Led Zeppelin Thank you

Some lovely quotes.

Gratitude is the sign of noble souls. ~ Aesop

Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present. ~ Albert Camus

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. ~ Mark Twain

The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention. ~ Oscar Wilde

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, be safe and enjoy all the yummy food.  veronicaromm

If you have been at all keeping up with my posts, you probably know that I am very inquisitive. Here are some interesting and witty quotes about questions, as they are so a part of me.

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best – and therefore never scrutinize or question.
~ Stephen Jay Gould

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. ~ Thomas Jefferson

A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions–as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. ~ James Thurber

Judge of a man by his questions rather than by his answers. ~Voltaire

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A prudent question is one-half of wisdom. ~Francis Bacon

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. ~Thomas Paine

To be or not to be that is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take up arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing them, end them. Hamlet~ William Shakespeare

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In examinations, the foolish ask questions the wise cannot answer. ~Oscar Wilde

Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer sex raises some pretty good questions.

~Woody Allen

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Humor is so important to survival. Laughter is actually good for you and those that can find ways to maintain both are lucky when it comes to dealing with life’s many difficulties. It’s importance has been a topic of much discussion and many of the greatest minds both comedic and otherwise have had much to say about it. Here are some choice quotes I found today and wanted to share. Please add your own favorite quotes in the comments if you are so inclined. It’s Friday and I am all about the funny today.

• Someone who makes you laugh is a comedian. Someone who makes you think and then laugh is a humorist. ~George Burns

• I try to offset any tendency towards the macabre with humor. As I see it, this is a typically English form of humor. It’s a piece with such jokes as the one about the man who was being led to the gallows to be hanged. He looked at the trap door in the gallows, which was flimsily constructed, and he asked in some alarm, ‘I say, is that thing safe?’ ~Alfred Hitchcock

• A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place. ~Mark Twain

• Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.~Peter Ustinov

• There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.~Will Rogers

• “Don’t be so humble – you are not that great.” ~Golda Meir (1898-1978) to a visiting diplomat

• “I’m living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.” ~e e cummings

• “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” ~Oscar Wilde

• “God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.~ Voltaire

In the spirit of the holiday season…

“What can be worse than the total agony of being in love?”As spoken by an eleven year old from a line in the film, Love Actually. If you pause for one second and think about it, isn’t love the absolute worst thing ever? I mean it is sheer torture yet it is vital and what we all live for ultimately. Some say it’s not Love but Sex that we do all the work for i.e. Sigmund Freud, but I don’t think he had that one quite figured out.

The absence of love can create the most distressing feelings inside. Sadness, loneliness, the shallow feeling of hating the couple walking hand in hand in front of you on the street. What a nightmare. Yet when in love that couple barely exists for the focus is not on them, but on your own hand in that of your loved ones. Total nonsense I think, turns us into absolute jerks doesn’t it?What is it about love that can have you raging in anger and reeling from joy in the matter of minutes? How is it that we, seemingly rational human beings allow ourselves such beastly behavior? I know its chemical and I know we can’t help it, but why do we put ourselves through it time and again?

Why do we let love in, and then let it ravage us so completely often leaving us in tatters and destroyed? Then as time passes we consciously (or not) do it all over again, risking the same awful result? As adults are we not to learn from our mistakes and not repeat them. When we touch the super hot radiator, don’t we actively avoid it so as not to burn again?

What makes love different? I want to know what you think. I am clearly at a loss because I am responsible for the horrid behavior I speak of. Please share your thoughts with me. Maybe together we can solve this Love thing once and for all? Highly unlikely but worth a shot, no?

End Quote

” Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.”

Albert Einstein

 I am a lover of quotes.  I collect them and dole them out here depending on my mood.  So for today here are the quotes that make me feel like one human living my little life, just as everyone else.  Veronica

• Rene Descartes

• Woody Allen

• Woody Allen

• George Burns

• Bill Cosby

I have been doing a lot of thinking about friendship as of late. It is always in adversity that we learn what people are made of. Here are some choice quotes by influential people who view friendship in a similar way. Whether it is an old friend catching up, or even a new friend on the Internet, friendship just makes life that much sweeter. Thank you for being a friend.

Anaïs Nin:
Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

Ecclesiasticus 6:14:
A faithful friend is a strong defense: and he that hath found such an one hath found a treasure.

Eleanor Roosevelt:
Friendship with oneself is all important because without it one cannot be friends with anybody else in the world.

George Eliot:
Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.

Marcel Proust:
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

When our fore father’s were writing what would become one of the most important and controversial documents framing societal mores so to speak, they obviously believed that “happiness” was an important  factor by including;

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” one of the most famous phrases in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and seen as part of the Bill of Rights, namely, these three aspects are listed among the “inalienable rights” of man.

It seems in this time of political turmoil, an ongoing war in Iraq and the economy stressing out just about everyone, the subject of “happiness” is being discussed and dissected more than ever.  

