One of my favorite bits in NCAA football is when the announcers break the fourth wall. “Depending on what team you’re rooting for, you’re either really excited or about to hit the reset button.” Even though these days, I’m the team that’s putting up points, the line never fails to make me giggle.
Speaking of NCAA football, it’s a nice salve after my team has had three straight losses, to enter a world in which Cal dominates college football and has won the national championship for ten years running. It’s a good place, even though the game has decided Stanford is a perennial top-15 team, too.
Places not to be in a lightning storm #56: Pumping gas. I’m standing there, and the lightning descends, and the part of me that isn’t exactly concerned for my safety thinks, “Oooh, pretty.” And then, KRA-KOOOOM, thunder splits the day, and I’m suddenly very conscious than I’m standing next to something that could theoretically explode…
That said, we had a wonderfully apocalyptic orange glow thing going on after that thunderstorm. I tried to take pictures, but I haven’t had a chance to look at them and see if they came out. I don’t think so, though. But it was absolutely stunningly *gorgeous* outside, between the fall colors on the trees (yes, my part of California actually has changing leaves — and if I knew where our rake was, I’d rake the lawn) and the orange glow…it was one of those moments where I wish I had brain to computer upload, so I could show you all how beautiful it was.
Got lots to do. Nano’s happening real soon. Like Wednesday night. (Okay, technically, it’ll be Thursday morning when I start writing, but the tradition in Sactown is to get a bunch of people together and start writing at midnight.) The meet and greet went wonderfully well, and I can only hope that the kickoff will be the same or better. That said, the Sactown region has really awesome Nanofolks, and it’s somewhat of an honor to be their ML. And of course, my partner in crime is *also* awesome.
Tomorrow’s a busy day, so I’m going to put this up. I have to scan a bunch of drawings in (but the pictures are worth it), I have to get my next copy of At Ungodly Hours pasted together so that it’ll be turned in on time, which means I have to actually do some writing, and I should probably attempt to get slightly ahead in my classes before November roars in with its demands. Okay, technically, I’ve got two days left in October, but Halloween is kinda a day where not much is going to be able to get done. (I have to drive Mom to a test in the morning, get ready for trick or treaters and the kickoff in the afternoon, give out candy, and then drive out to Dixon.) But yeah, I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow, so I’ll go to bed now.
I’ll have it known that sometimes I *really* hate CSS.
Oh yeah, one more thing. User participation moment. If you actually come to retstak.org, you’ll see I keep a quote thing on my sidebar. I could use help in finding neat quotes to populate the thing. So if you’ve got anything cool, go ahead and quote it at me.
You want quotes, I got quotes. Here, have my collection:
Before the rain stops we hear a bird. Even under the heavy snow we see snow drops and some new growth. [Shunryu Suzuki]
Imagination is more important than Knowledge. [Albert Einstein.]
Morning has broken like the first morning; Blackbird has spoken like the first bird.
Where is it written that all our dreams, have to be small ones ? [Byron]
No person is your enemy, no person is your friend, every person is your teacher.[ Florence Scovel Shinn]
If you have a good life you will become happy, if you have a bad one, you will become a philospher. [Socrates.]
Pain is short and joy is eternal. [Johann Schiller]
The time of discipline began. Each of us the pupil of whichever one of us could best teach that which each of us needed to learn. [Maria Isabel Barreno.]
There is no land uninhabitable or sea unnavigable. [Robert Thorne]
When a place gets crowded enough to require identity cards, social collapse is not far away.It’s time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it makes it possible to go a long, long way away. [R.A Heinlein]
A man who is always ready to believe what is told him, will never do well. [Petronius]
It is in the long run essential to the growth of any new and high civilization, that small groups of men can escape from their neighbours and from their governments, to go and live as they please in the wilderness. [Freeman Dyson.]
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in it’s success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. [Niccolo Machiavelli.]
…a nonliner computer weighing only 160 Lbs, having a billion binary decision elements, that can be mass produced by unskilled labour. Scott Crossfields desciption of an astronaut.
Hitch your wagon to a star. [Ralph Waldo Emerson.]
