quotation: W. Somerset Maugham: “In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city…”

In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) Discuss

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quotation: Plato

He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

Plato (427 BC–347 BC) Discuss

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Just a thought: “Give wars a chance….Do not resuscitate!”

Quotation: Henry David Thoreau about being “men first, and subjects afterwards”!

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Discuss

 

Just a thought: Privatize Justice? (What a 5,000 years old concept, in the 21 Century!)

 

Quotation: George Eliot on communicating feelings

Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings.

George Eliot (1819-1880) Discuss

 

Quotation: Henry David Thoreau about Unjust laws

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Discuss

 

Quotation: Ralph Waldo Emerson on revolution

Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Discus

This Day in the Yesteryear: FIRST SUCCESSFUL TRIAL RUN OF A STEAMBOAT (1787)

First Successful Trial Run of a Steamboat (1787)

John Fitch was a man plagued by misfortune. His first foundry was a failure and his second was destroyed in the American Revolution. During a short-lived career as a surveyor in the early 1780s, he was captured by Native Americans. His luck finally seemed to turn around in 1786, when he built the first steamboat in the US, and in 1787, when he demonstrated his aptly named Perseverance on the Delaware River for an audience from the Constitutional Convention. Was his good fortune to last? More… Discuss

 

Quotation: Henry Fielding on corruption

We are as liable to be corrupted by our books as by our companions.

Henry Fielding (1707-1754) Discuss

Quotation: Henry David Thoreau about a better govenment

To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Discuss

Quotation: Ralph Waldo Emerson on imitation

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that … imitation is suicide.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Discuss

HEDWIG ELIZABETH CHARLOTTE OF HOLSTEIN-GOTTORP

Hedwig is perhaps best remembered for her diary, which chronicled her life in the Swedish royal court. In 1774, when she was 15 years old, she married her cousin, the future King Charles XIII. The marriage was arranged by Charles’s older brother, King Gustav III, who hoped the union would ensure the continuation of his family’s power. It did not work. Habitually unfaithful, Charles died childless. Hedwig also engaged in affairs—including with the alleged lover of what other queen? More… Discuss

Quotation: Mahatma Gandhi I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.”

“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:

– I shall not fear anyone on Earth. 
– I shall fear only God. 
– I shall not bear ill will toward anyone. 
– I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. 
– I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

Description:
During his stay in England in 1931, when the Columbia Gramophone Company requested him to make a record for them, Gandhi pleaded his inability to speak politics, and added that, at the age of sixtytwo, he could make his first and last record which should, if wanted, make his voice heard for all time. Confessing his anxiety to speak on the spiritual matters, on October 20, 1931 he read out his old article “On God”.

Text:
http://www.gandhiserve.org/informatio…

Clip id: spiritual_message_2.mp4

Courtesy: GandhiServe Foundation — Mahatma Gandhi Research and Media Service, http://www.gandhiserve.org 

For personal, institutional and commercial use contact: media@gandhimail.org

 

Henry David Thoreau

Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Discuss

Quotation: Anna Sewell on ignorance and wickedness

Only ignorance! Only ignorance! How can you talk about only ignorance? Don’t you know that it is the worst thing in the world, next to wickedness?

Anna Sewell (1820-1878) Discuss

SABIHA GÖKÇEN, FIRST FEMALE COMBAT PILOT

When Gökçen was 10 years old, Turkey became a republic. As it Westernized during the presidency of her adoptive father, Kemal Atatürk, Turkish women gained more freedom, securing the right to vote in 1934. A year later, Gökçen enrolled in the Türkkusu Flight School as its first female pupil. After attending the Air Force Academy, she became the first female combat pilot. While with the Turkish Air Force, she logged some 8,000 flight hours, including combat missions. Why had Atatürk adopted her?More… Discuss

 

Today’s Birthday: P. T. BARNUM (1810)

P. T. Barnum (1810)

Barnum may be best known for the circus he formed with James Bailey in 1881, but this took place late in his life and was neither his first, nor sole, line of work. The splashy showman was also an author and, oddly enough, a politician. Yes, the man who may have said “There’s a sucker born every minute” was elected to office—more than once. Apparently fond of seeing his name in print, Barnum published his autobiography in 1855 and even got a newspaper to oblige him in what way before his death?More… Discuss

 

Quotation: Eleanor H. Porter on encouragement

What men and women need is encouragement … Instead of always harping on a man’s faults, tell him of his virtues … The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town.

Eleanor H. Porter (1868-1920) Discuss

Quotation: Virginia Woolf on independence and marriage

Well, I really don’t advise a woman who wants to have things her own way to get married.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) Discuss

Today’s Birthday: WALLIS SIMPSON (1896)

Wallis Simpson (1896)

Simpson was an American socialite for whom English King Edward VIII voluntarily abdicated the throne. Their relationship caused a furor in England because the Church of England at the time did not allow people with living ex-spouses to marry, and, as king, Edward was also head of the church. Simpson’s two ex-husbands were still alive when she married Edward on June 3, 1937, just six months after he relinquished his title. How did Wallis and Edward spend the rest of their lives together? More… Discuss

 

BBC Proms 2010 – Bach Day 4 – The Wise Virgins part 1 and 2

Part 1 of William Walton‘s arrangement of Bach pieces which form his ballet The Wise Virgins. The pieces are:

Mvt. 1: What God hath done is rightly done – Cantata BWV 99 Opening Chorus – Vivace assai
Mvt. 2: Lord, hear my longing – BWV 727 Chorale Prelude – Adagio
Mvt. 3: See, what his love can do – Cantata BWV 85/Mvt. 5 – Tranquillo
Mvt. 4: Ah! How ephemeral – Cantata BWV 26 Opening Chorus – Vivace

Performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton on 14th august 2010 at the Royal Albert Hall.

