"When we talk about alternative energy, there’s solar, and there’s wind. And there’s Bernie Sanders."
~~ eco-journalist Bill McKibben
"Your movies are like babies who need love. You have to carry them and take care of them for at least one year after their birth. Being a director is like being a dad."
~~ filmmaker Gaspar Noé
"Democracy isn't a gift. It's a responsibility."
~~ Dalton Trumbo [1905-76]
"With Donald Trump as President, every day would be Bad Hair Day."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"Criticism is easier to take when you realize that the only people who aren't criticized are those who don't take risks."
~~ Donald J. Trump
"We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are."
~~ by J.K. Rowling, in "Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix"
"Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits."
~~ poet Carl Sandburg [1878-1967]
“God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer."
~~ Anne Sexton [1928-74]
Mad Hatter: "Have I gone mad?" Alice: "I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are."
~~ Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) [1832-98]
"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
~~ Isaac Asimov [1920-92]
"The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief . . . that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart."
~~ Walter Lippmann [1889-1974]
"Politicians should read science fiction, not Westerns and detective stories."
~~ Arthur C. Clarke [1917-2008]
"I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it."
~~ movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn [1879-1974]
"Morality is only evidence of low blood pressure."
~~ Jack London [1876-1916]
"The thing you have to remember about integrity is [that] it’s a mountain with no top."
~~ philosopher Werner Erhard
“For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas."
~~ Charles Dickens [1812-70], in "A Christmas Carol", 1843
“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."
~~ Khalil Gibran [1883-1931], in "The Prophet", 1923
“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations."
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900], in the 1893 stageplay "A Woman of No Importance"
"There is no mistaking a real book when one meets one. It is like falling in love."
~~ Christopher Morley [1890-1957]
"Of all lies, art is the least untrue."
~~ Gustave Flaubert [1821-80], in a letter dated 1846
"Ignorance is the necessary condition of life itself. If we knew everything, we could not endure existence for a single hour."
~~ Anatole France [1844-1924], in "The Garden of Epicurus", 1894
"The best decoration in the world is a roomful of books."
~~ decorator Billy Baldwin [1903-83]
"Dead men are heavier than broken hearts."
~~ Raymond Chandler; 1888-1959], in "The Big Sleep", 1939
"A book is a friend whose face is constantly changing."
~~ Andrew Lang [1844-1912] of Scotland, in 1881
"If you hear that someone is speaking ill of you, instead of trying to defend yourself, you should say: 'He obviously does not know me very well, since there are so many other faults he could have mentioned.'"
~~ Stoic philosopher Epictetus [55?–135? C.E.]
"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."
~~ Ray Bradbury [1920-2012], in 1994
"I think one remains the same person throughout, merely passing, as it were, in these lapses of time from one room to another, but all in the same house."
~~ J.M. Barrie [1860-1937]
"All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education."
~~ Ivanhoe character, as written by Sir Walter Scott [1771-1832]
"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
~~ Robert F. Kennedy [1925-68]
"The object of art is to give life shape."
~~ William Shakespeare [1564-1616]
"Rejection is inevitable. Let it hit you hard for a moment, feel the hurt, and then move on."
~~ NYC artist Molly Crabapple
"Fear has never been a good advisor, neither in our personal lives nor in our society."
~~ Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
"Santa Claus has the right idea: Visit people only once a year."
~~ entertainer Victor Borge [1909-2000]
"Do the best [that] you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."
~~ Dr. Maya Angelou [1928-2014]
"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
~~ George Orwell [1903-50]
"All of us, we're links in a chain. And if we do our job right, there will be many, many links to come."
~~ folksinger Pete Seeger [1919-2014]
"No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions: he had money as well."
~~ Margaret Thatcher [1925-2013]
"Saving is a fine thing. Especially when your parents have done it for you."
~~ Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]
"People talk loud and long, in order to say as little as possible. The really true and interesting things are the intrigues in the background, about which not a word is mentioned."
~~ Franz Kafka [1883-1924]
"We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten."
~~ Bill Gates
"Nothing cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you."
~~ Ohio football coach Wayne Woodrow 'Woody' Hayes [1913-87]
"For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship's captain complaining about the sea."
~~ British MP Enoch Powell [1912-98]
"To make men love their country, their country ought to be lovable."
~~ Edmund Burke [1729-97]
"Normal is just a cycle on the washing machine."
~~ entertainer Whoopi Goldberg
"Ambition is a dream with a V-8 engine."
~~ Elvis Presley [1935-77]
"If you can accept losing, you can't win."
~~ Vince Lombardi [1913-70]
"The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today."
~~ Seneca the Younger [4? B.C.E. - 65 A.D.]
"Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little."
~~ Warren G. Harding [1865-1923]
"Practice any art, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow."
~~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [1922-2007]
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
~~ Mahatma Gandhi [1869-1948]
"Good things happen slowly, bad things happen fast."
~~ memoirist Abigail Thomas
"Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level."
~~ Dr. Joyce Brothers [1927-2013], pioneer TV psychologist
"I don't know that there are any shortcuts to doing a good job."
~~ Sandra Day O'Connor, retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice
"That, of course, is the great secret of the successful fool – that he is no fool at all."
~~ Isaac Asimov [1920-92]
"Peasant lives matter."
~~ G.E. Nordell
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
November 2015 Quotations (58)
“If the Republican Party had anything of value to offer the American voter they would not have to lie and cheat and steal to win elections.”
~~ G.E. Nordell
"Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."
~~ Raold Dahl [1916-90]
"Never argue with an idiot, because bystanders don't know who the idiot is."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
”To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.”
