Quotes, Proverbs & More
Some favorite quotes gathered over time...
Quotes
turtle has just one plan
at a time, and every cell
buys into it.
from a poem by Ted Kooser (the U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006) and his good friend, Jim Harrison, from their co-authored collection “Braided Creek”
"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."
~ Cicero
"The secret of change is to focus your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new."
~ Socrates
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
~ Goethe
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
~ Winston Churchill
"It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no person can sincerely try to help another without helping one's self."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
"A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity;
an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty"
~ Winston Churchill
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
~ Buckminster Fuller
“Those who act kindly in this world will have kindness.”
~ The Qur’an
“I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy, but more importantly music, for in the patterns of music and all the arts are the keys to learning."
~ Plato
"You can either complain that rose bushes have thorns - or rejoice that thorn bushes have roses."
~ Source Unknown
"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."
~ Helen Keller
“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”
~ Judy Garland, 1922 - 1969
“We can secure other people's approval, if we do right and try hard; but our own is worth a hundred of it, and no way has been found out of securing that.”
~ Mark Twain, 1835 - 1910
“If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”
~ Mother Teresa, 1910 - 1997
“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.”
~ William Faulkner, 1897 - 1962
In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.
~ Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 - 1849
“When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.”
~ Thomas Jefferson, 1743 - 1826
"The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it,
but that it is too low and we reach it."
~ Michelangelo
“Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.”
~ Pablo Casals, 1876 – 1973
“Prayer for Kindness: Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be a lamp unto those who walk in darkness, and a home to the stranger. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be a breath of life to the body of humankind, a dew to the soil of the human heart, and a fruit upon the tree of humility.”
~ Bahá'u'lláh (Baha'I, c/o EF Wen 6-23-08)
“We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.”
~ Franklin D Roosevelt (c/o Melissa Butz, Community Bridges)
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
~ Margaret Mead
“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
“If you tell the truth you don't have anything to remember.”
“It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.”
~ Mark Twain, 1835 - 1910
* * * * *
“The principle mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.”
~ Arthur Koestler, 1905 - 1983
“Where there is an open mind there will always be a frontier.”
~ Charles F. Kettering, 1876 - 1958
"You cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening your own."
~ via John Graham, source unknown
“For me, music making is the most joyful activity possible, the most perfect expression of any emotion.”
~ Luciano Pavarotti, 1935-2007
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“What you would not want others to do to you, do not do to others ... “
~ Confucius
“So act that anything you do may become universal law.”
~ Emmanuel Kant
"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless." –
~ Mother Teresa
"Not even the most formidable difficulties will take you from your path when you understand that your only destiny is to grow."
~ Chamalu, Andean Shaman (JZM)
"Our most consequential human problems will be resolved, not through competition, but
collaboration... what we need in education is a learning climate in which students work together. In such an atmosphere, truth emerges as authentic insights are conscientiously exchanged."
~ Ernest Boyer, President, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1979–1995 -- Princeton Friends School Advisory Board, 1985–1995
"Find what it is you love to do and do it well. Make the world a better place."
~ Keter Betts
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
~ Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl, 1952
* * * * *
“Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.”
“An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.”
“I think young people ought to seek the experience that is going to knock them off center.”
“The arrogance of the artist is a very profound thing, and it fortifies you.”
“I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.”
“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay home.”
~ James A. Michener, 1907 - 1997
* * * * *
"When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest."
~ Henry David Thoreau
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."
~ John Muir
“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.”
~ Rachel Carson
“Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time we've got.”
~ Art Buchwald 1925-2007
“You do not have to leave childhood behind just because you are getting older. It will
always be a part of your life – and the more playful you are, the more joyful life will be.”
~ Audrey Schwarzbein
“What did the tree learn from the earth to be able to talk with the sky?”
~ Pablo Neruda
“I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less
time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness
and respecting her seniority.”
~ E. B. White
“No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it. We must learn to see the world anew.”
~ Albert Einstein
"One positive thought produces millions of positive vibrations."
~ John Coltrane
"When we approach love and creativity with the level of conviction that the powers-that-be in the world today are approaching hatred and destruction, then and only then will we have a chance."
~ Marianne Williamson
"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."
~ Mozart
"A valuable lesson I've learned from making music is to never let anyone intimidate me. Every student, celebrity, CEO and math teacher in the world has experienced love, loneliness, fear and embarassment at some point. To understand this is to level an often very lopsided playing field."
~ Anna Nalick
"The most valuable things in life are priceless. They are courage, compassion, wisdom, respect for ourselves and others, and a host of characteristics that we call the beauty of the human spirit."
~ Herbie Hancock
"This music heals people because music is vibration, and the proper vibration heals."
~ Wynton Marsalis
“You see things and you say, 'Why?' but I dream of things that never were; and I say: 'Why not?'”
~ George Bernard Shaw
"It's hard to explain how much one can love writing. If people knew how happy it can make you, we would all be writing all the time. It's the greatest secret of the world."
~ Andrea Barrett
"The artist has a special task and duty... reminding people of their humanity and the promise of their creativity."
~ Lewis Mumford
“Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”
~ Charles Mingus
“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.”
~ Chinese Proverb (from LaMar Davis and Choice Mentoring Program site)
“Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
~ Harold Whitman
The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.
~ Frances Willard
“Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old,
shared a little of what he/she is good at doing”.
~ Quincy Jones
“How you choose to respond each moment to the movie of life determines how you see the next frame, and the next, and eventually how you feel when the movie ends.”
~ Doc Childre
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t, change your attitude. Don’t complain.”
~ Maya Angelou
“You shall above all things be glad and young
for if you’re young, whatever life you wear
it will become you; and if you are glad
whatever’s living will yourself become.”
~ e.e.cummings
“Each of us is the only person who can give the other what each of us wants to have: Peace.”
~ Ugo Betti
“There is one thing we can do, and the happiest of people
are those who do it to the limit of their ability.
We can be completely present.”
~ Mark Van Doren
“I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction.
I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta.
On the whole I think knowledge is preferable to ignorance,
and I am sure human sympathy is more valuable than ideology.”
~ Tolstoy
“There is no music unless the drum and the drummer are one.”
~ e.e.cummings
“Courage lies in our ability to change upon our own discovery.”
~ Unknown source
Music is the meditation between the intellectual and sensuous life.
~ Beethoven
“We must realize that we have a choice. We are responsible for our own good time…
When you do something you are proud of, dwell on it a little, praise yourself for it,
relish the experience, take it in.”
~ Berkowitz
“Above all you must illumine your own soul with its profundities and its shallows,
and its vanities and its generosities,
and say what your beauty means to you or your plainness,
and what is your relation to the ever-changing and turning world.”
~ Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
* * * * *
“Life stands still when mankind is afraid to take a chance.”
“A responsible person is one who responds.”
“To understand is to stand under which is to look up to which is a good way to understand.”
~ Corita Kent
* * * * *
“For it so falls out that what we have we prize not to the worth whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost, why, then we rack the value; then we find the virtue that possession would not show us whiles it was ours.”
~ Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
“Nothing would be done at all if we waited till we could do it so well
that no one could find fault with it.”
~ Cardinal Newman
"…Things fall apart: the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst '
Are full of passionate intensity."
~ William Butler Yeats
“Survival is not possible if the best of us lack all conviction,
while the worst of us are full of passionate intensity.”
~ John Silber
“Those who mind don’t matter. Those who matter don’t mind.”
~ Bernard Borach
“A “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change those things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.”
~ A wall poster at Searcy Hospital in Alabama
Centipede was happy quite
Until a toad in fun
Asked it which leg came after which
This wrought it up to such a pitch
It fell exhausted in a ditch
Not knowing how to run.”
~ Taoist verse
“Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.”
~ John Cage
“In this speedy world of ours when facts are multiplying rapidly and giant rearrangements are happening all around us, it seems dangerous to be made nervous by the new – to want what we can never have, to want things not to be rearranged. It would be better to be able to take the leap, which is to be able not only to live with change and newness, but even to help make it.”
~ Corita Kent
“I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.”
~ e.e.cummings
“There is so much coldness because we do not dare to be as cordial as we are.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
"There's no use trying," Alice said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "
When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day.
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
~ Lewis Carroll, from Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
~ Margaret Mead
“The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
~ Malcolm Forbes
“We are all much more likely to achieve and succeed if we believe in ourselves and in each other.”
