View Full Version : Favorite quotes
I carry a copy of some of my favorite quotes when I hike. It takes about 6: 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper. Gives me something to read that I know I will like even tho I have read them all many times before.
Everthing from Yoda: "NO! Try not, do or do not, there is no try."
To Shakespeare: To be or not to be, that is the question. Weather ‘tis nobler in the mind, to suffer the slings & arrows of outrageous fortune. Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, & by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep, no more, & by a sleep to say we end the heartache & the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come. When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips & scorns of time. The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely. The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay, the insolence of office, & the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes. When he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? Who would fardles bear, to grunt & sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death. The undiscovered country, from whose bourn, no traveler returns, puzzles the will, & makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscious does make cowards of us all & thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, & enterprises of great pith & moment with this regard their currents turn awry, & lose the name of action.
Nike commercial: You could get mauled by a bear & Die. You could get bit by a snake & Die. You could fall off a cliff & Die. You could get struck by lightning & Die. You could get shot by a hunter & Die. Or, you could stay home, sit on the couch, eat potato chips, & DIE.
Haiku:
Walking around camp
Why do I do this always?
Trip on my guy lines.
My thoughts: No problem should be your guide to all matters pertaining to a hike. If you are having a bad day, take a break, smell the flowers, or shorten your hike that day. Just hike to the next shelter, campsite, hostel, town, etc. Go as light as possible! Except for rain gear, if you haven’t used something for a week, send it to the next post office, if you don't need it by the time you get to the post office, send it home, no excuses! Hike at your own pace; don't try to keep up with anyone else! This is your hike; don’t let someone else dictate to you! Get water every chance you can, within reason. At camp, get as much water as you can. Embrace the pain, snoring, rain, bugs, heat, companions, homesickness etc.! Just make it part of the experience & enjoy it. Have a great hike!
Do you carry along some favorites??
Or just remember some you would like to share?
Doctari.
saimyoji
03-29-2005, 22:06
"Impressive. Most impressive." -Darth Vader from Empire
Here you are...
Moving in silent desperation, keeping an eye on the Holy Land.
A hypothetical destination, say, who is this walking man?
Well, the leaves have come to turning and the goose has gone to fly,
And bridges are for burning, so don't you let that yearning pass you by.
Walking man, walking man walks.
Any other man stops and talks but the walking man walks.
Well the frost is on the pumpkin and the hay is in the barn.
Pappy's come to rambling on, stumbling around drunk down on the farm.
And the walking man walks. Doesn't know nothing at all.
Any other man stops and talks but the walking man walks on by, walk on by.
James taylor
Or
Climb every mountain, search high and low
Follow every byway, every path you know.
Climb every mountain, ford every stream,
Follow every rainbow, till you find your dream!
From the Sound of Music Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein
Robusto
SGT Rock
03-29-2005, 22:10
Most of my favorites cannot be put here for decorum's sake. But I smile everytime I think of them. :D
hikerjohnd
03-29-2005, 22:38
A shepherd must tend his flock, and at times fight off the wolves.
Mountain Dew
03-30-2005, 00:45
" I came , I saw, I conquered" - Julius Ceasar
smokymtnsteve
03-30-2005, 00:50
Most of my favorites cannot be put here for decorum's sake. But I smile everytime I think of them. :D
"I like it hot" :D
by SGT. Rock
and my favorite sgt rock quote
"most people who think they disagree..agree more than they think"
greenman
03-30-2005, 01:05
:D :D i gasped,i grunted,i farted!!
mairnt!
greenman
" I came , I saw, I conquered" - Julius Ceasar
Mountain Hippie
03-30-2005, 01:26
My father was a simple man. My mother was a simple woman. You see the result standing in front of you, a simpleton. Author ????
Pencil Pusher
03-30-2005, 01:43
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
--Martin King
enjoyed a few, thanx.
"A good traveler has no destination and is not intent on arrivial"
I have about four pages of saved quotes, very good inspiring data. I will start with the above for now as it is relavant to this community.
Coyote
squirrel bait
03-30-2005, 04:17
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
Albert Einstein
"There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living [ie. at work]."
"Youth is wasted on the young."
Cheers,
PKH
SGT Rock
03-30-2005, 08:42
"I like it hot" :D
by SGT. Rock
and my favorite sgt rock quote
"most people who think they disagree..agree more than they think"
You make me look wiser than I am LOL. I never considered myself someone to be quoted. Most of the quotes I like something a drill sergeant would say.:eek:
smokymtnsteve
03-30-2005, 08:48
Just the facts sir..
did U or did U not say/make these statements? ;)
SGT Rock
03-30-2005, 09:06
Yes I did, but I never expected to hear them used again. If I had thought I would be quoted on something I probably would have screwed it up.
Here are some from my book I kept in Iraq. Whenever I heard a good one over there I wrote it down:
Cluelessness - "You now know what I know. And for all I know, what I know is incorrect." anonymous general.
Poor beer math - "We have to replace 5000 Marines with 500 Cavalrymen, so that mean we will all have to work 5 times as hard" my squadron commander in Baghdad.
Planning - "Hope is not a method of success" - my old Troop XO.
Getting it done - "You either let S*** happen or you make s*** happen" - 1SG Engman
Vigilance "MPs sleep peacefully at night because they know that there are rough cavalrymen are out there willing to commit violence on their behalf" - a sign on a HUMMWV in Baghdad. A play on a quote from George Orwell.
Stoker53
03-30-2005, 09:28
"In the abundance of water....the fool is thirsty." Bob Marley
The Cheat
03-30-2005, 09:43
"Some folks learn by listening, some folks learn by watching... and then there are those that have to piss on the electric fence for themselves"
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
"Technology is simply a means of manipulating the world so you don't have to experience it"
Men have become the tools of their tools. --Henry David Thoreau
That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.--Henry David Thoreau
“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.” A. Lincoln
Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "HOLY SH#T! WHAT A RIDE"
author unknown
siouxdog
03-30-2005, 09:45
the wheels of the gods grind slowyly but efficiently.
a man looks into the abyss and nothing stares back. it's at this time the man finds his character and it's his character that keeps him out of the abyss.
i'll rest when i die.
the same thing that makes you laugh can make you cry.
FFTorched
03-30-2005, 09:55
"Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am-- a reluctant enthusiast...a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So go out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, and bag the peaks.... and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over your enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box... I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards." -- Edward Abbey
"I've always followed my father's advice: he told me, first to always keep my word and, second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be ******* sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble. "--John Wayne
"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn." -- John Muir
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" -- Aleister Crowley (He's crazy but that line just makes some kind of sense to me)
"If I were to die tomorrow how would I judge my own life? I would think poorly of myself, for I missed everything that I probably would have loved. I devoted all of it to education which wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. When instead I could have been climbing every peak God put before me. Somedays I think to just throw everything I can't carry in a backpack in a pile, douse it with gasoline and toss a match into the center of it. Some say I have never loved, but love is ambiguous and can't be proven or disproven so how will I know if I've loved? I will when her face haunts my dreams and every waking moment, and so far the only thing that's been haunting me is the call of the mountain, so maybe I have loved..." -- Me
"...It happens to horses, dogs, men, nobody gets out of life alive!" -- Hud (Paul Newman)
"Why can't a woman be more like a dog, huh? So sweet, loving, attentive."--Kirk Douglas
Just to name a few not to mention the one in my signature.
Lone Wolf
03-30-2005, 10:01
"The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen.... Thank God for the United States Marine Corps."
Eleanor Roosevelt
"What is worse than death itself, is the death of hope, the death of dreams"
-unknown
"Great doubt, great awakening.
Little doubt, little awakening.
No doubt, no awakening"
-Buddhist proverb
Midway Sam
03-30-2005, 11:06
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." ~ Theodore Roosevelt
Kerosene
03-30-2005, 11:18
"You don't stop playing because you get old, you get old because you stop playing."
--Anon.
Kerosene
03-30-2005, 11:22
Poor beer math - "We have to replace 5000 Marines with 500 Cavalrymen, so that mean we will all have to work 5 times as hard" my squadron commander in Baghdad.Of course, he could have been inferring that a Cavalryman is standardly worth two Marines! (I'm sure that the Leathernecks out there will have something to say on that equation!).
Kerosene Charlie
03-30-2005, 12:14
Better to wear out than to rust out.
rocket04
03-30-2005, 13:29
"A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for."
- William Shedd
"Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly."
- The Dalai Lama
bearbag hanger
03-30-2005, 13:35
"The misuse of language induces evil in the soul."
Socrates
"Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."
Benjamin Franklin
"Freedom is a funny word. People seem to use it all the time. But, after all I've seen and done, it's still the hardest thing I've tried to define."
Willy Carleton
"When it's time for us to panic, will there be a warning sound, or was that it?"
Stumblefoot
03-30-2005, 21:24
"Don't argue with the alligator until after you cross the river." -paraphrase from Cordell Hull. :-?
Dances with Mice
03-30-2005, 21:45
Don't try to lay no boogie-woogie on the King of Rock and Roll!
Ricky Fitts from American Beauty;
It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in.
Rendezvous01
03-30-2005, 22:13
Like Doctari, I carried several pages of great quotes on my hike. My plan was to insert them into my online journal at appropriate moments. Of course, I didn't. However, like Doctari's quotes, they turned out to be inspirational reading for me, particularly on those depressing rainy days. Like these two appropriate ones:
"After three days men grow weary, of a wench, a guest, and weather rainy." Benjamin Franklin
"Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary storm. No matter how raging the billows are today, remind yourself: 'This too shall pass!'" T. D. Jakes
More:
"The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender." Vince Lombardi
"You must keep your mind on the objective, not on the obstacle." William Randolph Hearst
"Right from the beginning I believed that staying on course was what counted. The sheer process of attrition would wear others down. Them that stuck it out was them that won." Harrison Ford
"To run a marathon you must have legs...to win a marathon you must have heart." Dave Weinbaum
'Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was." Dag Hammerskjold
"When running up a hill, it is all right to give up as many times as you wish, as long as your feet keep moving." Shoma Morita
I could go on, but just one more:
"Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing...Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature." Helen Keller
walkin' wally
03-30-2005, 22:20
For lovers of the map and compass and GPS... Oliver's Law of Location;
No matter where you go, there you are.
Breathe deep the gathering gloom, watch lights fade from every room. Bed-sitter people look back & lament, another day’s useless energies spent. Impassioned lovers wrestle as one, lonely man cries for love but has none, new mother picks up & suckles her son. Senior citizens wish they were young. Cold-hearted orb that rules the night, removes the colors from our sight. Red is gray & yellow white, but we decide which is right, & which is an illusion. Pinprick holes in a colorless sky; let insipid figures of light pass by. The mighty light of 10,000 suns, challenges infinity & is soon gone. Nighttime, to some, a brief interlude, to others, the fear of solitude. Brave Helios wake up your steeds; bring the warmth the countryside needs. Moody Blues.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, & sorry I could not travel both. And be one traveler, long I stood, & looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth. Then took the other, as just as fair, And perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy & wanted wear; though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same. And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how, way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages & ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, & I- I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference. R. Frost.
The woods are lovely, dark & deep. But I have promises to keep, & miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep. ????
There’s a patch of old snow in a corner, that I should have guessed, was blow-away paper the rain had brought to rest. It was speckled with grime as if small print overspread it, the news of a day I’ve forgotten, if I ever read it. R. Frost.
The journey, not the destination, becomes a source of wonder. In the end, one of the most important steps on our journey is the one in which we throw away the map. In jettisoning the grids & brambles of our own preconceptions, perhaps we are better able to find the real secrets of each place. ????
Hiking brings to mind a forced march in the army. What we refer here to a pleasant walk in the wilderness, even if you are walking as hard & fast as you can. If due to time constraints feel like you are on a forced march, perhaps you need to rethink your goals, walk just a little bit less & come back to finish another day. First, make sure the ways & means remain just that. They will always be threatening to take over & will tend, particularly at the start of a trip, to imprison your thoughts on a treadmill of trivial worries. Whether you like it or not, the trivia are always there. Never underrate them, either you subdue them or they subdue you. The important thing about running your tight little outdoor economy is that it must not run you. You must learn to deal with the practical details so efficiently that they become 2nd nature. Then you leave yourself free to get on with the important things: watch shadows race across a mountainside, or pass the time of day with a hummingbird. C. Fletcher.
