"The glass is twice as big as it needs to be" -George Carlin
"It is because of it’s emptiness that the cup is useful." -Old Chinese Proverb
"A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side." -Addison
"Great grief makes sacred those upon whom its hand is laid. Joy may elevate, ambition glorify, but only sorrow can consecrate." -Horace Greeley
"The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. I would not interfere with any one's religion, either to strengthen it or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one's religion can affect his hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life--hence it is a valuable possession to him." -Mark Twain, a Biography
"Here the skeptic finds chaos and the believer further evidence that the hand that made us is divine." -Robert Moses
"The skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found." -Miguel de Unamuno
The search for truth is more precious than its possession. -Albert Einstein
"Inquiry is fatal to certainty." -William J. Durant
"The trick is living without an answer... I think." -Perry Lyman/Keanu Reeves, Thumbsucker
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." -Sir Martin Rees (astronomer)
"The logic of validation allows us to move between the two limits of dogmatism and skepticism." -Paul Ricoeur
"A man is to be cheated into passion, but reasoned into truth." -John Dryden
"The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off." -Gloria Steinem
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." -Bertrand Russell
Think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of 'em are stupider than that." -George Carlin
"Common sense is the sum total of all prejudice deposited in the human mind prior to the age of 18." -Albert Einstein
"Prejudices are what fools use for reason." -Voltaire
"When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Sir Stephen Henry
“If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another.” – Epicurus
“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.” - Frederick Douglass
“The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.” – Mark Twain
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" – Carl Sagan
"It is no good reason for a man's religion that he was born and brought up in it; for then a Turk would have as much reason to be a Turk as a Christian a Christian" -Chillingworth
"Here the skeptic finds chaos and the believer further evidence that the hand that made us is divine." -Robert Moses
"Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion. The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to; and well has it been said, that if there had been no God, mankind would have been obliged to imagine one." -George Washingtion
"Here the skeptic finds chaos and the believer further evidence that the hand that made us is divine." -Robert Moses
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." -Voltaire
"Here the skeptic finds chaos and the believer further evidence that the hand that made us is divine." -Robert Moses
A Midsummer Night's Dream; Imagination
by William Shakespeare
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
To Be Or Not To Be (excerpt)
by William Shakespeare
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” -Buddha
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” -Misattributed to Marcus Aurelius
“Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.” -- Epicurus
"I do not fear death. I had been dead billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." -Mark Twain
The oblivion in death is no mystery, it's the same oblivion we were born from, the same we knew before conception. Dying is a thing to be feared but being dead is not for in death we are oblivious of all things including fear and loneliness. We are stardust breathed into life, fleeting fragments of the very universe itself gazing with wonderment upon our own reflection and then released, returning back home to the stars.
"Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return". -Genesis 3:19
Religions vary in their beliefs the world over but along with secular beliefs they all share one tenet, the Ethic of Reciprocity... The Golden Rule...
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." -The Holy Bible, Luke 6:31
"The Golden Rule is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights, in which each individual has a right to just treatment, and a reciprocal responsibility to ensure justice for others." -Wikipedia
"In faith and hope the world will disagree, but all mankind's concern is charity." -Alexander the Great
"The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of life or existence in general... An alternative, humanistic (rather than religious) approach is the question 'What is the meaning of my life?'" -Wikipedia
The 'purpose' of life is to survive but man also has the ability to choose his own personal purpose as well. So, instead of asking, "What is the meaning of life?" you can ask, "What shall I choose as the meaning of 'my' life?"
"The question [Do you believe in God?] has a peculiar structure. If I say no, do I mean I'm convinced God doesn't exist, or do I mean I'm not convinced he does exist? Those are two very different questions." -Dr. Arroway in Carl Sagan's Contact
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." -George Bernard Shaw
If there is a God, no religion has done him justice.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." -George Herbert Walker Bush (After he was elected president, Bush's White House counsel C. Boyden Gray wrote in response to an inquiry about this quote: "...you may rest assured that this Administration will proceed at all times with due regard for the legal rights of atheists, as will as others with whom the President disagrees."*)
Article IX, Sec. 2, of the Tennessee constitution ("No Atheist shall hold a civil office") states: "No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments shall hold any office in the civil department of this state." (Arkansas, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas have similar laws.)
“Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely soley upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.” -Christopher Hitchens
"Where belief in miracles exists, evidence will always be forthcoming to confirm its existence. In the case of moving statues and paintings, the belief produces the hallucination and the hallucination confirms the belief." -D.H. Rawcliffe
And then there are fossiles. Whenever anybody tries to tell me that they believe it took place in seven days, I reach for a fossil and go "fossile!" And if they keep talking I throw it just over their head. -Lewis Black
"Suppose We've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to chruch we're just making him madder and madder!" -Homer Simpson
Bart: “I figure I’ll go for the life of sin, followed by the presto-chango deathbed repentance.”
Brother Faith: “Wow, that’s a good angle… uh, but that’s not God’s angle! Why not spend your life helping people instead? Then you’re also covered in case of sudden death.”
Bart: “Full coverage? Hmm…”
“What a blessing to know there’s a devil, and that I’m but a pawn in his game / that my impulse to sin doesn’t come from within, and so I’m not exactly to blame.” — Frank Loesser
The benefits of exploration are 'spin-offs'? How can anyone consider Darwin on the HMS Beagle, Apollo 11, the over 3,500 servicing satellites, the Large Hadron Collider, the International Space Station, or images from the Hubble Telescope and still question the necessity of exploration? Everything we already do isn't nearly enough. Mankind's exploration has been slowly pulling back the curtains of ignorance and revealing the very nature of the universe its self. And yet people would rather debate its merits in spin-offs like freeze-dried foods? Really!?
"But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask; why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?" -President John F. Kennedy
"We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of preeminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war." - President John F. Kennedy
"The United States this week will commit its national pride, eight years of work and $24 billion of its fortune to showing the world it can still fulfill a dream. It will send three young men on a human adventure of mythological proportions with the whole of the civilized world invited to watch - for better or worse." -Rudy Abramson
"Neil and Buzz, I am talking to you by telephone from the Oval Office at the White House, and this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made. . . . Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man's world. As you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth." -President Richard M. Nixon
"If somebody'd said before the flight, "Are you going to get carried away looking at the earth from the moon?" I would have say, "No, no way." But yet when I first looked back at the earth, standing on the moon, I cried." -Alan Shepard
"From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon. It wasn't a miracle, we just decided to go." -Jim Lovell
"I think a future flight should include a poet, a priest and a philosopher . . . we might get a much better idea of what we saw." -Michael Collins
"Here Men From Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon The Moon July 1969 A.D. We Came In Peace For All Mankind." -Plaque left on the Moon
"The moon is the first milestone on the road to the stars." -Arthur C. Clarke
After a lecture on astronomy the professor was approached by a distraught looking student. The student asked, "Is it true that the sun will turn into a red giant and destroy the world!?" The professor chuckled and said "Yes. But not to worry, it won't happen for billions of years." The student sighed with relief, "Oh good! I thought you said MILLIONS of years."
Elna Baker, "The last big moment that I feel like was a spiritual experience that I had was probably three years ago, maybe four years ago, where I felt like it was getting so hard to believe for me. And I just was like, 'You know, I want a sign again like the one I had when I was young. And I just want you tell me that you're there, God.' And I knelt down and I prayed and I asked this. And then I looked up at the sky and I was like, 'The sky? That's the sign?' Like, anyone can see this. This isn't a sign. You just see a few stars. It's New York-- you see, like, maybe five stars. And just as I was saying, 'This isn't anything, this is just what's always there,' one of the stars shot across the sky. And it was biggest shooting star I'd ever seen. I still don't know what to think of that moment. It was shocking. But as soon as it happened, I did the thing I do now-- I started questioning. Was that meant for me? Or did I just happen to look up at the exact moment when a star shot across the sky? I had forgotten about that moment until I shared it with Ken, and it made me think, 'Well, that's an even bigger sign than what I experienced in the woods as a teenager, so really, I have had signs since then.' And that's when I realized I don't just want a sign, I want to be myself at 14 again-- the kind of person who believes in signs."
