"The world is twice as crazy as it's ever been."
–Maurice Sendak

“For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken. Like most things, of course, it isn't quite that simple. The fried egg isn't properly a fried egg until it's been put in a frying pan and fried. This is something you wouldn't do to a Friday, of course, though you might do it on a Friday. You can also fry eggs on a Thursday, if you like, or on a cooker. It's all rather complicated, but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while.”

- Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

"A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood."

–William Shenstone

"Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal."

–Friedrich Nietzsche

“Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over." ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Well done is better than well said."
--Benjamin Franklin

"I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives."

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed".

Pres. Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Col. William F. Elkins
November 21, 1864

UPDATE: This not a Lincoln quote!! Snopes has the details.

"I have nothing but contempt for anyone who can spell a word only one way."

~ Thomas Jefferson Mark Twain Anonymous

"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
~ Chinese Proverb

I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.
~Abraham Lincoln

If hard work is not another name for talent, it is the best possible substitute for it.
~James Garfield

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.
~Thomas Jefferson

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
~Harry S. Truman

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. … Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.
~Barack Obama

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
~John F. Kennedy

I know only two tunes: one of them is "Yankee Doodle", and the other one isn't.
~Ulysses S. Grant

"The same hammer that breaks the glass forges the steel."
~ Russian Proverb

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
~ Isaac Asimov

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.
~ Rita Mae Brown, US author and social activist

Just an FYI: "Thursday the 12th" is just as rare as "Friday the 13th" ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, via Twitter

"If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
~Anatole France

Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience."
--Eleanor Hibbert, author

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much of life. So aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

- -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

"The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it."
--Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh

This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.

- -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.
- ~Stacia Tauscher

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

--Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)

"Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you."
--Wendell Berry, poet and farmer

First of all, let’s clarify what the NASA budget is. Do you realize that the $850 billion dollar bailout, that sum of money is greater than the entire 50-year running budget of NASA?

And so when someone says, “We don’t have enough money for this space probe,” I’m asking, no, it’s not that you don’t have enough money, it’s that the distribution of money that you’re spending is warped in some way that you are removing the only thing that gives people something to dream about tomorrow.

You remember the 60s and 70s. You didn’t have to go more than a week before there’s an article in Life magazine, “The Home of Tomorrow,” “The City of Tomorrow,” “Transportation of Tomorrow”. All of that ended in the 1970s. After we stopped going to the Moon, it all ended. We stopped dreaming.

And so I worry that the decision that Congress makes doesn’t factor in the consequences of those decisions on tomorrow. Tomorrow’s gone. They’re playing for the quarterly r eport, they’re playing for the next election cycle, and that is mortgaging the actual future of this nation, and the rest of the world is going to pass us by.

- Neil deGrasse Tyson

"You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it."
--Wendell Berry, poet and farmer

Do what we can, summer will have its flies.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Not to mention...
Mosquiteo population peaking this month along the Northern Front Range.

Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious.
- ~Bill Meyer

The only advantage in not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are.
--Eleanor Roosevelt

There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind.

- -Hannah Senesh, poet, playwright, and paratrooper (1921-1944)

Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.
--Former government official John W. Gardner

We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.
--Stewart I. Udall, politician (1920-2010)

"Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived."

author Anna Quindlen in a speech to Villanova's graduating class of 2000.
Today is Quindlen's birthday.

Pay the thunder no mind--listen to the birds.
--Eubie Blake, Jazz musician (1887-1983)

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.
-~Russel Baker

Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.
~Anonymous

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
- -William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.
-~Samuel Butler

"How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway. ... And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!"
---Anne Frank

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
- ~Author Unknown

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.
- ~Paul Boese

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature, and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of Nature.

--Anne Frank

"No one has ever learned fully to know themselves."
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

--Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Just an FYI: Friday the 13th is just as common as Thursday the 12th.
~ Neil deGrasse Tyson

What a pitiable thing it is that our civilization can do no better for us than to make us slaves to indoor life, so that we have to go and take artificial exercise in order to preserve our health.

--George Wharton James, journalist, author, and speaker (1858-1923)

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.

- -Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
---Edith Wharton, novelist (1862-1937)

"What really counts is what we read, not what we read it on."
--David Milofsky, Denver Post Book Editor

The problem with being happy in the moment is, moments never last. Things change whether you want them to or not, which makes it only smart to keep looking ahead. That's how people avoid getting hit by cars.
~ Lauren Peyton Roberts

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stone-cutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it would split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before together.

