Gossip is the Devil's telephone.
~ General Naird, on Space Force
I know a person who could use this advice
When you are angry, you're just a character in someone else's story.
~ Kacy, a character in The Devil Wore Anna
Good advice for everyone!
Absolute victory every day!
~ the mantra of Ronald K. Brown, dancer and choreographer, who suffered a stroke in April 2021.
Ever have days like this?
To bartender: Could I have a lot of shots of something?
~ Katherine Hastings, in American Auto
I try to avoid politics, but...Ooooo, we are SO screwed...
Ukraine is a country in Europe, m'kay? It exists next to another country called Russia, m'kay? Russia is a bigger country, m'kay?
Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine, so basically that's wrong, m'kay? It's wrong to invade smaller countries, m'kay?
~ Kamala Harris, February 2022, Vice Fricken President of the United Fricken States of America 😱
Live long and prosper!
Life is like a garden.
Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved.
Except in memory.
~ Leonard Nimoy
Basic, but good to review now and then
Human beings have four dimensions and only satisfying the needs of these four areas, so that people unfold their full potential:
- Body: the physical dimension, it needs to live, so it requires a fair retribution.
- Mind: the intellectual dimension, needs to learn and requires creative challenges.
- Heart: the emotional dimension, needs a social environment and requires a dignified and considerate treatment.
- Spirit: the conscience, needs to feel that it contributes and requires a meaningful purpose.
~ Stephen Covey American, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
The trick is finding the one important thing
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog only one important thing...
~ Greek lyric poet Archilochus, 7th century BC
Indeed...
It's terrible to lose a friend when you don't have many.
~ Isola Pribby, in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
I'm halfway there!
If you're going to be a smart-ass, first you have to be smart.
Otherwise, you're just an ass.
~ Louisiana Senator John Kennedy
I don't know how!
All you have to do is write one true sentence.
Write the truest sentence that you know.
~ Ernest Hemingway
Makes sense to me...
Here's all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.
~ George Carlin
Oooo, this is SO good!
When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall.
Think of it! Always.
~ Mahatma Gandhi
This popped my eyes open...
When someone loves you, they way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable.
~ Jess C. Scott, The Intern
Wise advice...
The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms
Widely, but incorrectly, attributed to Socrates (but it sounds like something he might have said)
But it WAS Voltaire who said:
If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.
Agreed...
Not every reader will be a leader, but every leader must be a reader.
~ President Harry Truman
Good advice!
I have a rule about not doing work that could get me KILLED!
~ Jim Rattelsdorf, Lawyer, on Ozark
Abandon ship!
We are built for heartbreak just as we are built for love. To paraphrase the French philosopher Paul Virilio, the invention of the ship is also the invention of the shipwreck.
~ Florence Williams
Deep...
No worthy problem is ever solved within the plane of its original conception.
~ Albert Einstein
Unhip, indeed...
To wander aimlessly is very unswinging. Unhip
~ Paul McCartney, 1969, heard in Get Back)
Be unstoppable!
Unless you stop yourself, there's no stopping yourself!
~ Paul McCartney (heard in the 2021 documentary Get Back)
Sir, yes Sir!
"Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can, and strike him as hard as you can. And keep moving on!"
~ Ulysses S. Grant
Agreed...
Let me clarify: it is my belief that when the going gets tough, when tempers flare, when it seems like every fiber of society is unraveling, courtesy should be held as an appropriate and commendable ideal.
This is especially true, in my opinion, when one is not getting one's way.
~Alton Brown
Whew, what a game!
When things look grim, be the Grim Reaper…
~ Coach Andy Reid, to Patrick Mahomes, with the Chiefs down by 3 and 13 seconds to go (2022 AFC semi-final championship game, Jan 23, 2022)
Note: Patrick drove the Chiefs down to field goal range. The Chiefs tied the game to end regulation, and then went on to win the game in overtime against the Buffalo Bills
Yikes!
I think they’ve taken us back to cave man time, where you would walk around with a club. “I want what you have.”
You’re not even safe to walk around and go to the train station, because somebody might throw you off the train, OK? It’s a regression.
~ From a January 20, 2022 NYT Article, How 14 Independent Voters Feel About America
I try to not be political on this blog, but..."Ooof!"
"The increasingly casual habit of calling people racist when they disagree with a policy position is the stuff I’ve come to expect from Twitter, not a president who bills himself as a unifier.
And again, it’s political malpractice, at least if the aim is to do more than just sound off to impress the progressive base."
~ Bret (with one 't'!) Stephens, talking about President Biden in a January 17, 2022 opinion piece in the New York Times (!)
