Thursday, January 31, 2008

Microsoft Billgate's Quotes

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Quotes About Politics & Society

Information is the currency of democracy.
-- Thomas Jefferson

There is no Energy Shortage. There is no Energy Crisis. There is a Crisis of Ignorance.
-- R Buckminster Fuller

To be a great politician you need the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.
-- Winston Churchill

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
-- Bertrand Russel

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
-- Abraham Lincoln

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.
-- George Bernard Shaw

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.
-- George Bernard Shaw

All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions.
-- George Bernard Shaw

Democracy: The substitution of election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
-- George Bernard Shaw

Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.
-- John Perry Barlow

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.
-- Ambrose Bierce

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
-- Anatole France

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
-- Robert Frost

What is the good of having a nice house without a decent planet to put it on?
-- Henry David Thoreau

To me the worst thing seems to be a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of pupils and produces a subservient subject.
-- Albert Einstein

Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.
-- Albert Einstein

I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.
-- Lily Tomlin

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.
-- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.
-- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I am certain that none of the world's problems have any hope of solution except through all of the world's individuals becoming thoroughly and comprehensively self-educated. Only then will society be able to identify, and intercommunicate, the vital problems of total world society. Only then may humanity effectively sort out and put those problems into an order of importance for solutions that will work for all life on Earth.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller

Quotes About Love

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
-- Eric Fromm

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.
-- Benjamin Disraeli

When your heart speaks, take good notes.
-- Judith Campbell

The heart has it's reasons that reason does not know.
-- Blaise Pascal

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get --
only with what you are expecting to give -- which is everything.
-- Katherine Hepburn

"True love" isn't so much a dreamy feeling that you have as it is an enduring commitment to give sacrificially -- even, or perhaps especially, when you don't feel like it.
-- William R. Mattox, Jr.

Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.
-- Albert Einstein

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.
-- John Ruskin

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.
-- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
-- James Baldwin

Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow.
-- Norman Vincent Peale

In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing.
-- Antonio Porchia

You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.
-- Barbara DeAngelis

Life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.
-- Oscar Wilde

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
-- Bertrand Russell

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
-- Mother Teresa

The course of true love never did run smooth.
-- William Shakespeare

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
-- Henry David Thoreau

Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have, so to speak, pawned apart of their narcissism.
-- Sigmund Freud

The more you judge, the less you love.
-- Honore de Balzac

The beginning of love is a horror of emptiness.
-- Robert Bly

This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.
-- Rumi

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

The truth is that there is only one terminal dignity -- love. And the story of a love is not important -- what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.
-- Helen Hayes

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.
-- Henri-Frederic Amiel

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.
-- Marcus Aurelius

The despair among the loveless is that they must narcotize themselves before they can touch any human being at all.
-- James Baldwin

Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives it ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
-- William Blake

Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Is not absence death to those who love?
-- Alexander Pope

Those who are loved live poorly and in danger. Ah, that they might surmount themselves and become lovers. Around those who love is sheer security. No one casts suspicion on them anymore, and they themselves are not in a position to betray themselves or each other.
-- Ranier Maria Rilke

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.
-- Jean Jacques Rosseau

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
-- Bertrand Russell

I did not know I loved you until I heard myself telling so, for one instance I thought, Good God, what have I said? and then I knew it was true.
-- Bertrand Russell

Doubt thou the stars are fine
Doubt that the sun doth move
Doubt truth be a liar
But never doubt I love
-- William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the moments when you really lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.
-- Henry Drummond

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up save in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
-- C.S. Lewis

Say Yes to the seedlings and a giant forest cleaves the sky. Say Yes to the universe and the planets become your neighbors. Say Yes to dreams of love and freedom. It is the password to utopia.
-- Brooks Atkinson

It seems that it is madder never to abandon one's self than to be infatuated; better to be wounded, a captive and a slave, than always walk in armor.
-- Margaret Fuller

We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as their qualities.
-- Jacques Maritain

Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of a being?
-- Igor Stravinsky

