Favorite Quotes

UPDATED July, 2013            Favorite Quotes

If we think of the world as a frail human community and cast aside our ethnocentric foreshadowing, we might rise above our division and realize our equality. ~Jason Smith January, 2013

Epitaph of Less Moore: Here lies Less Moore 4 shots from a 44  No less no more! (seen by Adrian Smith on Arizona Epitaph)

You cannot separate religion from sheer idiocy.  ~ Bill Maher

The worst part of being myself is that I am best at my worst. Author unknown

Blues is an autobiographical chronicle of catastrophe, expressed lyrically. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. ~Randy Pausch

I have never been high on pot but I sure have been high on music. ~Caroline Smith 2013 (my mom) In conversation about wanting to see the opera at Seattle Symphony

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.” ~Jane Austen

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you want. Author unknown

An optimist takes a chance at losing; a pessimist loses a chance at winning. ~ Richard Kirsten Daiensai

The progress that reason & Deism make in the world lessons the force of superstition, and abate the spirit of persecution.

Power resides where men believe it resides.   ~Game of Thrones (TV series)

I have been a success: at 60 years I have eaten and avoided being eaten. ~Author unknown

Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.      ~Ingrid Bergman

Being well and being strong does not mean being well armed. ~Jason Smith Feb., 2013

"Conformity is boring, It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.”           ~ Steve Jobs

You do what you have to do, when you form a philosophy that can’t talk yourself out of. ~ Conatine Karmamlis

The dawn is not distant nor the night starless, love is eternal. ~Longfellow

"I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars - the rest I just squandered.    ~George Best.

The greatest risks beyond the horizon are those we cannot see. ~Warren Buffet

Integrity: re-examine all that you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul. ~Walt Whitman

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.     ~Maureen Dowd

Out beyond the ideas of wrong doing is a field, I’ll meet you there. ~Rumi

Money is like manure, you have to spread it around or else it smells. ~Paul Getti

A king is a bad enemy, a worse friend and a fatal family relation. ~Author unknown

I am prepared to sacrifice every so-called privilege I possess in order to have a few rights.  ~Inez Milholland, Suffragist 1909

The contours of our entire virtue are shaped by adversity. ~Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

"The problem with quotes you find on the internet is that you can't be sure how accurate they are." - Abraham Lincoln

If all you focus on is what you don’t want you are very likely to get it. ~ Cory Booker, Mayer of Newark NJ

There is divine beauty in learning just as there is human beauty in tolerance. To learn is to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books that I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their guests and so are you. ~Elie Wiesel

A man that aims at nothing is sure to hit. ~Confucius

A privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.  ~Joseph Campbell

I am not a aficionada of my culture's puritanical tendencies; my contempt for orthodox  values leaves me  in a  paradox of denunciation and censure ~ Jason Paul Smith, Feb., 2013

Here’s flowers for you; hot lavender, mints, savory marjoram. The marigold that goes to bed with the sun and with him rises weeping. Winter’s Tale ~Shakespeare

Maybe we weren't at the Last Supper, but we're certainly going to be at the next one.   ~Bella Abzug, Congresswoman, 1977

On a crumbling tombstone in Arizona epitaph read: Be what you is, cuz if you is what you ain’t then you ain’t what you is. ~Author unknown

If I'd observed all the rules, I'd never have got anywhere.   ~Marilyn Monroe

… with the ambition of a New Yorker and the heart of a Parisian. ~Author unknown

Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right. ~Henry Ford

A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. ~Ben Franklin

A friend to all is a friend to none. ~Aristotle

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. ~Helen Keller

Like my father, another armchair philosopher, I am an enigma- shrouded in a quandary, inside a tangled web of metaphors.  ~JPS 2013

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit. ~Khalil Gibran

All religions have been made by man. ! ~Napoleon Bonaparte

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, a sense of humor to console him for what he is. ~Francis Bacon

If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I do not want to go there. ~Martin Luther

Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.     ~Coco Chanel

Remember upon the conduct of one depends the fate of us all. ~Alexander the Great

