Choice

Willpower is just another name for the idea
of choosing long-term outcomes rather than short-term ones.

    António R. Damásio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain

 

 

 

 

Degrees of understanding

The superior man understands what is right;
the inferior man understands what will sell.

        Confucius, in Oriental Philosophy

 

 

 

 

 

Temptation

When one's function is to teach the loftiest wisdom,
it is difficult to resist the temptation to believe
that until you have spoken, nothing has been said.

        Jacques Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne

 

 

 

 

 

Make space

Every religion must wrestle with its dark angels,
and so today must we: Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.
For we are all children of Abraham
and it will only be when we make space for one another
as brothers and sisters that we will redeem the world
from darkness and walk together in the light of God.

    Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Debate in the House of Lords, 2019

Poem: The Lost Hotels Oo Paris

The Lord gives everything and charges
by taking it back. What a bargain.
Like being young for a while. We are
allowed to visit hearts of women,
to go into their bodies so we feel
no longer alone. We are permitted
romantic love with its bounty and half-life
of two years. It is right to mourn
for the small hotels of Paris that used to be
when we used to be. My mansard looking
down on Notre Dame every morning is gone,
and me listening to the bell at night.
Venice is no more. The best Greek islands
have drowned in acceleration. But it’s the having
not the keeping that is the treasure.
Ginsberg came to my house one afternoon
and said he was giving up poetry
because it told lies, that language distorts.
I agreed, but asked what we have
that gets it right even that much.
We look up at the stars and they are
not there. We see the memory
of when they were, once upon a time.
And that too is more than enough.

                Jack Gilbert

 

 

 

 

 

 

Location, location, location

It may not be absurd hyperbole—
indeed, it may not even be an overstatement—
to assert that the most crucial location in space and time
(apart from the big bang itself)
could be here and now.

        Martin Rees, Our Final Hour

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raising the curtain

I don’t know what is better than the work that is given to the actor –
        to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself.

                    Laurence Olivier, Look Magazine

 

 

 

 

 

Magic

I don't want realism. I want magic!
Yes, yes, magic.
I try to give that to people.
I do misrepresent things.
I don't tell truths.
I tell what ought to be truth.

    Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

Carpe diem

Forever goes quick.

    Joseph Heller, Good as Gold

 

 

 

 

 

Real value

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... 

It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.

             C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves 

 

 

 

 

Harmony

May all I say and all I think
be in harmony with thee,
God within me,
God beyond me,
maker of the trees.
 

    Chinook prayer, Pacific Northwest Coast

Poem: Subway Ballad

Off the bus, Times Square, downpour –
heat wave – no taxi – rush hour –
suitcase – backpack –
massive briefcase –

bookbag, and the purse Billy calls
my bowling-bag carrier.
Bouncing the double-decker wheelie down
the first long flight – a young man

Asked if I needed help, and easily
lifted and carried both vehicles.
Then a staircase up,
and a young man said,

“May I?” and at the top I said,
“You are my angel,”
and he looked – into my eyes
and smiled.

Another flight, another young man,
and the last stairs, a young woman.
It is what I do – be done by
by kindness.

at rush hour – huge luggage
fore and aft – I apologized a lot –
we’re all so sick of old white women
bragging about their helplessness.

Off at Bleeker – up elevator –
rain and urine – on its floor.
home of privilege: faculty fortress.
At the desk, Concierge.

Up 17 floors – long view
of Lower Manhattan. My song: I want, I want
to thank you. Ask me
for anything. I hope I recognize you, fellow citizen.

                            Sharon Olds



(Make the 6 look like the subway number in a circle)

Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing

 1. Never open a book with weather.

2. Avoid prologues.

3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.

5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.  If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
 

            Elmore Leonard

Endless wonder

Philosophy begins in wonder.
        It never ends.

                Robert Nozick, Invariances

 

 

Risk

Only those who will risk going too far
    can possibly find out how far one can go.

             T. S. Eliot, Preface to Transit of Venus: Poems by Harry Crosby

 

 

 

 

 

 

Consistency

Gods always behave like the people who make them.

            Zora Neale Hurston, Tell My Horse 

 

 

 

 

Stolen

Suspect each moment,
    for it is a thief,
        tiptoeing away
            with more than it brings.

                     John Updike, A Month of Sundays

 

 

 

Maximum faith

There are many creeds but only one faith.
Creeds may change, develop, and grow flat,
while the substance of faith remains the same in all ages.
The overgrowth of creed may bring about
the disintegration of that substance.
The proper relation is a minimum of creed and a maximum of faith.

        Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Holy Dimension

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: I Am My Ancestors’ Dream

Your ancestors did not survive
everything that nearly ended them
for you to shrink yourself
to make someone else
comfortable.

This sacrifice is your warcry,
be loud,
be everything
and make them proud.

        Nikita Gill

 

 

 

 

 

Balancing act

The goal is to balance a life that works with a life that counts.

            Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes

 

 

 

 

 

You gotta be kidding

The true New Yorker secretly believes
    that people living anywhere else
        have to be, in some sense, kidding.

                John Updike The New Yorker, March 1976

 

 

 

 

 

Crazy success

One of the secrets of a successful life
    is to know how to be a little profitably crazy.

            Josephine Tey, To Love and Be Wise

 

 

 

 

 

Worth it

Intangibles are the most honest merchandise anyone can sell.
They are always worth whatever you are willing to pay for them and they never wear out.
You can take them to your grave untarnished.

        Robert A. Heinlein, The Man Who Sold the Moon

 

 

 

 

The eye of the beholder

Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry,
    or look at pictures or statues,
        who cannot find a great deal more in them
            than the poet or artist has actually expressed.

                        Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Marble Faun

 

 

 

 

Silence

A day of Silence
Can be a pilgrimage in itself.
A day of Silence
Can help you listen
To the Soul play
Its marvellous lute and drum.
Is not most talking
A crazed defence of a crumbling fort?
I thought we came here
To surrender in Silence,
To yield to Light and Happiness,
To Dance within
In celebration of Love’s Victory!

            Hafez, translated by Daniel Ladinsky 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Thanks

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is

                    W. S. Merwin

 

 

 

 

 

Holiday discovery

The success of a holiday depends on
    what you find for yourself on the spot,
        not what you bring with you.

                Edith Pargeter, A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs

 

 

 

 

 

 

The birthday of a new world

We ought to reflect, that there are three different ways by which an independency may hereafter  be effected, and that one of those three, will, one day or other, be the fate of America, viz. By the legal voice of the people in Congress; by a military power, or by a mob: It may not always happen that our soldiers are citizens, and the multitude a body of reasonable men; virtue, as I have already remarked, is not hereditary, neither is it perpetual. Should an independency be brought about by the first of those means, we have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest, purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now.

The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the events of a few months. The reflection is awful, and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little paltry cavilings of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world.

        Thomas Paine, Common Sense

 

 

 

 

 

Summer travel

In the old days, we saw a lot of mink coats.
    Today, we see a lot of flip-flops.

            Bette Nash, Longest-Serving Flight Attendant in the World
                                New York Times obituary May 2024