Confidence and Worry
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake. - Victor Hugo
When we borrow trouble, and look forward into the future and see what storms are coming, and distress ourselves before they comes as to how we shall avert them if they ever do come, we lose our proper trustfulness in God. When we torment ourselves with imaginary dangers or trials or reverses, we have already parted with that perfect love which casteth out fear. - Henry Ward Beecher
The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven. --John Milton
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. - Eleanor Roosevelt
Our fears are always more numerous than our dangers. - Seneca
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. - Confucius
No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his body, to risk his well-being, to risk his life, in a great cause. - Theodore Roosevelt
The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune. - Plutarch
If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten. - Jim Rohn
Folks who never do any more than they are paid for, never get paid for any more than they do. --Elbert Hubbard
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear not absence of fear. - Mark Twain
Two men look out through the same bars; one sees mud, and one the stars. --Frederick Langbridge
Friends and Relationships
Those friends thou has, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. - William Shakespeare
Hating people is like burning down your own home to get rid of a rat. - Harry Emerson Fosdick
Your friend is a man who knows all about you, and still likes you. - Elbert Hubbard
To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.- Bill Wilson
One of the hardest things in this world to do is to admit you are wrong. And nothing is more helpful in resolving a situation than its frank admission. - Benjamin Disraeli
Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin
Arguing is a game that two can play at. But it is a strange game in that neither opponent ever wins. - Benjamin Franklin
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be wiser than other people, if you can; but do not tell them so. - Lord Chesterfield
I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. - Anonymous
I learned thirty years ago that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence. - John Wanamaker
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar. - Abraham Lincoln
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. - Thomas Carlyle
I can live for two months on a good compliment. - Mark Twain
We do not love people for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them. --Leo Tolstoy
Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fiber of the human heart. The laws of friendship are great, austere, and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of morals. But we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to such a sudden sweetness. We snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which many summers and many winters must ripen. We seek our friend not sacredly, but with an adulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves.
I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frostwork, but the solidest thing we know.
The end of friendship is a commerce the most strict and homely that can be joined; more strict than any of which we have experienced. It is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death. It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and poverty and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reasons to what was drudgery.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another. Sincerity is the luxury allowed, like diadems and authority, only to the highest rank, that being permitted to speak truth, as having none above it to court or conform unto. Every man is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds. . . Almost every man we meet requires some civility, requires to be humored-he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion of philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend gives me entertainment without requiring me to stoop, or to lisp, or to mask myself. A friend therefore is a paradox in nature. I who alone am, I who see nothing in nature whose existence I can affirm with equal evidence to my own, behold now the semblance of my being, in all its height, variety and curiosity, reiterated in a foreign from; so that a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. --Ralph Waldo Emerson
Learning and Education
Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire. - William Butler Yeats
Minds are like parachute: they only function when open. -Thomas R. Dewar
It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it. - Jacob Bronowski
When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it; this is knowledge. --Confucius
Once expanded to the dimensions of a larger idea, the mind never returns to its original size. --Oliver Wendell Holmes
Respect for the fragility and importance of an individual life is still the first mark of the educated man. - Norman Cousins
The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do. - John Stuart Mill
Education is a private matter between the person and the world of knowledge and experience, it has little to do with school or college. -Lillian Smith
The recipe for perpetual ignorance is a very simple and effective one: be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge. -Elbert Hubbard
Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth. - Joseph Joubert
Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. - John F. Kennedy
Certain books seem to have been written not so much to enable one to learn something, but to show that the author knew something. - Goethe .
