^^^^on a similar note, i have lived in san francisco, anchorage, and on maui, three places that are known to be expensive.
i've been asked how did i afford the cost of living? my pat answer; "hey, the cost of doing without is the same wherever you go"
seen on the back of a hippie'ed up school bus..."follow me to your place"
around '91 we were getting our asses handed to us on the Sherman Glacier route on Rainer. Stuck in a tent for two days in a horrendous storm.
Two dudes were stuck on the summit in the same storm. The weather cleared briefly and dudes were able to descend. My buddy ran into them in base camp ( I was still ascending with another team).
One dude offered to Dave "You only live once and if you die young, well, that sucks".
"If climbers didn't die, climbing would."
John Barry
"An adventure is interesting enough in retrospect, especially to the person that didn't have it; at the time it happens it usually constitutes an exceedingly disagreeable experience."
Vilhjalmur Stefansson
"Three constitutes a large expedition, a party of one may be considered a small expedition."
Dr. Humphreys
I first heard that quote in the movie Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman. The line is said several times by the Chief Dan George character Old Lodge Skins. He had tons of great lines in that movie "That Buffalo Wallow woman, she sleeps with horses"
“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.” -- Carlos Castaneda
"This ain't T'juana." Dick Cilley
"When you're the world's most famous toproper, you take your life in your hands every day." ibid
"buy the gas and I'll drive you there." (sung to the tune of ,"Somewhere, a place for us." ibid
"you're so full of oit your eyes are brown." My dad, to me when i was about 14.
As we grow old we become smaller and smaller, and our power seeps back in to the earth whence it arose until there is nothing left, and then the wind blows us away"
from Film:
"Marvelous" Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry
"Morons, I've got morons on my team." Struther Martin, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
from Climbers?
"Whaddayawant" Mike Hoover
"Come ski" Bev Johnson
"well you know, I don't climb any more" Tony Yaniro
"does it hurt?" Brett Maurer
"this guy is an idiot" Norman Kingsley
"and then, right below the summit, he switched cracks!" Tom Frost
"5.9" Mike Waugh
"we were climbing, it felt good, I didn't need any pro" Phil Warrender "I've got a chair and two bottles of water under that rock." Randy Leavitt
"Passion is a two edged sword" David Williams (Willie)
"I eat a lot of Bananas and Chicken" Rich Grigsby
"we're gunna die" Jeff Bosson
"I know what I want when I see it" Penny Ellis
"I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it." -- Grouch Marx
" " -- Harpo Marx
"Mustard's no good without roast beef." -- Chico Marx
"They that can give up essential
liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin
"If you want total security,
go to prison. There you're fed, clothed,
given medical care and so on.
The only thing lacking is freedom."
Dwight Eisenhower
"A little learning is a dangerous thing"
Alexander Pope.
"Aye, you may be going up mate, but a lot higher than you think".
Whillians, while retreating, to two Japanese climbers continuing up into the storm, Eiger North Face route.
Tony
...my small benediction: let us be most humbled, thankful and awestruck at the prize of consciousness, the sunny days on what we call rock and mountains with others we call friends, the noble globe itself only a dot in the vast swirl of matter and time, in the great physics of it all Frank pondered, the same which pounds and baffles each of us under a clear night sky. And there, looking up, perhaps I am not alone making a quiet vow to hold more tightly to good friendship and love before sleeping Frank’s sleep.
In regards to an interview conducted in 1985 in Camp 4 of Yosemite Valley ... a writer for playboy magazine, Craig Vetter who was climbing with Galen Rowell wanted to hear 'my' story about how I fractured my heal taking a 25' whipper on the Catchy Corner, 5.11a of the Cookie Cliff of Yosemite, my (favorite) quote of which is published in Playboy Magazine, around October '86, in an article titled "Climbers" an excerpt is as follows (page 184, middle top paragraph):
At a camfire the night before, a climber, from Flagstaff had talked to me about just that thing (about falling). His name was RB and he'd been climbing for 17 years, since he was four. Just the year before, he'd taken a fall that had flipped him over backward and smashed his heel bone into five pieces. He said he could have saved the plunge if he'd just grabbed the rope, which he didn't, because HIS CLIMBER'S CODE TOLD HIM NOT TO. He said it wasn't a total loss, though. It had left an unnaturally large bump on his heel , which made his (three-striper feerays) fit perfectly (thereafter).
"And I learned something from that climb," he told me. "I LEARNED TO NEVER LET ETHICS HURT YOU."
So this is my favorite (or is that famous???) quote. And so to translate to 2009 lingo -- Climb and enjoy, but remember gravity doesn't care who YOU ARE! Be safe out there ... RB
BTW - This is a cool article about climbing in Yos in the early '80's, with Bachar, Kauk, etc.
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt
There's a sign on interstate 5, just north of Sacramento, which says "Sheriff Detention Facility". They probably thought the sign means "county jail" or "state prison" or something like that, of course dressed up in the unnecessarily fancy language that bureaucrats and the legal system like. Except what the sign actually means is "jail for sheriffs". Perhaps it was designed and made in a prison, by a witty and educated inmate supervised by slow-wits.
This may please those here who are less than enthusiastic about the law, and who wish that sheriffs were kept in jails. I suppose it's possible that there has been some outbreak of lawlessness amongst sheriffs in California, causing there to be a need for a prison just for them, but it seems unlikely.
I keep meaning to take a picture of the thing, it's so funny.
"At each end of the social spectrum, lies the leisure class."
(This is sometimes attributed to Thorsten Veblen, but I've looked and I believe it truly is Beck's original.)
"That's like practicing bivouacking." (in response to something he thought was a really stupid idea)
"Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon - it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory."
What does he need?
Revenge
Revenge.
For what?
Bein' born.
I have thought and talked and smoked on this matter and my decision is....
