"Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect." -Ralph Emerson

"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes." -Henry David Thoreau (Dedicated to Linda K. Argo, Director of the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, Washington, DC 2007-2010)

"It's not money that makes you well-dressed; it's understanding." -Christian Dior

"A problem is a chance for you to do your best." - Duke Ellington

"And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Nomad,
And as silently steal away"
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"The road to success is not crowded. Because while most are looking for ways to take, the truly successful people are finding ways to give. With a giving attitude, every situation is an opportunity for success." -Unknown author

"The unexamined life is not worth living." -Socrates

Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live. ~Attributed to Jacqueline Winspear

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say "thank you?" ~William A. Ward

"The great moments of your life won't necessarily be the things
you do. They'll also be the things that happen to you. Now, I'm
not saying you can't take action to affect the outcome of your life.
You have to take action, and you will, but never forget, that on any
day, you can step out the front door and your whole life could change
forever. You see, the universe has a plan kids, and that plan is always
in motion. It's a scary thought, but it's also kind of wonderful, all these
little parts of the machine constantly working, making sure you end up
exactly where you're supposed to be exactly when you're supposed to
be there. The right place at the right time." – How I Met Your Mother (TV show)

"I need your grace to remind me to find my own." - Snow Patrol, Chasing Cars

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” -John Quincy Adams

"Where there is no imagination there is no horror." -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"Enjoy what you have, hope for what you lack." -Chinese Fortune Cookie

"A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is a reality." -John Lennon

“If the problem can be solved, why worry? If the problem cannot be solved, worrying will do you no good.” – Shantideva

"To Be One With Each Other" by George Eliot

What greater thing is there for two human souls
Than to feel that they are joined together
To strengthen each other in all labor,
To minister to each other in all sorrow,
To share with each other in all gladness,
To be one with each other in the silent unspoken memories?

Post dedicated to Rachel and Eric Best on their Wedding Day 10-01-2010

"Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." ~Lao Tzu

"Every event in life can be causing only one of two things: Either it is good for you, or it is bringing up what you need to look at in order to create good for you." -Deepak Chopra

“Equality is the prime rib of America.”
- Lady Gaga, at a Portland, Maine rally urging senators to support the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” rule

TODAY IS THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE:

“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.” -Robert Fulghum quotes

"The bicycle is a curious vehicle. Its passenger is its engine." ~John Howard

"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." -James Dean

Come on now, who do you
Who do you, who do you, who do you think you are?
Ha ha ha, bless your soul
You really think you're in control?
-Gnarles Barkley, 'Crazy' Lyrics

How Blessed It Is To Be A Woman

By: Anne Wimer

how blessed it is to be a woman

to feel sinuous strength of muscles moving

with equine stature down the back of my thighs

to carry the soft heavy lushness of breasts and

to live as a sort of sacramental icon of

the bounteousness of creation brimming forth

with the milky excitement of life

how blessed it is to be a woman

to perceive keen connections amid

emotion and soul, intellect and body

to venerate that connection in all things sensual

how blessed it is to be a woman

compassion's blood moves through my veins

penetrating the heart and thoughts of another

that bridges gaps between race, color, gender and creed

as blood flows and brings vigor to all members of a body

how blessed it is to be a woman

the mystic and the sense united and

so easily misunderstood

"The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive." ~Thich Nhat Hanh

"Now I know the things I know, and I do the things I do; and if you do not like me so, to hell, my love, with you!" - Dorothy Parker

"Freedom's just another word for 'nothin left to lose'!" -Janis Joplin

"Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate. Without them, what would shape our lives? Perhaps, if we never veered off course, we wouldn't fall in love or have babies or be who we are." -Michael Patrick King, Sex and the City, I Heart NY, 2002

"Life's most urgent question is:
What are you doing for others?"
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world." -Ada Louise Huxtable

"What whiskey will not cure, there is no cure for." -Irish Proverb (Dedicated to Emily and Jay as they leave for their trip to the UK)

"People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one." -Leo J. Burke

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe. ~Anatole France

It is not down in any map; true places never are. ~Herman Melville

“It takes all the running you can do just to stay in the same place.”
- The Red Queen, Alice in Wonderland

"We turn not older with years, but newer every day."
- Emily Dickinson

"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal." ~From a headstone in Ireland (Post dedicated to my lovely friend, Hannah, and her family)

"The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses." -Francis Bacon, Sr.