Life's scoring system works like this: one point each time you learn something, two points each time you learn something no one else knows, three points when you learn something you thought you knew is wrong. -George Schwelle
A problem well stated is a problem half solved. - Charles F. Kettering
All history teaches us that these questions that we think the pressing ones will be transmuted before they are answered, that they will be replaced by others, and that the very process of discovery will shatter the concepts that we today use to describe our puzzlement. - J. Robert Oppenheimer
A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere. - Joyce A. Myers
A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. - Jonathan Swift
The man who is too old to learn was probably always too old to learn. - Caryl Haskins (1908-2001) Scientist
Ask and be a fool for five minutes, fail to ask and remain a fool forever. - Chinese proverb
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Benjamin Franklin, 1775
Life
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet. - James Oppenheim
Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive. - Gil Bailie
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. - Friedrick Nietzche
The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven. - John Milton
Life does not consist mainly - or even largely - of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one's head. - Mark Twain
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action. - Benjamin Disraeli
Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. - William Shakespeare
Man does not cease to play because he grows old, he grows old because he ceases to play." - Drew Lachey
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's own way. - Viktor Frankl
We must not only give what we have; we must also give what we are. - Desire-Joseph Mercier
If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul, just watch a person laugh and play. Those who laugh and play well are the most alive. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Science & Nature
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. - Francis Bacon
The heart has its reasons which reason does not know. - Blaise Pascal
A new scientific truth is usually not propagated in such a way that opponents become convinced and discard their previous views. No, the adversaries eventually die off, and the upcoming generation is familiarised anew with the truth. - Max Planck
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today. "Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood." Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Two people return to their long-neglected garden and find among the weeds a few of the old plants surprisingly vigorous. One says to the other "It must be that gardener has been coming and doing something about these plants." Upon inquiry they find that no neighbor has ever seen anyone at work in their garden. The first man says to the other "He must have worked while people slept." The other says, "No, someone would have heard him and besides, anybody who cared about the plants would have kept down these weeds." The first man says, "Look at the way these are arranged. There is purpose and a feeling for beauty here. I believe that the more carefully we look the more we shall find confirmation of this." They examine the garden ever so carefully and sometimes they come on new things suggesting that a gardener comes and sometimes they come on new things suggesting the contrary and even that a malicious person has been at work. Besides examining the garden carefully they also study what happens to gardens left without attention. Each learns all the other learns about this and about the garden. Consequently, when after all this, one says "I still believe a gardener comes" while the other says "I don't" their different words now reflect no difference as to what they have found in the garden, no difference as to what they would find in the garden if they looked further and no difference about how fast untended gardens fall into disorder. At this stage, in this context, the gardener hypothesis has ceased to be experimental, the difference between one who accepts and one who rejects it is not now a matter of the one expecting something the other does not expect. What is the difference between them? The one says, "A gardener comes unseen and unheard. He is manifested only in his works with which we are all familiar," the other says "There is no gardener" and with this difference in what they say about the gardener goes a difference in how they feel towards the garden, in spite of the fact that neither expects anything of it which the other does not expect. - John Wisdom
Psychology
There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the labor of thinking. - Thomas A. Edison
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. - William James
Treat a man as he is; he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be; and he will become as he can and should be.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true. --Nathaniel Hawthorne
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. - Thomas Carlyle
This above all: to thine own self be true. - William Shakespeare
It were not best that we should all think alike; it is the difference of opinions that makes horse races. - Mark Twain
We are what we pretend to be, so we better be careful what we pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut
Religion
A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing, Our helper he amid the flood Of mortal ills prevailing. - Martin Luther
Enemy-occupied territory - that is what this world is. - C.S. Lewis
Prayer does not change God, but changes him who prays. - Soren Kierkegaard
God Himself, Sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days. - Samuel Johnson
Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore. - Russian proverb
Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe. - Saint Augustine
We are twice armed when we fight with faith. - Plato
God made people because He loves stories. � ancient rabbinic saying
You cannot go on �seeing through� things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or the garden beyond is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to �see through� first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To �see through� all things is the same as not to see. � C.S. Lewis
Sherlock Holmes
You can never foretell what any man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals may vary, but percentages remain constant.