- -Jacob A. Riis, journalist and social reformer (1849-1914)

"Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule."
~Buddha

That is the glory of our human nature: not only that we can always choose a better path,but that some day we will.

--Eknath Easwaran "Words to Live By"

Catch-and-release, that's like running down pedestrians in your car and then, when they get up and limp away, saying -- Off you go! That's fine. I just wanted to see if I could hit you.

--Ellen DeGeneres, comedian, television host, and actress (b. 1958)

The world is mud-lucious and puddle-wonderful.
--e e cummings

Sometimes while you're tackling the day, the day pulls off a huge upset.
~ Steve / The Sneeze

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

- -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

Be vigilant; guard your mind against negative thoughts.
– The Buddha

Some simple principles to live by:
(1) Show up. (2) On time. (3) Work hard. (4) Do your best. (5) Floss.
~ George Takei via Twitter

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
- -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.

- -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
-- Henry Miller

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.
---Maya Angelou

"Sit quiety, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself."
~Zen saying

The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
-- Allan K. Chalmers

Nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something.
-Author Unknown

Advertising is legalized lying.
--H.G. Wells, writer (1866-1946)

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
~Isaac Asimov, Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations,

The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else -- we are the busiest people in the world.

--Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

My father likes to say we're a lot happier in life if we associate with people who speak in commas and question marks rather than periods and exclamation points. Politics has recently been all about the latter.

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
~Voltaire

Never fear shadows. They simply mean there's a light shining somewhere nearby.

--Ruth E. Renkel

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.
~John Lennon

"When I went to college I became a history major because history is such a wonderful story of who we think we are; English is much more a story of who we really are."

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
--Edward Everett Howe

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that receives it."
--Edith Wharton, Pulitzer Prize winning American author
(1862-1937)

~ from theWorstHorse.com

"We (in this country) should do everything we can to live up to our Children's expectations!" -Barak Obama

My favorite quotation from the ancient Sanskrit continues to be my philosophy. "Today well-lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope." May all your tomorrows bring you good health, good fortune and happiness. Remember the cup is always half-full.

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. ~Hal Borland

Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.
--Miguel de Cervantes

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion, it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the world, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

The goal of doing the dishes is not to get the dishes done. It's to get the dishes clean. ~ @jkottke via twitter

Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.
--Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (b. 1920)

Time flies. It's up to you to be the navigator.
---Robert Orben

"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words."
--- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German author, born on this day in 1749

Animals give me more pleasure through the viewfinder of a camera than they ever did in the crosshairs of a gunsight. And after I've finished "shooting", my unharmed victims are still around for others to enjoy.
--Jimmy Stewart, actor (1908-1997)

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.

---Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.
--Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and author (1884-1962)

Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction.
--Francis Picabia, painter and poet (1879-1953)

"The flag of the United States has not been created by rhetorical sentences in declarations of independence and in bills of rights. It has been created by the experience of a great people, and nothing is written upon it that has not been written by their life." ~Woodrow Wilson, who in 1916 proclaimed June 14 as Flag Day

A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.
--Michael Pollan, author, journalism professor (b. 1955)

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects

Robert Heinlein, called the Dean of Science Fiction writing (1907-1988)

Memories are interpreted like dreams.
---Leo Longanesi, journalist and editor (1905-1957)

"The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, swelling in the present moment and feeling truly alive." - Thich Nhat Hanh

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.

The Dahli Lama

A gun gives you the body, not the bird.
--Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking.

-Wangari Muta Maathai, activist and Nobel laureate (b. 1940)

As an irrigator guides water to the fields, as an archer aims an arrow, as a carpenter carves wood, the wise shape their lives.
– The Buddha

Every one of us is precious in the cosmic perspective. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.

Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

Obesity is a mental state, a disease brought on by boredom and disappointment.
--Cyril Connolly, critic and editor (1903-1974)

There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.
----Marshall McLuhan, educator and philosopher (1911-1980)

"The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for."

Maureen Dowd, NY Times Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.

--Woodrow Wilson

The real index of civilization is when people are kinder than they need to be.

Louis de Berniere, novelist (b. 1954)

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.

Albert Einstein, "The World As I See It" (1931)

I'm just moving clouds today; tomorrow I'll try mountains.

Ashleigh Brilliant, "Pot-Shots"

Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
Mark Twain, author and humorist
(1835-1910)

If we did all that experts tell us to, we'd never sleep. Maybe we should first allocate the 8hrs to sleep. I'll bet all else will improve.
~ Rob Myers (via twitter)

Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he's potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God.

Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author
(1903-1998)

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
Henry David Thoreau

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer
(1920-1992)

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.

Robert Orben, magician and author (b. 1927)

Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.

Martin Luther King Jr., civil-rights leader
(1929-1968)

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate
(1856-1950)

Today you are
You, that is truer than true.
There is no one alive
who is Youer than You.

Dr. Seuss, author and illustrator (1904-1991)

All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. Pick a cause -- there are few unworthy ones. And nudge yourself past the brink of tacit support to action. Once a month, once a year, or just once.

Joss Whedon, writer and film director (b. 1964)

I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.
Douglas Adams, satirist (1952-2001)

Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc., and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons.

-Douglas Adams, writer, dramatist, and musician (1952-2001)

Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.
--Mason Cooley

It is better to travel well than to arrive.
~the Buddha

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
– Eleanor Roosevelt

"Try not be become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value." - Albert Einstein.

from Walden
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

Henry David Thoreau

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

E. B. White, author

Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.

Josh Billings, humorist and contemporary of Mark Twain

The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly.

Ogden Nash, author (1902-1971)

He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.

Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)

All that is sweet, delightful, and amiable in this world, in the serenity of the air, the fineness of seasons, the joy of light, the melody of sounds, the beauty of colors, the fragrancy of smells, the splendor of precious stones, is nothing else but Heaven breaking through the veil of this world...

William Law

What is lovely never dies,
But passes into other loveliness,
Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower or winged air.

T.B. Aldrich

Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

Albert Einstein

"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country." ~ Anais Nin

Don't ever save anything for a special occasion.
Being alive is the special occasion.

Anonymous

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

Anatole France

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
~ Kurt Vonnegut

Life may not be the party we hoped for... but while we are here we might as well dance!

"If more people realized there was an "off" option to everything, the world would be a better place."
~ "Mamasan68" (Patti Harzke)

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours.
–---William Wordsworth

Loss of discrimination is the greatest source of danger.
– Sanskrit proverb

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold; when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

Charles Dickens

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.
---Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and author
(1884-1962)

Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction.
Francis Picabia, painter and poet
(1879-1953)

With a stop light, green means 'go' and yellow means 'slow down'. With a banana, however, it is quite the opposite. Yellow means 'go', green means 'whoa, slow down', and red means 'where the heck did you get that banana?'
~ Mitch Hedberg

"You tend to move toward what you dwell upon."

Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest", but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.

-Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author
(1917-1986)

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

---Marcel Proust, novelist
(1871-1922)

It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out; it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

---Robert Service

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.
--– Swami Vivekananda

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
--- John Muir

For money you can have everything it is said. No, that is not true. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honor; quiet days, but not peace. The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That cannot be had for money.

Arne Garborg, writer (1851-1924)

What can be added to the happiness of a man {or woman} who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

Adam Smith, economist
(1723-1790)

Evil is like a shadow - it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it.

Shakti Gawain, teacher and author (b. 1948)

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
e e cummings
(1894 -1962)

What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
(1869-1948)

Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.
– Lao Tzu

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle. Every square yard of the surface of the earth Is spread with the same. . . . What strange miracles are these! Everywhere . . .

- Walt Whitman

It is with the reading of books the same as with looking at pictures; one must, without doubt, without hesitations, with assurance, admire what is beautiful.

Vincent Van Gogh

Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author
(1902-1983)

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to us.
- Leon Trotsky

You and I are trustees. Nothing belongs to us personally. The resources of our planet have been entrusted to every one of us together. Like good bank trustees, we are expected not to squander these resources but to invest them wisely for our beneficiaries: the rest of life, especially the generations to come.

The trust includes not only the lives and natural resources of the planet, but our inner resources as well. This has practical implications. We can lessen our potentially exhausting impact on the earth by simplifying our desires and demands. Simplicity is the key to trusteeship.

Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By"

There's an old saying about those who forget history. I don't remember it, but it's good.
- Stephen Colbert, "The Colbert Report"

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

Oscar Wilde

True joy is found when the mind is still, not when it is excited.

Eknath Easwaran "Words to Live By"

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and author
(1936-2005)

A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It has to go though the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain.

~ Mildred White Struven

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and author
(1936-2005)

When human beings reach a state in which their physical wants are more than satisfied, when the optimum level of material abundance and physical comfort is reached, something in us feels an unpleasant sense of satiation. Absorbed up to then in the pursuit of prosperity and material security, we begin to feel restless, dissatisfied with the limits of life as it is being lived, constrained by the lack of challenges - and of love.

Then it becomes possible to hear a still, small voice speaking from deep below the conscious level of our mind, from beneath the level of conditioned desires. The voice was always there, but we were so busy with other things that we did not hear it. "I want an earth that is healthy, a world at peace, and a heart filled with love," it is saying. "I want my life to count."

Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By"

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is awaiting us.... The old skin has to be shed before the new one is to come.

~ Joseph Campbell

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
- Kurt Vonnegut

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

"Red Bird" Poems by Mary Oliver

We began as a mineral
We emerged into plant life and into
the animal state, and then to being human.

And always we have forgotten our former states,
except in early spring,
when we dimly recall being green again.

Rumi

Nothing is more humbling than to look with a strong magnifying glass at an insect so tiny that the naked eye sees only the barest speck and to discover that nevertheless it is sculpted and articulated and striped with the same care and imagination as a zebra. Apparently it does not occur to nature whether or not a creature is within our range of vision, and the suspicion arises that even the zebra was not designed for our benefit.

Rudolf Arnheim, psychologist and author
(1904-2007)

Do not take yourself too seriously. You have to learn not to be dismayed at making mistakes. No human being can avoid failures.

~ Lawrence G. Lovasik (The Hidden Power of Kindness)

When you regard your life as a trust, you realize that the first resource you have to take care of is your own body. This can be startling. Even your body is not really your own. It belongs to life, and it is your responsibility to take care of it. You cannot afford to do anything that injures your body, because the body is the instrument you need for selfless action. That is the fine print of the trust agreement: when we smoke, when we overeat, when we dont get enough exercise, we are violating the terms of the trust.

If you want to live life at its fullest, you will want to do everything possible to keep your body in vibrant health in order to give back to life a little of what it has given you.

Eknath Easwaran,"Words to Live By"

Practice rather than preach. Make of your life an affirmation, defined by your ideals, not the negation of others. Dare to the level of your capability then go beyond to a higher level.

~ Alexander Haig

Somehow, in our modern civilization, we have acquired the idea that the mind is working best when it runs at top speed. Yet a racing mind lacks time even to finish a thought, let alone to check on its quality. When we slow down the mind, we work better at everything we do. Not only is the quality of our work better, we are actually able to get more done. A calm, smooth-running flow of thought saves a lot of wear and tear on the nervous system, which means we have more vitality and resilience in the face of stress.

Eknath Easwaran "Words to Live By"

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

William James, psychologist
(1842-1910)

In the spiritual lore of India, it is said that God whispered only one word in our ears when he sent us into the world: Give. Give freely of your time, your talent, your resources; give without asking for anything in return. This is the secret of living in joy and security.

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
- Charles M. Schulz

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.

The Buddha

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer
(1819-1900)

Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

~ Alan W. Watts

Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning wthout liberty is always in vain.
~John F. Kennedy

I tell you one thing-- if you want peace of mind, do not find fault with others. Rather learn to see your own faults. Learn to make the whole world your own. No one is a stranger, my child; this whole world is your own.

Sri Sarada Devi

The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.
- Patrick Young

A library is the first step of a thousand journeys, portal to a thousand worlds.
~ Orson Scott Card, science fiction writer

It is not how old you are, but how you are old.
-Jules Renard, writer
(1864-1910)

Let there be kindness
in your face,
in your eyes,
in your smile,
in the warmth of your greeting.
Always have a cheerful smile.
Don't only give your care,
but give your heart as well.

~ Mother Teresa

Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.

~ H. Jackson Brown
(Life's Little Instruction Calendar, 1999)

Don't hope for a life without problems. An easy life results in a judgemental and lazy mind.

~ Kyong Ho

Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction.

Francis Picabia, painter and poet
(1879-1953)

To excel in anything you have to have patience. Very, very few of us are born patient. Our age has been called the age of anxiety, the age of anger; but we could just as easily say the age of impatience. You see it in supermarket lines, on the highway, on the tennis court, in the schoolyard, in the political arena, on the bus. With all this we have begun to believe that impatience is our natural state. Fortunately, love is our natural state, and patience is something that everybody can learn.

Eknath Easwaran, "Words To Live By"

And then there's the old prayer/joke: God grant me patience, and I want it right now!

You must know for which harbor you are headed if you are to catch the right wind to take you there.

~ Seneca

Confronting our feelings and giving them appropriate expression always takes strength, not weakness.
It takes strength to acknowledge our anger, and sometimes more strength yet to curb the aggressive urges anger may bring and to channel them into nonviolent outlets.
It takes strength to face our sadness and to grieve and to let our grief and our anger flow in tears when they need to.
It takes strength to talk about our feelings and to reach out for help and comfort when we need it.

~ Fred Rogers (The World According to Mr. Rogers)

The only thing worse than not reading a book in the last ninety days is not reading a book in the last ninety days and thinking that it doesn't matter.

In old age there is a coming into flower. My body wanes; my mind waxes.

~ Victor Hugo

For money you can have everything it is said. No that is not true. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honor; quiet days, but not peace. The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That cannot be had for money.

Arne Garborg, writer
(1851-1924)

Familiar acts are beautiful through love.
Percy Bysshe Shelley

By giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we choose. Simple, yet essential to the practice of love! Being one-pointed means we can give the person we are with our complete attention. Once we can do this, boredom disappears from our relationships. People are not boring; we get bored because our attention wanders. When we can give someone our full attention, our attitude says clearly, You matter to me. You have my respect.

Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By"

As an irrigator guides water to the fields, as an archer aims an arrow, as a carpenter carves wood, the wise shape their lives.
 The Buddha

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives ... not looking for flaws, but for potential.

~ Ellen Goodman

The moral test of government is how it treats--
those who are in the dawn of life - the children;
those who are in the twilight of life - the aged;
and those who are in the shadows of life - the sick, the needy and the handicapped.

~ Hubert Humphrey

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

~ Helen Keller

The pure in spirit, who see God, see him here and now: in his handiwork, his hidden purpose, the wry humor of his creation. The Lord has left us love notes scattered extravagantly across creation. Hidden in the eye of the tiger, the wet muzzle of a calf, the delicacy of the violet, and the perfect curve of the elephants tusk is a very personal, priceless message.

Watch the lamb in awkward play, butting against its mothers side. See the spider putting the final shimmering touches on an architectural wonder. And absorb a truth that is wordless. The grace of a deer, the soaring freedom of a sparrow hawk in flight, the utter self-possession of an elephant crashing through the woods  in every one of these there is something of ourselves. From the great whales in the blue Pacific to the tiniest of tree frogs in the Amazon basin, unity embraces us all.

Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By"

The pure in spirit, who see God, see him here and now: in his handiwork, his hidden purpose, the wry humor of his creation. The Lord has left us love notes scattered extravagantly across creation. Hidden in the eye of the tiger, the wet muzzle of a calf, the delicacy of the violet, and the perfect curve of the elephants tusk is a very personal, priceless message.

Watch the lamb in awkward play, butting against its mothers side. See the spider putting the final shimmering touches on an architectural wonder. And absorb a truth that is wordless. The grace of a deer, the soaring freedom of a sparrow hawk in flight, the utter self-possession of an elephant crashing through the woods  in every one of these there is something of ourselves. From the great whales in the blue Pacific to the tiniest of tree frogs in the Amazon basin, unity embraces us all.

Eknath Easwaran, Thought of the Day

You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. ~ Plato (428 BC-348 BC)

Whatever I am offered in devotion with a pure heart - a leaf, a flower, fruit, or water - I accept with joy.
- Bhagavad Gita

Words are timeless. You should utter them or write them with a knowledge of their timelessness.

Khalil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist
(1883-1931)

Goodness is the only investment which never fails.
 Henry David Thoreau

That some good can be derived from every event is a better proposition than that everything happens for the best, which it assuredly does not.

