"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011], co-founder of Apple, Inc. [est. 1975]
"The mintage of wisdom is to know that rest is rust, and that real life is in love, laughter, and work."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
"The average man will bristle if you say his father was dishonest, but he will brag a little if he discovers that his great-grandfather was a pirate."
~~ Bern Williams
"Language is the source of misunderstandings."
~~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [1900-44]
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition."
~~ Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]
"Identify the dominant philosophy of a society and you can predict its future."
~~ Ayn Rand [1905-82]
"My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace."
~~ Alfred Nobel [1833-96]
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."
~~ marketing expert E. Joseph Cossman [1918-2002]
"People don't get to change things. Things change people once in a while, but people don't change things."
~~ Lawrence Block
"The United States was declared a fascist country in January 2010. Well, at least the internet is still a free country."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"Great cultural changes begin in affectation and end in routine."
~~ Jacques Barzun [1907-2012]
"Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow."
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE]
"We'd never get anything fixed to suit us if we waited for things to suit us before we started.”
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957], By the Shores of Silver Lake
"Never be ashamed! There's some who'll hold it against you, but they're not worth bothering with."
~~ J.K. Rowling
"Any truth is better than indefinite doubt."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930] Page
"The oppressor's most powerful weapon is the mind of the oppressed."
~~ Stephen Biko [1946-77]
"We get what we fight for – so let’s get out there and fight."
~~ Sen. Elizabeth Warren
"As if we needed another reason to kick Republicans out of Congress."
~~ Congressman Ben Ray Luján [Dem NM-03]
"We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done."
~~ Alan Turing [1912-54]
"Traveller, there is no road, you make your own path as you walk."
~~ Spanish poet Antonio Machado [1875-1939]
"Without great solitude, no serious work is possible."
~~ Pablo Picasso [1881-1973]
"Words can be like x-rays if you use them properly – they'll go thru anything. You read and you're pierced."
~~ Aldous Huxley [1894-1963], in 1932 novel "Brave New World"
"In the world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it."
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"The things that make me different are the things that make me."
~~ A.A. Milne [1882-1956]
"The sight of the huge world put mad ideas into me ... as if I could wander away, wander forever, see strange and beautiful things, one after the other."
~~ C.S. Lewis [1898-1963]
"To find a form that accomodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now."
~~ Samuel Beckett [1906-89]
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think [that] I have ended up where I needed to be."
~~ Douglas Adams [1952-2001]
"Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: opportunity."
~~ Bill Gates
"Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom."
~~ Gen. George Smith Patton, Jr. [1885-1945]
"Art is a magic which makes the hours melt away and even days dissolve into seconds."
~~ Leonora Carrington, OBE [1917-2011]
"You live but once; you might as well be amusing."
~~ Coco Chanel [1883-1971]
"It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done."
~~ Vincent van Gogh [1853-90]
"My invention (the motion picture camera) can be exploited . . . as a scientific curiosity, but apart from that it has no commercial value whatsoever."
~~ Auguste Lumière [1862-1954]
"There is no way to success in art but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
"You're cute and all, but I'm not sharing my coffee."
~~ Rachel Wolchin
"Writers aren't exactly people . . . they're a whole bunch of people trying to be one person."
~~ F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940]
"You do not determine a man's greatness by his talent or wealth, as the world does, but rather by what it takes to discourage him."
~~ Jerry Falwell 1933-2007]
"Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people's."
~~ Anaïs Nin [1903-77]
"Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment."
~~ Persian poet & mystic Rumi [1207-73]
"Impossible is just an opinion."
~~ Paolo Coelho
"Some beautiful paths can't be discovered without getting lost."
~~ Erol Ozan
"Do we have to know who is gay and who is straight? Can't we just love everybody and judge them by the car [that] they drive?"
~~ daytime TV host Ellen Degeneres
"For time is the longest distance between two places."
~~ Tennessee Williams [1911-83]
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups."
~~ George Carlin [1937-2008]
"Be in love with your life. Every minute of it."
~~ Jack Kerouac [1922-69]
"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."
~~ Albert Camus [1913-60]
"The more that you read, / the more things you will know. / The more that you learn, / the more places you'll go!"
~~ Dr. Seuss {Theodor Geisel 1904-91}
"He who asks a question is a fool for a minute; he who does not remains a fool forever."
~~ Chinese proverb
"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled 'This could change your life'."
~~ Helen Exley
"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"Write hard and clear about what hurts."
~~ Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]
"Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person."
~~ Gloria Steinem
"He was a poet, and they are never exactly grown up."
~~ playwright J.M. Barrie [1860-1937]
"Our nation is facing a crisis of liberty if we do not control campaign expenditures. We must prove that elective office is not for sale. We must convince the public that elected officials are what James Madison intended us to be, agents of the sovereign people, not the hired hands of rich givers."
~~ Sen. Barry Goldwater [1909-98]
"Music has charms to soothe a savage breast."
~~ English playwright Sir Wm. Congreve [1670-1729]
the first line of his 1697 play "The Mourning Bride", spoken by Almeria; often misquoted as 'Music has charms to soothe the savage beast'.
"The Mojave is a big desert and a frightening one. It's as though nature tested a man for endurance and constancy to prove whether he was good enough to get to California."
~~ John Steinbeck [1902-68]
"Hate is a heavy burden to carry."
~~ Congressman John Lewis [Dem GA-05]
"Few who have ever watched the valve gear and side rods of a steam locomotive in action could seriously argue that the Industrial Revolution created any more fascinating machine."
~~ railroad photographer Ron Ziel
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
~~ sci-fi author Robert A. Heinlein [1907-88]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Sunday, August 02, 2015
WM Essay #108: Civilization Is Imploding
Civilization has begun to implode.
The mammalian species that have gone extinct in the last ten years already outnumber the plant and animal species that died off during the Fifth Extinction, which took place some 66 million years ago and killed the dinosaurs; the rate of die-off is also faster. You may live to witness and be impacted by the Sixth Extinction. My guess is that homo sapiens will be replaced by cetaceans (dolphins, whales) as the dominant species. Maybe. In a few millennia.
The Fifth Extinction was caused by a 6-mile diameter meteor landing off the coast of Yucatan, darkening the sky with dust and dropping the temperature of the biosphere for decades. The coming Sixth Extinction is caused by humans burning fossil fuels in combination with over-population.
The battle against global warming is over. We lost. And there is no turning back or recovery possible. Meteorologists in Great Britain are recording all-time high temperatures across the country. The Arctic Ocean was largely ice-free this spring, the first-ever such condition, and Alaska has been warmer than the U.S. East Coast. Russia and Canada are building naval and coast guard bases along their northern coasts, expecting to need to monitor an influx of oil tankers and tourist ships.
The El Niño phenomenon in the South Pacific Ocean is medium strength so far this year, and yet is already seen as cause for warm and wet jet stream clouds moving northward to Alaska and Canada. So the water needed to support California agriculture is not arriving and the crops will not be growing – first the heavily-irrigated crops like almonds and rice and alfalfa, followed by drier crops like corn and cotton.
Over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts are produced in California. Oops, no water, no food. The glaciers in the Andes Mountains are mostly melted away, so no water for their crops, and no imported food either. We are already seeing spot shortages in the fresh and packaged food sections in our local grocery stores. Prices will skyrocket and the rest of the economy will disappear.
McDonald’s is the largest owner of meat and dairy cattle in the U.S.A. (plus herds down in Argentina and Brasil); as their herds shrink further there won’t be any Big Macs – no beef, no food, no jobs.
The CEOs of Wall Street are still raping and pillaging the economy. The Wall Street pirates take money out of the system and ignore the economics of Main Street. Money is quite like rain water: the less that circulates the harder it is to keep the system going. The Middle Class is shrinking in silence – under-reported, with little protest to the government, which doesn’t listen anyway. The solution is Keynesian economics, which is feared by the fascist Republicans (because it works); we also need to institute Reason-Based Taxation, which barely has a toehold among politicians.
Eco-activist Bill McKibben founded a group called 350.org back in 2007. The number was chosen because it signifies the parts-per-million (ppm) for CO2 that the atmosphere can healthily recycle – burn carbon fuels, plants and the oceans absorb the CO2, trees and plankton produce oxygen thru photosynthesis.
Recent news reports detail the several official scientific weather research facilities that have recorded CO2 levels at 400 ppm. Increased global warming is now inevitable and unstoppable.
The first six months of 2015 are the warmest on record (i.e. since 1880) all around the planet, with the second half of 2015 expected to continue to set high-temperature records.
The South Pacific Ocean contains a floating garbage pile the size of the State of Texas. That mostly-plastic garbage absorbs heat. As the warmer ocean waters there and around the world absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, the water is turned several pH levels toward the acidic. The acidity is already dissolving the shells of tiny animals at the bottom of the oceanic food chain, destroying sustenance for larger creatures.
The krill (swarms of tiny shellfish) near the Antarctic are decimated and near extinction. The melting of the Antarctic ice shelves and glaciers prevents penguins from swimming out to where the krill used to be. The melting in the Arctic prevents polar bears from swimming out to their seal herd food source, so the polar bears have started to learn how to kill elk and deer. (No reports yet of polar bears forming packs to attack Inuit/Eskimo settlements.)
The Republican Party blocked solving the ecological problems in the biosphere and now the problems have grown so dire that solutions no longer exist.
As you witness your children and grandchildren and neighbors starving to death over the next decade or so, be sure to thank a Republican.
Copyright 2015 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
{A variation of this essay was published in the Valencia County News-Bulletin on Thursday 30 July 2015 in the Opinion Section; I was given status as a guest columnist, which includes the display of a small headshot photograph.}
The mammalian species that have gone extinct in the last ten years already outnumber the plant and animal species that died off during the Fifth Extinction, which took place some 66 million years ago and killed the dinosaurs; the rate of die-off is also faster. You may live to witness and be impacted by the Sixth Extinction. My guess is that homo sapiens will be replaced by cetaceans (dolphins, whales) as the dominant species. Maybe. In a few millennia.
The Fifth Extinction was caused by a 6-mile diameter meteor landing off the coast of Yucatan, darkening the sky with dust and dropping the temperature of the biosphere for decades. The coming Sixth Extinction is caused by humans burning fossil fuels in combination with over-population.
The battle against global warming is over. We lost. And there is no turning back or recovery possible. Meteorologists in Great Britain are recording all-time high temperatures across the country. The Arctic Ocean was largely ice-free this spring, the first-ever such condition, and Alaska has been warmer than the U.S. East Coast. Russia and Canada are building naval and coast guard bases along their northern coasts, expecting to need to monitor an influx of oil tankers and tourist ships.
The El Niño phenomenon in the South Pacific Ocean is medium strength so far this year, and yet is already seen as cause for warm and wet jet stream clouds moving northward to Alaska and Canada. So the water needed to support California agriculture is not arriving and the crops will not be growing – first the heavily-irrigated crops like almonds and rice and alfalfa, followed by drier crops like corn and cotton.
Over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts are produced in California. Oops, no water, no food. The glaciers in the Andes Mountains are mostly melted away, so no water for their crops, and no imported food either. We are already seeing spot shortages in the fresh and packaged food sections in our local grocery stores. Prices will skyrocket and the rest of the economy will disappear.
McDonald’s is the largest owner of meat and dairy cattle in the U.S.A. (plus herds down in Argentina and Brasil); as their herds shrink further there won’t be any Big Macs – no beef, no food, no jobs.
The CEOs of Wall Street are still raping and pillaging the economy. The Wall Street pirates take money out of the system and ignore the economics of Main Street. Money is quite like rain water: the less that circulates the harder it is to keep the system going. The Middle Class is shrinking in silence – under-reported, with little protest to the government, which doesn’t listen anyway. The solution is Keynesian economics, which is feared by the fascist Republicans (because it works); we also need to institute Reason-Based Taxation, which barely has a toehold among politicians.
Eco-activist Bill McKibben founded a group called 350.org back in 2007. The number was chosen because it signifies the parts-per-million (ppm) for CO2 that the atmosphere can healthily recycle – burn carbon fuels, plants and the oceans absorb the CO2, trees and plankton produce oxygen thru photosynthesis.
