posted August 26, 2008 11:08 AM            

~ Alexandra to Nicholas III

Never close your lips to those whom you have opened your heart.

~Charles Dickens

True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.
~François de La Rochefoucauld

The fire which enlightens is the same fire which consumes.

~Henri Frédéric Amiel

She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.

Oscar Wilde

Do they still call it infatuation? That magic ax that chops away the world in one blow, leaving only the couple standing there trembling? Whatever they call it, it leaps over anything, takes the biggest chair, the largest slice, rules the ground wherever it walks, from a mansion to a swamp, and its selfishness is its beauty.... People with no imagination feed it with sex -- the clown of love. They don't know the real kinds, the better kinds, where losses are cut and everybody benefits. It takes a certain intelligence to love like that -- softly, without props.

TONI MORRISON

posted August 26, 2008 11:42 AM            

Do not suppress it - that would hurt you inside. Do not express it - this would not only hurt you inside, it would cause ripples in your surroundings. What you do is transform it.

~Peace Pilgrim

Destiny is what you are supposed to do in life. Fate is what kicks you in the ass to do it.

~ Henry Miller

posted August 28, 2008 01:56 PM              

Javier V. Maldonado

posted August 31, 2008 03:47 AM              

"The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable,
for the happy impute all their success to prudence and merit.”

posted August 31, 2008 11:24 AM              

A few more I've been working on lately:

Man would sooner pursue a maid than possess a queen;
for a maid pursued is desired, but a queen possessed disappoints.

A godless man doubts the existence of god as a loveless man doubts the existence of love.

The character of a man's mind is not dependent on the composition of his bodily organs,
nor is the health of his body governed by the operations of his mind;
but there is one being on whom all things depend.

The mind is a reflection of the body, but the body is equally a reflection of the mind.
The movement of one does not cause the other to move, though their movements correspond.
At bottom, there is only one movement; one mind; one body; and one cause.
The wise have called it God, or refused to call it by name.

Neither great fortune nor great misfortune best reveals the character of a man;
only the condition of one or the other extreme is required.

If a man has not known great fortune, he cannot know great misfortune; and the reverse is equally true.
So it is that, in the days of misfortune, we are mindful of the good fortune of our former days,
and in the midst of present fortune, we discover our unfortuneate past.

posted August 31, 2008 12:28 PM              

Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or AEneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.

When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words; for whoever is a master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers have only one set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in, and these are always ready at the mouth. So people come faster out of a church when it is almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door.

One argument used to the disadvantage of Providence I take to be a very strong one in its defence. It is objected that storms and tempests, unfruitful seasons, serpents, spiders, flies, and other noxious or troublesome animals, with many more instances of the like kind, discover an imperfection in nature, because human life would be much easier without them; but the design of Providence may clearly be perceived in this proceeding. The motions of the sun and moon — in short, the whole system of the universe, as far as philosophers have been able to discover and observe, are in the utmost degree of regularity and perfection; but wherever God hath left to man the power of interposing a remedy by thought or labour, there he hath placed things in a state of imperfection, on purpose to stir up human industry, without which life would stagnate, or, indeed, rather, could not subsist at all.

I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves;
like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.

I knew three great Ministers, who could exactly compute and settle the accounts of a kingdom, but were wholly ignorant of their own economy.

That was excellently observed, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.

posted August 31, 2008 03:43 PM              

~ Valerian

posted August 31, 2008 04:31 PM            

The growth of intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humor. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third—before long the best lines cancel out—and the secret is exposed at last; the planes of the pictures have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture. We must be satisfied with hoping that such fatuous accounts of ourselves as we make to our wives and children and business associates are accepted as true."

posted August 31, 2008 08:50 PM              

Talking Heads

posted August 31, 2008 08:51 PM              

Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round
I feel numb - born with a weak heart
(So I) guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground
Head in the sky
It's ok I know nothing's wrong . . nothing

Hi yo I got plenty of time
Hi yo you got light in your eyes
And you're standing here beside me
I love the passing of time
Never for money
Always for love
Cover up + say goodnight . . . say goodnight

Home - is where I want to be
But I guess I'm already there
I come home - -she lifted up her wings
Guess that this must be the place
I can't tell one from another
Did I find you, or you find me?
There was a time Before we were born
If someone asks, this where I'll be . . . where I'll be

posted September 01, 2008 09:38 AM            

I'm pretty sure at one time or another all of us have exceedingly tried to illuminate our sharpness or other postive attributes..then slowly the layers come off to expose who we really are..sometimes it is wondrous to see the real person..sometimes naught...

posted September 01, 2008 10:00 AM              

All men are so inherently flawed, that we must look to their strongest qualities, if we are to form a sympathetic estimation of their worth.
What Shakespeare lacked, a fool could have provided, but Shakespeare is still Shakespeare, and a fool is still a fool.

posted September 01, 2008 11:54 AM            

A couple I came across....

When I glow

When I glow

You must shine

When I flow

You must be laved

When you sigh

You draw my heart, God's heart into yourself.

When you weep for me

I take you in my arms

But when you love

We two shall be as one.

When we are one at last, then none

Can ever make us part again

Unending, wishless rapture

Shall dwell between us twain.

-Mechthild of Magdeburg (1210-1285)

There is a divine world of light
with many suns in the sky.
I slept with my Lord one night,
now all that is luminous
I know we conceived.

~Love poems from God: Twelve sacred voices from the East and West.