~~ George Washington [1732-99]
”When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
~~ Franklin D. Roosevelt [1882-1945]
”Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
~~ Henry David Thoreau [1817-62]
”Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination.”
~~ Roy Goodman
”In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed.”
~~ Sid Caesar [1922-2014]
“The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.”
~~ author-aviator Richard Bach
“When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard’, I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’”
~~ columnist Sydney J. Harris [1917-86]
“Don’t go through life, grow through life.”
~~ Eric Butterworth
“Positive anything is better than negative thinking.”
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
“I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.”
~~ Oprah Winfrey
“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
~~ U.C.L.A. coach John R. Wooden [1910-2010]
"I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."
~~ Edward Everett Hale [1822-1909]
“Defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it.”
~~ Joe Clark
“Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.”
~~ Ray Kroc [1902-84], who expanded McDonald's to a worldwide behemoth
“The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others.”
~~ Hasidic proverb
"Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]
"So long as women are slaves, men will be knaves."
~~ suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton [1815-1902]
"Evil is easy, and has infinite forms."
~~ Blaise Pascal [1623-62]
"Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all: the apathy of human beings."
~~ Helen Keller [1880-1968]
"Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world."
~~ Robert Kennedy [1925-68]
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]
“Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.”
~~ Theodore Roosevelt [1858-1919]
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny little matters compared to what lies within us.”
~~ Henry S. Haskins [1875–1957], NOT Emerson or Thoreau
"Every creative act is a sudden cessation of stupidity."
~~ inventor Edwin H. Land [1909-91]
"Life starts out with everyone clapping when you take a poo and goes downhill from there."
~~ essayist [Ms] Sloane Crosley
"A man doesn't know what happiness is until he's married. By then it's too late."
~~ Frank Sinatra [1915-98]
"The reason [that] people become funny is to overcome pain."
~~ actress-comedian Sarah Silverman
"Most people go thru life without ever discovering the existence of that whole field of endeavor which we describe as second wind."
~~ publisher Katherine Graham [1917-2001]
"Better to be busy than to be busy worrying."
~~ actress Angela Lansbury
"Sanity is overrated."
~~ G.E. Nordell {and others}
"We cannot ignore this corruption anymore. We need a governmernt that works ... We cannot afford a world with no sensible reform."
~~ Lawrence Lessig, TED Talk in 2013
"Americans owe Donald Trump a great debt for taking politics and raising it to the level of professional wrestling."
~~ comedian Argus Hamilton
"The mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain."
~~ philosopher Ayn Rand [1905-82]
"A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human."
~~ British computer genius Alan Turing [1912-54]
"Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It meets a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something on which to pride yourself – but poverty itself is romanticized by fools."
~~ J.K. Rowling
"I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]
"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
"We were young, we were foolish, we were arrogant, but we were right."
~~ Daniel Ellsberg
“A cup of coffee – real coffee – home-browned, home ground, homemade, that comes to you dark as a hazel-eye, but changes to a golden bronze as you temper it with cream that never cheated, but was real cream from its birth, thick, tenderly yellow, perfectly sweet, neither lumpy nor frothing on the Java: such a cup of coffee is a match for twenty blue devils and will exorcise them all.”
~~ Henry Ward Beecher [1813-87]
“We do not learn, and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.”
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE]
"Democracy means that the people can say what they want to. All the people. It means that they can vote as they wish. All the people. It means that they can worship any God in any way [that] they feel right, and that includes Christians and Jews and voodoo doctors as well."
~~ screenwriter Dalton Trumbo [1905-76]
“Never do for money what you wouldn’t do for free . . . Work is for slaves.”
~~ Luis Buñuel [1900-83]
"Drink alcohol when needed, but don't get drunk. If you can't prevent yourself from doing drugs, at least share them."
~~ filmmaker Gaspar Noé
"It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011], co-founder of Apple, Inc. [est. 1975]
"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."
~~ Robert Kennedy [1925-68]
"It's not about the money – It's about the game."
~~ character Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's "Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps" [2010]
“Civilizations die from suicide, not murder.”
~~ historian Arnold J. Toynbee [1889-1975]
Donald Trump is proof that you don't have to be poor to be white trash
~~ popular CafePress poster
"Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's 'St. Matthew Passion' on a ukulele."
~~ journalist Ben H. Bagdikian [b. 1920]
"The Martini: The only American invention as perfect as the sonnet."
~~ H.L. Mencken [1880-1956]
"If serious reading dwindles to near nothingness, it will probably mean that the thing [that] we're talking about when we use the word 'identity' has reached an end."
~~ Don DeLillo
"As a country, as a state, and as communities, we need to work hard to make sure [that] our veterans get the care [that] they deserve, and a path open to them toward a brighter future ... and I pledge to continue to fight for them and their families – not just today, but every day."
~~ Russ Feingold, 2016 candidate for U.S. Senate from Wisconsin
"If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them."
~~ Caliph Umar bin al-Khat'tab [583?-644]
"The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, and familiar things new."
~~ Samuel Johnson [1709-84]
“Our taxes are too high. Our wages are too high. We have to compete with other countries.”
~~ Donald Trump, in November 2015
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ G.E. Nordell
"Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."
~~ Raold Dahl [1916-90]
"Never argue with an idiot, because bystanders don't know who the idiot is."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
”To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.”
~~ George Washington [1732-99]
”When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
~~ Franklin D. Roosevelt [1882-1945]
”Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
~~ Henry David Thoreau [1817-62]
”Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination.”
~~ Roy Goodman
”In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed.”
~~ Sid Caesar [1922-2014]
“The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.”
~~ author-aviator Richard Bach
“When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard’, I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’”
~~ columnist Sydney J. Harris [1917-86]
“Don’t go through life, grow through life.”
