Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Meandering in joy . . .

Today is the birthday of Felice Leonardo "Leo" Buscaglia (March 31, 1924 – June 12, 1998), author, motivational speaker, and professor. He was known by many as "Dr Love" and/or "Dr. Hug".

"Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find that you are left holding only yourself." - Leo Buscaglia

"The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live." - Leo Buscaglia

"A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself -- to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart." - Leo Buscaglia

"Love yourself—accept yourself—forgive yourself—and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things." - Leo Buscaglia

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around." - Leo Buscaglia

"Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized." - Leo Buscaglia

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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Meandering in the light . . .

Today is the birthday of Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich (March 30, 1909 – November 3, 2001), art historian and author. He is best known for his book, The Story of Art.

"All artistic discoveries are discoveries not of likenesses but of equivalencies which enable us to see reality in terms of an image and an image in terms of reality." - Ernst Gombrich

"What an artist worries about when he plans his pictures, is something... difficult to put into words. Perhaps he would say he worries about whether he has got it 'right.' Now it is only when we understand what he means by this modest little word 'right' that we begin to understand what artists are really after." - Ernst Gombrich

"The paintings in our galleries are seen one day in bright sunshine and another day in the dim light of a rainy afternoon, yet they remain the same paintings, ever faithful, ever convincing. To a marvelous extent they carry their own light within. For their truth is not that of a perfect replica, it is the truth of art." - Ernst Gombrich

"Seeing depends on knowledge - and knowledge, of course, on your college - but when you are erudite and wise - what matters is to use your eyes." - Ernst Gombrich

"One cannot explain the existence of genius. It is better to enjoy it." - Ernst Gombrich

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Monday, March 29, 2010

Meandering around . . .

Today is the birthday of James E. Casey (March 29, 1888 - June 6, 1983), businessman. He is best known as Jim Casey, founder of United Parcel Service - UPS.

"One measure of your success will be the degree to which you build up others who work with you. While building up others, you will build up yourself." - James E. Casey

"The basic principle which I believe has contributed more than any other to the building of our business as it is today, is the ownership of our company by the people employed in it." - James E. Casey

"Our future leaders will be our people who today, are forging ahead, modestly and quietly. They are plain, simple people who are doing their best on their present jobs...what ever those jobs may happen to be. Such people will not fail us when called for bigger things." - James E. Casey

Casey image source (1)

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Simply meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Jane Vance Rule (28 March 1931 – 27 November 2007), writer.

"Every artist seems to me to have the job of bearing witness to the world we live in. To some extent I think of all of us as artists, because we have voices and we are each of us unique." - Jane Rule

"If we don't bear witness as citizens, as people, as individuals, the right that we have had to life is sacrificed. There is a silence, instead of a speaking presence." - Jane Rule

"Love is the terrible secret people are suspected of unless they're married, then one always suspects they don't." - Jane Rule

"My private measure of success is daily. If this were to be the last day of my life would I be content with it? To live in a harmonious balance of commitments and pleasures is what I strive for." - Jane Rule

Rule image source (1)

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Meandering here and there . . .

Today is the birthday of Karl Mannheim (March 27, 1893 – January 9, 1947), social philosopher and sociologist. He is oft referred to as a founder of the sociology of knowledge.

"The thought of every group is seen as arising out of its life conditions." - Karl Mannheim

"As long as one does not call his own position into question but regards it as absolute, while interpreting his opponents' ideas as a mere function of the social positions they occupy, the decisive step forward has not yet been taken." - Karl Mannheim

"There are spheres of thought in which it is impossible to conceive of absolute truth existing independently of the values and position of the subject and unrelated to the social context." - Karl Mannheim

"Human thought arises, and operates, not in a social vacuum but in a definite social milieu." - Karl Mannheim

"At this point in history when all things which concern man and the structure and elements of history itself are suddenly revealed to us in a new light, it behooves us in our scientific thinking to become masters of the situation, for it is not inconceivable that sooner than we suspect, as has often been the case before in history, this vision may disappear, the opportunity may be lost, and the world will once again present a static, uniform, and inflexible countenance." - Karl Mannheim

"All knowledge is oriented toward some object and is influenced in its approach by the nature of the object with which it is pre-occupied. But the mode of approach to the object to be known is dependent upon the nature of the knower." - Karl Mannheim

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Friday, March 26, 2010

Meandering in bliss . . .

