28/02/11

We Real Cool

The Pool Players

Seven at the Golden Shovel

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

-Gwendolyn Brooks

27/02/11

If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.

-Rabindranath Tagore

26/02/11

Treachery is always a hairy caterpillar bred of a small butterfly called envy, no matter how lofty the principles involved.

-Fazil Iskander

25/02/11

The firste vertu, sone, if thou wolt leere,
Is to restreyne and kepe wel thy tonge;
Thus lerne children whan that they been yonge.
-Geoffrey Chaucer, The Manciple's Tale

24/02/11

my youth i shall never forget
but there s nothing i really regret
wotthehell wotthehell
there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai

  -from Mehitabel's Song by Don Marquis

23/02/11

The Glorification of Akbar

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.

-Umberto Eco

22/02/11

We work to eat to get the strength to work to eat to get the strength to work.

-John Dos Passos

21/02/11

The older you get, the stronger the wind gets -- and it's always in your face.

-Pablo Picasso

20/02/11

It is not these well-fed, long-haired men that I fear, but the pale and the hungry-looking.

-Julius Caesar

19/02/11

Happy Birthday to Us!

Take full account of the excellencies which you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.

-Marcus Aurelius

  

18/02/11

The harem, Bachtschi-Ssarai, Ukraine, circa 1890

Only the weak are cruel.  Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.

-Leo Buscaglia

17/02/11

 

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

-Sir Francis Bacon

16/02/11

15/02/11

Courage doesn't always roar.  Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow."

-Mary Anne Radmacher

14/02/11

Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced that we are loved.

-Victor Hugo

13/02/11

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

-Thomas Paine

12/02/11

photo by Hossam el Hamalawy

Let freedom never perish in your hands.

-Joseph Addison

11/02/11

All the citizens of a state cannot be equally powerful, but they may be equally free.

-Voltaire 

10/02/11

Beware the flatterer: he feeds you with an empty spoon.

-Cosino DeGregrio

09/02/11

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

-G.K. Chesterton

08/02/11

Imperial Cipher of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566), ca. 1555

People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. -

Søren Kierkegaard

07/02/11

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't. 

-Mark Twain

6 February

Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

Frank Herbert

05/02/11

Standard, early 4th millennium b.c.; Chalcolithic period
Levant, Nahal Mishmar

When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along.

Carl Sandburg

04/02/11

We want the facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don't, it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions.

Jessamyn West

03/02/11

Allegory of Worldly and Otherworldly Drunkenness, ca. 1526–27
Sultan Muhammad

The secret of eternal youth is arrested development. 

-Alice Roosevelt Longworth

02/02/11

Bowl, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)

 

Every increased possession loads us with new weariness. 

-John Ruskin

01/02/11

The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls out of your glass.

-Martin Mull