February 2014 Quotations (55)

“We all do better when we all do better.”
~~ Sen. Paul Wellstone [1944-2002]

"There are no fresh starts in life, just new opportunities to screw up."
~~ Steve Lopez

“The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.”
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970], in "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish" (1937)

"There is no god higher than truth."
~~ Mahatma Gandhi [1869-1948]

"Fire is the heart of the house."
~~ Frank Lloyd Wright [1867-1959]

"The mind of man is beneficent and noble only when it obeys truth."
~~ Nobel-laureate Hermann Hesse [1877-1962] in "The Glass Bead Game" (1943)

"What is the most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands."
~~ Alexis de Tocqueville [1806-59]

"No large institution values independent thought, and public schools actively despise and punish it; they demand and attempt to enforce and reward mindless obedience."
~~ Crispin Sartwell

"Not one in fifty really uses his eyes properly."
~~ Agatha Christie [1890-1976]

"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man."
~~ Sir Francis Bacon [1561-1626]

"If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys."
~~ oil baron Armand Hammer [1898-1990]

"Make sure that the things you do keep us alive."
~~ song lyric by Graham Nash

"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."
~~ Harry Emerson Fosdick [1878-1969] in the 1940s

"Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other large organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate."
~~ Dave Barry

"The tragedy of man is that of somebody who is starving and sitting at a richly laden table but does not reach out with his hand, because he cannot see what is right in front of him. For the real world has inexhaustible splendour, the real life is full of meaning and abundance, where we grasp it, it is full of miracles and glory."
~~ German philosopher Nicolai Hartmann [1882-1950]

"The business of the poet and novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things."
~~ English author Thomas Hardy [1840-1928]

"We love justice greatly, and just men but little."
~~ Philibert Joseph Roux [1780-1854]

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?"
~~ Epicurus (341?-270? B.C.E.)

“Those believing [that] they have not voted are mistaken, for their indifference affects all our futures.”
~~ M.A. Denck

"What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give."
~~ mystery author P.D. James

"A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]

"If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it, they are wrong."
~~ Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-94]

"Money, and not morality, is the principle of commercial nations."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]

"Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness."
~~ Zhuangzi, also known as Zhuang Zhou or Chuang-tzu [350 B.C.E.]

"The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest."
~~ Henry David Thoreau [1817-62]

"The more I study physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer."
~~ Stephen W. Hawking

"And we all die and the stars will go out one after another . . ."
~~ beat poet Wm. S. Burroughs [1914-97]

"TANTUM RELIGIO POTUIT SUADERE MALORUM: Too much religion is apt to encourage evil."
~~ Roman poet Titus Lucretius Carus [99-55 B.C.E.]

"The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are, and not who people think you are."
~~ actress Goldie Hawn

"Getting money from any government agency is like getting cheese from a cow – a long and involved process."
~~ old saying

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."
~~ Nelson Mandela [1918-2013]

"If anyone destroys this country it will be the conservatives."
~~ philosopher Ayn Rand [1905-82]

"Nobody gets everything in this life. You decide your priorities and you make your choices. I'd decided long ago that any cake I had would be eaten."
~~ Donald E. Westlake [1933-2008] in "Two Much"

“You can keep, the things of bronze and stone and give me one man to remember me just once a year.”
~~ Damon Runyon [1884-1946]

"We have art so that we may not perish by the truth."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]

"Organized religion is like organized crime: it preys on people's weaknesses, generates huge profits for its operators, and is almost impossible to eradicate."
~~ Anonymous

“Flatterers are the worst type of enemy.”
~~ Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus [56?-117? C.E.]

"Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others."
~~ Greek philosopher Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.]

"People say [that] nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day."
~~ Winnie the Pooh, as written by A.A. Milne [1882-1956]

"Dream big dreams."
~~ Barack Obama

"The ultimate end of education is happiness or a good human life, a life enriched by the possession of every kind of good, by the enjoyment of every type of satisfaction."
~~ Mortimer J. Adler [1902-2001]

"Ever tried. Ever Failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
~~ Samuel Beckett [1906-89]

"Saying [that] atheism is a belief system is like saying [that] not going skiing is a hobby."
~~ comic actor Ricky Gervais

"Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted."
~~ British biographer Hesketh Pearson [1887-1964]

"Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor."
~~ Benjamin Franklin [1706-90]

"It's a very important thing to learn to talk to people [that] you disagree with."
~~ folksinger & activist Pete Seeger [1919-2014]

"If geniuses can sometimes make mistakes, cannot the rest of us on occasion be geniuses."
~~ Joseph Epstein

"If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much."
~~ Lewis Carroll [1832-98]

"Greed is a basic part of animal nature. Being against it is like being against breathing or eating."
~~ Ben Stein, professional idiot

"Perhaps the world progresses not by maturing, but by being in a permanent state of adolescence, of thrilled discovery."
~~ Julian Barnes

"It sometimes strikes me that men and women aren't quite the right people for each other."
~~ novelist Penelope Fitzgerald [1916-2000]

"Pretend to be in complete control and people will assume that you are."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011]

"Elegance is the only beauty that never fades."
~~ actress Audrey Hepburn [1929-93]

"Don't own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire."
~~ Wendell Berry

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}

Early Voting Fun

I drove down the hill yesterday to the new Temporary City Hall so that I could do Early Voting (which started February 12th) for the Municipal Election on March 4th. Filled out the form, put ink in the proper ovals, and put the Official Ballot into the Official Voting Machine. I was voter #27. So the precinct ladies thanked me and I got up to leave, and I asked if there was an 'I Voted' sticker to wear.

Well, the new City of Rio Communities is struggling to get funding, and the election process is a huge expense, so they decided not to purchase any such stickers, which cost entirely too much - $100 for a roll of a thousand.

So I said something like "That's a shame", and the Official Election Clerk reached across her desk and got a sheet of white address labels and wrote on one "I Voted!". She handed it to me and I stuck it on my t-shirt and thanked them and wore it proudly for the rest of my errands.
Copyright 2014 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

official City of Rio Communities website

I went to the council meeting tonight for my new City of Rio Communities, New Mexico where I was on the agenda to formally propose building a temporary city website (my labor free, reimbursement up to $300 for cost of domains & hosting for two years). The council tabled the matter, since there is no existing budget item for such. So one citizen got businessmen sitting near him to pledge the $300 to be paid to the city and earmarked for a website. He then spoke during Public Comments and told the council that the cost was covered and that the council should stop stalling progress. So I have begun coding the pages . . .