Monday, February 28, 2011

Que sais-je? . . .

Today is the birthday of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592), scholar and essayist. He is oft referred to as one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance.

"I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself."
Michel de Montaigne

"Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough."
Michel de Montaigne

"Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own."
Michel de Montaigne

"Even on the highest throne in the world, we are still sitting on our ass."
Michel de Montaigne

"A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears."
Michel de Montaigne

"I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of."
Michel de Montaigne

"Saying is one thing and doing is another"
Michel de Montaigne

"Que sais-je?" ("What do I know?")
Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne image source (1)

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Meandering around . . .

Today is the birthday of John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968), writer. He is best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939).

John Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

"I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen."
John Steinbeck

"This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected."
John Steinbeck

"Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love."
John Steinbeck

"People who are most afraid of their dreams convince themselves they don't dream at all."
John Steinbeck

"What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness."
John Steinbeck

"All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal."
John Steinbeck

Steinbeck image source (1)

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of Victor-Marie Hugo (February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885), poet and novelist. He is best known for his novels, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862).

"Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent."
Victor Hugo

"The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only."
Victor Hugo

"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."
Victor Hugo

"To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark."
Victor Hugo

"The delight we inspire in others has this enchanting peculiarity that, far from being diminished like every other reflection, it returns to us more radiant than ever."
Victor Hugo

"No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come."
Victor Hugo

"Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise."
Victor Hugo

Hugo image source (1)

Friday, February 25, 2011

Meandering in beauty . . .

Today is the birthday of Pierre-Auguste Renoir (February 25, 1841 – December 3, 1919), artist. He was of the leading artists in the Impressionist movement.

"People love to be nice, but you must give them the chance."
Pierre-Auguste Renoir

"The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself and carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion. It is the current which he puts forth, which sweeps you along in his passion."
Pierre-Auguste Renoir

"To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them."
Pierre-Auguste Renoir

"The only way to understand painting is to go and look at it. And if out of a million visitors there is even one to whom art means something, that is enough to justify museums."
Pierre-Auguste Renoir

"An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature."
Pierre-Auguste Renoir

"One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity."
Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Renoir image source (1)

Thursday, February 24, 2011

And one more thing . . .

Today is the birthday of Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955), business magnate and inventor. He is the co-founder of Apple Inc. and is often referred to as a tech visionary.

"I want to put a ding in the universe."
- Steve Jobs

"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: 'If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.' It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."
- Steve Jobs

"Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected."
- Steve Jobs

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
- Steve Jobs

"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me."
- Steve Jobs

Jobs image source (1)

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Karl Theodor Jaspers (February 23, 1883 – February 26, 1969), psychiatrist and philosopher.

"Reason is like an open secret that can become known to anyone at any time; it is the quiet space into which everyone can enter through his own thought."
- Karl Jaspers

"Conflicts may be the sources of defeat, lost life and a limitation of our potentiality but they may also lead to greater depth of living and the birth of more far-reaching unities, which flourish in the tensions that engender them."
- Karl Jaspers

"Everything depends therefore on encountering thought at its source. Such thought is the reality of man's being, which achieved consciousness and understanding of itself through it."
- Karl Jaspers

"I discovered that the study of past philosophers is of little use unless our own reality enters into it. Our reality alone allows the thinker's questions to become comprehensible."
- Karl Jaspers

"The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the glow of its life."
- Karl Jaspers

Jaspers image source (1)

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Meandering in thought . . .

Today is the birthday of Arthur Schopenhauer (February 22, 1788 – September 21, 1860), philosopher.

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see."
Arthur Schopenhauer

"Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, 'Lighthouses' as the poet said 'erected in the sea of time.' They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print."
Arthur Schopenhauer

"To attain something desired is to discover how vain it is; and…though we live all our lives in expectation of better things, we often at the same time long regretfully for what is past. The present, on the other hand, is regarded as something quite temporary and serving only as the road to our goal. That is why most men discover when they look back on their life that they have the whole time been living ad interim, and are surprised to see that which they let go by so unregarded and unenjoyed was precisely their life, was precisely in expectation of which they lived."
Arthur Schopenhauer

"Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees."
Arthur Schopenhauer

"All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; Third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer

"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world."
Arthur Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer image source (1)

Monday, February 21, 2011

Meandering in ink . . .

Today is the birthday of Anaïs Nin (February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977), author. Anaïs Nin is best remembered as a diarist, her published journals spanned more than 60 years.