There are no good girls gone wrong - just bad girls found out.     ~Mae West

Life is not a sprint or marathon, it is an expedition,  a journey to be nurtured and savored. ~Jason Smith  2013

All that is needed for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. ~Edmund Burke

There is never anything wrong with you that cannot be fixed by what’s right with you. ~President Bill Clinton

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.    ~G.K. Chesteron

After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done. ~ Author unknown

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.    ~Maya Angelou

If you are not an activist, you are an inactivist. ~ from the movie on the Japanese slaughter of dolphins, The Cove

A house doesn’t rest upon the ground but upon a woman. ~Mexican Proverb

The lanista warns his aspiring Spartacus to pull head from his gladiator ass, return to the arena to practice and beware of jackals veiled as friends to pick thou bones clean. JPS (2011)

Even the best of friends cannot attend each other’s funeral. ~Khalil Gibran

If we always do what we have always done, we will always get what we always got. ~Author unknown

An optimist is really a pessimist that hasn’t lived enough. ~Russian saying

Experience wonder through learning and pleasure through teaching. ~seen on T-shirt

Life is what happens while we’re busy making other plans. ~John Lennon

I never learned anything while talking. ~ CNNs Larry King

Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.  ~Janis Joplin, American singer

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”          ~Steve Jobs

Don’t tell a man to go to hell unless you intend to send him there. ~ President Lyndon B. Johnson

I do not feel to be obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with the sense of reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. ~ Galileo Galilei

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.   ~Joseph Campbell

In a nutshell, one person’s revelation is another person’s superstition. ~Thomas Paine

The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who- in their grudge against traditional religion as “the opium of the masses-cannot hear the music of the spheres. ~Albert Einstein

A Collector’s wisdom is measured by their knowledge of what to look for and what to look out for. ~Jason Paul Smith

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do.    ~Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) You Learn by Living (1960)

Being happy doesn’t mean everything’s perfect. It means you decide to see beyond imperfections. ~Author unknown

The greatest irony of life is that we possess the freedom to make choices, but become slaves to such decisions.        ~Jason Paul Smith, 2004

It was the best of times even when it was the worst. ~CNNs Larry King

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art! ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Anxiety is caused by the lack of control, organization, preparation and action. ~David Kekich

Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. ~ Thomas Hobbes (political philosopher)

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. ~William Randolph Hearst

Democracy is the worst kind of all economic systems, except for the others. ~Winston Churchill

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. ~Margaret Meade

We can’t do much about the length of our lives, but we can do much about its depth and width. ~JPS (1999)

Man is neither angel nor devil. He is somewhere mid-way between the angels and… the French ~Mark Twain

Even after we are gone our vision and labor remain a distant echo of our souls. JPS (2001)

To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour. ~William Blake

We know who we are only when we know who we are not. ~Author unknown

All I need to feel content is a captive audience for my symphonic stream of consciousness. ~JPS (2008)

The main thing is not how long you’re on the planet, but the quality you have while you are here. ~Clint Eastwood

The truth of nature, which I had rejected and chased away, returned by stealth through the back door, disguising itself to be accepted… Ah, what a foolish bird I have been! ~ Johannes Kepler

I don't believe that people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.   ~Joseph Campbell

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. ~Bertrand Russell

Contrary to some erroneous opinions, I find myself an admirer of deductive reason, the complexities and harmony of nature, a proselyte of Deism. ~JPS (2010)

I will do what I can about what I can when I can. ~Stephen E. Smith (2010)

For every moment you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Temper is the one thing you can’t get rid of by losing. ~ Ben Franklin

You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly. ~Author unknown

It takes one woman twenty years to make a man of her son -- and another woman twenty minutes to make a fool of him.           ~Helen Rowland (1875-1950)

American journalist and humorist.

