"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.  If you think about that, you'll do things differently."

~ Warren Buffett

"Anyone who has gumption knows what it is, and anyone who hasn't can never know what it is.  So there is no need of defining it."  ~ L.M. Montgomery

"The most effective way to do it, is to do it."
~  Amelia Earhart

"Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor."

~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Source:  Treasury of Wit & Wisdom, 4,000 of the funniest, cleverest, most insightful things ever said.  Reader's Digest.2006.

 

Smokey Hollow Falls, Waterdown, ON

 

 

 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

~ Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, st. 178

 

Three Prize Pumpkins

"The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see."  ~ G. K. Chesterton

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive."  ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

 

"Not all who wander are lost" ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

 

 

 

 

"Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."


~ Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864)  American novelist

"A good photograph is knowing where to stand." ~ Ansel Adams

"It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer.  You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things.  But in photography everything is so ordinary;  it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary."

~ David Bailey

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
Al suddenly mount
And scatter, wheeling, in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old'
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake
s edge or pool
Delight men's eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

William Butler Yeats

Oh for a book and a shady nook,
   Either indoor or out,
With the green leaves whispering overhead,
   Or the street cries all about.
Where I may read all at my ease,
    Both of the new and old,
For a jolly good book whereon to look
    Is better to me than gold.

~ John Wilson 1889

[My source doesn't ID the poet as John Wilson; however, seems logical.  If anyone can verify, please do.]

On Dylan Thomas ~

"'From the minute he saw daylight:  he had no choice but to write.'  All that seriously bothered him was the arrangement of patterns of words, 'and which particular word, out of his glorious riches of words, was the most apt.  That, and a continuous headache of debts.'*  Between money and muse, poverty and craft, Dylan's marriage skimped and bloomed.  Some money did somehow trickle in, from a poem here, a story there, from an occasional review, and even from the U.S., where James Laughlin of New Directions was persuaded to buy up the rights on Dylan's next five books for a reasonable sum in dollars, to be paid weekly in a form of allowance."
*Caitlin Thomas

Dylan on money:  "In London, because money lives and breeds there; in penury, because it doesn't; and in doubt as to whether I should continue as an outlaw or take my fate for a walk in the straight and bowler-treed paths."

~ DYLAN THOMAS POET OF HIS PEOPLE, Andrew Sinclair, Michael Joseph Ltd, 1975. 

Today:  In The Neat L'l Bookshop, 1:00 p.m.  TOPIC:  The Welsh poet & writer, Dylan Thomas.

Dylan Thomas' Writing Shed in Laugharne

"There is a story of the friend in the funeral parlour, who looked down at the poet's painted face, loud suit and carnation in his buttonhole, only to declare, "He would never have been seen dead in it."

"Dylan loves to shock, to wound, to kill, but he finds himself in the end a puritan, maimed in the gut, killed by his own boozing and indiscretions."

Quotations from Dylan Thomas Poet of His People* by Andrew Sinclair.

Join us in The Neat Little Bookshop on Thursday, September 18, 1:00 p.m. along with John Passfield and Neil Paul for a presentation on the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

*Michael Joseph Ltd. 1975.
[Photo:  Wikipedia]

 

 

"Take the gentle path." ~ George Herbert

 

 

 

 

"The love of living things" ~ plants, wildlife, and the great outdoors is genetic, encoded in human beings to ensure balance, harmony, and preservation."

"Attraction to natural environments is not simply a cultural phenomenon.  There is evidence it is a deeper, biological urge."

~ Edward O. Wilson, Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist.

"There is healing in hugging a tree...the idea is that everything is full of energy and that trees are something substantial that we can feel with our entire bodies.  They are alive and growing and very powerful...When I was sure no one was looking, I found a large tree and put my arms around it.  Holding myself close to the trunk, it actually felt good."

~ Ruth Fishel, Precious Solitude, Finding peace and serenity in a hectic world. Adams Media Corp., 1999.

From Wherever You Go There You Are, by Jon Kabat-Zinn*, "Standing meditation is best learned from trees.  Stand close to one, or, better still, in a stand of trees and just peer out in one direction.  Feel your feet developing roots into the ground.  Feel your body sway gently, as it always will, just as trees do in a breeze.  Staying put, in touch with your breathing, drink in what is in front of you, or keep your eyes closed and sense your surroundings.  Sense the tree closest to you.  Listen to it, feel its presence, touch it with your mind and body.
     Use your breath to help you to stay in the moment...feeling your own body standing, breathing, being, moment by moment."

*Hyperion, 1994, Afterward 2004. 

"When you appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of things, you receive energy." ~ James Redfield

We have spent a lot of time in nature during the last couple weeks.  As some of you know, Krista, our daughter-in-law experienced a "thalamic vascular lesion" ~ better understood by most of us as a stroke.  Krista is recovering remarkably well.  As one of her colleagues said, "Her huge personality and vibrant spirit hasn't been lost or diminished."