Recent news reports detail the several official scientific weather research facilities that have recorded CO2 levels at 400 ppm. Increased global warming is now inevitable and unstoppable.
The first six months of 2015 are the warmest on record (i.e. since 1880) all around the planet, with the second half of 2015 expected to continue to set high-temperature records.
The South Pacific Ocean contains a floating garbage pile the size of the State of Texas. That mostly-plastic garbage absorbs heat. As the warmer ocean waters there and around the world absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, the water is turned several pH levels toward the acidic. The acidity is already dissolving the shells of tiny animals at the bottom of the oceanic food chain, destroying sustenance for larger creatures.
The krill (swarms of tiny shellfish) near the Antarctic are decimated and near extinction. The melting of the Antarctic ice shelves and glaciers prevents penguins from swimming out to where the krill used to be. The melting in the Arctic prevents polar bears from swimming out to their seal herd food source, so the polar bears have started to learn how to kill elk and deer. (No reports yet of polar bears forming packs to attack Inuit/Eskimo settlements.)
The Republican Party blocked solving the ecological problems in the biosphere and now the problems have grown so dire that solutions no longer exist.
As you witness your children and grandchildren and neighbors starving to death over the next decade or so, be sure to thank a Republican.
{A variation of this essay was published in the Valencia County News-Bulletin on Thursday 30 July 2015 in the Opinion Section; I was given status as a guest columnist, which includes the display of a small headshot photograph.}
Sunday, July 26, 2015
July 2015 Quotations (57)
"We're raising our children, our kids, our future generation on crap."
~~ chef & businessman Roy Choi of West Los Angeles
“...rush out in the rain to be soaked with the sky.”
~~ Persian poet & mystic Rumi [1207-73]
"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."
~~ Sir John Lubbock [1834-1913]
"A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawnmower is broken."
~~ sportswriter James Dent
“They don't think it be like it is, but it do.”
~~ baseball player Oscar Gamble, circa 1975
"No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself."
~~ Anthony Trollope [1815-82]
"[Donald] Trump is a virus that the Republican Party has no immunity from because he actually represents everything that the party stands for, from anti-immigrant hysteria to worship of plutocrat 'job creators'."
~~ podcast host Sam Seder, June 2015
"Form to the sculptor is all and yet it is nothing. It is nothing without the spirit; with the idea it is everything."
~~ Victor Hugo [1802-85]
"Ha`ina `ia mai ana ka puana" means 'disclose the essential message'
~~ Hawaiian saying, often sung at the end of traditional songs or dances
"There are those who do not fear death for they are more afraid of not really living."
~~ ancient proverb
"The only law that matters is gravity."
~~ line in the movie "Point Break" [2015]
“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.”
~~ Federico Fellini [1920-93]
"It is not my intention to repeat myself, but in my work there should certainly be references to what I have done in the past. Say what you will, but 'The Trial' is the best film I ever made . . . I have never been so happy as when I made this film."
~~ Orson Welles [1915-85]
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye." ("On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.")
~~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [1900-44]
"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries."
~~ A.A. Milne [1882-1956]
“The cinema substitutes for our gaze a world more in harmony with our desires.”
~~ André Bazin [1918-58]
“[There are] two types of films: those that employ the resources of the theater (actors, direction, etc.) and use the camera in order to reproduce; [and] those that employ the resources of cinematography and use the camera to create.”
~~ Robert Bresson [1901-99], in "Notes On The Cinematographer" [1975]
“It’s hard to explain the fun to be found in seeing the right kind of bad movie.”
~~ Roger Ebert [1942-2013], in "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie" [2000]
“I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.”
~~ Francis Ford Coppola
“Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read ... if you don't read, you will never be a filmmaker.”
~~ Werner Herzog
“I can no longer think what I want to think. My thoughts have been replaced by moving images.”
~~ Georges Duhamel [1884-1966], in "Scènes de La Vie Future" [1930]
"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe."
~~ Anatole France [1844-1924]
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
~~ graphic novel & TV series "V For Vendetta"
"We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68], in "Beyond Vietnam" [1967 speech]
'Earth' without 'art' is just 'eh'.
"Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings."
~~ Nelson Mandela [1918-2013]
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
~~ William Pitt [1759-1806]
"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
"No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]
"Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry."
~~ F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940], in "The Great Gatsby" [1925]
“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
~~ Frederick Douglass [1818-95]
“A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.”
~~ Neil Gaiman
“I think of life as a good book. The further [that] you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.”
~~ Rabbi Harold Kushner
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
~~ Haruki Murakami
“There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.”
~~ Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis [1929-94]
“Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.”
~~ John Green
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]
“Make it a rule never to give a child a book [that] you would not read yourself.”
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”
~~ William Styron [1925-2006]
“I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.”
~~ William Lyon Phelps [1865-1943]
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
~~ Joseph Brodsky [1940-96]
“Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.”
~~ J.K. Rowling
“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
“The book [that] you don’t read won’t help.”
~~ Jim Rohn [1930-2009]
"Four things greater than all things are / Women and horses and power and war."
~~ Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]
"I'm so hungry I could eat a vegetable."
~~ comic strip character Dennis the Menace, as drawn by Hank Ketcham [1920-2001]
"The first rule in politics is never defend. Always attack."
~~ Sen. Tom Harkin
"The historical record makes homo sapiens look like an ecological serial killer."
~~ Prof. Yuval Noah Harari
"Life is like a roll of masking tape - it goes a lot faster toward the end."
~~ Funky Winkerbean comic strip, as drawn by Tom Batiuk
"There is no such thing as not voting."
~~ David Foster Wallace [1962-2008]
"Art has to offer something other than stylized despair."
~~ novelist Ben Lerner
"From now, know that every border you cross, every purchase you make, every call you dial, every cellphone tower you pass, friend you keep, article you write, [web]site you visit, subject line you type is in the hands of a system whose reach is unlimited but whose safeguards are not."
~~ June 2013 email from whistleblower Edward Snowden to filmmaker Laura Poitras
"The U.S. Supreme Court put the government up for sale."
~~ Howard Dean, in 2015
"If a June night could talk, it would probably boast [that] it invented romance."
~~ Bern Williams
"There is no opposite of an idea. So an idea goes everywhere."
~~ Jean-Luc Godard
"Those lacking imagination take refuge in reality."
~~ Jean-Luc Godard
"Where there is great love there are always miracles."
~~ Willa Cather [1873-1947]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ chef & businessman Roy Choi of West Los Angeles
“...rush out in the rain to be soaked with the sky.”
~~ Persian poet & mystic Rumi [1207-73]
"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."
~~ Sir John Lubbock [1834-1913]
"A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawnmower is broken."
~~ sportswriter James Dent
“They don't think it be like it is, but it do.”
~~ baseball player Oscar Gamble, circa 1975
"No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself."
~~ Anthony Trollope [1815-82]
"[Donald] Trump is a virus that the Republican Party has no immunity from because he actually represents everything that the party stands for, from anti-immigrant hysteria to worship of plutocrat 'job creators'."
~~ podcast host Sam Seder, June 2015
"Form to the sculptor is all and yet it is nothing. It is nothing without the spirit; with the idea it is everything."
~~ Victor Hugo [1802-85]
"Ha`ina `ia mai ana ka puana" means 'disclose the essential message'
~~ Hawaiian saying, often sung at the end of traditional songs or dances
"There are those who do not fear death for they are more afraid of not really living."
~~ ancient proverb
"The only law that matters is gravity."
~~ line in the movie "Point Break" [2015]
“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.”
~~ Federico Fellini [1920-93]
"It is not my intention to repeat myself, but in my work there should certainly be references to what I have done in the past. Say what you will, but 'The Trial' is the best film I ever made . . . I have never been so happy as when I made this film."
~~ Orson Welles [1915-85]
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye." ("On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.")
~~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [1900-44]
"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries."
~~ A.A. Milne [1882-1956]
“The cinema substitutes for our gaze a world more in harmony with our desires.”
~~ André Bazin [1918-58]
“[There are] two types of films: those that employ the resources of the theater (actors, direction, etc.) and use the camera in order to reproduce; [and] those that employ the resources of cinematography and use the camera to create.”
~~ Robert Bresson [1901-99], in "Notes On The Cinematographer" [1975]
“It’s hard to explain the fun to be found in seeing the right kind of bad movie.”
~~ Roger Ebert [1942-2013], in "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie" [2000]
“I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.”
~~ Francis Ford Coppola
“Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read ... if you don't read, you will never be a filmmaker.”
~~ Werner Herzog
“I can no longer think what I want to think. My thoughts have been replaced by moving images.”
~~ Georges Duhamel [1884-1966], in "Scènes de La Vie Future" [1930]
"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe."
~~ Anatole France [1844-1924]
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
~~ graphic novel & TV series "V For Vendetta"
"We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68], in "Beyond Vietnam" [1967 speech]
'Earth' without 'art' is just 'eh'.
"Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings."
~~ Nelson Mandela [1918-2013]
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
~~ William Pitt [1759-1806]
"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
"No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]
"Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry."
~~ F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940], in "The Great Gatsby" [1925]
“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
~~ Frederick Douglass [1818-95]
“A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.”
~~ Neil Gaiman
“I think of life as a good book. The further [that] you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.”
~~ Rabbi Harold Kushner
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
~~ Haruki Murakami
“There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.”
~~ Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis [1929-94]
“Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.”
~~ John Green
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]
“Make it a rule never to give a child a book [that] you would not read yourself.”
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”
~~ William Styron [1925-2006]
“I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.”
~~ William Lyon Phelps [1865-1943]
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
~~ Joseph Brodsky [1940-96]
“Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.”
~~ J.K. Rowling
“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
“The book [that] you don’t read won’t help.”
~~ Jim Rohn [1930-2009]
"Four things greater than all things are / Women and horses and power and war."
~~ Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]
"I'm so hungry I could eat a vegetable."
~~ comic strip character Dennis the Menace, as drawn by Hank Ketcham [1920-2001]
"The first rule in politics is never defend. Always attack."
~~ Sen. Tom Harkin
"The historical record makes homo sapiens look like an ecological serial killer."
~~ Prof. Yuval Noah Harari
"Life is like a roll of masking tape - it goes a lot faster toward the end."
~~ Funky Winkerbean comic strip, as drawn by Tom Batiuk
"There is no such thing as not voting."
~~ David Foster Wallace [1962-2008]
"Art has to offer something other than stylized despair."
~~ novelist Ben Lerner
"From now, know that every border you cross, every purchase you make, every call you dial, every cellphone tower you pass, friend you keep, article you write, [web]site you visit, subject line you type is in the hands of a system whose reach is unlimited but whose safeguards are not."
~~ June 2013 email from whistleblower Edward Snowden to filmmaker Laura Poitras
"The U.S. Supreme Court put the government up for sale."
~~ Howard Dean, in 2015
"If a June night could talk, it would probably boast [that] it invented romance."
~~ Bern Williams
"There is no opposite of an idea. So an idea goes everywhere."
~~ Jean-Luc Godard
"Those lacking imagination take refuge in reality."
~~ Jean-Luc Godard
"Where there is great love there are always miracles."
~~ Willa Cather [1873-1947]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Wednesday, July 01, 2015
News Factoids for Second Quarter 2015
Republican Pigheadedness: Due to G.O.P. budget cuts in all areas, the bad guys are winning. The Treasury Department is now unable to curtail the production of counterfeit paper money such that merchants in my tiny town in the middle of New Mexico now require their employees to test each and every five-dollar bill with that pen thing and also to hold it up to the overhead light.
Later in 2015, gun deaths are expected to surpass car accidents as the leading cause of death of young people in the U.S.A. for the first time ever.
Six corporations - Time Warner, Disney-ABC, News Corporation-Fox, Viacom-MTV-Paramount, Comcast-NBC-Universal, and CBS - control roughly 90 percent of the media in the U.S.
Lego of Denmark plans to invest $1 billion over the next 15 years to replace its iconic plastic building blocks with blocks made of materials that are better for the environment; it will also make its packaging more sustainable.
The first six months of 2015 are, in aggregate, the hottest on record, i.e. since such measurements began in 1880. The second half of the year is expected to follow suit, per weather scientists.
