Ruminations
OF THE DAY
July 22, 2024
QUOTE
There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.
BIRTHDAYS
1925 – Joseph Sargent, Actor, director, and producer
1934 – Louise Fletcher, Actress
1947 – Albert Brooks, Actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter
1947 – Don Henley, Singer-songwriter and drummer
1955 – Willem Dafoe, Actor
1964 – David Spade, Actor, producer, and screenwriter
IN MEMORY
1832 – Napoleon II, French emperor
1934 – John Dillinger, Gangster
1967 – Carl Sandburg, Poet and historian
2008 – Estelle Getty, Actress
ON THIS DAY
1598 – William Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice, is entered on the Stationers’ Register. By decree of Queen Elizabeth, the Stationers’ Register licensed printed works, giving the Crown tight control over all published material.
1793 – Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Pacific Ocean becoming the first recorded human to complete a transcontinental crossing of North America.
1893 – Katharine Lee Bates writes “America the Beautiful” after admiring the view from the top of Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs, Colorado.
1894 – The first ever motor race is held in France between the cities of Paris and Rouen.
1937 – The United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.
OF THE DAY ARCHIVE
November 6, 2022
QUOTE
The one fact pertaining to all conditions is that they will change.
November 4, 2022
QUOTE
People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe.
November 2, 2022
QUOTE
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
The longer I live, the more convinced am I that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum.
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.
Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world.
This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
November 1, 2022
QUOTE
Money can buy you a fine dog, but only love can make him wag his tail.
Poly means more than one, and ticks are bloodsucking parasites.
Musicians can run this state better than politicians. We won’t get a lot done in the mornings, but we’ll work late and be honest.
Politics is the only field in which the more experience you have, the worse you get.
Well, I just said that Jesus and I were both Jewish and that neither of us ever had a job, we never had a home, we never married and we traveled around the countryside irritating people.
If you’re paranoid long enough, sooner or later you’re gonna be right.
When a stray animal crosses your path, it may be as close to God as you’re going to get in this lifetime.
There’s a fine line between fiction and non-fiction and I think I snorted it somewhere in 1979
God created whiskey to keep the Irish from taking over the world.
October 31, 2022
QUOTE
I lay in the bed at the hospital and said, ‘let’s see what I have left.’ And I could see, I could speak, I could think, I could read. I simply tabulated my blessings, and that gave me a start.
October 28, 2022
QUOTE
A little science estranges a man from God;
a lot of science brings him back.
October 27, 2022
QUOTE
The worst lesson that can be taught to a man is to rely upon others and to whine over his sufferings
All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president.
To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
There is but one answer to terrorism and it is best delivered with a Winchester rifle.
This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.
All from Theodore Roosevelt
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
October 26, 2022
QUOTE
If you are in trouble anywhere in the world, an airplane can fly over and drop flowers, but a helicopter can land and save your life.
According to recognized aero technical tests, the bumblebee cannot fly because of the shape and weight of his body in relation to the total wing area. The bumblebee doesn’t know this, so he goes ahead and flies anyway.
At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation.
Money lost-nothing lost, Health lost-little lost, Spirit lost-everything lost.
