Damnably Sentimental

The world is neither wise nor just, but it makes up for all its folly and injustice by being damnably sentimental.

~ Thomas Huxley ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Let your children love pussy, pussy loves your children; only kindly point out to them the essential difference between a plaything and a playmate.

~ W. Gordon Stables ~

Timely Thought

As anti-refugee hysteria sweeps many of our political leaders, particularly Republicans, I wonder what they would have told a desperate refugee family fleeing the Middle East. You’ve heard of this family: a carpenter named Joseph, his wife, Mary, and their baby son, Jesus.

According to the Gospel of Matthew, after Jesus’ birth they fled to save Jesus from murderous King Herod (perhaps the 2,000-year-ago equivalent of Bashar al-Assad of Syria?). Fortunately Joseph, Mary and Jesus found de facto asylum in Egypt--thank goodness House Republicans weren’t in charge when Jesus was a refugee!

~ Nicholas Kristof ~
"The Flight into Egypt" by Giovanni Battista Crespi (1610-1620), courtesy The Athenaeum.

Poetry Friday

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

~ Vincent Van Gogh~
"Starry Night over the Rhone" by Vincent van Gogh, courtesy Wikimedia.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Postcard courtesy NY Public Library Digital Collections.

America's First Refugees

Next to the fugitives whom Moses led out of Egypt, the little shipload of outcasts who landed at Plymouth are destined to influence the future of the world.

~ James Russell Lowell ~

From a Man Who Himself Became Mythic

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

~ John F. Kennedy ~

Dancing

The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.

~ Charles Baudelaire ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Once upon a time there lived a king who was deeply in love with a princess, but she could not marry anyone, because she was under an enchantment. So the King set out to seek a fairy, and asked what he could do to win the Princess's love. The Fairy said to him:

"You know that the Princess has a great cat which she is very fond of. Whoever is clever enough to tread on that cat's tail is the man she is destined to marry."




~ Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont from "Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess" ~

Intolerance = Uneducated

It's an universal law--intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ~


Photo courtesy NobelPrize.org.

Poetry Friday

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

~ John Keats ~

Painting

One learns about painting by looking at and imitating other painters.

~ Frank Stella ~
"View of the Grand Gallery of the Louvre" by Robert Hubert, courtesy The Athenaeum.

A Classic

The story being told in Star Wars is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you're in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they're actually not.

~ George Lucas ~

Happiness

Happiness is good health and a bad memory.

~ Ingrid Bergman ~

Go Vegetable Heavy!

Go vegetable heavy. Reverse the psychology of your plate by making meat the side dish and vegetables the main course.

~ Bobby Flay ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

There was, nevertheless, some sweetness diffused over that face, but it was the sweetness of a cat or a judge, an affected, treacherous sweetness.

~ Victor Hugo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

In a World Gone Insane

If it is our freedom and joy they seek to destroy, give them not that victory. Against the forces of darkness and terror, love and compassion shall always prevail. ‪#‎JeSuisParis‬

~ George Takei ~
Photo by Joe deSousa.

Poetry Friday

We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.

~ William Butler Yeats ~





Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

Speak Out

The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.

~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton ~




Photo courtesy National Portrait Gallery.

Veterans Day Prayer

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

~ Douglas MacArthur ~

In That Case, Mike, You Need a Cat

Sulley: Hey, Mike, this might sound crazy but I don't think that kid's dangerous.

Mike: Really? Well, in that case, let's keep it. I always wanted a pet that could kill me.

~ From Monsters, Inc. ~

Ukuleles!

There's something about the ukulele that just makes you smile. It makes you let your guard down. It brings out the child in all of us.

~ Jake Shimabukuro ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

No kwote today, just an informative little cat breed video!

Just Open Your Eyes

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.

~ Thornton Wilder ~




Photo source: NY Public Library Digital Collections.

Poetry Friday

At somewhere around 10 syllables, the English poetic line is at its most relaxed and manageable.

~ James Fenton ~

Especially If They Move

Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.

~ Walt Disney ~
Business envelop courtesy Wikipedia.

Let Go!

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.

~ Joseph Campbell ~

Scary Movies

And I love a scary movie. It makes your toes curl and it's not you going through it.

~ Anthony Hopkins ~

Role Model

It's not that I have compromised or anything, but it's always been important to me to take good care of myself and be a good example. I'm not much a role model in terms of hair care, though.

~ Patti Smith ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

~ From The Book of Nonsense (1870), written and illustrated by Edward Lear ~