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."
Anaïs Nin

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings."
Anaïs Nin

"Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death."
Anaïs Nin

"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."
Anaïs Nin

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
Anaïs Nin

"The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery."
Anaïs Nin

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
Anaïs Nin

"Dreams are necessary to life."
Anaïs Nin

Nin image source (1)

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Meandering in B&W . . .

Today is the birthday of Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984), photographer and environmentalist. He is best known for his B&W photographs of the American West.

"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration."
Ansel Adams

"No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit."
Ansel Adams

"The whole world is, to me, very much "alive" - all the little growing things, even the rocks. I can't look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life - the things going on - within them. The same goes for a mountain, or a bit of the ocean, or a magnificent piece of old wood."
Ansel Adams

"Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film. Your bright eyes and easy smile is your museum."
Ansel Adams

"There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept."
Ansel Adams

Adams image source (1)

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Meander with me . . .

Today is the birthday of Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967), author. She is best known for her first novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.

"Love is the bridge that leads from the I sense to the We, and there is a paradox about personal love. Love of another individual opens a new relation between the personality and the world. The lover responds in a new way to nature and may even write poetry. Love is affirmation; it motivates the yes responses and the sense of wider communication. Love casts out fear, and in the security of this togetherness we find contentment, courage. We no longer fear the age-old haunting questions: "Who am I?" "Why am I?" "Where am I going?" - and having cast out fear, we can be honest and charitable."
Carson McCullers

"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are gone, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing."
Carson McCullers

"We wander, question. But the answer waits in each separate heart - the answer of our own identity and the way by which we can master loneliness and feel that at last we belong."
Carson McCullers

"How can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind?"
Carson McCullers

"The closest thing to being cared for is to care for someone else."
Carson McCullers

"The thinking mind is best controlled by the imagination."
Carson McCullers

McCullers image source (1)

Friday, February 18, 2011

Meandering in wide open spaces . . .

Today is the birthday of Wallace Earle Stegner (February 18, 1909 – April 13, 1993), historian, novelist, short story writer, and environmentalist. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1972.

"A teacher enlarges people in all sorts of ways besides just his subject matter."
Wallace Stegner

"You can plan all you want to. You can lie in your morning bed and fill whole notebooks with schemes and intentions. But within a single afternoon, within hours or minutes, everything you plan and everything you have fought to make yourself can be undone as a slug is undone when salt is poured on him. And right up to the moment when you find yourself dissolving into foam you can still believe you are doing fine."
Wallace Stegner

"Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed... We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in."
Wallace Stegner

"Creation is a knack which is empowered by practice, and like almost any skill, it is lost if you don't practice it."
Wallace Stegner

Stegner image source (1)

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Meandering on the path . . .

Today is the birthday of Chaim Potok (February 17, 1929 - July 23, 2002), author, philosopher, artist and rabbi. He is best known for his first book The Chosen.

"We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what values is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye? A blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest."
Chaim Potok

". . .everything has a past. Everything – a person, an object, a word, everything. If you don’t know the past, you can’t understand the present and plan properly for the future."
Chaim Potok

"Seeds must be sown everywhere. Only some will bear fruit. But there would not be the fruit from the few had the many not been sown"
Chaim Potok

"Art begins . . . when someone interprets, when someone sees the world through his own eyes. Art happens when what is seen becomes mixed with the inside of the person who is seeing it."
Chaim Potok

"Truth has to be given in riddles. People can't take truth if it comes charging at them like a bull. The bull is always killed. You have to give people the truth in a riddle, hide it so they go looking for it and find it piece by piece; that way they learn to live with it."
Chaim Potok

Potok image source (1)

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Meandering on and on . . .

Today is the birthday of Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 – March 27, 1918), journalist, historian, academic and novelist.

In 1907 he published a small private edition of his autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams, and the work was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1919.

"These questions of taste, of feeling, of inheritance, need no settlement. Every one carries his own inch-rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels."
Henry Adams

"Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man."
Henry Adams

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."
Henry Adams

"No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous."
Henry Adams

"What you do speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you are saying."
Henry Adams

Adams image source (1)

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Meandering in the starry sky . . .

Today is the birthday of Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564 – January 8, 1642), physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher. Galileo's works were banned during his lifetime and he died under house arrest.

"You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself."
Galileo Galilei

"Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new."
Galileo Galilei

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."
Galileo Galilei

"Passion is the genesis of genius."
Galileo Galilei

Galileo image source (1)

Monday, February 14, 2011

Believe in yourself . . .

