Tzu

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
Lao Tzu

Great acts are made up of small deeds.
Lao Tzu

When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.
Yo-Yo Ma

Politics have no relation to morals.
Niccolo Machiavelli

Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.
Niccolo Machiavelli

The best way to get husbands to do something is to suggest that perhaps they are too old to do it.
Shirley MacLaine

A person who knows how to laugh at himself will never ceased to be amused.
Shirley MacLaine

A man is original when he speaks the truth that has always been known to all good men.
Patrick Kavanagh

To travel is to take a journey into yourself.
Danny Kaye

Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint you can at it.
Danny Kaye

Never set limits, go after your dreams, don't be afraid to push the boundaries. And laugh a lot - it's good for you!
Paula Radcliffe

I think my fans will follow me into our combined old age. Real musicians and real fans stay together for a long, long time.
Bonnie Raitt

We are all several different people. There are different aspects of our nature that are competing.
Harold Ramis

If you're feeling emotional when you're creating something, it'll sound that way.
Steve Vai

A three year old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a fifty-six dollar set of swings as it does out of finding a small green worm.
Bill Vaughan

They are all gone into the world of light, and I alone sit lingering here.
Henry Vaughan

Rarely do members of the same family grow up under the same roof.
Richard Bach

I believe the world is one big family, and we need to help each other.
Jet Li

I don't think anyone has a normal family.
Edward Furlong

When you start about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth.
Alex Haley

I have never yet met a healthy person who worried very much about his health, or a really good person who worried much about his own soul.
John B. S. Haldane

There is something in the decay of nature that awakens thought, even in the most trifling mind.
Sarah Josepha Hale

Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you.
Alex Haley

Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.
Anthony J. D'Angelo

Never let your persistence and passion turn into stubbornness and ignorance.
Anthony J. D'Angelo

Become a student of change. It is the only thing that will remain constant.
Anthony J. D'Angelo

The greatest gift that you can give yourself is a little bit of your own attention.
Anthony J. D'Angelo

You can learn a lot from people who view the world differently than you do.
Anthony J. D'Angelo

You must first get along with yourself before you can get along with others.
Anthony J. D'Angelo

Sometimes you can't see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.
Ellen DeGeneres

Find out who you are and be that person. That's what your soul was put on this Earth to be. Find that truth, live that truth and everything else will come.
Ellen DeGeneres

I just like observing people - it's something I've done ever since I was a kid, and I got really good at it. That's a big part of why I became a comedian. My audience is filled with every kind of person you can imagine, and I love that.
Ellen DeGeneres

I get those fleeting, beautiful moments of inner peace and stillness - and then the other 23 hours and 45 minutes of the day, I'm a human trying to make it through in this world.
Ellen DeGeneres

When the poet makes his perfect selection of a word, he is endowing the word with life.
John Drinkwater

Words are but pictures of our thoughts.
John Dryden

Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
John Dryden

We do not know the true value of our moments until they have undergone the test of memory.
Georges Duhamel

It is always brave to say what everyone thinks.
Georges Duhamel

I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world.
Georges Duhamel

Man shapes himself through decisions that shape his environment.
Rene Dubos

The most important pathological effects of pollution are extremely delayed and indirect.
Rene Dubos

Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.
Will Durant

To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.
Will Durant

The Earth was small, light blue and so touchingly alone, our home must be defended like a holy relic. The Earth was absolutely round. I believe I never knew what the word round meant until I saw the Earth from space.
Russian cosmonaut Alexey Leonov

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward. every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan

To transform the world, we must begin with ourselves; and what is important in beginning with ourselves is the intention. The intention must be to understand ourselves, and not to leave it to others to transform themselves...this is our responsibility, yours and mine, however small the world we live in...if we can bring about a radically different point of view in our daily existence, then perhaps we shall affect the world at large
J. Krishnamurti

You can't leave footprints in the sands of time if you are sitting on your butt - and who wants to leave butt-prints in the sands of time?
Bob Moawad

You have much more power when you are working for the right thing than when you are working against the wrong thing
Peace Pilgrim

Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself - and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is.
Jim Morrison

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.
Jim Morrison

We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.
Jim Morrison

A warrior who had more than he needed would make a feast. He went around and invited the old and needy... The man who could thank the food, some worthy old medicine man or warrior said: "... look to the old, they are worthy of old age; they have seen their days and proven themselves. With the help of the Great Spirit, they have attained a ripe old age. At this age the old can predict or give knowledge or wisdom whatever it is; it is so. At the end is a cane. You and your family shall get to where the cane is."