Today is the birthday of Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987), mythologist, writer and lecturer. He is best known for his work in mythology and comparative religion.

"Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls." - Joseph Campbell

"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it's all finally about." - Joseph Campbell

"A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself." - Joseph Campbell

"Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain." - Joseph Campbell

"I think it's important to live life with a knowledge of its mystery, and of your own mystery." - Joseph Campbell

"It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure." - Joseph Campbell

"When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness." - Joseph Campbell

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Thursday, March 25, 2010

Meandering about . . .

Today is the birthday of Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964), novelist, short-story writer and essayist.

"The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode." - Flannery O'Connor

"Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it." - Flannery O'Connor

"Most of us have learned to be dispassionate about evil, to look it in the face and find, as often as not, our own grinning reflections with which we do not argue, but good is another matter. Few have stared at that long enough to accept that its face too is grotesque, that in us the good is something under construction. The modes of evil usually receive worthy expression. The modes of good have to be satisfied with a cliche or a smoothing down that will soften their real look." - Flannery O'Connor

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." - Flannery O'Connor

"The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location." - Flannery O'Connor

"There are all kinds of truth ... but behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth." - Flannery O'Connor

"Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe." - Flannery O'Connor

"I write to discover what I know." - Flannery O'Connor

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Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Meandering in the spheres . . .

Today is the birthday of Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897 – November 3, 1957), psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He is best known as a controversial social theorist and researcher, who believed that he had discovered a "vital energy" which he called "Orgone energy".

Wilhelm Reich is another writer whose works were destoryed. In August 1956, several tons of his publications were burned by the FDA. It has often been referred to as one of the worst examples of censorship in U.S. history.

"Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it." - Wilhelm Reich

"I am well aware of the fact that the human race has known about the existence of a universal energy related to life for many ages. However, the basic task of natural science consisted of making this energy usable." - Wilhelm Reich

"You beg for happiness in life, but security is more important to you, even if it costs you your spine or your life. Your life will be good and secure when aliveness will mean more to you than security; love more than money; your freedom more than party line or public opinion; when your thinking will be in harmony with your feelings; when the teachers of your children will be better paid than the politicians; when you will have more respect for the love between man and woman than for a marriage license." - Wilhelm Reich

"No man-made law ever, no matter whether derived from the past or projected onto a distant, unforeseeable future, can or should ever be empowered to claim that it is greater than the Natural Law from which it stems and to which it must inevitably return in the eternal rhythm of creation and decline of all things natural." - Wilhelm Reich

"Psychic illnesses are the result of a disturbance of the natural capacity for love." - Wilhelm Reich

"Follow the voice of your heart, even if it leads you off the path of timid souls. Do not become hard and embittered, even if life tortures you at times. There is only one thing that counts: to live one's life well and happily..." - Wilhelm Reich

"Only you yourself can be your liberator!" - Wilhelm Reich

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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Meandering in thought . . .

Today is the birthday of Erich Seligmann Fromm (March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980), social psychologist, psychoanalyst and humanistic philosopher.