I was about 7 at Sunday school and they asked each of us if we could hear Jesus at our hearts asking to come in and when we said yes they gave us fruit punch and a cookie and when I said yes and cried they were excited that I was so moved. But I avoided their wistful gaze and let them believe the lie. I had cried because I had felt no divine presence, no warmth from God's love. For a long time I just felt totally alone, rejected by the universe. But then started to question if God was actaully speaking at all, that what if this thing people heard or felt wasn't supernatural in origin. I think I stopped believing in God the same time I stopped believing in Santa Claus and for many of the same reasons. I've never felt nor heard any kind of mystical presence, voice, or message that suggested any kind of spiritual reality to me.
When intellectually I started to doubt there was a God, emotionally I responded to my own thoughts with fear and revulsion from my theist upbringing. But the doubts persisted and grew till I also started doubting damnation. You would think doubting God's existence would automatically mean you would doubt damnation but the doubt of God for me actually reinforced the fear of damnation. Eventually I emotionally accepted my doubts, the fear being replaced with something akin to forgiveness. After that another hurtle for me was addressing mortality. I had a hard time with the idea of death and oblivion until I came to think of it not as some state of eternal loneliness nor some mysterious unknown but instead as the same oblivion I was born from, the same one I knew before conception. It hadn't bothered me then, so why should it now?
For me agnosticism doesn't mean totally abandoning practical knowledge and science, only that the further removed a subject is from my ability or the ability of a reliable source to study then the more uncertain I am of any conclusions that are drawn about it.
I don't consider agnosticism as a position half way between 2 different conclusions as if its some blend of the 2 but instead as a separate category of principles as far removed from atheism and theism as they are from each other. I don't think someone who is undecided is any kind of agnostic since their indecision isn't based on agnostic tenets but are equally undecided of all position and therefore equally distant to them all. Also while some atheists might classify newborns as atheists but I don't see how an indifferent lack of opinion is the same as a philosophy with a specific reasoned belief.
Maybe we shouldn't be using each positions' conclusions to classify them but instead use the criteria used in making the conclusion. Visually I would describe it with the indifferent at a central point, surrounded by a close ring representing the undecided in the middle of a 3D xyz plot. Then atheism, theism, empirical skeptic, and agnosticism each at their own separate coordinate of equally distance apart but not sharing the same axis to exemplify these are definitions of philosophy or methodology and not just of their conclusions.
Also this visualization helps avoid trying to find some hybrid like suggesting an undecided can be split 'between' an atheist and an agnostic for example. You may be an undecided that favors 2 conclusions but that doesn't mean their philosophies are mutually compatible and only confuse the issue. It's better to make the decision based on criteria of the philosophy than merely on it's conclusion.
In the case of atheism, although there are different shades, generally I think the chief tenet would be 'the more a claim is contrary to known evidence then the more it is unlikely'. So for atheists for all practical purposes the likelihood of the supernatural is zero. In detailing this tenet I say "know evidence" instead of 'known scientific method' because the atheist conclusion doesn't have conclusive peer review support, an important aspect of the scientific method which in part differentiate the philosophy of empirical skeptics.
Theism I would classify as 'reasoned via spiritual teachings'. I think the term belief and faith would be misnomers here for this exercise for although many may argue the rational or criteria behind the reasoning used I would still classify it as a reasoned decision. I think there's an element of intuition as well for both theism and atheism. Most theists would say they would still be convinced of the existence of the supernatural even if they were presented with absolute proff against it but that 'gut opinion' can be changed over years of truly irrefutable evidence (if such a thing were even possible) the concept is acknowledged in phrases such as having a 'crisis of faith' or in 'questioning one's beliefs' and in 'shunning'.
