Rooting for orneriness.....

"In this century it seems to me that we need not just 'well-adjusted,' 'well-balanced' personalities, not just better groupers and conformers......but more idiosyncratic, unpredictable characters (that rugged frontier word, 'ornery,' occurs to me):  people who take open eyes and open minds out with them into the society they will share and help to transform."
-Adlai E, Stevenson

Hmmmmmmmmm..........

The art of living..............

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.”
- L.P Jack


from the swissmiss blog

More than anything, what we really need now.....

........................... is some more of Soupy Sales

(well, if you really want more, try here, here, and especially here)

Inside out.....................

"Whatever  you're looking for must first be found within you, whether it be peace, happiness, riches or great accomplishments.  Everything we do outwardly is only an expression of what we are inwardly.  To ask for anything else is as absurd as looking for apples on an oak tree."
-Earl Nightingale

...better left undone....

As you educate yourself about your own talent and ambitions, you graduate from doing a task right to doing the right task.  It takes some experience to realize that a lot of work is better left undone.  It might be busywork that is performed out of habit, or it might be work that is heading in the wrong direction.  Working smart means making sure you are spending time on jobs that are effective and that actually need to be done.
-Kevin Kelly

Opening paragraphs.................

The Russian colonel stepped out of the shadows slowly and carefully, even though he had seen and recognized the signal.  All meetings with his British controller were dangerous and had to be avoided if possible.  But this one he had asked for himself.  He had things to say, to demand, that could not be put in a message in a dead-letter box.  A loose sheet of metal on the roof of a shed down the railway line flapped and creaked in a puff of predawn May wind of that year, 1983.  He turned, established the source of the noise, and stared again at the patch of darkness near the locomotive turntable.


-Frederick Forsyth,  The Deceiver

The original instructor............

Close observation of a single subject, whether it is as small as Pasteur's microbes or as great as Einstein's universe, is the kind of work that happens less and less these days.  Glued to computer and TV screens, we have forgotten how to look at the natural world, the original instructor on how to be curious about detail.
-Jennifer New
as excerpted from How To Be An Explorer of the World

photo courtesy of mmescherzo

Principle............

"Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
-George Washington, from his Farewell Address  

About prestige.................

The Brain Pickings blog offers some insight on how to "find your purpose 
and do what you love".  Full read-worthy post is here.  Quick excerpt on 
the importance of avoiding the prestige trap is here:


"Prestige is especially dangerous to the ambitious. If you want to make 
ambitious people waste their time on errands, the way to do it is to bait 
the hook with prestige. That’s the recipe for getting people to give talks, 
write forewords, serve on committees, be department heads, and so on. 
It might be a good rule simply to avoid any prestigious task. If it didn’t 
suck, they wouldn’t have had to make it prestigious.”

A new habit?

Seth Godin proposes some changes to ponder....

Whims and fancies..............

     Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.  Their whims, fancies, and ambitions are thwarted at every step, but their inmost thoughts and desires are fed with their own food, be it foul or clean.  The "divinity that shapes our ends" is in ourselves; it is our very self.  Man is manacled only by himself:  thought and action are the jailers of Fate - they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of Freedom - they liberate, being noble.
-James Allen, As A Man Thinketh

Opening paragraphs...............

A purple ocean, vast under the sky and devoid of all visible life apart from two minute ships racing across its immensity.  They were as close-hauled to the somewhat irregular north-east trades as ever they could be, with every sail they could safely carry and even more, their bowlines twanging taut:  they had been running like this day after day, sometimes so far apart that each saw only the other's topsails above the horizon, sometimes within gunshot; and when this was the case they fired at one another with their chasers.
-Patrick O'Brian,  The Wine-Dark Sea

"When you come...............

............to the fork in the road, take it."   -Yogi Berra

thanks jonco

On risk avoidance.............

February 29th.........

Happy 22nd, Mom............

For more about Leap Year...........

for a more readable format, please visit CheapSally.com

Books and covers.....................

From the Business Wisdom blog:

Opening paragraphs............

Marriage was once represented as a field of battle rather than a bed of roses, and perhaps there are many who may still support this view; but just as Dr Maturin had made a far more unsuitable match than most, so he set about dealing with the situation in a far more compendious, peaceable and efficacious way than the great majority of husbands.
-Patrick O'Brian, The Ionian Mission