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own
-- Robert A. Heinlein

In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.
-- Mignon McLaughlin

Swedenborg teaches us that love makes us free, and I can bear witness to its power of lifting us out of the isolation to which we seem condemned. When the idea of an active, all controlling love lays hold of us, we become masters, creators of good, helpers of our kind. It is as if the dark had sent forth a star to draw us to heaven. We discover in ourselves many undeveloped resources of will and thought. Checked, hampered, failing again and again, we rise above the barriers that bound and confine us, our lives put on serenity and order.
-- Hellen Keller

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.
-- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

When two people understand each other in their innermost hearts, their words are sweet and strong like the fragrance of orchids.
-- I Ching

My love does not, cannot make her happy. My love can only release in her the capacity to be happy.
-- J. Barnes

There are more people who wish to be loved than there are who are willing to love.
-- Sebastian Roch Nicolas Chamfort

Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.
-- Joan Crawford

Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blowsout the candle and blows up the bonfire.
-- Francois, Duc de La Rouchefoucald

If a man is worth loving at all, he is worth loving generously, even recklessly.
-- Marie Dressler

He is not a lover who does not love forever.
-- Euripides

The art of love ... is largely the art of persistence.
-- Albert Ellis

It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.
-- Khalil Gibran

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
-- Martin Luther King

Love...is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
-- Iris Murdoch

I hold it true, whatever befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Children need love, especially when they don't deserve it.
-- Harold Hulbert

Confronted by outstanding merit, there is no way of saving ones ego except by love.
-- J. W. Von Goethe

Live the law of love. We encourage obedience to the laws of life when we live the laws of love. People are extremely tender inside, particularly those who act as if they are tough and self-sufficient. And if we'll listen to them with the third ear, the heart, they'll tell us so. We can gain even more by showing love, particularly unconditional love, as this gives people a sense of intrinsic worth and security unrelated to conforming behavior or comparisons with others. Many borrow their security and strength from external appearances, status symbols, positions, achievements and associations. But borrowing strength inevitably builds weakness. We all distrust superficial human relations techniques and manipulative success formulas that are separated from sincere love.
-- Stephen R. Covey

I have loved to the point of madness; that which is called madness, that which to me, is the only sensible way to love.
-- Francois Sagan

I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.
-- Mahatma Gandhi

Knowledge is gained by learning; trust by doubt; skill by practice; and love by love
-- Thomas Szasz

The reason that ego and love are not compatible comes down to this: you cannot take your ego into the unknown, where love wants to lead. If you follow love, your life will become uncertain, and the ego craves certainty.
-- Deepak Chopra

True love is when your heart and your mind are saying the same thing.
-- Leanna L. Bartram

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.
-- St. Francis De Sales

Quotes About Truth

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.
-- Albert Einstein

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
-- Albert Einstein

The greatest homage to truth is to use it.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

It takes two to speak the truth -- one to speak and another to hear.
-- Henry David Thoreau

An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.
-- Arthur Miller

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson

Official truths are often powerful illusions.
-- John Pilger

A good lie will have traveled half way around the world while the truth is putting on her boots.
-- Mark Twain

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.
-- Mark Twain

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.
-- Maya Angelou

In all things it is a good idea to hang a question mark now and then on the things we have taken for granted.
-- Bertrand Russell

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
-- Voltaire

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
-- Fyodor Dostoevsky

Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is boring without it.
-- Pearl S. Buck

The liar's punishment is that they cannot believe anyone else.
-- George Bernard Shaw

There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.
-- Charles Dickens

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
-- Oscar Wilde

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
-- Niels Bohr

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.
-- Alexander Pope

Always tell the truth; then you don't have to remember anything.
-- Mark Twain

To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.
-- Hamlet

Always tell the truth, not only because it is the decent thing to do, but because it gives you such an advantage over the man who is trying to remember his lies!
-- Sam Brookes

We have art in order not to die of the truth.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

There are three parts in truth: first, the inquiry, which is the wooing of it; secondly, the knowledge of it, which is the presence of it; and thirdly, the belief, which is the enjoyment of it.
-- Francis Bacon