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." -Nietzche

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." -Howard Zinn

dry seeds scatter
from my hand into the wind
one clings
as if to say there is in me
something yet to be
-Jeanne Emrich

"The injuries we do and those we suffer are seldom weighed in the same scales." -Aesop

"He who can take advice is sometimes superior to those who give it." -Chinese Cookie Fortune

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."
-P. J. O'Rourke

"Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music." -Angela Monet

"Managing is like holding a dove in your hand. Squeeze too hard and you kill it, not hard enough and it flies away." -Tommy Lasorda

"Follow your heart, but be quiet for a while first. Ask questions, then feel the answer. Learn to trust your heart." - Unknown

"It takes a long time to become young."
- Pablo Picasso (Happy 30th Birthday to Jay!)

"Mankind is not evil, just... uninformed." -Professor X (X-Men)

"Time and Tide wait for no man, but time always stands still for a woman of thirty."
- Robert Frost (Happy 30th Birthday to Emily!)

"If you have no critics you'll likely have no success." -Malcolm X

"A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are." -Ara Parasheghian

“With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you are never scared, embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take chances." -Chinese Fortune Cookie, 7/26/2010

"Nothing Happens By Accident." - Jay Bluford, 7/23/2010

"Love is one long sweet dream, and marriage is the alarm clock." ~Author Unknown

"Be yourself. No one can ever tell you you're doing it wrong." -Peanuts

"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find
someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them
and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love. -Author Unknown

-Wonder-
By: Heather Vargas

Dreaming again,
Same as the night before.
Flying like a bird,
Soaring in the moment.
Wishing on a star;
So bright,
Just within reach.

Waking from slumber,

Like the morning before.
Moved by something bigger,
It's been light for hours.
Living once again;

So right,
Full of wonder.

“The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.”  -Albert Schweitzer

"Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. " -Robert Frost

"Each child belongs to all of us and they will bring us a tomorrow in direct relationship to the responsibility we have shown to them."

- Maya Angelou

30 Things I Wish I Knew Earlier in Life
A great post on a blog I like:
http://alternaview.com/30-things-i-wish-i-knew-earlier-in-life/

A few of my favorites:
6. Be happy walking until you can run ... and then it is time to try to fly.
9. Apple's stock price is going to continue increase for a very long time.
11. Life is not a competition.
14. There is nothing to fear.
21. Everything changes.
29. The best growth comes when you are out of your comfort zone.

AN ESSENCE OF LIVING
By: An Unknown Writer

FROM THE HILLS, TO THE VALLEYS,
WITHIN THE DARKNESS OF THE CLOUDS,
NAVIGATION THROUGH CLEAR SKIES,
BE HUMBLE WITH CONFIDENCE,
ABSORB GAINED KNOWLEDGE,
RESPECT YOUR JOURNEY,
TO COMPLETE YOUR MISSION,
IN THIS EXISTENCE CALLED LIFE.

"With great power comes great responsibility." -Spider-man

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well." -Vincent Van Gogh

"Run to Daylight." -Vince Lombardi

"A man is seduced by what he sees, a woman by what she hears." ~ Anonymous

"A Surprise is a Secret that hasn't happened yet!" -H. Vargas, 5/20/2010

"What's the point of being afraid?" -Desmond on Lost, Season 6 - Episode 12

"When life hands you lemons - break out the tequila and salt." -Unknown

"You want the wisdom to know the difference between what you can and can't change?
Here's step 13: Everything disappears. Love, trees, rocks, steel, plastic, human beings. None of us get out alive. Now you can huddle in a group and face it one day at a time, or you can be grateful that when your body rubs against somebody else's it explodes with enough pleasure to make you forget even for a minute that you're a walking pile of ashes. Now that is the truth. If you're strong it'll make you free, if you're weak, it'll make you... you." -Dr. Christian Troy, on Nip Tuck

"Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes." -Oscar Wilde

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

"We don't just stir shenanigans, we stuff them into a blender and hit the pulverize button" - John McGowan (on our past 6 or 7 bat shit crazy weekends)

"Life is either a great adventure or nothing." -Helen Keller

"Fastest way to find something you've lost is to replace it." -Chinese Fortune Cookie

"As a matter of principle, I never attend the first annual anything." -George Carlin

"Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on." -Henry Rollins

"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain." -Dolly Parton

"The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world." - Carl Sagan

"Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)." -Doris Day (Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much) and Nip Tuck, Season 4

"Where you go stays with you forever." Touchdown lyrics, The Shanghai Restoration Project

"Good people should drink good beer." -Hunter S. Thompson

"I have many memories of waking up to eat breakfast that my mother carefully prepared for us and her saying, what do y'all want for lunch, and as we're eating lunch, what do y'all want for dinner? It's always about the next meal." -Lisa Loeb

"Donuts. Is there anything they can't do?" -Homer Simpson

“Risk-taking, trust, and serendipity are key ingredients of joy. Without risk, nothing new ever happens. Without trust, fear creeps in. Without serendipity, there are no surprises.” -Rita Golden Gelman

"PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY." -US Marine Corp Recruiting Campaign

"We had no knowledge that our lives had just changed. You seldom sit at a crossroads and know it's a crossroads. But from the ovation froward, my life was not going to be the same." -Alex Raffe

“The human race has only one effective weapon, and that is laughter.” -Mark Twain

“You can shed tears that she is gone, or you can smile because she has lived. You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back, or you can open your eyes and see all she's left. Your heart can be empty because you can't see her, or you can be full of the love you shared. You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday, or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday. You can remember her only that she is gone, or you can cherish her memory and let it live on. You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back. Or you can do what she'd want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.” - David Harkins (In memory of my grandmother, Jean McGowan December 29, 1911 - April 10, 2000)

"The key to life is mastering every situation." -Someone Well-known

"Go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is." - Will Rogers

"I find clarity in darkness." - Arthur Frobisher (Character on Damages)

"It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else." -Erma Bombeck

"Nobody puts whiskey in a corner." -Emily Monahan 4/5/2010

"It's alright letting yourself go as long as you can let yourself back." -Mick Jagger

"I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer." -Douglas Adams

" The circus stays the same. Only the clowns change." - Walter Beach, Former NFL Player

"If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough." -Mario Andretti

"Golf and sex are about the only things you can enjoy without being good at." - Jimmy Demaret

"Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun." - John Lennon

"Family is just accident.... They don't mean to get on your nerves. They don't even mean to be your family, they just are." ~Marsha Norman

"I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose, and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all"
-Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

"But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost but something's gained
In living every day"
-Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

"Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way"
-Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar." - Drew Carey

"Chemistry can be a good and bad thing. Chemistry is good when you make love with it. Chemistry is bad when you make crack with it." - Adam Sandler

"Traveling through life is equivalent to an open terrain." - Someone Well-Known

“Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain.” - Unknown Author

"You know you're following in the footsteps of giants when you stumble into one once in a while." - Dan Maller, Falls Church City Councilman

"To know when to go away and when to come closer is the key to any lasting relationship." ~Doménico Cieri Estrada

"What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you, but I know it's mine."
- The Beatles

"It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!" ~Mark Twain

“Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself.” -Havelock Ellis

"A gambler is nothing but a man who makes his living out of hope." ~William Bolitho

Here's to a long life and a merry one;
A quick death and an easy one;
A pretty girl and an honest one;
A cold beer and another one!
-Irish Saying

"The desire to reach for the sky runs deep in our human psyche." ~Cesar Pelli

"Why walk when you can cartwheel?" -Unknown

"This is not a race; but, it is a marathon."
-EM 3/14/2010

"Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body." ~Oliver Wendell Holmes (Quote for March 13, 2010 - posted on 3/14/2010)

To all my friends in town for Shamrock Fest:
"Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain. " - Billie Holiday

"You're not allowed to give yourself a nickname. This holds true in life as well as in poker."
- Richard Roeper

"The stars wouldn't be so high if you weren't suppose to reach for them."

-Donald S. McGowan, my oldest brother (This 'scope' is dedicated to John J. McGowan, my youngest brother)

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade." -Charles Dickens

"The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority."
- Ralph W. Sockman

"You've gone a million miles
How far'd you get
To that place where you can't remember
And you can't forget"
-Bruce Springsteen, Secret Garden Lyrics, 1995

“Set your goals high, and don't stop till you get there.”
- Bo Jackson

"And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words." -Khalil Gibran

"A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in." ~Robert Orben

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." ~ Marcel Proust

"We all try to defend ourselves so we won't get hurt." -Voice of Mary Alice Young, Desperate Housewives (Season 6, Episode 9 - Would You Think of Suicide?)

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Life must be understood backwards; but... it must be lived forward." -Soren Kierkegaard

“Sports is the toy department of human life.” - Howard Cosell

"Maybe sometimes you have to lose who you were to find out who you are." -Sean McNamara, Nip Tuck

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the snow." -Unknown

"It is more erotic to wonder if you're about to be kissed than it is to be kissed." - Roger Ebert

“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise." -Oscar Wilde

"What nourishes me also destroys me." -Latin Proverb

"Hate is a wasted emotion."
-Jay Wilson
February 2, 2010

"Beauty must be defined as what we are or the concept itself becomes our enemy." -Quote on bathroom stall in 1409 Playbill

Bob Marley's words of wisdom

“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before, and she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect, you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together, but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold on to her and give her the most that you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, But she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break, her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her and don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy; let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she is not there” - Bob Marley

"What is a friend? I will tell you...it is someone with whom you dare to be yourself."
~ Frank Crane