Black Elk (1863 - 1950), Oglala Sioux holy man

The old Indian teaching was that it is wrong to tear loose from its place on the earth anything that may be growing there. It may be cut off, but it should not be uprooted. The trees and the grass have spirits. Whatever one of such growths may be destroyed by some good Indian, his act is done in sadness and with a prayer for forgiveness because of his necessities.

Wooden Leg (late 19th century), Cheyenne

I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe of things was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization.

Luther Standing Bear (1868 - 1939), Oglala Sioux chief

"Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge. You would know in words that which you have always known in thought. You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams."
Kahlil Gibran

"Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance."
Kahlil Gibran

"I have floated in the universe of the infinite and flown in the upper air of the imaginary world. There I was close to the circle with its divine light; here, I am in the prison of matter."
Kahlil Gibran

Dec 14, 1900:
The birth of quantum theory

German physicist Max Planck publishes his groundbreaking study of the effect of radiation on a "blackbody" substance, and the quantum theory of modern physics is born.

Through physical experiments, Planck demonstrated that energy, in certain situations, can exhibit characteristics of physical matter. According to theories of classical physics, energy is solely a continuous wave-like phenomenon, independent of the characteristics of physical matter. Planck's theory held that radiant energy is made up of particle-like components, known as "quantum." The theory helped to resolve previously unexplained natural phenomena such as the behavior of heat in solids and the nature of light absorption on an atomic level. In 1918, Planck was rewarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on blackbody radiation.

Other scientists, such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Louis de Broglie, Erwin Schrodinger, and Paul M. Dirac, advanced Planck's theory and made possible the development of quantum mechanics--a mathematical application of the quantum theory that maintains that energy is both matter and a wave, depending on certain variables. Quantum mechanics thus takes a probabilistic view of nature, sharply contrasting with classical mechanics, in which all precise properties of objects are, in principle, calculable. Today, the combination of quantum mechanics with Einstein's theory of relativity is the basis of modern physics.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
Albert Einstein

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.
Albert Einstein

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
Albert Einstein

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
Albert Einstein

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
Albert Einstein

After the death of his old friend, Albert Einstein said "Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us ... know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

"The influences of the senses," said Ralph Waldo Emerson "has in most men overpowered the mind to the degree that the walls of space and time have come to look solid, real and insurmountable; and to speak with levity of these limits in the world is the sign of insanity."

Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught. ~J.C. Watts

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. ~Buddha

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart. ~Alexander Solzhenitsyn

No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.
Euripides

From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.
Edvard Munch

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.
Francis Bacon

Love and death are the two great hinges on which all human sympathies turn.
B. R. Hayden

The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them.
Lois McMaster Bujold

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.
Herbie Hancock

But, the truth is that everyone is somebody already.
Herbie Hancock

The music becomes something that is its own entity.
Herbie Hancock

You would not exist if you did not have something to bring to the table of life.
Herbie Hancock

I'm interested in the dream and subconscious mind, the peculiar dream-like quality of our lives, sometime nightmare quality of our lives.
Anthony Hopkins

My philosophy is: It's none of my business what people say of me and think of me.
Anthony Hopkins

The magical, supernatural force that is with us every second is time. We can't even comprehend it. It's such an illusion, it's such a strange thing.
Anthony Hopkins

This, then, is the test we must set for ourselves; not to march alone but to march in such a way that others will wish to join us.
Hubert H. Humphrey

