Bringing Up A Family

Bringing up a family should be an adventure, not an anxious discipline in which everybody is constantly graded for performance.

-- Milton R. Saperstein

Creativity

Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.

-- Norman Podhoretz

Great End Of Education

The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others.

-- Tryon Edwards

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.

-- Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961, Swedish Statesman, Secretary-general of U.N.)

Class

Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It's the sure-footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life.

-- Ann Landers (1918-2003, American Advice Columnist)

Discipline Ourselves

If we do not discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us.

-- William Feather (1888-1981, American writer, businessman)

Ben Franklin

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.

-- David Comins

If A Man Empties His Purse

If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it away from him. An investment of knowledge always pays the best interest.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Making Excuses

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Many Will Seem Few

If you desire many things, many things will seem few.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Very Odd Creatures

Mankind are very odd creatures: One half censure what they practise, the other half practise what they censure; the rest always say and do as they ought.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Suppress The First Desire

It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Actions Show Meaning

Words may show a man's wit, but actions his meaning.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Subject Of Controversy

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.

-- William Hazlitt

Not Forgotten

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are gone, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Wikipedia, Number of the Beast, 666

In honor of today's date, 6-6-6:

The number 666 retains a peculiar significance in the culture and psychology of Western societies, where some perceive it as "the Devil's number", even in contexts usually remote from superstition. The fear of the number 666 is called hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.

For example:

* When the CPU manufacturer Intel introduced the 666 MHz Pentium III in 1999, they chose to market it as the "Pentium III 667", claiming that, since the actual clock speed was 666.666 MHz, 667 was the more accurate approximation, against their usual rounding practice, examples of which are the 66.666 MHz "486-66", the 466.666 MHz "Celeron 466" and the later 866.666 MHz "Pentium III 866".

* U.S. Route 666, "the Highway of the Beast", was renumbered as U.S. Route 491 in 2003 after controversy over the supposed reference to the Biblical beast, which also made the road signs a common target for theft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_the_beast

Buying Pleasure

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

National Security Letters

According to the Justice Department, in 2005 the FBI issued 9,254 National Security Letters, a rate of approximately one every 57 minutes.

Necessity

Necessity never made a good bargain.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Money Will Do Everything

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Curious Confusion

By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.

-- G. K. Chesterton

Amateur Hour

You get a lot more authority when the workforce doesn't think it's amateur hour on the top floor.

-- General Michael V. Hayden, President Bush's newly-confirmed C.I.A. director, New York Times, May 19, 2006

There Is Always Danger

In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.

-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)

Every Crisis

Every crisis offers you extra desired power.

-- William Moulton Marston

Bad Season

Remember that it only takes one hurricane in your neighborhood to make it a bad season.

-- Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, New York Times, May 23, 2006

Producer Of Meanings

One way to describe the great struggle of our time is as the endeavor to become a producer of meanings rather than a consumer of them -- in an age when meaning as advertising and marketing, as others' definitions of pleasure and terror, is daily forced down our throats.

-- Rebecca Solnit, author, commencement address for the English Department at UC Berkeley, May 2006

Political Anxiety

Political anxiety in an election year is to blame for a lot of the bad bills Congress passes.

-- Representative Jeff Flake, R-AZ, on a (now-dead) proposed $100 rebate to taxpayers to compensate for higher gas prices. New York Times, 5/2/06

Complicate Simplicity

Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity.

-- Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian ethnologist, 1914-2002

Ride Of Silence

Across the nation, over 600 cyclists are killed on the road every year (662 in 2002, to 626 in 2003 according to NHTSA). A small number compared to the estimated 300,000 premature deaths estimated to result from overweight and obesity-related illnesses.
-- American League of Cyclists

Bicycling is part of the solution to many of our nation's problems: the obesity epidemic, traffic congestion, air pollution and more. Some 64% of adults and over 15% of kids are overweight today, resulting in 300,000 premature deaths and a cost to society of $117 billion a year. Over 22% of all motor vehicle trips Americans take are less than one mile long, and 50% of the working population commutes five miles or less to work, an easily bikeable distance. If the average person biked to work or shopping once every two weeks instead of driving, we could prevent the pollution of close to one billion gallons of gasoline from entering the atmosphere every year. The League of American Bicyclists' new television and radio PSA campaign encourages Americans to visit www.bike-to-work.com and bike to work instead of driving. The League promotes bicycling for fun, fitness and transportation, and works for a bicycle-friendly America.
-- League of American Cyclists

"No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little." -- Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797)

http://www.rideofsilence.org/

Happy Death

As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

-- Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

Don't Rust

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.

-- Leonardo Da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

Knocked Down More

I got knocked down more than any champion and I got up more than every champion.

-- Floyd "The Gentleman of Boxing" Patterson (January 4, 1935 - May 11, 2006), American heavyweight boxer

River Of Time

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.

-- Leonardo da Vinci, 1452 - 1519

A Healthy Male Adult Bore

A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience.

