poems for loved ones

Science is for those who learn; poetry, for those who know. ~Joseph Roux, Meditations of a Parish Priest



No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you'll see why. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966



Gather the crumbs of happiness and they will make you a loaf of contentment. ~Author Unknown



To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time. ~Clara Ortega



Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer. ~Swami X



Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either. ~Golda Meir



Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other. ~Oscar Ameringer



Reflexes and instincts are not pretty. It is their decoration that initiates art. ~Martin H. Fischer



Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man. ~Edward Steichen



It's annoying to be disapproved of by people who know only half the story - especially when you're not sure which half they know. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com



So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden



When the news reporter said "Shopkeepers are opening their doors bringing out blankets and cups of tea" I just smiled. It's like yes. That's Britain for you. Tea solves everything. You're a bit cold? Tea. Your boyfriend has just left you? Tea. You've just been told you've got cancer? Tea. Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt? Tea dammit! And if it's really serious, they may bring out the coffee. The Americans have their alert raised to red, we break out the coffee. That's for situations more serious than this of course. Like another England penalty shoot-out. ~Jslayeruk, as posted on Metaquotes Livejournal, in response to the July 2005 London subway bombings



Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed. ~William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693



It has been an unchallengeable American doctrine that cranberry sauce, a pink goo with overtones of sugared tomatoes, is a delectable necessity of the Thanksgiving board and that turkey is uneatable without it.... There are some things in every country that you must be born to endure; and another hundred years of general satisfaction with Americans and America could not reconcile this expatriate to cranberry sauce, peanut butter, and drum majorettes. ~Alistair Cooke



That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. ~Thomas Paine



I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson



Women have very little idea of how much men hate them. ~Germaine Greer



Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911



Man must feel the earth to know himself and recognize his values.... God made life simple. It is man who complicates it. ~Charles A. Lindbergh, Reader's Digest, July 1972



We have met the enemy and they are us! ~Walt Kelly, Pogo, 1971