Each child is an adventure into a better life - an opportunity to change the old pattern and make it new.
Hubert H. Humphrey

The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.
Hubert H. Humphrey

Never give up on anybody.
Hubert H. Humphrey

Seek that which within lies waiting to begin the fight of your life that is everyday.
Ian Anderson

No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change.
Barbara de Angelis

The moment in between what you once were, and who you are now becoming, is where the dance of life really takes place.
Barbara de Angelis

Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.
Hippocrates

A healthy outside starts from the inside.
Robert Urich

Arguments are healthy. They clear the air.
John Deacon

It takes more than just a good looking body. You've got to have the heart and soul to go with it.
Epictetus

Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
Erma Bombeck

A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.
Groucho Marx

Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.
Hippocrates

I was going to have cosmetic surgery until I noticed that the doctor's office was full of portraits by Picasso.
Rita Rudner

In the sick room, ten cents' worth of human understanding equals ten dollars' worth of medical science.
Martin H. Fischer

It is reasonable to expect the doctor to recognize that science may not have all the answers to problems of health and healing.
Norman Cousins

All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You'd be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men.
Isaac Asimov

Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.
John Barrymore

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
Aristotle

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.
Albert Schweitzer

Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.
Robert Green Ingersoll

Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness.
Richard Bach

Life in common among people who love each other is the ideal of happiness.
George Sand

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!
Charles Dickens

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.
Garrison Keillor

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.
Charles Dudley Warner

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky. So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, with the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
Clement Clarke Moore

Twas the Night before Christmas Poem
Clement Clarke Moore

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.
Edgar Allan Poe

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
Carl Sagan

What we imagine is order is merely the prevailing form of chaos.
Kerry Thornley

Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.
Epictetus

You know what your problem is, it's that you haven't seen enough movies - all of life's riddles are answered in the movies.
Steve Martin

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.
Stanley Kubrick

It's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it.
Andy Warhol

Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world.
Jean-Luc Godard

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
Henry David Thoreau

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
John W. Gardner

The human race's prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenseless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenseless against ourselves.
Arnold J. Toynbee

True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity.
Jose Marti

You know it's love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you're not part of their happiness.
Julia Roberts

Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs he failed to take up the challenge of life.
Arnold Bennett

Getting caught up.

Posted by don_socal socal (My Page) on
Sat, Jan 12, 13 at 0:31

Today, I pray for peace as I do everyday. Today, I pray for all the innocent lives sacrificed due to humanity's lack of compassion. Today I pray for all those who grieve the loss of loved ones at the hands of those who have created gods in their own images and brainwashed others to believe in them. Today, I pray for those who have taken their own lives to escape the pain others have inflicted upon them. Today I pray for the greedy who create wars and disease to obtain more. Today I pray for all those oppressed through governments, religions, social consciousness, prejudices, discriminations, bigotries, stereotypes and labeling that they might be freed from their oppressors. Today I pray for the self-righteous who find fault with the races, ages, genders, sexual orientations, gender identities, abilities, cultures, behaviors, religious/spiritual beliefs or lack thereof, academic achievements, socio-economic statuses, bodily appearances and adornments, attempts of survival, family structures, friends, and possessions of others. Today, I pray for Mother Earth and all her children--no matter if they live on land, sea or air and for those who seek to destroy her beauties and wonders. Today, I pray for myself. I pray that I may be more open minded, open hearted, to share what I can with who I can, non-conditionally. Today, I pray for peace. Will you join me?

Keith Sliter
A friend on Face Book

We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.
Lucretius

Thus the sum of things is ever being reviewed, and mortals dependent one upon another. Some nations increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed and like runners pass on the torch of life.
Lucretius

Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
John Donne

President "Bobby": Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
[Long pause]
Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
President "Bobby": In the garden.
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
President "Bobby": Spring and summer.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
President "Bobby": Then fall and winter.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we're upset by the seasons of our economy.
Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!
Benjamin Rand: Hmm!
Chance the Gardener: Hmm!
President "Bobby": Hm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I've heard in a very, very long time.
[Benjamin Rand applauds]
President "Bobby": I admire your good, solid sense. That's precisely what we lack on Capitol Hill.

