Meandering freely . . .

Today is the birthday of Jacques Martin Barzun (born November 30, 1907), historian of ideas and culture.

"Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition."
- Jacques Barzun

"The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it."
- Jacques Barzun

"The age of ready reference is one in which knowledge inevitably declines into information. The master of so much packaged stuff has less need to grasp context or meaning than his forbears: he can always look it up."
- Jacques Barzun

"Let us face a pluralistic world in which there are no universal churches, no single remedy for all diseases, no one way to teach or write or sing, no magic diet, no world poets, and no chosen races, but only the wretched and wonderfully diversified human race."
- Jacques Barzun

"You never step in the same river of thought twice, because neither you nor it are the same."
- Jacques Barzun

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Meandering we go . . .

Today is the birthday of Madeleine L'Engle (November 29, 1918 – September 6, 2007), author. She is best known for her children's classic, A Wrinkle In Time.

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children."
- Madeleine L'Engle

"We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes."
- Madeleine L'Engle

"A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe."
- Madeleine L'Engle

"Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth."
- Madeleine L'Engle

"Just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist."
- Madeleine L'Engle

"Some things have to be believed to be seen."
- Madeleine L'Engle

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Meandering along . . .

Today is the birthday of James Allen (November 28,1864 – 1912), philosophical writer and poet. He is oft referred to as a pioneer of the self help movement and is best known for his self-help classic, As a Man Thinketh.

"The dreamers are the saviours of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers. Humanity cannot forget its dreamers; it cannot let their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows them as the realities which it shall one day see and know."
- James Allen

"Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all, heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built."
- James Allen

"Our life is what our thoughts make it. A man will find that as he alters his thoughts toward things and other people, things and other people will alter towards him."
- James Allen

"You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you."
- James Allen

"For true success ask yourself these four questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now?"
- James Allen

"A man is literally what he thinks."
- James Allen

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Meander with me . . .

Today is the birthday of Charles Austin Beard (November 27, 1874 – September 1, 1948), historian.

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."
- Charles A. Beard

"The lessons of history? There are four: The bee fertilizes the flower it robs; whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with power; the mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small; when it is dark enough, you can see the stars."
- Charles A. Beard

"I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves in the mire and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amid the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail."
- Charles A. Beard

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Meandering here and there . . .

Today is the birthday of Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964), mathematician. He is best known for his theory of cybernetics - the comparative study of control and communication in humans and machines.

"Progress imposes not only new possibilities for the future but new restrictions."
- Norbert Wiener

"The nervous system and the automatic machine are fundamentally alike in that they are devices, which make decisions on the basis of decisions they made in the past."
- Norbert Wiener

"I have said that science is impossible without faith . . . Inductive logic, the logic of Bacon, is rather something on which we can act than something which we can prove, and to act on it is a supreme assertion of faith . . . Science is a way of life which can only flourish when men are free to have faith."
- Norbert Wiener

"What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead."
- Norbert Wiener

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Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of Andrew Carnegie (November 25, 1835 – August 11, 1919), industrialist, businessman, entrepreneur and philanthropist.

"As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do."
- Andrew Carnegie

"“It was from my own early experience that I decided there was no use to which money could be applied so productive of good to boys and girls who have good within them and ability and ambition to develop it as the founding of a public library”
- Andrew Carnegie

"People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents."
- Andrew Carnegie

"Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community."
- Andrew Carnegie

"No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it."
- Andrew Carnegie

"Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best."
- Andrew Carnegie

"There is little success where there is little laughter."
- Andrew Carnegie

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Meandering in motivation . . .

Today is the birthday of Dale Breckenridge Carnegie (November 24, 1888 – November 1, 1955), lecturer and author. He is best known for his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People and as the developer of courses in self-improvement. Dale Carnegie loved to teach others how to become successful.

"If you want to be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic."
- Dale Carnegie

"It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about."
- Dale Carnegie

"One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today."
- Dale Carnegie

"The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore."
- Dale Carnegie

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."
- Dale Carnegie

"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. "
- Dale Carnegie

"You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind."
- Dale Carnegie

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