Senseless Minutiae

Small Minds

2009-11-01T20:52:00.002-05:00

"Small minds have always lashed out at what they don't understand. There are those who create...and those who tear down. That dynamic has existed for all time."

-- Katherine Solomon to Robert Langdon in Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" (p.503)

The Precise Problem

2009-11-01T20:47:00.002-05:00

"Yes! Exactly! You've put your finger on the precise problem! The moment mankind separated himself from God, the true meaning of the Word was lost. The voices of the ancient masters have been drowned out, lost in the chaotic din of self-proclaimed practitioners shouting that they alone understand the Word...that the Word is written in their language and none other."

-- Peter Solomon to Robert Langdon in Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" (p.492)

Jesus Highjacked!

2009-11-01T20:32:00.002-05:00

"From the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to American politics - the name Jesus had been highjacked as an ally in all kinds of power struggles. Since the beginning of time, the ignorant had always screamed the loudest, herding the unsuspecting masses and forcing them to do their bidding. They defend their worldly desires by citing Scripture they did not understand. They celebrated their intolerance as proof of their convictions. Now, after all these years, mankind had finally managed to utterly erode everything that had once been so beautiful about Jesus."

-- Dean Galloway in Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" (p.327)

Our Own Life

2009-06-08T20:30:00.000-04:00

"Maybe it's easier to like someone else's life, and live vicariously through it, than take some responsiblity to change our lives into lives we might like."

--Tish Grier

Making Adjustments

2009-06-08T20:29:00.002-04:00

"The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings."

--Okakura Kakuzo

2009-06-08T20:29:00.001-04:00

"To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge it, requires brains."

--Mary Pettibone Poole

Fruit

2009-06-08T20:28:00.001-04:00

"Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?"

--Frank Scully

Mistakes

2009-06-08T20:26:00.000-04:00

"Mistakes are the portals of discovery."

--James Joyce

The Present

2009-06-08T20:25:00.002-04:00

"The time is now, the place is here. Stay in the present. You can do nothing to change the past, and the future will never come exactly as you plan or hope for."

--Dan Millman

Kindness

2009-06-08T20:23:00.003-04:00

"Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world."

--Annie Lennox

Looking Stupid

2008-07-30T20:49:00.001-04:00

"There are worse things than looking stupid. Sleeping through life is one of them."

--Laura Preble

The Little Things

2008-07-30T20:48:00.001-04:00

"The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things."

--Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

No Children?

2008-07-30T20:47:00.001-04:00

"If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either."

--Dick Cavett

Good Laughs

2008-07-30T20:45:00.000-04:00

"We are all here for a spell; get all the good laughs you can."

--Will Rogers

Perfection vs. Excellence

2008-07-30T20:44:00.000-04:00

"I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business."

--Michael J. Fox

Spreading Light

2008-07-30T20:43:00.002-04:00

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."

--Edith Wharton

Safe Ships

2008-07-30T20:43:00.001-04:00

"A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for."

--Grace Murray Hopper

A Mere Child

2008-07-30T20:42:00.001-04:00

"I must take issue with the term 'a mere child,' for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult."

--Fran Lebowitz

Certainties

2008-07-30T20:41:00.000-04:00

"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties."

--Sir Francis Bacon

Decide What You Want

2008-07-30T20:40:00.000-04:00

"The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want."

--Ben Stein

Life's Scars

2008-07-30T20:39:00.000-04:00

"It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars."

--Garrison Keillor

Who We Become

2008-07-30T20:38:00.000-04:00

"I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become."

--Oprah Winfrey

The Big Joke

2008-07-30T20:36:00.000-04:00

"I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it."

--Jack Handey

First Rate Work

2008-07-30T20:35:00.001-04:00

"You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are."

--Anna Quindlen

Most Important Thing

2008-07-30T20:34:00.001-04:00

"The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in."

--Mitch Albom

Growing Strong

2008-04-18T10:55:00.000-04:00

"Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict."

--William Ellery Channing

Wearing Out

2008-04-18T10:54:00.000-04:00

"It is better to wear out than to rust out."

--Bishop Richard Cumberland

The Originality of Me

2008-04-18T10:53:00.000-04:00

"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known."

--Chuck Palahniuk

Regret

2008-04-18T10:52:00.000-04:00

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."

--Sidney J. Harris

Opportunity to Do Your Best

2008-04-18T10:51:00.003-04:00

"A problem is a chance for you to do your best."

--Duke Ellington

Simple Pleasures

2008-04-18T10:50:00.000-04:00

"I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex."

--Oscar Wilde

Talents

2008-04-18T10:49:00.002-04:00

"We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts."

--Madeleine L'Engle

Never Too Late

2008-04-18T10:48:00.001-04:00

"It's never too late to be who you might have been."

