I Always Thought

I've seen fire and I've seen rain.
    I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end.
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend.
    But I always thought that I'd see you again.

-- James Vernon Taylor (12 March 1948-). American singer-songwriter and guitarist, "Fire And Rain" (1970)



Point of trivia, my "cerl" records were created on his 27th birthday, 40 years ago this spring.

A Part Of Ourselves

What we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

-- Anatole France (1844-1924), French poet, journalist, and novelist, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, Part II, ch. 4 (1881)

The World Is Round

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.

-- Ivy Baker Priest (1877-1965), Treasurer of the United States (1953-1961), Parade Magazine, 1958

No Real Ending

There is no real ending.  It's just the place where you stop the story.

-- Frank Herbert (1920-1986), American science fiction writer, interview, 3 February 1969, California State College, Fullerton

Gains For All Our Losses

There are gains for all our losses,
There are balms for all our pain:
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.

-- Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903), American critic and poet, The Flight of Youth

The Road

Where you end up isn't the most important thing.  It's the road you take to get you there.  The road you take is what you'll look back on and call your life.

-- Tim Wiley

The Only Thing You Take

The only thing you take with you when you're gone is what you leave behind.

-- John Allston

The Art Of Ending

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), American poet, one of the five Fireside Poets, Elegiac Verse, stanza 14 (1879)

One Minute At A Time

This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.

-- Narrator in the film Fight Club (1999)

The Past

The past is never where you think you left it.

-- Katherine Anne Porter (1890 - 1980), American journalist, essayist, and novelist, Ship of Fools (1962)

Use The Redline

We tuned the car to preserve the engine and increase longevity. Use the redline when you feel it's necessary for win. Good luck

-- Scion Forums senior member Teseo, aka Scion FR-S Chief Engineer Tetsuya Tada, in the thread "How often can I reach red line ?", 20 April 2015

This Is How It Works

This is how it works --
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
until their dying breath.

-- Regina Spektor (1980-), Soviet-born American singer-songwriter and pianist, "On the Radio", Begin to Hope (2006)

See It All Perfectly

I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations -- one can either do this or that.  My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this:  do it or do not do it -- you will regret both.

-- Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Danish Christian philosopher and theologian, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

And You've Done It

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end.  It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's a day you've had everything to do and you've done it.

-- Variously attributed to Margaret Thatcher or Lord Acton

Fragments

A composer's job involves the decoration of fragments of time.

-- Frank Zappa (1940 - 1993), American musician and composer

Tightrope

To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.

-- Maya Angelou (1928-2014), African-American poet, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Ch. 34

A Force For Good

Every day, in every community in America, scouting is changing lives -- teaching young people skills and leadership, and helping them build character and integrity.  As I said during our national annual meeting in May, due to the social, political, and legal changes taking place in our country and in our movement, I did not believe the adult leadership policy could be sustained. ...

The best way to allow the BSA to continue to focus on its mission and preserve its core values was to address the issue and set our own course. And that's what we've done.

For far too long this issue has divided and distracted us.  Now it's time to unite behind our shared belief in the extraordinary power of scouting to be a force for good in a community and in the lives of its youth members.

-- Boy Scouts of America National President and former Defense Secretary Dr. Robert M. Gates, in a statement on the end of Scouting's national ban on gay adults in scouting, 27 July 2015

Traditional Values

It is a strong argument for democracy that governments regulated by principles of accountability, respect for public opinion and the supremacy of just laws are more likely than an all-powerful ruler or ruling class, uninhibited by the need to honour the will of the people, to observe the traditional duties of Buddhist kingship.  Traditional values serve both to justify and to decipher popular expectations of democratic government.

-- Aung San Suu Kyi (1945-), Burmese opposition politician, "Freedom From Fear And Other Writings", (1991)

Science And Art

There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart.  The first of these is science, and the second is art.  Neither is independent of the other or more important than the other. Without art science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber.  Without science art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery.  The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.

-- Raymond Thornton Chandler (23 July 1888 - 26 March 1959), American novelist and screenwriter, Great Thought" (19 February 1938), published in The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler (1976)

Fastest And Cheapest

If we want to reduce poverty, one of the simplest, fastest and cheapest things we could do would be to make sure that as few people as possible become parents before they actually want to.

-- Isabel Sawhill, an economist at the Brookings Institution, who supports programs, like one in Colorado, that provide access to long-acting birth control, New York Times, July 2015