In praise of trouble makers

Conformity may give you a quiet life;
it may even bring you to a University Chair.
But all change in history, all advance,
comes from the nonconformists.
If there had been no trouble-makers,
no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.

         A. J. P. Taylor, The Radical Tradition: Fox, Paine, and Cobbett

Infinite passion

There is no end.
There is no beginning.
There is only the infinite passion of life.

        Federico Fellini, Fellini on Fellini

 

 

 

 

 

Back to School

The best reason to go to school,
    even if you're a so-called teacher,
        is to find out how much you don't know.

                Pico Iyer, The Best Reason to Go to College, New York Times, September 2020

A new day

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day,
a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic
waiting somewhere behind the morning.

                    J. B. Priestley, Delight 

 

 

 

 

 

Simple

This is my simple religion.
There is no need for temples;
no need for complicated philosophy.
Our own brain, our own heart is our temple;
the philosophy is kindness.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, The Dalai Lama: A Policy of Kindness

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: They might not need me—yet they might—

They might not need me—yet they might—
I’ll let my Heart be just in sight—
A smile so small as mine might be
Precisely their necessity—

                        Emily Dickinson 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to school

“I’m afraid I’m not a very good grown-up,” he told the Sun. “My wife has always felt I’m more comfortable with children than grown-ups. … I teach a fourth-grade class in a public school once a week — I teach them my version of art history — and I just love sitting in those little chairs.”

Dr. Robert Coles, Baltimore Sun interview