Pencil Pusher
03-31-2005, 03:09
Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "HOLY SH#T! WHAT A RIDE"
author unknown
Stim Bullitt? I may have the last name spelling wrong, but Stim's this old geeser leading 5.9 climbs here. Impressive as shlt since I'm the better part of 50 years younger and can't lead that hard. I had a word with him and he was very nice. He said it's the perfect sport for him because so long as you keep your weight down, you don't need stamina nor strength, just skill and a sense of balance. Anyhow, Stim made a book where one of the quotes was similar, if not the same, to the one above. He was a lawyer when he worked. Now he just traipses around with younger folks and climbs. I think he learned how to climb when he was around 60 or so. Versus the PNW climbing god Fred Beckey who is of similar age, in his eighties, and who has been climbing since his teens.
Jack Tarlin
03-31-2005, 03:38
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
From Tennyson's poem "Ulysses"; inscribed on the memorial cross for explorer Robert Falcon Scott, Ross Island, Antarctica.
Mountain Hippie
03-31-2005, 04:00
I was writing one of my world famous stories tonight and ended it with a quote of sorts. I don't know if it was an original thought or if I pulled it up from my subconscious. Anyway the quote is -
"Only you can prevent forum fires" Pretty catchy aint it?
Here is a couple from Rodney Dangerfield -
People say fish is good for a diet. But fish should never be cooked in butter. Fish should be cooked in its natural oils - Texaco, Mobil, Exxon...
Once I was so depressed that I decided to jump from the tenth floor. They sent up a priest. He said "On your mark... "
My wife had her drivers test the other day. She got 8 out of 10. The other 2 guys jumped clear.
When I was born, the doctor came out to the waiting room and said to my father, I'm very sorry. We did everything we could. But he pulled through.
Now for two of my favorite "serious" quotes.
Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he is most likely to be creamed? Solomon Short
Have the courage to live. Anyone can die. Robert Cody
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again -- and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore. Mark Twain
We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T.S.Elliot
"20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do,
than by the ones you did do...
Sail away from safe harbour.
Explore.
Dream.
Discover."
- Mark Twain
RenaissanceMan98
03-31-2005, 09:53
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and endless plans:
That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too.
All sorts of things occur to help one. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it!
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
My favorite quote is the poem, "Men Who Don't Fit In" by Robert Service. The first verse pretty much describes the typical long distance hiker. I memorized it and frequently say it to myself on the trail.:)
RockyTrail
03-31-2005, 10:55
"You don't know NUTHIN!" - Deliverance (old feller at gas pump)
"Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we rushed through life trying to save"- Will Rogers
"Anything's easy once you understand it" - unknown
"I've had a wonderful evening; but this wasn't it" -Groucho Marx
:)
Some more of my favorites:
O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done; the ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; the port is near, the bells I hear, the people all-exalting, while follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim & daring: But O heart! Heart! Heart! O the bleeding drops of red, where on the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold & dead. O Captain! My Captain! Rise up & hear the bells; rise up – for you the flag is flung – for you the trills; for you bouquets & ribbon’d wreaths – for you the shores a-crowding; for you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning: Here Captain! Dear father! This arm beneath your head; It is some dream on the deck you’ve fallen cold & dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale & still: My father does not feel my arm; he has no pulse or will. The ship is ancor’d safe & sound, its voyage closed & done: From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won: Exult, O shores, & ring, O bells! But I, with mournful tread, walk the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold & dead.
When I look 'pon thee I lose my wits
it doth send me into great fits
to stare at your lovely pair of,
Eyes.
I pray it doth not sound too crass,
that whene'er I see thee pass,
I want to grab hold of your,
Hand.
I know I be pushing me luck,
you look 'pon me as lower than muck
mayhap we should just go for a,
Walk
Halfway down the stairs is a stair where I sit.
There isn't any other stair quite like it.
I'm not at the bottom; I'm not at the top.
So this is the stair where I always stop.
Halfway up the stairs isn't up & isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery, it isn't in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts run round my head.
It isn't really anywhere; it's somewhere else instead.
Halfway down the stairs is a stair where I sit.
There isn't any other stair quite like it.
I'm not at the bottom; I'm not at the top.
So this is the stair where I always stop.
A.A. Milne
The Old Fhart
04-21-2005, 23:55
Moxie00-"My favorite quote is the poem, "Men Who Don't Fit In" by Robert Service."I still remember in 2000 the night before I started at Springer being at Nimblewill Nomad's house and the 2 of us reciting that first verse. I also like "The Lone Trail" by Service and have left some of his poetry in registers from 1987 till the present.
The Lone Trail by Robert Service
Ye who know the Lone Trail fain would follow it,
Though it lead to glory or the darkness of the pit.
Ye who take the Lone Trail, bid your love good-by;
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow till you die.
The trails of the world be countless,
--and most of the trails be tried;
You tread on the heels of the many,
--till you come where the ways divide;
And one lies safe in the sunlight,
--and the other is dreary and wan,
Yet you look aslant at the Lone Trail,
--and the Lone Trail lures you on.
And somehow you're sick of the highway,
--with its noise and its easy needs,
And you seek the risk of the by-way,
--and you reck not where it leads.
And sometimes it leads to the desert,
--and the tongue swells out of the mouth,
And you stagger blind to the mirage,
--to die in the mocking drouth.
And sometimes it leads to the mountain,
--to the light of the lone camp-fire,
And you gnaw your belt in the anguish
--of hunger-goaded desire.
And sometimes it leads to the Southland,
--to the swamp where the orchid glows,
And you rave to your grave with the fever,
--and they rob the corpse for its clothes.
And sometimes it leads to the Northland,
--and the scurvy softens your bones,
And your flesh dints in like putty,
--and you spit out your teeth like stones.
And sometimes it leads to a coral reef
--in the wash of a weedy sea,
And you sit and stare at the empty glare
--where the gulls wait greedily.
And sometimes it leads to an Arctic trail,
--and the snows where your torn feet freeze,
And you whittle away the useless clay,
--and crawl on your hands and knees.
Often it leads to the dead-pit;
--always it leads to pain;
By the bones of your brothers ye know it,
--but oh, to follow you're fain.
By your bones they will follow behind you,
--till the ways of the world are made plain.
Bid good-by to sweetheart, bid good-by to friend;
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow to the end.
Tarry not, and fear not, chosen of the true;
Lover of the Lone Trail, the Lone Trail waits for you.
alanthealan
04-22-2005, 18:46
Either you think you can or you think you can't either way your correct. -Tom Mount
HikerHobo
04-22-2005, 22:56
"I always keep a flagon of whiskey handy in case I see a snake,
which I also keep handy."
WC Fields' thoughts about trail names:
"It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to."
Rift Zone
04-23-2005, 11:51
No chains around my feet but I'm not free. -Bob Marley, Concrete Jungle
In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. -Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Pertaining to science, the capacity to ask a question is of far greater importance than the capacity to answer one. To answer a question is to share a thought, feeling, idea, value, concept or belief. To ask a question is the attempt to grasp new concepts or to establish new relations within our universe. Inquiry is an act of exploration. The possibility of unique knowledge is forged in the formulation of a question. The answer serves only to confirm or deny. -Ronrick
Mongoose2
04-23-2005, 15:02
Sometimes you're the dog, sometimes you're the fire hydrant.
"Lassie"
If you don't know where you're going, when you get there you'll be lost.
- Yogi Berra
This one is a poem by Mark Strand, I think it can apply to hikers...
Keeping Things Whole
In a field, I am the absence of field.
This is always the case.
Wherever I am,
I am what is missing.
When I walk, I part the air,
And always the air moves in
To fill the spaces my body's been.
We all have reasons for moving.
I move to keep things whole.
"What we have here is failure to communicate." The Captain to Cool Hand Luke.
"You can't always get what you want. But if you try some time you just might find, you get what you need." The Rolling Stones.
"Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!" George C. Scott as General George Patton after defeating Rommel's tank forces in a battle using Rommel's own tactics against him. "Patton"
"One enkindled spirit can light hundreds on fire"- William H. Danforth, "I Dare You"
"ME & U"
04-24-2005, 12:38
"To Voyage is Victory" ancient arab proverb
"A good walker leaves no tracks" Lao Tsu
from Braveheart,
"Nesht of scheamin bastads... can't agree on the colour of ****e! It's a tlap and ya know it!"
People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge
waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast
compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they
pass by themselves without wondering.
-- St. Augustine
A witty saying proves nothing.
-- Voltaire
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million
typewriters would eventually reproduce the entire works of
Shakespeare. Now—thanks to the Internet—we know this is not true.
-- Robert Silensky
If you 're not living on the edge, you 're taking up too much room.
It is in your act that you exist, not in your body. Your act is yourself.
Antoine de Saint-Eupery
Our horizon is never quite at our elbows. I love a broad margin to my life.
Thoreau
And still I wander, seeking compensation in unforseen encounters and unexpected sights, in sunsets, storms and passing fancies.
Charles Kuralt
There can never be any snow on Katahdin unless you are there to see it.
The woods are lovely, dark & deep. But I have promises to keep, & miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep. ????
This one is my husbands most favorite, so I'm posting the whole thing. Hikerwife
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
"May those who love us, love us; and those who don't love us, may
God turn their hearts; and if He doesn't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping."
Now for a real Irish Blessing:
"May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand."
signed: hikerwife
Nearly Normal
04-27-2005, 06:14
"All night Bride
Jump in the Fire
Fire too hot
jump in the pot
pot to black
jump in a crack
crack to high
jump in the sky
sky too blue
jump in canoe
conoe to shallow
jump in tallow
tallow to soft
jump in the loft
loft to rotten
jump in the cotton
cotton so white
she stay there all night"
Earnest T Bass:jump
Disputation is proof of not seeing clearly. - Lao Tzu
Here's an "oldie but goody" geared toward the hiker community - the lyrics are from a song by Cat Stevens
On the Road to Find Out
Well I left my happy home
to see what I could find out
I left my folk and friends
with the aim to clear my mind out
Well I hit the rowdy road
and many kinds I met there
and many stories told me on the way to get there
So on and on I go, the seconds tick the time out
So much left to know, and I'm on the road to find out
In the end I'll know
but on the way I wonder
through descending snow
and through the frost and thunder
I listen to the wind come howl
telling me I have to hurry
I listen to the robin's song
saying not to worry
So on, and on I go, the seconds tick the time out
So much left to know, and I'm on the road to find out
Well I found myself alone
hoping someone would miss me
Thinking about my home and the last woman to kiss me
Well sometimes you have to moan
when nothing seems to suit you
but never the less you know
you're locked towards the future
So off and on you go, the seconds tick the time out
There's so much left to know and I'm on the road to find out
And I found my head one day
when I wasn't even trying
and here I have to say
cause there is no use in lying, lying
Yes the answer lies within
so why not take a look now
Kick out the devils sin
pickup, pickup the good book now
Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.
I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business.
The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward.
Perhaps I am more than usually jealous with respect to my freedom. I feel that my connection with and obligation to society are still very slight and transient. Those slight labors which afford me a livelihood, and by which it is allowed that I am to some extent serviceable to my contemporaries, are as yet commonly a pleasure to me, and I am not often reminded that they are a necessity. So far I am successful. But I foresee that if my wants should be much increased, the labor required to supply them would become a drudgery. If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage.
We climb not to conquer the mountain but ourselves.
- Sir Edmund Hillary
anneandbenhike
05-19-2005, 21:50
I saw an awesome quote on Whiteblaze TODAY, and now cannot find it....it was something Yoda said to Luke Skywalker (I think) and I would love to get that qoute again....anybody else see it? something about getting it done! Help please!:confused:
The man who goes alone can start today but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready. H.D.T.
I can walk on the water, I can drown in the burning sand, I can fly to the mountain top if anybody can. Cahoots
SavageLlama
05-19-2005, 22:49
"I never took much time to prepare for a trip—just long enough to throw bread and tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence. My pack was as light as a squirrel’s tail. Besides bread and tea, I sometimes carried a light blanket, a hat, and a change of underwear. If I didn’t have a coat or blanket, I’d warm myself by a small fire and burrow beneath the pine needles at night. A month's worth of supplies cost me only three dollars."