A human being should be able to ; change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, give solice to the living, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specilisation is for insects ! [Lazarus Long.]
One of the saddest things about the atheist is that he/she has no one to thank. [Hugh Silvester]
“I count it a privilege to share with others”. [Joni Eareckson]
Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. [Ralph Waldo Emerson]
If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.
Sometimes where you need to be, isn’t where you think you need to be. [SyonA]
I am still learning. [Michelangelo’s Motto]
Mistakes are teachers! Allow yourself to think of mistakes as a way of learning how to do things better. [Pat Palmer]
#
“Feelings are good friends.
Feelings let us know….
what is happening,
what we want,
what is important to us.
Feelings are like a thermometer”
Pat Palmer
#
Oh! To be a child again. My only treasures, bits of shell and stone and glass. To love nothing but maple sugar. To fear nothing but a big dog. To go to sleep without dreading the morrow. To wake up with a shout. Not to have seen a dead face. Not to dread a living one. To be able to *believe*.
Fanny Fern, Ginger-Snaps (1870)
#
“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening
That is translated through you into action,
And because there is only one of you in all time,
This expression is unique.
If you block it,
It will never exist through any other medium
And be lost.
The world will never have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is,
Nor how valuable it is,
Nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly,
To keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep open and aware
Directly to the urges that motivate you.
Keep the channel open.
No artist is pleased.
There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.
There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction,
A blessed unrest that keeps us marching
And makes us more alive than others.”
–Martha Graham from a letter to Agnes de Mille
#
We must know how to say ‘Thank you’. If we were in the habit of taking
stock of all the good things we have each day, we would realise how rich we were.
#
It is good to have an attitude of gratitude, of giving thanks,
of not taking anything for granted, but being thankful.
#
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day
Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Anon [16th C]
#
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.
John Wesley
#
Allow yourself to be you. You can be different from everyone else and still be ok.
#
Opportunities to know about the wider world are also opportunities to know more about ourselves.
#
Do random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
#
‘Be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you’.
2 Corinthians 13:11
#
“Forgive and you will be forgiven”
Luke 6:37
#
An’ if it harms none, then do as you will.
Wiccan reed.
#
“Forgive us the wrongs we have done,
as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us”.
Matthew 6:12
#
In order to build good relations with parents, brothers,
and sisters, begin by putting yourself in their shoes.
Treat them as you would like to be treated.
#
Everyone in your family needs love, kindness and appreciation ; just like you.
#
All of us have unique talents and gifts. No obstacle,
be it physical, mental or emotional has the power to
destroy our innate creative energies.
Liane Cordes
#
All people should strive to learn before they die what
they are running from, and to, and why.
James Thurber
#
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”.
Matthew 5:44
#
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out
the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal”.
Martin Luther King
#
Forgiveness is another word for letting go.
Matthew Fox
#
Judge not, that you be not judged.
Matthew 7:1
#
Beginnings are apt to be shadowy.
Rachel Carson
#
New life comes from shedding old skins and pressing through the darkness toward the light.
Karen Kaiser Clark
#
A good beginning makes a good ending.
Anon. 14th Century
#
An optimist expects his dreams to come true;
A pessimist expects his nightmares to.
Laurence J. Peter
#
The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water,
and breeds illnesses of the mind.
William Blake
#
If the only prayer you say in your whole life is ‘thank you’, that will suffice.
Meister Eckhart
#
For every shadow, there is a light.
SyonA
#
“Gratitude isn’t only an emotion to feel, it needs to be our incentive to act.”
Cliff Richard
#
Situations that annoy us today may be the cause of thanksgiving tomorrow.
#
If you love something, let it go.
If it comes back, its yours to keep forever.
If it doesn’t, it never was.
#
“Peace must be based on truth, built on justice,
supported by love and created in an atmosphere of freedom.”
Pope John XXIII
#
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises
Was of often times filled with tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.
Kahlil Gibran
#
Any man can seek revenge, it takes a king or prince
to grant a pardon
Arthur J. Rehrat
#
Harmony exists in difference no less than in
likeness.
