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

summer snow

A weed is but an unloved flower.

~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

On grandparents

What children need most are the essentials that grandparents provide in abundance. 

They give unconditional love, kindness, patience, humor, comfort, lessons in life. 

And, most importantly, cookies.

~Rudolph Giuliani

Joy

The sun is the epitome of benevolence -

it is lifegiving and warmthgiving and happinessgiving, 

and to it we owe our thanksgiving.

~Jessi Lane Adams

Open skies

Man's heart away from nature becomes hard.

~Standing Bear

Ecology vs Economy

Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, 

then names the streets after them. 

~Bill Vaughn

Under pregnant skies

For the man sound in body and serene of mind 

there is no such thing as bad weather; 

every day has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do

but make it pulse more vigorously. 

~George Gissing, "Winter," The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, 1903

Illumination

Live in rooms full of light.

~Cornelius Celsus

Sweet autumn

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. 

For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad. 

~Edwin Way Teale

Summertime

This was one of those perfect New England days in late summer
where the spirit of autumn takes a first stealing flight,
like a spy, through the ripening country-side, and,
with feigned sympathy for those who droop with August heat,
puts her cool cloak of bracing air about leaf and flower and human shoulders.
~Sarah Orne Jewett

Because everyone loves happy

If you want to be happy, be.
~Leo Tolstoy

On friends

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
~Henry David Thoreau

H-two-O

Seventy-five percent of our planet is water - can you swim?
~Author Unknown

Twinkle little seaglass

Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us
so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or
scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers
like the homesick refugees of a long war.
~Loren Eiseley

Fingers to lips

Great food is like great sex.
The more you have the more you want.
~Gael Greene

History

We all grow up with the weight of history on us.
Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do
in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies.
~Shirley Abbott

I like books

A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it,
or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face.
It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind
can get both provocation and privacy.
~Edward P. Morgan

Zen

The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper;
I cannot quite make it out.
~Annie Dillard

The wisdom of horses

He knows when you're happy
He knows when you're comfortable
He knows when you're confident
And he always knows when you have carrots.
~Author Unknown

Sans titre

A friend is one of the nicest things you can have,
and one of the best things you can be.
~Douglas Pagels

Spring has sprung

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is.
And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want,
but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!
~Mark Twain

The golden years

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years.
We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
~Samuel Ullman

On building materials

Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.
~Don Wilder

Wise and beautiful

Man is harder than rock and more fragile than an egg.
~Yugoslav Proverb

Emily said it right

How strange that Nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!
~Emily Dickinson, letter to Mrs. J.S. Cooper, 1880

On mankind

Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings.
~Author Unknown

Dusk

I'm waiting for the night to fall
When everything is bearable
And there in the still
All that you feel is tranquillity
~Depeche Mode, Waiting For The Night

Tranquility

There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace.
You will find that deep place of silence right in your room,
your garden or even your bathtub.
~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Reflection

A cat, after being scolded, goes about its business.
A dog slinks off into a corner and pretends to be doing a serious self-reappraisal.
~Robert Brault

On technology

This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history;
it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities
made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man -
if man is not enslaved by it.
~Jonas Salk

Duality

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe
and enough shadows to blind those who don't.
~Blaise Pascal

Bloooooo!

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson