Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[kennyc]

“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

[covingtoncat73]

“wolves are so frightening not because of their fangs and claws but because of their intelligence, because of their hunger.”


― Joseph Boyden, The Orenda

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

“wolves are so frightening not because of their fangs and claws but because of their intelligence, because of their hunger.”


― Joseph Boyden, The Orenda

Crazy like Crows!!

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Crazy like Crows!!

Indeed! It is "Wotan's Day," so why not both (yeah, I know Huginn and Muninn are Ravens, not Crows)?

"My ravens are Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory; my wolves are Freki and Geri; my horse is the gallows.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

[kennyc]

This one's a bit involved. I was watching an American Experience show Murder of a President tonight on President Garfield and his life/assasination/death. Excellent show and episode btw. And somewhere the phrase 'better angels of our natures' came up -- at his deathbed or somewhere near the end. Which immediately made me think of the Stephen Pinker book.

I began googling and low and behold it was the final phrase of Lincolns inaugural address.

".... I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
- Abraham Lincoln

but apparently the trigger/origin is Charles Dickens (Barnaby Rudge) from this:

"“The thoughts of worldly men are for ever regulated by a moral law of gravitation, which, like the physical one, holds them down to earth. The bright glory of day, and the silent wonders of a starlit night, appeal to their minds in vain. There are no signs in the sun, or in the moon, or in the stars, for their reading. They are like some wise men, who, learning to know each planet by its Latin name, have quite forgotten such small heavenly constellations as Charity, Forbearance, Universal Love, and Mercy, although they shine by night and day so brightly that the blind may see them; and who, looking upward at the spangled sky, see nothing there but the reflection of their own great wisdom and book-learning…

“It is curious to imagine these people of the world, busy in thought, turning their eyes towards the countless spheres that shine above us, and making them reflect the only images their minds contain…So do the shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed."
- Charles Dickens

you can read a bit about it here: http://www.whatyousay.com/a-quotatio...raham-lincoln/


and perhaps Pinker even explains it in his book, I don't know as I've not read it.

[covingtoncat73]

I love it Kenny. Those are two excellent quotes and I love the connection between them.

[covingtoncat73]

“There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.”
― Anaïs Nin

“I often don't say things out loud, even when I should. I contain and compartmentalize to a disturbing degree: In my belly-basement are hundreds of bottles of rage, despair, fear, but you'd never guess from looking at me.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

[BenG]

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”

― Seth Grahame-Smith, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

[WT Sharpe]

I can hardly wish any Man better, than that he would seriously consider what he does with his Time: How and to What Ends he Employs it; and what Returns he makes to God, his Neighbor and Himself for it.
— William Penn (24 October 1644 (O.S. 14 October 1644) – 30 July 1718); English Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania. Some Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims (1682).

[WT Sharpe]

The shortest distance between two points is actually a wormhole.
— Michio Kaku (24 January 1947 - ); Japanese American theoretical physicist. Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel (2008).

[WT Sharpe]

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.

— Leonard Cohen (Leonard Norman Cohen, 21 September 1934 - ); Canadian poet, songwriter, singer, and novelist. "Anthem".

[doubleshuffle]

Well, in that context:

"It's always night, or we wouldn't need light"
-- Thelonious Monk

Famously used by Thomas Pynchon as the epigraph to Against the Day.

[astrangerhere]

It was a relief to see that maybe someone's dislike of me wasn't intractable, and to own up to the fact that a person who dislikes me isn't automatically to be dismissed, because: sometimes I am deeply unlikable.

Mary-Louise Parker | Dear Mr. You

[covingtoncat73]

Mardi Gras is the love of life. It is the harmonic convergence of our food, our music, our creativity, our eccentricity, our neighborhoods, and our joy of living. All at once."
— Chris Rose (1 Dead in Attic: Post-Katrina Stories)

"In New Orleans I have noticed that people are happiest when they are going to funerals, making money, taking care of the dead, or putting on masks at Mardi Gras so nobody knows who they are."
— Walker Percy (Lancelot)

"That was the point of Mardi Gras, was it not? To serve and honor all the people, to bring into hard lives a touch of royalty and grandeur....To put on a spectacle such as this, free of charge, was an honor. New Orleans was sick and wounded, but no other city in the world had a celebration quite like this. It was beautiful precisely because it was so frivolous."
— Dan Baum (Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans)

[kennyc]

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!"

- Hunter S. Thompson The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967