Quote: Mike Tyson

"Yes, time flies. And where did it leave you?  Old too soon...smart too late."

- Mike Tyson  (1966 - )

 

Quote: Dalai Lama

I find that because of modern technological evolution and our global economy, and as a result of the great increase in population, our world has greatly changed: it has become much smaller. However, our perceptions have not evolved at the same pace; we continue to cling to old national demarcations and the old feelings of ‘us’ and ‘them’.

- Dalai Lama

Quote: Margaret Thatcher

“The lady’s not for turning.”

- Margaret Thatcher

The above phrase, used by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in her speech to the Conservative Party Conference on 10 October 1980, has become a phrase defining her personality and character.

According to Brain Walden, BBC commentator:

Her strong points were her iron will. I've never known a will like it in politics and I've known a few politicians in my time in various countries. I've never known a man or woman faintly like her, she was as tough as they come, and anything that required guts and will she could do for you. Anything that required sensitivity, she couldn't, she had none.

Quote: Shirdi Sai Baba

“Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence?”

- Shirdi Sai Baba (Unknown - 1918)

"For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time to still be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So, treasure every moment that you have. And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time and remember that time waits for no one.

So stop waiting; until you finish school, until you go back to school, until you lose ten pounds, until you gain ten pounds, until you have kids, until your kids leave the house, until you start work, until you retire, until you get married, until you get divorced, until Friday night, until Sunday morning, until you get a new car or home, until your car or home is paid off, until spring, until summer, until fall, until winter, until you are off welfare, until the first or fifteenth, until your song comes on, until you've had a drink, until you've sobered up, until you die, until you are born again to decide that there is no better time than right now to be happy. Happiness is a journey, not a destination."

-  Alfred D'Souza

One person...

Yesterday’s item about Tank Man raises an age old question: can one person make a difference?

Edward Everett Hale (1822 – 1909), American author, historian and clergyman, once wrote:

"I am only one,

but still I am one.

I cannot do everything,

but still I can do something;

and because I cannot do everything,

I will not refuse to do something I can do."

Those words are an encouragement to a person making an attempt but realistically can anything be achieved by a single person?

Buddha said “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

Another simple story also addresses the issue:

Early one evening a man was walking along a beach when he saw a boy picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. The man asked the boy why he was doing this. The boy explained the starfish would die if left to the morning. The man asked the boy, "What difference will your efforts make when there are thousands of starfish on the beach?" The boy stopped and looked at the starfish he was holding and said, "It will make a difference to this one."

Royalty and Queens

Anthony Armstrong Jones (1930 - ), photographer and the first Earl of Snowdon, was the husband of Queen Elizabeth’s sister Princess Margaret (1930 – 2002) between the years 1960 and 1978. He is widely believed to be bisexual.

When asked once at a party in New York about the Queen's health, Princess Margaret is said to have replied: "Which one? My sister, my mother or my husband?"

This brings to mind an anecdote about the Queen Mother, who was renowned for having a large proportion of gay men as members of staff. One evening on coming to the kitchen she reportedly found two of her courtiers in an embrace. She is supposed to have said “When you two old queens are finished, would one of you get this old queen a drink?”

And one final anecdote about queens and royalty…

Australian cinematographer Dean Semler, who won an Oscar for "Dances With Wolves," was one of the Hollywood fraternity invited to meet the Queen on her visit to the United States.

Semler's account was reported in the International Express and quoted by Chuck Conconi of the Washington Post:

"I said I was director of photography, to which she replied, 'Oh, how terribly interesting. Actually, I have a brother-in-law who is a photographer.'

"I replied, 'Oh, how terribly coincidental. I have a brother-in-law who's a queen.' She moved on without saying another word." 

Quote: John F Kennedy

"The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining."

-  John F Kennedy (1917-1963)

Some Thoughts on Health...

The best six doctors anywhere

And no one can deny it

Are sunshine, water, rest, and air

Exercise and diet.

These six will gladly you attend

If only you are willing

Your mind they'll ease

Your will they'll mend

And charge you not a shilling.

~Nursery rhyme quoted by Wayne Fields, What the River Knows, 1990

Mens sana in corpore sano.

(Your prayer must be for a sound mind in a sound body.)

~Juvenal (First or second century AD)

Just because you're not sick doesn't mean you're healthy.

~Author Unknown

The patient should be made to understand that he or she must take charge of his own life. Don't take your body to the doctor as if he were a repair shop.