-- John Updike

The Younger Generation

In case you're worried about what's going to become of the younger generation, it's going to grow up and start worrying about the younger generation.

-- Roger Allen

Live To Be One Hundred

If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.

-- George Burns

A Firm Anchor In Nonsense

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled sea of thought.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 - April 29, 2006) Canadian-born economist, Harvard professor

If All Else Fails

If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 - April 29, 2006) Canadian-born economist, Harvard professor

The Modern Conservative

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 - April 29, 2006) Canadian-born economist, Harvard professor

Comfort The Afflicted

In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 - April 29, 2006) Canadian-born economist, Harvard professor, in London Guardian, July 29, 1989

All The Rich People

If all the rich people in the world divided up their money among themselves there wouldn't be enough to go around.

-- Christina Stead, House of All Nations (1938) "Credo"

Ignorance Begets Confidence

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

-- Charles Darwin, 1871

Change And Stress

I have always argued that change becomes stressful and overwhelming only when you've lost any sense of the constancy of your life. You need firm ground to stand on. From there, you can deal with that change.

-- Richard Nelson Bolles

In Your Own Image

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

-- Anne Lamott, author

This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb

OU agrees to replace destroyed bicycle
Friday, March 31, 2006
Jim Phillips
FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

ATHENS, Ohio - A graduate student whose bike was mistaken for a pipe bomb and destroyed by authorities will get a new ride at Ohio University's expense.

OU Director of Legal Affairs John Burns said he'll write a check to 28-year-old Patrick Hanlin "once I figure out how much."

The university has agreed to replace Hanlin's bike, which bomb squad personnel dismantled looking for an explosive device earlier this month because the bike had a sticker on it promoting the punk band This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb.

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/03/31/20060331-E1-04.html

Never Invest

Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repairing.

-- Billy Rose

T E Lawrence On Iraq

The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. ... We are today not far from a disaster.

-- T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia), Sunday Times, August 1920; cited in Dahr Jamail, "The Ongoing War on Truth in Iraq" (antiwar.com, April 19)

http://www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=8871

Easier To Be Critical

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

-- Benjamin Disraeli, Speech at the House of Commons, January 24, 1860

Something Must Be Done

A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.

-- Daniel Webster

Fugitive

I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages.

-- William H. Mauldin

Sad Truth

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

-- Shana Alexander

Complexity Kills

Complexity kills.

-- Ray Ozzie, chief technical officer, who joined Microsoft last year; cited in Steve Lohr and John Markoff, "Windows Is So Slow, but Why?" (New York Times, March 27)
Ray is also a former member of the PLATO (now NovaNET) system staff

Your True Value

Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with.

-- Bob Wells

Fearful People

Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures. ... They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities.

-- George Gerbner, who headed the Annenberg School for Communication for 25 years; cited in Molly Ivins, "The 'Long War'? Oh, Goodie" (Boulder Daily Camera, Colorado), March 18/Common Dreams)

Rain Without Thunder And Lightning

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters.

-- Frederick Douglass

Satisfaction Is Death

As long as I have a want I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.

-- George Bernard Shaw, Overruled

You Never Know

You never know how well an election will go for an indicted person.

-- Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX), in an interview with Reuters shortly before winning the 2006 Republican house primary

010203040506

Tomorrow, Wednesday, April 5th at 2 minutes and 3 seconds past 1am it will be 01:02:03 on 04/05/06.

All Religions Are Equally Good

All religions are equally good. God is the fruit of any religion truly practised. Make no mistake about it. God is one. Truth is one. The colour of the cow may be different, but milk is white.

-- Sivananda (1887 - 1963)

Not Lucky To Be Alive

No, I don't feel lucky to be alive! I feel lucky I'm not dead. There's a difference.

-- Paul Dooley as Ray Stohler in "Breaking Away"

Fear Is What They're Going To Have

From an interview with Eric Haney, a retired command sergeant major of the U.S. Army, and a founding member of Delta Force, the military's elite covert counter-terrorist unit.

Q: What's your assessment of the war in Iraq?

A: Utter debacle. But it had to be from the very first. The reasons were wrong. The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated. (Army Gen.) Tommy Franks was brow-beaten and ... pursued warfare that he knew strategically was wrong in the long term. That's why he retired immediately afterward. His own staff could tell him what was going to happen afterward.

Q: What is the cost to our country?

A: For the first thing, our credibility is utterly zero. So we destroyed whatever credibility we had. ... And I say "we," because the American public went along with this. They voted for a second Bush administration out of fear, so fear is what they're going to have from now on.

Our military is completely consumed, so were there a real threat - thankfully, there is no real threat to the U.S. in the world, but were there one, we couldn't confront it. Right now, that may not be a bad thing, because that keeps Bush from trying something with Iran or with Venezuela.

