Neutrality is Overrated

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

~ Desmond Tutu ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can,
And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran:
Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea--
And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times-three!

~ Lewis Carroll from Through the Looking Glass ~
Photo by elycefeliz

You Can!

If you can walk, you can dance. If you can talk, you can sing.

~ African proverb ~

Poetry Friday

What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.

~ John Keats ~

Hmmm...

Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he's got it all.

~ James Brown ~

Gaze Up!

I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly--or ever--gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe.

~ Brian Greene ~

Photo by Sarah G

Friendship in Everything

The greatness of a craft consists firstly in how it brings comradeship to men.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery ~

There's a Reason He's Called "The Father of Our Country"

Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.

~ George Washington ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Mistress, there are portents abroad of magic and
        might,
And things that are yet to be done. Open the door!

~ Elizabeth Coatsworth from "On a Night of Snow" ~
Photo by greenshock

Go, Wisconsin Union Workers!

It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions.

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt ~

Here's some information on the situation in Wisconsin. More here. --KK

Poetry Friday

One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach--waiting for a gift from the sea.

~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh ~

Photo by Adam Glasgow

Especially If You Live in NH!

Make sure your blanket covers your feet.

~ Azerbaijani proverb ~

Photo by amanky

Smelling Books

Smelling books is really nostalgic for me--I am often reminded of my grandparents’ homes, or libraries where I used to go when I was a child.

~ Rachael Morrison ~

A Big Puzzle

There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.

~ Deepak Chopra ~
Photo by puzzlepics

Happy Valentine's Day!

Postcard image courtesy riptheskull

Sunday's Kat Kwote

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

~ Christopher Smart ~

Photo by Jimee, Jackie, Tom & Asha

In Honor of the People of Egypt

God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: "This is my country."

~ Benjamin Franklin ~

Photo by Kodak Agfa

Poetry Friday

Old Will Has a Way With Words...

She is mine own,
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.

~ William Shakespeare ~

Love Songs

Even a good love song can sort of awaken people. The way we travel and meet one another at the crossroads is important.

~ Dar Williams ~

Photo by Dorothea Lange courtesy Library of Congress

Suggestion: A Poet With Homicidal Tendencies

It's difficult to get films made, especially films about poets.

~ Dougray Scott ~



Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library

Proverbial Wisdom

A beautiful thing is never perfect.

~ Egyptian proverb ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Kittens in the garden
Looking in her face,
Learning how to spit and swear--
Oh, what a disgrace!

~ Elizabeth Anna Hart from "Mother Tabbyskins" ~
Photo by yazeed

Listen to the Birds

Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind--listen to the birds. And don't hate nobody.

~ Eubie Blake ~

Image by Elizabeth Abernathy

Poetry Friday

A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.

~ E. M. Forster ~

Photo by Josep Ma. Rosell

And a Traditional Romance?...

Tradition wears a snowy beard, romance is always young.

~ John Greenleaf Whittier ~

Water

Water is the driving force of all nature.

~ Leonardo da Vinci ~

How Are the Two Connected?

A fat stomach never breeds fine thoughts.

~ St. Jerome ~

Image courtesy Visipix

Authors As Explained by Pants

A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

When two close kindred meet,
What better than call a dance?

~ William Butler Yeats from "The Cat and the Moon" ~

~ Photo by fofurasfelinas ~

Pie or Ice Cream?

Everyone likes pie. But people like pie a la mode even better. In the pie of life, arts is the ice cream.

~ Peter Krause ~

I like plain old pie the best, but, the arts in life are indispensable. Make of that what you will. --KK

Photo by sea turtle

Poetry Friday

now i write poetry in my
free time but that's difficult
because words don't appear like

a dog when you call their name, no,
poetry is anything but convenient.

~ Mackenzie Connellee from "Invitation" ~

Photo by davipt

And the Older I Get, the More I Believe This is True!

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.

~ Alfred Hitchcock ~

Photo by BAMCAT

Lewis Carroll

I can't go back to yesterday--because I was a different person then.

~ Lewis Carroll ~

Never Tell a Lie--You May Starve to Death!

Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and cannot make a good soup.

~ Ludwig van Beethoven ~

Viva Outrageousness!

I have Dalinian thought: the one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.

~ Salvador Dali ~

Photo by Roger Higgins courtesy Library of Congress. Image altered by Diane Mayr.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Everything comes to those who wait...except a cat.

~ Mario Andretti ~


Photo by Identity Photogr@phy

I Have to Agree

...feelings and language play too big a part in our lives to not be used when considering the world around us—even something so dismal as economics.

~ Ariel Ramchandani ~

Poetry Friday

Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.

~ Joseph Roux ~

Photo by Jack Delano courtesy Library of Congress

Chicken Soup

Chickens can't speak well of their own soup.

~ Martiniquais proverb ~

Photo by fritish

As True Today As When It Was First Spoken

A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.

~ Orson Welles ~

Photo by Scary Cow

A Good Book

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book...

~ Alice Walker ~

Martin Luther King Day

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~

Photo by Roberto F.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Curiosity killed the cat, but where human beings are concerned, the only thing a healthy curiosity can kill is ignorance.

~ Harry Lorayne ~

Photo by Giara

What a Nice Way to Put It

Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into, the mind.

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~

Photo by *PaysImaginaire*

Poetry Friday

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

~ William James ~

Winter Vitality

There is still vitality under the winter snow, even though to the casual eye it seems to be dead.

~ Agnes Sligh Turnbull ~

Photo by withrow

Only If It Was a Good Book!

Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.

~ Truman Capote ~

He Didn't Get His Wish

I never understood why when you died, you didn't just vanish, everything could just keep going on the way it was only you just wouldn't be there. I always thought I'd like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I'd like it to say "figment."

~ Andy Warhol ~

Photo by Kevin Burgess

And Use It Well

One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind.

~ Dorothea Lange ~

Photo by Lange courtesy Library of Congress

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Lat take a cat, and fostre him wel with milk
And tendre flessh, and make his couche of silk

~ Geoffrey Chaucer ~




Image courtesy Visipix

The Judgment of Man

Cruel and cold is the judgment of man,
Cruel as winter, and cold as the snow...

~ Lewis J. Bates ~

Poetry Friday

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

~ Anais Nin ~
Photo by D. Sharon Pruitt

Good or Bad?

For thousands of years we used natural materials for everything. We've only been "modern" for a few hundred years.

~ Gary Weisenberger ~

Photo by grahamc99

Human Nature

There's no disappointment in memory, and one's exaggerations are always on the good side.

~ George Eliot ~

Library of Congress

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. It seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs and exhibitions.

~ News from the Library of Congress ~

My favorite place to visit virtually! --KK

Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, courtesy Library of Congress

Keep Thinkin'

Our achievements of today are but the sum total of our thoughts of yesterday. You are today where the thoughts of yesterday have brought you and you will be tomorrow where the thoughts of today take you.

~ Blaise Pascal ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Come, my fine cat, against my loving heart.

~ Charles Baudelaire ~