Margaret Fuller
#
A great many people think they are thinking when
they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James
#
Democracy works on the principal that a million people are
more likely to be right than one.
A dictatorship works on the principal that one man is more likely to be right
than a million. Neither system is correct, everybody makes mistakes.
All a democracy does is spread the blame.
#
The language of friendship is not words but meaning.
Henry David Thoreau
#
Life is the movie you see through your own unique eyes.
It makes little difference what’s happening out there.
It’s how you take it that counts.
Denis Waitley
#
Set your sights high, the higher the better.
Expect the most wonderful things to happen,
not in the future but right now. Realise that nothing is too good.
Allow absolutely nothing to hamper you or hold you up in any way.
Eileen Caddy
#
To see your drama clearly is to be liberated from it.
Ken Keyes Jr
#
A human being is a single being.
Unique and unrepeatable.
John Paul II
#
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.
Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow.
Let reality be reality.
Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
Lao-Tse
#
Experience is determined by yourself – not the circumstances of your life.
Gita Bellin
#
To find yourself, think for yourself.
Socrates
#
A tree that can fill the span of a man’s arms grows from a downy tip;
A terrace nine storeys high rises from hodfuls of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath one’s feet.
Lao-Tzu
#
Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness.
Forgiveness is the letting go of the past,
and is therefore the means for correcting our misconceptions.
Gerald G. Jampolsky
#
Live and work but do not forget to play, to have fun in life and really enjoy it.
Eileen Caddy
#
Advice is what we ask for, when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.
Erica Jong.
#
Everyone is more or less mad on at least one point.
Kipling.
#
However many holy words you read, however many you speak,
What good will they do you if you do not act upon them?
The Dhammapada
#
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, magic and power in it.
Begin it now.
Goethe
#
All we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Edgar Allen Poe
#
Yesterday is but today’s memory and
Tomorrow is today’s dream.
Kahlil Gibran
#
A soul without a high aim is like a ship without a
rudder.
Eileen Caddy
#
It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula Le Guin
#
The fates lead him who will – him who won’t, they drag.
Seneca
#
Confine yourself to the present.
Marcus Aurelius
#
Seek always for the answer within. Be not influenced by those around you,
by their thoughts or their words.
Eileen Caddy
#
Man cannot discover new oceans until be has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
Unknown roman philospher
#
I do not expect anything from others,
So their actions cannot be in opposition to wishes of mine.
Swami Sri Yukteswar
#
Your questions indicate the depth of your belief. Look at the depth of your questions.
John & Lyn St.Clair Thomas
#
Life is full and overflowing with the new.
But it is necessary to empty out the old to make room for the new to enter.
Eileen Caddy
#
The more you depend on forces outside yourself, the more you are dominated by them.
Harold Sherman
#
Let there be more joy and laughter in your living.
Eileen Caddy
#
A thing is complete when you can let it be.
Gita Bellin
#
Be afraid of nothing you have within you –
all wisdom
all power
all strength
all understanding.
Eileen Caddy
#
Dare to dream, because dreams can change the world.
SyonA.
#
At any moment I could start being a better person –
but which moment should I choose?
Ashleigh Brilliant
#
For those who believe, no proof is necessary.
For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.
John & Lyn St.Clair Thomas
#
We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success;
We often discover what will do,
by finding out what will not do;
and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
Samuel Smiles
#
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
Helen Keller
#
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
#
Everything we do in life…
Is it not just a game?
Gururaj Ananda Yogi
#
Change is never a loss – it is change only.
Vernon Howard
#
The greater the emphasis upon perfection, the further it recedes.
Haridas Chaudhuri
#
Success is a journey not a destination – half the fun is getting there.
Gita Bellin
#
My life is a performance for which I was never given any chance to rehearse.
Ashleigh Brilliant
#
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
Albert Einstein
#
Forgiveness recognises what you thought your brother did to you has not occured.
#
Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.
Pythagorus
#
Every issue, belief, attitude or assumption is precisely the issue that
stands between you and your relationship to another human being;
and between you and yourself.