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
-- Francis Bacon

Honesty is the 1st chapter in the book of wisdom.
-- Thomas Jefferson

THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CONTROL PEOPLE IS TO LIE TO THEM. You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody is to lie to them. When you find an individual is lying to you, you know that the individual is trying to control you. One way or another this individual is trying to control you. That is the mechanism of control. Conversely, if you see an impulse on the part of a human being to control you, you know very well that that human being is lying to you. Not is going to, but is lying to you. Check these facts, you will find they are always true. That person who is trying to control you is lying to you. He's got to tell you lies in order to continue control, because the second you start telling anybody close to the truth, you start releasing him and he gets tougher and tougher to control. So, you can't control somebody without telling them a bunch of lies.
-- L. Ron Hubbard

I'm not trying to counsel any of you to do anything really special except to dare to think and to dare to go with the truth and to dare to really love completely.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller

Quotes About Life

Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can.
-- Danny Kaye

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
-- Anais Nin

Only a life lived for others is worth living.
-- Albert Einstein

A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.
-- Albert Einstein

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
-- Albert Einstein

The most beautiful experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe is as good as dead. His eyes are closed.
-- Albert Einstein

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that canbe counted counts.
-- Albert Einstein

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
-- Albert Einstein

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
-- Albert Einstein

Relativity teaches us the connection between the different descriptions of one and the same reality.
-- Albert Einstein

A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
-- Albert Einstein

What is required is sight and insight -- then you might add one more: excite.
-- Robert Frost

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.
-- Victor Borge

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
-- T. S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"

We can try to avoid making choices by doing nothing, but even that is a decision.
-- Gary Collins

When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.
-- Sigmund Freud

I am an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.
-- Carl Sandburg

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.
-- Albert Camus

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
-- Winston Churchill

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
-- Francis Bacon

The life that is unexamined is not worth living.
-- Plato

The road to hell is paved with good intentions
-- Samuel Johnson

Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.
-- Fran Lebowitz

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
-- John Lennon

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
-- William Shakespeare

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
-- Oscar Wilde

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.
-- George Bernard Shaw

You see things and say 'Why?' but I dream things that never were and I say 'Why not?'
-- George Bernard Shaw

Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.
-- Henry Ford

What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.
-- Sigmund Freud

Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves.
-- Henry David Thoreau

The only thing to fear is fear itself.
-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear -- not absence of fear.
-- Mark Twain

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind.
-- Bertrand Russell

Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.
-- Bertrand Russell

The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.
-- Jean Jacques Rosseau

None of us can help the things life has done to us. They're done before you realize it, and once they're done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you'd like to be, and you have lost your true self forever.
-- Eugene O'Neill

The secret of man's being is not only to live, but to have something to live for.
-- Fedor Dostoevsky

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great people must, I think, have great sadness on Earth.
-- Fedor Dostoevsky

Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult.
-- Hippocrates

Gather ye rose--buds while ye may,
Old time is still aflying.
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
-- Robert Herrick

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
-- Carl Jung

There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion.
-- Carl Jung

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
-- Andre Gide

Strength is born in the deep silence of long--suffering hearts; not amid joy.
-- Felicia Hemans

In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
-- Eric Hoffer

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.
-- André Gide

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.
-- Voltaire

This above all: to thine own self be true.
-- William Shakespeare

It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
-- John Andrew Holmes

A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark.
-- Dante

We work in the dark,
We do what we can,
We give what we have,
Our doubt is our passion,
And our passion is our task,
The rest is the madness of art.
-- Henry James

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

To share often and much; to leave the world a little better; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. That is to have succeeded.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tomorrow night is nothing but one long sleepless wrestle with yesterday's omissions and regrets.
-- William Faulkner

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
--Henry Ford

Whenever I draw a circle, I immediately want to step out of it.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller

A lot of people think or believe or know they feel (experience) -- but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling (experiencing). Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel (experience). Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel (experience), you're nobody-but-yourself. To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others.
-- Winston Churchill

You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
-- Samuel Butler

Love not what you are, but what you may become.
-- Miguel de Cervantes

For what purpose humanity is there should not even concern us: why you are there, that you should ask yourself: and if you have no ready answer, then set for yourself goals, high and noble goals, and perish in pursuit of them! I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum. Today everybody permits himself the expression of his wish and his dearest thought; hence I, too, shall say what it is that I wish from myself today, and what was the first thought to run across my heart this year--what thought shall be for me the reason, warranty, and sweetness of my life henceforth. I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor Fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes--sayer.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Battle not with monsters lest you become one. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Never mistake motion for action.
-- Ernest Hemingway

