May 4, 2014

Good Morning!

Today is the birthday of Horace Mann (1796 – 1859) who said:

“A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them.”

and

“Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.”

and

“Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.”

and

“Education...beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of conditions of men --the balance wheel of the social machinery...It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility toward the rich; it prevents being poor.”

It is also the birthday of Audrey Hepburn (1929 – 1993) who said:

“I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.”

and

“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.”

and

“I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person.”

Happy Birthday to Amos Oz (1939 - ) who said:

“Every single pleasure I can imagine or have experienced is more delightful, more of a pleasure, if you take it in small sips, if you take your time. Reading is not an exception.”

and

“When I was little, my ambition was to grow up to be a book. Not a writer. People can be killed like ants. Writers are not hard to kill either. But not books: however systematically you try to destroy them, there is always a chance that a copy will survive and continue to enjoy a shelf-life in some corner on an out-of-the-way library somewhere in Reykjavik, Valladolid or Vancouver.”

And to Graham Swift (1949 - ) who said:

“How quick and rushing life can sometimes seem, when at the same time it's so slow and sweet and everlasting.”

and

“Children, be curious. Nothing is worse (I know it) than when curiosity stops. Nothing is more repressive than the repression of curiosity. Curiosity begets love. It weds us to the world. It's part of our perverse, madcap love for this impossible planet we inhabit. People die when curiosity goes. People have to find out, people have to know.”

Finally, this is the birthday of David Guterson (1956 - ) who said:

“None of those other things makes a difference. Love is the strongest thing in the world, you know. Nothing can touch it. Nothing comes close. If we love each other we're safe from it all. Love is the biggest thing there is.”

May 3, 2014

Good Morning!

Today is the birthday of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) who said:

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”

and

“Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.”

It is also the birthday of Jacob Riis (1849 – 1914) who said:

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”

and

“Oh, God! That bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap!”

Happy Birthday to Dodie Smith (1896 – 1990) who said:

“Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.”

and

“I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life.”

and

“When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it - or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don't suppose many people try to do it.”

Today is the birthday of William Inge (1913 – 1973) who said:

“Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful, or to discover something that is true.”

Birthday greetings to Pete Seeger (1919 – 2014) who said:

“Participation - that's what's gonna save the human race.”

and

“This banjo surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.”

and

“A good song reminds us what we're fighting for.”

and

“Singing with children in the schools has been the most rewarding experience of my life.”

Finally, it is the birthday of Ben Elton (1959 - ) who said:

“The internet was supposed to liberate knowledge, but in fact it buried it, first under a vast sewer of ignorance, laziness, bigotry, superstition and filth and then beneath the cloak of political surveillance. Now...cyberspace exists exclusively to promote commerce, gossip and pornography. And of course to hunt down sedition. Only paper is safe. Books are the key. A book cannot be accessed from afar, you have to hold it, you have to read it.”

and

“Artists don't create society, they reflect it”

May 2, 2014

Good Morning! 

Today is the birthday of Catherine the Great (1729 – 1796) who said:

“I like to praise and reward loudly, to blame quietly.”

and

“Power without a nation's confidence is nothing.”

It is also the birthday of Jerome K. Jerome (1859 – 1927) who said:

“I don't know why it should be, I am sure; but the sight of another man asleep in bed when I am up, maddens me.”

and

“It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.”

Happy Birthday to Satyajit Ray (1921 – 1992) who said:

“If the theme is simple, you can include a hundred details that create the illusion of actuality better.”

and

“If you're able to portray universal feelings, universal relations, emotions, and characters, you can cross certain barriers and reach out to others.”

May 1, 2014

Good Morning!

Today is the birthday of Joseph Heller (1923 – 1999) who said:

“Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.”

and

“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.”

and

“He knew everything there was to know about literature, except how to enjoy it.”

It is also the birthday of Bobbie Ann Mason (1940 - ) who said:

“One reason to fashion a story is to lift a grudge.”

Happy Birthday to Wes Anderson (1969 - ) who said:

“I don't think any of us are normal people.”