This is one of my favorite quotes. Who penned it? Is it some recent quip from the founder of Go-Lite or Triple Crown thru-hier Flyin' Brian Robinson? Nope, it was the grandfather of ultralight backpacking - and grandfather of environmentalism: John Muir. He used those words over 100 years ago to describe his love for exploring the outdoors. Good stuff.
whitedove
05-19-2005, 23:13
"Listen to all the teachers in the woods. Watch the trees, the animals and all the living things--you'll learn more from them than books." ~Joe Coyhis~
"The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart away from nature becomes hard." ~Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux
"Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints." ~Chief Seattle, Duwamish Suquamish
"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." ~Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator
"Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood is ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence ... What are the fruits of silence? They are self-control, true courage or endurance, patience, dignity and reverence. Silence is the cornerstone of character." ~Ohiyesa, Santee Sioux~
"A wee child toddling in a wonder world, I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan." ~Zitkala-Sa
William Commanda, Mamiwinini, Canada, 1991
"Traditional people of Indian nations have interpreted the two roads that face the light-skinned race as the road to technology and the road to spirituality. We feel that the road to technology.... has led modern society to a damaged and seared earth. Could it be that the road to technology represents a rush to destruction, and that the road to spirituality represents the slower path that the traditional native people have traveled and are now seeking again? The earth is not scorched on this trail. The grass is still growing there."
whitedove
05-19-2005, 23:24
You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself."
--- Alan Alda
A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.
- Opening scene of "Faust"
He who asks a question may be a fool for five minutes, but he who never asks a question remains a fool forever.
- Tom J. Connelly
"A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others"--The Wizard of Oz to the Tin Man
Minds are like parachutes, they function only when open.
- unknown
A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.
- unknown
SavageLlama
05-20-2005, 09:20
"Of the gladdest moments n human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood."
—Sir Richard Burton, journal entry, Dec. 2, 1856
My favorite is by Harry S. Truman, "No two historians ever totally agreed on what actually happened and no two smart individuals totally agree on any subject. But you the damn thing is? They usually believe they are right and telling the truth!"
"I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees." Thoreau
"We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but are of those who persevere and are saved." GOD
Kerosene Charlie
05-21-2005, 10:37
Ain't no sin,
To take off your skin,
And dance around in your bones.
(couldn't resist)
walkin' wally
05-21-2005, 19:27
...lose your dreams and you will lose your mind, ain't life unkind?
Ruby Tuesday
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
G. Santayana
WalkinHome
05-22-2005, 20:07
Hey Top, surely you have heard or read:
"No plan ever survived contact with the enemy".
SGT Rock
05-22-2005, 20:10
Yep, it's one of Murphy's Laws of combat.
Friendly fire - isn't.
Recoilless rifles - aren't.
Suppressive fires - won't.
You are not Superman; Marines and fighter pilots take note.
A sucking chest wound is Nature's way of telling you to slow down.
If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.
Try to look unimportant; the enemy may be low on ammo and not want to waste a bullet on you.
If at first you don't succeed, call in an airstrike.
If you are forward of your position, your artillery will fall short
Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself.
Never go to bed with anyone crazier than yourself.
Never forget that your weapon was made by the lowest bidder.
If your attack is going really well, it's an ambush.
The enemy diversion you're ignoring is their main attack.
The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions: when they're ready. & when you're not.
No OPLAN ever survives initial contact.
There is no such thing as a perfect plan.
Five second fuzes always burn three seconds.
There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.
A retreating enemy is probably just falling back and regrouping.
The important things are always simple; the simple are always hard.
The easy way is always mined.
Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.
Don't look conspicuous; it draws fire. For this reason, it is not at all uncommon for aircraft carriers to be known as bomb magnets.
Never draw fire; it irritates everyone around you.
If you are short of everything but the enemy, you are in the combat zone.
When you have secured the area, make sure the enemy knows it too.
Incoming fire has the right of way.
No combat ready unit has ever passed inspection.
No inspection ready unit has ever passed combat.
If the enemy is within range, so are you.
The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.
Things which must be shipped together as a set, aren't.
Things that must work together, can't be carried to the field that way.
Radios will fail as soon as you need fire support.
Radar tends to fail at night and in bad weather, and especially during both.
Anything you do can get you killed, including nothing.
Make it too tough for the enemy to get in, and you won't be able to get out.
Tracers work both ways.
If you take more than your fair share of objectives, you will get more than your fair share of objectives to take.
When both sides are convinced they're about to lose, they're both right.
Professional soldiers are predictable; the world is full of dangerous amateurs.
Military Intelligence is a contradiction.
Fortify your front; you'll get your rear shot up.
Weather ain't neutral.
If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you.
Air defense motto: shoot 'em down; sort 'em out on the ground.
'Flies high, it dies; low and slow, it'll go.
The Cavalry doesn't always come to the rescue.
Napalm is an area support weapon.
Mines are equal opportunity weapons.
B-52s are the ultimate close support weapon.
Sniper's motto: reach out and touch someone.
Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity.
The one item you need is always in short supply.
Interchangeable parts aren't.
It's not the one with your name on it; it's the one addressed "to whom it may concern" you've got to think about.
When in doubt, empty your magazine.
The side with the simplest uniforms wins.
Combat will occur on the ground between two adjoining maps.
If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you may have misjudged the situation.
If two things are required to make something work, they will never be shipped together.
Anything you do can get you shot, including nothing.
Whenever you lose contact with the enemy, look behind you.
The most dangerous thing in the combat zone is an officer with a map.
The quartermaster has only two sizes, too large and too small.
If you really need an officer in a hurry, take a nap.
There is nothing more satisfying than having someone take a shot at you, and miss.
If your sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.
You'll only remember your hand grenades when the sound is too close to use them.
Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Well .. It could be worse: It could be raining .. and we could be out in it.
So he said, "Cheer up: it could be worse!" So we cheered up. And it got worse.
The side with the simplest uniform wins...
The spare batteries for the PRC-whatever your troops have been carrying are either nearly dead or for the wrong radio.
The ping you heard was the antenna snapping off at 6 inches above the flexmount, while a fire mission was being called in on a battalion of hostiles who know your position.
Why is it the CO sticks his head in your radio hooch to see if anything has come down from DIV when you are listening to the VOA broadcasting the baseball games?
How come you are on one frequency when everyone else is on another?
Why does your 500-watt VRC-26 (real old) not make it across 200 miles while a ham with 50 watts on the same MARS frequency can be heard from Stateside?
Know why short RTOs have long whips on their radios? So someone can find them when they step in deep water.
The enemy "Alway's" times his attack, to the second you drop your pant's in the Latrine!!
The ammo you new "NOW"!! is on the "Next" airdrop!!
The enemy inevitably attacks on two occasions: when they're ready and when you're not.
Field experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
If your ambush is properly set the enemy won't walk into it.
Here are some more Murphy rules:
Rules of the Rucksack
1. No matter how carefully you pack, a rucksack is always too small.
2. No matter how small, a rucksack is always too heavy.
3. No matter how heavy, a rucksack will never contain what you want.
4. No matter what you need, it's always at the bottom.
Footslogger
05-22-2005, 22:16
Classic Rock ...hadn't heard a litany like that in years. Really made this old GI smile.
'Slogger
Stale Cracker
06-28-2005, 16:50
All who wander are not lost.
JRR Tolkien
D'Artagnan
06-28-2005, 17:51
I couldn't resist sharing T.R.'s thoughts:
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
Says a lot to me about hikers -- the doers and not the talkers.
Lion King
06-28-2005, 19:13
"KAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!"
William Shatner
icemanat95
06-28-2005, 21:16
"Edited due to deviation from stated intent of forum"
One quote that got me through a lot of bad days on the trail was:
"Thou hast not to like it, thou hast only to do it..." Richard Marcinko, Cmdr (ret.) USN from his Warrior's Ten Commandments.
That's a real simple philosophy in hard times when it is pissing down rain and you have miles to go before you can stop for the day. This is just one more thing you need to get through on the way to the goal. Just suck it up and drive on.
icemanat95
06-28-2005, 21:36
"Kachi wa saya no naka ni ari"
"Victory comes while the sword is still in the scabbard."
This is a saying within my school of Japanese swordsmanship going back hundreds of years. The ideal is that in any confrontation, victory is decided before the sword is drawn, either through training and preparation that ensures physical victory, or by non-violent techniques that allow you to achieve your goals without having to resort to violence.
Another good one is "Hen doku i yaku" or "Change poison to medicine." This is roughly analogous to "When life gives you lemons, make lemonaid" or "whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." The idea is that you learn from the adversity that you encounter and use it to make yourself better..a better swordsman, a better human being, etc.
Scrunchy
06-28-2005, 21:39
"Of course we weren't lost. We were merely where we shouldn't have been without knowing where that was." - T. Morris Longstreth :o
icemanat95
06-28-2005, 21:47
Hei Jo Shin
Constant peaceful spirit/mind
This is a goal rather than anything else. few ever achieve the ability to pass through life unsurprised, unangered, unfrightened by the events of life. The idea is to develop the control over your mind and spirit to avoid excessive passions that overcome reason as well as to live your life with sufficient integrity, sincerity and completeness that should you be killed in your next breath, you can die satisfied that you lived well and left the world a better place than you found it. A samurai ideal (rarely a reality).
ractical sense in it. Most, if confronted by real Wilderness, would have run screaming.
And he did at Ktaadn... (became very frightened, that is)
But, does not mean we can take little nuggets here and there (as evidenced by my quote). Thoreau was what we would call a trustafarian today. A man of means who played poor...
But, again, does not mean I can't admire a thing or two (or three of four) he said.
And now one of my favorites:
We rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces
perseverance; perseverance, character; character, hope. And hope does
not disappoint us. --Romans 5:3-5
St. Paul may have been a thru-hiker. :)
And for the other side of the coin:
The masses do not see the Sirens. They do not hear songs in the air. Blind, deaf,
stooping, they pull at their oars in the hold of the earth. But the more select,
the captains, harken to a Siren within them...and royally squander their lives
with her. --Nikos Kazantzakis, THE ODYSSEY: A MODERN SEQUEL
(better known for LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST)
wacocelt
06-28-2005, 23:06
I am a spirit in search of experience.
I embrace the highest motives of man, to create.
I have faith, which signifies that I live a spiritual
life.
I overcome adversity with an open heart and an open
mind.
Learning is a condition of ignorance.
Pain is a condition of health.
Passion is a condition of thought.
Death is a condition of life.
May you have warm words on a cold evening,
a full moon on a dark night,
and the road downhill all the way to your door.
An Irish Blessing
'How Did You Die'
-Edmund Vance Cooke-
Did you tackle that trouble that came your way,
with a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day,
with a craven heart and fearful?
Oh, a troubles a ton or a troubles and ounce,
or a trouble is what you make it.
And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,
but only how did you take it?
You are beaten to Earth? Well, well, whats that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It's nothing against you to fall down flat;
But to lie there- thats a disgrace.
The higher you're thrown, well, the higher you'll
bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts;
It's how did you fight and why?
And though you be done to death, what then?
If you battled the best you could;
If you played your part in the world of men,
the critics will call it good.
Death come swith a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he's slow or spry,
It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts,
But only how did you die?
cutman11
06-28-2005, 23:36
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers" -- Anonymous
"Vision is the art of seeing the invisible" -- Jonathan Swift
do not know if any post this but
"Get busy living or get busy dying"
wacocelt
06-29-2005, 02:38
Be yourself and say what you feel, because those that mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind. - Dr. Seuss
"There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living." - Thoreau
"Edited due to deviation from stated intent of forum"
The Cheat
06-29-2005, 11:05
I saw an awesome quote on Whiteblaze TODAY, and now cannot find it....it was something Yoda said to Luke Skywalker (I think) and I would love to get that qoute again....anybody else see it? something about getting it done! Help please!:confused:"No, try not, do or do not, there is no try." - Yoda
"Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible, and without desire."
-Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motercycle Maintenance
Ode
We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams.
Wandering by lone sea-breakers and sitting by desolate streams.
World losers and world forsakers on whom the pale moon gleams
but we are the movers and shakers of the world, forever, it seems.
-Arthur O'Shaughnessy
Footslogger
06-29-2005, 12:30
[QUOTE=icemanat95]"Thou hast not to like it, thou hast only to do it..." Richard Marcinko, Cmdr (ret.) USN from his Warrior's Ten Commandments.
QUOTE]
=====================================
Good man ...Dick Marcinko. A bit extreme, but definitely the kind of person I'd like covering my 6 when the sheit hits the fan. Talks the talk and walks the walk. Met him at the SEAL Museum in Ft Pierce, Fla several years ago.
