Meandering into the studio . . .

Today is the birthday of . . .

I am taking a break from blogging and heading to the studio :)

Meandering in thought . . .

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

"Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much."
— Erich Fromm

"Alienation as we find it in modern society is almost total… Man has created a world of man-made things as it never existed before. He has constructed a complicated social machine to administer the technical machine he built. The more powerful and gigantic the forces are which he unleashes, the more powerless he feels himself as a human being. He is owned by his creations, and has lost ownership of himself."
— Erich Fromm

". . . freedom to create and construct, to wonder and to venture. Such freedom requires that the individual be active and responsible, not a slave or a well-fed cog in the machine . . . It is not enough that men are not slaves; if social conditions further the existence of automatons, the result will not be love of life, but love of death."
— Erich Fromm

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

"The only truly affluent are those who do not want more than they have."
— Erich Fromm

Fromm image source (1)

Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of Louis Dearborn L'Amour (March 22, 1908 – June 10, 1988), author.

"The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast, and you miss all you are traveling for."
— Louis L'Amour

"Up to a point a person’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish it to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds."
— Louis L'Amour

"I would not sit waiting for some vague tomorrow, nor for something to happen. One could wait a lifetime, and find nothing at the end of the waiting. I would begin here, I would make something happen."
— Louis L'Amour

"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning. "
— Louis L'Amour

"The more one learns, the more he understands his ignorance."
— Louis L'Amour

L'Amour image source (1)

Meandering along the way . . .

Today is the birthday of Edgar Cayce (March 18, 1877 – January 3, 1945), psychic and healer. He is oft referred to as the "sleeping prophet," the "father of holistic medicine," and is one of the most documented psychics of the 20th century.

"Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions."
— Edgar Cayce

"Know that all healing forces are within, not without! The applications from without are merely to create within a coordinating mental and spiritual force."
— Edgar Cayce

"You can never lose anything that really belongs to you, and you can't keep that which belongs to someone else."
— Edgar Cayce

"If you learn music you'll learn most all there is to know."
— Edgar Cayce

Cayce image source (1)

Meandering in the mist . . .

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

"You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know."
— René Daumal

"Art has a double face, of expression and illusion, just like science has a double face: the reality of error and the phantom of truth."
— René Daumal

Daumal image source (1)

Meandering in theory . . .

Today is the birthday of Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955), theoretical physicist. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics.

"Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results."
— Albert Einstein

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
— Albert Einstein

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
— Albert Einstein

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
— Albert Einstein

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
— Albert Einstein

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning."
— Albert Einstein

"The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer somebody else up."
— Albert Einstein

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
— Albert Einstein

Einstein image source (1)

Meandering on the path . . .

Today is the birthday of Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986), author. He is best known as L. Ron Hubbard, the author of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health and founder of the Church of Scientology.

"One's attitude toward life makes every possible difference in one's living. You know, you don't have to study a thousand ancient books to discover that fact. But sometimes it needs to be pointed out again that life doesn't change so much as you. . . . The day when you stop building your own environment, when you stop building your own surroundings, when you stop waving a magic hand and gracing everything around you with magic and beauty, things cease to be magical, things cease to be beautiful. Well, maybe you've just neglected somewhere back in the last few years to wave that magic hand."
— L. Ron Hubbard

"When reading a book, be very certain that you never go past a word you do not fully understand. The only reason a person gives up a study or becomes confused or unable to learn is because he or she has gone past a word that was not understood."
— L. Ron Hubbard

"Happiness and strength endure only in the absence of hate. To hate alone is the road to disaster. To love is the road to strength. To love in spite of all is the secret of greatness. And may very well be the greatest secret in this universe."
— L. Ron Hubbard

"A culture is only as great as its dreams, and its dreams are dreamed by artists."
— L. Ron Hubbard

Hubbard image source (1)

Meandering down the road . . .

Today is the birthday of Jean-Louis "Jack" Kerouac (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), novelist and poet. He was a leading figure and spokesman of the Beat Generation writers. His best known novel is On the Road, (1957).

"Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream."
— Jack Kerouac

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."
— Jack Kerouac

"I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same that far down."
— Jack Kerouac

"All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together."
— Jack Kerouac

"Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road."
— Jack Kerouac

"Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars."
— Jack Kerouac

"the road is life"
— Jack Kerouac

Kerouac image source (1)

Meandering in the galaxy . . .

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

"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 may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."
— Douglas Adams

"Don't you understand that we need to be childish in order to understand? Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn't developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don't expect to see."
— Douglas Adams

"It can be very dangerous to see things from somebody else's point of view without the proper training."
— Douglas Adams

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

"When you blame others, you give up your power to change."
— Douglas Adams

Adams image source (1)

Meandering magically . . .

Today is the birthday of Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez (born March 6, 1927), novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist. He is best known for his novels, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985).

Gabriel García Márquez was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.

"If I knew that today would be the last time I’d see you, I would hug you tight and pray the Lord be the keeper of your soul. If I knew that this would be the last time you pass through this door, I’d embrace you, kiss you, and call you back for one more. If I knew that this would be the last time I would hear your voice, I’d take hold of each word to be able to hear it over and over again. If I knew this is the last time I see you, I’d tell you I love you, and would not just assume foolishly you know it already."
— Gabriel García Márquez

"What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it."
— Gabriel García Márquez

"It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams."
— Gabriel García Márquez

"No medicine cures what happiness cannot."
— Gabriel García Márquez

"All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret."
— Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel García Márquez image source (1)

Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of Howard Pyle (March 5, 1853 – November 9, 1911), illustrator, teacher and writer. He is best known as the author of The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (1883) and is oft referred to as the Father of American Illustration.

"The stories of childhood leave an indelible impression, and their author always has a niche in the temple of memory from which the image is never cast out to be thrown on the rubbish heap of things that are outgrown and outlived."
— Howard Pyle

"He who jumps for the moon and gets it not leaps higher than he who stoops for a penny in the mud."
— Howard Pyle

"Throw your heart into the picture and then jump in after it."
— Howard Pyle

"Project your mind into your subject until you actually live in it."
— Howard Pyle

"What is done is done; and the cracked egg cannot be cured."
— Howard Pyle

Pyle image source (1)

Meandering in thought . . .

Today is the birthday of Peter D. Ouspensky (March 4, 1878–October 2, 1947), philosopher.

"When one realises one is asleep, at that moment one is already half-awake."
— P.D. Ouspensky

"It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere that it begins to have meaning."
— P.D. Ouspensky

"Two things can get people to make efforts: if people want to get something, or if they want to get rid of something. Only, in ordinary conditions, without knowledge, people do not know what they can get rid of or what they can gain."
— P.D. Ouspensky

"The greatest barrier to consciousness is the belief that one is already conscious."
— P.D. Ouspensky

Ouspensky image source (1)

Meandering I am . . .

Today is the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991), artist, writer and cartoonist. He is best known as Dr. Seuss and for his book, The Cat in the Hat. His honors included two Academy awards, two Emmy awards, a Peabody award and the Pulitzer Prize.

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells."
— Dr. Seuss

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go . . ."
— Dr. Seuss

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."
— Dr. Seuss

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."
— Dr. Seuss

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not."
— Dr. Seuss

*In honor of his work, the National Educational Association has chosen March 2nd to be Read Across America Day.

Seuss image source (1)

Meandering along the way . . .

Today is the birthday of Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1914 – April 16, 1994), novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He is best known for his novel Invisible Man.

"The world is a possibility if only you'll discover it."
— Ralph Ellison

"It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man!"
— Ralph Ellison

"I am an invisible man. 
No I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe: 
Nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms.
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, simply because people refuse to see me."
— Ralph Ellison

"I remember that I'm invisible and walk softly so as not awake the sleeping ones. Sometimes it is best not to awaken them; there are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers."
— Ralph Ellison

"And I knew that it was better to live out one's absurdity than to die for that of others."
— Ralph Ellison

"When I discover who I am, I’ll be free."
— Ralph Ellison

Ellison image source (1)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)