Especially American English

The English language is the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

Photo by Travis S.

Poetry Friday

By poetry we mean the art of employing of words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words, what the painter does by means of colors.

~ Thomas Macaulay ~

Good Advice...

Know, first, who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly.

~ Epictetus ~

Proverbial Nonsense!

All things have an end, only a sausage has two.

~ German proverb ~



Clipart courtesy Open Clip Art Library

Yesterday

Yesterday,
All my troubles seemed so far away,
Now it looks as though they're here to stay,
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

~ Paul McCartney ~

Ripples

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.

~ Robert F. Kennedy ~

Be a RIPPLE!

Photo by sea turtle

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Neither great nor very wise,
Yet beloved in our eyes,
Lightly hold, and gently keep
A small, good kitten in her sleep.

~ Miriam Vedder ~

This Is One of Those Dark Times!

During the darkest times in the history of man, there were always those who found a way to turn straw into gold or to invent a disruptive technology that changed the way people thought and acted.

~ Lynda Resnick ~

Image courtesy Sumcensuvitt

Poetry Friday

Acknowledgement, and celebration, of mystery probably constitutes the most consistent theme of my poetry.

~ Denise Levertov ~
Photo by Verleihnix

And More Games to Come...

Playing at a World Cup is always great, but the experience of meeting England at the highest level is something which I don't think any of us will ever forget. There was an absolutely superb atmosphere inside the stadium. Both sets of fans were absolutely great.

~ Landon Donovan, Team USA soccer player ~

Art

Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.

~ Robert Motherwell ~



Photo by kamikazecactus

Twilight--Nobody Would Ever Mistake It for Literary Fiction!

There’s nothing like an unsolved mystery to keep you up at night.

~ Bella Swan, main character in Stephanie Meyers' Twilight ~

But First, Don't You Have to Untangle All Those Wires?

There is a vibrant debate among scientists over whether technology’s influence on behavior and the brain is good or bad, and how significant it is.

"The bottom line is, the brain is wired to adapt," said Steven Yantis, a professor of brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University. "There’s no question that rewiring goes on all the time," he added. But he said it was too early to say whether the changes caused by technology were materially different from others in the past.

~ from the New York Times article, "Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price" by Matt Richtel ~

Photo by Edd Sowden

Sunday's Kat Kwote

You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat's meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.

~ Aldous Huxley ~

Photo by ornoth

I Completely Forgot!

It's not often that I forget to post--it's probably only happened once or twice over the past 1,000 posts--but, I forgot a quote for yesterday. Here is Saturday's quote on Sunday:

Through memory we travel against time, through forgetfulness we follow its course.

~ Joseph Joubert ~

Mug available here.

Poetry Friday

I would be fire and fragrance, light and air,
    All gracious things that serve thee at they need;
Music, to lift they heart above all care;
    The wise and charming book that thou dost read.

~ Celia Thaxter from "Song" ~

Mind-Boggling Statistics

The Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996 was enacted in response to a disturbing rash of arson directed at houses of worship, with African American churches disproportionately victimized. According to Justice Department officials, DOJ opened 658 investigations of suspicious fires, bombings, and attempted bombings from January 1, 1995, to August 18, 1998. Of the 658 attacks directed against houses of worship, 220 were predominantly African-American institutions.

~ from The Leadership Conference website ~

The American Library Association Report of a 1909 Conference Held at the Mt. Washington Hotel

The "oldest inhabitant" believing it would rain on Thursday, which was the day first selected for the Mount Washington trip, there was a shifting of Wednesday's sessions to Thursday and Wednesday itself was made a day of recreation, library co-ordination and functions of Council being forgotten in an ascent of about 6000 feet by some 213 —16 miles of cog-railroad; in the enjoyment of some of the most wonderful panoramic mountain views, and in a dizzy descent in which many a dignified librarian was to be seen seated Turk fashion upon the wood piles in front of the funny, puffing little mountain engines, while others cast envious glances from points of vantage safer if less alluring. As Mount Washington could be "done" (in the Baedeker phrase) in a little more than half a day, those who ascended it in the morning had the afternoon for driving, strolls or other harmless occupations, while those who went up the mountain in the afternoon inverted that happy schedule, though there were some daring mountaineers who came down the mountain on foot.

~ Library Journal, v. 34, August 1909 ~

Image courtesy CardCow.com

Hotels of the Soul?

Writers really live in the mind and in hotels of the soul.

~ Edna O'Brien ~

I Hear Ya!

The way money goes so fast these days, they should paint racing stripes on it.