~ Anonymous
“You don’t stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.
~ Michael Pritchard
“The wisdom of all ages and cultures emphasizes the tremendous power our thoughts have over our character and circumstances.”
~ Liane Cordes
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably why so few engage in it.”
~ Henry Ford
“Music exalts each joy, allays each grief, expels diseases, softens every pain.”
~ John Armstrong, poet and physician, Scotland 1709-1779 -- from Art of Preserving Health
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but rather by the
number of moments that take our breath away."
~ Anonymous
“Look for the good in every person and every situation. You'll almost always find it.”
~ Brian Tracy (c/o Carien Quiroga)
“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
~ Melody Beattie (from Luethi-Peterson Camp FaceBook page after Natalie Luethi’s passing)
“The only thing better than singing is more singing."
~ Ella Fitzgerald (from Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac April 25, 2012 on Ella’s birthday)
I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy, but more importantly music, for in the patterns of music and all the arts are the keys to learning."
~ Plato (c/o Diane Thomas)
"When the human being sings he lends expression to the great wise ways in which the world was made."
~ Rudolf Steiner (c/o Carol Kelly, Carol Petrash)
“Real love begins where nothing is expected in return.”
~ Antoine de Saint Exupery (c/o Rob Balivet)
“Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.”
~ Shakespeare
“Love consists in this: that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
"Your happy songs bring to me the scent of Heaven. Please keep singing!"
~ Rumi (c/o Elizabeth Melvin)
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
~ Lao Tzu
YES
by William Stafford (c/o Nancy Graham)
It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could you know. That's why we wake
and look out -- no guarantees
in this life.
But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.
* * * * *
“Strange is our situation here on earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. There is one thing we do know definitively: that we are here for the sake of each other. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labor of others, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.”
~ Albert Einstein
“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras, 1942
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
~ Michelangelo
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.”
~ Theodore Geisel
“Nothing encourages creativity like the chance to fall flat on one's face.”
~ James D. Finley
“Some stories are true that never happened.”
~ Elie Weisel
“It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”
~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
“My alphabet starts with this letter called yuzz. It's the letter I use to spell yuzz-a-ma-tuzz. You'll be sort of surprised what there is to be found once you go beyond 'Z' and start poking around!”
~ Dr. Seuss
“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.”
~ William Shakespeare, Mid-Summer Night's Dream, 1595
“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.”
~ Francis Bacon
“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”
~ Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!
“A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.”
~ Author Unknown
“The Possible's slow fuse is lit
by the Imagination.”
~ Emily Dickinson
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”
~ George Smith Patton, War as I Knew It, 1947
“The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person.”
~ Frank Barron, Think, 1962
“You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
~ Mark Twain
“Don't expect anything original from an echo.”
~ Author Unknown
“I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.”
~ Pablo Picasso
“You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
~ Jack London
“There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.”
~ G.K. Chesterton
“Imagination and fiction make up more than three-quarters of our real life.”
~ Simone Weil
“Personally, I would sooner have written Alice in Wonderland than the whole Encyclopedia Britannica.”
~ Stephen Leacock
“Sometimes imagination pounces; mostly it sleeps soundly in the corner, purring.”
~ Terri Guillemets
“Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.”
~ Norman Podhoretz
“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”
~ Edgar Allan Poe, "Eleonora"
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
~ Will Rogers (1879-1935)
“If you have only two pennies, spend the first on bread and the other on hyacinths for your soul.”
~ Arab Proverb
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
~ Red Auerbach
“Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.”
~ Plato
“To thine own self be true, for if thou art true to thine self, it shall follow as the night the day, that thou wilt be true to others.”
~ Shakespeare (c/o Polonius in “Hamlet”)
Additional Testimonials in Support of the Arts
*When Winston Churchill was asked to cut funding for the arts in favour of the war effort,
he simply replied:‘Then what are we fighting for?’ “
"It is a pity to make a mystery out of what should most easily be understood. There is nothing occult about the thought that all things maybe made well or made ill. A work of art is a well-made thing -- that is all. It may be a well-made statue of a well-made chair or a well-made book. Art is not a special sauce applied to ordinary cooking; it is the cooking itself that is good. Most simply and generally, Art may be thought of as "The Well Doing of What Needs Doing."
~ Oscar Wilde
"If we, as citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams."
~Yann Martel, from the introduction to his novel "Life of Pi"
"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music...I get most joy in life out of music."
~ Albert Einstein, 1929
"Amidst all the attention given to the sciences as to how they can lead to the cure of all diseases and daily problems of mankind, I believe that the biggest breakthrough will be the realization that the arts, which are conventionally considered "useless," will be recognized as the whole reason why we ever try to live longer or live more prosperously. The arts are the science of enjoying life."
~ John Maeda, Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT
"...The arts, instead of quaking along the periphery of our policy concerns, must push boldly into the core of policy. The arts are a response to our individuality and our nature and help to shape our identity. The arts are not a frill and should not be treated as such. They have the potential to become the driving force for healing division and divisiveness."
~ Rep. Barbara Jordan, 1993 Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy
“I believe that in a great city, or even in a small village, a great theater is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture.”
~ Sir Laurence Olivier
“I believe arts education in music, theater, dance, and the visual arts is one of the most creative ways we have to find the gold that is buried just beneath the surface. They (children) have an enthusiasm for life a spark of creativity, and vivid imaginations that need training – training that prepares them to become confident young men and women.”
~ Richard W. Riley, Former US Secretary of Education
“The arts are an essential element of education, just like reading, writing, and arithmetic…music, dance, painting, and theater are all keys that unlock profound human understanding and accomplishment.”
~ William Bennett, Former US Secretary of Education
"The future belongs to young people with an education and the imagination to create."
~ President Barack Obama
"In the push for quality math, science, technical, humanities, and other programs, please be sure that the arts are not ignored or pushed to one side. Provide your political support for the total curriculum. The arts enrich all of us."
~ Dr. Richard Miller, Executive Director American Association of School Administrators
"The arts have been an inseparable part of the human journey; indeed, we depend on the arts to carry us toward the fullness of our humanity. We value them for themselves, and because we do, we believe knowing and practicing them is fundamental to the healthy development of our children's minds and spirits. That is why, in any civilization - ours included - the arts are inseparable from the very meaning of the term 'education.' We know from long experience that no one can claim to be truly educated who lacks basic knowledge and skills in the arts."
~ National Standards for Arts Education
“Art is a nation’s most precious heritage. For it is in our works of art that we reveal to ourselves and to others the inner vision which guides us as a nation. And where there is no vision, the people perish.”
~ Lyndon Johnson, on signing into existence the National Endowment on the Arts
“Aeschylus and Plato are remembered today long after the triumphs of Imperial Athens are gone. Dante outlived the ambitions of thirteenth century Florence. Goethe stands serenely above the politics of Germany, and I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over cities, we too will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.”
~ John F. Kennedy
"The creative arts are the measure and reflection of our civilization. They offer many children an opportunity to see life with a larger perspective...The moral values we treasure are reflected in the beauty and truth that is emotionally transmitted through the arts. The arts say something about us to future generations."
~ Ann P. Kahn, Former President of The National PTA
"Pyramids, cathedrals, and rockets exist not because of geometry, theories of structures, or thermodynamics, but because they were first a picture-- literally a vision--in the minds of those who built them. Society is where it is today because people had the perception; the images and the imagination; the creativity that the Arts provide, to make the world the place we live in today."
~ Eugene Ferguson, historian
“The arts significantly boost student achievement, reduce discipline problems, and increase the odds students will go on to graduate from college. As First Lady Michelle Obama sums up, both she and the President believe ‘strongly that arts education is essential for building innovative thinkers who will be our nation’s leaders for tomorrow.’”
~ Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education
"Art is fundamental, unique to each of us…Even in difficult economic times -- especially in difficult economic times, the arts are essential."
~ Maria Shriver
“The arts are not a frill. The arts are a response to our individuality and our nature, and help to shape our identity. What is there that can transcend deep difference and stubborn divisions? The arts. They have a wonderful universality. Art has the potential to unify. It can speak in many languages without a translator. The arts do not discriminate. The arts lift us up."