Courage! What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot? What have they got that I ain't got?
Somebody asked Memphis Slim, itinerant blues piano player, about his early years of playing in the Delta in the '30s and '40s. " Man, I didn't care about nothin' except whisky, pussy, and having a good time."
"Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair, or f*#king beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back."
"The thing that I'm getting out of pushing my limits is that I turn impossible to possible. I turn something I havent done to something I'm doing. But the possibilities of what we are capable of doing if we believe in it is the most compelling thing I can think of." - Dean Potter
"If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The peoples of this world must unite, or they will parish. This war, that has ravaged so much of the earth, has written these words. The atomic bomb has spelled them out for all men to understand.... By our works we are committed, committed to a world united, before this common peril, in law, and in humanity."
J. Robert Oppenheimer
acceptance speech of the certificate of appreciation from the secretary of war presented by Gen. Groves at Los Alamos, October 16, 1945
This is my favorite quote:
From "Darkness at Noon"
"I don't like to work, no man does. But I like what's in the work, the chance to find yourself, your own reality. For yourself, not for others. What no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and can never tell what it really means." - Joseph Conrad
I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican.
Dan Quayle
I have made good judgements in the Past. I have made good judgements in the Future.
Dan Quayle
People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.
Dan Quayle
Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child.
Dan Quayle
The future will be better tomorrow.
Dan Quayle More quotations on: [The Future]
We don't want to go back to tomorrow, we want to go forward.
Dan Quayle
We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a *part* of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a *part* of Europe.
Dan Quayle
We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.
Dan Quayle
Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts.
Dan Quayle
What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.
Dan Quayle
When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and the killing in L.A., my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame.
Dan Quayle
[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system.
Dan Quayle
Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.
Dan Quayle, 11/30/88
One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is 'to be prepared'.
Dan Quayle, 12/6/89
Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it.
Dan Quayle, 5/20/92 (reported in Esquire, 8/92)
I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change.
Dan Quayle, 5/22/89
Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.
Dan Quayle, 8/11/89
Murphy Brown is doing better than I am. At least she knows she still has a job next year.
Dan Quayle, 8/18/92
The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century.
To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.
-Eva Young
I don't abide by heroes. Oversized characters can dwarf our imagination, making us forget that ordinary people can do extraordinary things, too.
--Janusz Korczak
"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on
a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of
it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people
don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in
Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the
country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to
drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no
voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked,
and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the
country to danger. It works the same in any country."
by:
Hermann Goering
(1893-1946) Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, President of the Reichstag, Prime Minister of Prussia and, as Hitler's designated successor, the second man in the Third Reich. [Göring]
Date:
April 18, 1946
Source:
Nuremberg Diary (Farrar, Straus & Co 1947), by Gustave Gilbert (an Allied appointed psychologist), who visited daily with Goering and his cronies in their cells, afterwards making notes and ultimately writing the book about these conversations.
“Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy.”
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
"Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old."
"I like a man who grins when he fights."
"If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack."
Regarding a complaint about the small size of the pantry, and the over-sized walk-in closet on the other side, I suggested moving the wall a foot or two. She looked at me aghast and quipped:
"You can't just hack it out with a chainsaw and call it a day!"
a blank stare passage comprises a quick quote, held dearly.
conversations with a bullet.
hope flickers, so the finger engages the trigger.
the infant moment following, where he stares upon the business end of the bullet that will soon alight him, is a slight pause in eternity.
the inanimate bullet becomes his chaufer.
"where you wish?" it inquires.
"away from everywhere, into nowhere's open arms." he muses.
the projection of the bullet interrupts while it processes his insufficient request.
then, flight resumes and the bullet mutters,
"dumb f*#k. the pains that i impart will not be temporary. they will be yours and your's until.
with the transaction complete, abiding forces such as acceleration due to gravity and deceleration due to wind drag uphold their duty upon both the bullet and his emotions.
back in late 70s I spotted this bumper sticker (obviously someone fed up with burgeoning environmental love fest) "Nuke the Whales" Not my politics but it did capture an alternative version of life at the time.
"You didn't check the forecast??? Seems mighty irresponsible."
"This is the kind of mindset that gets people killed. Mountains don't move. It'll be there another day. Rolling the dice on that day with that forecast not only could have gotten you killed, but endangered the lives of SAR professionals."
"When non-climbers weigh in on climbing related issues, it's really outrageous."
-Cragman, July 2010, a Third Pillar of Dana thread
"If we differ on ultimates, then we are ultimately different. If you have one vision of ultimate reality and value, and I have another, then we have nowhere to go when we encounter deep conflicts of interest. If we lack a shared orientation in nature and history, and if we lack a common understanding of who we are and what we should strive for together, then we lack the means to transcend our differences when the soical chips are down. We will be left to think that the other just has it wrong."
"Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them."
-Thomas Jefferson
re: god concepts, too:
Jehovah: God of Moses; God of Abraham; God of the ancient Hebrews; God of modern Jews, Christians and Muslims Hypercrates: personification of the ultimate force, or ultimate forces, controlling the Cosmos and the lives, nature and history of living things Diacrates: hypothetical Intelligence many, including Einstein, speculated about as a possibility
"Men hang out their signs indicitive of their respective trades. Shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch; even a dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but in the Franconia Mountains God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that in New England He makes men" Daniel Webster, 1831
"Put a cast on your pussy bone and do it" Joseph Re, 2009
"Every day I go to the paper to check the Obituaries. If I'm not in there, it's a good day" George Carlin, 19??
"Time isn't the enemy. Fear of change is. Accept that nothing lasts forever and you'll start to appreciate the advantages of whatever age you are now."
