tread softly

You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; 

but you must approach each man by the right door. 

 ~Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887

a bit of duh

Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? 

I think that is how dogs spend their lives. 

~Sue Murphy

on art

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, 

which is life, 

by artificial means and hold it fixed
so that a hundred years later, 

when a stranger looks at it, 

it moves again since it is life. 

 ~William Faulkner

on women

Women are always beautiful. 

 ~Ville Valo

on felines

If cats could talk, they wouldn't. 

 ~Nan Porter

beyond the centuries

Nature chose for a tool, 

not the earthquake or lightning to rend and split asunder, 

not the stormy torrent or eroding rain, 

but the tender snow-flowers 

noiselessly falling through unnumbered centuries. 

~John Muir

perspectives

The axis of the earth sticks out visibly 

through the centre of each and every town or city. 

 ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

eye of the beholder

Beauty is not in the face; 

beauty is a light in the heart.

 ~Kahlil Gibran

the ocean and I

Why do we love the sea? 

It is because it has some potent power 

to make us think things we like to think. 

 ~Robert Henri

enter the light

All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim. 

~Christopher Morley

the four seasons

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, 

wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; 

there is really no such thing as bad weather, 

only different kinds of good weather. 

 ~John Ruskin

happiness

If you want to be happy, be. 

 ~Leo Tolstoy

spring skies

The sky, a perfect empty canvas, offers clouds nonetheless. 

 They shift and drift and beg interpretation... 

such is the nature of art. 

 ~Jeb Dickerson

on youth

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, 

yet we forget that she is someone today. 

~Stacia Tauscher

the long road

We wander for distraction, 

but we travel for fulfillment. 

 ~Hilaire Belloc

forever friends

You ask of my companions. 

 Hills, sir, and the sundown, 

and a dog as large as myself that my father bought me. 

 They are better than human beings, 

because they know but do not tell. 

 ~Emily Dickinson

steel roads

The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler

than the road built in despair,

even though they both lead to the same destination. 

~Marian Zimmer Bradley

poetry of summer

What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, 

the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, 

and with as yet no sign to remind one 

that its fresh young beauty will ever fade. 

 ~Gertrude Jekyll

cheesecake time!

Life is uncertain. 

 Eat dessert first. 

 ~Ernestine Ulmer

wisdom

Age is a question of mind over matter.

If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. 

 ~Leroy "Satchel" Paige

Paco

From the dog's point of view, 

his master is an elongated and abnormally cunning dog. 

 ~Mabel Louise Robinson

the pack

You don't choose your family. 

They are God's gift to you, as you are to them. 

~Desmond Tutu

pat the cat

If cats could talk, they wouldn't. 

 ~Nan Porter

by the pier

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, 

who would you call and what would you say? 

And why are you waiting? 

~Stephen Levine

Tourbillon

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. 

 He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, 

he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. 

Yet he is lord of all the animals. 

 ~George Orwell, Animal Farm

Peter

The question is not, "Can they reason?"

 nor, "Can they talk?" 

but rather, "Can they suffer?" 

 ~Jeremy Bentham

the 4th season

There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... 

In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; 

only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches 

when you can savor belonging to yourself. 

 ~Ruth Stout

industry X

There's so much pollution in the air now 

that if it weren't for our lungs 

there'd be no place to put it all. 

 ~Robert Orben

books, sweets, a sunday afternoon

The man who does not read good books 

has no advantage over the man who can't read them. 

 ~Mark Twain, attributed

will you adopt me?

Dogs have given us their absolute all. 

 We are the center of their universe. 

 We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. 

 They serve us in return for scraps. 

 It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made. 

 ~Roger Caras

play mist(y) for me

The difference between friends and pets 

is that friends we allow into our company, 

pets we allow into our solitude. 

~Robert Brault

whispers

The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper;

I cannot quite make it out.

~Annie Dillard

nom nom

It's so beautifully arranged on the plate -

you know someone's fingers have been all over it.

~Julia Child

communion

Tai chi does not mean oriental wisdom or something exotic. 

 It is the wisdom of your own senses, your own mind 

and body together as one process.

~Chungliang Al Huang

Jubilation

There is something about the outside of a horse

that is good for the inside of a man.

~Winston Churchill

Four-legged love

There is no faith which has never yet been broken, except that of a truly faithful dog.

~Konrad Lorenz

Freedom

A horse is poetry in motion. 

~Author Unknown

Smile

Always remember to be happy 

because you never know who's falling in love with your smile.  

~Author Unknown

La dame en rouge

When in doubt, wear red.

~Bill Blass

Concrete zoo

Clearly, then, the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.

~Desmond Morris, The Human Zoo

Happy Holidays

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: 

the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. 

~Burton Hillis

Wisdom of elders

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

~William Shakespeare