~ Former Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan
"How can we turn our back on an endeavor which increases our children's cultural intelligence, heightens individual sensitivity and deepens our collective sense of humanity? I suggest to you that we cannot."
~ Alec Baldwin at Arts Advocacy Day 1997
“Whoever has skill in music is of good temperament and fitted for all things.
We must teach music in schools.”
~ Martin Luther
“Music education opens doors that help children pass from school into the world around them – a world of work, culture, intellectual activity, and human involvement. The future of our nation depends on providing our children with a complete education that includes music.”
~ Gerald Ford, Former President of the United States
“Music is about communication, creativity, and cooperation, and by studying music in schools, students have the opportunity to build on these skills, enrich their lives, and experience the world from a new perspective.”
~ Bill Clinton, Former President of the United States
“Music gives us a language that cuts across the disciplines, helps us to see connections and brings a more coherent meaning to our world.”
~ Ernest Boyer, former President, Carnegie Foundation Science and Arts
“The arts are the best insurance policy a city can take on itself.”
~ Woody Dumas, former Mayor of Baton Rouge
"The rapidly evolving global economy demands a dynamic and creative workforce. The arts and its related businesses are responsible for billions of dollars in cultural exports for this country. It is imperative that we continue to support the arts and arts education both on the national and local levels. The strength of every democracy is measured by its commitment to the arts.”
~ Charles Segars, CEO of Ovation
“My most fundamental hope is for a worldwide attitude of tolerance, which will only come through education and an awareness of other cultures and religions. The more people are exposed to other philosophies and thoughts, the more possible it becomes to resolve world conflicts peacefully. Education builds tolerance for other points of view.”
~ John Hendricks, former CEO, Discovery Communications
“Throughout history, the arts and humanities have helped men and women around the globe grapple with the most challenging questions and come to know the most basic truths. In our increasingly interconnected world, the arts play an important role in both shaping the character that defines us and reminding us of our shared humanity. This month, we celebrate our Nation's arts and humanities, and we recommit to ensuring all Americans can access and experience them.”
~ President Barack Obama, Presidential Proclamation, National Arts and Humanities Month, Oct 2010
NOTE: Many of the arts advocacy quotes are from the National Performing Arts Convention website: www.PerformingArtsConvention.org, initiated by Gully Stanford, formerly of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts
at a time, and every cell
buys into it.
from a poem by Ted Kooser (the U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006) and his good friend, Jim Harrison, from their co-authored collection “Braided Creek”
"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."
~ Cicero
"The secret of change is to focus your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new."
~ Socrates
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
~ Goethe
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
~ Winston Churchill
"It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no person can sincerely try to help another without helping one's self."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
"A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity;
an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty"
~ Winston Churchill
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
~ Buckminster Fuller
“Those who act kindly in this world will have kindness.”
~ The Qur’an
“I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy, but more importantly music, for in the patterns of music and all the arts are the keys to learning."
~ Plato
"You can either complain that rose bushes have thorns - or rejoice that thorn bushes have roses."
~ Source Unknown
"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."
~ Helen Keller
“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”
~ Judy Garland, 1922 - 1969
“We can secure other people's approval, if we do right and try hard; but our own is worth a hundred of it, and no way has been found out of securing that.”
~ Mark Twain, 1835 - 1910
“If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”
~ Mother Teresa, 1910 - 1997
“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.”
~ William Faulkner, 1897 - 1962
In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.
~ Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 - 1849
“When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.”
~ Thomas Jefferson, 1743 - 1826
"The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it,
but that it is too low and we reach it."
~ Michelangelo
“Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.”
~ Pablo Casals, 1876 – 1973
“Prayer for Kindness: Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be a lamp unto those who walk in darkness, and a home to the stranger. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be a breath of life to the body of humankind, a dew to the soil of the human heart, and a fruit upon the tree of humility.”
~ Bahá'u'lláh (Baha'I, c/o EF Wen 6-23-08)
“We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.”
~ Franklin D Roosevelt (c/o Melissa Butz, Community Bridges)
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
~ Margaret Mead
“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
“If you tell the truth you don't have anything to remember.”
“It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.”
~ Mark Twain, 1835 - 1910
* * * * *
“The principle mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.”
~ Arthur Koestler, 1905 - 1983
“Where there is an open mind there will always be a frontier.”
~ Charles F. Kettering, 1876 - 1958
"You cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening your own."
~ via John Graham, source unknown
“For me, music making is the most joyful activity possible, the most perfect expression of any emotion.”
~ Luciano Pavarotti, 1935-2007
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“What you would not want others to do to you, do not do to others ... “
~ Confucius
“So act that anything you do may become universal law.”
~ Emmanuel Kant
"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless." –
~ Mother Teresa
"Not even the most formidable difficulties will take you from your path when you understand that your only destiny is to grow."
~ Chamalu, Andean Shaman (JZM)
"Our most consequential human problems will be resolved, not through competition, but
collaboration... what we need in education is a learning climate in which students work together. In such an atmosphere, truth emerges as authentic insights are conscientiously exchanged."
~ Ernest Boyer, President, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1979–1995 -- Princeton Friends School Advisory Board, 1985–1995
"Find what it is you love to do and do it well. Make the world a better place."
~ Keter Betts
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
~ Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl, 1952
* * * * *
“Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.”
“An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.”
“I think young people ought to seek the experience that is going to knock them off center.”
“The arrogance of the artist is a very profound thing, and it fortifies you.”
“I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.”
“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay home.”
~ James A. Michener, 1907 - 1997
* * * * *
"When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest."
~ Henry David Thoreau
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."
~ John Muir
“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.”
~ Rachel Carson
“Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time we've got.”
~ Art Buchwald 1925-2007
“You do not have to leave childhood behind just because you are getting older. It will
always be a part of your life – and the more playful you are, the more joyful life will be.”
~ Audrey Schwarzbein
“What did the tree learn from the earth to be able to talk with the sky?”
~ Pablo Neruda
“I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less
time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness
and respecting her seniority.”
~ E. B. White
“No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it. We must learn to see the world anew.”
~ Albert Einstein
"One positive thought produces millions of positive vibrations."
~ John Coltrane
"When we approach love and creativity with the level of conviction that the powers-that-be in the world today are approaching hatred and destruction, then and only then will we have a chance."
~ Marianne Williamson
"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."
~ Mozart
"A valuable lesson I've learned from making music is to never let anyone intimidate me. Every student, celebrity, CEO and math teacher in the world has experienced love, loneliness, fear and embarassment at some point. To understand this is to level an often very lopsided playing field."
~ Anna Nalick
"The most valuable things in life are priceless. They are courage, compassion, wisdom, respect for ourselves and others, and a host of characteristics that we call the beauty of the human spirit."
~ Herbie Hancock
"This music heals people because music is vibration, and the proper vibration heals."
~ Wynton Marsalis
“You see things and you say, 'Why?' but I dream of things that never were; and I say: 'Why not?'”
~ George Bernard Shaw
"It's hard to explain how much one can love writing. If people knew how happy it can make you, we would all be writing all the time. It's the greatest secret of the world."
~ Andrea Barrett
"The artist has a special task and duty... reminding people of their humanity and the promise of their creativity."
~ Lewis Mumford
“Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”
~ Charles Mingus
“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.”
~ Chinese Proverb (from LaMar Davis and Choice Mentoring Program site)
“Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
~ Harold Whitman
The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.
~ Frances Willard
“Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old,
shared a little of what he/she is good at doing”.
~ Quincy Jones
“How you choose to respond each moment to the movie of life determines how you see the next frame, and the next, and eventually how you feel when the movie ends.”
~ Doc Childre
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t, change your attitude. Don’t complain.”
~ Maya Angelou
“You shall above all things be glad and young
for if you’re young, whatever life you wear
it will become you; and if you are glad
whatever’s living will yourself become.”
~ e.e.cummings
“Each of us is the only person who can give the other what each of us wants to have: Peace.”
~ Ugo Betti
“There is one thing we can do, and the happiest of people
are those who do it to the limit of their ability.
We can be completely present.”
~ Mark Van Doren
“I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction.
I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta.
On the whole I think knowledge is preferable to ignorance,
and I am sure human sympathy is more valuable than ideology.”
~ Tolstoy
“There is no music unless the drum and the drummer are one.”