--Sherlock Holmes
I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers. - Sherlock Holmes
The features are given to man as the means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful servants. - Sherlock Holmes
You know that a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick; and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all. - Sherlock Holmes
One drawback of an active mind is that one can always conceive alternate explanations which would make our scent a false one. - Sherlock Holmes
Mediocrity know nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. - Sherlock Holmes
Women are never to be entirely trusted - not the best of them. - Sherlock Holmes
Love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment. - Sherlock Holmes
It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal. - Sherlock Holmes
"My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know. - Sherlock Holmes
My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. - Sherlock Holmes
My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. - Sherlock Holmes
Is not all life pathetic and futile? Is not his story a microcosm of the whole? We reach. We grasp. And what is left in our hands at the end? A shadow. Or worse than a shadow - misery. - Sherlock Holmes
There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before. - Sherlock Holmes
But there are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world without them. - Sherlock Holmes
The ideal reasoner would when he has once been shown a single fact in all its bearing, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it, but also all the results which would follow from it. - Sherlock Holmes
A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library where he can get it if he wants it. - Sherlock Holmes
I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it - there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. - Sherlock Holmes
What the deuce is it (the solar system) to me? You say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or my work. - Sherlock Holmes
When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. - Sherlock Holmes
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. - Sherlock Holmes
There is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace. - Sherlock Holmes
We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination. - Sherlock Holmes
You see, but you do not observe. - Sherlock Holmes
Winwood Reade is good upon the subject. He remarks that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician. - Sherlock Holmes
Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come! - Sherlock Holmes
Teaching
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. - Chinese proverb
Everyone who remembers his own educational experience remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. - Sidney Hook
My heart is singing for joy this morning. A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shoen upon my little pupil's mind, and behold, all things are changed!" - Annie Sullivan
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. - Henry Adams
To teach is to learn. - Japanese proverb
When a teacher calls a boy by his entire name it measn trouble. - Mark Twain
The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. - A. Bronson Alcott
Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task. - Haim G. Ginot
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. - Albert Einstein
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. - William Arthur Ward
I see the mind of the five-year-old as a volcano with two vents: destructiveness and creativeness. - Sylvia Ashton-Warner
If I had a child who wanted to be a teacher, I would bid him Godspeed as if he were going to war. For indeed the war against prejudice, greed, and ignorance is eternal, and those who dedicate themselves to it give their lives no less because they may live to see some fraction of the battle won. - James Hilton
A teacher is better than two books. - German proverb
A good teacher, like a good entertainer first must hold his audience's attention. Then he can teach his lesson. - John Hendrik Clarke
I touch the future. I teach. - Christa McAuliffe
Good teachers are costly, but bad teachers cost more. - Bob Talbert
Teachers who have plugged away at their jobs for twenty, thirty, and forty years are heroes. I suspect they know in their hearts they've done a good thing, too, and are more satisfied with themselves than most people are. Most of us end up with no more than five or six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives. - Andrew A. Rooney
A good teacher is one who helps you become who you feel yourself to be. A good teacher is also one who says something you won't understand until ten years later. - Julius Lester
Teachers are more than any other class the guardians of civilization. - Bertrand Russell
A successful teacher needs: the education of a college president, the executive ability of a financier, the humility of a deacon, the adaptability of a chameleon, the hope of an optimist, the courage of a hero, the wisdom of a serpent, the gentleness of a dove, the patience of Job, the grace of God, and the persistence of the Devil. - Anonymous
If you promise not to believe everything your child says happens at this school, I'll promise not to believe everything he says happens at home. - Anonymous
The secret of teaching is to appear to have known all your life what you learned this afternoon. - Anonymous
Teach the young people how to think, not what to think. - Sidney Sugarman
To teach is to learn twice. - Joseph Joubert
The schools of the country are its future in miniature. -Tehyi Hsieh
It is hard to convince a high-school student that he will encounter a lot of problems more difficult than those of algebra and geometry. - Edgar W. Howe
Time
I never think about the future. It comes soon enough. - Albert Einstein
Since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour. - Benjamin Franklin
We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end to them. - Seneca
You will never "find" time for anything. If you want time you must make it. - Charles Buxton
If spring came but once in a century instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts, to behold the miraculous change. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The tender grace of a day that is dead will never come back to me. --Alfred, Lord Tennyson
To see the world in a grain of sand. And heaven in a wild flower
To hold infinity in the palm of your hand. And eternity in an hour. - William Blake
Veggie Tales
"Mousetrap. I wanted to play Mousetrap. You roll your dice, you move your mice. No one gets hurt." - Bob the Tomato
"God made all the stars out of nothin', he just went, 'Thbbbt!' and there they were!" - Larry the Cucumber
"You are my cheeseburger." - Mr. Lunt
"You silly little pickle, you silly little peas, you think that walking 'round will bring this city to its knees? The awesome powers of this wall we've clearly demonstrated; ah, but out here in the hot, hot sun perhaps you're dehydrated?" - the French Peas
"Won't you join me in my irritating little song?" - the French Peas
"You will never get over our giant wall, tiny pickle!" - the French Peas
"These are the children of Israel." - Lary the Cucumber
"Hello, children! It's nice to meet you, now go away!" - the French Peas
"Hello, Israelities! You are pigs and soon we will stuff apples in your mouthes and stick you in our toaster ovens!" - the French Peas