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
-- Douglas Adams

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
-- Immanuel Kant

We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves. The consciousness of wrong--doing makes us irritable, and our heart, in its cunning, quarrels with what is outside it, in order that it may deafen the clamor within.
-- Henri-Frederic Amiel

If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
-- Dr. Robert Anthony

Sometimes it seems like we're all living in some kind of prison, and the crime is how much we hate ourselves. It's good to get really dressed up once in a while and admit the truth -- that when you look really closely, people are so strange and so complicated that they're actually beautiful. Possibly even me.
-- Henry Miller

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing.
-- Jack Kerouac

The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century will not occur because of technology but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human.
-- John Naisbitt/Patricia Aburdence

Seek not the things that are too hard for thee, neither search the things that are beyond thy strength.
-- Apocrypha

Resolve to find thyself; and to know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.
-- Matthew Arnold

I am quick to laugh at everything, so as not to have to cry.
-- De Beaumarchais

When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.
-- Alexander Graham Bell

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.
-- William Hazlett

The feeble tremble before opinion, the foolish defy it, the wise judge it, the skillful direct it.
-- Mme. Jeanne Roland French Girondist

The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.
-- Jean Giraudoux

Say Yes to the seedlings and a giant forest cleaves the sky.
Say Yes to the universe and the planets become your neighbors.
Say Yes to dreams of love and freedom.
It is the password to utopia.
-- Brooks Atkinson

Patience is the art of hoping.
-- Vauvenargus

The most intractable of our experiences is our experience of Time - the intuition of duration, combined with the thought of perpetual perishing.
-- Aldous Huxley

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
-- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.
-- Oscar Wilde

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
-- Oscar Wilde

Kindness and intelligence don't always deliver us from the pitfalls and traps: there are always failures of love, of will, of imagination. There is no way to takethe danger out of human relationships.
-- Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

The distance doesn't matter, it is only the first step that is difficult.
-- Marie de Vichy-Chamrond

Living is a thing you do now or never...which do you?
--Piet Hein

Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open. You're able to benefit from the unique viewpoints of others,without being crippled by your own judgment.
-- Ralph Marston

It is never too late to be what you might have been.
-- George Eliot

It's not what you are but what you don't become that hurts.
-- Oscar Levant

Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.
-- Phillip Brooks

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured and far away.
-- Henry David Thoreau

In times of stress, our impatience surfaces. We may say things we don'treally mean or intend to say things we don't really mean or intend to say -all out of proportion to reality. Or we may become sullen, communicatingthrough emotion and attitude rather than words, eloquent messages ofcriticism, jugdement, and rejection. We then harvest hurt feelings andstrained relationships. Patience is the practical expression of faith, hope,wisdom, and love. It is a very active emotion. It is not indifference,sullen endurance, or resignation. Patience is emotional diligence. Itaccepts the reality of step-by-step processes and natural growth cycles.Life provides abundant chances to practice patience - to stretch theemotional fibre - from waiting for a late person or plane to listeningquietly to your child's feelings and experiences when other things are pressing.
-- Stephen R. Covey

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
-- Martin Luther King Jr.

I'm utterly convinced that we are all here for one another and that every experience that everyone is having is relevant. It all counts. The Universe is so extraordinarily well designed that it needs all those experiences.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart ... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
-- Carl Jung

Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
-- James Allen

Humans may be defined as the animal that can say I, that can be aware of themselves as a separate entity.
-- Erich Fromm

When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either.
-- Leo Burnett

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
-- Theodore Roosevelt

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.
-- Oscar Wilde

I'm not trying to counsel any of you to do anything really special except to dare to think and to dare to go with the truth and to dare to really love completely.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller

Quotes on Friendship

Friendship -- Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are -- chaff and grain together -- certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away...
-- Dinah Mulock

A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The only way to have a friend is to be one.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happiness is a byproduct of an effort to make someone else happy.
-- Gretta Brooker Palmer

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
-- Mark Twain

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
-- Goethe

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when they discover that someone else believes in them and is willing to trust them with their friendship.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.
-- Joseph Addison

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.
-- Bible: Ecclesiastes

Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.
-- Henri-Frederic Amiel

A friend is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
-- Aristotle

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.
-- Marcus Aurelius

True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.
-- Henry David Thoreau

What makes loneliness an anguish is not that I have no one to share my burden, but this: I have only my own burden to bear.
-- Dag Hammarskjold

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
-- Martin Luther King Jr.

