Memory Spots : 2021

Books to read...

In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.
-Mortimer J. Adler, philosopher, educator, and author (1902-2001)

wasted ammunition...

A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum.

-Henry Miller, writer (1891-1980)

Respect the potential..

When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become.

-Louis Pasteur, chemist and bacteriologist (27 Dec 1822-1895)

Future & Past

One faces the future with one's past.
- Pearl S. Buck

Human Connections

Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family.

- Joseph Brodsky

tell the stories...

No one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell.

-Charles de Lint, writer (b. 22 Dec 1951)

Merry Christmas

Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought, doesn't come from a store.
- Dr. Seuss

Sources of...

"Where it is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat."
-John Morley, statesman and writer (1838-1923)

other way...

If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.

-Juan Ramon Jimenez, poet, Nobel Prize in literature (23 Dec 1881-1958)

Kindness and wisdom

"Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom."

~ Theodore Isaac Rubin

Writing is...

Writing is like carrying a fetus.

-Edna O'Brien, writer (b. 15 Dec 1930)

Only ONE minute...

It takes only ONE minute to tell a loved one you adore them.

It takes only ONE minute to run towards a fear.

It takes only ONE minute to set a big goal.

It takes only ONE minute to drink a glass of water.

It takes only ONE minute to read a great idea(that can change the world).

It takes only ONE minute to write the most beautiful thank you note to your parents or your teacher or your loved ones.

It takes only ONE minute to smile.

It takes only ONE minute to connect to a friend or a co-worker.

It takes only ONE minute to help a human being in need.

It takes only ONE minute to raise your standards to world-class.

It takes only ONE minute to go that extra mile and wow a customer or your partner.

It takes only ONE minute to reflect on what you can do today to be better than you were yesterday.

It takes only ONE minute to embrace change.

It takes only ONE minute to accept the other person as it is.

It takes only ONE minute to make a new choice that will lead to your best life.

Make the best of your minutes. Each one of them make up your life.

(This article is inspired from Robin Sharma's "Little Book of Stunning Success")

Thoughtful citizens can

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

-Margaret Mead, anthropologist (1901-1978)

Living well is...

Set of the sails...

It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.

- Jim Rohn

...time's

Style is time's fool. Form is time's student.

-Stewart Brand, writer and editor (b. 14 Dec 1938)

Truth and facts

There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.

- Maya Angelou

shall not live in vain

If I can stop one Heart from breaking

I shall not live in vain

If I can ease one Life the Aching

Or cool one Pain

Or help one fainting Robin

Unto his Nest again

I shall not live in Vain.

-Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)

Grow your own

Strongest can be the kindest

Around Christmas of 1980, my family took a trip to Los Angeles. As we drove along a street, I noticed a man driving a Rolls Royce, waving to all the people honking. He drove slowly. He looked graceful.

Long story short, we drove up alongside him in our little rental car (seriously) and asked for a photo. He pointed to a side street. And posed for photos with us with the utmost of patience.

Muhammad Ali taught me so much about humility that day. And that the strongest can be the kindest.

I write about this meeting and many more lessons in my new book The Everyday Hero Manifesto, yet I wanted to share this photo with you. To remind you of the power of decency, dignity and compassion for each other. I'm the one with the baseball cap. Yikes!

I promise you that The Everyday Manifesto (EHM) will be life-changing for you [if you practice the teachings in it step by tiny step until you generate a revolution of splendid results].

- Robin Sharma

...govern the

Syllables govern the world.

- George Bernard Shaw

Goal setting

Know how to...

"Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness."

~ George Sand

Eyes & blindness

Those who put out the people's eyes, reproach them for their blindness.

-John Milton, poet (1608-1674)

Living well is...

My list of friends...

I would not enter on my list of friends,

(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,

Yet wanting sensibility) the man

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.

-William Cowper, poet (1731-1800)

Living beyond...

One trouble with living beyond your deserved number of years is that there's always some reason to live another year. And I'd like to live another year so that Nixon won't be President. If he's re-elected I'll have to live another four years.

-Rex Stout, novelist (1886-1975) [Nixon resigned in 1974.]

Timid & confident

A timid question will always receive a confident answer.

-Charles John Darling, lawyer, judge, and politician (1849-1936)

free thinking...

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum -- even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

-Noam Chomsky, linguistics professor and political activist (b. 7 Dec 1928)

Few times in life

There are a few times in life when you leap up and the past that you'd been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you're suspended knowing nothing and no one, not even yourself.

-Ann Patchett, writer (b. 2 Dec 1963)

Falling down

Evil beyond control

hunting of man

The average

Normal is the average of deviance.

-Rita Mae Brown, writer (b. 28 Nov 1944)

Good & Good

A good beginning makes a good end.

- Louis L'Amour

Register opinions

If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!

-Jonathan Swift, satirist (30 Nov 1667-1745)

Getting older...

"The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been."