'Slogger
Ford Prefect
06-29-2005, 13:06
My advice to you is to get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy: if not, you'll become a philosopher. - Socates
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. - Aristotle
I don't suffer from insanity but enjoy every minute of it. - Edgar Allan Poe
Obstacles are those frightful things we see when we take our eyes off our goal. - Henry Ford
Time is the ultimate teacher. Unfortunately, in the end, she kills all of her students. - Unknown
Do not go where the path may lead instead go where there is no path and leave a trail. - Ralph Waldo Emerson (prior to hearing "Pack it in/Pack it out", evidently)
There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything. - Yamamoto Tsunetomo
FP
Meadow Creek
06-29-2005, 14:33
Like Magellan, let us find our islands
To die in, far from home, from anywhere
Familiar. Let us risk the wildest places,
Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.
--Mary Oliver
Life itself is the proper binge. --Julia Child
What a life a mess can be --Uncle Tupelo
>>Nor do I read his Katahdin account as responding in terror to "real wilderness."
Weary, anyone who has friends who supply him food is a man of means in my book.
I don't have that luxury..do you? I can admire Thoreau, I can look at this words and find nuggets of truth..but I also recongnize he was a proto-trustafarian.
As for KTAADN
I''ll let him speak:
On the Maine Wilderness:
"..even more grim and wild than you had anticipated, a deep and intricate wilderness"
His description of the Big K:
"savage and dreary"
"vast, Titanic, inhuman Nature has got him at disadvantage, caught him alone, and pilfers him of some of his divine faculty. She does not smile on him as in the plains."
"...a place for heathenism and superstitious rite--to be inhabited by men nearer of kin to the rocks and wild animals than we."
"Who are we? where are we?" (he said this statement just about where he bailed out due to weather)
"KAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!"
William Shatner
Fantastic quote.
Do not tamper with the natural ignorance of a greenhorn.
Some men are so well-tempered they can lose it every day and never run out.
No one wants to steal your troubles. No one can steal your good deeds.
You kin cut your throat with a sharp tongue.
Life is one man gettn' hugged for sneakin' a kiss 'n another gettin' slapped.
Easy money is like a shadow. The harder you chase it, the faster it moves.
Be thankful for fools. Without them, none of us would amount for much.
When a man's too old to set a bad example, he hands out good advice.
There are two sides to any man's argument. His and the wrong one.
Some men talk 'cause they got something to say. Others talk 'cause they got to say something.
It's the far-off cows that wear the biggest horns.
Skill throws more weight than strength.
Damn fool mistakes are made by the other guy.
Kickin' a man when he's down is sometimes the only way to make him get up.
Outlaws and martyrs are greatly improved by death.
Love your enemies but keep your gun oiled.
Shallow rivers and shallow minds freeze first.
Don't repent. Stop sinning.
You can educate a fool but you can't make him think.
It's safer to have a good enemy than a bad friend.
Never trust a man who agrees with you. He's probably wrong.
If you want to stay single, look for the perfect woman.
If you have to prove you're right, you're probably wrong.
Some men never marry 'cause the girls' mothers don't trust them too far and the fathers don't trust them too near.
A man doesn't get thirsty 'til he can't get water.
A blind horse can see well from either end.
Happiness depends more on how life strikes you than on what happens.
>>Nor do I read his Katahdin account as responding in terror to "real wilderness."
....As for KTAADN
I''ll let him speak:
On the Maine Wilderness:
"..even more grim and wild than you had anticipated, a deep and intricate wilderness"
His description of the Big K:
"savage and dreary"
"vast, Titanic, inhuman Nature has got him at disadvantage, caught him alone, and pilfers him of some of his divine faculty. She does not smile on him as in the plains."
"...a place for heathenism and superstitious rite--to be inhabited by men nearer of kin to the rocks and wild animals than we."
"Who are we? where are we?" (he said this statement just about where he bailed out due to weather)
These strike me as normal kind of responses for any bright, observant person, climbing alone on what was then a trailless Katahdin for the first time. He went back to the Maine "wilderness" twice more as I recall, hardly the response of a man in panic.
I felt a bit of the same the first time I arrived on the tableland in February in 70 mph winds and whiteout conditions.
Weary
fiddlehead
06-30-2005, 04:39
"Edited due to deviation from stated intent of forum"
anyway, here's a quote or three that i always liked:
Worry is like a rocking chair. It keeps you busy but gets you nowhere ?
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space! ?
"You raise the blade, you make the change, you rearrange me till i'm sane, You lock the door, and throw away the key, there's someone in my head but it's not me" Floyd
"I should have known that life does not operate on the basis of plans, no matter how rational."
"I say, yes, we are inefficient and naive but we are happy. You keep your efficiency and we'll keep our happiness."
- Satish Kumar (who walked halfway across the world)
"Materialism - though I'm not disapproving in a spiritual or ethical way - is counterproductive, it doesn't actually make people any happier. It's a very temporary thing. The things that really make people happy ore immaterial - like friendship and love." - John Lloyd
I saw an awesome quote on Whiteblaze TODAY, and now cannot find it....it was something Yoda said to Luke Skywalker (I think) and I would love to get that qoute again....anybody else see it? something about getting it done! Help please!:confused:
Mayhaps it is:
"NO! Try not, do or do not, there is no try."
All who wander are not lost.
JRR Tolkien
Um,
I think it is: "Not all those who wander are lost!"
At least that is how it reads in the copy of LOTR I have.
Doctari.
saimyoji
07-06-2005, 23:58
Luke: You ask the impossible! (unable to lift his X-wing using the Force)
(Yoda lifts it out and blow dries it)
Luke: I...I don't believe it!
Yoda: That is why you failed.
"Edited due to deviation from stated intent of forum"
Since this is a quote thread, Here's one from Henry:
"If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immotal, -- that is your success."
Weary
Ford Prefect
07-14-2005, 12:10
Get on with the quotes!
There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers. - William James
Now, get off the stinkin' Thoreau soapbox, already. Both of you. You're sounding like philosophers!
- FP
"Edited due to deviation from stated intent of forum"
Now some words from William Shakespeare:
All the world’s a stage, & all the men & women merely players. They have their exits & their entrances, & one man in his time, plays many parts. His acts being 7 ages: At first the infant, mewling & puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel & shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school. And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, full of strange oaths & bearded like the pard, jealous in honor, sudden & quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, in fair round belly with good capon lined, with eyes severe & beard of formal cut, full of wise saws & modern instances; & so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean & slipper'd pantaloon, with spectacles on nose & pouch on side, his youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide for his shrunk shank; & his big manly voice, turning again toward childish treble, pipes & whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness & mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Under the Greenwood tree
Under the Greenwood tree, who loves to lie with me, & tune his merry note unto the sweet bird’s throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see, no enemy but winter & rough weather. Who doth ambition shun, & loves to live I’ the sun & seeking the food he eats, & pleased with what he gets, come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see, no enemy but winter & rough weather.
To be or not to be, that is the question. Weather ‘tis nobler in the mind, to suffer the slings & arrows of outrageous fortune. Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, & by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep, no more, & by a sleep to say we end the heartache & the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come. When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips & scorns of time. The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely. The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay, the insolence of office, & the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes. When he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? Who would fardles bear, to grunt & sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death. The undiscovered country, from whose bourn, no traveler returns, puzzles the will, & makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscious does make cowards of us all & thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, & enterprises of great pith & moment with this regard their currents turn awry, & lose the name of action.
Polonius advice to Laertes:
There, my blessing with you! And these few precepts in thy memory see thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportion’d thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. The friends thou hast, & their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steal; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy; rich not gaudy: For the apparel oft proclaims the man. Neither a borrower or a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself & friend, & borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thy own self be true, & it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
Doctari.
:sun
"Hike your own dress" ---pretty day hiker who I attempted to accost.
"I think I can, I think I can" -- Little Train
"He who travels lightly, travels happily" St. Frenchiesoundingname
Paraphrase: Whenever I enter the wilderness, I always recieve more than I went in looking for. John Muir.
"I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart" Anne Frank
"I want my assfat back" ----Yahtzee in Vermont
"Sunshine daydream,
walking in the tall trees,
going where the wind blows,
blooming like a red rose,
breathing more freely,
Lord, I'm singing and walking in the morning sunshine,
a sunshine daydream." Robert Hunter
Yahtzee
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, und to hear the lamentations of their women!
-Conan the barbarian
I worship Crom strong in his mountain. When I die I must go before him, and he will ask me: "What is the riddle of steel?" and if I cannot answer he will cast me out of valhalla and laugh at me!
-Conan the barbarian
(Conan was the greatest of all philosophers.)
Living and dying laughing and crying
Once you have seen it you will never be the same
Life in the fast lane is just how it seems
Hard and it is heavy dirty and mean
Don't stop for nothing its full speed or nothing
I am taking down you know whatever is in my way
Getting your kicks as you are shooting the line
Sending the shivers up and down your spine
Motorbreath
Its how I live my life
I can't take it any other way
Motorbreath
The sign of living fast
It is going to take
Your breath away
Those people who tell you not to take chances
They are all missing on what life is about
You only live once so take hold of the chance
Don't end up like others the same song and dance
-Metallica
Kerosene
07-14-2005, 19:13
"I want my assfat back" ----Yahtzee in VermontAn instant classic. I couldn't stop laughing! :D
"The indescribable innocense and beneficense of nature -- of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter -- such health, such cheer, they afford forever." Henry David Thoreau
"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to treat it with love and respect." Aldo Leopold
Weary www.matlt.org
Furlough
07-17-2005, 00:53
"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness -" From the Declaration of Independence
"Working at warp factor stupid for no apparent reason." Overheard one night in the plans shop in Bosnia
"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles he has overcome while trying to succeed." Booker T. Washington
Tha Wookie
07-17-2005, 03:19
"Edited due to deviation from stated intent of forum"
"Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pens
And keep your eyes open, the chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon, the wheel's still in spin
And there's no telling who that it's naming
Oh the loser will be later to win
For the times, they are a changing"
-Robert Zimmerman
"Life is hard.......it's harder if you're stupid" John Wayne
D'Artagnan
07-18-2005, 14:53
"The greatness comes not when things go always good for you. But the greatness comes when you're really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes. Because only if you've been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain." --Richard M. Nixon
"In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer." -- Mark Twain
Ford Prefect
07-19-2005, 12:06
It's good to shut up sometimes.
Marcel Marceau
"I stayed up very late, sitting out on that veranda. The stillness of the warm southern night was occasionally broken by the long, lonely whistles of passing freight trains. There is a strange, special quality to time on the Appalachian Trail. Days pass with the slow, majestic crawl of a summer in childhood. Sometimes, like tonight, you find yourself in a place where time seems to have moved backwards, to an era which ended before you were born."
This from "Then the hail came" online journal by George Steffanos http://www.skwc.com/exile/Hail-nf.html
It's full of little pockets of great writing like the above. Highly reccomended.
Freighttrain
07-19-2005, 15:37
"a tree has many rings of life, but what does it matter if the tree knows but one" -Abe Quinby
Meadow Creek
07-26-2005, 12:36
The Peace of Wild Things
Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
RevDrDan
07-30-2005, 19:56
Time is money. How are you spending yours?
"Ask what you don't know and you will stupid for one minute, don't ask and you will be stupid the rest of your life" Chinese proverb
"I only know that I know nothing" Plato
" Give man his utopia and he will destroy it with a grin".
Dosteovski
justusryans
07-31-2005, 12:04
There is nothing so powerful as truth-and often nothing so strange.
Danial Webster
Air Head
07-31-2005, 13:23
"Only those who risk going too far can know how far one can go" TS Eliot (that was my HS yearbook quote)
The greatest risk is not taking one - That's the tagline of AIG a while back.
I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon. I seek opportunity to develop whatever talents God gave me - not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenge of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence, nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any earthly master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say, "This, with God's help. I have done." All this is what it means to be an American. - Dean Alfonge
"In order to win any battle, you have to do one thing: you have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do... the body is never tired if the mind is not tired." Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
We will either find a way, or make one - Hannibal (The ULTIMATE hiker, in my opinion. I mean, who else hikes the Alps just to get back at someone? :))
There's one that was similar, but I think Sgt Rock'll get it... FIDO. (***** It, Drive On!)
"It's nothing" - From Black Hawk Down
Those're a few that I run through my head every now and then.
"I knew now that I had left behind the man-constructed world. Had already escaped from a world in which the days are consumed by clocks and dollars and traffic and other people. Had crossed over into a world that was governed by the sun and the wind and the lie of the land. A world in which the things that mattered were the pack on your back and sunlight on rough rock and the look of the way ahead. A world in which you relied, always, on yourself.
