Arthur Rubinstein
I'm passionately involved in life: I love its change, its color, its movement. To be alive, to be able to see, to walk, to have houses, music, paintings - it's all a miracle.
Luciano Pavarotti
It's better to have a good acoustic, so you use all the color of your voice.
Leopold Stokowski
A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
Robert Schumann
The painter turns a poem into a painting; the musician sets a picture to music.
Yep, I'm heading out. Will post if I can on Friday, and then sporadically over the next two weeks.Still, there is a calm, pure harmony, and music inside of me.
Art is harmony. Harmony is the analogy of contrary and of similar elements of tone, of color and of line, conditioned by the dominate key, and under the influence of a particular light, in gay, calm, or sad combinations.
Pablo PicassoThe hidden harmony is better than the obvious.
Mother Teresa
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
George Bernard Shaw
Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
Who brings their 3 young sons out to a nice neighborhood restaurant, and lets each of the boys watch his personal DVD player at the table? (Yes, 3 sons, 3 personal DVD players. Oh, and a raving lunatic mother who was miserable to the one boy who chose not to watch his DVD.)
Who picks up a pear from a box of free pears, takes a few bites, and then drops the half-eaten pear on the sidewalk? (Sorry, the fact that there are other pears there that have fallen from the tree does not make the sidewalk your trash barrel!)
Who emails an old friend and dis-invites her from officiating or even attending his wedding because she is "too fragile" from post-traumatic stress and might make a scene during his special day? (Thank goodness I don't know the couple well enough to have been invited in the first place!)
Becky
Christine M
Daisy
Eliza
Erin
Gregory K
Jen
Robinson
Julie Danielson
Kimmy
Leila the great
Libby
Little Willow
Loosy
Mary Lee
Readfaced
Renee
RM1(SS) (ret)
Stephanie
Stidmama
TadMack
Thebookdragon
Tim
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Be sincere; be brief; be seated.
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.
Baltasar Gracian
Good things, when short, are twice as good.
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
...
The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.
...
I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than the means.
The U.S. Constitution has 4,440 words. It is the oldest and the shortest written constitution of any government in the world.
...
Of the typographical errors in the Constitution, the misspelling of the word Pensylvania” above the signers’ names is probably the most glaring.
...
Thomas Jefferson did not sign the Constitution. He was in France during the Convention, where he served as the U.S. minister. John Adams was serving as the U.S. minister to Great Britain during the Constitutional Convention and did not attend either.
...
The oldest person to sign the Constitution was Benjamin Franklin (81). The youngest was Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey (26).
...
The word “democracy” does not appear once in the Constitution.
...
When the Constitution was signed, the United States’ population was 4 million. It is now more than 300 million. Philadelphia was the nation’s largest city, with 40,000 inhabitants.
...
There was a proposal at the Constitutional Convention to limit the standing army for the country to 5,000 men. George Washington sarcastically agreed with this proposal as long as a stipulation was added that no invading army could number more than 3,000 troops!
...
There was initially a question as to how to address the President. The Senate proposed that he be addressed as “His Highness the President of the United States of America and Protector of their Liberties.” Both the House of Representatives and the Senate compromised on the use of “President of the United States.”
Hank Williams
A song ain't nothin' in the world but a story just wrote with music to it.
...
A good song is a good song, and if I'm lucky enough to write it, well....! I get more kick out of writing than I do singing. I reckon I've written a thousand songs and had over 300 published.
-- From "Cold, Cold Heart"
There was a time when I believed that you belonged to me
But now I know your heart is shackled to a memory
The more I learn to care for you the more we drift apart
Why can’t I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart
William Carlos Williams
Poets are damned but they are not blind, they see with the eyes of the angels.
...
When they ask me, as of late they frequently do, how I have for so many years continued an equal interest in medicine and the poem, I reply that they amount for me to nearly the same thing.
-- "Pastoral"
THE little sparrows
hop ingenuously
about the pavement
quarreling
with sharp voices
over those things
that interest
them.
But we who are wiser
shut ourselves in
on either hand
and
no one knows
whether we think good
or evil.
...................Meanwhile,
the old man who goes about
gathering dog-lime
walks in the gutter
without looking up
and his tread
is more majestic than
that of
the Episcopal minister
approaching the pulpit
of a Sunday.
.......These things
astonish me beyond
words.
With just under 4 days to go in the Great Antagonists of Children's Literature contest, we are up to 148 bad guys captured.G. K. Chesterton
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.
Tennessee Williams
Security is a kind of death.
Andrew Wyeth
I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.
Annie Dillard
Nature is, above all, profligate. Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place?
Dorothy Parker
Summer makes me drowsy. Autumn makes me sing. Winter's pretty lousy, but I hate Spring.