~ e.e.cummings
“Courage lies in our ability to change upon our own discovery.”
~ Unknown source
Music is the meditation between the intellectual and sensuous life.
~ Beethoven
“We must realize that we have a choice. We are responsible for our own good time…
When you do something you are proud of, dwell on it a little, praise yourself for it,
relish the experience, take it in.”
~ Berkowitz
“Above all you must illumine your own soul with its profundities and its shallows,
and its vanities and its generosities,
and say what your beauty means to you or your plainness,
and what is your relation to the ever-changing and turning world.”
~ Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
* * * * *
“Life stands still when mankind is afraid to take a chance.”
“A responsible person is one who responds.”
“To understand is to stand under which is to look up to which is a good way to understand.”
~ Corita Kent
* * * * *
“For it so falls out that what we have we prize not to the worth whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost, why, then we rack the value; then we find the virtue that possession would not show us whiles it was ours.”
~ Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
“Nothing would be done at all if we waited till we could do it so well
that no one could find fault with it.”
~ Cardinal Newman
"…Things fall apart: the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst '
Are full of passionate intensity."
~ William Butler Yeats
“Survival is not possible if the best of us lack all conviction,
while the worst of us are full of passionate intensity.”
~ John Silber
“Those who mind don’t matter. Those who matter don’t mind.”
~ Bernard Borach
“A “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change those things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.”
~ A wall poster at Searcy Hospital in Alabama
Centipede was happy quite
Until a toad in fun
Asked it which leg came after which
This wrought it up to such a pitch
It fell exhausted in a ditch
Not knowing how to run.”
~ Taoist verse
“Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.”
~ John Cage
“In this speedy world of ours when facts are multiplying rapidly and giant rearrangements are happening all around us, it seems dangerous to be made nervous by the new – to want what we can never have, to want things not to be rearranged. It would be better to be able to take the leap, which is to be able not only to live with change and newness, but even to help make it.”
~ Corita Kent
“I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.”
~ e.e.cummings
“There is so much coldness because we do not dare to be as cordial as we are.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
"There's no use trying," Alice said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "
When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day.
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
~ Lewis Carroll, from Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
~ Margaret Mead
“The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
~ Malcolm Forbes
“We are all much more likely to achieve and succeed if we believe in ourselves and in each other.”
~ Anonymous
“You don’t stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.
~ Michael Pritchard
“The wisdom of all ages and cultures emphasizes the tremendous power our thoughts have over our character and circumstances.”
~ Liane Cordes
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably why so few engage in it.”
~ Henry Ford
“Music exalts each joy, allays each grief, expels diseases, softens every pain.”
~ John Armstrong, poet and physician, Scotland 1709-1779 -- from Art of Preserving Health
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but rather by the
number of moments that take our breath away."
~ Anonymous
“Look for the good in every person and every situation. You'll almost always find it.”
~ Brian Tracy (c/o Carien Quiroga)
“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
~ Melody Beattie (from Luethi-Peterson Camp FaceBook page after Natalie Luethi’s passing)
“The only thing better than singing is more singing."
~ Ella Fitzgerald (from Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac April 25, 2012 on Ella’s birthday)
I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy, but more importantly music, for in the patterns of music and all the arts are the keys to learning."
~ Plato (c/o Diane Thomas)
"When the human being sings he lends expression to the great wise ways in which the world was made."
~ Rudolf Steiner (c/o Carol Kelly, Carol Petrash)
“Real love begins where nothing is expected in return.”
~ Antoine de Saint Exupery (c/o Rob Balivet)
“Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.”
~ Shakespeare
“Love consists in this: that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
"Your happy songs bring to me the scent of Heaven. Please keep singing!"
~ Rumi (c/o Elizabeth Melvin)
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
~ Lao Tzu
YES
by William Stafford (c/o Nancy Graham)
It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could you know. That's why we wake
and look out -- no guarantees
in this life.
But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.
* * * * *
“Strange is our situation here on earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. There is one thing we do know definitively: that we are here for the sake of each other. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labor of others, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.”
~ Albert Einstein
“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras, 1942
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
~ Michelangelo
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.”
~ Theodore Geisel
“Nothing encourages creativity like the chance to fall flat on one's face.”
~ James D. Finley
“Some stories are true that never happened.”
~ Elie Weisel
“It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”
~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
“My alphabet starts with this letter called yuzz. It's the letter I use to spell yuzz-a-ma-tuzz. You'll be sort of surprised what there is to be found once you go beyond 'Z' and start poking around!”
~ Dr. Seuss
“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.”
~ William Shakespeare, Mid-Summer Night's Dream, 1595
“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.”
~ Francis Bacon
“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”
~ Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!
“A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.”
~ Author Unknown
“The Possible's slow fuse is lit
by the Imagination.”
~ Emily Dickinson
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”
~ George Smith Patton, War as I Knew It, 1947
“The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person.”
~ Frank Barron, Think, 1962
“You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
~ Mark Twain
“Don't expect anything original from an echo.”
~ Author Unknown
“I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.”
~ Pablo Picasso
“You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
~ Jack London
“There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.”
~ G.K. Chesterton
“Imagination and fiction make up more than three-quarters of our real life.”
~ Simone Weil
“Personally, I would sooner have written Alice in Wonderland than the whole Encyclopedia Britannica.”
~ Stephen Leacock
“Sometimes imagination pounces; mostly it sleeps soundly in the corner, purring.”
~ Terri Guillemets
“Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.”
~ Norman Podhoretz
“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”
~ Edgar Allan Poe, "Eleonora"
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
~ Will Rogers (1879-1935)
“If you have only two pennies, spend the first on bread and the other on hyacinths for your soul.”
~ Arab Proverb
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
~ Red Auerbach
“Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.”
~ Plato
“To thine own self be true, for if thou art true to thine self, it shall follow as the night the day, that thou wilt be true to others.”
~ Shakespeare (c/o Polonius in “Hamlet”)
Additional Testimonials in Support of the Arts
*When Winston Churchill was asked to cut funding for the arts in favour of the war effort,
he simply replied:‘Then what are we fighting for?’ “
"It is a pity to make a mystery out of what should most easily be understood. There is nothing occult about the thought that all things maybe made well or made ill. A work of art is a well-made thing -- that is all. It may be a well-made statue of a well-made chair or a well-made book. Art is not a special sauce applied to ordinary cooking; it is the cooking itself that is good. Most simply and generally, Art may be thought of as "The Well Doing of What Needs Doing."
~ Oscar Wilde
"If we, as citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams."
~Yann Martel, from the introduction to his novel "Life of Pi"
"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music...I get most joy in life out of music."
~ Albert Einstein, 1929
"Amidst all the attention given to the sciences as to how they can lead to the cure of all diseases and daily problems of mankind, I believe that the biggest breakthrough will be the realization that the arts, which are conventionally considered "useless," will be recognized as the whole reason why we ever try to live longer or live more prosperously. The arts are the science of enjoying life."
~ John Maeda, Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT
"...The arts, instead of quaking along the periphery of our policy concerns, must push boldly into the core of policy. The arts are a response to our individuality and our nature and help to shape our identity. The arts are not a frill and should not be treated as such. They have the potential to become the driving force for healing division and divisiveness."
~ Rep. Barbara Jordan, 1993 Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy
“I believe that in a great city, or even in a small village, a great theater is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture.”
~ Sir Laurence Olivier
“I believe arts education in music, theater, dance, and the visual arts is one of the most creative ways we have to find the gold that is buried just beneath the surface. They (children) have an enthusiasm for life a spark of creativity, and vivid imaginations that need training – training that prepares them to become confident young men and women.”
~ Richard W. Riley, Former US Secretary of Education
“The arts are an essential element of education, just like reading, writing, and arithmetic…music, dance, painting, and theater are all keys that unlock profound human understanding and accomplishment.”
~ William Bennett, Former US Secretary of Education
"The future belongs to young people with an education and the imagination to create."
~ President Barack Obama
"In the push for quality math, science, technical, humanities, and other programs, please be sure that the arts are not ignored or pushed to one side. Provide your political support for the total curriculum. The arts enrich all of us."