Colin Fletcher
The Man Who Walked Through Time
And with a nod to Cactus Ed:
"All we need here, God, is one little pre-cision earthquake."
Seldom-Seen Smith
canoehead
08-16-2005, 08:06
gotta take your ups, with your downs and do it one step at a time
Don't Munch A "butter-finger" Bar When Your Hikin Uphill!
Don't remember where I read this, but I _think_ it was by Li Po. In any event, it's from an Asian poet (hope no one posted it already):
"We sat together, the mountain and I, until only the mountain remained."
Thinking about that line has gotten me up some tough climbs.
English Stu
08-22-2005, 13:13
Thought these where worth passing along.
If you think you are too small to make a difference try sleeping with a mosquito-Dalai Lama
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago the next best time is now -Anon
Crazy_Al
08-22-2005, 15:41
The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. Proverbs 21:5
The quality goes in when the product is returned
You can fool all the people part of the time, and
part of the people all the time, but
you can make a fool of yourself anytime.
Life is a Fatal Disease. Pocahontas
"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." -- The Unknown Sage
Act like you expect to get into the end zone. Joe Paterno
It’s hard to make New Year’s resolutions when you are already perfect.
Judith Martin , “Miss Manners”
Persistence trumps talent and looks every time. Aaron Brown
My dad used to say, “You wouldn’t worry so much about what people thought of you, if you knew how seldom they did”. Dr. Phill McGrew
I never learned anything while I was talking. Larry King
Without enough sleep, we all become two-year-olds. Jojo Jensen
We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give. Winston Churchill
With no car note or mortgage, all things are possible.
builder of 48 foot power yacht
“When I was born, I was so ugly that the doctor slapped my mother.” Rodney Dangerfield
Everytime I get in an elevator, the operator says the same thing to me: basement ?
Rodney Dangerfield
Chance favors the prepared mind. Louis Pasteur
All things are rational with a good ignore list.
jimmyjob
08-22-2005, 16:44
i do not regret anything i have done, only those things which i have not
fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life. -dean wormer
the goat
08-29-2005, 22:50
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.:-?
- Benjamin Franklin
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.:datz
- HDT
No rain, no pain, no Maine!
Anonymous northbounder
Freighttrain
08-30-2005, 08:48
"Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat."
**** -- Theodore Roosevelt, 1899
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand - martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOO HOO - What a Ride!"
A tree has many rings of life, but what does it matter if it knows but one----
The wild joys of living:
Oh the wild joys of living! The leaping from rock up to rock, the strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock of the plunge in the pool’s living water, the hunt of the bear, & the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair, & the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust Devine, & the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draft of wine, & the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell That the water was wont to go warbling so softly & well how good is man’s life, the mere living! How fit to employ all the heart & the soul & the senses forever in joy!
Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars & dews & perfumes & the hours are marked by changes in the face of nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls & curtains is only a light & living slumber to the men who sleeps a field. All night long he can hear nature breathing deeply & freely; even as she takes her rest, she turns & smiles; & there is one stirring hour unknown to those who dwell in houses, when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, & all the outdoor world are on their feet. It is then that the cock first crows, not to announce the dawn, but like a cheerful watchman speeding the course of night. Cattle awake of the meadows; sheep break their fast on dewy hillsides, & change to a new lair among the ferns; & houseless men, who have lain down with the fowls, open their dim eyes & behold the beauty of the night. We are disturbed in our slumber only, like the luxurious Montaigne, that we may the better & more sensibly relish it. We have a moment to look upon the stars. And there is a special pleasure for some minds it the reflection that we share the impulse with all out-door creatures it our neighborhood, that we have escaped out of the Bastille of civilization, & are become, for the time being, a mere kindly animal & a sheep of nature’s flock.
O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done; the ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; the port is near, the bells I hear, the people all-exalting, while follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim & daring: But O heart! Heart! Heart! O the bleeding drops of red, where on the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold & dead. O Captain! My Captain! Rise up & hear the bells; rise up – for you the flag is flung – for you the trills; for you bouquets & ribbon’d wreaths – for you the shores a-crowding; for you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning: Here Captain! Dear father! This arm beneath your head; It is some dream on the deck you’ve fallen cold & dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale & still: My father does not feel my arm; he has no pulse or will. The ship is ancor’d safe & sound, its voyage closed & done: From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won: Exult, O shores, & ring, O bells! But I, with mournful tread, walk the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold & dead.
I like the wide & common road where all may walk at will, the worn & rutted country road that runs from hill to hill; I like the road through pastures green worn by home-coming feet of lowing kine & barefoot boy where twilight shadows meet. But I like best the Knapsack Trail wherein my heart & I may walk & talk in quietness with angles passing by. The lonely trail through forests dim that leads God-knows-where, that winds from tree to spotted tree ‘till sudden – we are there!
(Flute Haiku)
Soaring notes take flight
Set free from beneath fingers
Invisible birds
I think this one bears repeating, from Sgt Rock, It is now on the title page of the journal I carry on the AT:
If you are in a hurry, why are you walking?
Pacific Tortuga
09-04-2005, 19:12
"FATIGUE MAKES COWARDS OF US ALL"
Vince Lombardi
some of my fav's....
"Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved. " -Emerson
"I flyed?" "No -you falled" - The Land Before Time
"Now I believe there comes a time when everything just falls in line. We live and learn from our mistakes. The deepest cuts are healed by faith" - Pat Benatar
this is a long one, and includes some already posted, but i too keep a list, and add stuff i find... hope you enjoy it...
I don’t know which is worse, ignorance or apathy. I’ve decided I don’t know, and I don’t care.
Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.
"Verily, when the day of judgment comes, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done.“
Thomas a Kempis, German theologian, (1380-1471)
"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards. If you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.“
Ronald Reagan
“This is the final test of a gentleman: His respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.”
William Lyon Phelps, American educator (1865-1943).
Somebody once asked Niels Bohr why he had a horseshoe hanging above the front door of his house. "Surely you, a world famous physicist, can't really believe that hanging a horseshoe above your door brings you luck?“ "Of course not," Bohr replied, "but I have been reliably informed that it will bring me luck whether I believe in it or not.“
"During my 87 years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think."
Bernard M. Baruch, American businessman and statesman (1870-1965).
A grandfather was walking through his yard when he heard his granddaugther repeating the alphabet in a tone of voice that sounded like a prayer. He asked her what she was doing. The little girl explained: "I'm praying, but I can"t think of exactly the right words, so I'm just saying all the letters, and God will put them together for me, because He knows what I'm thinking.“
Charles B. Vaughan
Excess on occasion is exhilarating; it keeps moderation from becoming a habit.
W.S. Maugham
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, “Father" of America's nuclear navy (1900-1986)
The Early Bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
When we ask advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
Joseph Louis Lagrange
"Our youth now loves luxuries. They have bad manners, contempt for authority. They show disrespect for elders and they love to chatter instead of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants, of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food, and tyrannize their teachers."
Socrates, 425 BC
"It is a wonderful advantage to a man, in every pursuit or avocation, to secure an adviser in a sensible woman. In woman there is at once a subtile (sic) delicacy of tact & a plain soundness of judgment which are rarely combined to an equal degree in man. A woman, if she be really your friend, will have a sensitive regard for your character, honor, & repute. She will seldom counsel you to do a shabby thing; for a woman friend always desires to be proud of you."
The Earl of Litton (1831-91)
We the willing, led by the unknowing, have been doing the impossible for the ungrateful for so long with so little that we are now capable of doing anything with nothing.
US Army saying, 1776 to present
"I asked professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me, "what is happiness?" And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men. They all shook their heads and gave me a smile, as though I was trying to fool them. And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Des Plaines River. And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion."
Carl Sandburg
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks nothing is worth a war, is worse. a man who has nothing which he cares more about than his safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
John Stuart Mill
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."
Calvin Coolidge
"To be under pressure is inescapable. Pressure takes place through all the world: war, seige, the worries of state. We all know men who grumble under these pressures and complain. They are cowards. They lack splendor. But there is another sort of man who is under the same pressure but does not complain, for it is the friction which polishes him. It is pressure which refines and makes him noble."
St Augustine
"Americans fully understand the requirement of the football field or the baseball diamond. They discipline themselves and suffer by the thousands to prepare for these rigors. A coach or manager who is too permissive soon seeks a new job; his team will fail against those who are tougher and harder. Yet undoubtedly any American officer, in peacetime, who worked his men as hard, or ruled them as severely as a college football coach does, would be removed. But the shocks of the battlefield are a hundred times those of the playing field, and the outcome infinitely more important to the nation. The problem is to understand the battlefield as well as the game of football. The problem is to see not what is desirable, or nice, or politically feasible, but what is necessary."
T.R. Fehrenbach
"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
"If you treat a person as if he were what he should be and could be, he will become what he should be and could be."
Wolfgang v.Goethe
"Tradition is what you resort to when you don’t have the time or the money to do it right."
Kurt Herbert Adler, Austrian Conductor, 1905-1988
“My country did not send me 7000 miles to start the race. They sent me 7000 miles to finish it.”
1968 Tanzanian Olympic Marathon Runner John Stephen Akhwari (b. 1938?, Mbulu, Tanganyika. Finished in last place on a dislocated and badly lacerated knee. October 20th, 1968.
"Something unknown is doing we don’t know what."
Sir Arthur Eddington (1882 - 1944) Comment on the Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics, 1927
"Drop the question what tomorrow may bring, and count as profit every day that Fate allows you."
Horace, Roman poet (65 B.C.-8 B.C.)
"Examine what is said, not him who speaks.“
Arab proverb
"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.“
William G. McAdoo, American government official (1863-1941)
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, champagne in one hand - strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming, "WOO HOO - What a Ride!"
"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
“Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.”
Carl Gustav Jung
Ignorance can be fixed. Stupidity is often incurable, and sometimes fatal.
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
Teddy Roosevelt
"Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof, but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps a field. All night long he can hear Nature breathing deeply and freely; even as she takes her rest she turns and smiles; and there is one stirring hour unknown to those who dwell in houses, when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet. It is then that the cock first crows, not this time to announce the dawn, but like a cheerful watchman spending the course of night. Cattle awake on the hillside; sheep break their fast on dewy hillsides, and change to a new lair among the ferns; and houseless men, who have lain down with the fowls, open their dim eyes and behold the beauty of the night. "At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touch of Nature, are all these sleepers thus recalled in the same hour to life? Do the stars rain down an influence, or do we share some thrill of mother earth below our resting bodies? Even shepherds and old country-folk, who are the deepest read in these arcana, have not a guess as to the means or purpose of this nightly resurrection. Towards two in the morning they declare the thing takes place; and neither know nor inquire further."
Robert Lewis Stevenson; from "A Night Among the Pines"
"Be nice to people on the way up. They're the same people you'll pass on the way down."
Jimmy Durante (1893-1980)
Ozymandias
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792-1822
Anyway
By Mother Teresa
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you have anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
Why should we drink beer? Here's some very good reasons!
Sometimes when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think, "It is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver."
Babe Ruth
An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.
Ernest Hemingway
When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
Paul Hornung
24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not.
H.L. Mencken
When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk, we fall asleep. When we fall asleep, we commit no sin. When we commit no sin, we go to heaven. So, let's all get drunk and go to heaven!
George Bernard Shaw
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Benjamin Franklin
Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.
Dave Barry
Beer: helping ugly people have sex since 3000 B.C.
W.C. Fields
Remember "I" before "E", except in Budweiser.
Professor Irwin Corey
To some it's a six-pack, to me it's a "support group." Salvation in a can!
Leo Durocher
One night at Cheers, Cliff Clavin explained the "Buffalo Theory" to his buddy, Norm. "Well ya see, Norm, it's like this. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kill brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine! That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers.
"The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things."
Plato
“I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French.“
Charles de Gaulle
"Patience! Patience! Patience is the invention of dullards and sluggards. In a well-regulated world there should be no need of such a thing as patience."
Grace King, American author, 1852-1932
"Heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name given by the powerful to the doctrines of the weak."
Robert G. Ingersoll, American lawyer and statesman (1833-1899)
"There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea."
Percy Williams Bridgeman, American scientist, 1882-1961
"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal."
Hannah More, English author and social reformer, 1745-1833
Nearly Normal
09-17-2005, 04:22
"The function of our government is to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness not to provide these things."
TAMBOURINE
09-17-2005, 05:21
If A Number 2 Pencil Is Most Used Why Ain't It Number 1???