James Kern Feibleman, philosopher and psychiatrist
(1904-1987)

We need society, and we need solitude also, as we need summer and winter, day and night, exercise and rest.

~ Philip Gilbert Hamerton (The Intellectual Life)

Life isn't long enough to do all you could accomplish. And what a privilege even to be alive. In spite of all the pollutions and horrors, how beautiful this world is. Supposing you only saw the stars once every year. Think what you would think. The wonder of it!

~ Unknown

Conditions for creativity are:
to be puzzled;
to concentrate;
to accept conflict and tension;
to be born everyday;
to feel a sense of self.

~ Erich Fromm

Before us are life and death, good and evil. That which we shall choose shall be given us. -- Ecclesiasticus

The capacity to discriminate between right desires and wrong desires is very precious. Right desires benefit everyone, including ourselves. Wrong desires may be pleasing, but they benefit no one, again, not even ourselves. The criteria are simple to state, but not so simple to apply in everyday life.

Eknath Easwaran, Thought for the Day

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy, you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.

~Katherine Mansfield

It is the mind that makes one wise or ignorant, bound or emancipated.
 Sri Ramakrishna

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.

 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, "Gift from the Sea"

Often it is nothing more than our likes and dislikes that keep us from seeing the core of purity and selflessness that is in everyone. We dont like the way he cuts his hair, we dont like the way she drops her rs, and we cant get beyond these surface obstacles. Yet if we free ourselves from the rigid dictates of our own likes and dislikes, we will see people more clearly  even those whom we find difficult to love.

Some people are a little more irritating and self-willed than others. But instead of criticizing such people, which only makes their alienation worse, we can focus all our attention on what is best in them. This most practical skill can help those around us tremendously  while it helps us get over our likes and dislikes as well. It is like turning a flashlight onto one particular spot, concentrating on what is kind, generous, and selfless in the other person. Well find that this kind of support draws out and strengthens these very qualities in him or her.

Eknath Easwaran, "Thought for the Day"

The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

Henry David Thoreau

Mogul art, one of the great periods of artistic achievement in India, often is in miniature. The artist concentrated on very small areas, on little things, and worked with tenderness and precision. Only somebody who understands art will be able to see all the love and labor that has gone into it. Family living is like Mogul art, worked in miniature. The canvas is so small, and the skill required is so great, that most of us really do not appreciate the vast potentialities of family life.

Today we hear a great deal about the family becoming obsolete. Let us hope this is just the fantasy of those who do not understand the value of the family. To me, the family is like a free university, where we can get our finest education in living for others. Family does not just mean Papa, Mama, Junior, and Janie, but all the members, including grandparents, uncles and aunts and country cousins. The family can include dear friends and those who participate closely in all our endeavors.

We begin by being tender and unselfish and putting up with innumerable discomforts for the sake of adding to the joy of our family. Then, gradually, we extend our love to include our friends, our community, our country, and our world.

Blue Mountain Meditation Thought for the Day

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poets like to write about love, popular singers like to glorify love, but nobody bothers to sing the praises of patience. I once heard of a man who prayed to God, "Give me patience, O Lord, and give it to me now!" That man was not born with a patient nature. Most of us aren't, but we can develop it through practice.

You will find opportunities every day if you look for them. In a situation where there is a lot of friction, where people differ from you and aren't shy about letting you know it, don't run away. Move closer to them. You may have to grit your teeth; you may have to bite your lip to keep from giving vent to a harsh retort. And then, of course, you need to smile too, which doesn't come easily with your lip between your teeth. It is a demanding art to do this gracefully. But it is an art that can be learned.

Eknath Easwaran "Words to Live By"

Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.

Jalaluddin Rumi, poet and mystic (1207-1273)

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle. Every square yard of the surface of the earth Is spread with the same. . . . What strange miracles are these! Everywhere . . .

 Walt Whitman

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

"If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It's a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it's time to reflect on what's come before."- Mitchell Burgess

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.

-Iris Murdoch, writer (1919-1999)

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

~ Joseph Addison (The Spectator)

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

~ Kahlil Gibran

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

~ Marcus Aurelius

If you do something good, enjoy it, repeat it, and allow it to become a way of life.