--George Eliot

Change, Renew, Rejuvenate

2008-04-18T10:46:00.001-04:00

"We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden."

--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Perfection in the Work

2008-04-18T10:44:00.002-04:00

"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."

--Aristotle

Do Right

2008-04-18T10:44:00.001-04:00

"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."

--Mark Twain

Secret of Happiness

2008-04-18T10:43:00.001-04:00

"The secret of happiness in not in what one likes to do, but in what one has to do."

--James M. Barrie

Tomorrow

2008-04-18T10:42:00.001-04:00

"Defer not till tomorrow to be wise, tomorrow's sun to thee may never rise."

--William Congreve

Shine

2008-04-18T10:41:00.000-04:00

"Let your light shine. Shine within you so that it can shine on someone else."

--Oprah Winfrey

Change

2008-04-18T10:40:00.001-04:00

"All appears to change when we change."

--Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Astouding Ourselves

2008-04-18T10:37:00.002-04:00

"If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."

--Thomas A. Edison

A Daring Adventure

2008-04-18T10:37:00.001-04:00

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."

--Helen Keller

Mighty Powers

2008-04-18T10:36:00.001-04:00

"Be bold and mighty powers will come to your aid."

--Basil King

A Recipe for Joyful Life

2008-04-18T10:35:00.001-04:00

"A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe."

--Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Old Griefs

2008-04-18T10:34:00.001-04:00

"Waste not fresh tears over old griefs."

--Euripides

Discovery

2008-04-18T10:28:00.001-04:00

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought."

--Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Problems

2008-04-18T10:26:00.000-04:00

"No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it."

--Richard Feynman

To Be, To Live

2008-04-18T10:25:00.000-04:00

"Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy."

--Rabbi Abraham Heschel

Remedies

2008-04-18T10:24:00.001-04:00

"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie."

--William Shakespeare

Tomorrows and Yesterdays

2008-04-18T10:22:00.001-04:00

"You pile up enough tomorrows and you'll be left with nothing but a bunch of empty yesterdays."

--Meredith Willson

Love and Be Loved

2008-04-18T10:21:00.001-04:00

"What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!"

--Victor Hugo

Do Something, Do Something Else

2008-04-18T10:20:00.001-04:00

"Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy."

--Jim Hightower

Letting Go

2008-04-18T10:19:00.001-04:00

"Train yourself to let go of the things you fear to lose."

--George Lucas

Small People

2008-04-18T10:18:00.001-04:00

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

--Mark Twain

Doubt

2008-04-18T10:16:00.000-04:00

"Doubt whom you will, but never yourself."

--Christine Bovee

Time to Play

2008-04-18T10:15:00.001-04:00

"If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play."

--John Cleese

Fear of Not Living Fully

2008-04-18T10:14:00.001-04:00

"Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully."

--Frances Moore Lappe

Purpose of Life

2008-04-18T10:13:00.001-04:00

"The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience."

--Eleanor Roosevelt

Snowball Effect

2008-04-18T10:12:00.000-04:00

"The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball - the further I am rolled, the more I gain."

--Susan B. Anthony

Irreplaceable

2008-04-18T10:11:00.001-04:00

"In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different."

--Coco Chanel

Ignorance is Bliss

2008-04-18T10:10:00.001-04:00

"Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace."

--Robert J. Sawyer

Most Admirable Trait

2008-04-18T10:08:00.000-04:00

"To be one's self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity."

--Irving Wallace

The Path of Joy

2008-04-18T10:06:00.002-04:00

"Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy."

--Sarah Ban Breathnach

Better and Happier

2008-04-18T10:05:00.000-04:00

"Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier."

--Mother Teresa

Charming Gardneners

2008-04-18T10:04:00.001-04:00

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy: They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."

--Marcel Proust

Joys of Youth

2008-04-17T17:29:00.000-04:00

"The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing."

--Eric Berne

Hope

2008-04-07T00:31:00.003-04:00

"This song was written from the perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are."

- Marketa Irglova, musician after winning an Academy Award for the song 'Falling Slowly' from the movie 'Once.'

We're All Aliens

2008-03-02T19:31:00.002-05:00

"People's strange perspectives still mystify me.

So often we don't connect. We can't bridge between the worlds we carry in our heads.

Hey--Jupiter and five moons--no, six.

My eyes make me different.

No, everyone's different.

We're all aliens."

--from the Concrete trade paperback, "Depths," by Paul Chadwick

Simply Apart

2008-03-02T19:28:00.002-05:00

"Some of us are simply...apart."

--from the Concrete trade paperback, "Depths," by Paul Chadwick

Endings and Beginnings

2008-02-29T13:30:00.001-05:00

"But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time."