Mono Lake lies in a lifeless, treeless, hideous desert eight thousand feet above the level of the sea…
…its sluggish waters are so strong with alkali that if you only dip the most hopelessly soiled garment into them once or twice and wring it out, it will be found as clean as if it had been through the ablest of washerwomen’s hands…
…This water is not good for bruised places and abrasions of the skin. We had a valuable dog. He had raw places on him. He had more raw places than sound ones. He was the rawest dog I almost ever saw. He jumped overboard one day to get away from the flies. But it was bad judgment. In his condition, it would have been just as comfortable to jump into the fire. The alkali water nipped him in all the raw places simultaneously, and he set out for shore with considerable interest. He yelped and barked and howled as he went – and by the time he got to shore there was no bark to him – for he had barked the bark all out of his inside, and the alkali water had cleaned the bark all off his outside, and he probably wished he’d never embarked on any such enterprise…
A white man cannot drink the water of Mono Lake for it is nearly pure lye. It is said that the Indians in the vicinity drink it sometimes, though. It is not improbable, for they are among the purest liars I ever saw.
I know for certain Benjamin Franklin said the first one and I believe I read the second one in the same book of BF quotes. Man was not only a genius, but practical.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
"I don't like work... but I like what is in work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - which no other man can ever know. "
the darkest most evil thing any humane has ever done.
jefferson Davis
talking about the emancipation proclamation.
don't worry the tea party is here & we are going constitutional - states rights - slavery is on the way back.
Henri Poincare: We also know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether delusion is not more consoling.
Bob (under 40): More "consoling" or more important? Nothing's more important than truth -no matter how hard or sharp its edges.
Bob (over 40): Did I really say that? Whoops, youthful indiscretion.
.....
Struggle between "what is" (what's real/true) and "what matters" (what's important) is always going to exist in the practice of living. Esp across age groups, interest groups, moods, circumstances, etc. Because each in their own way contributes to "what works" in the practice of living.
" Tonight men there will be a winner and a loser. The loser will go back to their locker room and say we tried hard and played hard and we can hold our heads high. The winner will go back to their locker room celebrate and get ready to go get laid."
My high school football coach before the sate championship.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved..."
"A hundred pounds of uranium is smaller than a football. Every way that drugs come to New York City would be the same way highly enriched uranium could come. If you have any doubt about the ability of al Qaeda to bring highly enriched uranium into the U.S., they could always hide it in a bale of marijuana."
overheard from somewhere above Touch and Go in Eldorado Canyon:
climber: "I'm screwed! what should I do?!?"
belayer(at the top of his lungs) "what does not kill you, only makes you stronger"
climber(quietly) "but what if it kills me?"
belayer: "uhh... on belay?"
Lawrence used 17 kites linked together to lift his 50lb camera up over San Francisco Bay to get this shot of the city right after the earthquake of '06. (1906)
"All of us cherish our beliefs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well-based - or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarassing questions that we haven't thought of, or demonstrates that we've swept key underlying assumptions under the rug - it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault."
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16
Saddest quote:
"And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." Revelation 20:15
Ed Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania (Dec 2010)
re: the cancellation of an NFL football game due to bad weather
And Rendell's frosting on the cake:
"The Chinese are kicking our butts in everything. If this was in China, do you think the Chinese would've called off the game? People would've been marching down to the stadium, they would have walked and they would have been doing Calculus on the way down."
"Right after I came out of jail, I wrote a status message that we are going to win because we don't understand politics, because we don't understand their nasty games; we're going to win because our tears come from our heart."
Wael Ghonim, the young Egyptian who organized the new age revolution in Egypt in Feb 2011
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.
Henry David Thoreau
"The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy -- I mean that if you are happy you will be good." Bertrand Russell
"What is it: is man only a blunder of God, or God only a blunder of man?" Nietzsche
"We must respect the other fellows religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." H.L. Mencken
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them, I have others." Groucho Marx
“'You are drunk Sir Winston, you are disgustingly drunk. 'Yes, Mrs. Braddock, I am drunk. But you, Mrs. Braddock are ugly, and disgustingly fat. But, tomorrow morning, I, Winston Churchill will be sober.”
hey there all, say, i got some favorite quotes, right about now:
course: they're from folks that are about as fictional as any good fiction folks should be, :)
HERE IS A FEW:
"You need to hand-shake a branch in person, you see?"
(said by sheriff lenny lowrie, to mr. david dare, in: SOMETIMES CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN -- EXCEPT WHEN THEY DON'T
"Your gimlets a mite crooked, AIN'T IT?"
(said by jade smith, to an snooty old aquaintance of sofia's, in:
"I DON'T CARE IF IT'S BROKEN... I'VE GROWN FOND OF IT..."
"He'll never ben an Alex Humbolt, that's for sure,"
(said by the mingling-crowd, to angie emmeric, in:
ANGIE'S ALARMED ALEX
"Ma also told me there's lots of hoses in the store in town, if a man feels like going a few extra MILES to get one..."
(Jake's "trapped thoughts" good enough for a fine "quote of his own" if he could talk) meant to be said to his wife sofia, in:
"I DON'T CARE IF IT'S BROKEN... I'VE GROWN FOND OF IT..."
okay, that ought to do it for now....
:)
*course, as i always say:
"there's nothing like an unfamous-author to lay down many-a-steppingstones to her ol' books... that is, if she's partial enough to her own writing, to do so..."
said by neebee to the ol' supertopo-taco...
hee hee
"To pursue science is not to disparage the thngs of the spirit. In fact, to pursue science rightly is to furnish the framework on which the spirit may rise."
Science has a simple faith, which transcends utility. It is the faith that it is the privilege of man to learn to understand, and that this is his mission.
Vannevar Bush
OFFICE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
1530 P Street, NW.
Washington 25, D.C.
