"Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. And lo, no one was there."
(anon)

Einstein

This biography by Walter Isaacson, a birthday gift, is over 600 pages of small print. Years ago I would have devoured it in a few days. Now it will take me longer. I may share some of it with you as I read along. I have always been fascinated by this visionary genius.

Freeman J. Dyson (again)

"The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple." A good example is hay - cutting grass in autumn to keep animals alive during the winter - unknown to the Roman Empire where grass grew year around. "According to the Hay Theory of History, the invention of hay was the decisive event which moved the center of gravity of urban civilization from the Mediterranean to Northern and Western Europe."
(from his book "Infinite in All Directions")

Keshavan Nair

"With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strengths to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity."

Freeman J. Dyson

"To me the most astounding fact in the universe, even more astounding than the flight of the Monarch butterfly, is the power of mind which drives my fingers as I write these words. Somehow, by natural processes still totally mysterious, a million butterfly brains working together in a human skull have the power to dream, to calculate, to see and to hear, to speak and to listen, to translate thoughts and feelings into marks on paper which other brains can interpret. Mind, through the long course of biological evolution, has established itself as a moving force in our little corner of the universe."
(From his book "Infinite in All Directions")

My Birthday

Age 89 today - don't know how much more time will be allotted me but I am so grateful to have been able to travel this far on life's journey. I am reminded of the dinner hour when we thought we had finished eating, and our plates were about to be picked up - and often we were told "Save your fork for the best is yet to come!."
And so I'm saving my fork. I love you all.

Freeman J. Dyson (physicist)

Some quotes: "Superstrings and butterflies are examples illustrating two different aspects of the universe and two different notions of beauty. Butterflies are at the extreme of concreteness, superstrings at the extreme of abstraction. They mark the extreme limits of the territory over which science claims jurisdiction. Both are, in their different ways, beautiful. Both are, from a scientific point of view, poorly understood. Scientifically speaking, a butterfly is as least as mysterious as a superstring. Almost all the things scientists think and dream about are mysterious."
(From his book "Infinite in all Directions".)

William Butler Yeats

"Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing or that but simply growth, we are happy when we are growing."

San Francisco Earthquake

On this date, at 5:12am, in1906, the quake struck causing extensive fires, an estimated 3000 deaths and 300,000 survivors to be left homeless. Fires lasted 4 days and nights. It resulted from a rupture on the San Andreas Fault which runs the lenght of California, a distance of about 800 miles.

Humanity Lesson

An older doctor was debriefing a new doctor who had done done a good job in the emergency room. He said "Did you notice the young man from housekeeping who came in to clean the room?" There was a complete blank look on the young doctor's face. "His name is Carlos. He's been here for three years. He does a fabullous job. His wifes name is Maria. They have four children. He lives in a rented house about three blocks from here." Then he named the four children and gave each child's age. "Next week I would like you to tell me something about Carlos that I don't already know."
(Source - Rich Karlgaard - Forbes)

Marlene Deitrich

"It's the friend you can call up at 4am that matter."

Rachel Naomi Memen

"The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we give to each other is our attention. A loving silence has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well intentioned words."

Oscar Wilde

"Only the shallow know themselves ."

Handell's Messiah

" On this date in 1742, the Messaih premiered in Dublin's New Musick Hall on Fishamble Street. George Frideric Handel himself played the harpsichord. Proceeds from the concert went to local hospitals for the mentally ill. The most favorite movement was the Hallelujah Chorus during which the audience traditionally stands.

Carl Sandburg

"I'm an idealist, I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way."

Charles Dickens

"Have a heart that never hardens; a temper that seldom flares and a touch that never hurts."

European History

It was steered as much by ideas as by events - concepts from the classical days of Greece, such as inquiry ito nature, ideal beauty, moderation, and political freedom, were absorbed. Rome contributed language, systems of law and administration, public works and architecture. Christianity established a higher authority, preserved learning, inspired painting, music, and Gothic cathedrals. Invading Islamic Arabs brought ancient texts, notably Aristotle's. and a system of mathematical notation. The early Europeans - Celts, Germanic tribes and others kept alive many native traditions. Few would argue with the proposition that our modern world - for good and for ill - is Europe's child.
(Source - Cartographic Division - National Geographic Society.)

Masterpiece

A century ago, Glasgow Scotland was the tearoom capital of the world, awash with high class cafes where the genteel ladies could take tea. The Willow Tea Room, which opened in 1903, extended five floors and was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, considered the father of Modernism and master of Art Nouveau. It created a sensation.

It reopensd in the 1980s, in Sauchiehall Street, but is regretably but a shadow of what it was a century ago. Tea rooms are back in favor now going under its modern guise as a Starbucks coffee shop.

(Source - Bill Coles, a journalist who lives in Edinburgh and writes this column for the weekend Wall Street Journal.)

Harace Greeley

"Fame is a vepor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, and only character endures."

David McKay

"The greatest battles in life are fought daily in the silent chambers of the conscience and soul."

John Wayne

"Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway."

Vignette

I remember the "Charleston" and the quick lively music that made it work - we had 78rpm phonograph records. I remember skirts getting shorter and shorter - I guessed so they could dance better - frowned upon by the older generation. I do not remember gangsters, bathtub gin, speakeasies, etc. of the "Roaring Twenties" glorified later by Hollywood - but I do remember the daring impropriety of women "bobbing" (cutting short) their hair. My youngest aunt, Marguarite, was the first in the family to do so - shocking!

Mark Twain

"There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy."

Henry James

"Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact."

The Great Mughals

In the 16th and 17th centuries they ruled over India, Pakistan, and most of Aafghanistan, with 100 million subjects, 5 times the number of their rivals, the Ottomans, and they rivaled the Ming Dynasty in the arts. During this period they built the marble masterpiece the Taj Mahal. This was Islam's rule at its most powerful and majestic, defining Islam at its most tolerant and electic - forbidding forcible conversion to their faith.
Source - author William Dalrymple.
(too bad today's fanatics can't appreciate their history)

Admonition

"If at first you don't succeed then skydiving is not for you."
(source ?)