Barkis is willing
While reading an 1870 article by Frederick Douglass on southern newspapers' response to Robert E. Lee's death, I came across the phrase "Barkis is willing".
Being a good looker-upper when I'm not familiar with a word or phrase, I jumped onto the google, where I found this:
Barkis is willin'
A phrase emphasizing one's availability or openness to a situation. It refers to Mr. Barkis, a character in Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield, who used the phrase to express his interest in marriage.
This from David Copperfield:
‘Well. I’ll tell you what,’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘P’raps you might be writin’ to her?’‘I shall certainly write to her,’ I rejoined.‘Ah!’ he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. ‘Well! If you was writin’ to her, p’raps you’d recollect to say that Barkis was willin’; would you?’‘That Barkis is willing,’ I repeated, innocently. ‘Is that all the message?’‘Ye-es,’ he said, considering. ‘Ye-es. Barkis is willin’.’‘But you will be at Blunderstone again tomorrow, Mr. Barkis,’ I said, faltering a little at the idea of my being far away from it then, 'and could give your own message so much better.’As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head, and once more confirmed his previous request by saying, with profound gravity, ‘Barkis is willin’.That’s the message,’ I readily undertook its transmission.While I was waiting for the coach in the hotel at Yarmouth that very afternoon, I procured a sheet of paper and an inkstand, and wrote a note to Peggotty, which ran thus: ‘My dear Peggotty. I have come here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to mama. Yours affectionately. P.S. He says he particularly wants you to know – BARKIS IS WILLING.’
...and three for the dealer.
You don't have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt.
You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you are holding.
~ Cheryl Strayed
The Perfect Joke
From Rodney Dangerfield:
“I was making love with my wife, and she had a faraway look in her eyes, and I said, ‘Darling, is there someone else?’ and she said, ‘There must be.' "
Betteridge's Law of Headlines
From the Wikipedia:
Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
It is based on the assumption that if the publishers were confident that the answer was yes, they would have presented it as an assertion; by presenting it as a question, they are not accountable for whether it is correct or not. The adage does not apply to questions that are more open-ended than strict yes-no questions.
Ohhhh, I know somebody who badly needs this advice...
Surround yourself with people who are better than you. You are going to move in the direction of the people you associate with.
~ Warren Buffet
Ouch
Not everybody can be John or Paul.
Some people have to be Ringo.
~ Stella Bak on The Morning Show
Wisdom on a chilly winter day
A single kind word can keep a body warm for years.
~ Fortune cookie, 1//2022
The more things change...
At the end, things were complicated.
But at the beginning, things were really quite simple.
~ Paul McCartney, on the Beatles
Tick, tock...
You've been waiting! All this time!
You've been waiting for the clock to run out!
~ Claire, to her husband, when he asked for a divorce, in Outlander
That's been my experience, too
It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
~ Mark Twain
A lesson I’ve yet to learn…
1. You must let the pain visit.
2. You must allow it to teach you.
3. You must not allow it to overstay.
~ Ijeoma Umebinyuo
Eternal Truth...
And in the end,
the love you take
is equal to
the love your make.
~ Paul McCartney, the Beatles, the Abbey Road album
Make your vote count, or else...
The forest was shrinking,
but the trees kept
voting for the axe.
For the axe was
clever and convinced
the trees that because his handle
was wood he was one of them.
~ West Asian Fable
Aren't we all?
(Pop is crying)
Son: What's the matter, Pop?
Pop (tearfully): I'm confused!
~ Moonstruck
Good advice with many potential applications
Probe with bayonets. If you encounter mush, proceed; if you encounter steel, withdraw.
~ Attributed to Lenin, and a favorite saying of Richard Nixon
I agree. In theory...
For real people, if something works in theory, but not in practice, it doesn't work.For academics, if something works in practice, but not in theory, it doesn't exist.
~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Or shout him down...
When you cut out a man’s tongue, you do not prove him to be a liar, rather, you prove you fear what he might say.
~ George RR Martin
Agreed. But still...
Tis better to have loved and lost,
than never to have loved before.
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson
How, indeed...
How did you do it?
How did you endure four and twenty years of marriage without love?
~ Miss Thompson, Bridgerton
Good advice, regardless of the subject
Passion is good, but not when it interferes with your judgement.
~ Senator John Kennedy (Louisiana), when discussing climate change
Insight from the G.O.A.T.
The more good behaviors you have, the better things turn out.It’s just, do people have the discipline to repeat those behaviors? That’s the tricky part.
~ Tom Brady, on discipline
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