poems for friends
The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. ~Ralph W. Sockman
Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent. ~Samuel Johnson
Action is the antidote to despair. ~Joan Baez
The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed. ~Lloyd Jones The mere brute pleasure of reading - the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing. ~Lord Chesterfield The mere brute pleasure of reading - the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing. ~Lord Chesterfield
Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. ~Plato
About a year ago I was a guest on a network news show in New York. They were showing film clips from a gay pride parade down Fifth Avenue, but they only decided to show the part with men in dresses and heels. I had seen the parade, and there were men in business suits as well. After showing the film, the newsperson made some comments, and I found the comments extremely offensive. "This is what's wrong with the media," I said. "You show a fringe position. You show one point of view. You're closing the minds of the people by not showing them what the reality is." I got up and walked out, and I've never been asked back again. ~Kathleen Nolan
For a dreamer, night's the only time of day. ~From the movie Newsies
God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done. ~Author Unknown God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done. ~Author Unknown
Time is the fire in which we burn. ~Delmore Schwartz, "Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day," 1937 (Thank you, George.)
Most wives think of their husbands as bumbling braggarts with whom they happen to be in love. ~Jackie Gleason
I'm not saying my golf game went bad, but if I grew tomatoes, they'd come up sliced. ~Attributed to both Miller Barber and Lee Trevino
If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger. ~Frank Lloyd Wright
Nothing is worth reading that does not require an alert mind. ~Charles Dudley Warner
Love and pregnancy and riding on a camel cannot be hid. ~Arabic Proverb
In most sciences one generation tears down what another has built and what one has established another undoes. In mathematics alone each generations adds a new story to the old structure. ~Hermann Hankel
How is it that one match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box of matches to start a campfire? ~Christy Whitehead
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. ~William Shakespeare
Nothing can be truer than fairy wisdom. It is as true as sunbeams. ~Douglas Jerrold
Reconsider, v. To seek a justification for a decision already made. ~Ambrose Bierce
The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion. ~Doris Lessing