The Greatest Absorption Comes From Motivation.

For learning to take place with any kind of efficiency students must be motivated. To be motivated, they must become interested. And they become interested when they are actively working on projects which they can relate to their values and goals in life.

- Gus Tuberville

The greatest absorption comes from motivation,
The greatest motivation comes from interest,
The greatest interest comes for aspiration,
The greatest aspiration comes from -
Who he is and what he wants to be.

- Ghostwise.

~~~~~~~~~~"

Much learning does not teach understanding.

- Heraclitus (540 BC - 480 BC),

The Wise and the Learned are two different breeds.

- Ghostwise

I Have A Soft Spot For Sexy Librarians.

I have a real soft spot in my heart for librarians and people who care about books.

- Ann Richards


I too have a soft spot for book lovers and sexy librarians.

- Ghosewise

~~~~~~~~~~"

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 Adler


Sometimes, I think only books understand me.
They may disappoint but never betrays.

- Ghostwise

The Rose That Lives Its Little Hour.

Loveliest of lovely things are they
On earth that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.

- William Cullen Bryant 'A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson'

Many keep plastic flowers because it last forever
But I would rather mourn the withered rose
That gave love its hour.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

The fairest things have fleetest end,
Their scent survives their close:
But the rose's scent is bitterness
To him that loved the rose.

- Francis Thompson (1859-1907), British poet.

The scent is bitter because the scent was sweet.

- Ghostwise

True Friends Stab You In The Front.

“True friends stab you in the front.”

- Oscar Wilde


And feels the stab himself.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“A friend is someone who, upon seeing another friend in immense pain, would rather be the one experiencing the pain than to have to watch their friend suffer.”

- Anonymous


If you would not suffer his pain, you're not much of a friend.

- Ghostwise

Politicians Come And Go But Music Never Lies.

Music has that power because music is not like politicians. Music is always there. Politicians come in every four or five years, lie to the people, get what they want at that time, and disappear, but music is there every time. It can change the world.

-Lucky Dube

Politicians come and go but music never lies.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

"It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception." (When asked about his theory of relativity)

- Albert Einstein

Einstein said – his theory of relativity is music, is art.

- Ghostwise

Let Each Man Exercise The Art He Knows.

The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don't want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human, you don't have a soul.

- Thomas Moore


If you don't need art, you don't have a soul.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~"

Let each man exercise the art he knows.

- Aristophanes (450 BC - 388 BC)


The best and most honest advice on art that I know.

- Ghostwise

Can One Be A Poet If He Doesn't Write A Single Line?

He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.

- George Sand, 1851


A true poet is one who took delights in poetry, not necessarily one writes it.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

The poet is in the end probably more afraid of the dogmatist who wants to extract the message from the poem and throw the poem away than he is of the sentimentalist who says, "Oh, just let me enjoy the poem."

- Robert Penn Warren


Poetry are meant to be enjoyed with the heart not the mind.

- Ghostwise

What My Eyes See When They Are Shut.

Logics will get you from A to B, imagination will take you everywhere.

- Albert Einstein

Even there are no roads, even over the seas, to the sky, the stars and beyond.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

My eyes make pictures when they are shut.

- Samuel T. Coleridge

Undistracted by what my eyes see, my imagination can now roam free.

- Ghostwise

You May Say I'm A Dreamer

Imagine

John Lennon

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...


Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...


You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one


Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...


You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one



Imagine...

- Ghostwise

What Children Have To Say About Love.

"I think you're supposed to get shot with an arrow or something,but the rest of it isn't supposed to be so painful."

... Manuel, age 8

"Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good too."

...Greg, age 8

"No one is sure why it happens, but I heard it has something to do withhow you smell...that's why perfume and deodorant is so popular."

...Mae, age 9

"One way is to take the girl out to eat. Make sure it's something she likes to eat.French fries usually works for me."

... Bart, age 9

"Don't do things like have smelly, green sneakers. You might get attention,but attention ain't the same thing as love."

... Alonzo, age 9 "

When a person gets kissed for the first time, they fall downand they don't get up for at least an hour."

... Wendy, age 8

"If you want to be loved by somebody who isn'talready in your family, it doesn't hurt to be beautiful."

...Anita, age 8

"I look at kissing like this: Kissing is fine if you like it,but it's a free country and nobody should be forced to do it."

...Michael, age 8

"Don't say you love somebody and then change your mind ... Love isn't like picking what movie you want to watch."

... Natalie, age 9

"I'm not rushing into being in love. I'm finding fourth grade hard enough."

...Regina, age 10

source: S.F.Heart

Ghostwise has no reply to these...

Great Is The Beginning. Greater Is The Ending.

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.

- Gilda Radner


We all still want good ending. But if we make the best of our life and it ends right now, that is a good ending.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.

- Lazurus Long


With that, I will end this now.

- Ghostwise

It Is The Middle That Counts (Before You Are At The End)

“Beginnings are usually scary and endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts. You have to remember this when you find yourself at the beginning.”

- Sandra Bullock


I was caught in the middle once and found it both scary and sad.

- Ghostwise.

~~~~~~~~~~"

“Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

- Albert Einstein


Now if I can figure out where the middle is.

- Ghostwise.

Let's Start At The Very Beginning.

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”

- Seneca


How appropriate. We have just finished one century and beginning the next.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

- Plato


Which is why Julie Andrews sings "let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start."

- Ghostwise

We Just Hit A Century!

(We just hit a century! This is the 100 posts since I started this blog in August. Thank you for taking the ride with me. As best as I can, I try to make this a daily affair whenever I’m not traveling. The difference with other quotations sites is that I added a twist at the end of each quotation to complement, supplement, present another point of views, or even contradict it. I feel that every good quotation contained “some truth” but not the “whole truth” for there is always another point of view. Thus, while we appreciate good quotations, we should also not take them lying down. By all means, question them. Agree if you’re in agreement. Disagree if you if you can’t. But most important of all – you should have an opinion and know what that is. This makes it more stimulating and challenging.


Another difference is that my selections of good quotations are not restricted to so-called ‘literary’ materials only. I will take them from anywhere. It could be from books, poems, speeches, or any forms of writing. But I could just as well take them from songs, movies, fairy tales or even comics with the only criteria being I enjoyed it, I think it is meaningful, it impacted me at any stage of my life from childhood upwards, it is something I wanted to share and I see beauty in it. The appreciation of beauty is a subjective one and I make no excuse for being a die-hard romantic. Some may call me a “bleeding heart”, an idealist, a dreamer maybe even a Don Quixote. To varying degree, I’m guilty of all and could be accused of worse. For I would rather be all of them than a cynic for example. So stay with me while we go for the next century.)


“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.”

- Ashley Smith


Living life to the fullest begins with the appreciation of beauty.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“Love of beauty is Taste. The creation of beauty is Art.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson


Appreciation of beauty is happiness.

- Ghostwise

The Tiny Pushes of Honest Work.

I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.

- Helen Keller


And isn’t it sad that only heroes who got noticed?

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


But the heights reached by great men
Looked like they were achieved overnight.

- Ghostwise

Coffee Makes Me Laugh.

(I need a coffee break. Have one with me.)

Lady Nancy Astor: "If I were your wife, I would put poison in your coffee."

Sir Winston Churchill: "And if I were your husband, I would drink it."


What a charming couple they will make.

- Ghostwise


~~~~~~~~~"

Coffee which makes the politician wise
And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.

- Alexander Pope (1688-1744)


Either our politicians need to drink a lot of coffee
Or they drank too much of it.

- Ghostwise.

Passions Are Liken'd Best To Floods and Streams.

PASSIONS are liken'd best to floods and streams:
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;
So, when affection yields discourse, it seems
The bottom is but shallow whence they come.
They that are rich in words, in words discover
That they are poor in that which makes a lover.

- Sir Walter Raleigh, The Silent Lover


So shall we say - speak less, kiss more.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

Touch passion when it comes your way...It’s rare enough as it is. Don’t walk away when it calls you by name.

- J. Michael Straczynski


But if you like to stay in control...You better run.

- Ghostwise

When You Are Lonely And Sorrow Your Only Company

There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy.

- Dante


When you are lonely, and sorrow your only company.
Inevitably, you will recall, times when you were happy.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~~"

"Don't you want to join us?" I was recently asked by an acquaintance when he ran across me alone after midnight in a coffeehouse that was already almost deserted. "No, I don't," I said.

- Franz Kafka


Sometimes we only want lonely for company.

- Ghostwise

When Everything Hurts.

(I now returned to my "Roses" series. There are 48 images but I may not put them all up. I've posted 17 so far (including this). They were taken in a nursery just after a heavy rain, in a hurry under fading lights so did not appear as vibrant. But the little droplets of water and imperfections such as blemish make them more natural and beautiful in my opinion.)

“I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.”

- C.S. Lewis


The ones who hurts knows that. Only he could not find the words and the someone he could speak to.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

You must live through the time when everything hurts.

- Stephen Spender


No matter how much it hurts, we must live through it for that is the only cure.

- Ghostwise

When Caged Birds Sing.

God loved the birds and invented trees.
Man loved the birds and invented cages.

~Jacques Deval,


Man wants the things it loved to belong only to them.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.

- John Webster


They took a song from the wild and put it in a cage. The song of freedom became a song of longing, But to callous ears and selfish heart, the sound is just as sweet.

- Ghostwise

I Was Always A Lover of Soft-winged Things.

A light broke in upon my soul--
It was the carol of a bird;
It ceased--and then it came again
The sweetest song ear ever heard.

- Lord Byron


From heart to soul, the songs birds sing.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

I was always a lover of soft-winged things.

- Victor Hugo, I Was Always a Lover


I became a lover when I first heard them sing.

- Ghostwise

Plant A Green Tree To Wait For A Singing Bird.

(Yesterday I was in a bird sanctuary in the Khao Yai National Park in Thailand listening to the calls of wild birds. It was a cool windy morning and the tall grasses dance like rippling waves in the distance. I was up in a wooden tower surrounded by grasslands and a small lake, framed by the darker greens of the forest at the edges. I couldn't think of a better way to spend the day. This is dedicated to the birds (seen and unseen) that sang to me yesterday morning. Looked out for it in upcoming posts in Ghost Walk)



There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.

- Robert Lynd


Birds enhance the landscape by its presence and its songs. Man changes the landscape to enhance no one but himself.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.

- Chinese Proverb


Too many waits for the singing bird without planting a tree.

- Ghostwise

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveler hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveler to the shore.
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


The sea calls. Whether you heed it or not, the tide rises, the tide falls.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~~"

At high tide fish eat ants; at low tide ants eat fish.

- Thai Proverb


Tht tide favors neither ants nor fish.

- Ghostwise

Time Trapped In Eternity.

“Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.”

- Henry Van Dyke


And when love ends, you find time is still trapped in eternity.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

”What is time? The shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the running of the sand, day and night, summer and winter, months, years, centuries -- these are but arbitrary and outward signs, the measure of Time, not Time itself. Time is the Life of the soul.”

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Measures not time by the hours of the day or the seasons of the year but by how your life is spent.

- Ghostwise

I Really Don't Know Life At All.

Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.

- Christopher Morley (1890 - 1957)


I don't even know which is the foreign language being used.

- Ghostwise.

~~~~~~~~~~~"

Tears and fears and feeling proud,
To say I love you right out loud.
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds,
I've looked at life that way.

But now old friends are acting strange.
They shake their heads; they say I've changed.
Well something's lost but something's gained,
In living every day.

I've looked at life from both sides now,
From win and lose and still somehow,
It's life's illusions I recall.
I really don't know life, at all.

- Joni Mitchell (Both Sides Now)


No, I really don't know life at all.

- Ghostwise

I Really Don't Know Love At All.

"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down."

- Woody Allen,


"This is how much I know about love."

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

Moons and Junes and ferris wheels,
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real.
I've looked at love that way.

But now it's just another show,
You leave 'em laughing when you go.
And if you care, don't let them know.
Don't give yourself away.

I've looked at love from both sides now,
From give and take, and still somehow,
It's love's illusions I recall.
I really don't know love, at all.

- Joni Mitchell (Both Sides Now)

No, I really don't know love at all.

- Ghostwise

I Really Don't Know Clouds At All.

“Behind every cloud is another cloud.”

- Judy Garland


"And I thought it was sunshine."

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

Rows and flows of angel hair,
And ice cream castles in the air,
And feather canyons everywhere,
I've looked at clouds that way.

But now they only block the Sun,
They rain and snow on everyone.
So many things I would have done,
But clouds got in my way.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow,
It's cloud illusions I recall,
I really don't know clouds, at all.

- Joni Mitchell, (Both Sides Now)


No, I really don't know clouds at all.

- Ghostwise