And although atheist promote their reasoning as purely factual their human nature gut instinct would be to initially resist or deny irrefutable evidence contrary to their world view but most would eventually accept it. My point is that with the right modifiers reason ultimately influences intuition. it still bases decisions on some spiritual teachings or knowledge. Also I'm concerned using different terms like belief, thought, and affirmation would be rhetorical since they each have different connotations.
So I would classify the different positions thusly.
Atheism tenet of, 'reason based on known evidence' that determines the existence of the supernatural as false.
Theism tenet of, 'reason based on spiritual teachings' that determines the existence of the supernatural as true.
Agnostic tenet of, 'reason based on lack of know evidence' that determines the existence of the supernatural as inconclusive.
Empirical/Scientific Skeptic tenet of 'reason based on know scientific method' that determines the existence of the supernatural as inconclusive.
Indifferent who abstain from any tenet and also for their conclusion of the existence of the supernatural they abstain.
Undecided who's tenet is undecided and also for their conclusion of the existence of the supernatural they are undecided.
Desiderata
by Max Ehrmann
Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
Hamlet
To Thine Ownself Be True
by William Shakespeare
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!
“Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought.” – Abraham Lincoln
“I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power that can move the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.” – Barack Obama
“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ? proof that humans can work magic.” – Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." – Carl Sagan
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.” – George Bernard Shaw
“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.” – Benjamin Franklin
“The people have a right to the truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” – Epictetus
“The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
“I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.” – Robert Green Ingersoll
“When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people.” – Chinese Proverb
“Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.” – English Proverb
“No answer is also an answer.” – German Proverb
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain
“Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.” -- Howard Aiken
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” – Ronald Reagan
"The Army is a broad sword, not a scalpel." -General William Devereaux/Bruce Willis, The Siege
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." -George Washington
People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.
"A healthy democracy requires a decent society; it requires that we are honorable, generous, tolerant and respectful." -Charles W. Pickering
Any politician who wins an election with anything less than 90% of the vote has 'not' received a 'mandate from the people' and if they would only remember that maybe we would have statesmen again instead of politicians. And also, you get out what you put into it and what we get is what we deserve.
"Happiness isn't having what you want. It's wanting what you have." -unknown
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” -Marcus Aurelius
"Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." -Abraham Lincoln
"The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up." -Mark Twain
"Life is 10 percent of what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes." -Charles Swindoll
Great dancers are not great because of their technique; they are great because of their passion. -Martha Graham
"Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one." -Thomas Jefferson
It's your ability to inspire and uplift other people that matters, not your ability to outdo them.
Take deep cleansing breaths.
Most worries never happen or were even worth the trouble.
"If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you." -Calvin Coolidge
"If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today." -E. Joseph Cossman
"We experience moments absolutely free from worry. These brief respites are called panic." -Cullen Hightower
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love & affection.” -Buddha
“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding, and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him." -Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal." -Martin Luther King, Jr.
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." —Gandhi
A battle rages inside us all, a fight between two wolves. One is evil, and represents hate and selfishness. The other is good, and represents love and kindness. And the wolf that wins is the one you feed. -Cherokee proverb
"Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible." -Claude Bissell
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” -Mahatma Gandhi
"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people." -Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” -Frederick Douglas
"Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others." John F. Kennedy
If to disagree results in a denial of equal rights of another group then it's equal to oppression. Why would the oppressed and their supporters then just agree to disagree with the oppressors?
"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression." -Thomas Jefferson
"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)." -Ayn Rand
"My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music." -Vladimir Nabokov
It's not happy people who are thankful, it's thankful people who are happy.
“It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes.” -Sally Field
To thine own self be true. -Shakespeare's Hamlet
"To undermine a man`s self-respect is a sin." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Bullying is Harassment and having a plan helps dealing with the anxiety...
KIDS-
1. If repeatedly insulted kids should ignore and avoid the bully. Then report to teacher and parents.
2. If the bully corners you then you should get mad and get loud, shouting things like "Get out of my face!" and "Back off!" It unsettles the bully and empowers you. Then report to teacher and parents.
3. If encounter turns physical don't swing first but be prepared to defend and escape. Then report to teacher and parents.