~ Dr. Richard Miller, Executive Director American Association of School Administrators
"The arts have been an inseparable part of the human journey; indeed, we depend on the arts to carry us toward the fullness of our humanity. We value them for themselves, and because we do, we believe knowing and practicing them is fundamental to the healthy development of our children's minds and spirits. That is why, in any civilization - ours included - the arts are inseparable from the very meaning of the term 'education.' We know from long experience that no one can claim to be truly educated who lacks basic knowledge and skills in the arts."
~ National Standards for Arts Education
“Art is a nation’s most precious heritage. For it is in our works of art that we reveal to ourselves and to others the inner vision which guides us as a nation. And where there is no vision, the people perish.”
~ Lyndon Johnson, on signing into existence the National Endowment on the Arts
“Aeschylus and Plato are remembered today long after the triumphs of Imperial Athens are gone. Dante outlived the ambitions of thirteenth century Florence. Goethe stands serenely above the politics of Germany, and I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over cities, we too will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.”
~ John F. Kennedy
"The creative arts are the measure and reflection of our civilization. They offer many children an opportunity to see life with a larger perspective...The moral values we treasure are reflected in the beauty and truth that is emotionally transmitted through the arts. The arts say something about us to future generations."
~ Ann P. Kahn, Former President of The National PTA
"Pyramids, cathedrals, and rockets exist not because of geometry, theories of structures, or thermodynamics, but because they were first a picture-- literally a vision--in the minds of those who built them. Society is where it is today because people had the perception; the images and the imagination; the creativity that the Arts provide, to make the world the place we live in today."
~ Eugene Ferguson, historian
“The arts significantly boost student achievement, reduce discipline problems, and increase the odds students will go on to graduate from college. As First Lady Michelle Obama sums up, both she and the President believe ‘strongly that arts education is essential for building innovative thinkers who will be our nation’s leaders for tomorrow.’”
~ Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education
"Art is fundamental, unique to each of us…Even in difficult economic times -- especially in difficult economic times, the arts are essential."
~ Maria Shriver
“The arts are not a frill. The arts are a response to our individuality and our nature, and help to shape our identity. What is there that can transcend deep difference and stubborn divisions? The arts. They have a wonderful universality. Art has the potential to unify. It can speak in many languages without a translator. The arts do not discriminate. The arts lift us up."
~ Former Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan
"How can we turn our back on an endeavor which increases our children's cultural intelligence, heightens individual sensitivity and deepens our collective sense of humanity? I suggest to you that we cannot."
~ Alec Baldwin at Arts Advocacy Day 1997
“Whoever has skill in music is of good temperament and fitted for all things.
We must teach music in schools.”
~ Martin Luther
“Music education opens doors that help children pass from school into the world around them – a world of work, culture, intellectual activity, and human involvement. The future of our nation depends on providing our children with a complete education that includes music.”
~ Gerald Ford, Former President of the United States
“Music is about communication, creativity, and cooperation, and by studying music in schools, students have the opportunity to build on these skills, enrich their lives, and experience the world from a new perspective.”
~ Bill Clinton, Former President of the United States
“Music gives us a language that cuts across the disciplines, helps us to see connections and brings a more coherent meaning to our world.”
~ Ernest Boyer, former President, Carnegie Foundation Science and Arts
“The arts are the best insurance policy a city can take on itself.”
~ Woody Dumas, former Mayor of Baton Rouge
"The rapidly evolving global economy demands a dynamic and creative workforce. The arts and its related businesses are responsible for billions of dollars in cultural exports for this country. It is imperative that we continue to support the arts and arts education both on the national and local levels. The strength of every democracy is measured by its commitment to the arts.”
~ Charles Segars, CEO of Ovation
“My most fundamental hope is for a worldwide attitude of tolerance, which will only come through education and an awareness of other cultures and religions. The more people are exposed to other philosophies and thoughts, the more possible it becomes to resolve world conflicts peacefully. Education builds tolerance for other points of view.”
~ John Hendricks, former CEO, Discovery Communications
“Throughout history, the arts and humanities have helped men and women around the globe grapple with the most challenging questions and come to know the most basic truths. In our increasingly interconnected world, the arts play an important role in both shaping the character that defines us and reminding us of our shared humanity. This month, we celebrate our Nation's arts and humanities, and we recommit to ensuring all Americans can access and experience them.”
~ President Barack Obama, Presidential Proclamation, National Arts and Humanities Month, Oct 2010
NOTE: Many of the arts advocacy quotes are from the National Performing Arts Convention website: www.PerformingArtsConvention.org, initiated by Gully Stanford, formerly of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts
Proverbs from Around the World
“Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it.”
~ Arabic Proverb
“What can be done at any time is never done at all.”
~ English Proverb
“One meets one's destiny often in the road one takes to avoid it.”
~ French proverb
“By learning you will teach, by teaching you will learn.”
~ Latin proverb
“The morning is wiser than the evening.”
~ Russian proverb
“Danger and delight grow on one stalk.”
~ Scottish proverb
“More things grow in the garden than the gardener sows.”
~ Spanish proverb
“Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.”
~ Swedish proverb
“Reason is the wise man's guide, example the fool's.”
~ Welsh proverb
“God gave burdens, also shoulders.”
~ Yiddish proverb
“Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.”
~ Sicilian proverb
“Gentle character it is which enables the rope of life to stay unbroken in one’s hand.”
~ Yoruba Proverb (Nigeria)
"Learning expands great souls."
~ Namibian
:To get lost is to learn the way. '
~ African -- source unknown
"You always learn a lot more when you lose than when you win."
~ African -- source unknown
"What you help a child to love can be more important than what you help him to learn."
~ African -- source unknown
~ Arabic Proverb
“What can be done at any time is never done at all.”
~ English Proverb
“One meets one's destiny often in the road one takes to avoid it.”
~ French proverb
“By learning you will teach, by teaching you will learn.”
~ Latin proverb
“The morning is wiser than the evening.”
~ Russian proverb
“Danger and delight grow on one stalk.”
~ Scottish proverb
“More things grow in the garden than the gardener sows.”
~ Spanish proverb
“Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.”
~ Swedish proverb
“Reason is the wise man's guide, example the fool's.”
~ Welsh proverb
“God gave burdens, also shoulders.”
~ Yiddish proverb
“Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.”
~ Sicilian proverb
“Gentle character it is which enables the rope of life to stay unbroken in one’s hand.”
~ Yoruba Proverb (Nigeria)
"Learning expands great souls."
~ Namibian
:To get lost is to learn the way. '
~ African -- source unknown
"You always learn a lot more when you lose than when you win."
~ African -- source unknown
"What you help a child to love can be more important than what you help him to learn."
~ African -- source unknown
In Solace & Sympathy
A Collection of Poems, Passages & Songs
of solace and in sympathy
for the loss of loved ones
Epitaph
Having lived long in time,
he lives now in timelessness
without sorrow, made perfect
by our never finished love,
by our compassion and forgiveness,
and by his happiness in receiving
these gifts that we give. Here in time
we are added to one another forever.
Wendell Berry
* * * * *
I carry Rest within me;
I bear within myself
forces which give me strength.
myself will I fill
with the warmth of these forces;
Myself will I permeate
With the power of my will.
And I will feel
How Rest outpours itself
Throughout my being.
If I strengthen myself
To come upon Rest
As a force within me,
Through the power of my striving.
from The Journey Continues
by Gilbert and Sylvia Childs
* * * * *
Death is precisely the proof that in reality there is not death,
that it is an illusion.
If we were unable to die we could never experience a spiritual ego.
……
I gaze into the darkness.
In it there arises Light -
Living Light.
Who is this Light in the darkness?
It is I myself in my reality.
This reality of the 'I'
Enters not into my earthly life;
I am but a picture of it.
But I shall find it again,
When, with good will for the Spirit,
I shall have passed through the Gate of Death.
Rudolf Steiner
It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world
and gives birth to shapes
innumerable in the infinite sky.
It is this sorrow of separation that gazes
in silence all night from star to star
and becomes lyric among rustling leaves
in rainy darkness of July.
It is this overspreading pain that deepens into loves and desires,
into sufferings and joys in human homes;
and this it is that ever melts and flows
in songs through my poet's heart.
Rabindranath Tagore
* * * * *
Requiem
by Wendell Berry
1.
We will see no more
the mown grass fallen behind him
on the still ridges before night,
or hear him laughing in the crop rows,
or know the order of his delight.