Friendship with oneself is all -- important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
-- Aristotle

The friendship that can cease has never been real.
-- Saint Jerome

Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.
-- Elizabeth Bowen

Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.
-- Honoré de Balzac

Solitude: A good place to visit, but a poor place to stay.
-- Josh Billings

I waited and waited, and when no message came, I knew it must have been from you.
-- Ashleigh Brilliant (UC Berkeley 'street' philosopher)

Love your enemies just in case your friends turn out to be a bunch of bastards.
-- R. A. Dickson

Quotes on Creativity & Ideas

Knowledge itself is power.
-- Francis Bacon

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
-- Albert Einstein

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
-- Albert Einstein

You cannot solve the problem with the same kind of thinking that has created the problem.
-- Albert Einstein

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
-- Albert Einstein

I think and think for months, for years; 99 times the conclusion is wrong, but the hundredth it is right.
-- Albert Einstein

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.
-- Albert Einstein

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
-- Albert Einstein

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
-- Albert Einstein

All great ideas are dangerous.
-- Oscar Wilde

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.
-- Howard Aiken

All great discoveries are made by people whose feelings run ahead of their thinking.
-- Charles Parkhurst

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
-- Linus Pauling

An undefined problem has an infinite number of solutions.
-- Robert A. Humphrey

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The test of a first--rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
-- Confucius

It is not enough to have knowledge, one must also apply it. It is not enough to have wishes, one must also accomplish.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
-- Buckminster Fuller

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.
-- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
-- Poul Anderson

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
-- James Joyce

I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.
-- Franklin P. Adams

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
-- Isaac Newton

No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.
-- Sir Isaac Newton

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge
-- Bertrand Russell

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.
-- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
-- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

There are many people who have no desire to do anything differently than anyone else. And that's fine. We need to have people who are technically expert: people who play wonderful third fiddle, if you will, or people who carry out what we call normal experiments in science (ones which sort of fill in the tiny little holes which were left by the great creators). But some people want to push beyond that. And that's a personality kind of thing. It's nothing to do with how smart they are. It's whether they're the kinds of people who like to confront obstacles. Only people who've got that kind of irritation...irritability...where they're not satisfied just to do what other people want to do, but who really want to put themselves on the line and take a risk and face the void of going beyond where other people have gone who have any chance of being creative.
-- Howard Gardner

If you have the same ideas as everybody else but have them one week earlier than everyone else then you will be hailed as a visionary. But if you have them five years earlier you will be named a lunatic.
-- Barry Jones

Quotes About Music

Without music, life would be a mistake
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

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

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
-- Victor Hugo

Music can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.
-- Leonard Bernstein

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

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.
-- Ludwig van Beethoven

An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it.
-- Paul Valery

Quotes About Computers & Technology

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
-- Herbert Simon

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
-- T. S. Eliot

If you have the same ideas as everybody else but have them one week earlier than everyone else then you will be hailed as a visionary. But if you have them five years earlier you will be named a lunatic.
--Barry Jones

All great ideas are dangerous.
-- Oscar Wilde

All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions.
-- George Bernard Shaw

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
-- Isaac Newton

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.
-- George Bernard Shaw

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.
-- Howard Aiken

There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
-- C. A. R. Hoare

You know you've achieved perfection in design,
Not when you have nothing more to add,
But when you have nothing more to take away.
-- Antoine de Saint--Exupery

Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.
-- Albert Einstein

The danger from computers is not that they will eventually get as smart as people, but we will meanwhile agree to meet them halfway.
-- Bernard Avishai

The most important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them
-- Sir William Bragg

The original root of the word information is the Latin word informare, which means to fashion, shape, or create, to give form to. Information is an idea that has been given a form, such as the spoken or written word. It is a means of representing an image or thought so that it can be communicated from one mind to another. Rather than worrying about all the information afloat in the world, we must ask ourselves what matters to us, what do we want to know. It's having ideas and learning to deal with issues that is important, not accumulating lots and lots of data.
-- Theordore Roszack

