Good advice

Don’t sell your soul to buy peanuts for the monkeys.

        Dorothy Salisbury Davis, A Gentle Murderer

 

 

 

 

Safety first

Housework can't kill you,
        but why take a chance?
        
                Phyllis Diller, The Mammoth Book of Comic Quotes

 

 

 

 

 

Abandonment

When we don't listen to our intuition,
we abandon our souls.
And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don't,
others will abandon us.

Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

 

 

 

 

 

Ignorance is bliss

Religion enables us to ignore nothingness
        and get on with the jobs of life.

                John Updike, Self-Consciousness: Memoirs

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

        Billy Collins

 

April is National Poetry Month

These times

These are times in which a genius would wish to live.
It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose
of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.
The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties.
Great necessities call out great virtues.
When a mind is raised, and animated by the scenes that engage the heart,
then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant,
wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

    Abigail Adams, in a letter to John Quincy Adams 

 

 

 

 

Awesome

The highest point a man can obtain is not Knowledge,
or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory,
but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing:
Sacred Awe!

            Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

 

 

 

 

 

Law

When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power.
Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world,
and like spells, they only work if people believe in them.

                Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

 

 

 

 

 

April Fool

The fool doth think he is wise,
    but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

                William Shakespeare, As You Like It

 

 

 

 

 

The second learning

You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and
compelling reason why we observe daylight-saving time.

    Dave Barry, 25 Things I Have Learned In 50 Years, #2

 

Promise

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection
    not in books alone but in every leaf in spring time.

            Martin Luther, Watchwords for the Warfare of Life

 

 

 

Poem: The Point

The days, the days they break to fade.
What fills them I’ll forget.
Every touch and smell and taste.
This sun, about to set

can never last. It breaks my heart.
Each joy feels like a threat:
Although there’s beauty everywhere,
its shadow is regret.

Still, something in the coming dusk
whispers not to fret.
Don’t matter that we’ll lose today.
It’s not tomorrow yet.

        Kate Tempest 

Carpe diem

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

Jack London, Jack London’s Tales of Adventure

 

 

 

Supreme accomplishment

The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.

        Arnold J. Toynbee, Social Creativity Vol. 2 

 

 

 

 

Conspiracy theory

America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.

    John Updike, How to Love America and Leave it at the Same Time    

Way to go

If you believe that saying no will get you shot,
        well, what a fine way to go.

                Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes

 

 

 

 

 

 

A way with words

If you have the words,
there's always a chance that you'll find the way.

        Seamus Heaney, Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney

 

 

 

 

 

Good and evil

Whatever good visits thee, it is of God;
    whatever evil visits thee is of thyself.

            Muhammad, The Koran

 

 

 

 

Poem: All That is Gold Does Not Glitter

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

            J.R.R. Tolkien

 

 

 

 

 

Rules

I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom.
I am free, no matter what rules surround me.
If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them;
if I find them too obnoxious, I break them.
I am free because I know that I alone
am morally responsible for everything I do.

        Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

 

 

 

 

Welcome, Spring

Every spring is the only spring,
        a perpetual astonishment.

                    Edith Pargeter, The Summer of the Danes

 

 

 

 

 

Cold comfort

You can take comfort in the likelihood that
what is now making you miserable will also pass away.

    Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy

 

 

 

 

Miracle cure

Doctors pour drugs, of which they know little,
    to cure diseases, of which they know less,
        into human beings, of whom they know nothing.

                    Attributed to Voltaire

 

 

 

 

 

Lyrics for St. Patrick's Day

Give Ireland back to the Irish
Don’t make them have to take it away
Give Ireland back to the Irish
Make Ireland Irish today

Great Britain you are tremendous
And nobody knows like me
But really what are you doin’
In the land across the sea

Tell me how would you like it
If on your way to work
You were stopped by Irish soldiers
Would you lie down do nothing
Would you give in or go berserk

Give Ireland back to the Irish
Don’t make them have to take it away
Give Ireland back to the Irish
Make Ireland Irish today

Great Britain and all the people
Say that all people must be free
Meanwhile back in Ireland
There’s a man who looks like me

And he dreams of God and country
And he’s feeling really bad
And he’s sitting in a prison
Should he lie down, do nothing
Should he give in or go mad

Give Ireland back to the Irish
Don’t make them have to take it away
Give Ireland back to the Irish
Make Ireland Irish today

    Paul and Linda McCartney