Upon a Thought: October 2009

Quotes to Ponder

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."
-- e. e. cummings

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams."
-- Unknown

"Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds."
-- Albert Einstein

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm!"
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up."
--G. K. Chesterton

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."
-- John Quincy Adams

"Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness."
-- Edith Sitwell

"It is our choices....that show who we really are, far more then our abilities."
-- J.K. Rowling

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."
-- Edgar Allan Poe

"I think the reward for conformity is everyone likes you but yourself."
-- Rita Mae Brown

"I wish they would only take me as I am."
-- Vincent Van Gogh

"Life is not about learning how to avoid the storms. It's about learning how to dance in the rain."
-- Anonymous

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."
-- Edmund Burke

"Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. "
-- Anonymous

"It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are."
-- Roy Disney

"[My] principal goal [in] education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done."
--Jean Piaget

"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe. "
-- Anatole France

"Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, this time more wisely."
-- Anonymous

"Whoever said anybody has a right to give up?"
-- Marian Wright Edelman

"Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world."
--Jane Addams

"Evil is like a shadow. It has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it."
-- Shakti Gawain

"Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain."
-- Helen Keller

"To be great is to be misunderstood."
-–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays

"If they give you ruled paper, write the other way."
-–Juan Ramon Jimenez

My darling girl, when are you going to understand that “normal” isn’t a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage.
-–Stockard Channing

"Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you."
--Saint Augustine

"Do the common thing in an uncommon way."
-–Booker T. Washington

"From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw."
-–Edgar Allan Poe

"From now on, I’ll connect the dots my own way!"
-–Bill Watterson

"I always wonder why some people see things as weird and some people don’t."
-–Tim Burton

"It may be that we are puppets-puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation."
--Stanley Milgram

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. "
--Confucius

"Hear the other side."
--Saint Augustine

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Truth is sacred; and if you tell the truth too often nobody will believe it."
--G. K. Chesterton

"Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else's can shorten it."

"I sometimes wonder if the manufacturers of foolproof items keep a fool or two on their payroll to test things."

“Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.”
--Oscar Wilde

Sunday

Ridiculous Things That Never Should Have Been Invented

This is the abridged version of a list I've been making all morning. It has no deeper meaning other than the fact that I honestly don't understand why ANY of these things exist. I mean, seriously. Every single one of these items just begs the question, "WHY?!?!?!!?!?"

1. Pantyhose

2. Sauerkraut

3. Skinny jeans

4. Twizzlers

5. Hummers

6. Inflatable furniture

7. Tissue Box Covers

8. Paperweights

9. The entire teaberry flavor

10. These lawn ornament things

Feel free to add!

Saturday

Thought for the day

One of my professors posed this question to our class earlier this week; it's a quote from David Copperfield. Days later, I'm still thinking about it.

"Will you be the hero of your own story?"

Out of curiosity, what kind of thoughts does this question generate for you?

My own take on the question? I think it's equally as important to consider, "Should I be the hero of my own story?"

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