JULY 25, 1945
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
In a letter dated November 17, 1944, President Roosevelt requested my recommendations on the following points:
(1) What can be done, consistent with military security, and with the prior approval of the military authorities, to make known to the world as soon as possible the contributions which have been made during our war effort to scientific knowledge?
(2) With particular reference to the war of science against disease, what can be done now to organize a program for continuing in the future the work which has been done in medicine and related sciences?
(3) What can the Government do now and in the future to aid research activities by public and private organizations?
(4) Can an effective program be proposed for discovering and developing scientific talent in American youth so that the continuing future of scientific research in this country may be assured on a level comparable to what has been done during the war?
It is clear from President Roosevelt's letter that in speaking of science that he had in mind the natural sciences, including biology and medicine, and I have so interpreted his questions. Progress in other fields, such as the social sciences and the humanities, is likewise important; but the program for science presented in my report warrants immediate attention.
In seeking answers to President Roosevelt's questions I have had the assistance of distinguished committees specially qualified to advise in respect to these subjects. The committees have given these matters the serious attention they deserve; indeed, they have regarded this as an opportunity to participate in shaping the policy of the country with reference to scientific research. They have had many meetings and have submitted formal reports. I have been in close touch with the work of the committees and with their members throughout. I have examined all of the data they assembled and the suggestions they submitted on the points raised in President Roosevelt's letter.
Although the report which I submit herewith is my own, the facts, conclusions, and recommendations are based on the findings of the committees which have studied these questions. Since my report is necessarily brief, I am including as appendices the full reports of the committees.
A single mechanism for implementing the recommendations of the several committees is essential. In proposing such a mechanism I have departed somewhat from the specific recommendations of the committees, but I have since been assured that the plan I am proposing is fully acceptable to the committee members.
The pioneer spirit is still vigorous within this nation. Science offers a largely unexplored hinterland for the pioneer who has the tools for his task. The rewards of such exploration both for the Nation and the individual are great. Scientific progress is one essential key to our security as a nation, to our better health, to more jobs, to a higher standard of living, and to our cultural progress.
Respectfully yours,
(s) V. Bush, Director
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
The White House,
Washington, D. C.
an historic foot note, the Trinity test took place on July 16, 1945. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima was August 6, 1945 and of Nagasaki August 9, 1945.
hey there say, gene.... oh my, i just saw you liked a quote from one of my posts, on another thread.... :)) say, i MUST now use that quote in one of my stories, as i has some kind of sparkle to it, now...
:)
hmmm, i reckon i will give that line, to jade... :)
...somehow someway... :)
thanks for the fun smile you brought me tonight...
happy supertopo eve, to one and all...
:)
"In our culture, you have to walk the walk, to earn respect. There are some that climb at the highest level, and some who are just starting, but the shared experience, gives us all something in common." -- Coz
"While a battle is raging one can see his enemy mowed down by the thousands, or the ten thousand, with great composure; but after the battle these scenes are distressing, and one is naturally disposed to do as much to alleviate the suffering of an enemy as a friend."
Ulysses S. Grant
"But this much I know: When the storm breaks, each man acts in accordance with his own nature. Some are dumb with terror. Some flee. Some hide. And some... spread their wings like eagles and soar on the wind."
Do you see this fine thing? Do you admire the
humanity of it? Because the human beings, my son, they believe
everything is alive. Not only man and animals. But also water,
earth, stone. And also the things from them... like that hair. The
man from whom this hair came, hes bald on the other side, because
I now own his scalp! That is the way things are. But the white man,
they believe EVERYTHING is dead. Stone, earth, animals. And people!
Even their own people! If things keep trying to live, white man
will rub them out. That is the difference.
"When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight o’clock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather's and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it's rather excruciating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father's. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools."
-William Faulkner, Sound and Fury, June 2, 1910 (Chapter 2)
“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea”
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery
When I paddled the CO through the Grand, I was privy to seeing quite a few. . . ummmmmmm. . . errrrrrrrr. . . how do I say this gracefully. . . male member's members.
You're required (by Federal law) to piss in the river and the guys along the way weren't at all shy about just whippin' it out. . . so. . . night 15, at a funny little show we did for each other I made the following toast while nursing a well shook up Heineken in a can:
Friends may come
and friends may go
and friends may peter out you know
but we'll be friends
through thick or thin
peter out
or peter in
"You are probably aware that I am not a particularly religious person, at least in the sense of embracing any of the numerous conventional doctrines. Yet I cannot conceive of a man endowed with intellect, perceiving the ordered universe around him, the glory of the mountain top, the plumage of the tropical bird, the roiling mysteries of the ocean depths, the intricate complexity of a protein molecule, the utter and unchanging perfection of a salt crystal, who can deny the existence of some higher power. Whether he choses to call it God or Mohammed, the Turquoise Woman, the Invisible Pink Unicorn, or the Law of Probability matters little. I find myself, in my writings, calling upon Mother Nature to explain things, and citing Her as responsible for the order of the universe. She is a very satisfactory divinity for me. And so I shall call upon Her to watch over you and guard you, and if she so desires, to share with you some of her vast secrets which She is usually so ready to share with those who have high purpose."
In a letter to NASA Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter by his father -
just before Carpenter's famous orbital Mercury spaceflight -
1962
"We are at the threshold of the greatest revolution in man's history, the comprehension of the nature of life itself. There is no greater object of wonder, no greater thing of beauty, than the dynamic order, the organized complexity of life. And what we are witnessing is perhaps the most dramatic event in the slow evolution of life - the human brain scrutinizing itself and its origins, life turning on itself! We who are of nature are evolving to know nature."
From "Cell Structure and Function"
Ariel Loewy and Philip Siekevitz
If you fall to your left, you fall 8,000 feet into Nepal. If you fall to your right, you fall 12,000 feet into Tibet. It’s probably better to fall into Tibet because you’ll live a little longer. Either way, you’ll fall for the rest of your life.