The brouhaha about the Confederate flag has just begun. The most common actual flag of the Confederate States of America (there were four) had a white background. The 'Stars and Bars' battle flag was flown by Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, and was the flag that he physically surrendered at Appomattox. The flag saw little use until resurrected by the Ku Klux Klan as a symbol of segregation and racism in the 1920s. The new meme of the Stars and Bars design as the 'Dixie Swastika' says a lot about its impact on non-whites and non-racists in the XXIst Century.
Copyright 2015 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
Later in 2015, gun deaths are expected to surpass car accidents as the leading cause of death of young people in the U.S.A. for the first time ever.
Six corporations - Time Warner, Disney-ABC, News Corporation-Fox, Viacom-MTV-Paramount, Comcast-NBC-Universal, and CBS - control roughly 90 percent of the media in the U.S.
Lego of Denmark plans to invest $1 billion over the next 15 years to replace its iconic plastic building blocks with blocks made of materials that are better for the environment; it will also make its packaging more sustainable.
The first six months of 2015 are, in aggregate, the hottest on record, i.e. since such measurements began in 1880. The second half of the year is expected to follow suit, per weather scientists.
The brouhaha about the Confederate flag has just begun. The most common actual flag of the Confederate States of America (there were four) had a white background. The 'Stars and Bars' battle flag was flown by Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, and was the flag that he physically surrendered at Appomattox. The flag saw little use until resurrected by the Ku Klux Klan as a symbol of segregation and racism in the 1920s. The new meme of the Stars and Bars design as the 'Dixie Swastika' says a lot about its impact on non-whites and non-racists in the XXIst Century.
Saturday, June 27, 2015
June 2015 Quotations (60)
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
~~ Thomas Alva Edison [1847-1931]
“Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.”
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]
"Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser."
~~ football coach Vince Lombardi [1913-70]
“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray’. We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.“
~~ Bishop Desmond Tutu
"My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other's kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That's how I see business: Great things in business are never done by one person, they're done by a team of people."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011] of Apple, Inc.
"I intend to leave after my death a large fund for the promotion of the peace idea, but I am skeptical as to its results."
~~ Alfred Nobel [1833-96]
"Music is intended for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions."
~~ Jacques Barzun [1907-2012]
"Middle age is when your broad mind and narrow waist begin to change places."
~~ marketing expert E. Joseph Cossman [1918-2002]
“A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing.”
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957]
“We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.“
~~ J.K. Rowling
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]
"Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985]
"All things come too late for those who wait."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
"To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.”
~~ Charles Darwin [1809-82]
"Russia never lost the Cold War . . . because it never ended."
~~ Russian dictator Vladimir Putin
"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 [1788-1830]
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE]
"Find the ones who haven't given up – they are the future."
~~ line spoken by George Clooney in the movie "Tomorrowland" [2015]
“I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I require the same from them.”
~~ line spoken by John Bernard Books {portrayed by John Wayne} in the movie “The Shootist” [1976]
“There is no way back into the past. The choice is the Universe – or nothing.”
~~ H.G. Wells [1866-1946]
"For my handling of the situation at Tombstone, I have no regrets. Were it to be done again, I would do it exactly as I did it at the time."
~~ Western lawman Wyatt Earp [1848-1929]
“History is a lie agreed upon.”
~~ Al Swearengen [1845-1904]
“Belief or nonbelief has no power over objective truth.”
~~ Theodore Sturgeon [1918-85] in his short story "Dazed" (Galaxy, 9/1971)
“Some folks follow old wagon tracks. Others break new trails.”
~~ old Western saying
“The West is good country for men and dogs but mighty hard on women and oxen.”
~~ old Western saying
“The proponents of 'intelligent design' and its forebear, creationism, brook no compromise with their demands to corrupt science with their anti-Reason beliefs. Respond to them by suggesting that fairness to both 'sides' of the issue requires equal time for Darwinian evolution being taught in the churches.“
~~ G.E. Nordell
“Everyone is entitled to an informed opinion.“
~~ Harlan Ellison
"When you fly one of these rags {the Confederate flag} you are not being a rebel, you are being a racist."
~~ Alessandra of France, who blogs as LaFeminista on DailyKos
"How can you look at the Texas legislature and still believe in intelligent design?"
~~ Kinky Friedman
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”
~~ G.K. Chesterton [1874-1936]
"Dangerous thing, giving humanity the knowledge of good and evil. And the capacity to make the wrong choice more often than not."
~~ mystery author Lawrence Block
"The idea that trials are a search for the truth is a myth. Trials are a search for that which the jury will believe is the truth."
~~ attorney & mystery author David Rosenfelt
“A writer is someone who finishes.”
~~ Thomas Farber
“We live well, in the West; belief in a non-existent black-and-white morality is one of our luxuries.“
~~ Timothy Hallinan
“One's country had no right to demand everything. There is much that is higher and better and grander than one's own country. One is patriotic only because one is too small and weak to be cosmopolitan.“
~~ Anthony Trollope [1815-82]
"Good design is as little design as possible."
~~ Dieter Rams
"When you talk, you are only repeating what you know; but when you listen, you learn something new."
~~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."
~~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1712-78]
"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."
~~ Ayn Rand [1905-82]
"Whoever admits that anything living is evil must either believe that God is malignantly capable of creating evil, or else believe that God has made many mistakes."
~~ British writer George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"If you wish to learn the art of conversation, I will email it to you."
~~ Henry Kipling
"You can't escape history, or the needs and neuroses [that] you've picked up like layers and layers of tartar on your teeth."
~~ Charles Johnson
"The soul would have no rainbow if the eye had no tears."
~~ Native American proverb
"All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust."
~~ J.M. Barrie [1860-1937], creator of "Peter Pan"
"Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason, mastery demands all of a person."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
"I believe in equality. Equality for everybody. No matter how stupid they are or how superior I am to them."
~~ actor & writer Steve Martin
"I want every little girl who is told [that] she is bossy to be told instead that she has leadership skills."
~~ Sheryl Sandberg, COO at Facebook, Inc.
"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."
~~ Henry Miller [1891-1980]
"The writer is by nature a dreamer – a conscious dreamer."
~~ Carson McCullers [1917-67]
"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."
~~ William Arthur Ward [1921-94]
"'Enough' is a feast."
~~ Buddhist proverb
"If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily."
~~ Gerald Good
"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."
~~ Stoic philosopher Epictetus [55?–135? C.E.]
"This a wonderful day. I've never seen this one before."
~~ Dr. Maya Angelou [1928-2014]
”Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”
~~ Truman Capote [1924-84]
”I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.”
~~ Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]
“Cause change and lead; accept change and survive; resist change and die.”
~~ Ray Noorda [1924-2006]
“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”
~~ Helen Keller [1880-1968]
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
~~ Benjamin Franklin [1706-90]
"The inside of a mailbox should always be kept clean in case you get a love letter."
~~ Charlie Brown, comic strip character, as written by Charles M. Schulz [1922-2000]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ Thomas Alva Edison [1847-1931]
“Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.”
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]
"Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser."
~~ football coach Vince Lombardi [1913-70]
“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray’. We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.“
~~ Bishop Desmond Tutu
"My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other's kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That's how I see business: Great things in business are never done by one person, they're done by a team of people."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011] of Apple, Inc.
"I intend to leave after my death a large fund for the promotion of the peace idea, but I am skeptical as to its results."
~~ Alfred Nobel [1833-96]
"Music is intended for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions."
~~ Jacques Barzun [1907-2012]
"Middle age is when your broad mind and narrow waist begin to change places."
~~ marketing expert E. Joseph Cossman [1918-2002]
“A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing.”
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957]
“We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.“
~~ J.K. Rowling
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]
"Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985]
"All things come too late for those who wait."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
"To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.”
~~ Charles Darwin [1809-82]
"Russia never lost the Cold War . . . because it never ended."
~~ Russian dictator Vladimir Putin
"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 [1788-1830]
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE]
"Find the ones who haven't given up – they are the future."
~~ line spoken by George Clooney in the movie "Tomorrowland" [2015]
“I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I require the same from them.”
~~ line spoken by John Bernard Books {portrayed by John Wayne} in the movie “The Shootist” [1976]
“There is no way back into the past. The choice is the Universe – or nothing.”
~~ H.G. Wells [1866-1946]
"For my handling of the situation at Tombstone, I have no regrets. Were it to be done again, I would do it exactly as I did it at the time."
~~ Western lawman Wyatt Earp [1848-1929]
“History is a lie agreed upon.”
~~ Al Swearengen [1845-1904]
“Belief or nonbelief has no power over objective truth.”
~~ Theodore Sturgeon [1918-85] in his short story "Dazed" (Galaxy, 9/1971)
“Some folks follow old wagon tracks. Others break new trails.”
~~ old Western saying
“The West is good country for men and dogs but mighty hard on women and oxen.”
~~ old Western saying
“The proponents of 'intelligent design' and its forebear, creationism, brook no compromise with their demands to corrupt science with their anti-Reason beliefs. Respond to them by suggesting that fairness to both 'sides' of the issue requires equal time for Darwinian evolution being taught in the churches.“
~~ G.E. Nordell
“Everyone is entitled to an informed opinion.“
~~ Harlan Ellison
"When you fly one of these rags {the Confederate flag} you are not being a rebel, you are being a racist."
~~ Alessandra of France, who blogs as LaFeminista on DailyKos
"How can you look at the Texas legislature and still believe in intelligent design?"
~~ Kinky Friedman
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”
~~ G.K. Chesterton [1874-1936]
"Dangerous thing, giving humanity the knowledge of good and evil. And the capacity to make the wrong choice more often than not."
~~ mystery author Lawrence Block
"The idea that trials are a search for the truth is a myth. Trials are a search for that which the jury will believe is the truth."
~~ attorney & mystery author David Rosenfelt
“A writer is someone who finishes.”
~~ Thomas Farber
“We live well, in the West; belief in a non-existent black-and-white morality is one of our luxuries.“
~~ Timothy Hallinan
“One's country had no right to demand everything. There is much that is higher and better and grander than one's own country. One is patriotic only because one is too small and weak to be cosmopolitan.“
~~ Anthony Trollope [1815-82]
"Good design is as little design as possible."
~~ Dieter Rams
"When you talk, you are only repeating what you know; but when you listen, you learn something new."
~~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."
~~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1712-78]
"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."
~~ Ayn Rand [1905-82]
"Whoever admits that anything living is evil must either believe that God is malignantly capable of creating evil, or else believe that God has made many mistakes."
~~ British writer George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"If you wish to learn the art of conversation, I will email it to you."
~~ Henry Kipling
"You can't escape history, or the needs and neuroses [that] you've picked up like layers and layers of tartar on your teeth."
~~ Charles Johnson
"The soul would have no rainbow if the eye had no tears."
~~ Native American proverb
"All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust."
~~ J.M. Barrie [1860-1937], creator of "Peter Pan"
"Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason, mastery demands all of a person."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
"I believe in equality. Equality for everybody. No matter how stupid they are or how superior I am to them."
~~ actor & writer Steve Martin
"I want every little girl who is told [that] she is bossy to be told instead that she has leadership skills."
~~ Sheryl Sandberg, COO at Facebook, Inc.
"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."
~~ Henry Miller [1891-1980]
"The writer is by nature a dreamer – a conscious dreamer."
~~ Carson McCullers [1917-67]
"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."
~~ William Arthur Ward [1921-94]
"'Enough' is a feast."
~~ Buddhist proverb
"If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily."
~~ Gerald Good
"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."
~~ Stoic philosopher Epictetus [55?–135? C.E.]
"This a wonderful day. I've never seen this one before."
~~ Dr. Maya Angelou [1928-2014]
”Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”
~~ Truman Capote [1924-84]
”I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.”
~~ Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]
“Cause change and lead; accept change and survive; resist change and die.”
~~ Ray Noorda [1924-2006]
“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”
~~ Helen Keller [1880-1968]
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
~~ Benjamin Franklin [1706-90]
"The inside of a mailbox should always be kept clean in case you get a love letter."