Human kind cannot bear much reality. T.S. Elliot

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.                  ~Haruki Murakami

That was a great game of golf, fellas. ~Bing Crosby  (said to be his last words just before dying of a heart attack on a Madrid golf course)

This is the first day of the rest of my life. ~John Denver (Some argue that the author is unknown)

Proper apologies consist of 3 important points: 1. What I did was wrong. 2. I feel badly that I hurt you. 3. How do I make this better? ~Author unknown

Rather than diligently challenging their shortcomings or circumstances some appear content with quiet disillusionment- an amalgamation of apathy, denial, fear and false security. ~JPS 2010

I feel so down that my optimism may be seen as pessimism. ~JPS (2011)

If you fail to plan you plan to fail. ~Author unknown

That guy has a thick slice of ham in him. ~Author unknown

We are an oxymoron, imperfect wholes. JPS (2011)

I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, I am Okay.  ~ Virginia Satir

I am not afraid…I was born to do this.
-- Joan of Arc

The stillness, solitude and certainty of nothingness- what some insist as life hereafter is no longer perplexing; I am at peace with the omnipotent rhythm of eternity as time was before and will be after me. JPS (2011)

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once all other alternatives are exhausted. ~ Abba  Eban

Why are women so much more interesting to men than men are to women?   ~Virginia Wolf

In war, truth is the first casualty. ~Aeschylus

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. ~Albert Einstein

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.
~Judy Garland

Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate f someone else. ~ Judy Garland

Anger is an act that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. ~Mark Twain

Always remember that change comes one day at a time. ~Dean Acheson

Cleverness is not wisdom. ~Euripides

If you want the rainbow, you've got to put up with the rain.    ~ Dolly Parton

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. ~John Barrymore

I’ve often said that the most important thing that you can give your children are wings- ‘cause you’re not always going to be able to bring food to the nest. Sometime they will have to fly by themselves. ~ Elizabeth Edwards

Work as if you don’t need money, love as if you never were hurt, dance as if nobody can see you, sing as if nobody can hear you and live as if Earth is paradise. ~ Author unknown

It’s the art of observation, not the application of technology. ~Author unknown

“Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”     ~Haruki Murakami

One good thing about music, when it hits- you feel no pain. ~Bob Marley

Here’s all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy. Men are stupid. And the main reason why women are crazy is that men are stupid. ~George Carlin

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. ~Mother Teresa

You can fool all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. ~Abraham Lincoln

After coming into contact with a religious man I always need to wash my hands. ~Fredrich Nietzhe

The advantage of having a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time .~FN

Well, the future for me is already a thing of the past. ~Bob Dylan

It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.    ~ J. K. Rowling

I don’t want to achieve immorality through my work… I want to achieve it through not dying. ~Woody Alan

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience. ~George Washington

There is nothing impossible to him who will try. ~Alexander the Great

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. ~Martin Luther King Jr.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.     ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. ~Winston Churchill

Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It is not something that you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship you haven’t really learned anything. ~Author unknown

I’m sorry if you were right, I’d agree with you. ~Robin Williams

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. ~Khalil Gibran

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.    ~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Success is 99% failure. ~Sachiro Honda

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still. ~Lao Tzu

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live. ~Author unknown

Blossoms are scattered by the wind and the wind cares nothing, but blossoms of the heart no wind can touch. ~Yoshida Kenko

Your life is the fruit of your own doing, you have no one to blame but yourself.   ~Joseph Campbell

The more anger towards the past you carry in your heart, the less capable you are of loving in the present. 
~ Barbara De Angelis

Bigotry, ignorance and intolerance are not limited to one political party, but the elephant in the room  is usually Republican.                                 ~JPS   2010

Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.   ~Desmond Tutu

Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure. ~Henri Nouwen (Dutch writer)

One gets tired of the role critics are to have in this culture: it’s like being the piano player in a whore house; you don’t have any control over the action going on upstairs. ~Robert Hughes (Australian author)

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the bible and we had the land. They said, "Let us pray.” We closed our eyes and when we opened them we had the bible and they had the land. ~Bishop Desmund Tutu

Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I’m thinking. ~Idi Amin Dada

(became known as the Butcher of Uganda for his despotic rule while president of Uganda in 1970s)

For to be free is not merely to cast off ones chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. ~Nelson Mandela

Deserve your dream. ~Octavio Paz (Mexican President)

Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have! It is later than you think. ~Horace oxymoron

Though I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, it hasn't changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I'm just wearing better shoes.     ~Oprah Winfrey

All human actions have one or more of these 7 causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habits, reason, passion & desire. ~ Aristotle

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation.

Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) on the campaign for divorce law reform, 1860

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.   ~ Desmund Tutu

Life isn’t about how you survived the storm… it’s about how you danced in the rain. ~Author unknown

Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold, the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul. ~Democritus

There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him later in life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory. ~Marcel Proust

Have you any idea how many children it takes to turn off one light in the kitchen? Three. It takes one to say, "What light?" and two more to say, "I didn't turn it on."     ~Erma Bombeck

Best relationships aren't those t hat bring together faultless souls. Evidence of growth in our perception of friendship is when we overlook the uncertainties and peculiarities of others and recognize their pleasing qualities.  ~Jason Smith, Oct. 2010

Transparency is clarity.   ~William Adams, better known as will.i.am (an American recording artist)

Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present, and future. ~Susan Sontag (American literary theorist, philosopher and political activist.

Half our mistakes in life arise from feeling where we ought to think, and thinking where we ought to feel. ~ John Churton Collins

If we knew each other's secrets, what comforts we should find.  ~ John Churton Collins

You don't fully understand yourself  until, as an adult, you live near or with a parent or sibling, discovering that perfection is living and letting live with all our imperfections.   ~Jason Paul Smith      2006

In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends.
~ John Churton Collins

But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. ~Robert Frost

No one hits the bulls eye with the first arrow. From the TV seies, Downton Abbey
"Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." ~Robert Frost

“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”   ~Haruki Murakami

“One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.”               ~ Kahlil Gibran

"Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it." ~Robert Frost

Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. Science is the highest personification of the nation because that nation will remain the first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence.  ~ Louis Pasteur

I LOOK FORWARD TO AN AMERICA WHICH WILL NOT BE AFRAID OF GRACE AND BEAUTY. ~JFK

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. 
Funny quotes by anonomous Kids

When your mother is mad and asks you, "Do I look stupid?" it's best not to answer her.

Some never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity      ~Author unknown

The accolade for our anguished quest for love is discovering it.         JPS  2007

By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.     ~Anne Morrow

Lindbergh (1906-2001) Gift from the Sea (1955)

It’s too coincidental to be a coincidence. Yogi Berra

 LOH   777

A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore. ~Yogi Berra

All pitchers are liars or crybabies. ~Yogi Berra

Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours. ~Yogi Berra

Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical. ~Yogi Berra
If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.  ~Margaret Mead (1901-1978) Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935)

"The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan." ~ Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Ch. VI)

Congratulations. I knew the record would stand until it was broken.  ~Yogi Berra
 If Mom’s not happy, no one’s happy.

You should never laugh at your dad if he's mad or screaming at you.

My grandmother can say more in a sentence than a college professor can say in an hour and a half.
You should never pick on your sister when she has a baseball bat in her hands.
The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.  ~Tolstoy

You can't play sick and then expect your mom to let you go to the mall after school.

Parents should come with instructions.

"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't."     ~ Erica Jong

"An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind." ~Mahatma Gandhi

I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." ~Thomas Edison

"If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." ~Isaac Newton

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.    ~Maya Angelou

In Heaven, all the interesting people are missing.  ~Friedrich Nietzshe

Telling me that I must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed has always entertained me; I have always slept with the bed against the wall.         ~JPS   2009

Nature abhors a vacuum."  ~Francois Rabelas

If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.     ~Katharine Hepburn

Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day.  ~Thomas Jefferson

The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. Albert Einstein

Behind Me — dips Eternity, Before Me — Immortality, Myself — the Term between.     ~Emily Dickinson

"The language of friendship is not words, but meanings." ~David Henry Thoreau

"The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end.  ~Benjamin Disraeli

It is wise to avoid confrontation with would-be assailants, but  there are times that one  must  defend themselves through bewildering and crushing rhetoric.                        ~JPS   2007

Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers, politicians, friends, lovers and husbands.  ~Abigail Adams (1744-1818) Letter to John Adams, August 5, 1776

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

May God be with you and bless you:
May you see your children's children.
May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.

May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home
And may the hand of a friend always be near.