Ken Kambler on the final part of the South Col route on Everest
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blue blaze, Than it be stifled by dry rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, Every atom of me in magnificent glow, Than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of a man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
"Jack London"
"Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress."
"But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live. Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom. Only a person who risks is free. The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; and the realist adjusts the sails." William Arthur Ward
"But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live. Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom. Only a person who risks is free. The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; and the realist adjusts the sails." William Arthur Ward
If Supertopo had a "like" feature, I'd have to click "like" for this one.
Recently found on a note pad I used to keep handy for gathering favorite sayings. The attributes are all pretty accurate, I think.
>After careful research, it has been determined that a resource was completely
> ignored in the frenzy of Y2K testing and has now surfaced to haunt Sysadmin
> and Technical Support personnel. The EBCC/LIC(1) isn't Y2K compliant and
> should be handled with extreme care until a patch can be created and applied.
>
> (1) Equipment Between Computer and Chair/ Luser in Chair
That one's going in the excuse database. I just used it in an e-mail, and
one PHB said, "good that you're keeping up with this. when will it be taken
care of?" Blissfully clueless lot. Makes me wonder just _how_far I can take
acronyms.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate."
-- Dante Alighieri, "La Divina Commedia"
It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is.
If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't
our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
-- Oxford University Press, Edpress News
"I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest."
-- Alexandre Dumas (fils)
Don't remember what you can infer.
-- Harry Tennant
"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off"
-- Angela P. Elliott
aibohphobia n. A fear of palindromes.
S A T O R
A R E P O
T E N E T
O P E R A
R O T A S
On action alone be thy interest, never on its fruits.
-- ("Bhagavad Gita")
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less
than half of you half as well as you deserve.
-- Bilbo Baggins, _Lord of the Rings_
NP: _Best of King's X_ - King's X / "QUIDQUID LATINE DICTUM SIT,
PROFUNDUM VIDITUR"
(Whatever is said in Latin appears profound) - from COL users mailing
list
Whatever is not nailed down is mine. Whatever I can pry up is not nailed down.
-- Collis P. Huntingdon, railroad tycoon
"That is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put."
OS X: Because making Unix user-friendly was easier than debugging Windows
-- Simon Slavin, on a.f.c
"Speed is subsittute fo accurancy."
If you don't have a nasty obituary you probably didn't matter.
-- Freeman Dyson
"Doveriai no proveriai." (Trust but verify.)
-- Russian proverb, as quoted by Ronald Reagan
The differential of hi over ho is ho di hi minus hi d ho ho over ho ho.
Esse Quam Vederi -- that is the motto of the state of North Carolina, and for those of you who learned languages like Perl in High School instead of Latin, it means "To Be, Rather Than To Seem".
"The State of California has no business subsidizing intellectual
curiosity."
-- Ronald Reagan
"When in fear, and when in doubt;
Run in circles, scream and shout!"
-- Robert Heinlein
"A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal-- Panama!"
-- Guy Steele Jr., CLTL2
"Some people are heroes. And some people jot down notes."
-- Terry Pratchett, The Truth
"The only cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."
-- Dorothy Parker
"Their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it."
-- Kruger/Dunning, Journal of Personality & Social Psychology,
Dec. 1999, on incompetent people.
"I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem."
-- Ashleigh Brilliant
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character,
give him power.
-- Abraham Lincoln
If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also to deny under oath that I ever made it.
-- T. Lehrer
Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. I think it's in my basement...let me go upstairs and check.
-- M.C. Escher
The most dementing of all modern sins: the inability to distinguish excellence
from success.
-- David Hare
With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good
idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous
sitting under them as they fly overhead. [RFC1925 - section 2, subsection 3]
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
-- Elbert Hubbard
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
-- Lily Tomlin
Eisenhower was very nice,
Nixon was his only vice.
-- C. Degen
"There's no shame in giving in when you've got no alternative whatsoever."
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Dark Side of the Sun"
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing...
-- Edmund Burke
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
--Benjamin Franklin, 1759
There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who eats Grape-Nuts on principle.
-- G.K. Chesterton
There are only 10 types of people in this world: those who understand
binary, and those who don't.
-- Arne Buhmann
Prediction is difficult, especially of the future.
--- Niels Bohr
The future always comes too fast and in the wrong order.
-- Alvin Toffler
Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
-- Vernon Schryver
Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.
--Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett
Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.
-- ntk
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains
to be done.
-- Marie Curie
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.
-- Hector Berlioz
Reality is what you bump into when you walk around with your eyes closed.
-- Raymond Fiest
In part of the 1700s, American currency was measured in bytes. Two bits is simply 25 cents, a quarter of a byte.
--AJR in asr
The truly paranoid administrator may wish to place motion detectors in the air ducts.
-- Practical UNIX & Internet Security, 2nd Edition
"The key words 'MUST', 'MUST NOT', 'DO', 'DON'T', 'REQUIRED', 'SHALL', 'SHALL NOT', 'SHOULD', 'SHOULD NOT', 'RECOMMENDED', 'MAY', 'MAY BE' and 'OPTIONAL' in this document do not mean anything."
-- RFC 3251
It taketh but short space to craze men of indifferent understanding with a new thing.
-- Mark Twain
Networks are like sewers... My job is to make sure your data goes away when you
flush, and to stop the rats climbing into your toilet through the pipes.
-- Network administration, as told by Tanuki
The Internet is totally out of control, impossible to map accurately, and being used
far beyond its original intentions. So far, so good.
-- Dr. Dobb's Journal May 1993
The mere act of drinking beer in an attempt to measure your tolerance is likely to affect your impression of how many beers you've drunk.
-- The Heineken uncertainty principle.
What did you do to the cat? It looks half-dead.