Though the green fields are my delight,
elegy is my fate. I have come to be
survivor of many and of much
that I love, that I won't live to see
come again into this world.
Things that mattered to me once
won't matter any more,
for I have left the safe shore
where magnificence of art
could suffice my heart.
2. In the day of his work
when the grace of the world
was upon him, he made his way,
not turning back or looking aside,
light in his stride.
Now may the grace of death
be upon him, his spirit blessed
in deep song of the world
and the stars turning, the seasons
returning, and long rest.
* * * * *
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.
Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1932 (inspired by a Hopi prayer)
* * * * *
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well.
From poem by Sir Henry Scott Holland
Quoted in Rosamund Pilcher’s novel, September
* * * * *
The Well of Grief
Those who will not slip beneath
The still surface on the well of grief
Turning downward through its black water
To the place we cannot breathe
Will never know the source from which we drink,
The secret water, cold and clear,
Nor find in the darkness glimmering
The small round coins
Thrown by those who wished for something else.
David Whyte
* * * * *
Blessed are they who rear their families in honor and gentleness,
who live courageous and upright lives,
who live life in its fullness…
Though pain be in the heart, let none grieve,
for here a gentle soul has cast its glow upon us,
and like the glory of an autumn sun,
has lit the world with kindness through its day…
Rather rejoice for that which he has given,
the light we know and treasure still within our hearts,
a light we trust still shineth beyond this world's horizon,
for life goes on, and spirit knows no death.
Robert Terry Weston
* * * * *
Let Evening Come
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
Jane Kenyon
* * * * *
Death is simply a shedding of the physical body, like the butterfly coming out of a cocoon. It is a transition into a higher state of consciousness, where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, to be able to grow, and the only thing you lose is something you don't need anymore . . . your physical body. It's like putting away your winter coat when spring comes.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
* * * * *
Streams of Living Praise
Song by Malcolm Dalglish, inspired by a favorite Isaac Watts hymn stanza
Blessed be the force that pulls,
The poetry of my days.
May I become the means the meaning flows,
In streams of living praise, in streams of living praise.
CHORUS (lyrics of Isaac Watts)
Now shall my inward joys arise,
And burst into a song!
Almighty love inspires my heart,
And pleasure tunes my tongue.
Ship of souls adrift at night,
And stars that are holding course,
Each one a sun unseen in broad daylight,
A universal source, a universal source.
The hallowed hall is empty, save
The way that it holds the light,
And now the song blows through like wind into
The hungry ears of night, the hungry ears of night.
* * * * *
Psalm of Life
Song by Lotus Dickey, words by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real, Life is earnest,
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us further than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait,
* * * * *
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come.
Rabindranath Tagore
* * * * *
We, the mortals, touch the metals,
the wind, the ocean shores, the stones,
knowing they will go on, inert or burning,
and I was discovering, naming all these things:
it was my destiny to love and say goodbye.
Pablo Neruda, translated by William O’Daly
* * * * *
By expenditure of hope,
Intelligence, and work,
You think you have it fixed.
It is unfixed by rule.
Within the darkness, all
Is being changed, and you
Also will be changed.
Now I recall to mind
A costly year: Jane Kenyon,
Bill Lippert, Philip Sherrard,
All in the same spring dead,
So much companionship
Gone as the river goes.
And my good workhorse Nick
Dead, who called out to me
In his conclusive pain
To ask my help. I had
No help to give. And flood
Covered the cropland twice.
By summer’s end there are
No more perfect leaves.
---------------------
But won't you be ashamed
To count the passing year
At its mere cost, your debt
Inevitably paid?
For every year is costly,
As you know well. Nothing
Is given that is not
Taken, and nothing taken
That was not first a gift.
The gift is balanced by
Its total loss, and yet,
And yet the light breaks in,
Heaven seizing its moments
That are at once its own
And yours. The day ends
And is unending where
The summer tanager,
Warbler, and vireo
Sing as they move among
Illuminated leaves.
Wendell Berry, “Sabbaths 1998, VI,” Given: Poems by Wendell Berry
* * * * *
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownéd be thy grave!
By William Shakespeare (from “Cymbeline”)
* * * * *
Remember
By Christina Rossetti
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land:
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
* * * * *
Vem Kan Segla
A Swedish folksong ~ with translation
Vem kan segla förutan vind?
Vem kan ro utan åror?
Vem kan skiljas från vännen sin,
Utan att fälla tåror?
Jag kan segla förutan vind,
Jag kan ro utan åror,
Men ej skiljas från vännen min
Utan att fälla tåror.
Who can sail without the wind?
Who can row without an oar
Who can bid adieu
Without shedding a tear?
I can sail without the wind,
I can row without an oar
But no one can bid adieu
Without a tear.
* * * * *
I’ll Fly Away (traditional)
Some bright morning when this life is over
I'll fly away
To that home on God’s celestial shore
I'll fly away
CHORUS
I'll fly away, oh glory
I'll fly away (in the morning)
When I die hallelujah by and by
I'll fly away
When the shadows of this life have gone
I'll fly away
Like a bird from these prison walls I'll fly
I'll fly away
Just a few more weary days and then
I’ll fly away
To a land where joys will never end
I’ll fly away.
* * * * *
Hallowell
A song by Stephen Spitzer
I thought when someone died
Their spirit flew over furthest field
Now I see death will leave behind
A scrap of light, a broken smile,
The remnants by which I might be healed.
CHORUS
The dead lift me up
In brightest skies
The clouds below me race
The dead lift me up
I see them face to face.
Held high by these strong hands
Breathing the wind I am born again
The mountain flowers, the desert sands
Surround me now, comfort me now,
In death and dreaming I find my kin.
Our voices shake in song
For memories we have long endured
Though this begins to make us strong
The combing through of threads of love
It is through living that we are cured.
* * * * *
Ulysses (Untraveled World)
by Alfred Lord Tennyson – Musical setting by Paul Halley
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought
with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles4,
And see the great Achilles5, whom we knew
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
* * * * *
“One of the deepest, richest epiphanies I have had recently is about grief. Here's what I have learned: Grief is for those who died, but also for what could have been - for that person we miss, for our life opportunities, for our childhood, career, marriage, no marriage, kids, no kids, the list is endless. We grieve so many things. Because grief hurts so deeply, we are quick to process it and put a deadline on it. Unfortunately (or fortunately, because it can really work out), grief has other ideas. IF we do not let the depth of our grief enter us, surround us and THEN, most importantly, MOVE through us totally and completely, we suffer. Have you ever felt like something is gnawing at you, bothering you, like you are always off kilter and you cannot explain why? I figured out why that was for me. It was/is because I have had a grief so deep that I never let it move through me - we subvert it and hush it - but it is there and it colors our WORDS and ACTIONS and yet we don't know why. Now, I have a practice: I allow the grief to move through me. I don't hold it in – and when grief finally moves on through it s like the coolest, sweetest wind after a hot summer storm. You know that relief you feel when things are right? That's what it feels like. So, let it move through you. You cannot mask it through work, sex, drugs, violence, alcohol, texting, Facebook, food, or anything else. Find a private place. Let it come. You will not wait long for that grief and tears to flow. Let it come - fully and completely - let it pass through you, and then get up and go about your life. You will feel better, not worse, through the tears, because when you feel better, it means you let it pass through.”
~ Rob Levit, Sept 9, 2014
Facebook message
* * * * *
"There is no right way to grieve, and you have to let people grieve in the way that they can. One of the things that happens to everyone who is grief-stricken, who has lost someone, is there comes a time when everyone else just wants you to get over it, but of course you don't get over it. You get stronger; you try and live on; you endure; you change; but you don't get over it. You carry it with you."
-Edward Hirsch (c/o Katie Wood Sevon)
* * * * *
“In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”
Kahil Gibran, The Prophet
* * * * *
"The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears."
~ Native American proverb
* * * * *
SONG SELECTIONS
Here, I Carry You
By Malcolm Dalglish
Inspired by the prayer, ”We Remember Them” from “The Gates of Prayer,”
a Reform Jewish prayer book published by the Central Conference of American Rabbis
Pale sky, dusk and dawn,
Ray of light, shadow long,
Here, I carry you.
Howling wind, silent snow,
Frozen breath, fire glow,
Here, I carry you. I carry you.
