TODAY IS INTERNATIONAL NEWSPAPER CARRIER DAY.
ALL THE THINGS I LIKE TO DO are either immoral, illegal or fattening.
ALEXANDER WOLLCOTT
I CANNOT THINK of a more personally rewarding and appropriate use of wealth than to give while one is living, to personally devote oneself to meaningful efforts to improve the human condition.
CHARLES FEENEY 1931-2023 Gave away 8 billion before he passed.
BE LESS CURIOUS ABOUT PEOPLE AND MORE CURIOUS ABOUT IDEAS. MARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE
WHAT CAN WE GAIN by sailing to the moon if we are unable to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? Thomas Merton
RECOGNIZE that your struggle and your suffering is the same as everyone else’s, I think that’s the beginning of a responsible life. Otherwise, we are in aq continual savage battle with each other with no possible solution, political, social; or spiritual. L. COHEN
TO OVERPRAISE IS A SUBTLE FORM OF DISRESPECT — and everybody knows it. MARY GAITKILL
EARTH MY BODY
WATER MY BLOOD
AIR MY BREATH
FIRE MY SPIRIT — EARTH, SUN, SKY AND SEA-YOU ARE ALL AROUND US AND YOU ARE INSIDE OF ME. HOPI PRAYER
SOMEWHERE, SOMEONE THINKS OF YOU EVERY DAY AND SMILES.
I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion — and where it isn’t, that’s where my work lies. RAM DASS
BUDDHA was not a Buddhist. Jesus was not a Christian. Muhammed was not a Muslim. They were teachers who taugth love. love was their religion.
LIN YUTANG 1895-1976. Invented Chinese typewriter.
LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO MAKE AN OVER-SERIOUS BUSINESS OUT OF IT.
SUCH IS HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY THAT IF WE DON’T EXPRESS OUR JOY, WE SOON CEASE TO FEEL IT.
THERE IS NOTHING MORE BEAUTIFUL in this world than a healthy, wise old man.
I DON’T THINK that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication & made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking & living.
TODAY we are afraid of simple words like goodness and mercy and kindness. We don’t believe in the good old words because we don’t believe in good old values anymore. And that’s why the world is sick.
WE ALL HAVE OBLIGATIONS and duties toward our fellow men. But it does seem curious enough that in modern neurotic society, men’s energies are consumed in making a living and rarely in living itself. It takes a lot of courage for a man to declare, with clarity and simplicity, that the purpose of life is to enjoy it.
ON THE WHOLE, the enjoyment of leisure is something which decidedly costs less than the enjoyment of luxury. All it requires is an artistic temperament which is bent on seeking a perfectly useless afternoon spent in a perfectly useless manner.
TO GLORIFY THE PAST and paint the future is easy, to survey the present and emerge with some light and understanding is difficult.
IN THE WEST, the insane are so many that they are put in an asylum, in China the insane are so unusual that we worship them.
THERE IS SOMETHING in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.
THERE IS great probability that our loss of capacity for enjoying the positive joys of life is largely due to the decreased sensibility of our senses and our lack of full use of them. All human happiness is sensuous happiness.
THE WORLD I believe is far too serious and being far too serious . . . it has need of a wise and merry philosophy.
LET us face ourselves bravely as we are. for only a philosophy that recognizes reality can lead us into true happiness and only that kind of philosophy is around and healthy.
ONLY FRIENDSHIP which can stand occasional plain speaking is worth having.
IF one’s bowels move, one is happy and if they don’t move, one is unhappy. that is all there is to it.
INDIA WAS CHINA’S TEACHER in religion and imaginative literature and the world’s teacher in trigonometry, quadratic equations, grammar, phonetics, Arabian nights, animal fables, chess as well as in philosophy and that she inspired Boccaccio, Goethe, Herder, Schopenhauer, Emerson and probably old Aesop.
THE THREE great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so unhappy and so nervous.
NECKTIES STRANGLE CLEAR THINKING.
THE MORE we justify our beliefs, the more narrow-minded we become.
HAPPINESS has always seemed like a bluebird and consists of moments.
A MAN who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o’clock has the whole afternoon ruined for him already.
THERE IS NOTHING MORE BEAUTIFUL in this world than an healthy, wise old man.
FRIDTJOF NANSEN 1861-1930 “Eskimo Life” “Russia and Peace”.
“FRIDJOF NANSEN WAS A NORWEGIAN POLYMATH & Nobel Peace laureate. He gained prominence at various points in his life as an explorer, scientist, diplomat & humanitarian. He led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, traversing the island on cross-country skis.” wikipedia
I DEMOLISH my bridges behind me — then there is no choice but forward.
NEVER STOP BECAUSE YOU ARE AFRAID — you are never so likely to be wrong.
NEVER KEEP A LINE OF RETREAT: IT IS A WRETCHED INVENTION.
IT IS BETTER to go skiing and think of god, than go to church and think of sport.
THE difficult is what takes a little tine; the impossible is what takes a little longer.
HAPPINESS is the struggle towards a summit and, when it is attained, it is happiness to glimpse new summits on the other side.
LOVE is life’s snow. It falls deepest and softest into the gashes left by the fight — whiter and purer than snow itself.
IF NATIONS COULD overcome the mutual fear and distrust whose sombre shadow is now thrown over the world and could meet with confidence and good will to settle their possible differences, they would easily be able to establish a lasting peace.
YOU ARE ONE WITH YOUR SKIS and nature. This is something that develops not only the body but the soul as well, and it has a deeper meaning for a people than most of us perceive.
IS IT NOT in the struggle to obtain Knowledge that happiness exists? I am very ignorant, consequently the conditions of happiness are mine.
THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN RACE is a continual struggle from darkness into light. It is, therefore, to no purpose to discuss the use of knowledge; man wants to know and when he ceases to do so is no longer a man.