~~ Eric Butterworth
“Positive anything is better than negative thinking.”
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
“I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.”
~~ Oprah Winfrey
“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
~~ U.C.L.A. coach John R. Wooden [1910-2010]
"I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."
~~ Edward Everett Hale [1822-1909]
“Defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it.”
~~ Joe Clark
“Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.”
~~ Ray Kroc [1902-84], who expanded McDonald's to a worldwide behemoth
“The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others.”
~~ Hasidic proverb
"Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]
"So long as women are slaves, men will be knaves."
~~ suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton [1815-1902]
"Evil is easy, and has infinite forms."
~~ Blaise Pascal [1623-62]
"Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all: the apathy of human beings."
~~ Helen Keller [1880-1968]
"Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world."
~~ Robert Kennedy [1925-68]
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]
“Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.”
~~ Theodore Roosevelt [1858-1919]
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny little matters compared to what lies within us.”
~~ Henry S. Haskins [1875–1957], NOT Emerson or Thoreau
"Every creative act is a sudden cessation of stupidity."
~~ inventor Edwin H. Land [1909-91]
"Life starts out with everyone clapping when you take a poo and goes downhill from there."
~~ essayist [Ms] Sloane Crosley
"A man doesn't know what happiness is until he's married. By then it's too late."
~~ Frank Sinatra [1915-98]
"The reason [that] people become funny is to overcome pain."
~~ actress-comedian Sarah Silverman
"Most people go thru life without ever discovering the existence of that whole field of endeavor which we describe as second wind."
~~ publisher Katherine Graham [1917-2001]
"Better to be busy than to be busy worrying."
~~ actress Angela Lansbury
"Sanity is overrated."
~~ G.E. Nordell {and others}
"We cannot ignore this corruption anymore. We need a governmernt that works ... We cannot afford a world with no sensible reform."
~~ Lawrence Lessig, TED Talk in 2013
"Americans owe Donald Trump a great debt for taking politics and raising it to the level of professional wrestling."
~~ comedian Argus Hamilton
"The mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain."
~~ philosopher Ayn Rand [1905-82]
"A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human."
~~ British computer genius Alan Turing [1912-54]
"Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It meets a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something on which to pride yourself – but poverty itself is romanticized by fools."
~~ J.K. Rowling
"I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]
"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
"We were young, we were foolish, we were arrogant, but we were right."
~~ Daniel Ellsberg
“A cup of coffee – real coffee – home-browned, home ground, homemade, that comes to you dark as a hazel-eye, but changes to a golden bronze as you temper it with cream that never cheated, but was real cream from its birth, thick, tenderly yellow, perfectly sweet, neither lumpy nor frothing on the Java: such a cup of coffee is a match for twenty blue devils and will exorcise them all.”
~~ Henry Ward Beecher [1813-87]
“We do not learn, and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.”
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE]
"Democracy means that the people can say what they want to. All the people. It means that they can vote as they wish. All the people. It means that they can worship any God in any way [that] they feel right, and that includes Christians and Jews and voodoo doctors as well."
~~ screenwriter Dalton Trumbo [1905-76]
“Never do for money what you wouldn’t do for free . . . Work is for slaves.”
~~ Luis Buñuel [1900-83]
"Drink alcohol when needed, but don't get drunk. If you can't prevent yourself from doing drugs, at least share them."
~~ filmmaker Gaspar Noé
"It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011], co-founder of Apple, Inc. [est. 1975]
"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."
~~ Robert Kennedy [1925-68]
"It's not about the money – It's about the game."
~~ character Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's "Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps" [2010]
“Civilizations die from suicide, not murder.”
~~ historian Arnold J. Toynbee [1889-1975]
Donald Trump is proof that you don't have to be poor to be white trash
~~ popular CafePress poster
"Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's 'St. Matthew Passion' on a ukulele."
~~ journalist Ben H. Bagdikian [b. 1920]
"The Martini: The only American invention as perfect as the sonnet."
~~ H.L. Mencken [1880-1956]
"If serious reading dwindles to near nothingness, it will probably mean that the thing [that] we're talking about when we use the word 'identity' has reached an end."
~~ Don DeLillo
"As a country, as a state, and as communities, we need to work hard to make sure [that] our veterans get the care [that] they deserve, and a path open to them toward a brighter future ... and I pledge to continue to fight for them and their families – not just today, but every day."
~~ Russ Feingold, 2016 candidate for U.S. Senate from Wisconsin
"If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them."
~~ Caliph Umar bin al-Khat'tab [583?-644]
"The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, and familiar things new."
~~ Samuel Johnson [1709-84]
“Our taxes are too high. Our wages are too high. We have to compete with other countries.”
~~ Donald Trump, in November 2015
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Tuesday, November 03, 2015
U.S. Navy Makes Gasoline From Seawater
The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (N.R.L.) announced in April 2014 that they have manufactured long-chain hydrocarbons – that is essentially gasoline – entirely from seawater, and used the fuel to power a flying model aircraft.
Using a patented electrochemical process, they have simultaneously extracted dissolved CO2 ions and created hydrogen gas from seawater. The resulting mixture of gases is then reformed into long-chain hydrocarbons in a chemical reaction.
The key to the process is the realization that a liter of seawater contains 140 times as much CO2 as a liter of air. In seawater, nearly all of the CO2 is actually in the form of bicarbonate ions, which should make extraction from water fairly straightforward because of the electrical charge [that] they carry.
Since it is entirely feasible to use non-fossil energy sources to power the process, the fuel created could be essentially fossil-free (carbon neutral) gasoline. The oceans and atmosphere exchange CO2 readily in massive quantities, so taking it from one place is functionally the same as taking it from the other.