--Mitch Albom

A Little Piece of God

2008-02-29T13:28:00.001-05:00

"The real power behind whatever success I have now was something I found within myself - something that's in all of us, I think, a little piece of God just waiting to be discovered."

-- Tina Turner

Top Ten Thoughts For 2008

2008-01-28T18:03:00.000-05:00

Number 10. Life is sexually transmitted.

Number 9. Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Number 8. Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

Number 7. Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.

Number 6. Some people are like a Slinky ... not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.

Number 5. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying Of nothing.

Number 4. All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

Number 3. Why does a slight tax increase cost you $200.00 and a substantial tax Cut saves you $0.30?

Number 2. In the '60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world Is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

AND THE NUMBER 1 THOUGHT FOR 2008: 'Life is like a jar of jalapeños. What you do today, might burn your a$$ tomorrow'.

--Neal Boortz, boortz.com

Never Too Late

2008-01-23T21:38:00.000-05:00

"It's never too late to be who you might have been."

--George Eliot

Less (Information) Is More

2007-11-26T15:21:00.000-05:00

"Gigerenzer calls such decision making 'satisficing,' as in 'satisfying' enough to 'suffice.' Satisficers don't feel the need to know everything, in contrast to 'maximizers,' who do want to weigh every detail imaginable in making even minor life decisions. Interestingly, studies have found that satisficers are more optimistic about life, have higher self-esteem, and are generally happier than maximizers."

'Trust Your Gut: Less (Information) is More,' Wray Herbert, Newsweek, 11/20/07

How to Live

2007-11-17T17:38:00.000-05:00

"My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it."

--Clarence B. Kelland

Follow the Grain

2007-11-17T17:37:00.002-05:00

"Follow the grain in your own wood."

--Howard Thurman

A Hero

2007-11-17T17:37:00.001-05:00

"I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom."

--Bob Dylan

Plans

2007-11-17T17:36:00.001-05:00

"Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work."

--Peter Drucker

Think

2007-11-17T17:35:00.001-05:00

"It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterward."

--Baltasar Gracian

Jump!

2007-11-17T17:34:00.001-05:00

"Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."

--David Lloyd George

The Center of the Universe

2007-11-17T17:33:00.001-05:00

"When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it."

--Bernard Bailey

Destiny

2007-11-17T17:32:00.001-05:00

"It's choice - not chance - that determines your destiny."

--Jean Nidetch

Sneaky Time

2007-11-17T17:31:00.001-05:00

"Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug."

--John Lithgow

Making Peace With Yourself

2007-11-17T17:30:00.001-05:00

"Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have."

--Doris Mortman

Courage is the Ladder

2007-11-17T17:27:00.000-05:00

"Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount."

--Clare Booth Luce

The Greatest Distance

2007-11-17T17:14:00.001-05:00

"We may go to the moon, but that's not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us."

--Charles de Gaulle

Insults

2007-11-17T17:13:00.001-05:00

"If someone offers you a gift, and you decline to accept it, the other person still owns that gift. The same is true of insults and verbal attacks."

--Steve Pavlina

The Universe's Reward

2007-11-17T17:10:00.000-05:00

"The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf."

--Shakti Gawain

The Incomparable You

2007-11-17T17:09:00.000-05:00

"Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable."

--Brenda Ueland

Laughter and Insanity

2007-11-17T16:42:00.000-05:00

"If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane."

--Jimmy Buffett

Quoting Myself

2007-11-17T16:41:00.000-05:00

"I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation."

--George Bernard Shaw

Building Character

2007-11-17T16:39:00.000-05:00

"You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one."

--James A. Froude

Discovery

2007-11-17T16:37:00.000-05:00

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

--Marcel Proust

Holding On

2007-11-17T16:36:00.001-05:00

"If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something, I can neither give nor receive."

--Dorothee Solle

Change

2007-11-17T16:35:00.001-05:00

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."

--Nelson Mandela

What We Get

2007-11-17T16:34:00.001-05:00

"In this life we get only those things for which we hunt, for which we strive, and for which we are willing to sacrifice."

--George Matthew Adams

The Impossible

2007-11-17T16:32:00.000-05:00

"Things are only impossible until they're not."

--Jean-Luc Picard

Worrying

2007-11-17T16:31:00.001-05:00

"Don't worry about anything. Worrying never solved anything. All it does is distort your mind."

--Milton Garland (at 103, the oldest worker in the U.S.)

Extraordinary

2007-11-17T16:29:00.000-05:00

"We all have the extraordinary coded within us, waiting to be released."

--Jean Houston

Hate

2007-11-17T16:28:00.000-05:00

"Hate no one; hate their vices, not themselves."

--J. G. C. Brainard