Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody ... I that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person that has nothing to eat.
- Mother Teresa
Winter
I said, 'Please,
'Don't talk about the end ...
Don't talk about how
Every living thing goes away'...
She said, 'Friend' ...
'All along I thought
I was learning how to take
How to bend, not how to break
How to live, not how to cry
But really,
I've been learning how to die
I've been learning how to die' ...
-Jon Foreman
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While I thought I was learning to live ...
I have been learning how to die.
-Leonardo da Vinci
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Razor-Sharp Tongues
Sharp minds and tongues ...
The only thing their knives and guns can't dull.
- K. Michael Prewitt
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My tongue has grown sharpened, Love ...
but not forked.
-K. Michael Prewitt
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That's Simply Gross Oversimplification 2
How sad that we only accept a 'two-party system' in the United States; which, seems barely capable of acknowledging a 'third-party.' We seem to be so very deeply entrenched in this 'Us v. Them' mindset; while, other countries manage to maintain dozens of political parties. Have we really managed to reduce all of human individuality and independent thought down into two options?!?
-K. Michael Prewitt
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That's Simply Gross Oversimplification
I am 'Black & White'
I am 'Us & Them.'
... and so are you.
-K. Michael Prewitt
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'Like Grains of Sand Slipping Through Our Fingers'
Perhaps God gave us breath like manna. We can't store them up, or "save them for the next one." He only gives them to us, moment by moment.
-K. Michael Prewitt
Hold your breath.... bottle it up and save it for the next one.
-Underoath
Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.
The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat drink and be merry." '
But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'
This is how it will be with those who store up things for themselves but are not rich towards God.
-Jesus, 'The Parable of the Rich Fool' (Lk 12:15-21)
Have a good sense of what each job requires
It is much work to govern men, and even more fools or madmen. It takes double intelligence to rule those who have none.
Half the world is laughing at the other half, and folly rules over all
It is an insufferable fool who measures all things by his own opinion.
Perfection does not mean pleasing one person alone: tastes are as abundant as faces and just as varied.
Perfection does not mean pleasing one person alone: tastes are as abundant as faces and just as varied.
Reality and appearance
Things pass for what they seem, not for what they are. Only rarely do people look into them, and many are satisfied with appearances.
Don't be the wild card (the one that can be anything its holder pleases)
Be excessive in your perfection but moderate about showing it.
Renew your brilliance
Custom wears down our admiration, and a mediocre novelty can conquer the greatest eminence in its old age.
Make others understand
One of the greatest gifts is to seize up quickly what matters.
Most of the time things are not obtained because they were not attempted.
Most of the time things are not obtained because they were not attempted.
Elevated taste
Even the greatest excellences tremble before the person of refined taste, and the most perfect lose their confidence.
Born to rule
They seize the respect, the heart, and even the minds of others.
People like this have a lordly character: kings of merit, lions by natural right.
People like this have a lordly character: kings of merit, lions by natural right.
Know the fortunate in order to choose them, and the unfortunate in order to flee them
Never open the door to the least of evils, for many other, greater ones lurk outside.
Be vulgar in nothing
The discreet never gorge themselves on vulgar applause.
The crowd admires common foolishness and places no stock in excellent counsel.
The crowd admires common foolishness and places no stock in excellent counsel.
Better to be intensive than extensive
Perfection isn’t quantity, but quality. Very good things have always been small and rare; muchness brings discredit.
Know how to take a hint
The truths that matter most to us are always half spoken, fully understood only by the prudent.
Don't have a single imperfection
Few people live without some moral flaw or character defect, and they give in to it when it would be easy to cure.
Be well informed
The discreet arm themselves with a store of courtly, tasteful learning: not vulgar gossip, but a practical knowledge of current affairs.
When you start something, don't raise other people's expectations
When you start something, don’t raise other people’s expectations. What is highly praised seldom measures up to expectation. Reality never catches up to imagination.
