Friday, April 30, 2010

Meandering in the galaxy . . .

Today is the birthday of Laurence van Cott Niven (born April 30, 1938), science fiction author. He is best-known as Larry Niven author of the novel Ringworld (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards.

"Anything you don't understand is dangerous until you do understand it." - Larry Niven

"Everything starts as somebody's daydream." - Larry Niven

"The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!" - Larry Niven

"Treat your life like something to be sculpted." - Larry Niven

"I do suspect that privacy was a passing fad." - Larry Niven

Niven image source (1)

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Meander with me . . .

Today is the birthday of Jules Henri Poincaré (April 29, 1854 – July 17, 1912), mathematician, theoretical physicist and a philosopher of science.

"If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living." - Henri Poincaré

"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful." - Henri Poincaré

"To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection." - Henri Poincaré

"A scientist worthy of the name, above all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature." - Henri Poincaré

"Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house." - Henri Poincaré

"Time and Space... It is not nature which imposes them upon us, it is we who impose them upon nature because we find them convenient." - Henri Poincaré

"It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better." - Henri Poincaré

"It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover." - Henri Poincaré

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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Magically meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Terence David John Pratchett (born 28 April 1948), fantasy, science fiction, and children's author.

He is best known as Terry Pratchett, creator of the popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels.

"Imagination, not intelligence, made us human." - Terry Pratchett

"Everything makes sense a bit at a time. But when you try to think of it all at once, it comes out wrong." - Terry Pratchett

"The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp." - Terry Pratchett

"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it." - Terry Pratchett

"Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving." - Terry Pratchett

"Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one." - Terry Pratchett

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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Herbert Spencer (April 27, 1820 – December 8, 1903), philosopher and social theorist. He is best known for coining the phrase "survival of the fittest".

"Time: That which man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him." - Herbert Spencer

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools." - Herbert Spencer

"No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy." - Herbert Spencer

"The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future." - Herbert Spencer

"When a man's knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has the greater will be his confusion." - Herbert Spencer

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Monday, April 26, 2010

Meandering in thought . . .

Today is the birthday of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (April 26, 121 – March 17,180), Roman emperor from 161 to his death in 180. He was the last of the Five Good Emperors and is also, considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers. He best known as Marcus Aurelius and for his work Meditations.

"The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it." - Marcus Aurelius

"And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last." - Marcus Aurelius

"I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others." - Marcus Aurelius

"Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul . . ." - Marcus Aurelius

"Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so." - Marcus Aurelius

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." - Marcus Aurelius

"He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe." - Marcus Aurelius

Trivia bit: The date of his birth has been variously stated as the 6th, 21st and 26th of April.

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Today is the birthday of Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (April 26, 1889 – April 29, 1951), philosopher. Ludwig Wittgenstein is considered one of the most important figures in analytic philosophy and is oft referred to as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century.

"The difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than we know." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in the way in which our visual field has no limits." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Tell them I've had a wonderful life." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein stamp image source (1)

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Just meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Egbert Roscoe Murrow (April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965), journalist. He is best known as Edward R. Murrow, a pioneer of television news broadcasting.

"Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices — just recognize them." - Edward R. Murrow

"The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it." - Edward R. Murrow

"No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices." - Edward R. Murrow

"We hardly need to be reminded that we are living in an age of confusion — a lot of us have traded in our beliefs for bitterness and cynicism or for a heavy package of despair, or even a quivering portion of hysteria. Opinions can be picked up cheap in the market place while such commodities as courage and fortitude and faith are in alarmingly short supply." - Edward R. Murrow

"Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit." - Edward R. Murrow

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Saturday, April 24, 2010

Meandering about . . .

Today is the birthday of Anthony Trollope (April 24, 1815 – December 6, 1882), author.

"No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself." - Anthony Trollope

"Men who can succeed in deceiving no one else will succeed at last in deceiving themselves." - Anthony Trollope

"Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others, and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so." - Anthony Trollope

"Never think that you're not good enough. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning." - Anthony Trollope

"I think the greatest rogues are they who talk most of their honesty." - Anthony Trollope

"Life is so unlike theory." - Anthony Trollope

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Friday, April 23, 2010

Meandering to and fro . . .