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.
-- Thomas Alva Edison

I think and think for months, for years; 99 times the conclusion is wrong, but the hundredth it is right.
-- Albert Einstein

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
-- Winston Churchill

Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.
-- John Perry Barlow

There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.
-- Jeremy S. Anderson

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.
-- John Ruskin

There is no Energy Shortage. There is no Energy Crisis. There is a Crisis of Ignorance.
-- R Buckminster Fuller

Pioneers may be picturesque figures, but they are often rather lonely ones.
-- Nancy Astor

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Who are you Thankful for

As the holiday of Thanksgiving approaches, I wish each of you a happy holiday and ask you to think about the meaning of the word Thanksgiving. So often we get caught up in the pageantry that surrounds this holiday, and forget just who we are thankful for.

In life, you will meet many people along the way. Each person who touches our life brings a gift. Some will touch you more than others, but each person comes into your life for a reason. Many times we don't exactly know why. This person could be a teacher, a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a friend or a stranger. Maybe this person listens when we need to talk or cry. Maybe they help us financially when we are broke. Maybe they talk to us, when we need a different perspective. Maybe they hold us when we don't deserve it. Maybe they sit with us when our grief is too much to bear alone. Maybe they are just there, so we know we are not alone.

How have we acknowledged this help? Have we taken their gifts of love, compassion, and hope out into the world and offered it to others? We all need to give something back to this world that will help others along their paths. I think we all need to be more thankful. This year, stop, think, and remember all of the people who have crossed your paths and be thankful for them. Say it out loud, say it in silence, but say it.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Solution for Tough Moment - Forget the past bitterful life

If it really bothers you, talk to someone you trust and feel comfortable with about it. Talking is good. Not talking about it makes you bottle it up, and the next thing you know, meditation is involved.

Compare it to another's bad experience. Think about it. I mean, you've had a bad day, but that other person may have had a bad year. You may have lost your cat, but that person across the street lost his mom. Every thing's relative, even problems.

How to forget the PAST

Sometimes, events that happen in our life make us feel tired, burdened, or regretful. We spend too much time thinking about a horrible deed we've committed, even though we no can no longer change it. So how do we move on from a bad experience?


1. Accept that it happened.
It's not the easiest thing to do, but it will help you get on your way. The past is a part of your life now, but it is not the most important part. Accept the fact that it can no longer be changed in anyway.

2. Live on the present.
This one is kind of hard, as well, since the present is easy to take for granted. Know that by constantly using your present time wisely, you are constantly making a better past for yourself.

3. Learn from it.
Something good always comes out of anything, even if it is a very bad experience. Find the lesson involve and try not to make the same twice. Lousy-Lesson Example 1: "If I didn't get busted shoplifting, I would've moved on to armed robbery and get shot by cops."(Note: this did NOT happen to me)

4. Forgive.
Yourself or the ones that have hurt you. Cut yourself, and others, some slack. Nobody asks to be given a bad memory. People are not perfect. Everyone is prone to make mistakes. That's how people are. And the only way to really move on from a bad experience is to forgive the people involved.

Achieving Success

"You have achieved success if you have lived
well, laughed often and loved much."
- Author Unknown

TOP QUOTES ON SUCCESS

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies. ~Erich Fromm


My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can. ~Cary Grant


To live remains an art which everyone must learn, and which no one can teach. ~Havelock Ellis


Living involves tearing up one rough draft after another. ~Author Unknown


My grandfather always said that living is like licking honey off a thorn. ~Louis Adamic


No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence. ~Thomas Carlyle, Sir Walter Scott, in London and Westminster Review, 12 November 1838


Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark. ~Samuel Johnson


Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: "I am with you kid. Let's go." ~Maya Angelou


Life has meaning only if one barters it day by day for something other than itself. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery


Why torture yourself when life'll do it for you? ~Author Unknown


Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. ~George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor's Dilemma, 1906


Puritans will never believe it, but life is full of disagreeable things that aren't even good for you. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966


'Tis all a chequer board of nights and days,
Where destiny with men for pieces plays;
Hither and thither, and mates, and slays.
~Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar KhayyĂ¡m, 1859


