No boaster and buffoons

Our America has a bad name for superficialness.
Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and buffoons,
but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it.

                    Ralph Waldo Emerson, Fate

 

 

 

 

 

If only

The things you think are the disasters
in your life are not the disasters really.
Almost anything can be turned around:
out of every ditch, a path, if you can only see it.

                Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies

 

 

 

 

 

Hard choices

And that's when you realize that God gave you a penis and a brain
        and only enough blood to run one at a time.

                         Robin Williams, Live on Broadway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your point is?

The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.

        Steve Weinberg, 1979 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Dreams of a Final Theory 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good advice

When you win, say nothing;
        when you lose, say less.

            Paul Brown, Cleveland Browns coach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The task

There is immense silent agony in the world,
and the task of man is to be a voice for the plundered poor,
to prevent the desecration of the soul
and the violation of our dream of honesty.
The more deeply immersed I became in the thinking of the prophets,
the more powerfully it became clear to me
what the lives of the Prophets sought to convey:
that morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern
one must feel for the suffering of human beings,
that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself,
that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.

            Abraham Joshua Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Enemies

If you are not to become a monster,
you must care what they think.
If you care what they think,

how will you not hate them,
and so become a monster
of the opposite kind? From where then

is love to come—love for your enemy
that is the way of liberty?
From forgiveness. Forgiven, they go

free of you, and you of them;
they are to you as sunlight
on a green branch. You must not

think of them again, except
as monsters like yourself,
pitiable because unforgiving.

                    Wendell Berry 

Lucky

If you care about something you have to protect it.
If you're lucky enough to find a way of life you love,
you have to find the courage to live it.

                    John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting and giving

The purpose of getting power is to be able to give it away.

            Aneurin Bevan, in Aneurin Bevan by Michael Foot

A gate of fire

We have entered the third millennium through a gate of fire.
If today, after the horror of 11 September, we see better, and we see further —
we will realize that humanity is indivisible.
New threats make no distinction between races, nations or regions.
A new insecurity has entered every mind, regardless of wealth or status.
A deeper awareness of the bonds that bind us all —
in pain as in prosperity — has gripped young and old.

                    Kofi Annan, Nobel lecture 

 

 

 

 

 

Tiring and frightening

I think housework is far more tiring and frightening
than hunting is, no comparison,
and yet after hunting we had eggs for tea
and were made to rest for hours,
but after housework people expect one to go on
just as if nothing special had happened.

                Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only reality

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved!
That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.
It is the one thing we are interested in here.

                Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

 

 

 

 

 

Above and beyond

Our Creator would never have made such lovely days,
    and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them,
        above and beyond all thought,
            unless we were meant to be immortal.

                            Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Old Manse