No matter how excellent something is, it never satisfies our preconceptions. The imagination feels cheated, and excellence leads more often to disappointment than to admiration.
Hope is a great falsifier. Let good judgment bridle her, so that enjoyment will surpass desire.
What was feared as ruinous comes to seem tolerable.
No matter how excellent something is, it never satisfies our preconceptions. The imagination feels cheated, and excellence leads more often to disappointment than to admiration.
Hope is a great falsifier. Let good judgment bridle her, so that enjoyment will surpass desire.
What was feared as ruinous comes to seem tolerable.
Application and capacity
The mediocre people who apply themselves go further than the superior people who don’t. Work makes worth.
Surround yourself with auxillary wits
We have little to live and much to know, and you cannot live if you do not know.
Not to be swayed by passions: the highest spiritual quality of all
Let your superiority keep you from succumbing to vulgar, passing impressions.
No mastery is greater than mastering yourself and your own passions: it is a triumph of the will.
No mastery is greater than mastering yourself and your own passions: it is a triumph of the will.
Don't outshine your boss
Most people do not mind being surpassed in good fortune, character, or temperament, but no one, especially not a sovereign, likes to be surpassed in intelligence.
Reach perfection
Perfect yourself daily, both personally and professionally, until you become a consummate being, rounding off your gifts and reaching eminence.
Keep matters in suspense
Once declared, resolutions are never esteemed, and they lie open to criticism. If they turn out badly, you will be twice unfortunate. Don’t let everyone look inside you.
Contentment v. Invention ... Happiness v. Progress ... Acceptance v. Persistance
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
-Shaw
-Shaw
Somebody's Making a Buck Off of It
The cleverly expressed opposite of any generally accepted idea is worth a fortune to somebody.
-F. Scott Fitzgerald
-F. Scott Fitzgerald
Still No Answers
The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul is: What does a woman want?
-Freud
-Freud
Means Made Into Ends
One of the vulgar disorders of mankind is to make ends into means, and means into ends. What was meant to be something passing people make into something lasting, and they sit down to rest in the middle of the road. They begin where they should end, and end at the beginning.
Wise Nature, in her foresight, introduced pleasure as a medium in all of life’s operations, and as a relief from its most bothersome functions. She planned wisely, to ease us through whatever is painful. But here is where man comes undone. More brutish than any animal, he makes pleasure into an end and life into a means of getting there.
He no longer eats to live, but lives to eat; does not rest in order to work, but skips work in order to sleep. Doesn’t propagate the species, but only his lust. Doesn’t study to know himself, but in order not to. Speaks not from necessity, but only to gossip. Doesn’t enjoy his life, but lives for enjoyment. And thus all vices have made pleasure their chieftain. Pleasure: beadle of appetite, forerunner of whimsy, quartermaster of the emotions, dragging people along behind him, tossing each one a scrap of what he most delights in.
-Baltasar Gracian
Wise Nature, in her foresight, introduced pleasure as a medium in all of life’s operations, and as a relief from its most bothersome functions. She planned wisely, to ease us through whatever is painful. But here is where man comes undone. More brutish than any animal, he makes pleasure into an end and life into a means of getting there.
He no longer eats to live, but lives to eat; does not rest in order to work, but skips work in order to sleep. Doesn’t propagate the species, but only his lust. Doesn’t study to know himself, but in order not to. Speaks not from necessity, but only to gossip. Doesn’t enjoy his life, but lives for enjoyment. And thus all vices have made pleasure their chieftain. Pleasure: beadle of appetite, forerunner of whimsy, quartermaster of the emotions, dragging people along behind him, tossing each one a scrap of what he most delights in.
-Baltasar Gracian
A Hindrance to Our Simplicity
There are many things that we would throw away, if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.
-Oscar Wilde
-Oscar Wilde
The Purpose of Writing
The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.
