FAVORITE QUOTES You should have more skills that tools, more tools that rules, and more rules than rituals. -Mark Jenkins (Back Packer) Be humble, for you are made of earth. Be noble, for you are made of stars. -Serbian Proverb If you lack job skills, get 'em; never trash the absent father to the kids; be the children's parent, not their friend; and, most important, put the kids first... in terms of time, attention, and priorities. - Paul Begalai Serve God daily, love one another, preserve your victuals, beware of fire, and keep good company. -Sir John Hawkins My only ritual is to just sit down and write, write everyday. -Augusten Burroughs Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. never be a spectator of unfairness of stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will give you plenty of time for silence. Do not live for others more than you would expect others to live for you. -Christopher Hitchens Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one. -Voltaire Life is less a quest than a quilt. We find meaning, love, and prosperity through the process of stitching together our bold attempts to help others find their own way in their lives. The relationships we weave become an exquisite and endless pattern. -Keith Ferrazzi Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. -Antoine De Saint-Exupery. My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful, and optimistic. And we will change the world. -Jack Layton. If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damn fool about it. -W.C. Fields For bedding let this suffice: a mattress, a blanket, a coverlet, and a pillow... the abbot should provide all he necessary articles: Cowl, tunic, socking, shoes, belt, knife, stylus, needle, handkerchief, writing tablets... -Rule of St. Benedict. Simplicity, clarity, singleness: These are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness and joy as they are also the marks of great art. -Richard Holloway Wherever I go, it will be well with me. -Epictetus I am afraid I was not born for happiness. Life is real; and the force behind life is real. -7th Heaven The only rules that matter are these: What a man can do and what a man can't do. -Pirates of the Caribbean I call this divine: The universe of which we are a part. Science can prove it, philosophy can speak of it, and senses can touch it. -Alexander Those who commit atrocities always seem to do so out of a misconceived seance of righteousness and the greater good. Pen. Jarka Russ (Terry Brooks) He that will not work shall not eat. -John Smith What humans can be, they must be. -Abraham Maslow Where one burns books, one will, in the end, burn people. -Heirich Heine True civilization lies in the dominance of self and not in the dominance of others. -Luther Standing Bear If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent Texas and live in Hell. -Gen. Philip H. Sheridan To see Earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold - brothers who know they are truly brothers. -Archibold Macleish Steal not this book my worthy friend. For fear of the gallows will be your end. Up the latter, and down the rope. There you'll hang until you choke. Then I'll come along and say "Where's that book you stole away?" My message today was a message of earth for our young men. How strange it seems to applaud that. -Woodrow Wilson This [The United States] will never be a civilized country until we spend more money on books than we do on chewing gum. -Elbert Hubbart America is the best half-educated country in the world. -Nicholas M. Butler I must consult my books. -Rupert Giles A blessed companion is a book, a book that fitly chosen is a life-long friend. -Douglas W. Jerrold All things are impermanent. Work out your own salvation with diligence. T-The Buddha, on his deathbed. I shall not cease from exploring. And at the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and now the place place for the first time. -T.S. Elliott Earth is all... and enough. -Kenneth Patton The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children. -The Duke of Windsor Any God who would make your daughters suffer in order to punish you is a demon, unworthy of your worship or indeed of your service. - Right Rev. John Shelby Spong Violence seldom accomplishes permanent and desired results. Herein lies the futility of war. -Asa Randolph Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, never get it out. -Cardinal Wolsey No action can be both free and ignorant. -Th. Jefferson The enduring achievement of historical study is a historical sense - an intuitive understand - of how things do not happen. Lewis Nainier Those who say that it cannot be done need to get out of the way of people who are doing it. -Confucius Forgive your enemies but never forget their name. -JFK Censorship strikes at the heart of our free society. -Newton ? No one can love his neighbor on an empty stomach. -Woodrow Wilson Ideas are indeed the most dangerous weapon in the world. William O. Douglass Hell is empty, and all he devils are here. -From the civil war period I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, or by any other church I know of my. My own mind is my own church. Thomas Paine My religion is loving kindness. -Dalai Lama We are not final because we are not infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final. Justice Robert Jackson, about the Supreme Court. Stay brother, let us ascend as one. "Epic of Gilgamesh" The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintains their neutrality. -Donte One thing you have to remember is that you must do the thing you think you cannot do. -Eleanor Roosevelt I think, therefore I am. -Rene Descartes I wait for reality to dictate to me. "The counterfeiters" Your will is my strength, your need is my justice. "All the king's men" I no longer look at myself as a male or gay, I look at myself as a human, and if we all thought that way, the Earth would be a much better place. Freedom from lust is happiness in the world, the going beyond all sensual desires. But the crushing out of the conceit "I am" - this is the highest happiness. Udana 10 To know the road ahead, ask those coming back. -Chinese Proverb Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a follow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let me come out as I do, and bark. -Samuel Johnson. The friend who is a helpmate, the friend in happiness and woe, the friend who gives good counsel, the friend who sympathizes too -- these four as friends the wise behold and cherish them devotedly as does a mother her own children. Digha Nikaya 31 Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any. I am only one. But still, i am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. -Edward Everett Hale The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valley to traverse. -Helen Keller Men who cannot think of their God as caring for other people will not themselves care for them. Love, not law; Experience, not doctrine: This, at its heart, is what Christianity is about, if it takes it's founder seriously. Any fool can see whats wrong with the world. But it takes a wise man to see what's right and what ought to be preserved.