He Should Know About Intelligence!

Photo by Just a Slice
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.

~ Albert Einstein ~

I Hope It's Not Too Late

Changes that can affect us can happen in our lifetime in our world--not just changes like wars but bigger and more sweeping events. I believe that without recognizing it we have already stepped over the threshold of such a change; that we are at the end of nature. By the end of nature I do not mean the end of the world. The rain will still fall and the sun shine, though differently than before. When I say "nature," I mean a certain set of human ideas about the world and our place in it.

~ Bill McKibben ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The great charm of cats is their rampant egotism, their devil-may-care attitude toward responsibility, their disinclination to earn an honest dollar.

~ Robertson Davies ~

Photo by Martin Cathrae

R.I.P.

The greatest education in the world is watching the masters at work.

~ Michael Jackson ~




US Patent 5255452(A)

Poetry Friday

I never want to be thought of as pandering to a broad audience, but you can tweak a poem just slightly and broaden the audience very much. If you have a literary allusion, you limit the audience. Every choice requires a cost-benefit analysis.

~ Ted Kooser ~

Spoken like a true former Poet Laureate AND retired insurance exec. --KK

They Just Hate Me!

Poison ivy is not, technically, an ivy. Poison oak is not an oak. Poison sumac has nothing to do with sumac trees. And by the way, none of them are poisonous.

The irritating oil they produce, urushiol, is not at all toxic, but it does happen to be an oil that most people are highly allergic to. Oddly enough, only humans are bothered by exposure to urushiol. No one knows why the plants have singled out people for their unique form of vitriol.

~ Amy Stewart ~

I Work in Paradise--Oh, My!

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

~ Jorge Luis Borges ~

Freedom of Speech

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

~ George Washington ~

Summer!

A life without love is like a year without summer.

~ Swedish proverb ~







Photo by Jill Clardy

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Photo by Tienzieyung

The city of cats and the city of men exist one inside the other, but they are not the same city.

~ Italo Calvino ~

A Wonderful Time of Year

Photo by DeaPeaJay

People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.

~ Iris Murdoch ~

Poetry Friday

Naturally we would prefer seven epiphanies a day and an earth not so apparently devoid of angels.

~ Jim Harrison ~

And You Can't Understand If You Don't Take Time

The arts are not just instantaneous pleasure--if you don't like it, the artist is wrong. I belong to the generation which says if you don't like it, you don't understand and you ought to find out.

~ Ethel Barrymore ~

Mindsets

My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see.

~ Muhammad Yunus ~


Photo by Hossain Toufique Iftekher

This Makes Sense to Me!

Photo by Mary Hodder
The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?

~ Pablo Picasso ~

Hmmm...

There are good days and there are bad days, and this is one of them.

~ Lawrence Welk ~


Photo by Epiclectic

Sunday's Kat Kwote

My cat speaks sign language with her tail.

~ Robert A. Stern ~







Photo by laihiu

Are We All Fools?

There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.

~ Adlai E. Stevenson ~

Poetry Friday

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you.

~Joseph Joubert~

That's One Thousand Five Hundred

Did you know that the average food product travels about 1,500 miles to get to your grocery store? And that transporting food accounts for 30,800 tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year?

~ from the Food, Inc. website ~

How Many of You Can Recite This by Heart?

One fish
two fish
red fish
blue fish.

Black fish
blue fish
old fish
new fish.

This one has
a little star.

This one has a little car.
Say! what a lot
of fish there are.

Kindness

With a sweet tongue of kindness, you can drag an elephant by a hair.

~ Persian proverb ~

A Thought for Monday

Photo by terrapin
Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

~ Samuel Butler ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

He who would climb the ladder must begin at the bottom.

~ German proverb ~

Unless you're a cat! --KK





Photo by Kevin Steele

Talking Is Overrated

Part of the joy of dancing is conversation. Trouble is, some men can't talk and dance at the same time.

~ Ginger Rogers ~




Image by Zooomabooma

Poetry Friday

Let go of any preconceived ideas and simply do whatever brings you the most enjoyment. This is your life, the book you are writing.

~ Jane Reichhold ~

Berries

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ~

She Had a Great Sense of Humor!

I've been on a calendar, but I've never been on time.

~ Marilyn Monroe ~

Precisely?

Send me a postcard, drop me a line,
Stating point of view.
Indicate precisely what you mean to say.
Yours sincerely, Wasting Away.

~ The Beatles ~





Image by chicks57

Hendrix

Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.

~ Jimi Hendrix ~



Photo by ClevelandSGS

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Photo by Sindre Sorhus
The cat is mighty dignified until the dog comes by.

~ Author Unknown ~

Not the Kernel

Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace and happiness.