The N.R.L. press release puts the cost of their new process at between $3 and $6 per gallon.
Using a patented electrochemical process, they have simultaneously extracted dissolved CO2 ions and created hydrogen gas from seawater. The resulting mixture of gases is then reformed into long-chain hydrocarbons in a chemical reaction.
The key to the process is the realization that a liter of seawater contains 140 times as much CO2 as a liter of air. In seawater, nearly all of the CO2 is actually in the form of bicarbonate ions, which should make extraction from water fairly straightforward because of the electrical charge [that] they carry.
Since it is entirely feasible to use non-fossil energy sources to power the process, the fuel created could be essentially fossil-free (carbon neutral) gasoline. The oceans and atmosphere exchange CO2 readily in massive quantities, so taking it from one place is functionally the same as taking it from the other.
The N.R.L. press release puts the cost of their new process at between $3 and $6 per gallon.
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
October 2015 Quotations (60)
"The first Democratic Presidential Debate had adults on the stage."
~~ Dave Johnson
"Donald Trump is not the worst-case scenario for the upcoming election. There will be a comedy film called 'Bodies For It' about a zombie who runs for President."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
“This other war, the war upon destruction of natural assets is one that will never be finished. Our weakness in this vast war is largely ignorance, that most of our citizens do not realize what is going on under their very feet.”
~~ Louis Bromfield [1896-1956]
"We've become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy. I think that's been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards, to the American political system that I've ever seen in my life."
~~ James Earl 'Jimmy' Carter Jr., during Oprah Winfrey tv interview 9/2015
"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011], co-founder of Apple, Inc. [est. 1975]
"What you see and hear depends a great deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what sort of person you are."
~~ C.S. Lewis [1898-1963]
"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned," spoken by Zara in Act III, Scene VIII.[2] (This is usually paraphrased as "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.")
~~ English playwright Sir Wm. Congreve [1670-1729]
"Sometimes it's the people [that] no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine."
~~ British computer genius Alan Turing [1912-54]
"There should be at least one leak like the Pentagon Papers every year."
~~ Daniel Ellsberg
[re coffee:] “Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.”
~~ Charles Maurice de Talleyrand [1754-1838]
“I believe humans get a lot done, not because we're smart, but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee.”
~~ New York City artist Flash Rosenberg
“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.”
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE]
"Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates."
~~ J.K. Rowling
"For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]
"The love [that] you liberate in your work is the only love [that] you keep."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
"Comedy is British, wit is French, humor is American."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
“The fresh smell of coffee soon wafted through the apartment, the smell that separates night from day.”
~~ Haruki Murakami
"Sanity is a madness put to good uses."
~~ George Santayana [1863-1952]
"Rugby is a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far from the center of the city."
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]
"You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures."
~~ Elizabeth Gilbert
"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning how to dance in the rain."
~~ Vivian Greene
"The path [that] we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place."
~~ Barack Obama, in his acceptance speech at the 2012 Democratic Party Convention
"The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It's doing something that you appreciate, something [that] you believe is worthwhile."
~~ Julia Child [1912-2004]
"If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."
~~ Roald Dahl [1916-90]
"The biggest adventure [that] you can take is to live the life of your dreams."
~~ Oprah Winfrey
"How about we treat every man who wants to buy a gun like every woman who wants to get an abortion?"
~~ Boston Pete, blogger on DailyKos
"The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.”
~~ Pablo Picasso [1881-1973]
"Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear."
~~ William E. Gladstone [1809-98], in 1866
"If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got."
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970]
"So far, the trend seems to be toward ... most people ending up miserably poor [as] the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution ... with technology driving ever-increasing inequality."
~~ paraphrase of Stephen W. Hawking
“Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.”
~~ labor activist Lucy Parsons [1853-1942]
"A person's a person, no matter how small."
~~ Dr. Seuss {Theodor Geisel 1904-91}, in "Horton Hears A Who"
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me. . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be."
~~ cartoonist & poet Shel Silverstein [1930-99]
"In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and the job's a game."
~~ Mary Poppins character, as written by P.L. Travers [1899-1996]
"It's no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then."
~~ Lewis Carroll [1832-98], in "Alice"
"Behind his mask, the writer is always watching; he cannot help it. He observes, analyzes, takes mental notes, stores nuggets of the talk and behavior around him for later use."
~~ English author Frederick Forsyth
"Rosa sat, so Martin could walk. Martin walked, so Obama could run. Obama is running, so our children can fly."
~~ viral email on election night 2008
"There was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages."
~~ wordmeister Richard Lederer
"The basic premise of the Founding Fathers was man's right to his own life, to his own liberty, to the pursuit of his own happiness - which means: man's right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself."
~~ philosopher Ayn Rand [1905-82]
"Why is art beautiful? Because it's useless. Why is life ugly? Because it's all ends and purposes and intentions."
~~ Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa [1888-1935]
"A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have a top for it."
~~ Jerry Seinfeld
"Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on."
~~ Henry Rollins
"In Buenos Aires, mothers say to me, 'My son is 34 and he's not getting married; I don't know what to do'. So I tell them, 'Don't iron their shirts anymore'."
~~ Pope Francis
"One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the gulf between how serious we [poets] take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else."
~~ Billy Collins
"The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new."
~~ Socrates [469-399 B.C.E.]
"The basis of democracy is the willingness to assume well about other people."
~~ author Marilynne Robinson
"It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is, What are we busy about?"
~~ Henry David Thoreau [1817-62]
"What could be more beautiful than a dear old lady growing wise with age? Every age can be enchanting, provided you live within it."
