Breadcrumbs

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The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change. -Richard Bach, writer (b. 23 Jun 1936)

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Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. -William Butler Yeats, writer, Nobel laureate (13 Jun 1865-1939)

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The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths. -Aleksandr Pushkin, poet, novelist, and playwright (6 Jun 1799-1837)

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'Writing' is the Latin of our times. The modern language of the people is video and sound. -Lawrence Lessig, professor and political activist (b. 3 Jun 1961)

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Night fell again. There was war to the south, but our sector was quiet. The battle was over. Our casualties were some thirteen thousand killed -- thirteen thousand minds, memories, loves, sensations, worlds, universes -- because the human mind is more a universe than the universe itself -- and all for a few hundred yards of useless mud. -John Fowles, novelist (1926-2005)

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May my silences become more accurate. -Theodore Roethke, poet (25 May 1908-1963)

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It is not titles that make men illustrious, but men who make titles illustrious. -Niccolo Machiavelli, political philosopher and author (3 May 1469-1527)

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A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion. -Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (26 Apr 1889-1951)

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“Uncertainty is where new value is created. Everything you want in life is on the other side of all your excuses for not trying.” Keith Ferrazzi

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Anyone who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid. -H.W. Fowler, lexicographer (10 Mar 1858-1933)

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What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you. -Richard Wilbur, poet and translator (1 Mar 1921-2017)

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Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is. -William James, psychologist and philosopher (11 Jan 1842-1910)

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The main problem in any democracy is that crowdpleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whup their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy -- then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece. -Hunter S. Thompson, journalist and author (18 Jul 1937-2005)

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We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. -William Somerset Maugham, writer (25 Jan 1874-1965)

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The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do. -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (15 Feb 1564-1642)

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A man is known by the company he keeps. A company is known by the men it keeps. -Thomas J. Watson, businessman (17 Feb 1874-1956)

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Main ahem tha (I was important)  

Yahi vehem tha (That was my illusion)

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A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. -Joseph Conrad, novelist (3 Dec 1857-1924)

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When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set. -Lin Yutang, writer and translator (10 Oct 1895-1976)

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A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (29 Jun 1900-1944)

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No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded. -Margaret Mead, anthropologist (16 Dec 1901-1978)

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The tragedy in the lives of most of us is that we go through life walking down a high-walled lane with people of our own kind, the same economic situation, the same national background and education and religious outlook. And beyond those walls, all humanity lies, unknown and unseen, and untouched by our restricted and impoverished lives. -Florence Luscomb, architect and suffragist (1887-1985)

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So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs. -Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (5 Nov 1850-1919)

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From everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living, nothing in my eyes is better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings and they do not serve for anything secret or bad. -Ivo Andric, novelist, Nobel laureate (9 Oct 1892-1975)

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Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived. -Oscar Wilde, writer (16 Oct 1854-1900)

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What I like in a good author isn’t what he says, but what he whispers. -Logan Pearsall Smith, essayist (18 Oct 1865-1946)

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Would the boy you were be proud of the man you are? -Laurence J. Peter, educator and author (16 Sep 1919-1990)

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Good books don't give up all their secrets at once. -Stephen King, novelist (b. 21 Sep 1947)

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“An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.” - Bertrand Russel

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An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. -Spanish proverb

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If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed, and color, we would find some other cause for prejudice by noon. -George D. Aiken, US senator (20 Aug 1892-1984)

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I dreamt that my hair was kempt. Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it. -Ogden Nash, poet (19 Aug 1902-1971)

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I've never been married, but I tell people I'm divorced so they won't think something's wrong with me. -Elayne Boosler, comedian (b. 18 Aug 1952)

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I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized. -Davy Crockett, frontiersman, soldier, and politician (17 Aug 1786-1836)

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What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give. -P.D. James, novelist (3 Aug 1920-2014)

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Fatigue is the best pillow. - Benjamin Franklin

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Little strokes, Fell great oaks. - Benjamin Franklin

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Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time rich and cash poor. -Cory Doctorow, author and journalist (b. 17 Jul 1971)

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What's done to children, they will do to society. -Karl A. Menninger, psychiatrist (22 Jul 1893-1990)

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The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human. -Aldous Huxley, novelist (26 Jul 1894-1963)

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Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength. -Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (19 Jun 1623-1662)

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A book must be an axe for the frozen sea inside of us. -Franz Kafka, novelist (3 Jul 1883-1924)

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The path of least resistance makes all rivers, and some men, crooked. - Napoleon Hill 

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Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds -- all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have. -Edward Everett Hale, author (3 Apr 1822-1909)

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Go to where the silence is and say something. -Amy Goodman, investigative journalist, columnist and author (b. 13 Apr 1957)

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Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are gone, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.”