Today is the birthday of Max Planck (April 23, 1858 – October 4, 1947), physicist. He is considered to be the founder of the quantum theory.

Max Planck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.

"All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force... We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter." - Max Planck

"Anybody who has been seriously engaged is scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. - Max Planck

"Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve." - Max Planck

"Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it." - Max Planck

Planck stamp image source (1)

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 – February 12, 1804), philosopher, professor of logic and metaphysics. He is best known for his work, The Critique of Pure Reason.

"If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on." - Immanuel Kant

"I have no knowledge of myself as I am, but merely as I appear to myself." - Immanuel Kant

"He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." - Immanuel Kant

"Every man is to be respected as an absolute end in himself: and it is a crime against the dignity that belongs to him as a human being, to use him as a mere means for some external purpose." - Immanuel Kant

"Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another." - Immanuel Kant

"Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck." - Immanuel Kant

"Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them." - Immanuel Kant

"There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience." - Immanuel Kant

"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life." - Immanuel Kant

"Everything in nature acts in conformity with law." - Immanuel Kant

"To be is to do." - Immanuel Kant

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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Meandering, meandering, meandering we go . . .

Today is the birthday of Percy Williams Bridgman (April 21, 1882 – August 20, 1961), physicist. He won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Percy W. Bridgman was also one of the 11 signatories to the Russell-Einstein Manifesto.

"By far the most important consequence of the conceptual revolution brought about in physics by relativity and quantum theory lies not in such details as that meter sticks shorten when they move or that simultaneous position and momentum have no meaning, but in the insight that we had not been using our minds properly and that it is important to find out how to do so." - Percy W. Bridgman

"Not only are there meaningless questions, but many of the problems with which the human intellect has tortured itself turn out to be only 'pseudo problems,' because they can be formulated only in terms of questions which are meaningless. Many of the traditional problems of philosophy, of religion, or of ethics, are of this character. Consider, for example, the problem of the freedom of the will. You maintain that you are free to take either the right- or the left-hand fork in the road. I defy you to set up a single objective criterion by which you can prove after you have made the turn that you might have made the other. The problem has no meaning in the sphere of objective activity; it only relates to my personal subjective feelings while making the decision." - Percy W. Bridgman

"There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea." - Percy W. Bridgman

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Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Meandering around . . .

Today is the birthday of Peter Soyer Beagle (born April 20, 1939), author, songwriter and screenwriter. He is also a talented guitarist and folk singer.

Peter S. Beagle is best known as the author of the fantasy novel, The Last Unicorn.

"We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream." - Peter S. Beagle

"When I was alive, I believed — as you do — that time was at least as real and solid as myself, and probably more so. I said 'one o'clock' as though I could see it, and 'Monday' as though I could find it on the map; and I let myself be hurried along from minute to minute, day to day, year to year, as though I were actually moving from one place to another. Like everyone else, I lived in a house bricked up with seconds and minutes, weekends and New Year's Days, and I never went outside until I died, because there was no other door. Now I know that I could have walked through the walls. (...) You can strike your own time, and start the count anywhere. When you understand that — then any time at all will be the right time for you." - Peter S. Beagle

"Only to a magician is the world forever fluid, infinitely mutable and eternally new. Only he knows the secret of change, only he knows truly that all things are crouched in eagerness to become something else, and it is from this universal tension that he draws his power." - Peter S. Beagle

"It’s a rare man who is taken for what he truly is." - Peter S. Beagle

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Monday, April 19, 2010

Meandering in discoveries . . .

Today is the birthday of Glenn Theodore Seaborg (April 19, 1912 – February 25, 1999), physicist. He led the research team that discovered plutonium in 1940 and in 1941 isolated Uranium-233. In 1951, Glenn T. Seaborg and Edwin McMillan shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on transuranium elements.