-- Schroedinger's wife
"Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, pop psychology is from Uranus."
-- Ben@lspace.org
"My place of work has certainly heard of karoshi. They think it's a good idea."
-- Dave Brown
“More than at any time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”
Got these off the radio today. I can't offer attribution.
"Inequity leads inevitably to iniquity."
"You can't be too careful when you're dealing with a hex."
This one was in reference to a McCullough chain saw.
The quotee had just explained that he'd torn the saw down to scrap and buried it in three different places.
Crap, I was going to post that great Tom Higgins quote from one of the best threads on this site, the Frank Sacher thread (Tom posts as "Long Ago on Supertopo), but I did a search and saw I'd already posted it here earlier:-0
F*K it, one more time anyway:-)
...my small benediction: let us be most humbled, thankful and awestruck at the prize of consciousness, the sunny days on what we call rock and mountains with others we call friends, the noble globe itself only a dot in the vast swirl of matter and time, in the great physics of it all Frank pondered, the same which pounds and baffles each of us under a clear night sky. And there, looking up, perhaps I am not alone making a quiet vow to hold more tightly to good friendship and love before sleeping Frank’s sleep.
The stillness within stillness is not the true stillness; the true stillness is within motion.
Lao-Tsu
Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
Lao-Tsu
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom"
The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
There is only one success; to be able to spend your life in your own way.
Anderl Heckmair:
"I consider mountain climbing an absolutely egocentric activity; I could therefore never understand why one would want to set up rules for it. "In the mountains, freedom rules" is an old poacher's saying. Whether and how I use artificial means is my business. To climb in the cleanest and smoothest way possible - that was my desire. How others climb is their business, and nobody else has the right to interfere. Most people abide by rules because they want to be accepted. I was only truly content when I succeeded in completing a climb the way I had envisioned it. Naturally, there is satisfaction when a climb is acclaimed by the experts, but basically, this was not as important to me as the recognition by my friends."
"My once-keen analytical mind has become so dulled by endless hours of baking in the hot sun, thrashing about in tight chimneys, pulling at impossibly heavy loads.... so that now my mental state is comparable to that of a Peruvian Indian, well stoked on coca leaves..." — Warren Harding (1925-2002), Reflections on a broken down climber.
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places that men reject and is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep into the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.
"I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life."
"You'll never find enlightenment on a full stomach."
Doug Scott's reply to Greg Child when, during a FA of Shivling's East Pillar, they were running very low on food and fuel. Greg asked Doug what they would do when they totally ran out of food, fuel and were still stuck in the storm they were presently in............
"one way of ruining a miracle is to try to figure it out"
"It is the risks we take in life which allows us to truly live, but it is the memories, not the risks, we choose to remember which can cripple or enhance the joys of the future"
very true philosphy from a book by william heat leats moon called blue highways,
anybody read it?
Blue Highways is an autobiographical book by William Least Heat-Moon, born William Trogdon.
In 1978, after separating from his wife and losing his job as a teacher, Moon, 38 at the time, decided to take an extended road trip around the United States, sticking to only the "Blue Highways." Heat-Moon had coined the term to refer to small, forgotten, out of the way roads connecting rural America (which were drawn in blue on the old style Rand McNally road atlas).
He outfits a green van with a bunk, a camping stove, a portable toilet and a copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and John Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks. Referring to the Native American resurrection ritual, he christens the van "Ghost Dancing," and embarks on a three month soul-searching tour of the United States, wandering from small town to small town, often just because they have interesting names. The book chronicles the 13,000 mile journey and the people he meets along the way, as he steers clear of cities and interstates, avoiding fast food and exploring local American culture.
Well-researched and intriguing stories and historical facts are included about each area visited, as well as verbatim conversations with characters such as a born-again Christian hitchhiker, a teenage runaway, a boat builder, an Appalachian log cabin restorer, a Nevada prostitute, fishermen, a Hopi Native American medical student, owners of western saloons and remote country stores, a maple syrup farmer, and Chesapeake Bay island dwellers.
• What can this rock give you?. . . . Nothing. . . . and what will you hold in your hands on the Summit? I can tell you now: nothing. It’s all lunacy. (Reinhard Karl)
• [Mountaineering is] ‘the conquest of the useless’ (Lionel Terray)
• Many sages have said that a creative life requires . . . . [an] arena where men and women have risked all (John Long).
• I came to find my own mediocrity and that of the world intolerable. I recognized that I . . . was degenerate. . . . I realized that I was not a man in the full sense of the word, . . . and the realization was so bitter that I often wept. . . . If I undertook The Shroud, it was precisely for that reason: to submit myself and my life to God’s purpose . . . . it was, of course, a wholly egotistical act (Ivan Ghirardini).
• I was strong. I could have done anything. I seethed with desire. Believing in my self-importance, I stroked and blessed my ego. Ambition was so precious. I worshipped it and stole for it. I rationalized every evil thing I ever did by weighing it against my ambition. I wanted to be a god without the boredom of sainthood (Mark Twight).
• I used to be afraid that I would die young but after living for a while I got scared that I wouldn’t (Mark Twight).
• I find I want this loss of control. I want to feel very small in very deep water. I don’t want to know what I’m doing, but to learn it (Peter Croft).
• Deprivation [Mt. Hunter, Alaska] taught me about the existence of this mystic path in the mountains . . . . How can I be tired while climbing on the mountain when I have become the mountain? I have searched within myself through both passive and active meditation, for the tools to open this ‘door’ whenever I will it. I still search (Mark Twight).
• The whole notion of ‘deep play’—the gambling theory of extreme risk taking when the gambler stands to lose far more than he could ever possibly win—may well be an apt description of some levels of climbing, but playing the game in reality now seemed a conceited and ridiculous enterprise (Joe Simpson).