-Dr. Samuel Johnson
-Dr. Samuel Johnson
The Critick
Insects sting, not from malice, but because they want to live. It is the same with critics – they desire our blood, not our pain.
-Nietzsche
-Nietzsche
Hope v. Despair
Everything one records contains a grain of hope, no matter how deeply it may come from despair.
-Elias Canetti
-Elias Canetti
Time & Energy
One of the conditions for reading what is good is that we must not read what is bad; for life is short and time and energy are limited.
-Schopenhauer
-Schopenhauer
Memoirs on the Skins of a Mole
The presence of an idea is like that of a loved one. We imagine that we shall never forget it, and that the beloved can never become indifferent to us; but out of sight, out of mind! The finest thought runs the risk of being irretrievably forgotten if it is not written down.
-Schopenhauer
-Schopenhauer
Three Educations
We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our schoolmasters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.
-Montesquieu
-Montesquieu
The Unthirsty
Ye can lade a man up to th’university, but ye can’t make him think.
-Finley Peter Dunne
-Finley Peter Dunne
Life & (Death)
Death is not a bad word, but a "parenthesis in eternity."
-Mike Ruppert/Joel Goldsmith
-Mike Ruppert/Joel Goldsmith
The War on Jealousy
Malicious men may die, but malice never.
-Molière
You cannot win a war on terrorism, it's like having a war on jealousy, it's an absurd notion.
-David Cross
-Molière
You cannot win a war on terrorism, it's like having a war on jealousy, it's an absurd notion.
-David Cross
The Endless Dichotomy
You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too.
-Bernard Shaw
-Bernard Shaw
Happiness & Sorrow
If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.
-Montesquieu
-Montesquieu
'Saving A Second Ear For Truth, Later'
A wise man will keep his suspicions muzzled, but he will keep them awake.
-Marquess of Halifax
Suspicion is rather a virtue than a fault, as long as it doth like a dog that watched, and doth not bite.
-Halifax
-Marquess of Halifax
Suspicion is rather a virtue than a fault, as long as it doth like a dog that watched, and doth not bite.
-Halifax
Unquenchable Thirst
Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.
-Schopenhauer
-Schopenhauer
Courage in Creation
A great deal of talent is lost to the world for the want of a little courage.
-Sydney Smith
-Sydney Smith
Opinions
We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don’t care for.
-Maria von Ebner-Eschenbach
-Maria von Ebner-Eschenbach
The Wars of Old Men ... Fought by Young Men
To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.
-George Santayana
-George Santayana
Chewing Up the Furniture
All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.
-Jean de La Bruyere
-Jean de La Bruyere
Cui Bono?
The cleverly expressed opposite of any generally accepted idea is worth a fortune to somebody.
-F. Scott Fitzerald
-F. Scott Fitzerald
Travel
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
-Mark Twain
-Mark Twain
Truth & Appearances
It is much easier to recognize error than to find truth; the former lies on the surface, this is quite manageable; the latter resides in depth, and this quest is not everyone's business.
-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Unproductive Criticism
You can neither protect nor defend yourself against criticism; you have to act in defiance of it and this is gradually accepted.
-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Doubt
You really only know when you know little; doubt grows with knowledge.
-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach for another is to risk involvement.
To expose your ideas, your dreams, before a crowd, is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To believe is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The people who risk nothing do nothing, have nothing, are nothing.
They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.
Chained by their attitudes, they are slaves; they have forfeited their freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.
-Anon.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach for another is to risk involvement.
To expose your ideas, your dreams, before a crowd, is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To believe is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The people who risk nothing do nothing, have nothing, are nothing.
They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.
Chained by their attitudes, they are slaves; they have forfeited their freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.
-Anon.
Self-Determination
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.
-Ayn Rand
-Ayn Rand
Explore. Dream. Discover.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
-Mark Twain
-Mark Twain
Illusions of Freedom
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes.
-Kahlil Gibran
-Kahlil Gibran
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