"Immature love says: I love you because I need you. Mature love says: I need you because I love you." - Erich Fromm

"Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world." - Erich Fromm

"Man is born as a freak of nature, being within nature and yet transcending it. He has to find principles of action and decision-making which replace the principles of instincts. He has to have a frame of orientation which permits him to organize a consistent picture of the world as a condition for consistent actions. He has to fight not only against the dangers of dying, starving, and being hurt, but also against another danger which is specifically human: that of becoming insane. In other words, he has to protect himself not only against the danger of losing his life but also against the danger of losing his mind." - Erich Fromm

"What is it that distinguishes man from animals? It is not his upright posture. That was present in the apes long before the brain began to develop. Nor is it the use of tools. It is something altogether new, a previously unknown quality: self-awareness. Animals, too, have awareness. They are aware of objects; they know this is one thing and that another. But when the human being as such was born he had a new and different consciousness, a consciousness of himself; he knew that he existed and that he was something different, something apart from nature, apart from other people, too. He experienced himself. He was aware that he thought and felt. As far as we know, there is nothing analogous to this anywhere in the animal kingdom. That is the specific quality that makes human beings human." - Erich Fromm

"Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve and from which he cannot escape." - Erich Fromm

"The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots." - Erich Fromm

"Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others." - Erich Fromm

Fromm image source (1)

Monday, March 22, 2010

Meandering in silence . . .

Today is the birthday of Marcel Mangel (March 22, 1923 – September 22, 2007), actor. He is best known as Marcel Marceau and for his dramatic mime artistry.

"What sculptors do is represent the essence of gesture. What is important in mime is attitude." - Marcel Marceau

"To communicate through silence is a link between the thoughts of man." - Marcel Marceau

"I have designed my style pantomimes as white ink drawings on black backgrounds, so that man's destiny appears as a thread lost in an endless labyrinth. I have tried to shed some gleams of light on the shadow of man startled by his anguish." - Marcel Marceau

"Music conveys moods and images. Even in opera, where plots deal with the structure of destiny, it's music, not words, that provides power." - Marcel Marceau

"Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?" - Marcel Marceau

"Never get a mime talking. He won't stop." - Marcel Marceau

Marceau image source (1)

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (March 21, 1763 – November 14, 1825), novelist and short-story writer. He is best known by his pseudonym, Jean Paul.

"A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterwards." - Jean Paul

"Every man has two educations--that which is given to him, and the other, that which he gives to himself. Of the two kinds, the latter is by far the most valuable. Indeed, all that is most worthy in a man, he must work out and conquer for himself. It is that that constitutes our real and best nourishment. What we are merely taught seldom nourishes the mind like that which we teach ourselves." - Jean Paul

"Cares are often more difficult to thrown off than sorrows; the latter die with time, the former grow upon it." - Jean Paul

"Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it and conquering it." - Jean Paul

"Flowers never emit so sweet and strong a fragrance as before a storm. Beauteous soul! when a storm approaches thee, be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower." - Jean Paul

"Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good actions; try to use ordinary situations." - Jean Paul

Jean Paul image source (1)

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, author, inventor and poet. He is best known as B. F. Skinner, author of the books Walden Two and Beyond Freedom and Dignity.

"The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do." - B. F. Skinner

"A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying." - B. F. Skinner

"We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading." - B. F. Skinner

"Physics does not change the nature of the world it studies, and no science of behavior can change the essential nature of man, even though both sciences yield technologies with a vast power to manipulate the subject matters." - B. F. Skinner

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Friday, March 19, 2010

Meandering forever . . .

Today is the birthday of Richard Francis Burton (March 19, 1821 – October 20, 1890), explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, linguist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat.

He is fondly remembered for bringing the Kama Sutra to publication in English.

"Of the gladest moments in human life, methinks is the departure upon a distant journey to unknown lands." - Sir Richard Francis Burton

"Friends of my youth, a last adieu! haply some day we meet again; Yet ne'er the self-same men shall meet; the years shall make us other men." - Sir Richard Francis Burton

"Conquer thyself, till thou has done this, thou art but a slave; for it is almost as well to be subjected to another's appetite as to thine own." - Sir Richard Francis Burton

"Cease, Man, to mourn, to weep, to wail; enjoy thy shining hour of sun; We dance along Death's icy brink, but is the dance less full of fun?" - Sir Richard Francis Burton

Burton image source (1)

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Meandering here and there . . .