...the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse. ~Walt Whitman, "O Me! O Life!", Leaves of Grass


Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. ~Mark Twain


Life is the game that must be played. ~Edwin Arlington Robinson


You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. ~Albert Camus


There is no wealth but life. ~John Ruskin


I know what things are good: friendship and work and conversation. These I shall have. ~Rupert Brooke


Life will always remain a gamble, with prizes sometimes for the imprudent, and blanks so often to the wise. ~Jerome K. Jerome


The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. ~Henry David Thoreau


Life is not a final. It's daily pop quizzes. ~Author Unknown


Eating, loving, singing and digesting are, in truth, the four acts of the comic opera known as life, and they pass like bubbles of a bottle of champagne. Whoever lets them break without having enjoyed them is a complete fool. ~Gioacchino Rossini


We mourn the transitory things and fret under the yoke of the immutable ones. ~Paul Eldridge


I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. ~T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Team Building works - Synchronize

Team building skills are critical for your effectiveness as a manager or entrepreneur. And even if you are not in a management or leadership role yet, better understanding of team work can make you a more effective employee and give you an extra edge in your corporate office.

A team building success is when your team can accomplish something much bigger and work more effectively than a group of the same individuals working on their own. You have a strong synergy of individual contributions. But there are two critical factors in building a high performance team.

The first factor in team effectiveness is the diversity of skills and personalities. When people use their strengths in full, but can compensate for each other's weaknesses. When different personality types balance and complement each other.

The other critical element of team work success is that all the team efforts are directed towards the same clear goals, the team goals. This relies heavily on good communication in the team and the harmony in member relationships.

In real life, team work success rarely happens by itself, without focused team building efforts and activities. There is simply too much space for problems. For example, different personalities, instead of complementing and balancing each other, may build up conflicts. Or even worse, some people with similar personalities may start fighting for authority and dominance in certain areas of expertise. Even if the team goals are clear and accepted by everyone, there may be no team commitment to the group goals or no consensus on the means of achieving those goals: individuals in the team just follow their personal opinions and move in conflicting directions. There may be a lack of trust and openness that blocks the critical communication and leads to loss of coordination in the individual efforts. And on and on. This is why every team needs a good leader who is able to deal with all such team work issues.

Here are some additional team building ideas, techniques, and tips you can try when managing teams in your situation.

# Make sure that the team goals are totally clear and completely understood and accepted by each team member.

# Make sure there is complete clarity in who is responsible for what and avoid overlapping authority. For example, if there is a risk that two team members will be competing for control in certain area, try to divide that area into two distinct parts and give each more complete control in one of those parts, according to those individual's strengths and personal inclinations.

# Build trust with your team members by spending one-on-one time in an atmosphere of honesty and openness. Be loyal to your employees, if you expect the same.

# Allow your office team members build trust and openness between each other in team building activities and events. Give them some opportunities of extra social time with each other in an atmosphere that encourages open communication. For example in a group lunch on Friday. Though be careful with those corporate team building activities or events in which socializing competes too much with someone's family time.

# For issues that rely heavily on the team consensus and commitment, try to involve the whole team in the decision making process. For example, via group goal setting or group sessions with collective discussions of possible decision options or solution ideas. What you want to achieve here is that each team member feels his or her ownership in the final decision, solution, or idea. And the more he or she feels this way, the more likely he or she is to agree with and commit to the decided line of action, the more you build team commitment to the goals and decisions.

# When managing teams, make sure there are no blocked lines of communications and you and your people are kept fully informed.

# Be careful with interpersonal issues. Recognize them early and deal with them in full.

# Don't miss opportunities to empower your employees. Say thank you or show appreciation of an individual team player's work.

# Don't limit yourself to negative feedback. Be fare. Whenever there is an opportunity, give positive feedback as well.

- teambuilding

Your skills, talents and expertise are everywhere

Your skills, talents and expertise are everywhere

At work, it’s easy for your valuable skills and knowledge to shine, But, the truth is, your abilities and expertise reach beyond your work.

Your emotional, intellectual, social and organizational skills are just as valuable as your work-related skills. These are skills and talents developed along the rough road of life. Don’t discount them. Cherish and nourish these skills; you'll gain a stronger sense of balance among all the demands of your day.