- Quentin Regestein (Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard)

 

Quotes: Winston Churchill

On 29 October, 1941, Winston Churchill paid a visit to his former school, Harrow, a time when England was at war with Germany. The US entry into the war would not happen until the attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941.

The following is an extract from his speech to the school:

"You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination.

But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period … this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

Hear the last paragraph above as spoken by Churchill at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzh-xq65rMs&feature=related

Quote: Isaac Asimov

“ The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”

- Isaac Asimov (1920 – 1992), American author and professor of biochemistry

Quote: Harry S. Truman

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

- Harry S. Truman (1884 – 1972), US President 1945-1953

As a point of interest, the S in Truman’s name is not a shortening of a middle name, it is complete as S.

Truman wrote in his autobiography that his first name, Harry, is after an uncle, Harrison Young, and  that as regards the S:

"…so that I could have two initials in my given name, the letter S was added. My Grandfather Truman's name was Anderson Shippe Truman and my Grandfather Young's name was Solomon Young, so I received the S for both of them."

Although he once joked that the S was a name, not an initial, so that it should not have a period after it, official documents do use a period. There are also numerous examples of Truman signing his name with a period after the S. In the 1960’s Truman himself said that he had no preference. It has been common to use a period since then. 

As a further point of interest, the above photograph is an iconic image of Truman after his presidential win. The win was so unexpected that the Chicago Tribune had already printed its newspapers ready for distribution with the headline “Dewey defeats Truman”.

Quote: Stephen Levine

“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 (1937 - ), American poet, author and teacher

Oscars: Quotes

“I hope to God I don't win an Oscar tomorrow night. It would really depress me if I did. I really don't deserve it. It wasn't that important a part anyhow." - Dustin Hoffman, 1968

"The Academy Awards are obscene, dirty . . . no better than a beauty contest." - Dustin Hoffman, 1975

“Contrary to what Mr. Hoffman thinks, it is not an obscene evening. It is not garish and it is not embarrassing”. - Frank Sinatra, presenter during the Oscar broadcast in 1975, responding to Dustin Hoffman.

Quotes: Stupid Football Quotes

Rugby League footballers in Sydney regularly make the news for being boofheads or alcohol fuelled neanderthals, but the list of quotes below shows that lack of grey matter is not confined to one code or one country. Coaches and commentators are also not exempt.

It may be that sports persons are soft targets to ridicule for lack of education or sophistication, given that they spend their time, often since childhood, training rather than studying. The quotes below however are at a much more basic level.

The following is from a website:

http://premiershiptoday.blogspot.com/2007/06/25-most-stupid-quotes-from-footballers.html

The 25 Most Stupid Footballers Quotes... In The World...Ever

25: "Leeds is a great club and it's been my home for years, even though I live in Middlesborough."

Jonathan Woodgate

Quote: Katherine Whitehorn (1926- )

“It is a pity, as my husband says, that more politicians are not bastards by birth instead of vocation.”

Quote: Walt Whitman (1819-1891)

“Have you learned lessons only from those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed the passage with you?”

Quote: Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Quotes: Adolf Hitler

“How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.”
- Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

Last words: George Washington

“I die hard but am not afraid to go.”
- George Washington (1732-1799)

There is no truth to the belief that his actual words were either “I die hard with a vengeance…” or "Live Free or Die Hard". Nahh, I made that up. The first recorded use of the term “die hard”, in the sense of dying reluctantly, resisting to the end, is from 1703, in Psychologia: or, an Account of the Nature of the Rational Soul. That work argues the pros and cons of a condemned man's approach to death:
 
Against this Reason he [William Coward] urges the case of those that die hard, as they call it, at Tyburn who will therefore, according to him, out-brave the Terrors of the Lord.

Tyburn in London was the main site for hangings until 1785. Because the “drop” method from a scaffold was not then in use, some hangings were lengthy and prolonged spectacles. Many villains “died hard” as a consequence.

Wider use of the term developed from its use at the Battle of Albuhera in the Peninsula War in 1811, William Inglis, the commander of the British 57th Regiment of Foot, ordered all ranks "Die hard the 57th, die hard!", i.e. to fight until the last. The regiment later became known as the Die-hards.

In 1922, the meaning shifted away from a focus on death towards the modern day meaning of a person who holds stubbornly to a minority view, in defiance of the circumstances. In that year the members of the Conservative Party named themselves 'The Die-hards'.