Today is the birthday of Christian Friedrich Hebbel (March 18, 1813 – December 13, 1863), poet and dramatist.

"Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion." - Friedrich Hebbel

"Whoever wants to be a judge of human nature should study people's excuses." - Friedrich Hebbel

"Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights." - Friedrich Hebbel

"If you hate something thoroughly without knowing why, you can be sure there is something of it in your own nature." - Friedrich Hebbel


"Reason is the substance of the universe. The design of the world is absolutely rational." - Friedrich Hebbel

"What you can become you are already." - Friedrich Hebbel

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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Meandering in cyberspace . . .

Today is the birthday of William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948), writer. He is credited with introducing the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk and has been referred to the "noir prophet" of cyberpunk.

William Gibson coined the term cyberspace in his short story Burning Chrome and later popularized the concept in his novel, Neuromancer (1984).

"All I knew about the word "cyberspace" when I coined it, was that it seemed like an effective buzzword. It seemed evocative and essentially meaningless. It was suggestive of something, but had no real semantic meaning, even for me, as I saw it emerge on the page." - William Gibson

"Time moves in one direction, memory in another." - William Gibson

"The NET is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it." - William Gibson

"The past is past, the future unformed. There is only the moment, and that is where he prefers to be." - William Gibson

"As I've said many times, the future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed." - William Gibson

"Language is to the mind more than light is to the eye." - William Gibson

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Meandering to and fro . . .

Today is the birthday of René Daumal (March 16, 1908 - May 21, 1944), writer and poet.

"Each time dawn appears, the mystery is there in its entirety." - René Daumal

"Words are made for a certain exactness of thought, as tears are for a certain degree of pain. What is least distinct cannot be named; what is clearest is unutterable." - René Daumal

"Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are checks drawn on insufficient funds." - René Daumal

"It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content... it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble and from babble to confusion." - René Daumal

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Monday, March 15, 2010

Meandering, meandering, meandering we go . . .

Today is the birthday of Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse (March 15, 1830 - April 2, 1914), novelist, dramatist and poet. He is best known for his short story L'Arrabbiata and his novel Kinder der Welt.

Paul von Heyse with the poet Emanuel Geibel, were the leaders of a Munich circle of writers, who sought to preserve traditional artistic values from the encroachments of political radicalism, materialism, and realism.

Paul von Heyse was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1910.

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Sunday, March 14, 2010

Meandering in the spheres . . .

Today is the birthday of Algernon Henry Blackwood (March 14, 1869 – December 10, 1951), author, adventurer, newspaper reporter.

"It is, alas, chiefly the evil emotions that are able to leave their photographs on surrounding scenes and objects and whoever heard of a place haunted by a noble deed, or of beautiful and lovely ghosts revisiting the glimpses of the moon?" - Algernon Blackwood

"Why not let people differ about their answers to the great mysteries of the Universe? Let each seek one's own way to the highest, to one's own sense of supreme loyalty in life, one's ideal of life. Let each philosophy, each world-view bring forth its truth and beauty to a larger perspective, that people may grow in vision, stature and dedication." — Algernon Blackwood

"You know," he went on almost under his breath, "every man who thinks for himself and feels vividly finds he lives in a world of his own, apart, and believes that one day he'll come across, either in a book or in a person, the Priest who shall make it clear to him." — Algernon Blackwood

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Saturday, March 13, 2010

Meandering around and around . . .

Today is the birthday of Hugh Seymour Walpole (March 13, 1884 – June 1, 1941), novelist.

"Happiness comes from ... some curious adjustment to life." - Hugh Walpole

"The most wonderful of all things in life is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a growing depth, beauty and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life." - Hugh Walpole

"In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last." - Hugh Walpole

"Happiness comes from within a man, from some curious adjustment to life." - Hugh Walpole

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Friday, March 12, 2010

Meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of André Comte-Sponville (born March 12, 1952), philosopher.

