If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. -- Benjamin Franklin

Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom. -Theodore Rubin, psychiatrist and writer (1923- )

Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted. (Groucho)

We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

You have a pm

Barry Lopez:

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

"There's always a rainbow :::bomp! bomp! bomp!::: at the end of every rain..." o(+>

"I don't want the cheese. I just want to get out of the trap."

Have I posted this one already?

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

There is none so blind as they that won't see.--Jonathan Swift

Today's quote is dedicated to our very own Urbane Guerrilla, from whose froth'd lips dripped this gem:

This is a bit longish, but poignant, I think:

What did I want?

I wanted a Roc's egg. I wanted a harem loaded with lovely odalisques less than the dust beneath my chariot wheels, the rust that never stained my sword. I wanted raw red gold in nuggets the size of your fist and feed that lousy claim jumper to the huskies! I wanted to get up feeling brisk and go out and break some lances, then pick a likely wench for my droit du seigneur -- I wanted to stand up to the Baron and dare him to touch my wench! I wanted to hear the purple water chuckling against the skin of the Nancy Lee in the cool of the morning watch and not another sound, nor any movement save the slow tilting of the wings of the albatross that had been pacing us the last thousand miles.

I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, "The game's afoot!" I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in the company of the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin.

I wanted Prester John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the Lotus in a land where it always seems afternoon. I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be -- instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is.

Robert A. Heinlein Glory Road

"There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there are a lot of stupid answers."

"No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help another"

"I drank what!?" Socrates

There's no money above the fifth fret.
-- Mick Donner