• When we undeniably see that we create our own misery, we stop. The force generated by this insight changes anyone. Even Mark. His internal struggles for personal freedom, outwardly manifested through his climbing, eventually transformed Dr. Doom into Dr. Om. (Brian Eno about Mark Twight)
• After my ascent, and typical of other climbers before me, the accomplishment and rite of passage were partly why I could bow out of the central camp scene [a climber’s camp and hangout in Yosemite Valley] and its infinite loop of harder and harder climbing . . . . Perhaps thus enlightened, I turned to new thoughts and still deeper ways of looking at my life, as I grew older (Peter Haan).
• My whole psychology believed it was right to cultivate risks to achieve success. This led me to take terrible chances. Because I was soloing, in my self-centered world I could talk myself into it. Without being conscious of it, I behaved as if summits were worth dying for. I don’t buy that anymore. (Joe Beyer)
"Of every one hundred men they send me, ten should not be here. Eighty are nothing but targets. Nine are real fighters, they make the battle. Ah, but the one, he is a warrior, and he will bring the others back"
"We are the Animal Kingdom's way of knowing its evolved drives and feelings reflected in human terms; and because we speak – of expressing this reflection in words. In words."
a rockclimbing evolutionist, 1996
This might even be better:
"We are the cat's way or the dog's way or the chimp's way or the honey badger's way or the sea lion's way or the dolphin's way of knowing its evolved drives and feelings reflected in human terms; and because we speak – of expressing this reflection in words. In words."
"People ask me why I drink so much. It’s because of a morbid fear of dehydration."
"I don't know why they call me working-class. As far as I know I'v never worked a day in my life."
"There are two kinds of climbers... smart ones and dead ones."
Thatchers secretary: "Mr Whillans, Mr Whillans. Your flies are undone”,
Don: ”Tha need not have worried, yer know. Dead birds never fall out the bleedin’ nest!”
Nancy Astor was a native Virginian who became Britain’s first woman member of the House of Commons. In the 1930’s she headed a clique in the House of Commons that found something to admire in Hitler’s Germany. Churchill described an Astorite as an appeaser "who feeds the crocodile hoping that it will eat him last." One time shortly thereafter, Churchill found himself at Cliveden, the Astor mansion.
After dinner Lady Astor presided over the pouring of coffee. When Churchill came by, she glared and said. "Winston, if I were your wife, I’d put poison in your coffee." "Nancy," Churchill replied to the acid-tongued woman, "if I were your husband, I’d drink it."
"Assuming that one wants to praise at all, there’s a refined and at the same time noble self-control which always gives praise only where one does not agree:—in other cases one would be really praising oneself, something that contradicts good taste—naturally, a self-control which provides a good opportunity and provocation for one to be constantly misunderstood. In order to permit oneself this real luxury of taste and morality, one must not live among spiritual fools, but rather among people whose misunderstandings and false ideas are still amusing for their sophistication—or one will have to pay dearly for it!—“He is praising me: thus, he admits I’m right”—this asinine conclusion ruins half of life for us hermits, for it brings the asses into our neighbourhood and our friendship."
"If a woman tells you she's twenty and looks sixteen, she's twelve. If she tells you she's twenty-six and looks twenty-six, she's damn near forty" Chris Rock
"Climbing is not a battle with the elements, nor against the law of gravity. It's a battle against oneself.", Walter Bonatti.
"You have to train your ropes better. Ropes are like dogs. Think consistent reinforcement of good behavior. New ropes need a lot of work. My rope is usuallys well behaved. However, Emily's rope is always getting itself tied up in knots. I think she neglected it when it was young." — Sue Hopkins.
"Climbers have no sense of smell." — Conrad Anker's mother.
"I wouldn't go there if I were you. They steal from the store and they smell and they wear rags and even piss right outside their tents. I tell you, it's like a leper colony, that place." — Yosemite Lodge bellman trying to dissuade a girl from visiting Camp 4, 1962.
"There is no way of knowing where the next discovery will come from, what dream of the mind's eye will remake the world. These dreams begin as impossibilities."
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. T E Lawrence
Rocks make no compromise for sex....rock climbing is not like some sports, where it is made easier for women; or sports like, say, softball, which is only baseball for soft people. On a rock, everything is equal.--Beverly Johnson
Prefatory note to The Dangerous Book for Boys, C. & H. Iggulden
"Don't worry about genius and don't worry about not being clever. Trust rather to hard work, perseverance, and determination. The best motto for a long march is 'Don't grumble. Plug on.'
"You hold you future in your own hands. Never waver in this belief. Don't swagger. The boy who swaggers--like the man who swaggers--has little else that he can do. He is a cheap-Jack crying his own paltry wares. It is the empty tin that rattles most. Be honest. Be loyal. Be kind. Remember that the hardest thing to acquire is the faculty of being unselfish. As a quality it is one of the finest attributes of manliness.
"Love the sea, the ringing beach and the open downs.
"Keep clean, body and mind.'"
Sir Frederick Treves, Bart, KCVO, CB, Sergeant in Ordinary to HM the King, Surgeon in Ordinary to HRH Prince of Wales, written at 6 Wimpole Street, Cavendish Square, London, on September 2, 1903, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Boy's Own Paper
"Money makes the monkey dance," Angel Perales told an FBI informant, according to court documents.
Perales, Mayor David Silva and Councilman Osvaldo Conde (from Cudahy)were arrested Friday and charged with soliciting and accepting cash bribes totaling $17,000 to support the opening of a medical marijuana dispensary.
I've Been Listening to my Gut since I Was 14 Years Old, and Frankly Speaking, I've Come to the Conclusion That My Gut Has Sh#t for Brains. ~ Nick Hornby
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike, rather than those who think differently." Nietzsche
There are only two roads, victory for the working class, freedom, or victory for the fascists which means tyranny. Both combatants know what's in store for the loser. Buenaventura Durruti
Mayor Wilson Goode of Phialdelphia, after a bomb was dropped on the MOVE headquarters in West Philadelphia, 1985. Eleven dead, over 60 homes burned to the ground.
