“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” ~Mark Twain
Tag: Quote
May 10
April 2016 – Quote of the Month
“As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.” ~Christopher Dawson
Apr 30
Trumped Trump
Donald Trump could almost qualify as a cartoon character, except for the dark rancor that spews from his round, orange mouth. What at first might have seemed like an extension of one of his reality TV shows has long crossed the border into scary fascism. Here is why I think the man is a danger …
Apr 14
March 2016 – Quote of the Month
“Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Mar 06
February 2016 – Quote of the Month
“Success is a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.” ~Robert Strauss
Feb 01
January 2016 – Quote of the Month
“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” ~Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Jan 07
December 2015 – Quote of the Month
“The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.” ~Thomas Paine
Dec 02
November 2015 – Quote of the Month
“The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” ~Sir Richard Burton
Nov 04
October 2015 – Quote of the Month
“Now everyone dreams of a love lasting and true But you and I know what this world can do So let’s make our steps clear that the other may see And I’ll wait for you If I should fall behind Wait for me” ~Bruce Springsteen
Oct 06
September 2015 – Quote of the Month
“I don’t think the American Dream was that everyone was going to make it or that everyone was going to make a billion dollars, but it was that everyone was going to have an opportunity and the chance to live a life with some decency and a chance for some self-respect.” ~Bruce Springsteen (as captured …
Sep 28
An Absolute Monarchy in the Minds of Men
For all of the humanistic conventions and relative progressiveness of Pope Francis*, that is enchanting the people; here, at the bedrock is what continues to disturb me: the fostering of supernatural, magical beliefs. If the disservice and damage that this magical mindset does among the everyday individual is disturbing enough, it is downright scary when …
Sep 03
August 2015 – Quote of the Month
The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend. ~ Abraham Lincoln
Aug 02
July 2015 – Quote of the Month
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. ~ Bertrand Russell
Jun 04
May 2015 – Quote of the Month
Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May, but at length the season of summer does come. ~Thomas Carlyle
May 02
April 2015 – Quote of the Month
It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them. ~Agatha Christie
Apr 04
March 2015 – Quote of the Month
No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn. ~ Hal Borland
Mar 02
February 2015 – Quote of the Month
Of winter’s lifeless world each tree Now seems a perfect part; Yet each one holds summer’s secret Deep down within its heart. ~ Charles G. Slater
Feb 21
January 2015 – Quote of the Month
Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it. ~ John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday
Jan 24
December 2014 – Quote of the Month
For disappearing acts, it’s hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work. ~Doug Larson
Jan 12
November 2014 – Quote of the Month
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its …
Dec 30
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Whereas others have decorated their house for the winter holidays – namely, christmas, we’ve kept the arachnid Halloween decorations up in our entryway – Cirith Ungol (Sindarin for Spider’s Cleft, or Pass of the Spider). All Photos by Yours Truly – Glen Green. Click on images to see larger versions. In a ravine she lived, …
Nov 17
October 2014 – Quote of the Month
There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch. ~Robert Brault
Oct 06
September 2014 – Quote of the Month
Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. ~ Bertrand Russell
Sep 08
August 2014 – Quote of the Month
It’s a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind. ~ Naguib Mahfouz
Jul 31
Ghostly Gettysburg
I had an occasion to visit Gettysburg Pennsylvania this weekend for a little R&R. As expected, the area is rich in history and amazing stories: tragic and heroic. But I was also amazed how swamped the area is with ghost stories. The first hint came when it was posted on Facebook that we were going …
Jul 14
June 2014 – Quote of the Month
Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later… that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty …
Jun 15
May 2014 – Quote of the Month
Overheard at a gravesite: “And they all said ’I’m sorry for your loss,’ as if you were someone who could ever be taken from me. – Robert Brault,
May 10
April 2014 – Quote of the Month
The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless unremembered acts of kindness and love. ― William Wordsworth
May 10
March 2014 – Quote of the Month
“I will not say, do not weep, for not all tears are an evil.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
Mar 20
A Hard and Bitter Winter
… But today is the start of Spring and may it bloom all the greener. In this hour, I do not believe that any darkness will endure. ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Mar 20
February 2014 – Quote of the Month
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that’s unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
Feb 02
January 2014 – Quote of the Month
I want to grow old without facelifts… I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I’ve made. Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know you. – Marilyn Monroe
Jan 28
The Desolation of Peter Jackson
The Shadow of the Past As part of my considerable Lord of the Rings collection, I have the Minds Eye audio adaptation of the books. In the first few chapters of the collection, the rendition includes Elves speaking. – Speaking with pitched Keebler Elves voices. At that moment, an aficionado of the book can instantly …
Jan 19
December 2013 – Quote of the Month
Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging. – Maya Angelou
Dec 28
Novembor 2013 – Quote of the Month
Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity. – Robert Louis Stevensons
Nov 14
October 2013 – Quote of the Month
I have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement [Libertarians] in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough. – Christopher Hitchens
Oct 27
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others
Increasingly, politics leaves me infuriated. The October GOP induced government shut down and threatened debt ceiling default had me almost shaking with anger. This is a self inflicted wound that is the result of so many wrongs ranging from the control of the popular media by the rich few to political gerrymandering. I’m afraid that …
Oct 02
September 2013 – Quote of the Month
A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. – David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748
Sep 16
August 2013 – Quote of the Month
The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us. – Paul Valery
Aug 01
July 2013 – Quote of the Month
One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls. ― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Jul 01
June 2013 – Quote of the Month
If ever there was a slamming of the door in the face of constructive investigation, it is the word miracle. To a medieval peasant, a radio would have seemed like a miracle. ― Richard Dawkins
Jun 28
I Expect More from a Dinosaur
It’s free and it has Dinosaurs, other than that, Jurassic Park Builder for the iPad has no redeeming values as a game and yet, sadly, I keep ‘playing’ it. I put, ‘playing’ in scare quotes because there is virtually nothing in the game that requires any skill with the possible exception of the ‘The Code …
Jun 03
May 2013 – Quote of the Month
What is wrong with inciting intense dislike of a religion if the activities or teachings of that religion are so outrageous, irrational or abusive of human rights that they deserve to be intensely disliked?” -― Rowan Atkinson
May 02
April 2013 – Quote of the Month
The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet it is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: Small hands do …
Apr 02
March 2013 – Quote of the Month
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you …
Feb 01
January 2013 – Quote of the Month
The chief beauty about time is that you cannot waste it in advance. The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life. You can turn over a new leaf every hour …
Jan 05
December 2012 – Quote of the Month
This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, And beats high mountain down. ― J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
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