The harm that has been done is irreparable. There are more than 2,000 American kids that have been killed. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed. ... It has been a horror, and this administration has worked overtime to divert the American public's attention from it. Their lies are coming home to roost now, and it's gonna fall apart. But somebody's gonna have to clear up the aftermath and the harm that it's done just to what America stands for. It may be two or three generations in repairing.

http://www.dailynews.com/ontv/ci_3641046

X=Y

Let x be the probability that you look like (and perhaps feel like) hell on a given day. Let y be the maximum value that x can take on. Then we have the following conjecture.

If today is a day on which you must have your picture taken for an ID, then x=y.

-- Josh Paley

RIP Cap

Here we were, begging the world to stop sending any arms to Iran, and there was this horrible proposal that we try to buy the friendship of these fanatics by giving them arms and violating all of the things we were doing in trying to persuade the rest of the world that they shouldn't sell them arms.

-- Caspar W. Weinberger (August 18, 1917 - March 28, 2006), President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense

The Plural Of Anecdote

The plural of anecdote is NOT data.

-- Ward Curtis

What A Concept

I am responsible for my own well-being, my own happiness. The choices and decisions I make regarding my life directly influence the quality of my days.

-- Kathleen Andrus

Some Say The World Will End In Fire

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost

Not Words, Choices

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

-- Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962, American First Lady, columnist, lecturer, humanitarian)

I Blind Myself

Because you're not what I would have you be, I blind myself to who, in truth, you are.

-- Madeline L'Engle

Not Understanding

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

-- Upton Sinclair, novelist and reformer (1878-1968)

An Irish Blessing

May there always be work for your hands to do;
May your purse always hold a coin or two;
May the sun always shine on your windowpane;
May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain;
May the hand of a friend always be near you;
May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

-- An Irish Blessing

One-Word Description

When asked for a one-word description of Bush, the most frequent response [in an independent Pew Research Center poll] was "incompetent," followed by "good," "idiot" and "liar." In February 2005, the most frequent reply was "honest."

The Price You Paid

What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want.

-- Mignon McLaughlin

The Music Business

The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.

-- Hunter S. Thompson

Failure To Understand Reality

It's our failure to understand reality that has caused us to be late throughout this experience of the last three years in Iraq.

-- Retired Army Major General William L. Nash, a former military commander in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Potentially Suitable

We have found an environment that is potentially suitable for living organisms.

-- Carolyn Porco, of the Space Science Institute, discussing a moon of Saturn. NY Times, 3/10/06

Enron '99

For an amusing read, check out

http://www.enron.com/corp/investors/annuals/annual99/letter.html

Ignorance Of Experts

Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceding generation. ... Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

-- Richard Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, (Perseus Books, New York, 1999), pp. 186-187.

Levels Of Thinking

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

-- Albert Einstein

National Archives

The idea is to let people get on with their research and not reclassify documents unless it's absolutely necessary.

-- Allen Weinstein, the nation's chief archivist, announcing a "moratorium" on reclassification of documents by intelligence agencies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/politics/03archives.html?th&emc=3Dth

Absorb The Most

The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and detail, is the one that must rule all observation.

-- Adam Smith

Accomplice To The Crime

The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference.

-- Bess Myerson (b. 1924), U.S. government official, columnist. Quoted in: Claire Safran, "Impeachment?" (published in Redbook, New York, April 1974).

Intellectual Labor

Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.

-- Samuel Johnson, quoted in Boswell's "Life of Johnson"

Our Strength

Our strength is often composed of the weakness that we're damned if we're going to show.

-- Mignon McLaughlin

Beware The Fury

Beware the fury of a patient man.

-- John Dryden

Quantum Computing

It is very bizarre that you know your computer has not run but you also know what the answer is. A non-running computer produces fewer errors.

-- Onur Hosten, member of a University of Illinois team working on quantum computing.
Journal reference: Nature (vol 439, p 949)
From issue 2540 of New Scientist magazine, 22 February 2006, page 21

Nothing Is As Frustrating

Nothing is as frustrating as arguing with someone who knows what he's talking about.

-- Sam Ewing

Never Make The Mistake

I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.

-- Edward Gibbon

I Like Long Walks

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

-- Noel Coward

May Your Trails Be Crooked

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

-- Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

Grow Up

It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.

-- E. E. (Edward E.) Cummings (1894-1962, American Poet)

Every Step

Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Tragedy

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.

-- Clarence Seward Darrow, 1857 - 1938

Loneliness Vs. Solitude

Language has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone, and the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone.

-- Paul Johannes Tillich

Profanity

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

-- Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

End Move In Politics

The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.

-- R. Buckminster Fuller

All The World's A Stage

If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.

-- Paul Beatty

Only Way To Predict The Future

The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future. Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophesies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.

-- Eric Hoffer

Data Banks

The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist.

-- Marshall McLuhan

Confidence

Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond your control.

-- Richard Kline

They Defend Their Errors

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.

-- Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)