~~ Charlie Brown, comic strip character, as written by Charles M. Schulz [1922-2000]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Blog Revisions June 2015
Amazon sent out emails about internal coding changes that made certain widgets obsolete, effective August First. I had seven books coded on the homepage for this blog (no sales, but gotta be ready for buyers). When I opened Blogger to make changes, they offered all-new Templates, which I have taken advantage of. New red color, new text sizes, two of the coded books are newly coded (the others are dropped), and the Archive listing on the right is much simplified. The outside Important Links are verified & modified. And you can still sign up for email notification whenever I post something new, via Feedblitz.
A few things among the changes are not quite how I want, but the overall look is a great improvement. So now back to work on the many webpages that need further attention . . .
A few things among the changes are not quite how I want, but the overall look is a great improvement. So now back to work on the many webpages that need further attention . . .
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
May 2015 Quotations (61)
"A great democracy does not make it harder to vote than to buy an assault weapon."
~~ Bill Clinton
“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing [that] he was never reasoned into.”
~~ Jonathan Swift [1667-1745]
"The true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals."
~~ Barack Obama
"Nothing will work unless you do."
~~ Dr. Maya Angelou [1928-2014]
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
"[T]he preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country."
~~ John Adams [1735-1826], in "A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law" (1765)
“You think You're frightening me with your hell, don't You? You think your hell is worse than mine.”
~~ Dorothy Parker [1893-1967]
"To see both sides of a quarrel / is to judge without hate or alarm."
~~ song lyric by Richard Thompson
“All you ever needed to know about this [2000] election, you’ve learned from driving. If you want to go backward, you put it in R. But if you want to go forward, you put it in D.”
~~ former Senator Tom Harkin [D-Iowa 1985-2014]
"The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles."
~~ Bob Dylan
"And it feels like I'm livin' in the wasteland of the free."
~~ folk singer Iris DeMent, in 1996
"Without deviation from the norm, progress is impossible."
~~ Frank Zappa [1940-93]
“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.”
~~ Charles Darwin [1809-82]
"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race, or his holy cause."
~~ Eric Hoffer [1902-83]
"There are two types of republicans, the rich and the stupid. The rich ones strive to keep the stupid ones stupid and the stupid ones strive to keep the rich ones rich."
~~ David Seltzer
"I'm convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011]
"You don't have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being."
~~ Malcolm X [1925-65]
"Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength."
~~ Eric Hoffer [1902-83]
"If civilization has risen from the Stone Age, it can rise again from the Wastepaper Age."
~~ Jacques Barzun [1907-2012]
"Love is a friendship set to music."
~~ marketing expert E. Joseph Cossman [1918-2002]
“Home is the nicest word there is.”
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957]
"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that."
~~ character Albus Dumbledore, as written by J.K. Rowling
"We can't command our love, but we can our actions."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930] Page
"A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
"Be obscure clearly."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985]
"But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly.”
~~ Barry Goldwater [1909-98]
"We are no longer nourished but somehow consumed by what we have created [on the internet]."
~~ psychologist Sherry Turkle (of M.I.T.)
“Women’s rights are human rights.”
~~ Hillary Clinton
"If we made an income pyramid out of a child's blocks, with each layer portraying $1000 of income, the peak would be higher than the Eiffel Tower, but almost all of us would be within a yard of the ground."
~~ economist Paul Samuelson [1915-2009]
"Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears."
~~ motivational speaker Leslie C. 'Les' Brown
"It is easy to sit up and take notice, What is difficult is getting up and taking action."
~~ Honoré de Balzac [1799-1850]
"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
~~ Xian Bible, 1 Timothy 6:10
"If I have a thousand ideas and only one of them turns out to be good, I am satisfied."
~~ Alfred Nobel [1833-96]
"I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"Life is simple when you ignore the complicated parts."
~~ cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, in 2015
"Patriotism may be the last refuge of scoundrels, but religion is assuredly the first."
~~ Rick Cass of Florida
"No country can be both ignorant and free."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
"A half truth is a whole lie."
~~ Yiddish proverb
"Those who can make you believe absurdities will get you to commit atrocities."
~~ Voltaire [1694-1778]
"The main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings, not to serve as appendages to machines, institutions, and systems."
~~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [1922-2007], in "Player Piano" [1952]
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
"There are never enough I Love Yous."
~~ Lenny Bruce [1925-66]
"I tell this to my girls all the time: This journey we're on is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
~~ Michelle Obama
"Why be extraordinary . . . when you can be ordinary?"
~~ Alan Dapre
"A wise person knows that there is something to be learned from everyone."
~~ anonymous (appeared in 2006)
"Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold."
~~ Zelda Fitzgerald [1900-48]
"My books are water; those of the great geniuses [are] wine. Everybody drinks water."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind."
~~ writer-aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [1900-1944]
"We all place ourselves in danger to one degree or another when we stand up, but we place our children and grandchildren in even greater danger when we don't."
~~ popular poster on Pinterest
"Acknowledging reality is a do-it-yourself project."
~~ Margo Howard
"Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it."
~~ Ernest Holmes [1887-1960]
"The heart is the best reflective thinker."
~~ Wendell Phillips [1811-84]
"All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage."
~~ William Bradford [1599-1657]
"The thinker dies, but his thoughts are beyond the reach of destruction. Men are mortal; but ideas are immortal."
~~ English clergyman Richard Adams [1626-98]
"A new thinker, when studied closely, is merely a man who does not know what other people have thought."
~~ Frank Moore Colby [1865-1925]
"Take away paradox from a thinker and you have a professor."
~~ Søren Kierkegaard [1813-55]
"In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing, but because I am enlightened by my intelligence."
~~ Ayn Rand [1905-82]
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
~~ John Adams [1735-1826]
"Don't calm down. It is perfectly alright to give a sh*t."
~~ Cheryl Hunter
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who haven't got it."
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"Your self image is so powerful [that] it unwittingly becomes your destiny."
~~ Oscar Micheaux [1884-1951]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ Bill Clinton
“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing [that] he was never reasoned into.”
~~ Jonathan Swift [1667-1745]
"The true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals."
~~ Barack Obama
"Nothing will work unless you do."
~~ Dr. Maya Angelou [1928-2014]
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
"[T]he preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country."
~~ John Adams [1735-1826], in "A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law" (1765)
“You think You're frightening me with your hell, don't You? You think your hell is worse than mine.”
~~ Dorothy Parker [1893-1967]
"To see both sides of a quarrel / is to judge without hate or alarm."
~~ song lyric by Richard Thompson
“All you ever needed to know about this [2000] election, you’ve learned from driving. If you want to go backward, you put it in R. But if you want to go forward, you put it in D.”
~~ former Senator Tom Harkin [D-Iowa 1985-2014]
"The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles."
~~ Bob Dylan
"And it feels like I'm livin' in the wasteland of the free."
~~ folk singer Iris DeMent, in 1996
"Without deviation from the norm, progress is impossible."
~~ Frank Zappa [1940-93]
“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.”
~~ Charles Darwin [1809-82]
"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race, or his holy cause."
~~ Eric Hoffer [1902-83]
"There are two types of republicans, the rich and the stupid. The rich ones strive to keep the stupid ones stupid and the stupid ones strive to keep the rich ones rich."
~~ David Seltzer
"I'm convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011]
"You don't have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being."
~~ Malcolm X [1925-65]
"Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength."
~~ Eric Hoffer [1902-83]
"If civilization has risen from the Stone Age, it can rise again from the Wastepaper Age."
~~ Jacques Barzun [1907-2012]
"Love is a friendship set to music."
~~ marketing expert E. Joseph Cossman [1918-2002]
“Home is the nicest word there is.”
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957]
"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that."
~~ character Albus Dumbledore, as written by J.K. Rowling
"We can't command our love, but we can our actions."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930] Page
"A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
"Be obscure clearly."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985]
"But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly.”
~~ Barry Goldwater [1909-98]
"We are no longer nourished but somehow consumed by what we have created [on the internet]."
~~ psychologist Sherry Turkle (of M.I.T.)
“Women’s rights are human rights.”
~~ Hillary Clinton
"If we made an income pyramid out of a child's blocks, with each layer portraying $1000 of income, the peak would be higher than the Eiffel Tower, but almost all of us would be within a yard of the ground."
~~ economist Paul Samuelson [1915-2009]
"Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears."
~~ motivational speaker Leslie C. 'Les' Brown
"It is easy to sit up and take notice, What is difficult is getting up and taking action."
~~ Honoré de Balzac [1799-1850]
"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
~~ Xian Bible, 1 Timothy 6:10
"If I have a thousand ideas and only one of them turns out to be good, I am satisfied."
~~ Alfred Nobel [1833-96]
"I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"Life is simple when you ignore the complicated parts."
~~ cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, in 2015
"Patriotism may be the last refuge of scoundrels, but religion is assuredly the first."
~~ Rick Cass of Florida
"No country can be both ignorant and free."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
"A half truth is a whole lie."
~~ Yiddish proverb
"Those who can make you believe absurdities will get you to commit atrocities."
~~ Voltaire [1694-1778]
"The main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings, not to serve as appendages to machines, institutions, and systems."
~~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [1922-2007], in "Player Piano" [1952]
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
"There are never enough I Love Yous."
~~ Lenny Bruce [1925-66]
"I tell this to my girls all the time: This journey we're on is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
~~ Michelle Obama
"Why be extraordinary . . . when you can be ordinary?"
~~ Alan Dapre
"A wise person knows that there is something to be learned from everyone."
~~ anonymous (appeared in 2006)
"Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold."
~~ Zelda Fitzgerald [1900-48]
"My books are water; those of the great geniuses [are] wine. Everybody drinks water."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind."
~~ writer-aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [1900-1944]
"We all place ourselves in danger to one degree or another when we stand up, but we place our children and grandchildren in even greater danger when we don't."
~~ popular poster on Pinterest
"Acknowledging reality is a do-it-yourself project."
~~ Margo Howard
"Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it."
~~ Ernest Holmes [1887-1960]
"The heart is the best reflective thinker."
~~ Wendell Phillips [1811-84]
"All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage."
~~ William Bradford [1599-1657]
"The thinker dies, but his thoughts are beyond the reach of destruction. Men are mortal; but ideas are immortal."
~~ English clergyman Richard Adams [1626-98]
"A new thinker, when studied closely, is merely a man who does not know what other people have thought."
~~ Frank Moore Colby [1865-1925]
"Take away paradox from a thinker and you have a professor."
~~ Søren Kierkegaard [1813-55]
"In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing, but because I am enlightened by my intelligence."
~~ Ayn Rand [1905-82]
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
~~ John Adams [1735-1826]
"Don't calm down. It is perfectly alright to give a sh*t."
~~ Cheryl Hunter
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who haven't got it."
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"Your self image is so powerful [that] it unwittingly becomes your destiny."
~~ Oscar Micheaux [1884-1951]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
April 2015 Quotations (61)
"The wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity . . . that’s all there is. That’s the whole economy. That’s where all the economic activity and jobs come from. These biological systems are the sustaining wealth of the world."
~~ Senator Gaylord Nelson [1916-2005] of Wisconsin, founder of Earth Day [est. 1970]
"Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars."
~~ motivational speaker Leslie C. 'Les' Brown
"Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class."
~~ gangster Al Capone [1899-1947]
"No rights can exist without property rights."
~~ Ayn Rand [1905-82], in "The Virtue of Selfishness" [1964]
"Stillness is not just an indulgrence for those with enough resources – it's a necessity for anyone."
~~ Pico Iyer
"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."
~~ Dr. Maya Angelou [1928-2014]
"Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent of how I react to it."
~~ Charles Rozell 'Chuck' Swindoll
"If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough."
~~ Oprah Winfrey
"I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination."
~~ Jimmy Dean [1928-2010]
"To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart."
~~ Eleanor Roosevelt [1884-1962]
"Do or do not. There is no try."
~~ Yoda character (in 'Star Wars')
"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it."
~~ Henry Ford [1863-1947]
"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity."
~~ aviator Amelia Earhart [1897-1937]
"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking [that] they don't have any."
~~ Alice Walker
"It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light."
~~ Aristotle Onassis [1906-75]
"Don't judge each day by the harvest [that] you reap but by the seeds that you plant."