PARENTS-
1. For repeat bully insults parents follow up with a teacher appointment and if bullying insults continue make an appointment with the principle.
2. If the child has been experiencing intimidation (cowing/cornering) and verbal threats parents should report to the police.
3. If the child was physically assaulted in any way including sexually assaulted parents should go to the police. This unwanted contact includes shoving, hitting, kicking, slapping, tripping, hair-pulling, wrestling/grappling, and inappropriate sexual contact (what would you do if this was happening to you at work?).
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
Never insult an alligator until you've crossed the river.
LUNAR PHASES-
(If partial lunar phase with west side of moon lit then moon is waxing toward full moon. If partial lunar phase with west side of moon dark then the moon is waining toward new moon)
Lit on right
Growing bright
Shadow right
Darker night
"Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." -Thomas Gray
“So avoid using the word 'very' because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do.” —John Keating/Robbin Williams, Dead Poet’s Society
Hello World
by Dan Coppersmith
(positive self-esteem exercise to be read aloud daily)
I am amazing
Incredible me
Celebrating the being
I choose to be
I’m uniquely spectacular
I am one of a kind
Creativity oozes
From my heart and mind
I’m stupendous, tremendous
I stand out from the crowd
I do things
That aren’t allowed
I’m inspired, desired
I am wonderfully weird
I am unbridled passion
I am highly revered
I’m outrageous, contagious
I am daring and bold
I am honored and cherished
I’m a treasure to hold
I am gifted, uplifted
I am endlessly blessed
I am sought out
For the skills I possess
I’m delightful, insightful
I am loved and adored
I live a charmed life
I’m renewed and restored
I am grateful, elateful
I am centered and wise
I am wealthy and worthy
I am God in disguise
I declare my brilliance
It won’t be denied
The world cries out
For what I provide
I am powerful, masterful
I am focused and clear
Life beams brighter
Because I am here
I am blazing, amazing
I can’t be contained
I’m a glorious, fabulous
Radiant flame
I choose to exude
All this and much more
My wings are spread
Watch me soar!
Say not the struggle
by Arthur Hugh Clough
Say not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been, things remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.
Warning
by Jenny Joseph
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens
"What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas', on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"
"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew, "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round- apart from the veneration due to its scared name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the years, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
God, give us men!
by Josiah Gilbert Holland
God, give us men! A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honour; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land and Justice sleeps!
on the one ton temple bell
a moon-moth, folded into sleep,
sits still
Taniguchi Buson
(translated by X.J. Kennedy)
Japan
by Billy Collins
Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.
It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.
I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.
I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.
I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.
And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.
It's the one about the one-ton
temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,
and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.
When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.
When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.
And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,
and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.
Golden Retrievals
by Mark Doty
Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention
seconds at a time. Catch? I don't think so.
Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who's- oh
joy- actually scared. Sniff the wind, then
I'm off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue
of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?
Either you're sunk in the past, half our walk,
thinking of what you never can bring back,
or else you're off in some fog concerning
-tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work:
to unsnare time's warp (and woof!), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark,
a Zen master's bronzy gong, calls you here,
entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.
Lush Life
by Billy Strayhorn
I used to visit all the very gay places
Those come-what-may places
Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
To get the feel of life from jazz and cocktails
The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
With distingue traces that used to be there
You could see where they'd been washed away
By too many through the day, twelve o'clock tales
Then you came along with your siren song
To tempt me to madness
I thought for awhile that your poignant smile
Was tinged with the sadness of a great love for me
Ah yes, I was wrong
Again, I was wrong
Life is lonely again and only last year
Everything seemed so sure
Now life is awful again
A trough full of hearts could only be a bore
A week in Paris could ease the bite of it
All I care is to smile in spite of it
I'll forget you, I will while yet you are still
Burning inside my brain romance is mush
Stifling those who strive
So I'll live a lush life in some small dive
And there I'll be
While I rot with the rest of those
Whose lives are lonely too
What I Learned from My Mother
by Julia Kasdorf
I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins
and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.
I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know
the deceased, to press the moist hands
of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.
