Life is Beautiful
This is where I am putting Beautiful Things. Naturally by this I mean things which I find beautiful. It is all a matter of perspective, as they say. Right now it consists mainly of poetry and prose, although I might include more eventually. I've even included a little bit of my own stuff, because if you can't be vain on your own webpage, then where can you be vain??
I love words; I have been collecting ones which strike some kind of chord in my heart for a long time. Some of what you will find here is sad, some is exultant, some is thoughtful, but it is all Beauty, in one form or another. Some of this stuff I copied down a long time ago, and some of it's followed me around quite a lot. So if you find anything to be incorrect, or can provide additional information on anything, feel free to
contact me.
Also, if you have something which you think deserves inclusion, show it to me, and I'll consider it. Thanks! So here it is, a random mess of Beautiful Things, in little-to-no order.....
"We were all born in a gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." -Oscar Wilde
Pictures in Trees, by Karen Eileen
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." -Plutarch
Comes the Dawn
Demian, by Herman Hesse
There is no substitute for excellence. Not even success.
Desiderata, by Max Chrmann
"Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly." -Arnold Edinborough
Wildflower, by Karen Eileen
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely." -Erma Bombeck
Hurt Hawks, by Robinson Jeffers
"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death." -Albert Einstein
Hollow Men, by T.S. Elliot
"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who only dream by night." -E.A. Poe
Possessing the Secret of Joy, by Alice Walker
e. e. cummings
"Don't ask what the world needs. Rather ask what makes you come alive. Then go ahead and do that. For what the world needs is people who are alive." -??
daphne, by Karen Lindsey
"Either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing." -Ben Franklin
A couple quotes on peace
Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card
Invictus, by W.H. Henley
"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls
drop by drop upon the heart until in our own despair
against our will comes wisdom through the awful grace
of God." -Aeschylus
1993: On the plane back from Boston, I sat next to a businessman, who was reading some business magazine or the other. On his arm, I noticed, he had a number tattooed; it was roughly scrawled and took up most of his forearm. The only explanation I could think of was the Concentration Camps. It chilled my blood, to think this man calmly reading a magazine, leading an apparently normal life, had been through the Holocost so intimately. I sat in awe of both the strength and perseverence of the human spirit, and the horrible vileness of that self-same spirit.
(last updated on 9-30-2000)