Krista is thanking everyone for their love and support and asking everyone to forgive her for not being able to respond right now.  She is taking a break from email, phone calls, internet, etc.  We have all learned from Krista that the harmony found in nature is healing.

In James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy, [a book that Krista introduced to me], he discussed how certain environments radiate more energy than others, such as old natural environments, especially forests.  His third insight elaborated on the beauty of nature, "When you appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of things, you receive energy."

Ruth Fishel refers to James Redfield's writings in her book, Precious Solitude*, and quotes Edward O. Wilson as believing that "the love of living things" ~ plants, wildlife, and the great outdoors is genetic, encoded in human beings to ensure balance, harmony, and preservation."

*Ruth Fishel, Adams Media Corporation, 1999.

 

 

 

 [I don't have a telephoto lens.  You can see that I was close to this little fox.  Among wind turbines and solar panels, he manages to survive. lbw]

 

"...What's water but the generated soul?"

Upon the border of that lake's a wood
Now all dry sticks under a wintry sun,
And in a copse of beeches there I stood,
For Nature's pulled her tragic buskin on
And all the rant's a mirror of my mood:
At sudden thunder of the mounting swan
I turned about and looked where branches break
The glittering reaches of the flooded lake.

Another emblem there!  That stormy white
But seems a concentration of the sky;
And, like the soul, it sails into the sight
And in the morning's gone, no man knows why;
And is so lovely that it sets to right
What knowledge or its lack had set awry,
So arrogantly pure, a child might think
It can be murdered with a spot of ink.

. . .
~William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939) Irish poet
Many thanks to our friend who sent the poem to us.

"Being solitary is being alone well; being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others, because solitude is an achievement."

~ Alice Koller, author of The Stations of Solitude and An Unknown Woman.

"When something is intolerable is in my life, I head for the water.  It leavens me in some way.  Some middle-most part of me is soothed and silenced by it." ~ Alice Koller

 

 

 

Information Processing

Neologism:  "The key phrase, 'information processing,' was coined by Marshall McLuhan, who was asked by IBM to explain to them, in succinct language, what computers are all about,"  according to Peter Bishop in Fifth Generation Computers (1986).

"The microchip will take its rightful place among history's four greatest inventions--the others being fire, the wheel, and hotel room service." ~ Peter C. Newman, Canadian Journalist, "The Dawn of a New Millennium." Maclean's, 30 Dec. 1996.

"In terms of, say, a computer technology we are headed for cottage economics, where the most important industrial activities can be carried on in any individual little shack anywhere on the globe."  Marshall McLuhan, communications pioneer, observation made in 1970. The Essential McLuhan (1995) edited by E. McLuhan & F. Zingrone.


"Thought:  one day the word 'gigabits' is going to seem as small as the word 'dozen.' ~ Observation of the narrator of Douglas Coupland's novel Microserfs (1995)."

[Source:  John Robert Colombo's FAMOUS LASTING WORDS/ Great Canadian Quotations, Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 2000.

Who said that?

"Birds of a feather will gather together."

"Penny wise, pound foolish."

"Be not solitary, be not idle."

"No rule is so general, which admits not some exception."

~
~Robert Burton (1577 - 1640)  English scholar, best known for his The Anatomy of Melancholy.

[Photo: from files Neat Little Bookshop 11B Cayuga Street.]

The Last Stand...

Looking East

 

 

[Please click on photo for larger image. lbw] 

The Book Lady

We lost a dear friend, Dorothy Brown, The Book Lady.  Dorothy was well-known in the CircleM/Mizeners Flea Market, Hwy. 5 in Flamboro.  She came to Canada in 1946 as a war bride. She was  in her 91st year.

Dorothy and her husband, Roy, opened a bookshop and collectibles thirty years ago.  We will miss you, Dorothy.

   

Topsy-Turvy World

If the butterfly courted the bee,
     And the owl the porcupine;
If churches were built in the sea,
     And three times one was nine;
If the pony rode his master,
     If the buttercups ate the cows,
If the cat had the dire disaster,
     To be worried, sir, by the mouse;
If mamma, sir, sold the baby
     To a gipsy for half-a-crown;
If a gentleman, sir, was a lady,
     The world would be Upside-Down!
If any of all these wonders
     Should ever come about
I should not consider them blunders,
     For I should be Inside-Out!

~ William Brighty Rands (1823 - 1882) British writer, known for his Victorian era nursery rhymes.
[Photo files:  Upper Canada Village, Kingston]

"We behave to our friends as we would wish our friends to behave to us."

~ Aristotle DIOGENES LAERTIUS, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, bk. V. sec. 17

"If purpose, then, is inherent in art, so is it in Nature also.  The best illustration is the case of a man being his own physician, for Nature is like that ~ agent and patient at once."

~ Aristotle (384 -322 B.C.)Physics, bk. II, ch. 8