Album Anniversary - November 26, 2015

Today is the 50th anniversary of The Kink Kontroversy, the third album by The Kinks.

Video: "Where Have All the Good Times Gone?"

Today's Words of Wisdom - November 26, 2015

Today is the birthday of the following people:

William Cowper (1731 – 1800):

“Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much. Wisdom is humble that he knows not more.”

Eugène Ionesco (1909 – 1994):

“Why do people always expect authors to answer questions? I am an author because I want to ask questions. If I had answers, I'd be a politician.”

and

“Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.”

and

“A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.”

and

“People who don't read are brutes.”

Charles M. Schulz (1922 – 2000):

“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong'.

Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.”

and

“Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, "Is life a multiple choice test or is it a true or false test?" ...Then a voice comes to me out of the dark and says, "We hate to tell you this but life is a thousand word essay.”

and

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it sure makes the rest of you lonely.”

and

“If I stand here, I can see the Little Red Haired girl when she comes out of her house... Of course, if she sees me peeking around this tree, she'll think I'm the dumbest person in the world... But if I don't peek around the tree, I'll never see her... Which means I probably AM the dumbest person in the world... which explains why I'm standing in a batch of poison oak.”

and

“I love mankind – it’s people I can’t stand.”

Today's Words of Wisdom - November 25, 2015

Today is the birthday of the following people:

Arturo Pérez-Reverte (1951 - ):

“Never trust a man who reads only one book.”

and

“You don't choose your friends, they choose you, and you either reject them or you accept them without reservations.”

and

“One is never alone with a book nearby, don't you agree? Every page reminds us of a day that has passed and makes us relive the emotions that filled it. Happy hours underlined in red pencil, dark ones in black...”

Isaac Rosenberg (1890 – 1918):

“I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up, but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life, and it will all refine itself into poetry later on.”

Nat Adderley (1931 – 2000):

"I never heard of a jazz musician who retired. You love what you do, so what are you going to do? Play for the walls?"

Today's Words of Wisdom - November 24, 2015

Today is the birthday of the following people:

Laurence Sterne (1713 – 1768):

“Respect for ourselves guides our morals; respect for others guides our manners”

and

“Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.”

Carlo Collodi (1826 – 1890):

'Bear it in mind, simpleton! Boys who refuse to study, and turn their backs upon books, schools, and masters, to pass their time in play and amusements, sooner or later come to a bad end... I know it by experience... and I can tell you. A day will come when you will weep as I am weeping now... but then it will be too late!...'

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849 – 1924):

“If nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that--warm things, kind things, sweet things--help and comfort and laughter--and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.”

and

“Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage."

Dale Carnegie (1888 - 1955):

“When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677):

“The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.”

and

“The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.”

and

“I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.”

Arundhati Roy (1961 - ):

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”

Stephen Merchant (1974 - ):

“Remember that film 'Sliding Doors,' when John Hannah woos Gwyneth Paltrow by reciting Monty Python sketches? I can tell you now that doesn't work, so that film's wrong.”

and

“There's this way pop culture has been rammed down our throats that people think that if they were just in the right place at the right time, they'd be married to Heidi Klum.”

and

“I know that this sounds grand, but I don't try to compete with other people. I like to think there's enough pie for everyone. The kind of people I'm competing with are my heroes - Woody Allen, Billy Wilder - who I know I'm going to fall short of.”

Television Anniversary - November 23, 2015

Today is the anniversary of the first episode airing of Doctor Who. Here are some choice quotations from the recent incarnation of the program.

“Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day. Not today. Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all. Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days, when the wind stands fair and the Doctor comes to call, everybody lives.”

“Letting it get to you. You know what that’s called? Being alive. Best thing there is. Being alive right now is all that counts.”

“This is one corner… of one country, in one continent, on one planet that’s a corner of a galaxy that’s a corner of a universe that is forever growing and shrinking and creating and destroying and never remaining the same for a single millisecond. And there is so much, so much to see.”

“You want weapons? We’re in a library! Books! The best weapons in the world!”