"Atheism is a way of humility. It's to think oneself to be an animal, as we are actually and to allow oneself to become human." - Andre Comte-Sponville

"Your life is not lying in wait in the future like a wild animal or some ominous destiny. Nor is it hidden in the heavens, like a paradise or promise. Nor is it shut up in the cave or the prison of your past. It is here and now; it is what you live and what you do. At the heart of being; at the heart of the present; at the heart of everything – in the great current of life, of reality." - Andre Comte-Sponville

"All fear is imaginary, reality is its antidote." - Andre Comte-Sponville

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Thursday, March 11, 2010

Meandering in the galaxy . . .

Today is the birthday of Douglas Noël Adams (March 11, 1952 – May 11, 2001), writer, dramatist, and musician. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

"Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams

"We don't have to save the world. The world is big enough to look after itself. What we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will be capable of sustaining us in it." - Douglas Adams

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.There is another theory which states that this has already happened." - Douglas Adams

"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of (Karl Wilhelm) Friedrich von Schlegel (March 10, 1772 – January 12, 1829), poet, critic and scholar. He was one of the chief founders of the German Romanticism movement.

"Combine the extremes, and you will have the true center." - Friedrich von Schlegel

"Prudishness is pretense of innocence without innocence. Women have to remain prudish as long as men are sentimental, dense, and evil enough to demand of them eternal innocence and lack of education. For innocence is the only thing which can ennoble lack of education." - Friedrich von Schlegel

"One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one." - Friedrich von Schlegel

"He who does not become familiar with nature through love will never know her." - Friedrich von Schlegel

"One of two things is usually lacking in the so-called Philosophy of Art: either philosophy or art." - Friedrich von Schlegel

"It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind." - Friedrich von Schlegel

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Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Meandering in mystery . . .

Today is the birthday of Frank Morrison Spillane (March 9, 1918 – July 17, 2006), author. He is better known as Mickey Spillane, the creator of the fictional detective, Mike Hammer.

"Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book." - Mickey Spillane

"The biggest part of the joke is the punch line, so the biggest part of a book should be the punch line, the ending. People don't read a book to get to the middle, they read a book to get to the end and hope that the ending justifies all the time they spent reading it. So what I do is, I get my ending and, knowing what my ending is going to be, then I write to the end and have the fun of knowing where I'm going but not how I'm going to get there." - Mickey Spillane

"If you're a singer you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he's good, the older he gets, the better he writes." - Mickey Spillane

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Monday, March 8, 2010

Meandering here and there . . .

Today is the birthday of Warren Gamaliel Bennis (born March 8, 1925), scholar, organizational consultant and author. He is oft referred to as a pioneer in the field of Leadership studies.

"Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult." - Warren G. Bennis

"The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born." - Warren G. Bennis

"Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery." - Warren G. Bennis

"Leadership is the wise use of power. Power is the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it." - Warren G. Bennis

"Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality." - Warren G. Bennis

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Sunday, March 7, 2010

Meandering in thought . . .

Today is the birthday of John Frederick William Herschel (March 7, 1792 – May 11, 1871), mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor.

"Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue." - John Herschel

"Music and dancing (the more the pity) have become so closely associated with ideas of riot and debauchery among the less cultivated classes, that a taste for them, for their own sakes, can hardly be said to exist, and before they can be recommended as innocent or safe amusements, a very great change of ideas must take place." - John Herschel

"A mind which has a taste for scientific inquiry, and has learned the habit of applying its principles readily to the cases which occur, has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations. One would think that Shakespeare had such a mind in view when he describes a contemplative man as finding—

'Tongues in trees, books in running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything,'

Accustomed to trace the operations of general causes and the exemplification of general laws, in circumstances where the uninformed and uninquiring eye, perceives neither novelty nor beauty, he walks in the midst of wonders ; every object which falls in his way elucidates some principle, affords some instruction and impresses him with a sense of harmony and order. Nor is it a mere passive pleasure which is thus communicated. A thousand questions are continually arising in his mind, a thousand objects of inquiry presenting themselves, which keep his faculties in constant exercise and his thoughts perpetually on the wing, so that lassitude is excluded from his life, and that craving after artificial excitement and dissipation of the mind which leads so many into frivolous, unworthy and destructive pursuits, is altogether eradicated from his bosom." - John Herschel

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Saturday, March 6, 2010

Meandering in the twilight . . .