~ Mark Russell ~

Photo by omniNate

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The cat likes fish but she doesn't want to wet her paws.

~ Yiddish proverb ~

Image by skobo

We're Still Working On It

Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.

~ Robert Francis Kennedy ~

Poetry Friday

...Sometimes I dream
I have become words so perfect
I am allowed to nest for infinity
in God's butterfly-shaped ear.

~ Mekeel McBride from "Fountain Pen Ink, Bottled" ~





Photo by Shabbir Siraj

So True...

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

~ Albert Einstein ~

I'm Sure There Are Those Who Disagree...

The appearance of stone statues on Easter Island is neither mysterious nor unexpected.

~ The Easter Island Foundation ~
Photo by andrewgill73

Strawberry Time!

Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did.

~ William Butler ~

Photo by Matthias Richwin

Memorial Day

With the tears a Land hath shed
Their graves should ever be green.

~ Thomas Bailey Aldrich ~

Photo by Ed Yourdon

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Q: What's worse than raining cats and dogs?

A: Hailing taxicabs!







Image courtesy mtlin

Dawn

Morning is when I am awake and there is dawn in me.

~ Henry David Thoreau ~

Photo by James Jordan

Poetry Friday

I myself am simply a collage of my ancestor’s DNA, mixed with the hundreds of thousands of words and images and ideas that my brain has absorbed.

~ Austin Kleon ~

Remembering Art Linkletter

The four stages of man are infancy, childhood, adolescence, and obsolescence.

~ Art Linkletter ~

Fancy That...

The loveliest faces are to be seen by moonlight, when one sees half with the eye and half with the fancy.

~ Persian proverb ~

Image courtesy ihave3kids

Too Scary to Contemplate

What until recently seemed to be only the apocalyptic fantasies of the Christian faith has today entered the sphere of the soberest scientific calculations; the sudden end of history.

~ Emil Brunner ~

Breast Cancer

Aside from non-melanoma skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women. Breast cancer is the number one cause of cancer death in Hispanic women. It is the second most common cause of cancer death in white, black, Asian/Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native women.

~ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention~

Photo by Sarah...

Sunday's Kat Kwote

There has never been a cat
Who couldn't calm me down
By walking slowly
Past my chair.

~ Rod McKuen from "Thirteen" ~

Friends

The friends I found in books not only helped me to understand myself better, but made it possible for me to come to understand and reach out to others.

~ Katherine Paterson ~

Poetry Friday

I resent people who say writers write from experience. Writers don't write from experience, though many are hesitant to admit that they don't. I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.

~ Nikki Giovanni ~

Photo by veeichik

Time

Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.

~ Ambrose Bierce ~

Well-Deserved Praise

All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.

~ Ernest Hemingway ~

How Odd!

When I was a kid, I never saw a puppet show. I never played with puppets or had any interest in them.

~ Jim Henson ~

I totally Agree!

People in the media say they must look at the president with a microscope. Now, I don't mind a microscope, but boy, when they use a proctoscope, that's going too far.

~ Richard M. Nixon ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The cat is a dilettante in fur.

~ Theophile Gautier ~

Spring Fever

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want--oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!

~ Mark Twain ~

Poetry Friday

I think that the job of poetry, its political job, is to refresh the idea of justice, which is going dead in us all the time.

~ Robert Hass ~

Photo by Steve Rhodes

And the Problem Is...?

A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables.

~ Gertrude Stein ~

Fenway Park--Home of the Red Sox

Fenway is the essence of baseball.

~ Tom Seaver ~

Goodbye, Lena

If I had been less strong, if I had been in competition with a lot of white girls, I would not have stood out the way I did. I was different, and it did give me a start. But I had to find my own ways to keep going, to get through all of that.

~ Lena Horne ~

Cooperation

The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.

~ Bertrand Russell ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Photo by Etolane
People who wish to salute the free and independent side of their evolutionary character acquire cats. People who wish to pay homage to their servile and salivating roots own dogs.

~ Anna Quindlen ~

And some people just can't make up their minds! --KK

Does That Apply to Bike Riding?

Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one's aim.

~ John D. Rockefeller ~

Poetry Friday

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these.

~ Emily Dickinson ~

Solar Energy

The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.

~ Ralph Nader ~

Photo courtesy Fr Antunes

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?

~ Frida Kahlo ~

And There's the Rub...

There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.

~ Mohandas K. Gandhi ~

Sharing

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

~ Buddha ~

Photo by Mr. Tea

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Any household with at least one feline member has no need for an alarm clock.

~ Louise A. Belcher ~

Happy May!

The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit.

~ Sir Thomas Malory ~