~~ French actress Brigitte Bardot
"What an elder sees sitting, the young can't see standing."
~~ Gustave Flaubert [1821-80]
"No one has ever become poor by giving."
~~ Anne Frank [1929-45]
"When something becomes important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor."
~~ Elon Musk
"When I see a garden in flower, then I believe in God for a second. But not the rest of the time."
~~ Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich
"Baseball is what we were, football is what we have become."
~~ Mary McGrory [ 1918-2004]
"Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity that somebody wishes they had missed."
~~ actress-comedian Lily Tomlin
"There are two kinds of writer's block. One is when you freeze up because you think [that] you can't do it. The other is when you think [that] it's not worth doing."
~~ Tom Wolfe
"All my life, my parents said, 'Never take candy from strangers'. And then they dressed me up and said, 'Now go beg for it'."
~~ comedian Rita Rudner
"Advice is judged by results, not by intentions."
~~ Marcus Tullius Cicero [106 B.C.E. – 43 B.C.E.]
"Stories mimic life like certain insects mimic leaves and twigs."
~~ novelist Mary Gaitskill
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ Dave Johnson
"Donald Trump is not the worst-case scenario for the upcoming election. There will be a comedy film called 'Bodies For It' about a zombie who runs for President."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
“This other war, the war upon destruction of natural assets is one that will never be finished. Our weakness in this vast war is largely ignorance, that most of our citizens do not realize what is going on under their very feet.”
~~ Louis Bromfield [1896-1956]
"We've become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy. I think that's been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards, to the American political system that I've ever seen in my life."
~~ James Earl 'Jimmy' Carter Jr., during Oprah Winfrey tv interview 9/2015
"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011], co-founder of Apple, Inc. [est. 1975]
"What you see and hear depends a great deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what sort of person you are."
~~ C.S. Lewis [1898-1963]
"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned," spoken by Zara in Act III, Scene VIII.[2] (This is usually paraphrased as "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.")
~~ English playwright Sir Wm. Congreve [1670-1729]
"Sometimes it's the people [that] no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine."
~~ British computer genius Alan Turing [1912-54]
"There should be at least one leak like the Pentagon Papers every year."
~~ Daniel Ellsberg
[re coffee:] “Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.”
~~ Charles Maurice de Talleyrand [1754-1838]
“I believe humans get a lot done, not because we're smart, but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee.”
~~ New York City artist Flash Rosenberg
“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.”
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE]
"Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates."
~~ J.K. Rowling
"For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination."
~~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [1859-1930]
"The love [that] you liberate in your work is the only love [that] you keep."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
"Comedy is British, wit is French, humor is American."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
“The fresh smell of coffee soon wafted through the apartment, the smell that separates night from day.”
~~ Haruki Murakami
"Sanity is a madness put to good uses."
~~ George Santayana [1863-1952]
"Rugby is a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far from the center of the city."
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]
"You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures."
~~ Elizabeth Gilbert
"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning how to dance in the rain."
~~ Vivian Greene
"The path [that] we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place."
~~ Barack Obama, in his acceptance speech at the 2012 Democratic Party Convention
"The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It's doing something that you appreciate, something [that] you believe is worthwhile."
~~ Julia Child [1912-2004]
"If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."
~~ Roald Dahl [1916-90]
"The biggest adventure [that] you can take is to live the life of your dreams."
~~ Oprah Winfrey
"How about we treat every man who wants to buy a gun like every woman who wants to get an abortion?"
~~ Boston Pete, blogger on DailyKos
"The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.”
~~ Pablo Picasso [1881-1973]
"Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear."
~~ William E. Gladstone [1809-98], in 1866
"If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got."
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970]
"So far, the trend seems to be toward ... most people ending up miserably poor [as] the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution ... with technology driving ever-increasing inequality."
~~ paraphrase of Stephen W. Hawking
“Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.”
~~ labor activist Lucy Parsons [1853-1942]
"A person's a person, no matter how small."
~~ Dr. Seuss {Theodor Geisel 1904-91}, in "Horton Hears A Who"
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me. . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be."
~~ cartoonist & poet Shel Silverstein [1930-99]
"In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and the job's a game."
~~ Mary Poppins character, as written by P.L. Travers [1899-1996]
"It's no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then."
~~ Lewis Carroll [1832-98], in "Alice"
"Behind his mask, the writer is always watching; he cannot help it. He observes, analyzes, takes mental notes, stores nuggets of the talk and behavior around him for later use."
~~ English author Frederick Forsyth
"Rosa sat, so Martin could walk. Martin walked, so Obama could run. Obama is running, so our children can fly."
~~ viral email on election night 2008
"There was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages."
~~ wordmeister Richard Lederer
"The basic premise of the Founding Fathers was man's right to his own life, to his own liberty, to the pursuit of his own happiness - which means: man's right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself."
~~ philosopher Ayn Rand [1905-82]
"Why is art beautiful? Because it's useless. Why is life ugly? Because it's all ends and purposes and intentions."
~~ Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa [1888-1935]
"A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have a top for it."
~~ Jerry Seinfeld
"Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on."
~~ Henry Rollins
"In Buenos Aires, mothers say to me, 'My son is 34 and he's not getting married; I don't know what to do'. So I tell them, 'Don't iron their shirts anymore'."
~~ Pope Francis
"One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the gulf between how serious we [poets] take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else."
~~ Billy Collins
"The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new."
~~ Socrates [469-399 B.C.E.]
"The basis of democracy is the willingness to assume well about other people."
~~ author Marilynne Robinson
"It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is, What are we busy about?"