"Usta" - Larry the Cucumber
"Couldn't you just play your harp and I'll throw things at you?" Archibald Asparagus as King Saul
"Okay! Everybody who's got hands, start tying!" - Buzzsaw Louie
"I think you look like Cap'n Crunch!" -Mr. Lunt
"How are we clapping?" "I have no idea." Tom and Pa Grape
"Not so fast, tomato." - the French Peas
"No comprendo." - Larry the Cucumber
"I'm Shadrach!" "I'm Mishach!" "I'm a bumblebee! ...abembe ... I'm Benny" - Bob, Junior, and Larry
"Bamboo, bamboo, bamboo!" - Larry the Cucumber
"And now it's time for Silly Songs with Larry, the part of the show where Larry comes out and sings a silly song" - Narrator
"I'm Bob, I'm a tomato, and I'm here to help you." - Bob the Tomato
"I love you little mister." "I love you big mister." - Dad and Junior Asparagus
Miscellaneous funny quotes
Yes, madam, I am drunk. But in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Sir, I would rather be right than be President. - Henry Clay
I haven't any right to criticise books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone. - Mark Twain, Letter to Joseph Twichell, 9/13/1898
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. This is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian period just a million years ago next November, the lower Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing rod. And, by the same token, any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now, the lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual Board of Aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifle investment of fact. - Mark Twain
For him that stealeth a book from this library, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck by palsy & all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy, & let there be no surcease for his agony until he sink to dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the worm that dieth not, & when at last he goeth to his final punishment let the flames of hell consume him for ever & aye. - Attributed to the monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona
The Bible
This is the day the which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. - Psalm 118
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. - Matthew 7:7
It is more blessed to give than to receive -Acts 20:35
For by grace have you been saved through faith, and not that of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any many should boast. Ephesians 2: 8,9
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it. Ephesians 5:25
In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. 1 Peter 3:15
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new hatched, unfledged comrade.
--William Shakespeare
Unless you feel it, you will never achieve it.
If it doesn't flow from your soul . . .
Your listener will not believe it . .
Gray and ashen . . . is every science,
And only the golden tree of life is green.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Sweet is the lore which nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous form of things
We murder to dissect. - William Wordsworth
He that will not reason is a bigot,
He that cannot reason is a fool,
He that does not reason is a slave
--Anonymous
For every ailment under the sun,
There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one try to find it;
If there be none, never mind it.
--Mother Goose
Many strokes, through with a little axe,
Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.
--William Shakespeare
America
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
--Claude McKay
Old Ironsides
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
The banner in the sky:
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar; -
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more!
Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee; -
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!
O, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Lamb
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice;
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb,
He is meek, and he is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
--William Blake
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--Robert Frost
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep
--Robert Frost
Death, be not proud
by John Donne
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
Down Where I Am - Langston Hughes
Too many years
Beatin' at the door --
I done beat my
Both fists sore.
Too many years
Tryin' to get up there --
Done broke my ankles down,
Got nowhere.
Too many years
Climbin' that hill,
'Bout out of breath.
I got my fill.
I'm gonna plant my feetOn solid ground.If you want to see me
Come down.
Give All to Love - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good fame,
Plans, credit, and the muse;
Nothing refuse.
'Tis a brave master,
Let it have scope,
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope;
High and more high,
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent;
But 'tis a god,
Knows its own path,
And the outlets of the sky.
'Tis not for the mean,
It requireth courage stout,
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending;
Such 'twill reward,
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.
Leave all for love;�
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,
Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, for ever,
Free as an Arab
Of thy beloved.
Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
Vague shadow of surmise,
Flits across her bosom young
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free,
Do not thou detain a hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.
Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Tho' her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive,
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.
If you can't be a pine on top of the hill,
Be a scrub in the valley--but be
The best little scrub by the side of the hill;
Be a bush, if you can't be a tree.
If you can't be a bush, be a bit of the grass,
And some highway happier make;
If you can't be a muskie, then just be a bass--
But the liveliest bass in the lake.
We can't all be captains, we've got to be crew,
There's something for all of us here.
There's big work to do and there's lesser to do
And the task we must do is the near.
If you can't be a highway, then just be a trail,
If you can't be the sun, be a star;
It isn't by size that you win or you fail--
Be the best of whatever you are.
--Douglas Malloch
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My sould can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely, as men strive for
Right; I love thee purely, as men turn from
Praise; I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death."
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A Red, Red Rose
O my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune!
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.
--Robert Burns
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd'
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
--William Shakespeare
Politics
�A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.�
-Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) Scottish jurist and historian
Desktop Quotes
Download this program and you can see quotes scrolling across your task bar as you surf the net.
Our Pictures Our Family Our Friends Our travels Our Pets Our house Columbus