-Madeleine L'Engle, writer (1918-2007)

Electrical Spark

"Kindness is an electrical spark of life that runs through all kingdoms and has a reciprocal action when shown to others."

~ Joe Hayes

Stand before

The sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.

-Chinua Achebe, writer and professor (1930-2013)

Never to..

To seek understanding before taking action, yet to trust my instincts when action is called for. Never to avoid danger from fear, never to seek out danger for its own sake. Never to conform to fashion from fear of eccentricity, never to be eccentric from fear of conformity.

-Steven Brust, novelist (b. 23 Nov 1955)

Nothing so useless..

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

-Peter Drucker, management consultant, professor, and writer (1909-2005)

..in every small boy

A scientist is in a sense a learned small boy. There is something of the scientist in every small boy. Others must outgrow it. Scientists can stay that way all their lives.

-George Wald, scientist and Nobel laureate (18 Nov 1906-1997)

Not necessary...

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.

- Claude Monet, painter (14 Nov 1840-1926)

Encircle both...

As freely as the firmament embraces the world, /

or the sun pours forth impartially his beams, /

so mercy must encircle both friend and foe.

-Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, poet and dramatist (10 Nov 1759-1805)

Buying and selling

I would rather be the man who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than the one who sold it.

-Will Rogers, humorist (1879-1935)

Much use...

Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.
- Gertrude Stein

Highest thoughts...

Poetry should please by a fine excess and not by singularity. It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a remembrance.

-John Keats, poet (31 Oct 1795-1821)

Curve that sets

A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.
- Phyllis Diller

Continue....

"Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others."

~ Rosa Parks

Who we are?

We read books to find out who we are.

-Ursula K. Le Guin, author (1929-2018)

to the very end...

You have to hold your audience in writing to the very end -- much more than in talking, when people have to be polite and listen to you.

-Brenda Ueland, writer (1891-1985)

Good fortune

The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

...are not fed

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

-Dwight D. Eisenhower, US general and 34th president (1890-1969)

Popular Vs Good Work

The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work, is the most familiar of all the devil's traps for artists.

-Logan Pearsall Smith, essayist (18 Oct 1865-1946)

Life Goals

To be free is to have achieved your life.
- Tennessee Williams

Right mix

Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.

-Arthur Miller, playwright and essayist (1915-2005)

not becoming a human being?

Someone is Hindu, someone is Muslim, someone is Christian /
Everyone is hell-bent on not becoming a human being.
-Nida Fazli, poet (1938-2016)

Happy Birthday R.K. Narayan

You become a writer by writing. It is a yoga.

-R.K. Narayan, novelist (10 Oct 1906-2001)

Special quality

To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own.
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

mighty continent...

I have come to believe that this is a mighty continent which was hitherto unknown.
- Christopher Columbus

...being logical

No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical.
-Niels Bohr, physicist (1885-1962)

Be BOLD

Fortune befriends the bold.
- Emily Dickinson

Loneliness is an experience

Loneliness... is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man.
-Thomas Wolfe, novelist (1900-1938)

Ready to learn, but...

Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
- Winston Churchill

Difficulat deliveries...

Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries.

-J.B. Priestley, author (1894-1984)

Taking less...?

The Hardest thing is to take less when you can get more!

- Kin Hubbard

Memories and Dreams

We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.
-Jeremy Irons, actor (b. 19 Sep 1948)

Surpass himself

A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed -- I well know. For it is a sign that he has tried to surpass himself.

-Georges Clemenceau, statesman (1841-1929)

Short and long...

A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.

-Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (29 Sep 1547-1616)

Dimming consciences...

If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one's reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state.

-Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)

Strung Bow

In a perfect union the man and woman are like a strung bow. Who is to say whether the string bends the bow, or the bow tightens the string?

-Cyril Connolly, critic and editor (1903-1974)

Fit the present?

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.
- Golda Meir

Create an additional source

"Never depend on single income invest to create second source."

- Warren Buffet

Years VS Moments

"People forget years and remember moments."

-Ann Beattie, novelist (b. 8 Sep 1947)

Gain time

"The end of labor is to gain leisure."

- Aristotle

Faith and doubt

When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

- Robert M. Pirsig, author and philosopher (1928-2017)

How you react...

"What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens."
- Ellen Glasgow

Teachers' Day

To follow...

Take Risk

Leap, and the net will appear.
- John Burroughs

Saying and doing...

"Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out."
- Iris Murdoch

Opinion vs decisions

A wise man makes his own decisions; an ignorant man follows the public opinion.

– Chinese Proverb

Wisdom...

Can't be free

"Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing."
- Oscar Wilde

The last tree...

When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can't eat money.

-Alanis Obomsawin, filmmaker (b. 31 Aug 1932)

Two Languages

"I speak two languages, Body and English. "

-Mae West, actress, playwright, singer, screenwriter, and comedian (1893-1980)

Dreams, no borders...

"Dreams heed no borders, the eyes need no visas. With eyes shut I walk across the line in time. All the time."
-Gulzar, poet, lyricist, and film director (b. 18 Aug 1934)

Mother...

