Observations From 20 Years of Iowa Life
Stephen G. Bloom, The Atlantic, December 9, 2011
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
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Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.
~ Mahatma Gandhi
Merci, danke, ευχαριστω, obrigado, благодарю, gracias, 감사합니다, grazie, dankje, köszönöm.
Contents of this blog are the viewpoints and choices of the blogger, and are not in any way related to the blogger's employer or its clients. Copyrights of images and other materials appearing on this site are the property of their respective owners, unless otherwise noted. If you are the copyright owner and wish to have an image removed, you can contact this blog.
Special Content
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
-- William Shakespeare
"Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
~ William Faulkner, speech at the Nobel Banquet, City Hall, Stockholm, December 10, 1950
As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it. ~Gandhi
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What is a well-chosen collection of pictures, but walls hung round with thoughts?
~ Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)
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What is a well-chosen collection of pictures, but walls hung round with thoughts?
~ Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)
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Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.
~ Mahatma Gandhi
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The soul should always stand ajar,
That if the heaven inquire,
He will not be obliged to wait,
Or shy of troubling her.
-- Emily Dickinson
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The soul should always stand ajar,
That if the heaven inquire,
He will not be obliged to wait,
Or shy of troubling her.
-- Emily Dickinson
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A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.
--Benjamin Disraeli
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A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.
--Benjamin Disraeli
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Related Links
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Unless one says goodbye to what one loves, and unless one travels to completely new territories, one can expect merely a long wearing away of oneself.
- Jean Dubuffet
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Unless one says goodbye to what one loves, and unless one travels to completely new territories, one can expect merely a long wearing away of oneself.
- Jean Dubuffet
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Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
-- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
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Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
-- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
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Bonjour, bienvenue
Merci, danke, ευχαριστω, obrigado, благодарю, gracias, 감사합니다, grazie, dankje, köszönöm.
Contents of this blog are the viewpoints and choices of the blogger, and are not in any way related to the blogger's employer or its clients. Copyrights of images and other materials appearing on this site are the property of their respective owners, unless otherwise noted. If you are the copyright owner and wish to have an image removed, you can contact this blog.
Comments posted in the Comments area of this blog are not necessarily the opinion or viewpoint of the blogger.
The Slabber
The Slabber
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If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway.
~ Mother Theresa
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If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway.
~ Mother Theresa
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Click this pic for Special Content
Special Content
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A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.
-- Elbert Hubbard
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A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.
-- Elbert Hubbard
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.My call for a spiritual revolution is thus not a call for a religious revolution. Nor is it a reference to a way of life that is somehow other-worldly, still less to something magical or mysterious. Rather, it is a call for a radical re-orientation away from our habitual preoccupation with self towards concern for the wider community of beings with whom we are connected, and for conduct which recognizes others' interests alongside our own.
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
.My call for a spiritual revolution is thus not a call for a religious revolution. Nor is it a reference to a way of life that is somehow other-worldly, still less to something magical or mysterious. Rather, it is a call for a radical re-orientation away from our habitual preoccupation with self towards concern for the wider community of beings with whom we are connected, and for conduct which recognizes others' interests alongside our own.
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
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Great men are they who see that the spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Great men are they who see that the spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don't understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they're there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it's the other side that matters.
-- José de Sousa Saramago
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Some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don't understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they're there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it's the other side that matters.
-- José de Sousa Saramago
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Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
-- William Shakespeare
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Fighting Against Neglect
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Our problems, both those we experience externally such as wars, crime and violence and those we experience internally as emotional and psychological suffering will not be solved until we address this underlying neglect of our inner dimension. That is why the great movements of the last hundred years and more--democracy, liberalism, socialism, and Communism--have all failed to deliver the universal benefits they were supposed to provide, despite many wonderful ideas. A revolution is called for, certainly, but not a political, an economic, or a technical revolution. We have had enough experience of these during the past century to know that a purely external approach will not suffice. What I propose is a spiritual revolution.
~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama
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Our problems, both those we experience externally such as wars, crime and violence and those we experience internally as emotional and psychological suffering will not be solved until we address this underlying neglect of our inner dimension. That is why the great movements of the last hundred years and more--democracy, liberalism, socialism, and Communism--have all failed to deliver the universal benefits they were supposed to provide, despite many wonderful ideas. A revolution is called for, certainly, but not a political, an economic, or a technical revolution. We have had enough experience of these during the past century to know that a purely external approach will not suffice. What I propose is a spiritual revolution.
~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama
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In a dying civilization, political prestige is the reward not of the shrewdest diagnostician but of the man with the best bedside manner. It is the decoration conferred on mediocrity by ignorance.
~ Eric Ambler, "A Coffin for Dimitrios"
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In a dying civilization, political prestige is the reward not of the shrewdest diagnostician but of the man with the best bedside manner. It is the decoration conferred on mediocrity by ignorance.
~ Eric Ambler, "A Coffin for Dimitrios"
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______________________
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"Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
____________________
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____________________
___________________
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The Capabilities.
I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
~ William Faulkner, speech at the Nobel Banquet, City Hall, Stockholm, December 10, 1950
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A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.
~Mark Twain
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A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.
~Mark Twain
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I'd still vote for any of those "clowns" over Robin Hood .
ReplyDeleteThe clowns and their followers are part of a dying breed of American that just can't get over equal treatment for all Americans. Their history is seeped in ignorance, racism, sexism, homophobia and religious superiority. And how proudly they proclaim it.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to learn that this breed of American is slowly "dying". It's good news.
ReplyDeleteGreetings from Italy.