May green be the grass you walk on,
May blue be the skies above you,
May pure be the joys that surround you,
May true be the hearts that love you.

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes;
By the deep sea. a music in its roar:
I love not man less, but Nature more... ~Lord Byron

Rather than reserving my right to stand by the 5th, I drink it and fall down.   ~ JPS     just now, 2013      

ACTUALLY....... Rather than reserving my right to stand by the 5th, I willfully mutter a convenient ambiguity.                       ~ JPS   29 April, 2013

Give your children enough money to do something but not enough to do nothing
~ line By George Clooney in movie, “The Descendants”

Life is hard. After all, it kills you.      ~Katharine Hepburn

There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.    ~Tolstoy

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. ~ Albert Einstein

In this world you don't get to live free without working for it, and that day we did.
~Naval Seal following  Osama bin Laden's death

The older we get the further we get from what we thought we were    ~author unknown

The Japanese are so practical. It is hard to fall out of bed in a futon and if you roll off there is not that thud that we experience in the West.               ~JPS    2009

The usual masculine disillusionment in discovering that a woman has a brain.   ~Margaret Mitchell (author of Gone With the Wind (1936)

A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives. ~James Madison, 1822.

"My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe." - Jimmy Durante.

"I'm spending a year dead for tax reasons." - Douglas Adams."

"Aren't we forgeting the true meaning of Christmas? You know, the birth of Santa?" - Bart Simpson

"Lisa, Vampires are make-believe, like elves, gremlins, and Eskimos." - Homer Simpson

"I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman." - Homer Simpson

"Operator! Give me the number for 911!" - Homer Simpson

The definition of a consultant: Someone who borrows your watch, tells you the time and then charges you for the privilege." - Times newspaper

"The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you." - Charles Dickens.

There is always enough for guests. I can easily add another potato to the pot. ~Caroline Ruth Smith McSorley (my mama, mother of nine)

Come here so I can face your slap-off!      ~Caroline Ruth Smith McSorley

Go get the soap, I need to wash your mouth out! ~Caroline Ruth Smith McSorley

"I used to sell furniture for a living. The trouble was, it was my own." - Les Dawson.

"If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it?" - Steven Wright.

"I can resist everything except temptation." - Oscar Wilde.

"If at first you don't succeed... So much for skydiving." - Henry Youngman.

"The first ninety minutes of a football match are the most important." - Bobby Robson.

"To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness." - Oscar Wilde

"I have nothing to declare except my genius." - Oscar Wilde

"The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans are suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you." - Rita Mae Brown.

"I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally." - WC Fields.

"When a man steals your wife there is no better revenge than to let him keep her." - Sacha Guitry.

"Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife." - Groucho Marx

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.  ~James Madison

'To see a world in a Grain of Sand, And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.' Blake

If you can dream it, you can do it.    ~Walt Disney

I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.      ~Annne Frank

The important thing is not to stop questioning.   ~Albert Einstein

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on.
~Robert Frost

There is more to life than increasing its speed.       ~Gandhi

Life is a culmination of the past, an awareness of the present, an indication of a future beyond knowledge, the quality that gives a touch of divinity to matter.   ~Charles Lindbergh

Don't go through life, GROW through life.
Eric Butterworth

True wisdom is knowing that you know nothing.           ~Socrates

Nature sings... a field of dancing daffodils serenades me, basking in the cool spring breeze I am mesmerized. ~Jason Smith, 2013

People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.  ~Abraham Lincoln

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.    ~Eleanor Roosevelt
Shoot for the moon.

Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.   ~Les Brown

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.
~Ed Cunningham

When I want to be mesmerized and take a short journey I listen to Queen.  ~JPS April, 2013

Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.  ~Voltaire

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.   ~ E. E. Cummings
___________________________________________


Philosophical

"Beneath every art lies an undiscovered science"
- Max Marmer

"It is triple ultra forbidden to respond to criticism with violence. There are a very few injunctions in the human art of rationality that have no ifs, ands, buts, or escape clauses. This is one of them. Bad argument gets counterargument. Does not get bullet. Never. Never ever never for ever.
-- Eliezer Yudkowsky

"I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, make the execution of that same plan his sole study and business."   ~ Benjamin Franklin

"If it makes you happy It can't be that bad."  -- Sheryl Crow

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point however is to change it."  ~ Karl Marx, 1845, Eleven Theses on Feurback

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with the indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light."  ~ Stanley Kubrick

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," -- that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
-- John Keats (1795-1821)

"Everything to excess. Moderation is for monks."

~ Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein's "Time Enough For Love"

"Existence is random. It has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long.
~ Rorschach, "Watchmen"

"Do not speak of what men deserve. For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead Kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of *deserving*, of *earning*, and you will begin to be able to think."
~ Odo, The Prison Letters (Ursula LeGuin, "The Dispossessed")

"Do not be angry with me if I tell you the truth."  ~ Socrates (470?-399 B.C.)

If you have always had it easy you don't know how easy you have it.    ~Amy Conrad, 2013

"A commercial, and in some respects a social, doubt has been started within the last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discussion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest. This is a fallacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession, and already know much more than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery. Rogues knew a good deal about lock-picking long before locksmiths discussed it among themselves, as they have lately done. If a lock -- let it have been made in whatever country, or by whatever maker -- is not so inviolable as it has hitherto been deemed to be, surely it is in the interest of *honest* persons to know this fact, because the *dishonest* are tolerably certain to be the first to apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of knowledge is necessary to give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance. It cannot be too earnestly urged, that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end, be better for all parties."
~ Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks, published around 1850

'He deserves death'. 'Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them ? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.' "  ~ J. R. R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)

Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.   ~ Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Ambition is a lust that is never quenched, but grows more inflamed and madder by enjoyment.
-- Thomas Otway

Always remember, however, that there's usually a simpler and better way to do something than the first way that pops into your head. -- Donald E. Knuth, "TeXbook"

Against boredom, even the gods themselves struggle in vain.   ~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Rolling hills of lavender, tulips, lilies and daffodils dancing in the breeze, a blue sky with clouds rolling in cautions the receptive soul of the little time we have to pull the weeds.      ~JPS      2004

Nothing changes if nothing changes.            ~author unknown

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul, And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and company doesn't mean security, And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises, And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child, And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans.
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure... that you really are strong, And you really do have worth.

A would-be disciple came to Nasrudin's hut on the mountain-side. Knowing that every action of such an enlightened one is significant, the seeker watched the teacher closely. "Why do you blow on your hands?" "To warm myself in the cold." Later, Nasrudin poured bowls of hot soup for himself and the newcomer, and blew on his own. "Why are doing that, Master?" "To cool the soup." Unable to trust a man who uses the same process to arrive at two different results -- hot and cold -- the disciple departed.

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?""What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.

In media vita in morte sumus  (in the midst of life we are in death).

If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't.

Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.

Intelligent people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people.

It is difficult to believe that someone can differ from us and be right.

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

Do it! It's easier to get forgiveness than permission.

If you can't create it - respect it.

Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.

Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where to get more wax!!

If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.

If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost.

If you must choose between the lesser of two evils, choose the one you've never tried before.

It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.

It is better to wear out than to rust out.

I love you more than yesterday, but less than tomorrow.         ~Author Unknown

Never say you know a man until you have divided an inheritance with him.

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
A bird does not sing because it has an answer... it sings because it has a song.
-- Ancient Chinese proverb

"Mathematicians are the least expensive researchers to support. All they need is pencils, paper, and a wastebasket -- and when they turn philosopher, they don't even need the wastebasket!"

"It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
-- John Andrew Holmes

" 'He deserves death'.
'Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them ? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.' "
-- J. R. R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title. - Virginia Woolf

"Any man more right than his neighbors is a majority of one." --- Henry David Thoreau

Anything not nailed down is mine. Anything I can pry loose is not nailed down.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
--- Abraham Lincoln

"I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don't care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is: 'What are they in a position to do about it?'"  ~William S. Burroughs

The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think is right.
--- H.D. Thoreau

Dancing daffodils        

Singing serenading us

Enchanting cool spring

Haiku By Jason Smith  Jan, 2013