Today is the birthday of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (March 6, 1806 – June 29, 1861), poet.

"An ignorance of means may minister to greatness, but an ignorance of aims make it impossible to be great at all." - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Who so loves believes the impossible." - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Light tomorrow with today!" - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death."

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Friday, March 5, 2010

Meandering around and around . . .

Today is the birthday of Benjamin Franklin Norris, Jr. (March 5, 1870 – October 25, 1902), novelist, journalist and a leader of the Naturalism movement. He is best known as Frank Norris and for his work depicting the the suffering caused by corrupt and greedy turn-of-the-century corporate monopolies.

"Truth is a thing immortal and perpetual, and it gives to us a beauty that fades not away in time." - Frank Norris

"No art that is not in the end understood by the People can live or ever did live a single generation." - Frank Norris

"The People have a right to the Truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." - Frank Norris

"The function of the novelist... is to comment upon life as he sees it." - Frank Norris

Norris image source (1)

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Meandering about . . .

Today is the birthday of Khaled Hosseini (born March 4, 1965), novelist and physician. He is best known for the novel, The Kite Runner.

"It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime..." — Khaled Hosseini

". . . but better to be hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie." — Khaled Hosseini

"And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too." — Khaled Hosseini


". . . it always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place." — Khaled Hosseini

"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night." — Khaled Hosseini

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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Meandering in the shadows . . .

Today is the birthday of Arthur Machen (March 3, 1863 – December 15, 1947), author. He also is best known for a short story entitled The Bowmen and his role in creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.

"Every branch of human knowledge, if traced up to its source and final principles, vanishes into mystery." - Arthur Machen

"But in the meantime, as a temporary measure, I hold what I call the doctrine of the jig-saw puzzle. That is: this remarkable occurrence, and that, and the other may be, and usually are, of no significance. Coincidence and chance and unsearchable causes will now and again make clouds that are undeniable fiery dragons, and potatoes that resemble eminent statesmen exactly and minutely in every feature, and rocks that are like eagles and lions. All this is nothing; it is when you get your set of odd shapes and find that they fit into one another, and at last that they are but parts of a large design; it is then that research grows interesting and indeed amazing, it is then that one queer form confirms the other, that the whole plan displayed justifies, corroborates, explains each separate piece." — Arthur Machen

"It was better, he thought, to fail in attempting exquisite things than to succeed in the department of the utterly contemptible." - Arthur Machen

"Now, everybody, I suppose, is aware that in recent years the silly business of divination by dreams has ceased to be a joke and has become a very serious science." - Arthur Machen

"I dream in fire but work in clay." — Arthur Machen

Machen image source (1)

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Meandering on the wild side . . .

Today is the birthday of Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed (born March 2, 1942) musician and songwriter.

"I think life is far too short to concentrate on your past. I rather look into the future." - Lou Reed

"I think that everything happens for a reason, everything happens when it's going to happen." - Lou Reed

"There`s a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out." - Lou Reed

"Take a walk on the wild side." - Lou Reed

Reed image source (1)

Monday, March 1, 2010

Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994), scholar and writer. In 1953, he won the National Book Award for his novel Invisible Man.

"When I discover who I am, I'll be free." - Ralph Ellison

"The understanding of art depends finally upon one's willingness to extend one's humanity and one's knowledge of human life." - Ralph Ellison

"I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me." - Ralph Ellison

"There must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale." - Ralph Ellison

"If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to blind, imprison, and destroy." - Ralph Ellison

"Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat." - Ralph Ellison

Ellison image source (1)