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.
~ Albert Szent-Gyorgi, Nobel prize-winning biochemist

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet upon her surface and the winds long to play with your hair.

from Glimpse at the Daily Buddha

Most of us spend our lives as if we had another one in the bank.
~ Ben Irwin

Wit is educated insolence.
-Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)

"The Paradox of Our Time"

There is a gigantic difference between earning a great deal of money and being rich.

Marlene Dietrich

A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place, but a seed to be planted and to bear more seeds toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.

Let us not use bombs and guns to overcome the world. Let us use love and compassion. Peace begins with a smile-- smile five times a day to someone you don't really want to smile at all-- do it for peace. So let us radiate the peace of God and so

Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more.

~ Henri Frederic Amiel

Live your life in happiness, even though those around you lead lives which are unhealthy, and wish to spread their illness to you. Be Happiness itself.
~ Buddha

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.

~ Pablo Picasso

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.

~ Dr.

When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.
~ Albert Einstein

Underground nuclear testing, defoliation of the rain forests, toxic waste ... Let's put it this way: if the world were a big apartment, we wouldn't get our deposit back.

-John Ross

We say we waste time, but that is impossible. We waste ourselves.

~ Alice Bloch

Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary. We must not permit anything to stand between us and the book that could change our lives.

~ Jim Rohn (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine February 4, 2003)

The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself.
-Rita Mae Brown, writer (1944- )

"The universe doesn't owe you anything but an education, and it gives you lessons every day."
Wil Wheaton's friend John Vorhaus

No day is so bad it can't be fixed with a nap.
Carrie Snow

The best thing to spend on your children is your time.
~ Louise Hart

It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes.
Sally Field, actress

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
~ Heraclitus

After my recent trip to Guatemala, I have been feeling very discouraged about the state of not only that country but much of the world. It all feels overwhelming but this quote from the Talmud helps:

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the wor

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

-Guy de Maupassant, short story writer and novelist
(1850-1893)

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.
Palmer Sondreal

Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons.
Ruth Ann Schabacker

Be an explorer ... read, surf the internet, visit customers, enjoy arts, watch children play ... do *anything* to prevent yourself from becoming a prisoner of your knowledge, experience, and current view of the world.

~ Charles 'Chic' Tho

I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me bang in the face.

~Langston Hughes

The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of peop

We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one which we preach, but do not practice, and another which we practice, but seldom preach.

-Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate
(1872-1970)

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
~ Franz Kafka

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.
Carl Jung

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

~ Lin Yutang

How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young?

-Paul Sweeney

The only important question we must ask of ourselves at the end of our lives is "Did we live with enthusiasm?"

Ray Bradbury, science fiction w

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-- and melting like a snowflake.

~ Marie Beyon Ray

Eliminate physical clutter. More importantly, eliminate spiritual clutter.
D.H. Mondfleur

Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.

Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author
(1902-1983)

Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations.
Faith Baldwin, novelist
(1893-1978)

Years wrinkle the face, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
~ Watterson Lowe

In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.

John Milton (1608--1674)

What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?

George Eliot

I'm really glad that our young people missed the Depression and missed the big war. But I do regret that they missed the leaders that I knew, leaders who told us when things were tough and that we'd have to sacrifice, and that these difficulties

In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.

~ Deirdre Sullivan (in "This I Believe")

For what are stars but asterisks. To point a human life?
Emily Dickinson, poet
(1830-1886)

If thine enemy wrong thee, buy each of his children a drum.
~ Chinese proverb

We must be willing to get rid of the life weve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher
(1803-1882)

ADDITIONAL NOTE:
This quotation has an additional story, related to Isaac Asimov

Creativity is:
inventing,
experimenting,
growing,
taking risks,
breaking rules,
making mistakes,
and having fun.

~ Mary Lou Cook

When you use bad means to get good ends, you ruin the ends. You find evil in the end that you introduced into the means.

~ Lanza del Vasto
("The Principle is to Unity of Life")

To educate people for peace, we can use words or we can speak with our lives.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen master and poet
(Love in Action)

It doesn't matter if we think we're fearless or if we do things while quaking. The important thing is to be true to our own dreams and live authentic lives.

~ Diane Conway (What Would You Do If You Had No Fear?)

We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies.

Roderick Thorp

"Every morning we trade the warmth, comfort, and safety of our beds for the mystery of a new day."
Wil Wheaton, January 23, 2007

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

ee cummings

You needn't think there is nothing you can do-- you can tell the truth.

