Today's Words of Wisdom - September 15, 2015

Today is the birthday of the following people:

Agatha Christie (1890 – 1976):

“It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.”

and

“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.”

James Fenimore Cooper (1789 – 1851):

“History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness.”

and

“Tis hard to live in a world where all look upon you as below them.”

and

“All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.”

William Howard Taft (1857 – 1930):

“Unless education promotes character making, unless it helps men to be more moral, more just to their fellows, more law abiding, more discriminatingly patriotic and public spirited, it is not worth the trouble taken to furnish it.”

and

“Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.”

Claude McKay (1889 – 1948):

“If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.”

Robert Benchley (1889 – 1945):

“The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.”

Robert McCloskey (1914 – 2003):

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”

Cannonball Adderley (1928 – 1975):

“Hipness is not a state of mind, it’s a fact of life.”

Jimmy Carr (1972 - ):

“I'm not being condescending, I'm too busy thinking about far more important things you wouldn't understand.“

a poem by

Claude McKay

"Absence"

Your words dropped into my heart like pebbles into a pool,

Rippling around my breast and leaving it melting cool.

Your kisses fell sharp on my flesh like dawn-dews from the limb,

Of a fruit-filled lemon tree when the day is young and dim.

But a silence vasty-deep, oh deeper than all these ties

Now, through the menacing miles, brooding between us lies.

And more than the songs I sing, I await your written word,

To stir my fluent blood as never your presence stirred.