Being There (1979)

Peter Sellers ... Chance
Melvyn Douglas ... Benjamin Rand
Jack Warden ... President 'Bobby'

1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

9 What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?

10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

Good to see no quoted Nike's "Just Do It", ahem, look where it got their spokespeople - Woods, Armstrong, Pistorius, list goes on.......

Also, enjoying many of the quotes listed.

"Good fences make good neighbors."
Robert Frost.

Can you believe the dalai lama has so much insight into something he doesn't do?

*

Eckhart Tolle's books and tapes of "The Power of Now" have reinforced my efforts to mindfully live in the "now." Certain life experiences can bring this to the forefront or consciousness but It is difficult to do in our society when we interact with others.

However, concentrating on what truly matters in life allows one not be distracted by that which is insignificant and meaningless--which is much of what we encounter and which attempts to demand our attention.

demi, your post reminded me of a little book I read long ago that made a lasting impression: "the Precious Present." I don't think I've looked at life the same way, since then.

"A strong body makes a strong mind.As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun.While this gives moderate exercise to the body,it gives boldness,entyerprise and independence to theto the mind.Games played with the ball and others of that sort, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks. no free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms". thomas Jefferson

" The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more gaurantee against arbitrary government, one more safegaurd against tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible". Hubert Humphrey

We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the
ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
-- Unknown.

The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and
for liberty to yield.
-- President Thomas Jefferson. 1743-1826

Every normal man must be tempted at times, to spit on his hands, hoist
the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
-- H.L. Mencken. 1880-1956

Freedom is a hard-bought thing.
-- Paul Robeson. 1898-1976

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
-- President George Washington. 1732-1799

There are two freedoms -- the false, where a man is free to do what he
likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.
-- Charles Kingsley. 1819-1875

Denn was ist Freiheit? Dasz man den Willen zur Selbstverantwortlichkeit hat.
(Then what is freedom? It is the will to be responsible to ourselves.)
-- Friedrich Neitzsche. 1844-1900

Liberty is its own reward.
-- President Woodrow Wilson. 1856-1924

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Letter to Josiah Quincy, Sept. 11, 1773.

Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not
have, nor do they deserve, either one.
-- President Thomas Jefferson. 1743-1826

A little rebellion now is a good thing.
-- President Thomas Jefferson. 1743-1826

He who has lost freedom has nothing left to lose.
-- Unknown.

Moderation in the protection of liberty is no virtue; extremism in the
defense of freedom is no vice.
-- Senator Barry Goldwater. 1909-1998

Don't be a fool and die for your country. Make the other fool die for
his country.
-- General George S. Patton. 1885-1945

_________

"The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong."
-Jeremy Bentham

"Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet."
-Jeremy Bentham

"It is vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest of the individual."
-Jeremy Bentham

"Every law is an infraction of liberty."
-Jeremy Bentham

"Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart."
-Jeremy Bentham

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me to listen to the voices not produced by tongues, nor shouted from throats.
Now...
I sip at silence and listen to its inwardness that chants songs of the eons, reciting praises of the sky, announcing the mysteries of the Unseen.
~Kahlil Gibran

"And So We Say, May It Be So."
~Rumi

Love sometimes wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out.

Hafiz

We are
People who need to love, because
Love is the soul's life,

Love is simply creation's greatest joy.

Hafiz

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

Hafiz

"There are things in the Universe billions of years older than either of our races. They are vast, timeless, and if they are aware of us at all, it is as little more than ants and we have as much chance of communicating with them as an ant has with us. We know. We've tried and we've learned that we can either stay out from underfoot or be stepped on. They are a mystery and I am both terrified and reassured to know that there are still wonders in the Universe, that we have not explained everything. Whatever they are, Miss Sakai, they walk near Sigma 957 and they must walk there alone."
Ambassador G'Kar, Mind War, Babylon 5