Swell of honeysuckle scent,
All sad and sweet lament,
Here, I carry you.
Humming summer, rolling sky,
Distant thunder, high July,
Here, I carry you. I carry you.
Grey, bare limbs throw,
Radiant light to the earth below,
Here, I carry you.
Years pass, and leave their trace,
In a dance of time that frames your face,
Here, I carry you. I carry you.
Standing by the window pane,
Lost in rivulets of rain,
Here, I carry you.
Dreams fly. Awake at night,
I walk the woods in the moonlight.
Here, I carry you. I carry you.
Squall of crows above my street.
There in boundless joy we meet,
Here, I carry you.
Here as I live, so do you.
I will carry you.
Here, I carry you. I carry you. I carry you.
* * * * *
Father Adieu
Father adieu, I am sorry for you
My heart is filled with trouble, now what shall I do
If I never see you any more ‘til that last trumpet shall sound
Prepare to meet in heaven, where parting is no more
Mother adieu….
Brother adieu…
Sister adieu…
* * * * *
Long Time Traveller
Traditional shape-note hymn
These fleeting charms of earth
Farewell, your springs of joy are dry
My soul now seeks another home
A brighter world on high
CHORUS
I'm a long time travelling here below
I'm a long time travelling away from home
I'm a long time travelling here below
To lay this body down
Farewell kind friends whose tender care
Has long engaged my love
Your fond embrace I now exchange
For better friends above
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvwjv_A9E00&feature=youtu.be (Wailin’ Jennys)
* * * * *
i carry your heart with me
by e.e. cummings
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
* * * *
Bright Morning Stars
CHORUS
Bright morning stars are rising
Bright morning stars are rising
Bright morning stars are rising
Day is a'breaking in my soul
Oh where are our dear fathers?
Oh where are our dear fathers?
They are down in the valley a'praying
Day is a'breaking in my soul
Oh where are our dear mothers? (2x)
They are gone to heaven a'shouting
Day is a'breaking in my soul
Bright morning stars are rising (3x)
Day is a'breaking in my soul
* * * * *
How Can I Keep from Singing
My life flows on in endless song
Above earth's lamentation.
I hear the real, though far off hymn
That hails the new creation
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I'm clinging.
It sounds an echo in my soul
How can I keep from singing?
What though the tempest round me roars
I know the truth it liveth
What though the darkness round me close
Songs in the night it giveth
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is lord of Heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?
When tyrants tremble, sick with fear,
And hear their death-knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near,
How can I keep from singing?
In prison cell and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging.
When friends by shame are undefiled,
How can I keep from singing?
* * * * *
Swing Low Sweet Chariot
Well, now I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Comin' for to carry me home
There was a band of angels a comin' after me
Comin' for to carry me home
CHORUS
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home
I'm sometimes up and I'm sometimes down
Comin' for to carry me home
But I know my soul is heavenly bound
Comin' for to carry me home
If you get there before I do
Comin' for to carry me home
Tell all of my friends that I'm a comin' too
Comin' for to carry me home
* * * * *
Parting Friends
Farewell, my friends, I'm bound for Canaan,
I'm trav'ling through the wilderness;
Your company has been delightful,
You, who doth leave my mind distressed.
I go away, behind to leave you,
Perhaps never to meet again,
But if we never have the pleasure,
I hope we'll meet on Canaan's land.
of solace and in sympathy
for the loss of loved ones
Epitaph
Having lived long in time,
he lives now in timelessness
without sorrow, made perfect
by our never finished love,
by our compassion and forgiveness,
and by his happiness in receiving
these gifts that we give. Here in time
we are added to one another forever.
Wendell Berry
* * * * *
I carry Rest within me;
I bear within myself
forces which give me strength.
myself will I fill
with the warmth of these forces;
Myself will I permeate
With the power of my will.
And I will feel
How Rest outpours itself
Throughout my being.
If I strengthen myself
To come upon Rest
As a force within me,
Through the power of my striving.
from The Journey Continues
by Gilbert and Sylvia Childs
* * * * *
Death is precisely the proof that in reality there is not death,
that it is an illusion.
If we were unable to die we could never experience a spiritual ego.
……
I gaze into the darkness.
In it there arises Light -
Living Light.
Who is this Light in the darkness?
It is I myself in my reality.
This reality of the 'I'
Enters not into my earthly life;
I am but a picture of it.
But I shall find it again,
When, with good will for the Spirit,
I shall have passed through the Gate of Death.
Rudolf Steiner
It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world
and gives birth to shapes
innumerable in the infinite sky.
It is this sorrow of separation that gazes
in silence all night from star to star
and becomes lyric among rustling leaves
in rainy darkness of July.
It is this overspreading pain that deepens into loves and desires,
into sufferings and joys in human homes;
and this it is that ever melts and flows
in songs through my poet's heart.
Rabindranath Tagore
* * * * *
Requiem
by Wendell Berry
1.
We will see no more
the mown grass fallen behind him
on the still ridges before night,
or hear him laughing in the crop rows,
or know the order of his delight.
Though the green fields are my delight,
elegy is my fate. I have come to be
survivor of many and of much
that I love, that I won't live to see
come again into this world.
Things that mattered to me once
won't matter any more,
for I have left the safe shore
where magnificence of art
could suffice my heart.
2. In the day of his work
when the grace of the world
was upon him, he made his way,
not turning back or looking aside,
light in his stride.
Now may the grace of death
be upon him, his spirit blessed
in deep song of the world
and the stars turning, the seasons
returning, and long rest.
* * * * *
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.
Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1932 (inspired by a Hopi prayer)
* * * * *
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well.
From poem by Sir Henry Scott Holland
Quoted in Rosamund Pilcher’s novel, September
* * * * *
The Well of Grief
Those who will not slip beneath
The still surface on the well of grief
Turning downward through its black water
To the place we cannot breathe
Will never know the source from which we drink,
The secret water, cold and clear,
Nor find in the darkness glimmering
The small round coins
Thrown by those who wished for something else.
David Whyte
* * * * *
Blessed are they who rear their families in honor and gentleness,
who live courageous and upright lives,
who live life in its fullness…
Though pain be in the heart, let none grieve,
for here a gentle soul has cast its glow upon us,
and like the glory of an autumn sun,
has lit the world with kindness through its day…
Rather rejoice for that which he has given,
the light we know and treasure still within our hearts,
a light we trust still shineth beyond this world's horizon,
for life goes on, and spirit knows no death.
Robert Terry Weston
* * * * *
Let Evening Come
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
Jane Kenyon
* * * * *
Death is simply a shedding of the physical body, like the butterfly coming out of a cocoon. It is a transition into a higher state of consciousness, where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, to be able to grow, and the only thing you lose is something you don't need anymore . . . your physical body. It's like putting away your winter coat when spring comes.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
* * * * *
Streams of Living Praise
Song by Malcolm Dalglish, inspired by a favorite Isaac Watts hymn stanza
Blessed be the force that pulls,
The poetry of my days.
May I become the means the meaning flows,
In streams of living praise, in streams of living praise.
CHORUS (lyrics of Isaac Watts)
Now shall my inward joys arise,
And burst into a song!
Almighty love inspires my heart,
And pleasure tunes my tongue.
Ship of souls adrift at night,
And stars that are holding course,
Each one a sun unseen in broad daylight,
A universal source, a universal source.
The hallowed hall is empty, save
The way that it holds the light,
And now the song blows through like wind into
The hungry ears of night, the hungry ears of night.
* * * * *
Psalm of Life
Song by Lotus Dickey, words by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real, Life is earnest,
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us further than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait,
* * * * *
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come.
Rabindranath Tagore
* * * * *
We, the mortals, touch the metals,
the wind, the ocean shores, the stones,
knowing they will go on, inert or burning,
and I was discovering, naming all these things:
it was my destiny to love and say goodbye.
Pablo Neruda, translated by William O’Daly
* * * * *
By expenditure of hope,
Intelligence, and work,
You think you have it fixed.
It is unfixed by rule.
Within the darkness, all
Is being changed, and you
Also will be changed.
Now I recall to mind
A costly year: Jane Kenyon,
Bill Lippert, Philip Sherrard,
All in the same spring dead,
So much companionship
Gone as the river goes.