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.
-Spanish proverb

Passion

Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.

-Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, philosopher (1770-1831)

Assumptions are...

Best remedy

The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Anticipation...

There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.

-Alfred Hitchcock, film-maker (1899-1980)

Live to be remembered

"Live today the way you want to be remembered tomorrow."

~ Dillon Burroughs

Old and Young

Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.
- Herbert Hoover, 31st US president (1874-1964)

Sour and Sweet

There are none so sour as those who are sweet to order.
-Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, essayist (1715-1747)

Self - awareness

Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.

-Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

Clean and bright

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

- George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

Imitating elders

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

-James Baldwin, writer (2 Aug 1924-1987)

Count your assets

If you count all your assets you always show a profit.
- Wilson Mizner

Nurture & Nourish

"When our Inner Child is not nurtured and nourished, our minds gradually close to new ideas, unprofitable commitments and the surprises of the Spirit."

- Brennan Manning

Dream - the size

Euphemism

Euphemism is a euphemism for lying.

-Bobbie Gentry, singer and songwriter (b. 27 Jul 1944)

Molder...

"A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Hourglass of life...

The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
- Jean Paul

Direct Proportion

Difficult Employee

Conquer self

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
-Edmund Hillary, mountaineer and explorer (20 Jul 1919-2008)

..the difference is

We all have ability. The difference is how we use it.
- Charlotte Whitton

Share courage

"Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

Work with enemy

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.
-Nelson Mandela, activist, South African president, Nobel laureate (18 Jul 1918-2013)

Aim for success?

Most truth

"Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space."
- Orson Scott Card

Swallow the evil

"By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach."

~ Winston Churchill

Surround System

For a higher standard

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.
- Henry Ward Beecher

Noble thought

My ambition is to live to see all of physics reduced to a formula so elegant and simple that it will fit easily on the front of a T-shirt.
-Leon Max Lederman, physicist, Nobel laureate (15 Jul 1922-2018)
[He had to sell his Nobel medal to pay for his medical bills https://www.vox.com/health-care/2018/10/4/17936626/leon-lederman-nobel-priz e-medical-bills ]

Estimates...

"We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction."

– Bill Gates

Can do it again

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy it today, you can do it again tomorrow."

~ James A. Michener

building the new...

"The secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new."

~ Socrates

Pictures of our...

Words are but pictures of our thoughts.
- John Dryden

Appearance is...

father of...

Doubt is the father of invention.
- Ambrose Bierce

must travel light...

He who would travel happily must travel light.

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (1900-1944)

more powerful

"Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push."

~ Richard M. DeVos

3 times per second...

"Every day, three times per second, we produce the equivalent of the amount of data that the Library of Congress has in its entire print collection…"
- Nate Silver, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, FiveThirtyEight

Greater than kindness

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

-Jean Jacques Rousseau, philosopher and author (28 Jun 1712-1778)

how close they're...

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Thomas A. Edison

Believable Sign

Stronger..

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

forget to tell...

People change and forget to tell each other.
-Lillian Hellman, playwright (1905-1984)

Give it a meaning...

Life has no meaning a priori. ... It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.
-Jean-Paul Sartre, writer and philosopher (1905-1980)

Follw & Accept

Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him.
- Henry Miller

For Support or ...

"An unsophisticated forecaster uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts - for support rather than for illumination."
- Andrew Lang

someone doing

Historical movements

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
- Mark Twain

Focus to see...

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
- Aristotle Onassis

Story telling - an art!

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men,
Had scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Finally a twist in the end....

Hickory Dickory Dock,
The mice ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
The rest escaped with minor injuries.

Elegant common sense

Genius ain't anything more than elegant common sense.
- Josh Billings

Surround yourself with

Seduces smart people

Hard to Count

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
- Eric Hoffer

Just do

scholar of...

Each day is the scholar of yesterday.
- Pubilius Syrus

...central nervous system

When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.

-Ingrid Newkirk, animal rights activist (b. 11 Jul 1949)

Unless...going down

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.
- Arnold H. Glasow

Drive from the top...

"Bringing literacy of advanced analytics across the broader community, starting with the senior management.... is clearly something that has to be driven from the top. It needs cultural change."
- Colin Lenaghan, global senior vice president for net revenue management at PepsiCo, in the latest Me, Myself, and AI podcast episode, "No Need for AI Unicorns"

The Atlantic: Winners of the 2021 BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition

Some of the winning images from this year's contest, showcasing the natural world

                Read this:
                https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2021/06/winners-2021-bigpicture-natural-world-photography-competition/619063/?utm_source=atl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=share

Give light...

Long lesson

Life is a long lesson in humility.
- James M. Barrie

Own opinion

Have to go to...

"You can't always sit in your corner of the forest and wait for people to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes."

- Winnie the Pooh

Smooth run?

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

- William Shakespeare

Departure from convention

Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as criticism of themselves.
- Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, mathematician (1872-1970)