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