"I don't have to agree with or even like your opinion to defend your right to it"
"Are we having fun yet?"
jaboobie
09-20-2005, 16:10
see sig..........
rusty075
09-20-2005, 16:31
"Be a Traveler, not a Tourist"...it may be a pitch-phrase, used as a tagline by Open Road for their Guide books, and lately for some show on the Travel Channel, but I still think it sums up my philosophy on traveling pretty well.
One of my favorites
" I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Henry David Thoreau
just found this Steven Wright quote today:
Nameless
09-25-2005, 20:24
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things 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
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. - John Muir
When hiking the AT this summer a quote from someones user name here became very dear to me. Unfortunatly I cannot find the quote again, and having only seen it once I know dont have it right. But, it ment a lot to me, and grew on me. This is about how i usually phrase it now:
If the Appalachian Trail isn't the most important thing in your life, than don't hike it, do what is. Nobody is making you hike the trail, it is your journey and yours alone. Dont forget to have fun.
A practice used in hte military by many NCOs
"It is easier to ask for forgiveness afterwards, than permission beforehand."
It got my butt in trouble more than once, but I go the job done.
"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." - On Running After Ones Hat, All Things Considered, 1908
"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people."
- G.K. Chesterton
http://www.chesterton.org/discover/quotations.html
wacocelt
09-27-2005, 04:01
Life is meant to be lived, not understood. - Me
Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
Saluki Dave
09-27-2005, 19:35
"Never criticize a man before youwalk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do, you'll be a mile away and have his shoes."
Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
For the full quote :jump
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, & sorry I could not travel both. And be one traveler, long I stood, & looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth. Then took the other, as just as fair, & perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy & wanted wear; though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same. And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how, way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages & ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, & I- I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.
TAMBOURINE
09-30-2005, 08:03
If A Number 2 Pencil Is Most Used Why Isn't It #1????? Anybody Know This
Thanks for the full quote, you get much more from it this way:clap
For the full quote :jump
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, & sorry I could not travel both. And be one traveler, long I stood, & looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth. Then took the other, as just as fair, & perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy & wanted wear; though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same. And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how, way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages & ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, & I- I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.
If you were from Portsmouth instead of Va. Beach you would know that. :rolleyes: Go Truckers!
If A Number 2 Pencil Is Most Used Why Isn't It #1????? Anybody Know This
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Richard Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee (or was it Charles Lee?)
dje97001
09-30-2005, 10:22
Put it elsewhere, but it belongs here...
"And when the opportunity presents itself, I do not hit. [looking at his hand]... It hits all by itself." -Bruce Lee.
"If A Number 2 Pencil Is Most Used Why Isn't It #1????? Anybody Know This"
The "number" of a pencil refers to the hardness of the lead. "Hard" lead has higher numbers, and will generally make lighter lines when used. (Or, "soft" lead has lower numbers, and will generally make darker and smudgier lines.)
The #2 pencil is used for standardized tests because it's hard enough to write with and dark enough to be read the grading machines. (And you can't use pen ink because it doesn't reflect light.)
Sorry about the randomness. To make this slightly relevant, one my favorite quotes is in my signature.
Footslogger
09-30-2005, 12:45
"At one point in my life I was looking for a leader to imitate and follow. I couldn't find any so I decided to follow my own lead"
'Slogger
The rain to the wind said, you push & I’ll pelt. They so smote the garden bed that the flowers actually knelt, & lay lodged, though not dead. I know how the flowers felt.
Polonius advice to Laertes (Hamlet): There, my blessing with you! And these few precepts in thy memory see thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportion’d thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. The friends thou hast, & their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steal; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy; rich not gaudy: For the apparel oft proclaims the man. Neither a borrower or a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself & friend, & borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thy own self be true, & it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
A snake slipped away.
Only his eyes having looked at me
Remain in grass.
- - - -
I look at the river.
A banana skin
Falls from my hand.
- - - -
Autumn evening now:
A crow is perching
On a leafless bough.
- - - -
- First on the trail—
the pull of a spider’s strand
across my face
- - - -
Ballet in the air...
Twin butterflies until, twice white,
They meet, they mate.
- - - -
Now that eyes of hawks
In dusky night are darkened...
Chirping of the Quails.
- - - -
Seek on high bare trails
Sky-reflecting violets
Mountain-top jewels!
- - - -
April's air stirs in
Willow-leaves... A butterfly
Floats & balances.
- - - -
Twilight Whippoorwill
Whistle on, Sweet deepener
of dark loneliness.
- - - -
Mountain-rose petals
Falling, falling, falling now
Waterfall music.
- - - -
Ah me! I am one
Who spends his little breakfast
Morning glory gazing.
- - - -
Too curious flower
Watching us pass, met death...
Our hungry donkey.
- - - -
Old dark sleepy pool...
Quick unexpected frog
Goes plop! Watersplash!
- - - -
Bright red pepper-pod
It needs but shiny wings & look,
Darting Dragonfly!
- - - -
Wake! The sky is light!
Let us to the road again
Companion butterfly.
- - - -
Dewdrops, let me clense
In your brief sweet waters...
These dark hands of life.
- - - -
Lady butterfly
Perfumes her wings by floating
Over this orchid.
- - - -
No oil to read by...
I am off to bed but ah!
My moonlit pillow.
- - - -
Black cloudbanks broken
Scatters in the night...now see
Moon-lighted mountain!
- - - -
My 2 plum trees are
So gracious...see, they flower
One now, one later.
- - - -
Gnarled oak
holds bare branches aloft
awaiting spring
- - - -
A funeral speech
Nobody heard; no one came.
Eleanor Rigby.
- - - -
Pebbles shining clear,
And clear 6 silent fishes...
Deep autumn water.
- - - -
When you went away
I thought how long the road would be
Look: Weary willows.
- - - -
A Camellia
Dropped down into deep waters
Of a still, dark well.
- - - -
Butterfly asleep
Folded soft on temple bell
Then bronze gong rang!
- - - -
A shower falls & look
Walking & talking in the street
Umbrella & raincoat!
- - - -
Lightning flash, crash
Waiting in the bamboo grove
see three dew-drops fall.
- - - -
The laden wagon runs
Rumbling & creaking down the rd
Three peonies tremble.
- - - -
Standing still at dusk
Listen... in far distances
The song of froglings!
- - - -
A saddening world:
Flowers, whose sweet bloom must fall,
As we too, alas...
- - - -
A gate made all of twigs
With woven grass for hinges...
For a lock.. This snail.
- - - -
The turnip farmer rose
And with a fresh pulled turnip
Pointed to my road.
- - - -
Yellow autumn moon...
Unimpressed, the scarecrow stands
Simply looking bored.
- - - -
Plume of pampas grass
Trembling in every Wind...
Hush, My lonely Heart.
- - - -
Dew evaporates
And all our world is dew...so dear,
So fresh, so fleeting.
- - - -
I must turn over...
Beware of local earthquakes
Bedfellow cricket!
- - - -
Over the mountain
Bright the white full moon smiles now...
On the flower-thief.
- - - -
Good evening, breeze!
Crooked & meandering
Your homeward journey.
- - - -
The Milky way looks near
As though easily I could jump
over it from here!
- - - -
Down into the lush
Foliage drops the waterfall
With it’s thundering crash.
- - - -
Wind-blown, rained on...
Bent barley-grass you make me
Narrow path indeed.
- - - -
One fallen flower
Returning to the branch? Oh no!
A white butterfly.
- - - -
Swiftly runs the bright
Moon from cloud to cloud on high
In a summer night.
- - - -
If you think they do
Naught but cry & cry, maybe
Insects laugh at you.
- - - -
Life? Butterfly
On a swaying grass that’s all...
But exquisite.
- - - -
Pretty butterflies...
Be careful of pine-needle points
In this gusty wind!
- - - -
Mirror pond of stars...
Suddenly a summer shower
Dimples the water.
- - - -
Narrowly a trail
Fades away into the dark
In the flowery dale.
- - - -
Underneath the bright
Moonlit shower I hear its soft
Whisper in the night.
- - - -
I drink -- listening
To the sound of water
Rising from the spring.
- - - -
A single cricket
Chirps, chirps, chirps & is still.
My candle sinks & dies.
- - - -
Gray moor, unmarred
By any path.. a single branch.
A bird... November
- - - -
Leaf alone, fluttering
Alas, leaf alone, fluttering...
Floating down the wind.
- - - -
Water jar cracks:
I lie awake
This icy night.
- - - -
Lightning:
Heron's cry
Stabs the darkness.
- - - -
Sick on a journey:
Over parched fields
Dreams wander on.
- - - -
The first firefly...
But he got away & I…
Air in my fingers.
Big Dawg
10-01-2005, 08:55
Doctari,, that's a looooooong one,, but I enjoyed it!! :clap
Is that long one part of Hamlet, or a Doctari creation, or someone else not mentioned?
Doctari,, that's a looooooong one,, but I enjoyed it!! :clap
Is that long one part of Hamlet, or a Doctari creation, or someone else not mentioned?
I think, could be wrong, the "rain & wind" one is from Robert Frost.
"Polonius advice to Laertes (Hamlet):" is from the play by Wm. Shakespeare.
The 3 line poems with the ---- between are haiku, japanese style poetry. Those are all the ones I carry, but I have more. I find them inspirational and entertaining. Is that the "Long one" you questioned? They are actually very small, 3 lines ONLY. I just have alot of them :p
My favorite is probably:
Gnarled oak
holds bare branches aloft
awaiting spring
It reminds me of Bly Gap in GA.
Thanks for replying!
Doctari.
Just Jeff
10-01-2005, 22:49
Doctari,
I like your signature...where's that from?
"Don't take life too seriously, you'll never make it out alive."
-Bugs Bunny
"The priviledge of a lifetime is being who you are."
"Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy."
"When we talk about settling the world's problems, we're barking up the wrong tree. The world is perfect. It's a mess. It has always been a mess. We are not going to change it. Our job is to straighten out our own lives."
-Joseph Campbell
Big Dawg
10-02-2005, 09:04
[QUOTE=Doctari] First on the trail—
the pull of a spider’s strand
across my face [QUOTE]
Always hate that,,, especially when it's more than a strand, & has a big spider that meets me face to face,,,,, goooooood morning!!! :eek:
Doctari,
I like your signature...where's that from?
I have no idea :eek:
Will look it up, it must be somewhere in my files. I am a big fan of Robert Frost, maybe it's one of his. I have used that for quite a while, so forgot where I got it.
Doctari.
EDIT: I have since changed my signature. And, don't remeber what the old one was. Current one: You do not truly own anything that you can not carry at a dead run. is from aincent german mercinarys the Landskenecht.
Just Jeff
10-02-2005, 20:34
After I posted, I realized that I should just look it up myself. Unfortunately, that unpredictable edit button didn't show up.
It came up on several Robert Frost quote pages.
Most high, all-powerful, all good, Lord!
All praise is yours, all glory, all honour
And all blessing.
To you, alone, Most High, do they belong.
No mortal lips are worthy
To pronounce your name.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through all that you have made,
And first my lord Brother Sun,
Who brings the day; and light you give to us through him.
How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendour!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Moon and Stars;
In the heavens you have made them, bright
And precious and fair.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, all the weather's moods,
By which you cherish all that you have made.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Water,
So useful, lowly, precious and pure.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
Through whom you brighten the night.
How beautiful is he, how gay! Full of power and strength.
All praise be yours my Lord, through Sister Earth, our mother,
Who feeds us in her sovereignty and produces
Various fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through those who grant pardon
For love of you; through those who endure
Sickness and trial.
Happy those who endure in peace,
By you, Most High, they will be crowned.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Death,
From whose embrace no mortal can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin!
Happy those She finds doing your will!
The second death can do no harm to them.
Praise and bless my Lord, and give him thanks,
And serve him with great humility.
St. Francis of Assisi (1181 - 1226)
Omnibus of Sources for the Life of St. Francis
You dont know if you've been SHOT,F#$KED, POWDERBURNT OR SNAKEBIT!!!
I was going to put this in "words of wisdom" but I think here is good. I just found this a few minutes ago from the Landsknecht re-enactment group I belong to.
This is a common saying amon the ancient Landsknecht (German Mercinaries, During the 15th century) I think is something to keep in mind for us hikiers;
"You do not truly own anything that you can not carry at a dead run."
Fitting isn't it. :D Even tho most of us don't hike at a "dead run".
Doctari.
Here (yet again) are more of my favorites.
Sorry if I have any repetes :o
It's not that easy bein' green; having to spend each day the color of the leaves. When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold or something much more colorful like that. It's not easy bein' green. It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things. And people tend to pass you over 'cause you're not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water-or stars in the sky. But green's the color of spring. And green can be cool & friendly-like. Green can be big like an ocean, or important like a mountain, or tall like a tree. When green is all there is to be it could make you wonder why, but why wonder why? Wonder, I’m green & it'll do fine, it's beautiful! And I think it's what I want to be.
Kermit the Frog
'Twas brillig, & the slithy toves did gyre & gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, & the mome raths outgrabe 'Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, & shun the frumious Bandersnatch!' He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought, so rested he by the Tumtum tree, & stood awhile in thought. And as in uffish thought he stood, the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, came whiffling through the tulgey wood, & burbled as it came! 1, 2! 1, 2! & through & through the vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, & with its head He went galumphing back. 'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy. 'Twas brillig, & the slithy toves did gyre & gimble in the wabe; all mimsy were the borogoves, & the mome rathes outgrabe.
Lewis Carrol (I think)
Who knows a mountain? One who has gone to worship its beauty In the dawn; one who has slept on its breast at night; one who has measured his strength to its height; one who has followed its longest trail, & laughed in the face of its fiercest gale; one who has scaled its peaks, & has trod Its cloud-swept summits alone with God.
(I don't know)
Doctari.
Here (yet again) are more of my favorites.
'Twas brillig, & the slithy toves did gyre & gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, & the mome raths outgrabe 'Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, & shun the frumious Bandersnatch!' He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought, so rested he by the Tumtum tree, & stood awhile in thought. And as in uffish thought he stood, the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, came whiffling through the tulgey wood, & burbled as it came! 1, 2! 1, 2! & through & through the vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, & with its head He went galumphing back. 'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy. 'Twas brillig, & the slithy toves did gyre & gimble in the wabe; all mimsy were the borogoves, & the mome rathes outgrabe.
Lewis Carrol (I think)
Doctari.
Ah Jabberwocky. Yes. Lewis Carrol. My mother used to read this as a bedtime story when I was very young, and it will always be a great favourite.
Cheers,
PKH
Gray Blazer
11-08-2005, 12:51
"Oh, S**T!!" General Custer, Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Lone Wolf
11-08-2005, 13:10
"When you men get home and face an anti-war protester, look him in the eye and shake his hand. Then wink at his girlfriend because she knows she's dating a pussy."
US Marine General James Mattis
Ah Jabberwocky
That's a good one!
I had to memorize it as part of a public speaking course in HS.
Some years later I found myself teaching English as a second language. On occasion when I wanted to be a smart ass, I'd interject the poem into a conversation.
With very few exceptions, my students would swear that they understood almost everything that I had been talking about. :datz :datz
The Old Fhart
11-08-2005, 13:47
Doctari-"'Twas brillig....,,,,,,,came whiffling through the tulgey wood,,,,,...." As a point of interest, that is where the "Whiffle Ball" got its name. Lewis Carroll sounds better than Charles Lutwidge Dodgson! Try reading "The Hunting of The Snark" or "The Walrus and the Carpenter" by Carroll as well.
Jack Tarlin
11-08-2005, 14:10
Actually, O.F., the words "whiffle", "whiffling," and "whiffler" date to at least the early 17th century and perhaps a bit earlier.
Lewis Carroll, if memory serves, wasn't born til 1832.
DiamondDoug
11-08-2005, 14:16
I liked Welches' quote so much I adopted it as my sig.
Onward. Furthur!
-<>-Doug
GAME2k
Which always reminds me of this H.L. Mencken quote: "Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage."
Lewis Carroll, if memory serves, wasn't born til 1832.
I can sure relate to the memory thing! Used to be somone could give me a phone number while I was driving down the highway, and I'd remember it a few calls later. Now, I have to write it down.
A product of getting old, I guess.
I'm still able to remember a date for the few minutes it takes me to type up a post but I suspect that will change with time.
In anycase, thanks for sharing. One thing cool aboout being on this board is that it serves as a reminder of how similar we are-- deep down. Thanks for opening up!
;)
"It is an all-too-human frailty to suppose
that a favorable wind will blow forever."
Rick Bode, 'First You Have to
Row a Little Boat.'
This is a long one, but one of my favorites. Excerpted from
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
(from Time Enough For Love, © 1973 Robert A. Heinlein)
Always store beer in a dark place.
Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win.
Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent.
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.
There is no conclusive evidence of life after death. But there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know. So why fret about it?
Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.
A generation which ignores history has no past -- and no future.
A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.
What a wonderful world it is that has girls in it!
Small change can often be found under seat cushions.
It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired.
If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people.
Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate -- and quickly.
A motion to adjourn is always in order.
Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated out of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing -- with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for second and third place.
Cheops' Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
It is better to copulate than never.
Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well.
A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate.
When the need arises -- and it does -- you must be able to shoot your own dog. Don't farm it out -- that doesn't make it nicer, it makes it worse.
Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.
It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier.
Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys; it's more sanitary.
Never appeal to a man's "better nature". He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
Avoid making irrevocable decisions while tired or hungry. N.B.: Circumstances can force your hand. So think ahead!
An elephant: A mouse built to government specifications.
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded -- here and there, now and then -- are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck".
In a mature society, "civil servant" is semantically equal to "civil master".
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
A zygote is a gamete's way of producing more gametes. This may the purpose of the universe.
There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled 'Nature'". The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of "Nature" -- but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers' purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the "Naturist" reveals his hatred for his own race -- i.e., his own self-hatred.
In the case of "Naturists" such self-hatred is understandable; they are such a sorry lot. But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the most they rate.
As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I like being part of a race made up of men and women -- it strikes me as a fine arrangement and perfectly "natural".
Believe it or not, there were "Naturists" who opposed the first flight to old Earth's Moon as being "unnatural" and a "despoiling of Nature".
Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that over again, too. Who decides?
Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure "good" government; it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare -- most people want to run things but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the "backseat-driver syndrome."
What are the facts? Again and again and again -- what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" -- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.
God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent -- it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.
Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. (He is also a fool.)
People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy half a slug who must tighten his belt.
The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.
Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
The more you love, the more you can love -- and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.
Masturbation is cheap, clean, convenient, and free of any possibility of wrongdoing -- and you don't have to go home in the cold. But it's lonely.
Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.
If tempted by something that feels "altruistic," examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!
The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that
he Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.
The second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently sinful.
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of -- but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
$100 placed at 7 percent interest compounded quarterly for 200 years will increase to more than $100,000,000 -- by which time it will be worth nothing.
Everybody lies about sex.
If men were the automatons that behaviorists claim they are, the behaviorist psychologists could not have invented the amazing nonsense called "behaviorist psychology." So they are wrong from scratch -- as clever and as wrong as phlogiston chemists.
Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.
There is no such thing as "social gambling." Either you are there to cut the other bloke's heart out and eat it -- or you're a sucker. If you don't like this choice -- don't gamble.
When the ship lifts, all bills are paid. No regrets.
A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.
Money is the sincerest of all flattery.
Women love to be flattered.
So do men.
You live and learn. Or you don't live long.
Peace is an extension of war by political means. Plenty of elbowroom is pleasanter -- and much safer.
The phrase "we (I) (you) simply must --" designates something that need not be done. "That goes without saying" is a red warning. "Of course" means you had best check it yourself. These small-change clichés and others like them, when read correctly, are reliable channel markers.
Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.
Rub her feet.
If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do creative work, never force an idea; you'll abort it if you do. Be patient and you'll give birth to it when the time is ripe. Learn to wait.
Never crowd youngsters about their private affairs -- sex especially. When they are growing up, they are nerve ends all over, and resent (quite properly) any invasion of their privacy. Oh, sure, they'll make mistakes -- but that's their business, not yours. (You made your own mistakes, did you not?)
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for ... but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.
If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires.
"God split himself in a myriad parts that he might have friends." This may not be true, but it sounds good -- and is no sillier than any other theology.
To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods.
Does history record any case in which the majority was right?
A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased -- he hates all creative people equally.
Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash.
Only a sadistic scoundrel -- or a fool -- tells the bald truth on social occasions.
This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother's side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds to happiness in a world in which happiness is always in short supply.
In handling a stinging insect, move very slowly.
To be "matter of fact" about the world is to blunder into fantasy -- and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.
Copulation is spiritual in essence -- or it is merely friendly exercise. On second thought, strike out "merely." Copulation is not "merely" -- even when it is just a happy pastime for two strangers. But copulation at its spiritual best is so much more than physical coupling that it is different in kind as well as in degree. But -- most sorrowfully -- many people never achieve spiritual sharing; they are condemned to wander through life alone.
Touch is the most fundamental sense. A baby experiences it, all over, before he is born and long before he learns to use sight, hearing, taste, and no human ever ceases to need it. Keep your children short of pocket money -- but long on hugs.
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.
The greatest productive force is human selfishness.
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors -- and miss.
The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can seriously be interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other con man.
But it's lovely work if you can stomach it.
Minimize your therbligs until it becomes automatic; this doubles your effective lifetime -- and thereby gives time to enjoy butterflies and kittens and rainbows.
Have you noticed how much they look like orchids? Lovely!
Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.
Never try to outstubborn a cat.
Tilting at windmills hurts you more than the windmills.
Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again.
Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime. For a first offense, that is.
"Go to hell!" or other insult direct is all the answer a snoopy question rates.
The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none of my business but --" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.
A skunk is better company than a person who prides himself on being "frank."
"All's fair in love and war" -- what a contemptible lie.
Beware of the "Black Swan" fallacy. Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If you fail to remember this, it can trip you -- with perfect logic. The designers of the earliest computers called this the "GIGO Law," i.e., "Garbage in, garbage out."
Inductive logic is much more difficult -- but can produce new truths.
A "practical joker" deserves applause for his wit according to its quality. Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling. But staking him out on an anthill should be reserved for the very wittiest.
Natural laws have no pity.
On the planet Tranquille around KM849 (G-O) lives a little animal known as a "knafn." It is herbivorous and has no natural enemies and is easily approached and may be petted -- sort of a six-legged puppy with scales. Stroking it is very pleasant; it wiggles its pleasure and broadcasts euphoria in some band that humans can detect. It's worth the trip.
Someday some bright boy will figure out how to record this broadcast, then some smart boy will see commercial angles -- and not long after that it will be regulated and taxed.
In the meantime I have faked that name and catalog number; it is several thousand light-years off in another direction. Selfish of me--
Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite.
Take care of the cojones and the frijoles will take care of themselves. Try to have getaway money -- but don't be frantic about it.
If "everybody knows" such-and-such, then it ain't so, by at least ten thousand to one.
Political tags -- such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth -- are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.
All cats are not gray after midnight. Endless variety --
Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful -- just stupid.)
Being generous is inborn; being altruistic is a learned perversity. No resemblance --
It is impossible for a man to love his wife wholeheartedly without loving all women somewhat. I suppose that the converse must be true of women.
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting.
Formal courtesy between husband and wife is even more important than it is between strangers.
Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
Don't store garlic near other victuals.
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament -- it is possible to be both. How? By never taking an unnecessary chance and by minimizing risks you can't avoid. This permits you to play out the game happily, untroubled by the certainty of the outcome.
Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please -- this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time -- and squawk for more!
So learn to say No -- and be rude about it when necessary.
Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even for a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.
Don't try to have the last word. You might get it.
"I flied?"
"No, you falled"
:D
The Land Before Time
D'Artagnan
11-09-2005, 15:49
Not a quote (strictly speaking) but a favorite poem of mine, lines from which are often quoted (though sometimes erroneously attributed to Reagan):
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds -- and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of -- wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
--Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
Yes it is nice isn't it?
Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee, 412 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force.
Killed in action 11 December, 1941.
A waste,
PKH
D'Artagnan
11-09-2005, 16:54
For more information on Magee, check out:
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/prewwii/jgm.htm
Only 19 years old -- how tragic.
Just Jeff
11-09-2005, 19:10
Man - I had to recite that poem word for word for an entire year in college. It's a good one.
The Desperado
11-09-2005, 20:46
Dont be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell ia necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is sure for those who are friends...from Illusions
Do more than exist--live. Do more than touch--feel. Do more than look--observe. Do more than read--obsorb. Do more than hear--listen. Do more than listen--understand....J H Rhoades
What lies behind us & what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us...Emerson
And one of my all time favorites--Through the travail of ages,
Midst the pomp and toils of war-
Have I fought , and strove, and perished,
Countless times among the stars.
