Thursday, February 21, 2013

Stuff from my Computer Screen

People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.  ~Mother Teresa

I've come to trust not that events will unfold exactly as I want, but that I will be fine either way. 
~Marianne Williamson

What if we could do everything confidently? Move forward with courage. Take risks and see your failures as opportunities to learn.

“I used to worry too much, take myself too seriously. I had to learn that perfectionism slows everything down. All it does is keep you motivated by fear.” Anne Hathaway

“There’s something that, growing up, my mom would say to me. And I say it back to her a lot. We’re fairly dramatic people. And we’re prone to very big feelings. So, when those very big feelings sometimes aren’t the most positive thing, we just look at each other, and we say, ‘Choose joy.’” Anne Hathaway

Dear daughters of God, you are the crown jewels of all of His creations. There has never been a sunset, symphony, or work of art as lovely as you. May you catch the vision that you are destined to be a refined and regal queen, honored by an uncountable posterity, worlds without end.
~ Douglas L. Callister

Britain’s Ben Jonson said: “Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see thee.”

“Isn’t it funny the way some combinations of words can give you—almost apart from their meaning—a thrill like music?” CS Lewis

“We need the slower and more lasting stimulus of solitary reading as a relief from the pressure on eye, ear and nerves of the torrent of information and entertainment pouring from ever-open electronic jaws.”

“[Education] has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.”

President David O. McKay was inclined to awaken at 4:00 a.m., skim read up to two books each day, and then commence his labors at 6:00 a.m. He could quote 1,000 poems from memory. We knew that whenever he stood at the pulpit. He referred to the grand masters of literature as the “minor prophets.”

As with companions so with books. We may choose those which will make us better, more intelligent, more appreciative of the good and the beautiful in the world, or we may choose the trashy, the vulgar, the obscene, which will make us feel as though we’ve been “wallowing in the mire.” David O. Mckay

If we know the books located at the bedside, we know much about the man.

An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only. CS Lewis

I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once. CS Lewis


Clearly one must read every good book at least once every ten years. CS Lewis

The sure mark of an unliterary man is that he considers “I’ve read it already” to be a conclusive argument against reading a work. . . . Those who read great works, on the other hand, will read the same work ten, twenty or thirty times during the course of their life. CS Lewis

I once had opportunity to visit briefly with Audrey Hepburn, the great actress of days gone by, at the time she was making the movie My Fair Lady. She spoke of the opening scene in the movie in which she depicted a modest, unpolished flower girl. Her face had been besmirched with charcoal to make her seem part of her surroundings. “But,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye, “I was wearing my Chanel perfume. Inside I still knew I was a lady.”
~Douglas Callister

"We are not what We Were Called"



Monday, February 18, 2013

Some Failure in Life is Inevitable

‎"Some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all... The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned."

 -J.K. Rowling at a Harvard Commencement Speech.

To Love is to be Vulnerable

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Why We Need Stories

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.
 
Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. 


Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam? 


Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.


~JRR Tolkien

More from the Middle

I have decided it is time to move forward with my education.  I am looking into getting a PhD.  I wouldn't start until August 2014 but it give me a little over a year to apply and take the GRE.  It is time to leave English but not to leave teaching.