~ Henrik Ibsen ~

Poetry Friday

Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment.

~ Carl Sandburg ~

Look Carefully...

From The New Way Things Work
I honestly think all of us would be better off if everyone took the time to draw, if for no other reason than the better we see, the more inevitable curiosity becomes. Lack of curiosity is the first step towards visual illiteracy—and by that I mean not really seeing what is going on around us.

~ David Macaulay ~

It Happens...

In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.

~ Robert A. Heinlein ~

So What Do You Think? Is It a Fad?

Social networking sites are the reality television of the Internet. The content is relatively inexpensive for publishers to produce, and social networking is not a fad that will disappear. If anything, it will become more ingrained in mainstream sites, just as reality TV programming has become ubiquitous in network programming.

~ Jon Gibs ~

In Flanders Fields the Poppies Blow

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet--to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

~ Moina Michael from "We Shall Keep the Faith" ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Cats always know whether people like or dislike them. They do not always care enough to do anything about it.

~ Winifred Carriere ~

Photo by supershaggy

May You Fly...

Photo by The Doors of Conception
Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

~ William Shakespeare ~

Poetry Friday

The lines of the poem do not quite enter a clear space. There is something waiting for them. As their music and emphasis enters the strange, foggy room through a human voice they are met by the memory of summer light and fear. And so even as the words of the poem happen, they are already arranging, in the most subtle and powerful way, experiences that have already happened. They are cutting across time and completed experience to show that, after all, it was incomplete.

~ Eavan Boland ~

So Human?

When people laugh at Mickey Mouse, it's because he's so human; and that is the secret of his popularity.

~ Walt Disney ~


Photo by gwaar

Collecting

Photo by Zevotron
It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson ~

It's a Given--

In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.

~ Oscar Wilde ~

I Can't Help But Weep...

She started me out washing dishes when I was four years old and when I was six she was learning me how to cook. While the other hands was working in the field I carried water. We had to cook out in the yard on an old skillet and lid, so you see I had to tote brush and bark and roll up little logs such as I could to keep the fire from one time of cooking to the other. I was not but six years old either. When I got to be seven years old I was cutting sprouts almost like a man and when I was eight I could pick one hundred pounds of cotton.

~ Mary Island, former slave ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Image by Migraine Chick
Cats, like butterflies, need no excuse.

~ Robert A. Heinlein ~

And Maybe a Few People?

He who sings scares away his woes.

~ Cervantes ~

Poetry Friday

Poetry comes in strange ways and never at the moment when one might think it should come.

~ Myra Cohn Livingston ~

Habitation

When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story's voice makes everything its own.

~ John Berger ~

Misquotations

The most familiar quotations are the most likely to be misquoted...Some have settled down to false versions that have obscured the true ones. They have passed over from literature into speech.

~ Carl Van Doren ~

Oooh, I Like the Way He Thinks!

Tell the truth, and so puzzle and confound your adversaries.

~ Henry Wotton, Sr. ~






Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London

I Believe This May Be True!

Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.

~ Arthur C. Clarke ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

the farm cat
makes Buddha's lap
a pillow

~ Kobayashi Issa ~



Photo by Fran 53

Here's A Woman With Too Much Time On Her Hands

I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes. I had one thousand and sixty.

~ Imelda Marcos ~






Photo by Gerry Balding

Poetry Friday

I see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it.

~ Marianne Moore ~

A Broken Pitcher

The White Orchard, 1888, from the Van Gogh Museum.
The more I am spent, ill, a broken pitcher, by so much more am I an artist--a creative artist...

~ Vincent Van Gogh ~

With Any Luck...

It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.

~ Jimmy Carter ~

Ancient Wisdom

He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves: one for his enemy and one for himself.

~ Chinese proverb ~

Maybe If You Use Bacon-Flavored Mayo?

Photo by Martin Burns

Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.

~ Doug Larson ~

Yes, there is a bacon-flavored mayo!

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The reason cats climb is so that they can look down on almost every other animal-- it's also the reason they hate birds.

~ K.C. Buffington ~

What a Nice Thought!

A book is like a garden in the pocket.

~ Indian proverb ~

Poetry Friday

Celebrate yummy words!

~ April Pulley Sayre ~

Funny How Some Things Never Change...

The public puts its mold upon us, and we come out as nearly alike as peas...Mind, health, beauty and happiness are all sacrificed to the processes of mold...
~ Mary Gove Nichols, 1853 ~

Florida Bound

See you later, alligator. After a while, crocodile.

~ Bill Haley ~



Photo by turtlemom4bacon

The Happiness of Simple Living

Coarse rice for food, water to drink, and the bended arm for a pillow--happiness may be enjoyed even in these.

~ Confucius ~