"There is a beauty in discovery. There is mathematics in music, a kinship of science and poetry in the description of nature, and exquisite form in a molecule. Attempts to place different disciplines in different camps are revealed as artificial in the face of the unity of knowledge. All literate men are sustained by the philosopher, the historian, the political analyst, the economist, the scientist, the poet, the artisan and the musician." - Glenn T. Seaborg

"The modern technological world appears overwhelming to many people. It drives some to pessimism and despair. It makes others doubt the future of mankind unless we retreat to simpler lives and even to the ways of our ancestors. What these people fail to realize is that we cannot go back to those ways and those days. Furthermore, for all our difficulties, life today is far better for more people and the possibilities for the future can be brighter than ever if we develop not only new knowledge, but a greater faith and confidence in the human mind and spirit." - Glenn T. Seaborg

Trivia bits: Element 106, seaborgium (1974), was named in his honour. Glenn T. Seaborg received so many awards and honors that at one time the Guinness Book of World Records listed him as the person with the longest entry in Who's Who in America.

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Sunday, April 18, 2010

Meandering here and there . . .

Today is the birthday of Richard Harding Davis (April 18, 1864 — April 11, 1916), writer of fiction and drama and journalist. Richard Harding Davis was the most well-known war correspondent of the Spanish American War era.

"The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or to say a new thing in an old way." - Richard Harding Davis

"What I admire most in men - To sit opposite a mirror at dinner and not look in it." - Richard Harding Davis

"No civilized person ever goes to bed the same day he gets up." - Richard Harding Davis

Trivia note: He was the Gibson Guy - his handsome, clean-shaven features were the model for the young gentlemen escorting Charles Dana Gibson’s Gibson Girls and started the fad that eventually eliminated facial hair from millions of American male faces.

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Saturday, April 17, 2010

Meandering in silence . . .

Today is the birthday of Karen Blixen (April 17, 1885 – September 7, 1962), author. She is best known by her pen name Isak Dinesen, author of Out of Africa and Babette's Feast.

"God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road." - Isak Dinesen

"Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever." - Isak Dinesen

"When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself." - Isak Dinesen

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea." - Isak Dinesen

"Who tells a finer tale than any of us. Silence does." - Isak Dinesen

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Friday, April 16, 2010

Meandering while we wander . . .

Today is the birthday of François-Anatole Thibault (April 16, 1844 — October 12, 1924), journalist, poet and novelist. He is best known by his pseudonym Anatole France and as one of the major figures of French literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In 1921, Anatole France was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Here is another author whose books were banned. In 1922, Anatole France's entire works were put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Prohibited Books Index) of the Roman Catholic Church. This Index was abolished in 1966.

"It is human nature to think wisely and to act in an absurd fashion." - Anatole France

"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

"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't." - Anatole France

"To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe." - Anatole France

"Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe." - Anatole France

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Thursday, April 15, 2010

Meandering in thought . . .

Today is the birthday of Thomas Stephen Szasz ( born April 15, 1920), psychiatrist and academic. He is best known for his 1961 book The Myth of Mental Illness.

"In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined." - Thomas Szasz

"Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is." - Thomas Szasz

"It is easier to do one's duty to others than to one's self. If you do your duty to others, you are considered reliable. If you do your duty to yourself, you are considered selfish." - Thomas Szasz

"People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates." - Thomas Szasz

"The proverb warns that You should not bite the hand that feeds you. But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself." - Thomas Szasz

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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of James Branch Cabell (April 14, 1879 – May 5, 1958), author.

"Poetry is man's rebellion against being what he is." - James Branch Cabell

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true." - James Branch Cabell

"...when I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me—that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter—except to show how very dull we are ..." - James Branch Cabell

"While it is well enough to leave footprints on the sands of time, it is even more important to make sure they point in a commendable direction." - James Branch Cabell

"Now I am wiser: for I know there is not any memory with less satisfaction in it than the memory of some temptation we resisted." - James Branch Cabell

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Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Meandering in the spheres . . .

Today is the birthday of Samuel Barclay Beckett (April 13, 1906 – December 22, 1989), writer, dramatist and poet. He is best known for his play Waiting for Godot (1953). The play is considered by many to be one of the most prominent works of the Theatre of the Absurd.

