August 14, 2014

Good Morning! Here are your daily birthday quotations...

John Galsworthy (1867 – 1933):

“Life calls the tune, we dance.”

and

“It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what.”

and

“The biggest tragedy of life is the utter impossibility to change what you have done.”

and

“Beauty means this to one person, perhaps, and that to another. And yet when any one of us has seen or heard or read that which to him is beautiful, he has known an emotion which is in every case the same in kind, if not in degree; an emotion precious and uplifting. A choirboy's voice, a ship in sail, an opening flower, a town at night, the song of the blackbird, a lovely poem, leaf shadows, a child's grace, the starry skies, a cathedral, apple trees in spring, a thorough-bred horse, sheep-bells on a hill, a rippling stream, a butterfly, the crescent moon -- the thousand sights or sounds or words that evoke in us the thought of beauty -- these are the drops of rain that keep the human spirit from death by drought. They are a stealing and a silent refreshment that we perhaps do not think about but which goes on all the time....It would surprise any of us if we realized how much store we unconsciously set by beauty, and how little savour there would be left in life if it were withdrawn. It is the smile on the earth's face, open to all, and needs but the eyes to see, the mood to understand.”

Russell Baker (1925 - ):

“The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any.”

and

“Don't try to make children grow up to be like you, or they may do it.”

and

“Life seemed to be an educator's practical joke in which you spent the first half learning and the second half learning that everything you learned in the first half was wrong.”

David Crosby (1941 - ):

“ ‘It can't happen here’ is number one on the list of famous last words.”

Steve Martin (1945 - ):

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”

and

“It's pain that changes our lives.”

and

“I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot.”

and

“Writer's block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol.”

and

“Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.”

Wim Wenders (1945 - ):

“Any film that supports the idea that things can be changed is a great film in my eyes.”

Gary Larson (1950 - ):

“I don't believe in the concept of hell, but if I did I would think of it as filled with people who were cruel to animals.”

and

“You always hear a headline like this, 'Man Killed By Shark', you never hear it from the other perspective, 'Man Swims in Shark Infested Waters, Forgets He's Shark Food'.”

Ed Harcourt (1977 – ):

“I've tried to be myself

Sometimes daydreaming for hours

Wishing for a dangerous life

Cut the leash some slack

Run into the morning light

Race the trains by the track

Until my mouth feels dry”