Perhaps This Is Where We Are, Historically

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

Second President of the United States, John Adams

Language

A description of language as something beautiful . . . it is:

a bouquet of discrete understandings

Ojibwe novelist David Treuer

 

Are We Lost And Alone?

"We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men; we are crude and sorrowful and superficial — I believe we are lost."

Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front

We are hard pressed, but we are not crushed
We are struck down but not destroyed
Cause no matter what may happen
We are not abandoned
We are not alone

Carolyn Arends, Not Alone, Polyanna's Attic

No, we're not.

Winnie-the-Pooh

My daily e-Mail message from The Writer's Almanac (here) tells me that Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne, was published on 14 Oct 1926.

I cannot tell you how much influence the Pooh characters have had in the development of the life of my youngest son, Timothy. Well, Tim, nowadays. He's 24, and no longer a little boy. In fact, he's a Critical Care Medic, and someone who you'd probably want "in your corner" when you are the critically ill patient.

Our lives were filled with Pooh books, Pooh videos and Pooh stuffed animals for a long, long time. Tim even got to hug a real live Pooh Bear when we went to Disneyworld way back when. Now, so many years later, I sometimes can't help but get teary-eyed when I think back on it.

My thanks to the author, who, I just found out (through his Wikipedia entry), died the same year I was born. And thanks to Disney who picked up the stories . . .

Quotation :: How Boys Think

I, personally, think this is right on:

I suppose if there is anything more exciting to a young boy than an ocean liner, it is an ocean liner sinking.

Historian and Nonfiction Author Walter Lord

Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.