 

Quotation: On “envy”

Envy is ignorance.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

 

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”    

Winston Churchill

“Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.”

Bertrand Russell 1907 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Bertrand Russell

Quotation: Joseph Conrad

Let a fool be made serviceable according to his folly.

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) Discuss

This Day in the Yesteryear: FORMER SLAVE ISABELLA BAUMFREE BECOMES SOJOURNER TRUTH (1843)

Former Slave Isabella Baumfree Becomes Sojourner Truth (1843)

Born into slavery in New York, Baumfree had four different masters before escaping with her infant daughter in 1826, one year before the state abolished slavery. She traveled and championed abolition, changing her name in 1843. Her dictated memoirs were published as The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave. In 1851, she delivered what is now known as the “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at the Women’s Rights Convention. How did the first report of the speech differ from later accounts? More… Discuss

 

Mark Twain’s “Satan’s Letter”

From “Letters From The Earth” by Mark Twain

This is a strange place, and extraordinary place, and interesting. There is nothing resembling it at home. The people are all insane, the other animals are all insane, the earth is insane, Nature itself is insane. Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at is worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the “noblest work of God.” This is the truth I am telling you. And this is not a new idea with him, he has talked it through all the ages, and believed it. Believed it, and found nobody among all his race to laugh at it.

Moreover — if I may put another strain upon you — he thinks he is the Creator‘s pet. He believes the Creator is proud of him; he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes, and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to Him, and thinks He listens. Isn’t it a quaint idea? Fills his prayers with crude and bald and florid flatteries of Him, and thinks He sits and purrs over these extravagancies and enjoys them. He prays for help, and favor, and protection, every day; and does it with hopefulness and confidence, too, although no prayer of his has ever been answered. The daily affront, the daily defeat, do not discourage him, he goes on praying just the same. There is something almost fine about this perseverance. I must put one more strain upon you: he thinks he is going to heaven!

He has salaried teachers who tell him that. They also tell him there is a hell, of everlasting fire, and that he will go to it if he doesn’t keep the Commandments. What are Commandments? They are a curiosity. I will tell you about them by and by.

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Quotation: Rabindranath Tagore on Idols and God

“Your idol is shattered in the dust to prove that God’s dust is greater than your idol.”

Quotation: HENRY DAVID THOREAU on the way we fail to treat each other appropriately (tenderly).

1967 U.S. postage stamp honoring Henry David Thoreau. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Discuss

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Jacques Urlus, 1916 – Still wie die Nacht op 326 – Carl Bohm

Published on May 1, 2013

Carl Bohm 
(* 11. September 1844; † 4. April 1920; andere Namen: Charles Bohm, Henry Cooper [Pseudonym], Karl Bohm) war ein deutscher Komponist.

“Still wie die Nacht” 
(op. 326 Nr. 27)

Jacques Urlus 
(6. Januar 1867 in Hergenrath bei Aachen; † 6. Juni 1935 in Noordwijk, Niederlande)

Aufnahme 18. April 1916

Today’s Birthday: RABINDRANATH TAGORE (1861) a Bengali poet, philosopher, artist and composer (a Renaissance Man)

Rabindranath Tagore (1861)

Tagore was a Bengali poet, philosopher, artist, writer, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His writings, which often exhibit rhythmic lyricism, colloquial language, and philosophical contemplation, received worldwide acclaim. He became Asia’s first Nobel laureate when he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Knighted by the British government in 1915, Tagore resigned the honor four years later in protest of what? More… Discuss

Brink Of Eternity by Rabindranath Tagore

In desperate hope I go and search for her 
in all the corners of my room; 
I find her not. 

My house is small 
and what once has gone from it can never be regained. 

But infinite is thy mansion, my lord, 
and seeking her I have to come to thy door. 

I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky 
and I lift my eager eyes to thy face. 

I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish 
—no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears. 

Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean, 
plunge it into the deepest fullness. 
Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch 
in the allness of the universe.

Published on Feb 14, 2013
A poem that bridges the seeking of a beloved person to the finding of God and the immersion into eternity. I am awestruck by this poem. Poem read by Owi Nandi.

Henry David Thoreau on the trade is always between attachments (what keeps one busy, keeps one in bondage!)

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Discuss

“What keeps one busy, keeps one in bondage!”

George-B

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Quotation: George Eliot on coexistence and cooperation

We are children of a large family, and must learn, as such children do, not to expect that our hurts will be made much of—to be content with little nurture and caressing, and help each other the more.

George Eliot (1819-1880) Discuss

Quotation: Sir Walter Scott on freedom! (but also asking what he should do with it after having it…indeed a hard decision to make…There was no blogging back when…)

I have heard men talk of the blessings of freedom, … but I wish any wise man would teach me what use to make of it now that I have it.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) Discuss

“I Think, Therefore…I Am”: “He who trust no one, trust not oneself”

“He who trust no one, trust not oneself”

Quotation: John Bradshaw: “A Wall or a Bridge!” (You will find peace not in denial, but in victory) – I love that!

John Bradshaw was tagged in Uxma Javaid B‘s photo.

“Self-acceptance comes from meeting life’s challenges vigorously. Don’t numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build mental walls to exclude pain from your life. You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory.”