In 1969, Samuel Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

"The tears of the world are a constant quality. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh." - Samuel Beckett

"Do we mean love, when we say love?" - Samuel Beckett

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett

"Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness." - Samuel Beckett

"We all are born mad. Some remain so." - Samuel Beckett

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Monday, April 12, 2010

Meandering in mystery . . .

Today is the birthday of Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. (born 12 April 1947), author.

"I’ve made up stuff that’s turned out to be real, that’s the spooky part." - Tom Clancy

"Life is about learning; when you stop learning, you die." - Tom Clancy

"Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Because the dream is within you, no one can take it away." - Tom Clancy

"I like writing. It's the most fun I've ever had at anything. You can build your own little world and — like a kid with his toy trains, — except instead of trains I have tanks and ships and airplanes and things... I get to make them do all the things I want them to do, and if I don't like the way things work out, I start again." - Tom Clancy

"No matter what you or anyone else does, there will be someone who says that there's something bad about it. Whenever somebody comes up with a good idea, there's somebody else who has never had a good idea in his life who stands up and says, Oh, you can't do that..." - Tom Clancy

"Look, this is simple. The good old days are now. OK? The human condition today is better than it's ever been, and technology is one of the reasons for that." - Tom Clancy

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Sunday, April 11, 2010

Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of Leo Calvin Rosten (April 11, 1908 - February 19, 1997), teacher, academic and author. He is well-known for his encyclopedic work The Joys of Yiddish and his stories about the night-school "prodigy" Hyman Kaplan that first appeared in the New Yorker in the 1930s. He is also known by the pseudonym Leonard Q. Ross.

"A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood." - Leo Rosten

"Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined." - Leo Rosten

"The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others." - Leo Rosten

"Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable." - Leo Rosten

"I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong." - Leo Rosten

"Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense." - Leo Rosten

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Saturday, April 10, 2010

Meandering to and fro . . .

Today is the birthday of William Hazlitt (April 10, 1778 – September 18, 1830), literary critic, essayist and philosopher.

"We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts." - William Hazlitt

"The art of pleasing consists in being pleased." - William Hazlitt

"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be." - William Hazlitt

"A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles." - William Hazlitt

"Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own." - William Hazlitt

"Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating." - William Hazlitt

"He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies." - William Hazlitt

"Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts." - William Hazlitt

"The more we do, the more we can do." - William Hazlitt

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Friday, April 9, 2010

Simply meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Charles Pierre Baudelaire (April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867), poet, critic, and translator.

"Anybody, providing he knows how to be amusing, has the right to talk about himself." - Charles Baudelaire

"We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose." - Charles Baudelaire

"Common sense tells us that the things of the earth exist only a little, and that true reality is only in dreams." - Charles Baudelaire

"The insatiable thirst for everything which lies beyond, and which life reveals, is the most living proof of our immortality." - Charles Baudelaire

"There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you dare not start." - Charles Baudelaire

"There is no sweeter pleasure than to surprise a man by giving him more than he hopes for." - Charles Baudelaire

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Thursday, April 8, 2010

Meandering in the twilight . . .

Today is the birthday of Émile Cioran (April 8, 1911 – June 20, 1995), philosopher and essayist. He is best remembered as the author of the book, The Trouble of Being Born.

His writings were banned in Romania under the Ceausescu Government; however, in 1989 Émile Cioran was made an honorary member of the Romanian Writers' Union.

"Ambition is a drug that makes its addicts potential madmen." - Émile Cioran

"If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot." - Émile Cioran

"Revenge is not always sweet, once it is consummated we feel inferior to our victim." - Émile Cioran

"The more we try to rest ourselves from our Egos, the deeper we sink into it." - Émile Cioran

"It is because we are all imposters that we endure each other." - Émile Cioran

"Our first intuitions are the true ones." - Émile Cioran

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Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Meandering around . . .

Today is the birthday of William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 – April 23, 1850), poet.

