Quotation - Aloneness & Writing

All the great plays are about loneliness.

— Vincent Dowling

(quoted by Tom Hanks on Desert Island Discs)

Quotation on teaching

When one teaches, two learn.

Robert Heinlein

Quotation: Brian Eno, John Peel Lecture 2015

Quotation: The Simple Pleasure of Food

I shouldn't think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.

Dodie Smith (born May 3, 1896) best known for I Capture the Castle and The Hundred and One Dalmations

Quotation: fighting a hard battle

Article dated January 1898 in a Boston, Massachusetts periodical, Zion’s Herald (though probably published in England before December 25, 1897):

“IAN MACLAREN,” along with other celebrities, was asked to send a Christmas message to an influential religious weekly in England. He responded by sending the short but striking sentence: “Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.” No message is more needed in our days of stress and storm, of selfish striving and merciless competition.

See Quote Investigator

Today read an article in The Guardian about a new hit economics book, Capital in the 21st century - it's thrust is:

 * Returns to capital are rising faster than economies are growing. The wealthy are getting wealthier while everybody else is struggling. Inequality will widen to the point where it becomes unsustainable – both politically and economically – unless action is taken to redistribute income and wealth.
* rising inequality is killing capitalism
* there are limits to what markets can do

 which gives the 1898 phrase "our days of stress and storm, of selfish striving and merciless competition" particular resonance

Backburner - Creative Thinking

My mind works in idleness. To do nothing is often my most profitable way.

— Virginia Woolf

Quotation on advice/collaboration

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all I can borrow.

— Woodrow Wilson

Quotation on child/adult

Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

Margaret Atwood

I've always felt like this, even more after having children.

On Money & Simple Pleasures

For money you can have everything it is said. No, that is not true. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honor; quiet days, but not peace. The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That cannot be had for money.

Arne Garborg, writer (1851-1924)

Act

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

Friedrich Engels

On Pantheism

That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.

Einstein

on Doing the Right Thing

Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.

Martin Luther King

on Christianity

Ah! what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith.

Shelley

Plenty of kind, decent, caring people have no religious beliefs, and they act out of the goodness of their hearts. Conversely, plenty of people who profess to be religious, even those who worship regularly, show no particular interest in the world beyond themselves.

John Danforth - priest, ambassador, senator (b. 1936)

Quotation - Simple Pleasures & the Present

One should count each day a separate life.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (3 BC - 65 AD)

Quotation - Simple Pleasures

Let your capital be simplicity and contentment.

Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Reflection on Christianity

Ah! what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith.

Shelley

Jarring experience - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

talking to N about David Lean - whilst watching a rather mediocre BBC1 documentary about him fronted by an unconvincing Jonathan Ross

the sense of big things (G20, Obama visit) happening in London

hitting 92.9


Sadly Maurice Jarre, the composer associated with David Lean and composer of the Oscar-winning soundtrack for Lawrence of Arabia, died last week (29.iii.09). Watched Lawrence of Arabia the day after first posting this with D & N - the music interacts with the desert in a marvelous way. I also love the quote from Noel Coward on Galway-born Peter O'Toole in LoA: "If he'd been any prettier, they'd have had to call it Florence of Arabia."

On Education

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.

Plutarch

Thought for the day - the nature of creative work

They are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations.

Francis Bacon (essayist, philosopher, and statesman 1561-1626)

More compelling than Mark Twain's rather glib:
"The secret of success is to make your vocation your vacation."

Love is Stronger than Death

[First reading at Bronagh Murphy's funeral]

1. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

...

13. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13

[Bronagh Murphy's funeral homily by Fr. Brendan McManus - 4 Feb 2009]

If you have been inspired by Bronagh's life - think about what it was that inspired you and how you could make this part of your own life. They say the best way to remember someone is to make your own a trait that you admired in them. Let’s take a moment to reflect on what that would be and take Bronagh into our hearts forever...

Care (of people) and Compassion.