REFLECTIONS

This is Democratic bedrock: we don't let people lie in the ditch and drive past and pretend not to see them dying. . . The logical extension of this spirit is social welfare and the myriad government programs with long dry names all very uninteresting to you until you suddenly need one and then you turn into a Democrat.-- Garrison Keillor

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.            -- Jerry Seinfeld

"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort" - Herman Albright

Look up, and not down; Out and not in; Forward and not back; And lend a hand. -Edward Everett Hale

"When we meet and encounter one anotherIt is biographies that intersect.Stories come together in a moment of discoveryBe reverent toward all you meet for they too have their story,Be attentive to the tales they tell,  even as we share our own.Be gentle in judgement, even as we seek compassion.
 When biographies intersect, something profound happensOur stories become part of the mosaic of this community,There is no greater joy than the sharing of stories,the telling of tales, the intermingling of peopleMay this be truly... a place of meeting ---Meeting one another in warmth and joy and openness,In courage, appreciation and trust.Be reverent before the miracle of meeting...When biographies intersect, something profound happens."

Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for thebig, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out- it's the grain of sand in your shoe.      -Robert Service, writer (1874-1958)

Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.            -- Bertrand Russell

I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by
looking up something and finding something else on the way.
-- Franklin P. Adams

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the
rest of the world.
-John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious.
-- Aristotle

"Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life
flows."--Henry David Thoreau

Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could;
Some blunders and absurdities crept in; Forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day; You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and
philosopher (1803-1882)

"Education is when we read the fine print. Experience is what we
get if we don't" --Pete Seeger

I loathe the expression "What makes him tick." It is the American mind,
looking for simple and singular solution, that uses the foolish
expression. A person not only ticks, he also chimes and strikes the hour,
falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like
an electric clock in a thunderstorm.
-- James Thurber