A birthday salute to Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 14[?], 1818 – February 20, 1895), author, statesman, lecturer and reformer. He was known as "The Sage of Anacostia" and "The Lion of Anacostia".

He wrote three autobiographies during his life-time: A Narrative on the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881).

"Once you learn to read, you will forever be free."
- Frederick Douglass

"No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck."
- Frederick Douglass

"When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind."
- Frederick Douglass

"What is possible for me is possible for you."
- Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass sought to embody three keys for success in life: The first key is to believe in yourself, the second key is to take advantage of every opportunity and the third key is to use the power of spoken/written language to effect positive change for yourself and society. (source)
Douglass image source (1)

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Meandering in joy . . .

Today is the birthday of Eleanor Farjeon (February 13, 1881 – June 5, 1965), author. She is best known for her poem, Morning Has Broken, which appears in many church hymnals and was popularized by the singer Cat Stevens.

"The events of childhood do not pass, but repeat themselves like seasons of the year."
Eleanor Farjeon

"The world never knows, and cannot for the life of it imagine, what this man sees in that maid and that maid in this man. The world cannot think why they fell in love with each other. But they have their reason, their beautiful secret, that never gets told to more than one person; and what they see in each other is what they show to each other; and it is the truth."
Eleanor Farjeon

"It always gives me a shiver when I see a cat seeing what I can't see."
Eleanor Farjeon

"Love has no uttermost, as the stars have no number and the sea no rest."
Eleanor Farjeon

"Of what use to destroy the children of evil? It is evil itself we must destroy at the roots."
Eleanor Farjeon

"It’s no use crying over spilt evils. It’s better to mop them up laughing."
Eleanor Farjeon

Farjeon image source (1)

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Meandering in the cloud . . .

Today is the birthday of Raymond "Ray" Kurzweil (born February 12, 1948), author, inventor and futurist.

"A successful person isn't necessarily better than her less successful peers at solving problems; her pattern-recognition facilities have just learned what problems are worth solving."
- Ray Kurzweil

"We have the means right now to live long enough to live forever. Existing knowledge can be aggressively applied to dramatically slow down aging processes so we can still be in vital health when the more radical life extending therapies from biotechnology and nanotechnology become available. But most baby boomers won't make it because they are unaware of the accelerating aging process in their bodies and the opportunity to intervene."
- Ray Kurzweil

"Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it."
- Ray Kurzweil

Kurzweil image source (1)

Friday, February 11, 2011

Meandering in strawberries . . .

Today is the birthday of Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (February 11, 1657 – January 9, 1757), scientist and author.

"It is the passions that do and undo everything."
- Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

"A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness."
- Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

"A well cultivated mind is made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only the one single mind educated by all previous time."
- Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

""What we call happiness in the strictest sense comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up."
- Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

"There are three things I have loved but never understood. Art, music and women."
- Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

"If I held all the thoughts of the world in my hand, I would be careful not to open it."
- Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle image source (1)

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Meandering here and there . . .

Today is the birthday of Charles Lamb (February 10, 1775- 27 July 1834), essayist. He is best known for the essays he wrote under the name Elia.

"The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident."
Charles Lamb

"A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, and dog's ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins."
Charles Lamb

"I love to lose myself in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading."
Charles Lamb

"I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early."
Charles Lamb

"Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door."
Charles Lamb

Lamb image source (1)

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Meandering on the edge . . .

Today is the birthday of Brian Greene (born February 9, 1963), theoretical physicist and author.

"The real question is whether all your pondering and analyses will convince you that life is worth living. That's what it all comes down to."
Brian Greene

"Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules and brush the edge of acceptability in the search for solutions. Mathematicians are more like classical composers, typically working within a much tighter framework, reluctant to go to the next step until all previous ones have been established with due rigor. Each approach has its advantages as well as drawbacks; each provides a unique outlet for creative discovery. Like modern and classical music, it’s not that one approach is right and the other wrong – the methods one chooses to use are largely a matter of taste and training."
Brian Greene

"I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly - or ever - gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe."
Brian Greene

"The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers."
Brian Greene

Greene image source (1)

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of Martin Buber (February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965), philosopher.

"Play is the exultation of the possible."
Martin Buber

"An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language."
Martin Buber

"This is the eternal origin of art that a human being confronts a form that wants to become a work through him. Not a figment of his soul but something that appears to the soul and demands the soul's creative power. What is required is a deed that a man does with his whole being . . ."
Martin Buber

"There are three principles in a man's being and life: The principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean and I don't do what I say."
Martin Buber

"The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings."
Martin Buber

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware."
Martin Buber

Buber image source (1)

Monday, February 7, 2011

Meandering in expectations . . .