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A pedestal is as much a prison as any small space. -Gloria Steinem, activist, editor (b. 25 Mar 1934)

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We open our mouths and out flow words whose ancestries we do not even know. We are walking lexicons. In a single sentence of idle chatter we preserve Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse: we carry a museum inside our heads, each day we commemorate peoples of whom we have never heard. -Penelope Lively, writer (b. 17 Mar 1933) 

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Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves. -Gene Fowler, journalist and author (8 Mar 1890-1960)

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I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this. -Emo Phillips, comedian, actor (b. 7 Feb 1956)

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Mistakes are the portals of discovery. -James Joyce, novelist and poet (2 Feb 1882-1941)

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An idea is a textually-transmitted disease. A great idea puts one out of their comfort zone -- makes them feel dis-eased. Never underestimate the power of a single solitary idea. It may be a Magna Carta, limiting powers of a king; theses nailed to a door, pointing out that godliness doesn’t necessarily means goodness.

And what’s a book but a collection of ideas. The medium may change -- rock face, tree bark, animal hide, papyrus, magnetic tape, or a Kindle -- but what doesn’t change is the purpose. A piece of writing takes an idea from one mind to another.

Or as a cartoonist said: You can use books to install new software into your brain. This week we’re all about books. We’ll feature words about books.

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Is it [hunting] really a sport if you have all the equipment and your opponent doesn't know a game is going on? -Bill Maher, comedian, actor, and writer (b. 20 Jan 1956)

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Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest. -Douglas William Jerrold, playwright and humorist (3 Jan 1803-1857)

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Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right. -Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (2 Jan 1920-1992)

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An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc. -Henri Matisse, artist (31 Dec 1869-1954)

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The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. -Steve Biko, anti-apartheid activist (18 Dec 1946-1977)

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Everything you add to the truth subtracts from the truth. -Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (11 Dec 1918-2008)

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If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse. -Woody Allen, author, actor, and filmmaker (b. 1 Dec 1935)

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Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together. -Eugene Ionesco, playwright (26 Nov 1909-1994)

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We haven't yet learned how to stay human when assembled in masses. -Lewis Thomas, physician and author (25 Nov 1913-1993)

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If you hire only those people you understand, the company will never get people better than you are. Always remember that you often find outstanding people among those you don’t particularly like. -Soichiro Honda, industrialist (17 Nov 1906-1991)

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Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use. -Emily Post, author and columnist (27 Oct 1872-1960)

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A king can stand people's fighting, but he can't last long if people start thinking. -Will Rogers, humorist (4 Nov 1879-1935)

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To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. -Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (5 Nov 1850-1919)

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You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty. -Jessica Mitford, author, journalist, and civil rights activist (11 Sep 1917-1996)

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A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind. -John Neal, author and critic (25 Aug 1793-1876)

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Dreams heed no borders, the eyes need no visas. With eyes shut I walk across the line in time. All the time. -Gulzar, poet, lyricist, and film director (b. 18 Aug 1934)

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A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns. -P.L. Travers, author (9 Aug 1899-1996)

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All great truths begin as blasphemies. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (26 Jul 1856-1950)

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We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong. -Karl Popper, philosopher and a professor (28 Jul 1902-1994)

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The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed. -Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (21 Jul 1899-1961)

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If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. -E.B. White, writer (11 Jul 1899-1985)

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I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. -George McGovern, senator and author (19 Jul 1922-2012) 

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The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating. -Pearl S. Buck, novelist, Nobel laureate (26 Jun 1892-1973)

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The business of the poet and the novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things. -Thomas Hardy, novelist and poet (2 Jun 1840-1928)

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I feel fairly certain that my hatred harms me more than the people whom I hate. -Max Frisch, architect, playwright, and novelist (15 May 1911-1991)

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The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him. -Niccolo Machiavelli, political philosopher and author (3 May 1469-1527)

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If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story. -Terry Pratchett, novelist (28 Apr 1948-2015)

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Our shouting is louder than our actions, / Our swords are taller than us, / This is our tragedy. / In short / We wear the cape of civilization / But our souls live in the stone age. -Nizar Qabbani, poet and diplomat (21 Mar 1923-1998)

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Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. -Flannery O'Connor, writer (25 Mar 1925-1964)

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It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them. -Leo Buscaglia, author (31 Mar 1924-1998)

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It is a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it. -William Somerset Maugham, writer (25 Jan 1874-1965)

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All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography. -Federico Fellini, film director, and writer (20 Jan 1920-1993)

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To move freely you must be deeply rooted. -Bella Lewitzky, dancer (13 Jan 1916-2004)

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Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. -Christina Rossetti, poet (5 Dec 1830-1894)

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A timid question will always receive a confident answer. -Charles John Darling, lawyer, judge, and politician (6 Dec 1849-1936)

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Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-- / ... The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind. -Emily Dickinson, poet (10 Dec 1830-1886)

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Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power. -Chelsea Manning, activist and whistleblower (b. 17 Dec 1987)

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Art should be like a holiday: something to give a man the opportunity to see things differently and to change his point of view. -Paul Klee, painter (18 Dec 1879-1940) Food for thought for the curious child

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Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. 
-Mahatma Gandhi (2 Oct 1869-1948)

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https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/behind-chinas-hindu-temples-a-forgotten-history/article4932458.ece

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 While tongue-twisters in all languages take advantage of similar sounding words and syllables to generate confusion, some Chinese tongue-twisters also take advantage of the fact that Chinese is a tonal language. Taken to the extreme, it is possible to create a tongue-twisters where all the words have the same sound but varying only in their tones. Zhao Yuanren (趙元任) (1892-1982), an accomplished Chinese linguist, created just such an essay. He did so to prove just how inadequate it would be to replace Chinese characters by a purely phonetic script as others were advocating at the time.