~~ Henry David Thoreau [1817-62]
"What could be more beautiful than a dear old lady growing wise with age? Every age can be enchanting, provided you live within it."
~~ French actress Brigitte Bardot
"What an elder sees sitting, the young can't see standing."
~~ Gustave Flaubert [1821-80]
"No one has ever become poor by giving."
~~ Anne Frank [1929-45]
"When something becomes important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor."
~~ Elon Musk
"When I see a garden in flower, then I believe in God for a second. But not the rest of the time."
~~ Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich
"Baseball is what we were, football is what we have become."
~~ Mary McGrory [ 1918-2004]
"Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity that somebody wishes they had missed."
~~ actress-comedian Lily Tomlin
"There are two kinds of writer's block. One is when you freeze up because you think [that] you can't do it. The other is when you think [that] it's not worth doing."
~~ Tom Wolfe
"All my life, my parents said, 'Never take candy from strangers'. And then they dressed me up and said, 'Now go beg for it'."
~~ comedian Rita Rudner
"Advice is judged by results, not by intentions."
~~ Marcus Tullius Cicero [106 B.C.E. – 43 B.C.E.]
"Stories mimic life like certain insects mimic leaves and twigs."
~~ novelist Mary Gaitskill
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Thursday, October 01, 2015
News Factoids for Third Quarter 2015
On June 19th, flash floods caused collapse of two freeway bridges on I-10 near Desert Center, California; the two-way closure is longterm and traffic is being diverted; eastbound traffic goes south on Highway 86 at Indio to I-8, westbound traffic goes north on I-95 at Blythe to Highway 62 and thru High Desert. (The Federal Highway Administration lists 119 obsolete bridges and 79 structurally-deficient bridges in Riverside County, California – just another example of damage caused by Republican under-funding of infrastructure repairs for the last ten years.
Americans drank 10.9 billion gallons of bottled water in 2014, up 7.3% over 2013 (and likely to overtake sales of soda pop in 2015).
Eighteen of the 22 components in the Bloomberg Commodity Index have dropped at least 20 percent during August from recent highs, which means that there is now a bear market. The last time this happened was October 2008 {just prior to the G.O.P. Economic Meltdown}. The center of this commodity collapse is the energy market: Chevron's earnings were down a dramatic 90% from last year, and Exxon's earnings were down 51% year-over-year, the worst quarter since early 2009.
The collapse in energy shares alone adds up to $1.3 trillion and is expected to create a $4.4 trillion hole in energy company earnings over the next three years. This has caused the energy sector to be the leading sector for layoffs in the entire economy.
Billie's friend's Weed Killer Recipe
• 2 cups Epsom salts
• 1 gallon cider vinegar
• 1 cup dish soap
— cheap and non-toxic; it works best if you use a sprayer (like a handheld bug or weed sprayer)
Copyright 2015 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
Americans drank 10.9 billion gallons of bottled water in 2014, up 7.3% over 2013 (and likely to overtake sales of soda pop in 2015).
Eighteen of the 22 components in the Bloomberg Commodity Index have dropped at least 20 percent during August from recent highs, which means that there is now a bear market. The last time this happened was October 2008 {just prior to the G.O.P. Economic Meltdown}. The center of this commodity collapse is the energy market: Chevron's earnings were down a dramatic 90% from last year, and Exxon's earnings were down 51% year-over-year, the worst quarter since early 2009.
The collapse in energy shares alone adds up to $1.3 trillion and is expected to create a $4.4 trillion hole in energy company earnings over the next three years. This has caused the energy sector to be the leading sector for layoffs in the entire economy.
Billie's friend's Weed Killer Recipe
• 2 cups Epsom salts
• 1 gallon cider vinegar
• 1 cup dish soap
— cheap and non-toxic; it works best if you use a sprayer (like a handheld bug or weed sprayer)
Sunday, September 27, 2015
September 2015 Quotations (60)
"Fix Reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
"The public is not behind us, and that’s a real problem for our party."
~~ Republican Cong. Justin Amash [MI-03] in 2015
"Rich people don't create jobs. Jobs create rich people. The republi-cons moan, the republi-cons bitch. Our rich are too poor and our poor are too rich."
~~ Ferguson Foont
"As soils are depleted, human health, vitality, and intelligence go with them."
~~ Louis Bromfield [1896-1956]
"Efficient often looks a lot like lazy."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"The poor can never be made to suffer enough."
~~ Jimmy Breslin
"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."
~~ astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson
"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous."
~~ Greek philosopher Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.]
"That's one thing about Republican Presidents. They never went in much for plans. They only had one plan. It says: 'Boys, my head is turned. Just get it while you can'."
~~ American humorist Will Rogers [1879-1935]
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
"Special effects are just a tool, a means of telling a story. People have a tendency to confuse them as an end to themselves. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing."
~~ George Lucas
"Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other."
~~ Charles Lamb [1775-1834], in the Essays of Elia (1823)
"Integrity needs no rules."
~~ Albert Camus [1913-60]
"The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper."
~~ Irish poet William Butler Yeats [1865-1939]
"Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest."
~~ Hermann Hesse [1877-1962]
"If you have a job without aggravations, [then] you don't have a job."
~~ Malcolm Forbes [1919-90]
"Reading is socially-accepted disassociation. You flip a switch and you're not there anymore. It's better than heroin."
~~ memoirist Mary Karr
"When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate – the genetic and neural fate – of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own life, to die his own death."
~~ Oliver Sacks, MD [1933-2015]
"Most of the time, I feel entirely unqualified to be a parent. I call these times being awake."
~~ comedian Jim Gilligan
"Hope, like faith, is nothing if not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous."