~~ Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-94]
"If you hear a voice within you say, 'You cannot paint,' then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced."
~~ painter Vincent van Gogh [1853-90]
"Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck."
~~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
"What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do."
~~ Bob Dylan
"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do."
~~ Leonardo da Vinci [1452-1519]
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us."
~~ Helen Keller [1880-1968]
"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy.' They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life."
~~ John Lennon [1940-80]
"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
"Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of fear."
~~ George W. Addair [1931-2012]
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
~~ Plato [428?-327? B.C.E.]
"Believe you can and you're halfway there."
~~ Theodore Roosevelt [1858-1919]
"What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality."
~~ Plutarch [46?–127 C.E.]
"Control your own destiny or someone else will."
~~ Jack Welch
"Enjoy every sandwich."
~~ rocker Warren Zevon [1947-2003]
"It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed."
~~ Napoleon Hill [1883-1970]
"Things always work out for the best when you make the best out of the way things work out."
~~ U.C.L.A. coach John R. Wooden [1910-2010]
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
~~ writer-aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [1900-1944]
"A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it."
~~ Ambrose Bierce [1842-1914]
"Whoever despises himself nonetheless respects himself as one who despises."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
~~ John F. Kennedy [1917-63]
Getty's Reminder "The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights."
~~ oil baron J. Paul Getty [1892-1976]
"Success with things is to think intelligently; success with people is to love whole heartedly".
~~ Maurice L. Washington, Jr.
"There is a crack in everything, it's how the light gets in".
~~ Leonard Cohen
"There is no traffic jam on the extra mile."
~~ salesman & speaker Zig Ziglar [1926-2012]
"Our fear should not be that we are not successful but that we are successful at something that doesn't matter."
~~ D.L. Moody [1837-99]
"Why fly like a hen when you can soar like an eagle?"
~~ Padre Pio of Pietrelcina [1887-1968]
"Inch by inch life's a cinch, yard by yard life is hard."
~~ John Bytheway
"My favorite things in life don't cost any money. It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011] of Apple, Inc.
"A truth that's told with bad intent, beats all the lies you could invent."
~~ Wm. Blake [1757–1827]
"The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
~~ John Gilmore
"In a balanced organization, working towards a common objective, there is success."
~~ T.L. Scrutton
"Whoever wants to know about the heart and mind of America must learn about baseball."
~~ Jacques Barzun [1907-2012]
"I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.”
~~ W.C. Fields [1880-1946]
"You're so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath."
~~ Sinclair Lewis [1885-1951]
"How come you don't work fourteen hours a day? Your great-great-grandparents did. How come you only work the eight-hour day? Four guys got hanged fighting for the eight-hour day for you."
~~ Louis 'Studs' Terkel [1912-2008]
"Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness."
~~ Blaise Pascal [1623-62]
"Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal."
~~ marketing expert E. Joseph Cossman [1918-2002]
"Secretly we're all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be."
~~ J.K. Rowling
“The fact is that while there has been a good deal of discussion for and against women in business, farm women have always been business women, and I have never heard a protest.”
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957]
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]
"He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
"We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985]
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
~~ Dante [1265-1321]
“As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”
~~ Seneca the Younger [4? B.C.E. - 65 A.D.] (recently quoted by J.K. Rowling)
"Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results."
~~ Narcotics Anonymous 1981 manual
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?"
~~ George Orwell [1903-50], in "Nineteen Eighty-Four" [1949 novel]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ Senator Gaylord Nelson [1916-2005] of Wisconsin, founder of Earth Day [est. 1970]
"Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars."
~~ motivational speaker Leslie C. 'Les' Brown
"Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class."
~~ gangster Al Capone [1899-1947]
"No rights can exist without property rights."
~~ Ayn Rand [1905-82], in "The Virtue of Selfishness" [1964]
"Stillness is not just an indulgrence for those with enough resources – it's a necessity for anyone."
~~ Pico Iyer
"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."
~~ Dr. Maya Angelou [1928-2014]
"Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent of how I react to it."
~~ Charles Rozell 'Chuck' Swindoll
"If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough."
~~ Oprah Winfrey
"I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination."
~~ Jimmy Dean [1928-2010]
"To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart."
~~ Eleanor Roosevelt [1884-1962]
"Do or do not. There is no try."
~~ Yoda character (in 'Star Wars')
"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it."
~~ Henry Ford [1863-1947]
"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity."
~~ aviator Amelia Earhart [1897-1937]
"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking [that] they don't have any."
~~ Alice Walker
"It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light."
~~ Aristotle Onassis [1906-75]
"Don't judge each day by the harvest [that] you reap but by the seeds that you plant."
~~ Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-94]
"If you hear a voice within you say, 'You cannot paint,' then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced."
~~ painter Vincent van Gogh [1853-90]
"Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck."
~~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
"What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do."
~~ Bob Dylan
"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do."
~~ Leonardo da Vinci [1452-1519]
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us."
~~ Helen Keller [1880-1968]
"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy.' They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life."
~~ John Lennon [1940-80]
"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
"Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of fear."
~~ George W. Addair [1931-2012]
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
~~ Plato [428?-327? B.C.E.]
"Believe you can and you're halfway there."
~~ Theodore Roosevelt [1858-1919]
"What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality."
~~ Plutarch [46?–127 C.E.]
"Control your own destiny or someone else will."
~~ Jack Welch
"Enjoy every sandwich."
~~ rocker Warren Zevon [1947-2003]
"It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed."
~~ Napoleon Hill [1883-1970]
"Things always work out for the best when you make the best out of the way things work out."
~~ U.C.L.A. coach John R. Wooden [1910-2010]
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
~~ writer-aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [1900-1944]
"A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it."
~~ Ambrose Bierce [1842-1914]
"Whoever despises himself nonetheless respects himself as one who despises."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
~~ John F. Kennedy [1917-63]
Getty's Reminder "The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights."
~~ oil baron J. Paul Getty [1892-1976]
"Success with things is to think intelligently; success with people is to love whole heartedly".
~~ Maurice L. Washington, Jr.
"There is a crack in everything, it's how the light gets in".
~~ Leonard Cohen
"There is no traffic jam on the extra mile."
~~ salesman & speaker Zig Ziglar [1926-2012]
"Our fear should not be that we are not successful but that we are successful at something that doesn't matter."
~~ D.L. Moody [1837-99]
"Why fly like a hen when you can soar like an eagle?"
~~ Padre Pio of Pietrelcina [1887-1968]
"Inch by inch life's a cinch, yard by yard life is hard."
~~ John Bytheway
"My favorite things in life don't cost any money. It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011] of Apple, Inc.
"A truth that's told with bad intent, beats all the lies you could invent."
~~ Wm. Blake [1757–1827]
"The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
~~ John Gilmore
"In a balanced organization, working towards a common objective, there is success."
~~ T.L. Scrutton
"Whoever wants to know about the heart and mind of America must learn about baseball."
~~ Jacques Barzun [1907-2012]
"I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.”
~~ W.C. Fields [1880-1946]
"You're so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath."
~~ Sinclair Lewis [1885-1951]
"How come you don't work fourteen hours a day? Your great-great-grandparents did. How come you only work the eight-hour day? Four guys got hanged fighting for the eight-hour day for you."
~~ Louis 'Studs' Terkel [1912-2008]
"Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness."
~~ Blaise Pascal [1623-62]
"Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal."
~~ marketing expert E. Joseph Cossman [1918-2002]
"Secretly we're all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be."
~~ J.K. Rowling
“The fact is that while there has been a good deal of discussion for and against women in business, farm women have always been business women, and I have never heard a protest.”
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957]
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]
"He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
"We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985]
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
~~ Dante [1265-1321]
“As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”
~~ Seneca the Younger [4? B.C.E. - 65 A.D.] (recently quoted by J.K. Rowling)
"Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results."
~~ Narcotics Anonymous 1981 manual
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?"
~~ George Orwell [1903-50], in "Nineteen Eighty-Four" [1949 novel]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
News Factoids for First Quarter 2015
Oxford University Press sent a letter to all of their authors in January 2015 telling them not to have pigs or pork products in their manuscripts so as to not to offend 'other cultures'. Stupid, scared people.
The Koch Brothers's invitation-only 'primary' conference in Palm Springs in January 2015 featured Marc Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz & straw poll winner Scott Walker; their announced (nefarious) plan is to spend $889M in the 2016 election cycle.
"Deep injection of wastewater [from fracking] is the primary cause of the dramatic rise in detected earthquakes and the corresponding increase in seismic hazard in the central U.S." — per February news release from the U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey that corroborates a recent study published in Science Magazine
"Between 2007 and 2012, 200 of America’s most politically active corporations spent a combined $5.8 billion on federal lobbying and campaign contributions. A year-long analysis by the Sunlight Foundation [est. 2006] suggests, however, that what they gave pales compared to what those same corporations got: $4.4 trillion in federal business and support."
"Target said [in mid-March] that it would increase the pay of its workers to at least $9 an hour, joining retailers like Wal-Mart and T.J.X. in raising its hourly wage in a more competitive job market and facing pressure from labor groups." — per New York Times
"“[T]he fast-food movement’s next big wave of protests . . . is now scheduled for April 15 . . . the organizers hope [to] turn the fast-food workers’ fight for a $15 hourly wage into a broad national movement of all low-wage workers that combines the spirit of Depression-era labor organizing with the uplifting power of Dr. King’s civil rights campaign." — per New York Times
The Totten Glacier in Antarctica is melting extremely fast, partly due to warm sea water sinking into recently-discovered sea-floor trenches directly beneath it; the completed melt will raise the world's oceans by eleven feet.
I have discovered a nice food treat. A little package of sliced Baby Bella mushrooms costs $2.29 in the produce section where I shop and scarfing half the 'shrooms works nicely as a meal. The taste is nutty, no dressing required, and best of all: no dishes!
Copyright 2015 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
The Koch Brothers's invitation-only 'primary' conference in Palm Springs in January 2015 featured Marc Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz & straw poll winner Scott Walker; their announced (nefarious) plan is to spend $889M in the 2016 election cycle.
"Deep injection of wastewater [from fracking] is the primary cause of the dramatic rise in detected earthquakes and the corresponding increase in seismic hazard in the central U.S." — per February news release from the U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey that corroborates a recent study published in Science Magazine
"Between 2007 and 2012, 200 of America’s most politically active corporations spent a combined $5.8 billion on federal lobbying and campaign contributions. A year-long analysis by the Sunlight Foundation [est. 2006] suggests, however, that what they gave pales compared to what those same corporations got: $4.4 trillion in federal business and support."
"Target said [in mid-March] that it would increase the pay of its workers to at least $9 an hour, joining retailers like Wal-Mart and T.J.X. in raising its hourly wage in a more competitive job market and facing pressure from labor groups." — per New York Times
"“[T]he fast-food movement’s next big wave of protests . . . is now scheduled for April 15 . . . the organizers hope [to] turn the fast-food workers’ fight for a $15 hourly wage into a broad national movement of all low-wage workers that combines the spirit of Depression-era labor organizing with the uplifting power of Dr. King’s civil rights campaign." — per New York Times
The Totten Glacier in Antarctica is melting extremely fast, partly due to warm sea water sinking into recently-discovered sea-floor trenches directly beneath it; the completed melt will raise the world's oceans by eleven feet.
I have discovered a nice food treat. A little package of sliced Baby Bella mushrooms costs $2.29 in the produce section where I shop and scarfing half the 'shrooms works nicely as a meal. The taste is nutty, no dressing required, and best of all: no dishes!
Sunday, March 29, 2015
March 2015 Quotations (60)
"The principle on which this country was founded and by which it has always been governed is that Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart; Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry."
~~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt [1882-1945]
"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."
~~ marketing expert E. Joseph Cossman [1918-2002]
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damn fool about it."
~~ W.C. Fields [1880-1946]
"A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
"I wish life was not so short . . . languages take such a time, and so do all the things [that] one wants to know about."
~~ J.R.R. Tolkien [1892-1973]
"Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of the vocabulary and syntax to mislead their weak minds."
~~ Dorothy L. Sayers [1893-1957]
"I always invented to obtain money to go on inventing."