I learned that whatever we say means nothing,
what anyone will remember is that we came.
I learned to believe I had the power to ease
awful pains materially like an angel.
Like a doctor I learned to create
from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse.
To every house you enter, you must offer
healing; a chocolate cake you baked yourself,
the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.
Hap
by Thomas Hardy
If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"
Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.
But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
-Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan....
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
Crow's Theology
by Ted Hughes
Crow realized God loved him-
Otherwise, he would have dropped dead.
So that was proved.
Crow reclined, marvelling, on his heart-beat.
And he realized that God spoke Crow-
Just existing was His revelation.
But what Loved the stones and spoke stone?
They seemed to exist too.
And what spoke that strange silence
After his clamour of caws faded?
And what loved the shot-pellets
That dribbled from those strung-up mummifying crows?
What spoke the silence of lead?
Crow realized there were two Gods-
One of them much bigger than the other
Loving his enemies
And having all the weapons.
Snake
by D. H. Lawrence
A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.
He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.
Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.
He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.
And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.
But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?
Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.
And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.
He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.
And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.
I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.
I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.
And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.
And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.
For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.
And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.
Taormina, 1923
The Tiger
by William Blake
TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
The Bloody Sire
By Robinson Jeffers
It is not bad. Let them play.
Let the guns bark and the bombing-plane
Speak his prodigious blasphemies.
It is not bad, it is high time,
Stark violence is still the sire of all the world’s values.
What but the wolf’s tooth whittled so fine
The fleet limbs of the antelope?
What but fear winged the birds, and hunger
Jewelled with such eyes the great goshawk’s head?
Violence has been the sire of all the world’s values.
Who would remember Helen’s face
Lacking the terrible halo of spears?
Who formed Christ but Herod and Caesar,
The cruel and bloody victories of Caesar?
Violence, the bloody sire of all the world’s values.
Never weep, let them play,
Old violence is not too old to beget new values.
The turtle who looked at Napoleon
by Mike McNeilley
Exiled to Saint Helena
in the South Atlantic, in 1815 Napoleon turned
to gardening, turning the soil with the
simple implements at hand, spacing the tiny seeds
in straight long rows with military precision.
Napoleon's jailer, Sir Hudson Lowe found
himself as bothered by rows of the Corsican Guard disguised
as radishes, ranked across the earth outside
his office window, as by Napoleon's contentment.
In a singular act of creative malevolence,
Lowe sent off to the Galapagos
for two giant land turtles.
The frigate bearing them arrived,
Lowe named the turtles Jonathan and Josephine
and set them loose in the garden of Napoleon.
Bulldozers by nature,
the giant tortoises nosed up and
swallowed down the radishes, tomatoes,
turnips, carrots and onions, smearing
Napoleon's careful rows into the dust.
Over morning coffee, through office window bars
Sir Hudson sat smiling at Napoleon's eaten and
uprooted, flattened garden.
One day as he watched, Napoleon himself
rounded the corner, moving slowly, contemplating the sea.
Dressed in gardener's tunic, head towel-draped
against the heat of the South Atlantic sun,
Napoleon bumped along, crouched on the back of
Jonathan, eyes straining past the breakers, as if
to spot Nelson's flagship.
Lowe watched, somewhat dismayed
as Napoleon surveyed
the sea from his rolling helm,
squinting into the noon sun for the
mirage of his emancipation.
But Napoleon died in 1821, his power drained,
unable to adapt to turtle life:
powerless to attain contentment
in slow uncoverings, green vegetation
and long waiting.
Wild goats pulled up the grass of the Galapagos,
and the big land turtles suffered starvation, their
ancient ranks further thinned by sailors
who found them excellent for soup and shell.
But fine grass grew on the grave of Napoleon, and
on the grave of Jonathan's mate, who died soon after
of some turtle disease.
A turtle grieves long,
but Saint Helena offers
food and good weather,
and Jonathan remains there today, lifting his old head
among the flies, "Bonaparte," still barely legible,
carved low near the rim of his giant shell.