~~ Thornton Wilder [1897-1975]
"Living an interesting life is a precondition to being an interesting person."
~~ novelist Ottessa Moshfegh
"There are three stages of scientific discovery: first, people deny that it is true; then they deny that it is important; finally, they credit the wrong person."
~~ naturalist Alexander von Humboldt [1769-1859]
"If you got it, flaunt it; if you don't got it, flaunt it."
~~ TV actress Mindy Kaling
"Horror films don't create fear. They release it."
~~ filmmaker Wes Craven [1939-2015]
"The reader is the writer's only unrelenting, genuine enemy. He has everything on his side; all [that] he has to do, after all, is shut his eyes, and any work of fiction becomes meaningless."
~~ novelist Shirley Jackson [1916-65]
"The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary."
~~ Nassim Nichilas Taleb
"I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again."
~~ Anaïs Nin [1903-77]
"Transformation carries with it [a] kind of deep surprise. [Transformation] doesn’t merely change our outlook and actions, it uncovers the structures of being and interpretation on which we are grounded. [Transformation] removes arbitrary views that limit and shape what’s possible, and gives us hands-on access to who we are."
~~ Jeff Willmore, Landmark Forum Leader
“Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude . . . But when we exploit Creation we destroy the sign of God’s love for us, in destroying Creation we are saying to God: ‘I don’t like it! This is not good!’ ‘So what do you like?’ ‘I like myself!’ – Here, this is sin! Do you see?”
~~ Pope Francis, September 2015
"The truth must dazzle gradually / or every man be blind."
~~ poet Emily Dickinson [1830-86]
"[T]he essence of what made America a great country [is] its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election is over."
~~ former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, on the Thom Hartmann radio show, 9/2015
"Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive."
~~ William F. Buckley, Jr. [1925-2008]
"Everybody thinks [that] you reach a certain age and you're a grownup, but it's not true. Nobody grows up until the day [that] they croak."
~~ rock legend Keith Richards
"What's good for comedy is bad for America."
~~ Bill Maher
"A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That's why they don't get what they want."
~~ rock star Madonna
"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect."
~~ Dr. Samuel Johnson [1709-84]
"If you think [that] you are so enlightened, go and spend a week with your parents."
~~ Ram Dass
"Fiction is the truth inside the lie."
~~ Stephen King
"I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man."
~~ rapper Jay-Z
"Disconnecting from change does not recapture the past, it loses the future."
~~ poet Kathleen Norris
"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."
~~ Elie Wiesel
"The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of life, but that it bothers him less and less."
~~ Vaclav Havel [1936-2011]
"Honesty is a very expensive gift. Don't expect it from cheap people."
~~ American capitalist Warren Buffett
"No two persons ever read the same book."
~~ Edmund Wilson [1895-1972]
"There's room in this world for beauty to be diverse."
~~ actress Lupita Nyong'o
"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others."
~~ Marcus Tullius Cicero [106 B.C.E. – 43 B.C.E.]
"Every idle moment is treason."
~~ Thomas Carlyle [1795-1881]
"We will have a more just society as soon as we want one."
~~ George Packer, columnist at The New Yorker Magazine
"The highest calling of leadership is to unlock the potential of others."
~~ Carly Fiorina
"Climate change is the greatest threat to human rights in the XXIst Century."
~~ Irish politician & activist Mary Robinson
"I don't plan an awful lot in life, just as I don't plan an awful lot in my fiction."
~~ Lawrence Block
"The finest achievement of human society and its rarest pleasure is Conversation."
~~ Jacques Barzun [1907-2012], in 1959
"Toutes les grandes personnes ont un jour été des enfants, mais peu d'entre elles s'en souviennent."
"All grown-ups were children, but few of them remember."
~~ aviator & author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [1900-44]
“There's no great loss without some small gain.”
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957], author of "Little House On The Prairie"
"Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition."
~~ British computer genius Alan Turing [1912-54]
"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations."
~~ Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, Inc. [est. 1975]
“The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful.”
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE] - (in "The Republic")
"The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution."
~~ J.K. Rowling
"The greatest mistake [that] you can make in life is to continually be afraid [that] you will make one."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
"The public is not behind us, and that’s a real problem for our party."
~~ Republican Cong. Justin Amash [MI-03] in 2015
"Rich people don't create jobs. Jobs create rich people. The republi-cons moan, the republi-cons bitch. Our rich are too poor and our poor are too rich."
~~ Ferguson Foont
"As soils are depleted, human health, vitality, and intelligence go with them."
~~ Louis Bromfield [1896-1956]
"Efficient often looks a lot like lazy."
~~ G.E. Nordell
"The poor can never be made to suffer enough."
~~ Jimmy Breslin
"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."
~~ astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson
"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous."
~~ Greek philosopher Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.]
"That's one thing about Republican Presidents. They never went in much for plans. They only had one plan. It says: 'Boys, my head is turned. Just get it while you can'."
~~ American humorist Will Rogers [1879-1935]
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]
"Special effects are just a tool, a means of telling a story. People have a tendency to confuse them as an end to themselves. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing."
~~ George Lucas
"Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other."
~~ Charles Lamb [1775-1834], in the Essays of Elia (1823)
"Integrity needs no rules."
~~ Albert Camus [1913-60]
"The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper."
~~ Irish poet William Butler Yeats [1865-1939]
"Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]
"Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest."
~~ Hermann Hesse [1877-1962]
"If you have a job without aggravations, [then] you don't have a job."
~~ Malcolm Forbes [1919-90]
"Reading is socially-accepted disassociation. You flip a switch and you're not there anymore. It's better than heroin."
~~ memoirist Mary Karr
"When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate – the genetic and neural fate – of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own life, to die his own death."