Today is the birthday of Charles John Huffam Dickens (February 7, 1812 – June 9, 1870), novelist.

"There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate."
Charles Dickens

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other."
Charles Dickens

"The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities."
Charles Dickens

"My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time."
Charles Dickens

"There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor."
Charles Dickens

"Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering."
Charles Dickens

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another."
Charles Dickens

Dickens image source (1)

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Meandering forever . . .

Today is the birthday of Johann Adam Weishaupt (February 6, 1748 in Ingolstadt – November 18, 1830), philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati.

"Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery. The hankering of the mind is irresistible."
- Adam Weishaupt

"The great strength of our Order lies in its concealment; let it never appear in any place in its own name, but always concealed by another name, and another occupation. None is fitter than the lower degrees of Freemasonry; the public is accustomed to it, expects little from it, and therefore takes little notice of it. Next to this, the form of a learned or literary society is best suited to our purpose, and had Freemasonry not existed, this cover would have been employed; and it may be much more than a cover, it may be a powerful engine in our hands. … A Literary Society is the most proper form for the introduction of our Order into any state where we are yet strangers."
- Adam Weishaupt

"And of all illumination which human reason can give, none is comparable to the discovery of what we are, our nature, our obligations, what happiness we are capable of, and what are the means of attaining it."
- Adam Weishaupt

"By establishing reading societies, and subscription libraries, and taking these under our direction, and supplying them through our labors, we may turn the public mind which way we will."
- Adam Weishaupt

Weishaupt image source (1)

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Meandering here and there . . .

Today is the birthday of William Seward Burroughs II (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997), novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer.

"There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a duty to take this risk, to love and feel without defense or reserve."
William S. Burroughs

"Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it 'creative observation.' Creative viewing."
William S. Burroughs

"A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. A psychotic is a guy who's just found out what's going on."
William S. Burroughs

"In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen."
William S. Burroughs

"There are no innocent bystanders ... what are they doing there in the first place?"
William S. Burroughs

"Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer."
William S. Burroughs

"You know a real friend?
Someone you know will look after your cat after you are gone."
William S. Burroughs

Burroughs image source (1)

Friday, February 4, 2011

Meandering on wings . . .

Today is the birthday of Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974), American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.

"Isn't it strange that we talk least about the things we think about most?"
- Charles Lindbergh

"The remedy for our social evils does not consist so much in changing the system of government as it does in increasing the general intelligence of the people so that they may learn how to govern."
- Charles Lindbergh

"All mentally well-balanced persons know that we are not governed by the true principals of social justice when we make the main aim of our social existence the gaining of money."
- Charles Lindbergh

"What kind of person would live where there is no daring? I don't believe in taking foolish chances, but nothing can be accomplished without taking any chance at all."
- Charles Lindbergh

Lindbergh image source (1)

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Meandering in the garden . . .

Today is the birthday of Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946), writer and poet.

"Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose"
Gertrude Stein

"A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears."
Gertrude Stein

"The minute you or anybody else knows what you are you are not it, you are what you or anybody else knows you are and as everything in living is made up of finding out what you are it is extraordinarily difficult really not to know what you are and yet to be that thing."
Gertrude Stein

"A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables."
Gertrude Stein

"If you are too careful, you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something."
Gertrude Stein

"Whenever you get there, there is no there there."
Gertrude Stein

"You have to know what you want to get it."
Gertrude Stein

Stein image source (1)

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Meandering a bit . . .

Today is the birthday of James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (February 2, 1882 – January 13, 1941), novelist and poet. He is best known for his novel, Ulysses (1922) - the work was banned in the United States until 1933.

"Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home."
James Joyce

"While you have a thing it can be taken from you…..but when you give it, you have given it. no robber can take it from you. It is yours then forever when you have given it. It will be yours always. That is to give. "
James Joyce

"I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day."
James Joyce

"It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born."
James Joyce

"The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts."
James Joyce

"Shut your eyes and see."
James Joyce

Joyce image source (1)

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967), novelist, playwright, short story writer, and newspaper columnist.

"Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly."
Langston Hughes

"I tire so of hearing people say, let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread."
- Langston Hughes

"I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go."
Langston Hughes

"What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun?... Or does it explode?"
Langston Hughes

Hughes stamp image source (1)