~~ Thomas Alva Edison [1847-1931]
"Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve."
~~ J.K. Rowling
"I am by nature a dealer in words, and words are the most powerful drug known to humanity."
~~ Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]
"The real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong."
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957]
"Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know [that] she is better than every other country."
~~ Sinclair Lewis [1885-1951]
"Heroes are not great statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better."
~~ Louis 'Studs' Terkel [1912-2008] Page
"To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]
"Love is the strange bewilderment which overtakes one person on account of another person."
~~ James Thurber [1894-1961] & E.B. White [1899-1985]
"The best of our fiction is by novelists who allow that it is as good as they can give, and the worst by novelists who maintain that they could do much better if only the public would let them."
~~ J.M. Barrie [1860-1937]
"Chance is the playground of fools."
~~ Capt. Francis Newcombe [1878-1956]
"Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves."
~~ Nathaniel Branden [1930-2014]
"Only a great mind that is overthrown yields tragedy."
~~ Jacques Barzun [1907-2012]
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
~~ William Shakespeare [1564-1616]
"Art is made to disturb. Science reassures. There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain."
~~ Georges Braque [1882-1963]
"Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.”
~~ Benjamin Disraeli [1804-81], in the novel 'Coningsby' [1844]
"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserve and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists . . . it is real . . . it is possible . . . it’s yours."
~~ Ayn Rand [1905-82], in "Atlas Shrugged" [1957 novel]
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
~~ Samuel Beckett [1906-89], in 'Worstward Ho' [1984]
"There’s only one real sin, and that is to persuade oneself that the second-best is anything but the second-best."
~~ Doris Lessing [1919-2013], in 'The Golden Notebook' [1962]
"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget."
~~ Arundhati Roy, in 'The Cost of Living' [1999]
"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."
~~ Edgar Allan Poe [1809-49], in 'Eleonora' (1841)
"Human history is in essence a history of ideas."
~~ H.G. Wells [1866-1946] in 'The Outline of History' [1920]
"It has been said, 'The West has to be seen to be believed'. But it has to be believed to be seen.”
~~ Kiowa poet N. Scott Momaday
"Freedom of speech and opinion is non-negotiable."
~~ Anonymous cyber collective video, 2015
"The reason that Republicans are not seen as leaders in America is that it is tough to lead when you are moving backwards."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"SHUT UP – in the name of free speech!"
~~ cartoonist Jen Sorensen
"If a businessman makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences. If a bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences."
~~ Ayn Rand [1905-82]
"The only thing standing between me and total happiness is reality."
~~ Brandon B.
"I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it ceased to be one."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."
~~ Cardinal Richelieu [1585-1642]
"In this world, hate has never yet dispelled hate. Only love can dispel hate."
~~ Gautama Buddha [5th Century BCE]
"You see, in our century we've learned not to fear words."
~~ character Lt. Uhura, on 'Star Trek' TV series
"There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts."
~~ Mahatma Gandhi [1869-1948]
"My worst nightmare is being stuck somewhere with nothing to read."
~~ Barbara Kingsolver
"The goal of storytelling should be to make stories as ubiquitous as music."
~~ Malcolm Gladwell
"I still wake up so jazzed that I don’t have to go to school."
~~ Sarah Silverman
"If the problem is digital, the solution is analog!!"
~~ Anonymous
"You will note that the Bill of Rights is now apparently a Bill of Concerns."
~~ Charles Pierce, in Esquire Magazine Feb 2014
"The only thing harder than speaking truth to power is speaking truth to stupid."
~~ TV producer Aaron Sorkin
“Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don't ever apologize for anything."
~~ Harry S. Truman [1884-1972]
"My folks came to the U.S. as immigrants, aliens, and became citizens. I was born in Boston, a citizen, went to Hollywood, and became an alien."
~~ Leonard Nimoy [1931-2015]
"You want to lose all of your customers? Lie to one of them."
~~ Bartolo Aglialoro [1909-89]
"Sean Hannity is probably the most loathsome dude at Fox News. Everything is presented in as devious a manner as it could possibly be presented."
~~ Jon Stewart
"Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master."
~~ Ancient Greek orator Demosthenes [384–322 B.C.E.]
"The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
"The thing about [independent films] is that you know everybody's there for the right reasons."
~~ Oscar-winning actor J.K. Simmons
"Movies are like people; you either trust them or you don't."
~~ director Bennett Miller
"If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]
"Often in life, the most important question [that] we can ask ourselves is: Do we really have the problem [that] we think we have?"
~~ Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sheri Fink
"We will never have a perfect world, but it's not romantic or naïve to work toward a better one."
~~ Steven Pinker
"Strategy is often in the things [that] you decide not to do."
~~ Anonymous
"You gotta be a beast - that's the only way [that] they'll respect you."
~~ rocker Nicki Minaj
"A mistake repeated more than once is a decision."
~~ Paulo Coelho
"I figure if a girl wants to be a legend, she should just go ahead and be one."
~~ Martha 'Calamity Jane' Cannary [1852-1903]
"Twenty years from now if there is some obscure trivial pursuit question, I am confident [that] I will be the answer."
~~ Sen. Ted Cruz
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt [1882-1945]
"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."
~~ marketing expert E. Joseph Cossman [1918-2002]
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damn fool about it."
~~ W.C. Fields [1880-1946]
"A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
"I wish life was not so short . . . languages take such a time, and so do all the things [that] one wants to know about."
~~ J.R.R. Tolkien [1892-1973]
"Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of the vocabulary and syntax to mislead their weak minds."
~~ Dorothy L. Sayers [1893-1957]
"I always invented to obtain money to go on inventing."
~~ Thomas Alva Edison [1847-1931]
"Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve."
~~ J.K. Rowling
"I am by nature a dealer in words, and words are the most powerful drug known to humanity."
~~ Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]
"The real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong."
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957]
"Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know [that] she is better than every other country."
~~ Sinclair Lewis [1885-1951]
"Heroes are not great statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better."
~~ Louis 'Studs' Terkel [1912-2008] Page
"To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]
"Love is the strange bewilderment which overtakes one person on account of another person."
~~ James Thurber [1894-1961] & E.B. White [1899-1985]
"The best of our fiction is by novelists who allow that it is as good as they can give, and the worst by novelists who maintain that they could do much better if only the public would let them."
~~ J.M. Barrie [1860-1937]
"Chance is the playground of fools."
~~ Capt. Francis Newcombe [1878-1956]
"Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves."
~~ Nathaniel Branden [1930-2014]
"Only a great mind that is overthrown yields tragedy."
~~ Jacques Barzun [1907-2012]
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
~~ William Shakespeare [1564-1616]
"Art is made to disturb. Science reassures. There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain."
~~ Georges Braque [1882-1963]
"Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.”
~~ Benjamin Disraeli [1804-81], in the novel 'Coningsby' [1844]
"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserve and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists . . . it is real . . . it is possible . . . it’s yours."
~~ Ayn Rand [1905-82], in "Atlas Shrugged" [1957 novel]
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
~~ Samuel Beckett [1906-89], in 'Worstward Ho' [1984]
"There’s only one real sin, and that is to persuade oneself that the second-best is anything but the second-best."
~~ Doris Lessing [1919-2013], in 'The Golden Notebook' [1962]
"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget."
~~ Arundhati Roy, in 'The Cost of Living' [1999]
"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."
~~ Edgar Allan Poe [1809-49], in 'Eleonora' (1841)
"Human history is in essence a history of ideas."
~~ H.G. Wells [1866-1946] in 'The Outline of History' [1920]
"It has been said, 'The West has to be seen to be believed'. But it has to be believed to be seen.”
~~ Kiowa poet N. Scott Momaday
"Freedom of speech and opinion is non-negotiable."
~~ Anonymous cyber collective video, 2015
"The reason that Republicans are not seen as leaders in America is that it is tough to lead when you are moving backwards."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"SHUT UP – in the name of free speech!"
~~ cartoonist Jen Sorensen
"If a businessman makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences. If a bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences."
~~ Ayn Rand [1905-82]
"The only thing standing between me and total happiness is reality."
~~ Brandon B.
"I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it ceased to be one."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."
~~ Cardinal Richelieu [1585-1642]
"In this world, hate has never yet dispelled hate. Only love can dispel hate."
~~ Gautama Buddha [5th Century BCE]
"You see, in our century we've learned not to fear words."
~~ character Lt. Uhura, on 'Star Trek' TV series
"There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts."
~~ Mahatma Gandhi [1869-1948]
"My worst nightmare is being stuck somewhere with nothing to read."
~~ Barbara Kingsolver
"The goal of storytelling should be to make stories as ubiquitous as music."
~~ Malcolm Gladwell
"I still wake up so jazzed that I don’t have to go to school."
~~ Sarah Silverman
"If the problem is digital, the solution is analog!!"
~~ Anonymous
"You will note that the Bill of Rights is now apparently a Bill of Concerns."
~~ Charles Pierce, in Esquire Magazine Feb 2014
"The only thing harder than speaking truth to power is speaking truth to stupid."
~~ TV producer Aaron Sorkin
“Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don't ever apologize for anything."
~~ Harry S. Truman [1884-1972]
"My folks came to the U.S. as immigrants, aliens, and became citizens. I was born in Boston, a citizen, went to Hollywood, and became an alien."
~~ Leonard Nimoy [1931-2015]
"You want to lose all of your customers? Lie to one of them."
~~ Bartolo Aglialoro [1909-89]
"Sean Hannity is probably the most loathsome dude at Fox News. Everything is presented in as devious a manner as it could possibly be presented."
~~ Jon Stewart
"Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master."
~~ Ancient Greek orator Demosthenes [384–322 B.C.E.]
"The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
"The thing about [independent films] is that you know everybody's there for the right reasons."
~~ Oscar-winning actor J.K. Simmons
"Movies are like people; you either trust them or you don't."
~~ director Bennett Miller
"If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]
"Often in life, the most important question [that] we can ask ourselves is: Do we really have the problem [that] we think we have?"
~~ Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sheri Fink
"We will never have a perfect world, but it's not romantic or naïve to work toward a better one."
~~ Steven Pinker
"Strategy is often in the things [that] you decide not to do."
~~ Anonymous
"You gotta be a beast - that's the only way [that] they'll respect you."
~~ rocker Nicki Minaj
"A mistake repeated more than once is a decision."
~~ Paulo Coelho
"I figure if a girl wants to be a legend, she should just go ahead and be one."
~~ Martha 'Calamity Jane' Cannary [1852-1903]
"Twenty years from now if there is some obscure trivial pursuit question, I am confident [that] I will be the answer."
~~ Sen. Ted Cruz
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Working Minds Essay #107: The New Civil War Is About Justice
{I got into a back-and-forth in the Opinion/Letters Dept. of the weekly local newspaper that took from October 2014 to March 2015 to be resolved. My final essay of 828 words had to be cut down to 512; this is a variation of the longer version.}
The open question was: 'What makes the United States the best country in the world?'.
The French Revolution [1789-1799] took on the slogan "Liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, brotherhood)" but that does not satisfy the open question. Americans generally agree with the French motto, but this was not what drove the signers of the Declaration of Independence to "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor".
I say that what the America's Founding Fathers were about was the achievement of Justice for the residents of the American Colonies.
'No taxation without representation' was at the forefront. And there was no way to attain representation under the authoritarian King George III. (Such was impossible in the practical sense as well: imagine trying to deal with votes in Britain's Parliament from across the Atlantic Ocean, a voyage that then took more than a month each way.)
The United States was built on the notion of the existence of the Individual, for whom the local and national governing bodies should provide a just environment. And that also meant justice for all, although it took a long while for such benefits to include slaves, females, and minorities – even in theory. A large part of the tension and acrimony and violence today is because theoretical justice for black and brown and red and yellow people, women, LGBT people, non-Christians, the elderly, the young, and the poor are being rolled back. The fascist Koch Brothers, their A.L.E.C. program, their Koch-funded T.E.A. Party radicals, white supremacists, and other anti-justice folk really intend to cancel the rights gained by the oppressed in hard-fought battles over the last 200 years.