And my good workhorse Nick
Dead, who called out to me
In his conclusive pain
To ask my help. I had
No help to give. And flood
Covered the cropland twice.
By summer’s end there are
No more perfect leaves.
---------------------
But won't you be ashamed
To count the passing year
At its mere cost, your debt
Inevitably paid?
For every year is costly,
As you know well. Nothing
Is given that is not
Taken, and nothing taken
That was not first a gift.
The gift is balanced by
Its total loss, and yet,
And yet the light breaks in,
Heaven seizing its moments
That are at once its own
And yours. The day ends
And is unending where
The summer tanager,
Warbler, and vireo
Sing as they move among
Illuminated leaves.
Wendell Berry, “Sabbaths 1998, VI,” Given: Poems by Wendell Berry
* * * * *
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownéd be thy grave!
By William Shakespeare (from “Cymbeline”)
* * * * *
Remember
By Christina Rossetti
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land:
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
* * * * *
Vem Kan Segla
A Swedish folksong ~ with translation
Vem kan segla förutan vind?
Vem kan ro utan åror?
Vem kan skiljas från vännen sin,
Utan att fälla tåror?
Jag kan segla förutan vind,
Jag kan ro utan åror,
Men ej skiljas från vännen min
Utan att fälla tåror.
Who can sail without the wind?
Who can row without an oar
Who can bid adieu
Without shedding a tear?
I can sail without the wind,
I can row without an oar
But no one can bid adieu
Without a tear.
* * * * *
I’ll Fly Away (traditional)
Some bright morning when this life is over
I'll fly away
To that home on God’s celestial shore
I'll fly away
CHORUS
I'll fly away, oh glory
I'll fly away (in the morning)
When I die hallelujah by and by
I'll fly away
When the shadows of this life have gone
I'll fly away
Like a bird from these prison walls I'll fly
I'll fly away
Just a few more weary days and then
I’ll fly away
To a land where joys will never end
I’ll fly away.
* * * * *
Hallowell
A song by Stephen Spitzer
I thought when someone died
Their spirit flew over furthest field
Now I see death will leave behind
A scrap of light, a broken smile,
The remnants by which I might be healed.
CHORUS
The dead lift me up
In brightest skies
The clouds below me race
The dead lift me up
I see them face to face.
Held high by these strong hands
Breathing the wind I am born again
The mountain flowers, the desert sands
Surround me now, comfort me now,
In death and dreaming I find my kin.
Our voices shake in song
For memories we have long endured
Though this begins to make us strong
The combing through of threads of love
It is through living that we are cured.
* * * * *
Ulysses (Untraveled World)
by Alfred Lord Tennyson – Musical setting by Paul Halley
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought
with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles4,
And see the great Achilles5, whom we knew
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
* * * * *
“One of the deepest, richest epiphanies I have had recently is about grief. Here's what I have learned: Grief is for those who died, but also for what could have been - for that person we miss, for our life opportunities, for our childhood, career, marriage, no marriage, kids, no kids, the list is endless. We grieve so many things. Because grief hurts so deeply, we are quick to process it and put a deadline on it. Unfortunately (or fortunately, because it can really work out), grief has other ideas. IF we do not let the depth of our grief enter us, surround us and THEN, most importantly, MOVE through us totally and completely, we suffer. Have you ever felt like something is gnawing at you, bothering you, like you are always off kilter and you cannot explain why? I figured out why that was for me. It was/is because I have had a grief so deep that I never let it move through me - we subvert it and hush it - but it is there and it colors our WORDS and ACTIONS and yet we don't know why. Now, I have a practice: I allow the grief to move through me. I don't hold it in – and when grief finally moves on through it s like the coolest, sweetest wind after a hot summer storm. You know that relief you feel when things are right? That's what it feels like. So, let it move through you. You cannot mask it through work, sex, drugs, violence, alcohol, texting, Facebook, food, or anything else. Find a private place. Let it come. You will not wait long for that grief and tears to flow. Let it come - fully and completely - let it pass through you, and then get up and go about your life. You will feel better, not worse, through the tears, because when you feel better, it means you let it pass through.”
~ Rob Levit, Sept 9, 2014
Facebook message
* * * * *
"There is no right way to grieve, and you have to let people grieve in the way that they can. One of the things that happens to everyone who is grief-stricken, who has lost someone, is there comes a time when everyone else just wants you to get over it, but of course you don't get over it. You get stronger; you try and live on; you endure; you change; but you don't get over it. You carry it with you."
-Edward Hirsch (c/o Katie Wood Sevon)
* * * * *
“In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”
Kahil Gibran, The Prophet
* * * * *
"The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears."
~ Native American proverb
* * * * *
SONG SELECTIONS
Here, I Carry You
By Malcolm Dalglish
Inspired by the prayer, ”We Remember Them” from “The Gates of Prayer,”
a Reform Jewish prayer book published by the Central Conference of American Rabbis
Pale sky, dusk and dawn,
Ray of light, shadow long,
Here, I carry you.
Howling wind, silent snow,
Frozen breath, fire glow,
Here, I carry you. I carry you.
Swell of honeysuckle scent,
All sad and sweet lament,
Here, I carry you.
Humming summer, rolling sky,
Distant thunder, high July,
Here, I carry you. I carry you.
Grey, bare limbs throw,
Radiant light to the earth below,
Here, I carry you.
Years pass, and leave their trace,
In a dance of time that frames your face,
Here, I carry you. I carry you.
Standing by the window pane,
Lost in rivulets of rain,
Here, I carry you.
Dreams fly. Awake at night,
I walk the woods in the moonlight.
Here, I carry you. I carry you.
Squall of crows above my street.
There in boundless joy we meet,
Here, I carry you.
Here as I live, so do you.
I will carry you.
Here, I carry you. I carry you. I carry you.
* * * * *
Father Adieu
Father adieu, I am sorry for you
My heart is filled with trouble, now what shall I do
If I never see you any more ‘til that last trumpet shall sound
Prepare to meet in heaven, where parting is no more
Mother adieu….
Brother adieu…
Sister adieu…
* * * * *
Long Time Traveller
Traditional shape-note hymn
These fleeting charms of earth
Farewell, your springs of joy are dry
My soul now seeks another home
A brighter world on high
CHORUS
I'm a long time travelling here below
I'm a long time travelling away from home
I'm a long time travelling here below
To lay this body down
Farewell kind friends whose tender care
Has long engaged my love
Your fond embrace I now exchange
For better friends above
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvwjv_A9E00&feature=youtu.be (Wailin’ Jennys)
* * * * *
i carry your heart with me
by e.e. cummings
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
* * * *
Bright Morning Stars
CHORUS
Bright morning stars are rising
Bright morning stars are rising
Bright morning stars are rising
Day is a'breaking in my soul
Oh where are our dear fathers?
Oh where are our dear fathers?
They are down in the valley a'praying
Day is a'breaking in my soul
Oh where are our dear mothers? (2x)
They are gone to heaven a'shouting
Day is a'breaking in my soul
Bright morning stars are rising (3x)
Day is a'breaking in my soul
* * * * *
How Can I Keep from Singing
My life flows on in endless song
Above earth's lamentation.
I hear the real, though far off hymn
That hails the new creation
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I'm clinging.
It sounds an echo in my soul
How can I keep from singing?
What though the tempest round me roars
I know the truth it liveth
What though the darkness round me close
Songs in the night it giveth
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is lord of Heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?
When tyrants tremble, sick with fear,
And hear their death-knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near,
How can I keep from singing?
In prison cell and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging.
When friends by shame are undefiled,
How can I keep from singing?
* * * * *
Swing Low Sweet Chariot
Well, now I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Comin' for to carry me home
There was a band of angels a comin' after me
Comin' for to carry me home
CHORUS
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home
I'm sometimes up and I'm sometimes down
Comin' for to carry me home
But I know my soul is heavenly bound
Comin' for to carry me home
If you get there before I do
Comin' for to carry me home
Tell all of my friends that I'm a comin' too
Comin' for to carry me home
* * * * *
Parting Friends
Farewell, my friends, I'm bound for Canaan,
I'm trav'ling through the wilderness;
Your company has been delightful,
You, who doth leave my mind distressed.
I go away, behind to leave you,
Perhaps never to meet again,
But if we never have the pleasure,
I hope we'll meet on Canaan's land.