Jonathan opens a red-rimmed, baleful eye
to the morning,
an eye that gazed upon Napoleon,
the eye of a turtle of destiny, who thought
no more of the little man long ago riding
than he thinks of today's flies.
But Jonathan still
considers the radishes, as they
arrive each day at sunset,
compliments of the British government,
a longtime legacy of Sir Hudson Lowe,
and Jonathan is often content.
In 1840 Napoleon's remains
were shipped to Paris; In the compound in Saint Helena
little of Napoleon but his death mask now remains.
Not even a tree grows there still, that gave Napoleon shade.
But Jonathan moves slowly on
across the volcanic surface,
through what once was a garden, resolute,
his three-chambered heart slowly beating,
eye upon a nearby clump of grass, as green
and new as once upon Galapagos.
Michael McNeilley
© 1997 from Animal Poems (c) 1998
Grief
by Elisabeth Barrett Browning
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death-
Most like a monumental statute set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go.
On His Blindness
by John Milton
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."
Progress
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Let there be many windows to your soul,
That all the glory of the universe
May beautify it. Not the narrow pane
Of one poor creed can catch the radiant rays
That shine from countless sources. Tear away
The blinds of superstition; let the light
Pour through fair windows broad as truth itself
And high as God.
Why should the spirit peer
Through some priest-curtained orifice, and grope
Along dim corridors of doubt, when all
The splendor from unfathomed seas of space
Might bathe it with the golden waves of Love?
Sweep up the debris of decaying faiths;
Sweep down the cobwebs of worn-out beliefs,
And throw your soul wide open to the light
Of Reason and of knowledge. Tune your ear
To all the wordless music of the stars,
And to the voice of Nature; and your heart
Shall turn to truth and goodness as the plant
Turns to the sun. A thousand unseen hands
Reach down to help you to their peace-crowned heights,
And all the forces of the firmament
Shall fortify your strength. Be not afraid
To thrust aside half-truths and grasp the whole.
Reverie of Mahomed Akram at the Tamarind Tank (excerpt)
by Laurence Hope 1865-1904
aka Adela Florence Nicolson Cory
My eyes grow dim and my senses fail at last,
While the lonely hours
Follow each other, silently, one by one,
Till the night is almost done.
Then weary, and drunk with dreams, with my garments damp
And heavy with dew, I wander towards the camp.
Tired, with a brain in which fancy and fact are blent,
I stumble across the ropes till I reach my tent
And then to rest. To ensweeten my sleep with lies,
To dream I lie in the light of your long lost eyes,
My lips set free,
To love and linger over your soft loose hair -
To dream I lay your delicate beauty bare
To solace my fevered eyes.
Ah, -if my life might end in a night like this -
Drift into death from dreams of your granted kiss!
Ah Vastness of Pines (excerpt)
by Pablo Nerunda
translated by W.S. Merwin
Ah your mysterious voice that love tolls and darkens
in the resonant and dying evening!
Thus in deep hours have I seen, over the fields,
the ears of wheat tolling in the mouth of the wind.
Taxi
by Amy Lowell
When I go away from you
The world beats dead
Like a slackened drum.
I call out for you against the jutted stars
And shout out to the ridges of the wind
Streets coming fast
One after the other
Wedge you away from me
And the lamps of the city prick my eyes
So that I can no longer see your face
Why should I leave you
To wound myself upon the sharp
edges of the night?
Touch Me
by Stanley Kunitz
*Summer is late, my heart.*
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that's late,
it is my song that's flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
and it's done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.
Jeremiah Johnson 1972
by Vardis Fisher (novel), Raymond W. Thorp (story)
Bear Claw Chris Lapp: Full time night woman? I never could find no tracks on a woman's heart. I packed me a squaw for ten year, Pilgrim. Cheyenne, she were, and the meanest bitch that ever balled for beads. I lodge-poled her at Deadwood Creek, and traded her for a Hawken gun. But don't get me wrong; I loves the womens, I surely do. But I swear, a woman's breast is the hardest rock that the Almighty ever made on this earth, and I can find no sign on it.
