| On this page are things I have come across which have rooted in my mind, changed my perspective, entertained me, or otherwise made me think. I hope the words here do these things for you as well. If you know of something you think should be here, please let me know. Enjoy ;) |
| The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart. ~Ben Franklin |
Three cowboys had been riding the range since early in the morning. One of them was a member
of the Navajo Nation. Being busy with herding stray cattle all day, there had been no time for the three of them to eat. Toward the end of the
day, two of the cowboys started talking about how hungry they were and about the huge meals they were going to eat when they reached town. When one of the
cowboys asked the Navajo if he was also hungry, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, "No." Later that evening, after they had arrived in town, all three ordered large steak dinners. As the Navajo proceeded to eat everything in sight with great gusto, one of his friends reminded him that less than an hour earlier he had told them that he was not hungry. "Not wise to be hungry then," he replied. "No food." ~Author Unknown |
| As Gandhi stepped aboard a train one day, one of his shoes slipped off and landed on the track. He
was unable to retrieve it as the train was moving. To the amazement of his companions, Gandhi calmly took off his other shoe and threw it back along the track to land close to the
first. Asked by a fellow passenger why he did so, Gandhi smiled. "The poor man who finds the shoe lying on the track," he replied, "will now have a pair he can use." ~Author Unknown First quoted in The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes |
I'm furious about the Women's Liberationists. They keep getting up on soapboxes and proclaiming that women are
brighter than men. That's true, but it should be kept very quiet or it ruins the whole racket. ~from "The Observer" Sayings of the Year |
I waited all day |
For everything you have missed,
you have gained something else. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson |
When |
Six minutes to six, said the great round clock over the information booth in Grand Central Station. The tall young Army lieutenant who had just come from the direction of the tracks lifted his sunburned face, and his eyes narrowed to note the exact time. His heart was pounding with a beat that shocked him because he could not control it. In six minutes, he would see the woman who had filled such a special place in his life for the past 13 months, the woman he had never seen, yet whose written words had been with him and sustained him unfailingly. He placed himself as close as he could to the information booth, just beyond the ring of people beseiging the clerks.... In one of his letters, he had confessed to her that he often felt fear, and only a few days before this battle, he had received her answer: "Of course you fear... all brave men do. Didn't King David know fear? That's why he wrote the 23rd Psalm. Next time you doubt yourself, I want you to hear my voice reciting to you: 'Yea, thought I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me.'" And he had remembered; he had heard her imagined voice, and it had renewed his strength and skill. Now he was going to hear her real voice. Four minutes to six. His face grew sharp. Under the immense, starred roof, people were walking fast, like threads of colour being woven into a gray web. A girl passed close to him, and Lieutenant Blandford started. She was wearing a red flower in her suit lapel, but it was a crimson sweet pea, not the little red rose they had agreed upon. Besides, this girl was too youg, about 18, whereas Hollis Meynell had frankly told him she was 30. "Well, what of it?" He had answered. "I'm 32." He was 29. His mind went back to that book - the book the Lord Himself must have put into his hands out of the hundreds of Army library books sent to the Florida training camp. Of Human Bondage, it was; and throughout the book were notes in a woman's handwriting. He had always hated that writing-in habit, but these remarks were different. He had never believed that a woman could see into a man's heart so tenderly, so understandingly. Her name was on the bookplate: Hollis Meynell. He had got hold of a New York City telephone book and found her address. He had written, she had answered. Next day he had been shipped out, but they had gone on writing. For 13 months, she had faithfully replied, and more than replied. When his letters did not arrive, she wrote anyway, and now he believed he loved her, and she loved him. But she had refused all his pleas to send him her photograph. That seemed rather bad, of course. But she had explained: "If your feeling for me has any reality, any honest basis, what I look like won't matter. Suppose I'm beautiful. I'd always be haunted by the feeling that you had been taking a chance on just that, and that kind of love would disgust me. Suppose I'm plain (and you must admit that this is more likely). Then I'd always fear that you were going on writing to me only because you were lonely and had no one else. No, don't ask for my picture. When you come to New York, you shall see me and then you shall make your decision. Remember, both of us are free to stop or to go on after that - whichever we choose..." One minute to six - he pulled hard on a cigarette. Then Lieutenant Blandford's heart leaped higher than his plane had ever done. A young woman was coming toward him. Her figure was long and slim; her blond hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears. Her eyes were as blue as flowers, her lips and chin had a gentle firmness. In her pale green suit, she was like springtime come alive. He started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was wearing no rose, and as he moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips. "Going my way, soldier?" she murmured. Uncontrollably, he made one step closer to her. Then he saw Hollis Meynell. She was standing almost directly behind the girl, a woman well past 40, her graying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump; her thick-ankled feet were thrust into low-heeled shoes. But she wore a red rose in the rumpled lapel of her brown coat. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. Blandford felt as though he were being split in two, so keen was his desire to follow the girl, yet so deep was his longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned and upheld his own; and there she stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible; he could see that now. Her gray eyes had a warm, kindly twinkle. Lieutenant Blandford did not hesitate. His fingers gripped the small, worn, blue leather copy of Of Human Bondage, which was to identify him to her. This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even rarer than love - a friendship for which he had been and must ever be grateful. He squared his broad shoulders, saluted and held the book out toward the woman, although even while he spoke he felt shocked by the bitterness of his disappointment. "I'm Lieutenant John Blandford, and you - you are Miss Meynell. I'm so glad you could meet me. May... may I take you to dinner?" The woman's face broadened in a tolerant smile. "I don't know what this is all about, son," she answered. "That young lady in the green suit - the one who just went by - begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said that if you asked me to go out with you, I should tell you that she's waiting for you in that big restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind of a test. I've got two boys with Uncle Sam myself, so I didn't mind to oblige you." ~Sulamith Ish-Kishor |
and a personal favourite... thanks Steph Whatever we learn has a purpose, and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. When a housefly flaps its wings, a breeze goes round the world, when a speck of dust falls to the ground, the entire planet weighs a little more, and when you stomp your feet the earth moves slightly off it's course. Whenever you smile, gladness spreads like ripples in a pond, and whenever you're sad, no one can really be happy. And it's much the same with knowledge, for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer. ~Author Unknown |
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. ~1 Corinthians, 13.4-13 |