There is no justice in working a full-time job of any kind and being unable to feed one's family. Thus the outcry by the working poor and their sympathizers. (None of whom have the dollars that were decreed to be free speech by the fascist Supreme Court all of five years ago this January.)
There is no justice in my personal vote having to battle with the multiple millions of dollars available to each member of the Oligarchy, the One Percent.
There is no justice in the Republican Party's attempt to bankrupt the U.S. Postal Service and the member-funded Social Security program, and to destroy life-saving Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare.
The citizens of America are willing to pay for equal opportunity – in health care, in education, for insurance of all kinds, for access to wilderness and recreation, and inside the criminal system – while the Oligarchy spends a tiny percentage of their largely untaxed wealth to prevent equality of opportunity. The fascist Oligarchy purchased both houses of Congress in November 2014, while the working poor cannot come close.
As I say, the concept of Justice was central to the Founding Fathers, and the great extent to which that abstract Value has been removed from the public conversation is why the United States is faltering in its role as Leader of The Free World. (Rather tough to lead when you are moving backwards, eh?)
Black citizens of Ferguson and the rest of Missouri, black and brown in Florida, any minority in Jim Crow Kansas, and short brown people in Apartheid Arizona continue to experience the brunt of the anti-Justice policies of the largely white and largely male and largely pseudo-Christian majority.
The ideal of Justice is why many of our ancestors came to America and why many in other lands are still hoping to get here somehow.
But the reality is that Justice is being taken away while the ignorant watch dance shows and soap operas, the violent wear hoods in the night, the mis-informed suck up more propaganda from right-wing Faux News pundits, and the weak give up and stay home.
The Oligarchs want no taxation, period – at least not for them. The citizens of America, however, want to fix our broken infrastructure, to clean up the polluted environments that we live in, to educate our children, to restore justice to the criminal justice system, to boost the economy by creating jobs, to enable health and well-being for all, and to bring back the once-thriving Middle Class.
The extant Civil War in America is being fought over the issue of Justice. Which side are you on?
Copyright 2015 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
The open question was: 'What makes the United States the best country in the world?'.
The French Revolution [1789-1799] took on the slogan "Liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, brotherhood)" but that does not satisfy the open question. Americans generally agree with the French motto, but this was not what drove the signers of the Declaration of Independence to "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor".
I say that what the America's Founding Fathers were about was the achievement of Justice for the residents of the American Colonies.
'No taxation without representation' was at the forefront. And there was no way to attain representation under the authoritarian King George III. (Such was impossible in the practical sense as well: imagine trying to deal with votes in Britain's Parliament from across the Atlantic Ocean, a voyage that then took more than a month each way.)
The United States was built on the notion of the existence of the Individual, for whom the local and national governing bodies should provide a just environment. And that also meant justice for all, although it took a long while for such benefits to include slaves, females, and minorities – even in theory. A large part of the tension and acrimony and violence today is because theoretical justice for black and brown and red and yellow people, women, LGBT people, non-Christians, the elderly, the young, and the poor are being rolled back. The fascist Koch Brothers, their A.L.E.C. program, their Koch-funded T.E.A. Party radicals, white supremacists, and other anti-justice folk really intend to cancel the rights gained by the oppressed in hard-fought battles over the last 200 years.
There is no justice in working a full-time job of any kind and being unable to feed one's family. Thus the outcry by the working poor and their sympathizers. (None of whom have the dollars that were decreed to be free speech by the fascist Supreme Court all of five years ago this January.)
There is no justice in my personal vote having to battle with the multiple millions of dollars available to each member of the Oligarchy, the One Percent.
There is no justice in the Republican Party's attempt to bankrupt the U.S. Postal Service and the member-funded Social Security program, and to destroy life-saving Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare.
The citizens of America are willing to pay for equal opportunity – in health care, in education, for insurance of all kinds, for access to wilderness and recreation, and inside the criminal system – while the Oligarchy spends a tiny percentage of their largely untaxed wealth to prevent equality of opportunity. The fascist Oligarchy purchased both houses of Congress in November 2014, while the working poor cannot come close.
As I say, the concept of Justice was central to the Founding Fathers, and the great extent to which that abstract Value has been removed from the public conversation is why the United States is faltering in its role as Leader of The Free World. (Rather tough to lead when you are moving backwards, eh?)
Black citizens of Ferguson and the rest of Missouri, black and brown in Florida, any minority in Jim Crow Kansas, and short brown people in Apartheid Arizona continue to experience the brunt of the anti-Justice policies of the largely white and largely male and largely pseudo-Christian majority.
The ideal of Justice is why many of our ancestors came to America and why many in other lands are still hoping to get here somehow.
But the reality is that Justice is being taken away while the ignorant watch dance shows and soap operas, the violent wear hoods in the night, the mis-informed suck up more propaganda from right-wing Faux News pundits, and the weak give up and stay home.
The Oligarchs want no taxation, period – at least not for them. The citizens of America, however, want to fix our broken infrastructure, to clean up the polluted environments that we live in, to educate our children, to restore justice to the criminal justice system, to boost the economy by creating jobs, to enable health and well-being for all, and to bring back the once-thriving Middle Class.
The extant Civil War in America is being fought over the issue of Justice. Which side are you on?
Friday, January 30, 2015
Well, That Explains it
After living here in Valencia County for nine years, somebody finally explained to me the secret behind much of the silly happenings here.
Both Belen and Los Lunas were built atop a giant lode of Belenium ore. The effect varies based on where you are and how deep the Belenium vein is at that location.
It’s sorta like kryptonite, the green stuff from Superman’s home planet that messes with him in various ways
Attempts have been made here to mine Belenium, but nobody wants the stuff.
See, Belenium explains why people in Valencia County have such difficulty parking between the lines.
It explains why Valencia County has no hospital, even after an offer for 60 acres of free land.
It explains why drivers in Valencia County think that they are supposed to add 50 percent to the posted speed limit and they are still legal.
It explains why so many voters choose fascism and vote for Republican candidates. Which is the same thing as not voting at all.
And the fact that the biggest deposit of Belenium ore is directly underneath Belen City Hall explains lots and lots.Copyright 2015 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved Printed in the Valencia County News Bulletin on 29 January 2015
Both Belen and Los Lunas were built atop a giant lode of Belenium ore. The effect varies based on where you are and how deep the Belenium vein is at that location.
It’s sorta like kryptonite, the green stuff from Superman’s home planet that messes with him in various ways
Attempts have been made here to mine Belenium, but nobody wants the stuff.
See, Belenium explains why people in Valencia County have such difficulty parking between the lines.
It explains why Valencia County has no hospital, even after an offer for 60 acres of free land.
It explains why drivers in Valencia County think that they are supposed to add 50 percent to the posted speed limit and they are still legal.
It explains why so many voters choose fascism and vote for Republican candidates. Which is the same thing as not voting at all.
And the fact that the biggest deposit of Belenium ore is directly underneath Belen City Hall explains lots and lots.
Thursday, January 01, 2015
Year-End Website Statistics for 2014
Hey, once again got'er done on the First!
The basic numbers from the year of 2014 are that I coded 65 new pages and 2,172 new covers (linked to Amazon); I now have 500+ connections on LinkedIn, 111 friends on two new Facebook accounts, and 22 new postings here on my blog {all-time total now 307}.
Anyone who wants to see the detail can go to http://www.genordell.com/webstats.htm.
The basic numbers from the year of 2014 are that I coded 65 new pages and 2,172 new covers (linked to Amazon); I now have 500+ connections on LinkedIn, 111 friends on two new Facebook accounts, and 22 new postings here on my blog {all-time total now 307}.
Anyone who wants to see the detail can go to http://www.genordell.com/webstats.htm.
Saturday, December 27, 2014
News Factoids for Fourth Quarter 2014
CLIMATE
“Nearly 35,000 walruses were discovered this month on a northwest Alaskan shore as a result of being unable to find sea ice to rest upon, a problem aggravated by climate change, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in September.” -- per TIME Magazine
During October, anger spread over news that the country’s largest methane leak is located right here in New Mexico, near the Four Corners region, and is three times larger than originally reported. The methane leak is attributed to natural gas production in the area and for many New Mexicans, this dangerous human health and environmental hazard represents a wake-up call for new energy policies in our state.
The new term is 'accelerated climate change' since recent actual increases in soil and air and water temperatures around the globe are exceeding the existing predictive computer models: the reality of global warming surpasses what scientists have projected.
ENERGY
The new owners of utility company P.N.M. / Public Service Company of New Mexico are aligned with the fascist Koch Brothers, and have formally proposed a 12 percent rate increase and a $10 per month solar fee (based on Koch-funded A.L.E.C. legislative models) even though P.N.M. paid their stockholders $450 million over the past several years!
Clean coal? U.S. power plants produce 2.2 billion tons of CO2 every year, which is 40 percent of the nation's total CO2 emissions.
A PAIR OF POLLUTION ITEMS
A new study released in Hawai'i estimates that nearly 270,000 tons of plastic is floating in the world's oceans. (For comparison, New York City produces and buries 12,000 tons of waste each and every day.)
In late September, Gov. Jerry Brown of California signed SB270 into law, banning use of plastic grocery bags statewide, the first state to do so.
THIS AND THAT
Difficulties are likely to continue in the fight against the ebola virus inside the United States because the Republican Congress still refuses (since July 2013) to confirm President Obama's nominee for Surgeon General. -- per Daily KOS
Almost Haiku For November 5th
My thoughts on the election:
It could be worse.
And it will be.
Quite soon.
Watch Elizabeth Warrens's 'Enough Is Enough!' Senate speech of Friday evening 12 December 2014 [9:43] at YouTube
Copyright 2014 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
“Nearly 35,000 walruses were discovered this month on a northwest Alaskan shore as a result of being unable to find sea ice to rest upon, a problem aggravated by climate change, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in September.” -- per TIME Magazine
During October, anger spread over news that the country’s largest methane leak is located right here in New Mexico, near the Four Corners region, and is three times larger than originally reported. The methane leak is attributed to natural gas production in the area and for many New Mexicans, this dangerous human health and environmental hazard represents a wake-up call for new energy policies in our state.
The new term is 'accelerated climate change' since recent actual increases in soil and air and water temperatures around the globe are exceeding the existing predictive computer models: the reality of global warming surpasses what scientists have projected.
ENERGY
The new owners of utility company P.N.M. / Public Service Company of New Mexico are aligned with the fascist Koch Brothers, and have formally proposed a 12 percent rate increase and a $10 per month solar fee (based on Koch-funded A.L.E.C. legislative models) even though P.N.M. paid their stockholders $450 million over the past several years!
Clean coal? U.S. power plants produce 2.2 billion tons of CO2 every year, which is 40 percent of the nation's total CO2 emissions.
A PAIR OF POLLUTION ITEMS
A new study released in Hawai'i estimates that nearly 270,000 tons of plastic is floating in the world's oceans. (For comparison, New York City produces and buries 12,000 tons of waste each and every day.)
In late September, Gov. Jerry Brown of California signed SB270 into law, banning use of plastic grocery bags statewide, the first state to do so.
THIS AND THAT
Difficulties are likely to continue in the fight against the ebola virus inside the United States because the Republican Congress still refuses (since July 2013) to confirm President Obama's nominee for Surgeon General. -- per Daily KOS
Almost Haiku For November 5th
My thoughts on the election:
It could be worse.
And it will be.
Quite soon.
Watch Elizabeth Warrens's 'Enough Is Enough!' Senate speech of Friday evening 12 December 2014 [9:43] at YouTube
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Recipe of The Month: Chocolate Nuevo Mexicano
This showed up today in the little pamphlet that came with the bill from electric utility P.N.M., from their employee-written book "Cocinas de New Mexico" [1979].
CHOCOLATE NUEVO MEXICANO
Cooking time 15 minutes; makes 12 servings.
INGREDIMENTS
½ cup sugar
2 Tbsp flour
¼ cup cocoa
1½ cups water
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
¾ tsp cloves
6 cups milk
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
INSTRUCTIONS {slightly modified by me}
1) Combine sugar, flour, cocoa, water, and spices in a large saucepan.
2) Cook mixture at medium-high for approximately four minutes, stirring occasionally.
3) Add milk to mixture and scald – but do not boil.