Gita Bellin
#
Perfect kindness acts without thinking of kindness.
Lao-Tse
#
Of a certainty the man who can see all creatures in himself,
and himself in all creatures, knows no sorrow.
Eesha Upanishad
#
Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly bountiful.
Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart desires must come to you.
Shakti Gawain
(Creative Visualisation)
#
Expand in consciousness – be ready to accept anything now, at any time.
Eileen Caddy
#
What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday,
and our present thoughts build our life of tommorrow:
Our life is the creation of our mind.
The Buddha
#
Love is
letting go of fear.
Gerald Jampolsky
#
Everything I do and say with anyone makes a difference.
Gita Bellin
#
To change one’s life:
– Start immediately
– Do it flamboyantly
– No exceptions (no excuses).
William James
#
To be upset over what you don’t have…
is to waste what you do have.
Ken Keyes, Jr
#
Do the thing
and you will
have the Power.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#
Thoughts are like boomerangs.
Eileen Caddy
#
There is little sense in attempting to change external conditions,
you must first change inner beliefs, then outer conditions will change accordingly.
Brian Adams
#
The only way to deal with the future, is to function efficiently in the Now.
Gita Bellin
#
There is no future, there is no past. There is only an everchanging infinite Now.
Learn to live in it fully and all of Time is yours.
SyonA.
#
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women, merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts.
Shakespeare
(As you like it)
#
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
Kahlil Gibran
#
The only way to do anything right, is to do it with everything you’ve got, for as long as it takes. SyonA
#
See every difficulty as a challenge, a stepping stone,
and never be defeated by anything or anyone.
Eileen Caddy
#
Success depends on where intention is.
Gita Bellin
#
If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out.
Rabindranath Tagore
#
Life is like a wild tiger.
You can either lie down and let it lay its paw on your head
Or sit on its back and ride it.
The Buddah
#
Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
Kahlil Gibran
#
Everytime we say “I must do something” it takes an incredible amount of energy.
Far more than physically doing it.
Gita Bellin
#
Be realistic:
Plan for a miracle.
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
#
What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye recieve them, and ye shall have them.
Mark 11:24
#
One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.
Kahlil Gibran
#
The blackest night must end in dawn.
The sun dispell the dreamers fear.
Anne McCaffrey
#
We can only be here now when we accept instantly our moment-by-moment emotional experience.
Gita Bellin
#
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Kahlil Gibran
#
You should always be aware that your mind creates your world.
Ken Keyes, Jr
#
Men are disturbed not by things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.
Epictetus
#
Gratitude
helps you to grow and expand;
gratitude brings joy
and laughter into your lives
and into the lives of all those around you.
Eileen Caddy
#
You are never asked to do more than you are able without being
given the strength and ability to do it.
Eileen Caddy
#
If one desires a change, one must be that change before that change can take place.
Gita Bellin
#
The difference between a fool and the ignorant,
is that the fool dispises anyone who isn’t like him,
the ignorant knows no better.
SyonA
#
Be outragious!
People who achieve mastery have the ability to be outragious.
Gita Bellin
#
Everyone and everything around you is your teacher.
Ken Keyes, Jr
#
Peace of mind comes from not wanting to change others,
but by simply accepting them as they are.
True acceptance is always without demands and expectations.
Gerald G. Jampolsky
#
Disillusionment with yourself must precede enlightenment.
Vernon Howard
#
Love is a space in which all other emotions can
be experienced.
Robert Prinable
#
Before enlightenment
chopping wood
carrying water.
After enlightenment
chopping wood
carrying water.
Zen proverb
#
The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#
Truth does not change although your perception of it may vary or alter drastically.
#
Learn your lessons quickly, and move on.
Eileen Caddy
#
People with high self esteem have it because they have overcome their failures.
They have been put to the test of life, overcome the problems and grown.
David Jansen
#
The fastest way to freedom is to feel your feelings.
Gita Bellin
#
The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white
. Neither need you do anything but be yourself.
Lao-Tse
#
Be like a very small joyous child living gloriously in the ever present
Now without a single worry or concern about even the next moment of time.
