Kaleidoscope

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”

                   - Thanks to John F Kennedy

Thanks to thinkexist.com for the online quote and to wikipedia for the image

There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men:  time.  Napoleon I, Maxims, 1815

Thanks to the author and to www.quotegarden.com

Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.

                               - Thanks to William Shakespeare

Thanks to Wikipedia for the image and to www.thinkexist.com for the online quote.

I'm working to improve my methods, and every hour I save is an hour added to my life. - Ayn Rand

Patience and perseverance, if we have them, overcome mountains of difficulties.    

Tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and to www.mkgandhi.org

I AM not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist. The religion of non-violence is not meant merely for the rishis and saints. It is meant for the common people as well. Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law-to the strength of the spirit.

           - Tribute to Gandhi and to www.mkgandhi.org

Mary Oliver's poems are always simple for me to read, understand and cherish. I like 'A visitor' a lot for its simplicity in expressing the need for utilizing the time. My heart felt thanks to Mary for her works. Thanks to www.english.uiuc.edu for the online version of this poem.

A  Visitor

My father, for example, 
who was young once
and blue-eyed, 
returns
on the darkest of nights
to the porch and knocks
wildly at the door, 
and if I answer
I must be prepared
for his waxy face, 
for his lower lip
swollen with bitterness. 
And so, for a long time, 
I did not answer, 
but slept fitfully
between his hours of rapping. 
But finally there came the night
when I rose out of my sheets
and stumbled down the hall. 
The door fell open

and I knew I was saved 
and could bear him, 
pathetic and hollow, 
with even the least of his dreams
frozen inside him, 
and the meanness gone. 
And I greeted him and asked him
into the house, 
and lit the lamp, 
and looked into his blank eyes
in which at last
I saw what a child must love, 
I saw what love might have done
had we loved in time.

"We must each lead a way of life with self-awareness and compassion to do as much as we can.  Then, whatever happens, we will have no regrets." 

-14th Dalai Lama

I was wondering what Rumi implied by the baby's forgetfulness of the wet nurse. This is a wonderful poem by Rumi that helps to provoke our thinking. 

A Star Without a Name

When a baby is taken from the wet nurse,

it easily forgets her

and starts eating solid food.

Seeds feed awhile on ground,

then lift up into the sun.

So you should taste the filtered light

and work your way toward wisdom

with no personal covering.

That's how you came here, like a star

without a name.  Move across the night sky

with those anonymous lights.

Thanks to www.armory.com and to Coleman Barks Maypop for the translation.

He who knows others is learned; he who knows himself is wise.

                        Thanks to Lao Tze and to http://quotations.about.com

This is a beautiful poem by Rumi. Thanks to Rumi and to www.poetseers.org. What came to my mind first was that the idea of the beloved is all, then I realized how the Beloved is all and is a living thing. That is left to your imagination as well! Enjoy reading the poem. Thanks to www.wikipedia.org for the image of Rose.

When the rose is gone and the garden faded
you will no longer hear the nightingale's song.
The Beloved is all; the lover just a veil. 
The Beloved is living; the lover a dead thing.
If love withholds its strengthening care,
the lover is left like a bird without care,
the lover is left like a bird without wings.
How will I be awake and aware
if the light of the Beloved is absent?
Love wills that this Word be brought forth

There can be no friendship between cowards, or cowards and brave men.  

 - Tribute to Mahatma Gandhiji for the quote and to www.mkgandhi.org for making Gandhiji's work so easily available.

 An Irish Airman forsees his death

This is a simple & eloquent poem by W.B.Yeats. Tribute to Yeats for his work and thanks to www.poetseers.com for the online version.

Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.

           - Tribute to Alan Cohen and Thanks to www.wisdomquotes.com. Thanks to Wikipedia for the 'Lion' photo.

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