"In the mountaineer are bound up the poet, the painter, the thinker, the citizen; in him are a heart open to all fine feelings, a mind thirsty for all knowledge, an observer who on the mountains sees far into a thousand things around him and within him that most men do not see, and which serve as food for his mind and reveal a stimulating and illuminating line of thought to others. In him, too, there is the writer."--Edmondo de Amicis, speaking of Guido Rey specifically in the last sentence, I'm sure; and maybe, maybe giving non-writing climbers some slack in the first
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure. ~ Helen Keller
I can't believe someone is quoting Pearl S Buck. One of my favorite books is The Good Earth, full of wisdom on every page. Copied an audio version from the library, have listened to it at least 5 times now. It's such an inspiring story.
Always been a fan of T.E. Lawrence (AKA Lawrence of Arabia):
"Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible."
What an incredible woman! Over fifty novels. And numerous other phenomenal accomplishments! I would be content to have accomplished 1% of what she did! She won the Pulitzer Prize that year (1932) for "The Good Earth"
"Inspiring" indeed!
Worth repeating!
"The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation!" ~ Pearl S. Buck
edit: btw, She was the living embodiment of that quote! Just check out her life & accomplishments on wiki for an example! Her Chinese name was Sai Zhenzhu (beautiful name).
"He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not." ~ Isaiah
this one sounded like it was well worth investigating, so i gave it my best shot...
"At either end of the social spectrum lies a leisure class." ~ Eric Beck
edit: i dropped this quote on one of my psych professors during class one day, and she responded, "NO THERE IS NOT"! So I ask her, "Have ya ever been to Camp Four? lol
Nitahå-Jussi was said to be the last wanderer at Finnskogen. He knew the woods well and took a job where he found it, when he needed it. He lived and worked for a while in the US, but returned to Sweden to take over the farm after his father's death. Someone had illegally taken over the farm and years of juridical trouble started. In the film "Finnskog and trollskap" we are following Jussi. The film made him "famous", as did the book that was written about him. The book carried his own name. He was still active as an old man - as you see from the picture. The film "Finnskog and trollskap" has finally reached dvd and is now to be bought.
In the film I can also see my great grandfather Lauritz who was among the men who waited at the border for the Swedes in 1905. He was a person worth his own film. A lot of stories are told about him.
Et annet sitat fra Jussi er at "Det er et knep ved alt" - med andre ord alt har sin løsning bare du finner knepet - så også i klatringen.... Lol...
I will check out Crusoe of Lonesome Lake by Leland Stowe.
Marlow, takk. You would love Crusoe of Lonesome Lake by Leland Stowe.
I just checked Amazon and there are only a few available at big bucks.
A pity as it deserves a re-issue. I guess I should take care of my copy.
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
"They're trying to kill me," Yossarian told him calmly.
"No one's trying to kill you," Clevinger cried.
"Then why are they shooting at me?" Yossarian asked.
"They're shooting at everyone," Clevinger answered. "They're trying to kill everyone."
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
(Kris Kristofferson & Fred Foster, but Janis Joplin sang it best)
Funny you mention that one. The band that played for our Russian language school 'graduation' party in Leningrad in 1973, had been banned from performing for soviet audiences for singing that very lyric!!
Seemed strange then, and makes no more sense to me now.....
"A house built on granite and strong foundations, not even the onslaught of pouring rain, gushing torrents, and strong winds will be able to pull down.
Some people have written the story of my life representing it as truth, what in fact derives from ignorance, error, or envy; but they cannot shake the truth from its place, even if they attempt to make others believe it." Tafari Makonnen
"the essence of first-hand experience is our most immediate index when we ask one of life's hardest questions: What can I honestly know?"--Mike Borghoff, Moments of Crisis
If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.
You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
A dig at I Sit and Look Out? Kurt sure liked amber
All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse V
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
I thought this was pretty funny :)
I would not personally throw out Atlas Shrugged from the childhood reading list. Rather I think it should be a mandatory high school read with lots of directed discussion and debate to explore concepts of what government should be, the balance of personal freedom and responsibility, the morality of creating something of value, choosing the lesser evil when prioritizing how a system can be defended against exploiters (e.g. freeloaders at either end of the financial spectrum), the selfish benefits of social consciousness and societal contribution as they relate to our personal well-being, etc.
I think there is a rich world of realities to be teased out of these messy issues, as endlessly featured as a graphic representation of a mandelbrot set. Heavy-handed acceptance or rejection of the world presented by Ayn Rand seem to me equally flawed. Perhaps the biggest genius of her work, whether intended or not, is the degree to which it facilitates exploration of central issues in our lives and society that don't seem to be sufficiently explored in our schools or discussed in our media.
Instead we get this dumbed down dichotomy of "Atlas Shrugged is great!" or "That's a lame fairy tale for capitalist pigs!" and a great learning lesson and opportunity for all to come together is missed.
A "clear word" and a benevolent, pointing out the better course, seems powerless today; world events pass all such over with brutal disregard. But let us hold fast to the anti-diabolic faith, that mankind has after all a “keen learning,” and that words born of one’s own striving may do it good and not perish from its heart.
— Thomas Mann
"The freedom to think out loud on certain topics, without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed, has already been lost. And the only forces on earth that can recover it are strong, secular governments that will face down charges of blasphemy with scorn. No apologies necessary. Muslims must learn that if they make belligerent and fanatical claims upon the tolerance of free societies, they will meet the limits of that tolerance."
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction. (Einstein)
seen on a bumper sticker