"Nature never did betray the heart that loved her." - William Wordsworth

"In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing." - William Wordsworth

"Life is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present to live better in the future." - William Wordsworth

"That best portion of a man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love." - William Wordsworth

"The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away; than what it leaves behind." - William Wordsworth

"Wisdom is oftentimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar." - William Wordsworth

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Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Meandering in the past . . .

Today is the birthday of Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort (April 6, 1741 - April 13, 1794), writer.

"All passions exaggerate; and they are passions only because they do exaggerate." - Nicolas de Chamfort

"Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live." - Nicolas de Chamfort

"It is commonly supposed that the art of pleasing is a wonderful aid in the pursuit of fortune; but the art of being bored is infinitely more successful." - Nicolas de Chamfort

"There are more people who wish to be loved than there are who are willing to love." - Nicolas de Chamfort

"Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth." - Nicolas de Chamfort

"The most wasted day is that in which we have not laughed." - Nicolas de Chamfort

"Man arrives as a novice at each age of his life." - Nicolas de Chamfort

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Monday, April 5, 2010

Meandering, meandering, meandering we go . . .

Today is the birthday of Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915), political leader, educator, orator and author.

"Character, not circumstances, makes the man." - Booker T. Washington

"Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him." - Booker T. Washington

"Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon." - Booker T. Washington

"There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up." - Booker T. Washington

"To hold a man down, you have to stay down with him." - Booker T. Washington

"I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else." - Booker T. Washington

"The world cares very little what you or I know, but it does care a great deal about what you or I do." - Booker T. Washington

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Sunday, April 4, 2010

Meandering here and there . . .

Today is the birthday of Marguerite Ann Johnson (born on April 4, 1928), writer and poet. She is best known as Maya Angelou and for her autobiographical work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969).

Maya Angelou has been awarded over 30 honorary degrees and the nomination of a Pulitzer Prize for her 1971 volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie.

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou

"I believe that every person is born with talent." - Maya Angelou

"I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver." - Maya Angelou

"I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself." - Maya Angelou

"If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities." - Maya Angelou

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." - Maya Angelou

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." - Maya Angelou

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Saturday, April 3, 2010

Meandering about . . .

Today is the birthday of Edward Everett Hale (April 3, 1822 – June 10, 1909), author and Unitarian clergyman. He is best known for his short story, The Man Without a Country.

"Know What You Want To Say ... Say It." - Edward Everett Hale

"Look up and not down, look forward and not back, look out and not in, and lend a hand!" - Edward Everett Hale

"Never bear more than one kind of trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds; all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have." - Edward Everett Hale

"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 Hale

"Never bear more than one kind of trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds of trouble - the ones they've had, the ones they have, and the ones they expect to have." - Edward Everett Hale

"In proportion as we bothered less about cultivating ourselves, and were willing to spend and be spent for that without us, above us, and before us, life became infinite and this world became heaven." - Edward Everett Hale

Hale image source (1)

Friday, April 2, 2010

Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of Émile François Zola (April 2, 1840 – September 29, 1902), journalist, novelist, and critic. He is oft referred to as the founder of the Naturalist movement in literature.

"If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: I am here to live out loud!" - Émile Zola

"If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way." - Émile Zola

"I have but one passion.. to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul." - Émile Zola

"The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work." - Émile Zola

"Everything is only a dream." - Émile Zola

Zola image source (1)

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Abraham Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970), psychologist. He is best known for his hierarchy of human needs and is oft referred to as the founder of humanistic psychology.

"What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself." - Abraham Maslow

"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." - Abraham Maslow

"A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be." - Abraham Maslow

"Education is learning to grow, learning what to grow toward, learning what is good and bad, learning what is desirable and undesirable, learning what to choose and what not to choose." - Abraham Maslow

"We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves." - Abraham Maslow

"The way to recover the meaning of life and the worthwhileness of life is to recover the power of experience, to have impulse voices from within, and to be able to hear these impulse voices from within - and make the point : This can be done." - Abraham Maslow

"If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life." - Abraham Maslow

Maslow image source (1)