~ Daniel Ellsberg
("Awakening From a Dream of Kings and Wizards")

Folks will know how large your soul is by the way you treat a dog.

Charles F. Duran

In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.

~ Deirdre Sullivan (in This I Believe)

If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled.
If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself.

~ Lao-tzu (Tao Te Ching trans. by Stephen Mitchell)

Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to.
Bill Vaughan

PROOF: I was in bed by 10:00 and only woke briefly at midnight when the neighbors set off a few fireworks.

From an editorial column in the Denver Post 12-30-06
written by Garrison Keillor--

So here we are. We've endured. We lost some good people in 2006, but you and I didn't die. Reason enough to celebrate. And we'll do better next year. Entr

The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy.
Florence Scovel Shinn, writer, artist and teacher
(1871-1940)

Time is like a movie. All people see it in its full length. Some people fast forward or rewind to their favorite times and skip the bad. Others are stuck watching only bad acting. Some people direct and all want to be stars but in the end every

It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.
-Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author
(1817-1862)

It is still an unending source of surprise for me how a few scribbles on a blackboard or on a piece of paper can change the course of human affairs.
~ Stanislaw Ulam

Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor.
-Wernher von Braun, rocket engineer
(1912-1977)

What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.
~ Lao Tzu

People travel to wonder--
at the height of the mountains,
at the huge waves of the seas,
at the long course of the rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the cicrular motion of the stars,
and yet they pass by themselves without

Celebrate Black Friday by staying home and NOT shopping. As humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935) said:

Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like.

We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.
 Japanese proverb

My two favorite things in life are libraries and bicycles. They both move people forward without wasting anything. The perfect day: riding a bike to the library.
-Peter Golkin, museum spokesman
(1966- )

There's no point in burying a hatchet if you're going to put up a marker on the site.
~ Sydney Harris

People never lie so much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt.
-Otto von Bismarck, statesman
(1815-1898)

Someone else's action should not determine your response.
Dalai Lama

God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages.
-Jacques Deval, writer and director
(1895-1972)

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.
John Powell

Hope unbelieved is always considered nonsense. But hope believed is history in the process of being changed.
~ Jim Wallis (The Soul of Politics)

Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun.
George Scialabra

When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health and our happiness. Our enemies would dance with joy if only they knew how they were worrying us, lacerating us, an

NEIL ARMSTRONG'S famous quote: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" has become one of the best known in history.

For nearly four decades, it was claimed the first man on the moon FLUFFED his lines, becaus

If you try to guard yourself against every unlikely danger, you'll never stretch beyond your comfort zone. Don't let the 'what-ifs' run your life. Follow your dreams and have at it.

~ Diane Conway (What Would You Do If You Had No Fear?)

A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably

You don't have to accept the invitation to get angry. Instead, practice forgiveness, empathy and encouragement.

~ Dan Fallon ,"Getting Along in Families"

A day without sunshine is like night
~anon.

I always feel sorry for people who think more about a rainy day ahead than sunshine today.
~ Rae Foley

How long should you try? Until.
~ Jim Rohn

The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.
~ Isaac Asimov

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
Frederick Koenig

Winning doesn't teach you anything. You win. End of story. But the losing and what you take from it--that's the interesting bit.
Hugh Laurie, actor

Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams.
~ Mary Ellen Kelly

Never miss an opportunity to make others happy, even if you have to leave them alone in order to do it.
 Anonymous

The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser - in case you thought optimism was dead.

Robert Brault, software developer, writer (1972- )

Nothing needs reforming so much as other people's habits.
~ Mark Twain

A child, like your stomach, doesn't need all you can afford to give it.
Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Winston Churchill

"A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken."
- James Dent

"Earth laughs in flowers."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

From a cup of coffee from Starbucks:
"Do not kiss your children so they will kiss you back but so they will kiss their children, and their children's children."
-- Noah benShea, Poet, philosopher and author

Read the full interview

Steve Jobs' Best Quotes Ever. On the eve of Apple's 30th anniversary, Wired has compiled a list of the best "Steve Quotes" they could find. An example:

"It

Worst Vegetable of the Year: The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next year.
~ Steve Rubenstein

Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny. - Carl Schurz