Johnson is alone on the grounds, oblivious that the girls left the Washbrooks’ mansion buzzing with gossip worth reading in a small Maryland newspaper.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
...
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
...
. . . . . I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
...
Annie Dillard
The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out.
William Wordsworth
A lake carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable.
Norman Maclean
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.
It arrived this afternoon, and I've already put it together, and I've picked 5 pears with very little effort. It was dark and raining, so I put off further harvesting till tomorrow.Honore de Balzac
This coffee falls into your stomach... sparks shoot all the way up to the brain. From that moment on, everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink - for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder.
Charles de Secondat Montesquieu
The coffee is prepared in such a way that it makes those who drink it witty: at least there is not a single soul who, on quitting the house, does not believe himself four times wittier than when he entered it.
ChargoggagoggmanchauggauggagoggchaubunagungamauggI like this one, because I have relatives living close to this lake, and I remember as a child being soooooooo impressed by anyone who could rattle off the name without mistakes.
eight billion eighteen million eighteenth
two vigintillion two undecillion two trillion two thousand two hundred twenty-third
That's right, 419.I know some of my blog readers are people I play Scrabble with online. Watch out, because the second I get QUIZIFY in my tiles, you are doomed, doomed, doomed! In fact, I'm going to make a point of using any blank tiles I get as Z's along the edge, perfectly positioned to prepare for my total Scrabble-world domination.
Oh, and spread the word please. My goal is to get at least 100 antagonists listed, but I think we can get to 200 without too much of a stretch, frankly.
Friedrich Nietzsche
To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.
Laurence J. Peter
Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
William James
In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.
Susan P. Schutz
Good friends must not always be together; it is the feeling of oneness when distant that proves a lasting friendship.
Samuel Johnson
True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice.
Albert Schweitzer
Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.
Tom Brokaw
Heroes are people who rise to the occasion and slip quietly away.
Edward F. Croker
I have no ambition in this world but one, and that is to be a fireman. The position may, in the eyes of some, appear to be a lowly one; but we who know the work which the fireman has to do believe that his is a noble calling. Our proudest moment is to save lives.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
And each man stands with his face in the light of his own drawn sword. Ready to do what a hero can.
Robert Louis Stevenson
It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.
Thornton Wilder
The planting of trees is the least self-centred of all that we do. It is a purer act of faith than the procreation of children.
Rabindranath Tagore
Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.
PLUNK: they hit the sidewalk.
PLUNK: they were blown onto the roof.
PLUNK: they bounced off the car.
PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK.
I awoke the next morning to find at least 50 freshly-fallen pears on the sidewalk and street. Stubbornly refusing to face reality, I hopped in the car and left for the holiday weekend, with the best of intentions for cleaning up the mess as soon as I returned.
"Just wait till the bees come," my neighbors had said....
This past week has been quite the adventure in pear-puree-madness. The bees, and yellow-jackets, have indeed arrived. Along with an army of nasty flies. There are pear guts everywhere. I have washed the sidewalk twice, at no minor peril to myself (I am surprised to find that bees do not appreciate being hosed down while eating). I have collected 4 bags of pear trash, which is barely half of what was on the ground this week. There are pears I can't even approach because they are being feasted upon by the biggest bees I've ever seen. And each day, about an hour after I finish cleaning up, I look outside and see new pear rot on the sidewalk. It is a mystery to me how this happens and I'm considering a stakeout tomorrow so I can catch this in action.
Meanwhile, all the school kids pass my house every morning, stepping carefully around the putrid pears and stirring up the swarms of flies and other fun insects. I'm sure now my house will be known as the Fly-lady House, or Chateau Bug, or Rot Manor. Which is sad, because Halloween is coming, and who wants to go trick-or-treating at Rot Manor?
I'm secretly plotting the mysterious offing of two quite lovely pear trees. One morning I will call the police and tell them I am shocked -- shocked to discover that someone has chopped down my precious pear trees!
Oh, and I have an apple tree in the back yard that goes next.
And the pears are still not ripe enough to eat.
PLUNK!
PLUNK!
Aaaaargh!
Ludwig Wittgenstein
If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.
Horace
Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans: it's lovely to be silly at the right moment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be Silly. Be honest. Be kind.
Tell me, O Octopus I begs
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
...
Behold the hippopotamus!
We laugh at how he looks to us...
...
A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
...
The ostrich roams the great Sahara.
Its mouth is wide, its neck is narra.
...
The one-L lama, he's a priest
The two-L llama, he's a beast
...
A panther looks like a leopard
Except that it hasn't been peppered
Blog copyright Nancy Rae Kienzler. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
