Archives - January 2005

The Old Year has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead. The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time. All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!

What an enormous magnifier is tradition! How a thing grows in the human memory and in the human imagination, when love, worship, and all that lies in the human heart, is there to encourage it.

Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing.

No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.

Books may well be the only true magic.

One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.

If some people didn't tell you, you'd never know they'd been away on a vacation.

No matter how rich you become, how famous or powerful, when you die the size of your funeral will still pretty much depend on the weather.

It is the little bits of things that fret and worry us; we can dodge an elephant, but we can't dodge a fly.

Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of taste.

A superstition is a premature explanation that overstays its time.

Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.

Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.

Zest is the secret of all beauty. There is no beauty that is attractive without zest.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

The most original authors are not so because they advance what is new, but because they put what they have to say as if it had never been said before.

Never let your zeal outrun your charity. The former is but human, the latter is divine.

It is with words as with sunbeams --- the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

I wish I could stand on a busy street corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

Fish is the only food that is considered spoiled once it smells like what it is.

Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth *and* fresher breath.

Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.

While we have the gift of life, it seems to me the only tragedy is to allow part of us to die --- whether it is our spirit, our creativity, or our glorious uniqueness.

A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner, so if one's life is cold and bare he can blame none but himself.

Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.

Don't simply retire from something; have something to retire to.

The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.

Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try.