~~ Oliver Sacks, MD [1933-2015]
"Most of the time, I feel entirely unqualified to be a parent. I call these times being awake."
~~ comedian Jim Gilligan
"Hope, like faith, is nothing if not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous."
~~ Thornton Wilder [1897-1975]
"Living an interesting life is a precondition to being an interesting person."
~~ novelist Ottessa Moshfegh
"There are three stages of scientific discovery: first, people deny that it is true; then they deny that it is important; finally, they credit the wrong person."
~~ naturalist Alexander von Humboldt [1769-1859]
"If you got it, flaunt it; if you don't got it, flaunt it."
~~ TV actress Mindy Kaling
"Horror films don't create fear. They release it."
~~ filmmaker Wes Craven [1939-2015]
"The reader is the writer's only unrelenting, genuine enemy. He has everything on his side; all [that] he has to do, after all, is shut his eyes, and any work of fiction becomes meaningless."
~~ novelist Shirley Jackson [1916-65]
"The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary."
~~ Nassim Nichilas Taleb
"I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again."
~~ Anaïs Nin [1903-77]
"Transformation carries with it [a] kind of deep surprise. [Transformation] doesn’t merely change our outlook and actions, it uncovers the structures of being and interpretation on which we are grounded. [Transformation] removes arbitrary views that limit and shape what’s possible, and gives us hands-on access to who we are."
~~ Jeff Willmore, Landmark Forum Leader
“Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude . . . But when we exploit Creation we destroy the sign of God’s love for us, in destroying Creation we are saying to God: ‘I don’t like it! This is not good!’ ‘So what do you like?’ ‘I like myself!’ – Here, this is sin! Do you see?”
~~ Pope Francis, September 2015
"The truth must dazzle gradually / or every man be blind."
~~ poet Emily Dickinson [1830-86]
"[T]he essence of what made America a great country [is] its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election is over."
~~ former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, on the Thom Hartmann radio show, 9/2015
"Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive."
~~ William F. Buckley, Jr. [1925-2008]
"Everybody thinks [that] you reach a certain age and you're a grownup, but it's not true. Nobody grows up until the day [that] they croak."
~~ rock legend Keith Richards
"What's good for comedy is bad for America."
~~ Bill Maher
"A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That's why they don't get what they want."
~~ rock star Madonna
"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect."
~~ Dr. Samuel Johnson [1709-84]
"If you think [that] you are so enlightened, go and spend a week with your parents."
~~ Ram Dass
"Fiction is the truth inside the lie."
~~ Stephen King
"I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man."
~~ rapper Jay-Z
"Disconnecting from change does not recapture the past, it loses the future."
~~ poet Kathleen Norris
"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."
~~ Elie Wiesel
"The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of life, but that it bothers him less and less."
~~ Vaclav Havel [1936-2011]
"Honesty is a very expensive gift. Don't expect it from cheap people."
~~ American capitalist Warren Buffett
"No two persons ever read the same book."
~~ Edmund Wilson [1895-1972]
"There's room in this world for beauty to be diverse."
~~ actress Lupita Nyong'o
"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others."
~~ Marcus Tullius Cicero [106 B.C.E. – 43 B.C.E.]
"Every idle moment is treason."
~~ Thomas Carlyle [1795-1881]
"We will have a more just society as soon as we want one."
~~ George Packer, columnist at The New Yorker Magazine
"The highest calling of leadership is to unlock the potential of others."
~~ Carly Fiorina
"Climate change is the greatest threat to human rights in the XXIst Century."
~~ Irish politician & activist Mary Robinson
"I don't plan an awful lot in life, just as I don't plan an awful lot in my fiction."
~~ Lawrence Block
"The finest achievement of human society and its rarest pleasure is Conversation."
~~ Jacques Barzun [1907-2012], in 1959
"Toutes les grandes personnes ont un jour été des enfants, mais peu d'entre elles s'en souviennent."
"All grown-ups were children, but few of them remember."
~~ aviator & author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [1900-44]
“There's no great loss without some small gain.”
~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder [1867-1957], author of "Little House On The Prairie"
"Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition."
~~ British computer genius Alan Turing [1912-54]
"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations."
~~ Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, Inc. [est. 1975]
“The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful.”
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE] - (in "The Republic")
"The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution."
~~ J.K. Rowling
"The greatest mistake [that] you can make in life is to continually be afraid [that] you will make one."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Met A Man Who Drives A Spark
Had business to do at the bank in town the other day, and parked next to a little blue car with a man pacing next to it. Kidding around, I asked him what it was gonna be when it grew up. That got him started.
He said that gas costs too much nowadays so he can no longer afford to drive his '150 dualie' (Ford F-150 pickup with four rear tires) for work. The job requires 200 miles travel every day, so he got this little hybrid from Chevy and gets 50 miles to the gallon. (The official rating is 39 miles per gallon on the highway). The car cost him ten thousand plus tax and license, the payments are quite small.
The way that he calculates it, the money that he saves on fuel each month is just about equal to his car loan payment, so essentially he is driving the car for free.
Copyright 2015 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
He said that gas costs too much nowadays so he can no longer afford to drive his '150 dualie' (Ford F-150 pickup with four rear tires) for work. The job requires 200 miles travel every day, so he got this little hybrid from Chevy and gets 50 miles to the gallon. (The official rating is 39 miles per gallon on the highway). The car cost him ten thousand plus tax and license, the payments are quite small.
The way that he calculates it, the money that he saves on fuel each month is just about equal to his car loan payment, so essentially he is driving the car for free.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
August 2015 Quotations (59)
"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}
~~ 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}
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}
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