As if through a glass and darkly,
The age old strife I see,
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names;.....but always me....
Anumber1
11-09-2005, 21:33
dont work for your money, make your money work for you
justusryans
11-09-2005, 22:38
They even made a movie about him (kinda)
D'Artagnan
11-10-2005, 11:30
Was your quote "Through the travail of ages..." by General Patton?
u812urbad
11-10-2005, 16:38
"nothing animates the mind more than the prospect of being hanged."
Judge Roy Bean
the goat
11-10-2005, 18:39
desperado- muchas gracias for the magic in '01, man.
"If a religious man does not eat unclean animals, rests each and every sabbath, sends his children off to private school, surfs the internet,replies to personal emails all day, and calls you an idiot under is breath, walk away and keep searching."
"it's out there, somewhere. Your job is to find it. On the bright side, you get to observe and realise the challenge."
"Don't wast your time, it would be as fruitless as having revenge on an animal."
You dont know if you've been SHOT,F#$KED, POWDERBURNT OR SNAKEBIT!!!
paw, i heerd a new word in taown tidday... what's "fosked" mean?
The Desperado
11-13-2005, 16:57
The Goat.......It was my pleasure! Hope all is well with you....D
The Desperado
11-13-2005, 17:06
Yes it was............D
paw, i heerd a new word in taown tidday... what's "fosked" mean?
Well, I'm sure I wouldn't care to speculate Seeker, but I was snakebit once, and if being "fosked" is anything like that . . . . . . . . .
And no, it wasn't a Nova Scotian snake.
Cheers,
PKH
Clark Fork
11-13-2005, 21:28
"In all these travels I intend to walk off the beaten paths, hike off the trails, bushwhacking in body and mind to see the world anew--it was the way I decided to live the rest of my life. I needed to get out in order to look back in. I believed that walking off my stale entrenched life and into a new beginning could succeed no matter what my age, that it had everything to do with living well each day."
Doug Peacock- Walking It off -A Veteran's Chronicle of War and Wilderness, Eastern Washington University Press 2005, p. 3
ulsterscotsdan
11-17-2005, 17:24
Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours. (Richard Bach)
The problem with punctuality is that there's no one there to appreciate it. (Unk)
The man who swims against the stream knows the strength of it. (Woodrow Wilson)
I ate what?! (Socrates)
A closed mouth gathers no foot. (Unk)
"In all these travels I intend to walk off the beaten paths, hike off the trails, bushwhacking in body and mind to see the world anew--it was the way I decided to live the rest of my life. I needed to get out in order to look back in. I believed that walking off my stale entrenched life and into a new beginning could succeed no matter what my age, that it had everything to do with living well each day."
Doug Peacock- Walking It off -A Veteran's Chronicle of War and Wilderness, Eastern Washington University Press 2005, p. 3
isn't this why earl shaffer started his trek? walking does the soul good."There's something about the outside of a horse that's good for the inside of a man". Winston Churchill
jimtanker
11-18-2005, 15:32
One I live by:
"If you're in a fair fight then your tactics suck."
One I live for:
"That's pretty bold talk for a one eyed fat man" - Ned Pepper, True Grit</I>
"Be the change you want to see." - Mahatma Ghandi
hopefulhiker
11-20-2005, 10:02
"It's a dangerous business, going out your door...if you don't keep your feet, there's no telling where you might be swept off to." Tolkien
"No matter where you go, There you are!"
"If you stare into the Abyss, the Abyss will stare back into You" Neitzche
"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country," --Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC.
`````````````````````````````
It's easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. - Admiral Grace Hopper
justusryans
11-20-2005, 12:14
"I have great faith in fools. My friends call it self-confidence".
Edgar Allan Poe
justusryans
11-20-2005, 12:23
"It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time"
"We are all prompted by the same motives, all decieved by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire,and seduced by pleasure".
Samuel Johnson
"Edited due to deviation from stated intent of forum"
Clark Fork
11-20-2005, 14:20
Now you guys are getting DEEP! In a philosophical way, I mean.:p
You want deep?
There are days on the trail when this quote comes to mind:
"Let's do it!"
Convicted murderer, Gary Gilmore's final words before being put to death on January 17, 1977, by a volunteer firing squad.
Regards,
Clark Fork in Western Montana
"
Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff." --Mariah Carey :clap
Footslogger
11-22-2005, 12:48
"" --Mariah Carey :clap
=================================
Guess we all have our priorities ...
'Slogger
"We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?"--Lee Iacocca
and here's my favorite:
"Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances."
--Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina
PONDERISMS
Someone just sent me these and I thought they might fit in with the thread.
* * I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.
* * Gardening Rule: When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it.
If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.
* * The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.
* * Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.
* * There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.
* * Life is sexually transmitted.
* * Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
* * The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
* * Some people are like Slinkies. Not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.
* * Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
* * Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to?
* * Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.
* * All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
* * In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
* * How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
* * Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?"
* * Who was the first person to say, "See that chicken there? I'm gonna eat the next thing that comes outta its butt."
* * Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?
* * If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?
* * Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don't point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?
* * Why does your OB-GYN leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look up there anyway?
* * If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?
* * If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
* * Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?
* * Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?
* * Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?
* * Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
* * Do you ever wonder why you gave me your email address ...
D'Artagnan
11-23-2005, 14:15
I don't care who you are, that there's some funny stuff.
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." --Bill Clinton, President
whitedove
11-23-2005, 18:51
The Elders say "the longest journey we make in life is from our head to our heart."
Cookerhiker
11-26-2005, 10:27
2 quotes re. those who order wars vs. those who actually fight in them.
"And those who give the orders are not the ones that die;
it's Scott and MacDonald and the likes of you and I."
Tommy Sands from There were Roses
"The ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame;
on each end of the rifle, we're the same."
John McCutcheon from Christmas in the Trenches
Saluki Dave
11-26-2005, 13:16
"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men (and women (SD) lived." - General George S. Patton, Jr
justusryans
11-30-2005, 15:06
"I Think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone!"
John F. Kennedy
At a dinner for Nobel prize winners at the White House April, 1962
The best President who ever served!! Thomas Jefferson
Be Bold, and mighty forces will come to your aide. by ?????
Critterman
12-01-2005, 19:47
"Fatique makes cowards of us all." - Vince Lombardi
Rain Man
12-16-2005, 10:32
From the preface of "Camping and Woodcraft" by Horace Kephart
"Solomon himself knew the heart of man no better than that fine old sportsman who said to me 'It isn't the fellow who's catching lots of fish and shooting plenty of game that's having the good time: it's the chap who's "getting ready to do it".'"
So true. So true!
Rain:sunMan
When men speak of the future, the Gods laugh.
-Mabye Confucius.....?
micromega
12-23-2005, 01:40
"I needed something to pare the fat off my soul, to scare the ***** out of me, to make me grateful, again, for being alive." C. Fletcher
"My own doctgrine of organization is that any body of people coming together for any purpose (what ever it may be) should consist of persons wholly wedded to said purpose and should consist of nobody else.[...] There should be plenty of discussion and disagreement as to the how and the means, but none whatever as to the ends."
Benton McKaye in a letter to Bob Marshal discussing membership for the newly formed Wilderness Society, Dec 12, 1935
my favorite? my signature...gotta live life on one's own terms ;) Sue
justusryans
12-28-2005, 08:19
my favorite? my signature...gotta live life on one's own terms ;) Sue
Kipling kicks ass!!:banana
"Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still. Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much of life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good -- be good for something."
Henry Thoreau in a letter to someone who had praised one of his essays.
[quote=wearyDo not be too moral.[/quote]
when i was 17, this would have shocked me. when i was 27, i would still have disagreed with it. when i was 37, i finally understood what it meant.
i think... maybe 47 will bring yet another level of understanding.
txulrich
12-28-2005, 15:50
There are a multiplicity of methods in which to defur a feline.
Some bring joy when they enter a room, others when leaving.
There's a new surgical procedure. It's called a rectal-craniotomy.
Rain Man
12-28-2005, 16:17
" Do not be too moral. ... Aim above morality. .....
WOW... what an excellent idea! Some do mistake be moral for being good.
Rain:sunMan
.
Just Jeff
12-28-2005, 20:11
Know your own bone
Um...classic. But I think it belongs in the Pocket Rocket thread...
Just Jeff
12-28-2005, 20:13
when i was 17, this would have shocked me. when i was 27, i would still have disagreed with it. when i was 37, i finally understood what it meant.
i think... maybe 47 will bring yet another level of understanding.
Please explain. How do you separate being good from being moral?
(Funny...I'm 29 and I disagree with it, but it doesn't shock me. And I don't understand it.)
Rain Man
12-28-2005, 20:37
Please explain. How do you separate being good from being moral?
Well, Jesus did it best in the parable of The Good Samaritan.
The Samaritan was good.
The priest and Pharisee who passed by did so because their morals wouldn't let them do unclean (immoral) things like touch blood and they had to hurry on to their holy (moral) duties. In other words, they wery very, very moral, but not good at all.
Rain:sunMan
.
Just Jeff
12-28-2005, 21:50
Sounds like you're saying being good isn't the same as following religious dogma. I can agree with that. But religious does not equal moral.
I'm still not sure how one can be good without being moral, and vice versa (without regard to religion).
...probably a fine point in there between the definition of moral and good, but i think that thoreau meant 'too moral' as 'holier than thou'...
What do you think he meant by "Be not simply good -- be good for something."?
Just Jeff
12-29-2005, 21:03
Thanks for the explanation, Seeker. I don't agree with all of it, but I see what you're saying and agree with most of it. Especially the part about doing something.
"When I can look life in the eyes, grown calm and very coldly wise, life will have given me the truth, and taken in exchange -- my youth."
--Sara Teasdale
Put one foot in front of the other and soon you'll be walking cross the floor. Put one foot in front of the other and soon you'll be walking out the door! You never will get where your going, if you never get up on your feet. Come on there's a good tail wind blowing, a fast walking man is hard to beat!
Put One Foot in Front of the Other from Santa Claus is Coming to Town, by Rankin and Bass.
http://marialsuarez.blogspot.com/2005/12/never-under-estimate-power-of-rankin.html
Dare to find out. - - Emmanuel Kant
Who dares, wins. - - Special Air Service, Great Britain, motto.
When all the dangerous cliffs are fenced off, all the trees that might fall on people are cut down, all of the insects that bite are poisoned ... and all of the grizzlies are dead because they are occasionally dangerous, the wilderness will not be made safe. Rather,
Ooops,
Dare to find out. - - Emmanuel Kant
Who dares, wins. - - Special Air Service, Great Britain, motto.
When all the dangerous cliffs are fenced off, all the trees that might fall on people are cut down, all of the insects that bite are poisoned ... and all of the grizzlies are dead because they are occasionally dangerous, the wilderness will not be made safe. Rather, ‘safety’ will have destroyed the wilderness. - - R. Yorke Edwards (Canadian environmentalist)
A venturesome minority will always be eager to get off on their own ... let them take risks, for Godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches - that is the right and privilege of any free American.
- - 16 Idaho Law Review 407, 420 - 1980.
Nature is not a place to visit, it is home ... - - Gary Snyder
You can't just let nature run wild. - - Walter Hickel, former Governor of Alaska, and former U.S. Secretary of the Interior.
at risk of being too simplistic, there's protestant 'grace' and catholic 'works'... some are fervently on only one side of the issue... i think it's a combination of both... IMHO, you can't do just one without the other... and i think that's part of what Thoreau was saying... also, don't JUST sit there and pray and fast and be holy. get up afterwards and DO something about it.... sort of along the lines of 'god helps those that help themselves' (even though that supposedly not in the bible. i've never found it anyway.) you were either praying to praise, ask for help, or thank god for something. i think there's a 4th kind, but i can't remember it offhand... oh. maybe just to 'talk' to god. in any case, especially in the case of asking or thanking, you can go try to help someone or help yourself, as the 'action' component of the prayer. makes it sense?
What you are referring to is a quote in the Bible:
"Faith, without works, is dead"
Can't find the reference right now, maybe someone else knows chapter and verse.
Jack Tarlin
01-01-2006, 13:29
James, 2:26.
partly cloudy
01-06-2006, 22:20
"More is accomplished with confidence, than with aquired knowledge"
Author ????
"If you're resting you're rusting"
My dad would always tell me this on Saturday mornings when I wanred to sleep in.
Just Jeff
01-13-2006, 13:47
Almost. :)