POINTS TO PONDER  CXXXVII

Thomas Jefferson, penner of the immortal words, "all men are created equal" had over 600 slaves in his lifetime, and did not free them in his will - as many other slaveholders did. This inescapable irony can be understood, like so many other injustices, in the context of its time. But it is also also interesting to consider that in justifying breaking away from British rule, Jefferson's concept of the equality of men was not about slaves - but about the rejection of the idea of hereditary royalty. 

 

POINTS TO PONDER CXXXVI

There is nothing like opening the mailbox and finding a handmade card amongst the junk mail and bills. The convenience of the Internet and cell phones has made stumbling on such a treasure a rarity ..... Handmade messages are cherished.

Heidi Boyd   

POINTS TO PONDER CXXXV 

One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour. 

Willa Cather

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The habit of looking into the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.

Bertrand Russell

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Wealth is not without its advantages, and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive.

John Kenneth Galbraith 

POINTS TO PONDER CXXXIV

Laughter is man's most distinctive emotional expression. Man shares the capacity for love and hate, anger and fear, loyalty and grief with other living creatures. But humor, which has an intellectual as well as an emotional element, belongs only to man.

Margaret Mead  

POINTS TO PONDER CXXXIII

No vessel can compare in romantic interest and patriotic reverence with the properly accorded fame of the "Mayflower". Her name is linked with the fundamentals of American democratic institutions. She was the wave-rocked cradle of our liberties.

Henry B. Culver

The Book of Old Ships  

POINTS TO PONDER CXXXII

Americans have always attached particular importance to the word neighbor. While the spirit of neighborliness was important on the frontier just because neighbors were so few, it is even more important now because neighbors are so many.

Lady Bird Johnson

(On) Being a Good Neighbor

 

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A pin whose sharp point is enclosed in a covering may seem the most mundane of items, but it is actually a remarkable piece of design. Safety pins are fashioned inexpensively from a single piece of wire to create a spring, hinge, point, and clasp.

 

Clive Gifford

Great Inventions (We Take for Granted) 

POINTS TO PONDER CXXXI

People have asked why I don't put people into my pictures of the natural scene. I respond, "There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer."

Ansel Adams

 

Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

Abraham Lincoln

 

Advice is like the snow. The softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon and the deeper it sinks into the mind.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge  

POINTS TO PONDER CXXX

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. The slogan, "Press On", has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. 

Calvin Coolidge  

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When Cyrus McCormick invented his reaper, he invented along with it a concept that would become even more widespread and have more of an influence on the average American - the installment plan, a revolutionary idea for selling the machine to farmers.

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts 

  

POINTS TO PONDER CXXIX

Beginnings are usually scary and endings are usually sad, but it's the middle that counts. You have to remember this when you find yourself at the beginning. 

Sandra Bullock

 

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It may be popular to point out that the sun is merely one star among a myriad of stars, and perhaps merely an average one, but it is nonetheless supremely important to everyone on earth.

Author Unknown 

 

POINTS TO PONDER CXXVIII

The most important thing about music is what happens when it stops - what remains with the listener, what they take away - a melody, some rhythm, some understanding of another person or another culture. The way those experiences add up, in the soul of a person over the years, is the biggest prize classical music possesses. 

Michael Tilson Thomas  

POINTS TO PONDER CXXVII

As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him. Therefore, you cannot soar as you otherwise might.

Marian Anderson

 

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When, if ever, will the voting records of congressmen be followed as carefully as the batting averages of baseball players?

Author Unknown 

POINTS TO PONDER CXXVI

Successful bosses are those who take a little more than their share of the blame when things go wrong and a little less credit when things go right.

Author Unknown

 

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The ultimate test of a man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks he will never hear.

Gaylord Nelson  

POINTS TO PONDER CXXV

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not a conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.  

Vaclav Havel

 

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When it comes to secrets, nobody will keep the thing he hears to himself; and nobody will repeat just what he hears and not more.

Seneca  

POINTS TO PONDER CXXIV

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

Author Unknown

 

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The basic characteristics of any good investigator are a plodding nature and infinite patience. Society has inadvertently been grooming women to this end for years.

Sue Grafton  

POINTS TO PONDER CXXIII

I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.

Napoleon Bonaparte  

 

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To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others.

Pope John Paul II 

  

  

 

 

POINTS TO PONDER CXXII

For most of humanity, youngest and only children excepted, it's the first great bewilderment, the first shocking lesson in the difference between wishes and reality. It gives proof to the axiom, "Be careful what you wish for." It is the arrival of the younger sibling.

Beth Gutcheon

The Dispossessed 

POINTS TO PONDER CXXI

One of my greatest pleasures in writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the saddening realization that such people rarely read.

John Kenneth Galbraith

A LIFE IN OUR TIMES 

POINTS TO PONDER CXX 

The scents that Cleopatra enjoyed are still enjoyed today. The very materials that were once held in the bottles and flasks of antiquity are still part of modern perfumery.

Edwin T. Morris

Scents of Time 

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The two biggest sellers in any bookstore are the cookbooks and the diet books. The cookbooks tell you how to prepare the food, and the diet books tell you how not to eat any of it.

Andy Rooney 

POINTS TO PONDER CXIX

If there is a truly American food  - one that hasn't been borrowed from another culture's culinary tradition and transformed - then the peanut butter and jelly sandwich is probably it. The average American eats three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches a month. 

Linda Rodriguez McRobbie

PB&J:An American Love Story

Saturday Evening Post

September/October, 2023 

POINTS TO PONDER CXVIII

Word games may seem trivial, but they reflect some truths about humanity. The same impulse which drives poets, playwrights, and artists also moves us to play with words.

Tony Augarde

(The Oxford Guide Word Games)    

 

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There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.

Henri Matisse 

 

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Today, when you throw out a musical birthday card, you are tossing away more computer power than existed in the entire world fifty years ago.

Author Unknown