Time magazine devoted an issue to The New Science of Happiness. 

The British BBC television kicked off a six part series on the subject this week;

“The series looks at the newest research from around the world to find out what could it be that makes us happy.

We all want to be happy but the problem has always been that you can’t measure happiness.

Happiness has always been seen as too vague a concept, as Lord Layard, Professor of Economics at the LSE and author of “Happiness – lessons from a new science” points out.

“There is a problem with the word happiness.

“When you use the word happy, it often has the sort of context of balloons floating up into the sky or something frivolous.”

Now scientists say they can actually measure happiness.

Neuro-scientists are measuring pleasure. They suggest that happiness is more than a vague concept or mood; it is real. “

Clearly “happiness”, it’s meaning and importance differs individually.  The following are some fascinating and revealing quotes about the subject from writer’s, philosophers and other colorful characters I found worth sharing:

•  I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy. ~Franz Kafka

• If only we’d stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.  ~Edith Wharton

• Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys.  If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.  ~Fyodor Dostoevsky 

• This is my “depressed stance.”  When you’re depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand.  The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you’ll start to feel better.  If you’re going to get any joy out of being depressed, you’ve got to stand like this.  ~Charlie Brown

•  You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. ~Camus

• There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.~Carl Jung .

Obviously there are divergent views of the concept of “happiness.”  The song below is my own way of perhaps mocking the idea as well as sharing a great tune.  There is a great deal of controversy over what the song means.  Some claim it represents heroine, others say it refers to homo-erotocism, and a bevy of other theories.  I won’t even pretend to know what was meant by the song, but for me it is one more brilliant contribution from the Beatles both musically and philosophically. 

The Beatles – Happiness is a Warm Gun

It seems to me that we are so busy worrying about “happiness” and attaining it that perhaps we are missing the point all together.  With that said, I want to know what “happiness,” the word or idea mean to you?  Are you happy?  Do you care?  Either way, feel free to share your thoughts, I look forward to exploring this further and maybe even learning something about myself in the process.  Have a “happy” day.

Copyright ©2008 Veronica Romm

This is a compilation of views from some of the greatest artists on art itself. They not only created beautiful masterpieces, but tried to understand their role in the process. Their views vary, some are spiritual about their work, others are ambivalent, and others are emotional. The common thread is that living life and art are vital to the artist. How ironic that most great artists lived their life so recklessly and never seemed to enjoy it at all.

“My role in society, or any artist or poet’s role is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.”
-John Lennon, Interview, KFRC RKO Radio, given the day of his death. December 8, 1980

“Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses – especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
-Leonardo DaVinci

“We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have, our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task, the rest is the madness of art.”
-Henry James

“Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot; others transform a yellow spot into the sun.”
-Pablo Picasso

“All that I desire to point out is the general principle that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.”
-Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Living, 1891

“The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.”
-Pablo Picasso

“To the artist there is never anything ugly in nature.”
-Auguste Rodin

These quotes found at http://www.quoteland.com/

Are there any quotes that you would like to share and add to this list? Please leave in comment and I will credit you for your input. 

 Tim Kissane contributed this one to the list.  Thank you. V

“You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.”
- Robin Williams

http://romi41.wordpress.com/ contributed Thanks Romi, always something great to add.  V

“Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science”–Albert Einstein

dontdatethatdude contributed these great quotes, thank you for taking the time.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.“

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” both from Gandhi

• “A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has, nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence.”

• “Civilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility of men towards one another.”

• “Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me.” 

• “Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.”

• “What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.”

• It is a wise father that knows his own child.
• That which in mean men we entitle patience Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
• Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.
• If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?
• We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

http://shakespeare.thefreelibrary.com/

• Women are never disarmed by compliments.  Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes.
• All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.
  No man does.  That’s his.
• Men always want to be a woman’s first love – women like to be a man’s last romance.
• A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
• Bigamy is having one wife too many.  Monogamy is the same.
• Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.
• As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.
• She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.
• A man’s face is his autobiography.  A woman’s face is her work of fiction.

Oscar Wilde was witty in an one-liner comedian sort of way.  These are just a sampling of his views on the fairer sex.

 ”It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. “

  
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born U.S. physicist.

Motto for the astronomy building of Junior College, Pasadena, California.

Einstein Collection.

The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press.

• A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
• Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
• There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.
• To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
• We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
• An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
• Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
• The truth is rarely pure and never simple.*

These are a sample of Oscar Wilde’s many witticisms. 

He certainly knew how to turn a phrase.

 ”Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.”

~George Washington~

“Friendship is unnecessary,
like philosophy, like art…
It has no survival value;
rather is one of those things that give value to survival.”

~C.S. Lewis~

“Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow.
Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.”

~Albert Camus~

Mahatma Gandhi

(Spiritual Leader in India)
“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clear clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after truth”

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past,worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”

–Buddha 

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

 William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616), Hamlet, 1600

‘Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, and look brighter when we come.  ~Lord Byron