The beauty of this essay is that although the romanized version is utterly ridiculous, its Chinese character version is perfectly clear and its content totally interesting. However, it is up to you to find out whether a native Chinese speaker hearing the essay for the first time could correctly parse it when read by another native Chinese speaker.

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A poor idea well written is more likely to be accepted than a good idea poorly written. 
-Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (2 Jan 1920-1992) 

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I don't want others to decide who I am. I want to decide that for myself.
-Emma Watson, actor

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https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/stonelion.php

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Belt and Road, says Michael Every, head of financial markets research for Rabobank Group in Hong Kong, is “a political special sauce. ... If you drizzle it on anything, it tastes better.”

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When you are dead, you do not know that you are dead. All of the pain is felt by others. the same thing happens when you are stupid.

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Part Texas. Part Brooklyn. Part Mars.

Fifty miles from the Mexican border and 200 miles from the nearest major airport, Marfa is a dusty dot of a town with one traffic light and fewer than 2,000 people in the remote reaches of far West Texas known as ‘El Despoblado’ (the uninhabited). Beyond the town’s steel water tower, the Chihuahuan Desert unfurls towards the horizon in an endless expanse of cactus scrubs, scorched prairie and tangled tumbleweeds amid one of the US’ last frontiers.

Since the 1970s, a wave of hipsters, artists and urban transplants have blown in with the winds and turned this unassuming ranching town into an unlikely avant-garde mecca. Today, Marfa is a quirky collision of saloons and espresso bars, 10-gallon hats and berets and feed stores and vegan restaurants.

But long before Marfa began attracting the unconventional, people were coming to witness the inexplicable. For more than 135 years, mysterious glowing orbs have appeared here in the night sky. Known as the Marfa Lights, these otherworldly wonders remain one of the most unexplained mysteries in the United States. (Source: http://www.bbc.com/travel/gallery/20180116-the-mysterious-ghost-lights-of-marfa-texas)

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The hands that help are better far

Than lips that pray. 

Love is the ever gleaming star

That leads the way, 

That shines, not on vague worlds of bliss, 

But on a paradise in this. 

-Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (11 Aug 1833-1899)

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Cyan, yellow, magenta and key Oh how they come together Like earth, fire, air and water Only limited by imaginationUnleashing endless possibilities Riot of hues all around Stimulus for creativity everywhere

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A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns. 

-P.L. Travers, author, creator of the "Mary Poppins" series (9 Aug 1899-1996)

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You're sleeping son, I know

But, really, this can't wait

I wanted to explain

Before it gets too late

For your mother and me

Love has finally died

This is no happy home

But God knows how I've tried

Because you're all I have, my boy

You are my life, my pride, my joy

And if I stay, I stay because of you, my boy

I know it's hard to understand

Why did we ever start?

We're more like strangers now

Each acting out a part

I have laughed, I have cried

I have lost every game

Taken all I can take

But I'll stay just the same

Because you're all I have, my boy

You are my life, my pride, my joy

And if I stay, I stay because of you, my boy

Sleep on, you haven't heard a word

Perhaps it's just as well

Why spoil your little dreams

Why put you through the hell

Life is no fairytale

As one day you will know

But now you're just a child

I'll stay here and watch you grow

Because you're all I have, my boy

You are my life, my pride, my joy

And if I stay, I stay because of you, my boy

- "My Boy" is the title of a popular song from the early 1970s. The music was composed by Jean-Pierre Bourtayre and Claude François, and the lyrics were translated from the original version "Parce que je t'aime, mon enfant" (Because I Love You My Child) into English by Phil Coulter and Bill Martin.

She was a taker. You need a giver.

- Dialogue from the movie 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' (One of the most profound piece of writing and an absolutely smashing delivery by Alison Sudol [Queenie])

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“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other opinions drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become.” 

- Steve Jobs

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Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir man's blood. 

- Daniel Burnham, architect

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I'd prefer to die on my feet than to live on my knees. 

-Charb (pen name of Stephane Charbonnier), caricaturist and journalist (21 Aug 1967-2015)

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My stories run up and bite me in the leg -- I respond by writing them down -- everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off. 

-Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (22 Aug 1920-2012) 

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