4) Remove saucepan from heat and stir in the vanilla.
5) Pour into mugs with handles.
Chocolate Nuevo Mexicano is traditionally served with biscochitos, the official cookie of the State of New Mexico.Copyright 2014 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
CHOCOLATE NUEVO MEXICANO
Cooking time 15 minutes; makes 12 servings.
INGREDIMENTS
½ cup sugar
2 Tbsp flour
¼ cup cocoa
1½ cups water
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
¾ tsp cloves
6 cups milk
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
INSTRUCTIONS {slightly modified by me}
1) Combine sugar, flour, cocoa, water, and spices in a large saucepan.
2) Cook mixture at medium-high for approximately four minutes, stirring occasionally.
3) Add milk to mixture and scald – but do not boil.
4) Remove saucepan from heat and stir in the vanilla.
5) Pour into mugs with handles.
Chocolate Nuevo Mexicano is traditionally served with biscochitos, the official cookie of the State of New Mexico.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Constant Toxic Spills in Alberta, Canada
Since C.B.C. up in Canada refuses to report any toxic pipeline spills in the petro-state of Alberta, the Native American-owned West Coast Native News has been keeping track:
There were 27 spillage incidents in July 2014, 39 incidents in August, 26 incidents in September, and 41 incidents in October; the October data specifies volumes of from 5,000 litres to 200,000 litres for each spill. And each and every incident report document states that 'no effects to wildlife or waterways occurred'.
LOL, anybody?
Copyright 2014 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
There were 27 spillage incidents in July 2014, 39 incidents in August, 26 incidents in September, and 41 incidents in October; the October data specifies volumes of from 5,000 litres to 200,000 litres for each spill. And each and every incident report document states that 'no effects to wildlife or waterways occurred'.
LOL, anybody?
Sunday, November 16, 2014
November 2014 Quotations (60)
"This election wasn't just a failure for Democrats. It was a failure for democracy."
~~ Richard Eskow, November 2014
"So don't get cynical. Cynicism didn't put a man on the moon. Cynicism has never won a war, or cured a disease, or built a business, or fed a young mind. Cynicism is a choice. And hope will always be a better choice."
~~ Barack Obama, November 2014
“When will the poor negro have his rights? Not, I believe, until he has a musket in one hand and a ballot in the other.”
~~ Lewis Tappan [1788–1873]
“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”
~~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [1922-2007]
“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”
~~ Thomas Alva Edison [1847-1931]
“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.”
~~ Mary {Wollstonecraft Godwin} Shelley [1797-1851]
“I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention . . . arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.”
~~ Agatha Christie [1890-1976], "An Autobiography" (1977)
“The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.”
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
“Scientists may have sophisticated laboratories, But never forget 'eureka' was inspired in a bathtub.”
~~ Toba Beta
“The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing.”
~~ inventor Douglas Engelbart [1925-2013]
"I always have a quotation for everything – it saves original thinking."
~~ Dorothy L. Sayers [1893-1957]
“The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain.”
~~ Nikola Tesla [1856-1943], "My Inventions" (1919)
“We're all innately creative; I'm not bringing anything magical to it. Ninety percent of inventing is putting in the hours and just trying. You don't need to make a big leap – you need to take a thousand small steps.”
~~ James Jorash
“John Locke invented common sense, and only Englishmen have had it ever since!”
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970]
“Invention is by its very nature disruptive. If you want to be understood at all times, then don't do anything new.”
~~ Jeff Bezos, creator of Amazon, Inc.
"More and more we are into communications – and less and less into communication."
~~ Louis 'Studs' Terkel [1912-2008] Page
"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might has well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default."
~~ J.K. Rowling
"It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]
"Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed &ndash there's so little competition."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
"I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985]
"Since Republicans are oblivious to the difference between the freedom of actual democracy and America's current totalitarian fascist government, maybe I should write a book called 'Fascism For Dummkopfs'."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"Mistakes are part of the dues [that] one pays for a full life."
~~ Sophia Loren
"October is a peculiarly dangerous month to speculate in stock. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"[Film] editing feels almost like sculpting, or a form of continuing the writing process."
~~ Sydney Pollack [1934-2008]
“The only stupid thing about words is the spelling of them.”
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957]
"There has never been but one revolution. It is the revolution against pagan fatalism – the revolution for human freedom."
~~ Henry Grady Weaver [1889-1949], in "The Mainspring of Human Progress" (1947)
"Not all those who wander are lost."
~~ J.R.R. Tolkien [1892-1973]
"The tools [that] I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey."
~~ William Faulkner [1897-1962]
"Whatever poet, orator, or sage may say of it, old age is still old age."
~~ Sinclair Lewis [1885-1951]
“Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.”
~~ W.C. Fields [1880-1946]
“Writing is a dog’s life, but the only one worth living.”
~~ Gustave Flaubert [1821-80]
"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
~~ J.R.R. Tolkien [1892-1973]
"There is no love of life without despair of life."
~~ Albert Camus [1913-60]
"The past is the present, isn't it? It's the future, too. We all tried to lie out of that but life won't let us."
~~ Eugene O'Neill [1888-1953]
"It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth."
~~ John Locke [1632-1704]
"You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life."
~~ Jiddu Krishnamurti [1895-1986]
"God is dead. Let us not understand by this that he does not exist or even that he no longer exists. He is dead. He spoke to us and is silent. We no longer have anything but his cadaver. Perhaps he slipped out of the world, somewhere else like the soul of a dead man. Perhaps he was only a dream . . . God is dead."
~~ Jean-Paul Sartre [1905-80]
“If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today.”
~~ marketing expert E. Joseph Cossman [1918-2002]
”The only thing worse than a man [that] you can’t control is a man [that] you can.”
~~ Margo Kaufman
”We see things not as they are, but as we are.”
~~ H.M. Tomlinson [1873-1958]
”The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
~~ Chinese proverb
”Vision without action is daydream. Action without vision is nightmare.”
~~ Japanese proverb
”If you keep saying things are going to be bad, you have a chance of being a prophet.”
~~ Isaac Bashevis Singer [1902-91]
“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”
~~ football coach Jimmy Johnson
“The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders.”
~~ Foster’s Law
”Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.”
~~ Voltaire [1694-1778]
”Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”
~~ Rev. William Buell Sprague [1795-1876]
“Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.”
~~ Charles F. Kettering [1876-1958]
“There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or to accept the responsibility for changing them.”
~~ motivational speaker Dr. Denis Waitley
”A mind is like a parachute, it doesn’t work if it isn’t open.”
~~ musician Frank Zappa [1940-93]
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
”Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”
~~ Vince Lombardi
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
~~ salesman & speaker Zig Ziglar [1926-2012]
“The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs . . . one step at a time.”
~~ Joseph Samuel 'Joe' Girard
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
~~ Peter F. Drucker [1909-2005]
“What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
~~ Dwight D. Eisenhower [1890-1969]
"We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry."
~~ Dr. Maria Montessori [1870-1952]
"Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon."
~~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton [1815-1902]
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]
"Artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting [that] they give."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
“He travels the fastest who travels alone.”
~~ Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ Richard Eskow, November 2014
"So don't get cynical. Cynicism didn't put a man on the moon. Cynicism has never won a war, or cured a disease, or built a business, or fed a young mind. Cynicism is a choice. And hope will always be a better choice."
~~ Barack Obama, November 2014
“When will the poor negro have his rights? Not, I believe, until he has a musket in one hand and a ballot in the other.”
~~ Lewis Tappan [1788–1873]
“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”
~~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [1922-2007]
“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”
~~ Thomas Alva Edison [1847-1931]
“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.”
~~ Mary {Wollstonecraft Godwin} Shelley [1797-1851]
“I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention . . . arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.”
~~ Agatha Christie [1890-1976], "An Autobiography" (1977)
“The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.”
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
“Scientists may have sophisticated laboratories, But never forget 'eureka' was inspired in a bathtub.”
~~ Toba Beta
“The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing.”
~~ inventor Douglas Engelbart [1925-2013]
"I always have a quotation for everything – it saves original thinking."
~~ Dorothy L. Sayers [1893-1957]
“The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain.”
~~ Nikola Tesla [1856-1943], "My Inventions" (1919)
“We're all innately creative; I'm not bringing anything magical to it. Ninety percent of inventing is putting in the hours and just trying. You don't need to make a big leap – you need to take a thousand small steps.”
~~ James Jorash
“John Locke invented common sense, and only Englishmen have had it ever since!”
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970]
“Invention is by its very nature disruptive. If you want to be understood at all times, then don't do anything new.”
~~ Jeff Bezos, creator of Amazon, Inc.
"More and more we are into communications – and less and less into communication."
~~ Louis 'Studs' Terkel [1912-2008] Page
"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might has well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default."
~~ J.K. Rowling
"It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]
"Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed &ndash there's so little competition."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
"I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985]
"Since Republicans are oblivious to the difference between the freedom of actual democracy and America's current totalitarian fascist government, maybe I should write a book called 'Fascism For Dummkopfs'."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"Mistakes are part of the dues [that] one pays for a full life."
~~ Sophia Loren
"October is a peculiarly dangerous month to speculate in stock. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"[Film] editing feels almost like sculpting, or a form of continuing the writing process."
~~ Sydney Pollack [1934-2008]
“The only stupid thing about words is the spelling of them.”
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957]
"There has never been but one revolution. It is the revolution against pagan fatalism – the revolution for human freedom."
~~ Henry Grady Weaver [1889-1949], in "The Mainspring of Human Progress" (1947)
"Not all those who wander are lost."
~~ J.R.R. Tolkien [1892-1973]
"The tools [that] I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey."
~~ William Faulkner [1897-1962]
"Whatever poet, orator, or sage may say of it, old age is still old age."
~~ Sinclair Lewis [1885-1951]
“Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.”
~~ W.C. Fields [1880-1946]
“Writing is a dog’s life, but the only one worth living.”
~~ Gustave Flaubert [1821-80]
"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
~~ J.R.R. Tolkien [1892-1973]
"There is no love of life without despair of life."
~~ Albert Camus [1913-60]
"The past is the present, isn't it? It's the future, too. We all tried to lie out of that but life won't let us."
~~ Eugene O'Neill [1888-1953]
"It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth."
~~ John Locke [1632-1704]
"You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life."
~~ Jiddu Krishnamurti [1895-1986]
"God is dead. Let us not understand by this that he does not exist or even that he no longer exists. He is dead. He spoke to us and is silent. We no longer have anything but his cadaver. Perhaps he slipped out of the world, somewhere else like the soul of a dead man. Perhaps he was only a dream . . . God is dead."
~~ Jean-Paul Sartre [1905-80]
“If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today.”
~~ marketing expert E. Joseph Cossman [1918-2002]
”The only thing worse than a man [that] you can’t control is a man [that] you can.”
~~ Margo Kaufman
”We see things not as they are, but as we are.”
~~ H.M. Tomlinson [1873-1958]
”The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
~~ Chinese proverb
”Vision without action is daydream. Action without vision is nightmare.”
~~ Japanese proverb
”If you keep saying things are going to be bad, you have a chance of being a prophet.”
~~ Isaac Bashevis Singer [1902-91]
“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”
~~ football coach Jimmy Johnson
“The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders.”
~~ Foster’s Law
”Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.”
~~ Voltaire [1694-1778]
”Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”
~~ Rev. William Buell Sprague [1795-1876]
“Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.”
~~ Charles F. Kettering [1876-1958]
“There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or to accept the responsibility for changing them.”
~~ motivational speaker Dr. Denis Waitley
”A mind is like a parachute, it doesn’t work if it isn’t open.”
~~ musician Frank Zappa [1940-93]
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
”Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”
~~ Vince Lombardi
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
~~ salesman & speaker Zig Ziglar [1926-2012]
“The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs . . . one step at a time.”
~~ Joseph Samuel 'Joe' Girard
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
~~ Peter F. Drucker [1909-2005]
“What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
~~ Dwight D. Eisenhower [1890-1969]
"We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry."
~~ Dr. Maria Montessori [1870-1952]
"Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon."
~~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton [1815-1902]
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]
"Artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting [that] they give."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
“He travels the fastest who travels alone.”
~~ Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
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