The World Laughs With You

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

-- Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 - 1919), American poet, "Solitude"

Proper Place

When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.  You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder.  He will find his "proper place" and will stay in it.  You do not need to send him to the back door.  He will go without being told.  In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit.  His education makes it necessary.

-- Carter Godwin Woodson (19 December 1875 - 3 April 1950), African American professor, historian, author, and journalist, The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933)

Ground For Taking

The ground for taking ignorance to be restrictive of freedom is that it causes people to make choices which they would not have made if they had seen what the realization of their choices involved.

-- Sir Alfred Jules Ayer (1910 - 1989), British humanist philosopher, The Meaning of Life and Other Essays (1990) "The Concept of Freedom"

Eustress

The term eustress means "beneficial stress" -- either psychological, physical (e.g., exercise), or biochemical/radiological (hormesis).

The word was introduced by endocrinologist Hans Selye (1907-1982) in 1976; he combined the Greek prefix eu- meaning "good", and the English word stress, to give the literal meaning "good stress".  The Oxford English Dictionary traces early use of the word (in psychological usage) to 1968.

Eustress is the positive cognitive response to stress that is healthy, or gives one a feeling of fulfillment or other positive feelings.  Hans Selye created the term as a subgroup of stress to differentiate the wide variety of stressors and manifestations of stress.

-- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What Matters Most

What matters most is that we learn from living.

-- Doris Lessing (1919 - 2013), British writer, born Doris May Tayler, 2007 Nobel laureate in Literature, as quoted in Permission to Play : Taking Time to Renew Your Smile (2003) by Jill Murphy Long, p. 147

Tuning Our Opinions

[W]e consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor's pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound.

-- Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910), known as Mark Twain, American humorist, novelist, writer, and lecturer, "The Privilege of the Grave" (1905), published in 2010, the author having requested it not be published until 100 years after his death

Unjustly

[V]iolence done ... is always sure to be injustice done; for violence does even justice unjustly.

-- Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881), Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher, Past and Present (1843) Book I, Chap. III

RIP Dr Don Bitzer

I just learned an hour ago that yesterday [10 December 2024], Don Bitzer, creator of the PLATO system, and friend to us all, passed away at age 90 in North Carolina.

I'm at a loss for words at the moment and can't think of much to say that I didn't say in my book, which, in hindsight, may kinda sorta be the closest attempt at a biography of Don, but I will say that I never ever met a more generous, supportive, enthusiastic person in the world.  He and his wife Maryann, who passed away in 2022, were incredibly generous.

He was an inspiration to us all, and to the world, which he made a better place.

-- Brian Dear, author of "The Friendly Orange Glow", announcing the passing of Dr Donald L Bitzer

[Meta - I got my start in computing through the good graces of Dr Bitzer in March 1974, and it led to my lifelong career.  And of course "trvth" itself originated on the University of Illinois PLATO system in notesfile =pad in February 1981, and has always been maintained on some PLATO system, somewhere.  Currently these posts are hosted in notesfile =pad on the "cyber1" CYBIS system (more info at cyber1.org).]

Problems And Mysteries

Our ignorance can be divided into problems and mysteries.  When we face a problem, we may not know its solution, but we have insight, increasing knowledge, and an inkling of what we are looking for.  When we face a mystery, however, we can only stare in wonder and bewilderment, not knowing what an explanation would even look like. 

-- Steven Pinker (1954 -), Canadian-born American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and popular science writer, How the Mind Works, explaining Noam Chomsky's position

Half Done

Dimidium facti qui coepit habet; sapere aude; 

incipe!

He who has begun has half done.  Dare to be wise; begin!

-- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 - 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace, Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus, Epistles (c. 20 BC and 14 BC) Book I, epistle ii, lines 40–41

The Wise Man Knows

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

-- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), English poet, playwright, and actor, Touchstone, As You Like It (1599), Act V, Scene i

The Wit Of Fools

Le silence est l'esprit des sots
Et l'une des vertus du sage.

Silence is the wit of fools, 
and one of the virtues of the wise.

-- Bernard de Bonnard (1744 - 1784), French poet, "Le Silence," L'Almanach des Muses (1776)

Pseudonym

Le hasard, c'est peut-être le pseudonyme de Dieu, quand il ne veut pas signer. 

Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when He did not want to sign.

-- Théophile Gautier (1811 - 1872), French poet, dramatist, and novelist, La Croix de Berny (1845), letter III: Edgard Meilhan au Prince de Monbert

No Longer A Boy

It was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy.  From that moment I began to grow old in my own esteem -- and in my esteem age is not estimable.

-- George Gordon (Noel) Byron, (1788 - 1824), generally known as Lord Byron, English poet, from The Works of Lord Byron, ed. Rowland E. Prothero (1901), vol. V: Letters and Journals, ch. XXIII: "Detached Thoughts" (15 October 1821 - 18 May 1822), paragraph 72 (p. 445)

An Education

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know.  It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.  It's knowing where to go to find out what you need to know, and it's knowing how to use the information once you get it.

-- William Feather (1889 - 1981), American publisher and author, as quoted in Telephony, Vol. 150 (1956), p. 23