Kaleidoscope

“Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though t'were his own.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 

The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs. 

- Thanks to Joan Didion and to www.quotegarden.com

"Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.”

                                               - Thanks to Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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

Life is just a chance to grow a soul.

 - Thanks to A. Powell Davies and to www.wisdomquotes.com

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.- Thanks to John W.Gardner

Thanks to www.wisdomquotes.com for the online version of the quote and to http://en.wikipedia.org for the photo of John W.Gardner.

Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will - his personal responsibility. - Albert Einstein

Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.-Thanks to Aristotle

Thanks to http://quotations.about.com for the online version

      “What do you first do when you learn to swim? You make mistakes, do you not? And what happens? You make other mistakes, and when you have made all the mistakes you possibly can without drowning - and some of them many times over - what do you find? That you can swim? Well - life is just the same as learning to swim! Do not be afraid of making mistakes, for there is no other way of learning how to live!” - Thanks to Alfred Adler

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

One of the best poems I have ever read; Thanks to Mary Oliver. Thanks to www.poetseers.org for the online version.

The Sun

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

The below is a beautiful piece of work from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Often I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
And my youth comes back to me.
And a verse of a Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
And catch, in sudden gleams,
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all my boyish dreams.
And the burden of that old song,
It murmurs and whispers still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the black wharves and the slips,
And the sea-tides tossing free;
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.
And the voice of that wayward song
Is singing and saying still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the bulwarks by the shore,
And the fort upon the hill;
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,
And the bugle wild and shrill.
And the music of that old song
Throbs in my memory still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the sea-fight far away,

How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay
Where they in battle died.
And the sound of that mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the breezy dome of groves,
The shadows of Deering's Woods;
And the friendships old and the early loves
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves
In quiet neighborhoods.
And the verse of that sweet old song,
It flutters and murmurs still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the schoolboy's brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.
And the voice of that fitful song
Sings on, and is never still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.
And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

Strange to me now are the forms I meet
When I visit the dear old town;
But the native air is pure and sweet,
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,
As they balance up and down
Are singing the beautiful song,
Are sighing and whispering still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,
And with joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there,
And among the dreams of the days that were,
I find my lost youth again.
And the strange and beautiful song,
The groves are repeating it still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation ... even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind. - Leonardo Da Vinci.

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

“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.

This is a magnificent poem by Rabindranath Tagore.

Once you gave me...

Once you gave me
as a loan to my eyes
unlimited daylight.
Now, my king, you are staking your claim
to take that back.
I am aware I have to let go of what I owe,
you still announce your shadow
through the evening lamp.
I came only as a guest
to this creation you have fashioned
with your light.
If here and there are left unclaimed
a few pieces, incomplete,
in some unnoticed gaps, let them be,
leave them alone uncared for.
Where your chariot
leaves its last mark
in the finality of dust,
there, let me build my world,
amidst a little light, a little shadow,
some illusion.
Chasing after light,
that is vanishing in the path of shadow,
it may pick up something,
the tiniest fragment that is left,
when my debt to you is finally paid.

“Love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one's own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns, and derives from love.”

               - Thanks to Ayn Rand.

Thanks to wikipedia for Rand's photo and to thinkexist.com for the online version of the quote.

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