h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Beginning today, I'm going to use this journal to post a thought for the day. I'm always running across quotes and snippets that are inspirational or thought-provoking. A side effect of my profession. So, here goes. Seen on a church billboard in Vermont:

"Wisdom has two parts: 1)-Having a lot to say. 2)-Not saying it."

nice,

That makes me exactly half-wise. Never mastered the second part.

Cool idea, Hyp!

I'm with your group, Ag...

Good one.

Speaking when I'd be better off listening happens to me a lot.

Thursday, October 21. From Maurice Setter:

"Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold."

Thanks for keeping us inspired

Maybe this will be further inspirational :
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Very funny, Santra.

Friday, October 22. Hannen Swaffer in a conversation with Tom Driberg, c. 1928:

"Freedom of the press in Britain is freedom to print such of the proprietor's prejudices as the advertisers don't object to."

That's still true.

"Always put off till tomorrow what should be done todeay..."
Guaranteed to make you live forever....

Saturday, October 23. Eckhart Tolle in "Stillness Speaks", 2003:

"Dogmas - religious, political, scientific - arise out of the erroneous belief that thought can encapsulate reality or the truth. Dogmas are collective conceptual prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because they give them a sense of security and a false sense of 'I know.'"

Ooh, good one. Amen. I love that and will now go look up Eckhart Tolle, who I hope writes in German. With many subordinate clauses.

This person has understood that you cannot make a mental map of something you don't have a big enough program for, and besides, are part of. I doubt many people realise that it's a Heisenberg issue. Or that the concept of hubris is only there to point out the logical absurdity of that kind of thinking. Or why Anselm of Canterbury said the only 'proof' for the existence of God was ontological. Or why Cornelius van Til, the nutty Reformed theologian (I used to get such a charge out of him, like a religious theoretical physicist), said you both could and couldn't 'prove' the existence of God.

It reminds me of Arthur Koestler's explanation of closed systems - or why he was a Communist, and then he wasn't, same old story.

'There are no rocks in the sky. Therefore, rocks do not fall from the sky.' --Lavoisier.

The good news is - if we realise our models are only temporary, and that we are all a bunch of intellectual rednecks, living in our theoretical trailer parks, we can enjoy it when the tornado comes through and knocks it all apart.

'Yep. Sounded like a freight train.'

Thanks, Hypatia - that was refreshing and will inspire me all day. In fact, I'm thinking about what that means in terms of existentialism and....wait, where's my tinfoil hat?......

And from the sublime to the not-so-sublime, one of my favorites:

"Start the day with a smile and get it over with." -W.C. Fields

Sundy, October 24. Rabindranath Tagore translated by Deepak Chopra in "On the Shores of Eternity", 1999:

"A Dance Beyond Death"

The same stream of life that runs through my veins
Runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measure.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
In numberless blades of grass,
Breaking in waves of leaves and flowers.
The same life that rocks the cradle of birth and death
In the ocean of eternal exsistence.
My life is made glorious by touching this world
And my pride is from knowing
That the life-throb of ages dances in my blood at this moment.

That quote matches several discussions on h2g2 at the moment.

From the nonsense I put in the 18.10.10 to Beatrice's performance in Belfast to Willem's sighting of a peacock...

Everything's dancing, I think.

Monday, October 25. J.M. Keynes in "The End of Laisser-Faire" 1926:

"I do not know which makes a man more conservative - to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past."

Tuesday, October 26.

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

- John Wooden, Hall of Fame college basketball coach