Eileen Caddy
#
There is but one cause of human failure and that is man’s lack of faith in his true self.
William James
#
We are injured and hurt emotionally- not so much by other people
or what they say or don’t say – but by our own attitude and our own response.
Maxwell Maltz
#
Work is love made visible.
Kahlil Gibran
#
Regrets can hold you back and can prevent the most
wonderful things taking place in your life.
Eileen Caddy
#
Don’t try to force anything.
Let life be a deep let-go.
See God opening millions of flowers every day
without forcing the buds.
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
#
Come to the edge, he said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, he said.
They came,
He pushed them…and they flew.
Guillaume Apollinaire
#
When one realises one is asleep, at that moment one is already half-awake.
#
Begin with the possible;
begin with one step.
There is always a limit, you cannot do more than you can.
If you try to do too much, you will do nothing.
#
In order to arrive at what you do not know,
you must go by the way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to posses what you do not posses,
you must go go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not,
you must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own.
And where you are is where you are not.
T.S. Elliot. Four Quartets.
#
You must love yourself before you love another.
By accepting yourself and joyfully being what you are,
you fulfill your own abilities, and your simple presence can make others happy.
Jane Roberts
#
Ideas by themselves cannot produce change of being;
your effort must go in the right direction and one must correspond to the other.
#
You will decide on a metter, and it will be established for you, and light will shine on your ways.
Job 22:28
#
A loving person lives in a loving world.
A hostile person lives in a hostile world.
Everyone you meet is your mirror.
Ken Keyes, Jr
#
Each player must accept the cards life deals him
or her.
But once they are in hand, he or she alone must
decide how to play the cards in order to win
the game.
Voltaire
#
Stop looking for a scapegoat in your life but be willing to face the truth
within yourself and right your own wrongs.
Eileen Caddy
#
It is important from time to time to slow down, to go away by yourself, and simply Be.
Eileen Caddy
#
I know I’m not seeing things as they are, I’m seeing things as I am.
Laurel Lee
#
The difference between a flower and a weed is a judgement.
Anon
#
Every end is a new beginning.
#
“Second to the right,” said Peter,
“and then straight on till morning.”
James M. Barrie.
#
Words are the symbols of thought, and thoughts can change the world.
SyonA
#
Democracy is government by the uneducated,
whilst aristocracy is government by the badly educated.
G.K Chesterton.
#
One wrong can move a people, and a wronged people can move the world.
Confucius.
#
Do not dispise the snake for having no horns,
for who is to say that some day it will not grow up to be a dragon.
Confucius.
#
Love is a fruit in season at all times.
Mother Teresa.
#
The head never rules the heart,
But just becomes it’s partner in crime.
Mignon McLaughin.
#
Love conquers all.
Virgil
#
At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.
Plato.
#
LOVE: a temporary insanity curable by marriage.
#
Love is my religion – I could die for that.
John Keats to Fanny Brown.
#
Marriage is the result of the longing for the deep, deep peace of the double bed
after the hurly-burly of the chaise longue.
Mrs Patrick Campbell.
#
The magic of first love, is our ignorance that it can ever end.
Benjamin Disraeli.
#
We poor, common folk must take wives whom we love and who love us.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
#
But a woman’s words to a lusting lover
Should be written in wind and running water.
Catullus.
#
It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason
that it is more difficult to be witty every day,
than to say pretty things from time to time.
Honore de Balac
#
Love, a trite invention of poets and fools, a product of frustrated sexual desire,
or the most powerful force in existance. take your pick.
SyonA
#
In the end, is a beginning.
Anon
$
190 quotes so far.
“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that
English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow
words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways
to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” —
James D. Nicoll
Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. -Mark Twain [Samuel Langhornne Clemens] (1835-1910)
If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing. W. Edwards Deming
Do just once what others say you can’t do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again. -James R. Cook
“But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. … He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.”
Raymond Chandler
The Simple Art of Murder
quotes… I’ve got *files* of quotes, going back to before my first computer in ’93 (as in, done on office word processor, then computer).