Remember, happiness and satisfaction surround you when your wisdom is treasured, whether it's work related or not.

I treasure all the wisdom I have to offer

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Life by choice not by chance

I strongly believe that to achieve something you need to be clear on few of the below points

1) You should know what you want
2) You should dream how you want to achieve it
3) You should work hard to achieve what you like
else you would be forced to like what you get

So the end result of your life has to be you should have choice and choose one among that, and not just taking any junk that you get.

IF YOU GREATLY DESIRE SOMETHING HAVE GUTS IN OBTAINING IT.

Why Meditate? Coz Life patterns reflect thought patterns

The most important thing to achieve GOAL is to HAVE ONE at first place

From the mid 1970's I was a typical workaholic, aggressively pursuing a successful career in radio broadcasting. Despite escaping my work environment by contributing as a Past-president of my local Rotary Club, spending recreation hours as a glider pilot, racquetball player and wine and food aficionado, I did not have a balanced life. I lacked inner peace and real happiness.

I believed my driven commitment to my career was to provide the essentials of life for my wife and my four children. As my career advanced, so I had resources to provide a comfortable home and expensive private school educations for my children. The problem was that I was not devoting the quality time and energy to them that they deserved. I was so busy being busy I was losing touch with a quality life.

Like many type A personality workaholics, eventually I became stressed and dissatisfied with my world. Fortunately, through the unconditional love and nurturing encouragement of my wife, I embarked on a journey of personal discovery. This led me to study meditation techniques, stress management skills and personal awareness.

Meditation is an effective method by which to clear the mind and focus on what is important in life. It is easy to do, gets easier with practice, and it allows the mind to concentrate on and accept positive affirmations.

I meditate for 20 minutes once a day. For me it is personal prime time that helps me relax, let go of negative stress, refreshes my inner self and expands my creative ability. Because life patterns reflect thought patterns, meditation gives me the opportunity to focus my thoughts and follow a Positive Path.

By Chris Joscelyne

Emotional Layers - The Onion Principle By Chris Joscelyne

Some people are like a raw egg. They have a hard outer exterior, but once their shell is cracked or broken by a stranger, a workmate, a friend, a family member, or by a romantic partner, they start to fall apart.

Some people are like a jelly. They are soft, squishy and easily devoured. They have no emotional barriers and they are easily manipulated and used by others.

Some people are like an onion. Onions thrive emotionally because they have emotional layers and they know who can be allowed access to each layer … when, and under what circumstances.

Onions understand their layers and how much of their emotional selves they can reveal and share with others, without the risk of deep emotional hurt. This protects them, while allowing them to reveal and share their emotional layers in safety as they choose.

The Onion Principle

Layer 1 is the outer layer with smooth protective skin. Outside this layer is the world at large including the people we meet, do business with, work with, and with whom we have social contact.

Layer 2 is the first inner layer. This is for friends, pals and others we know and like.

Layer 3 is the next inner layer. This is for close family members, and close friends we know and trust.

Layer 4 is for romantic, trusting friendship (boyfriend/girlfriend)

Layer 5 is for embarking on a loving long-term relationship

Layer 6 is for the children if the onion is a parent

Layer 7 is for a total partnership of love and commitment

Layer 8 is the innermost layer (the place where your "inner child" lives). It is your most personal, private inner emotional space.

It is important to understand that an onion does not practice universal mistrust of others. That’s unhealthy. An onion is simply a discerning person who knows that emotional layers are precious, and should only be revealed and shared when empathy, trust and understanding have reached a point where it’s safe to go to the next layer with another person.

Opening up a deep emotional layer to another person prematurely, especially to a person who will not, or cannot respond in kind, is a sure step towards a failed relationship. A problem for some people is that they naively confuse romantic infatuation with real love. This makes them think they can safely share their emotional layer 5 or even their layer 7 when, in reality, they should be only at emotional layer 3 or 4. If they discover that the other person has abused a deep inner emotional layer they have revealed and shared with that other person, the result can be devastating.

The happiest people I have met are the onions who understand themselves and the people around them. They manage their layers well, knowing which emotional layers are for acquaintances, friends, loved ones and their life partner.

Happy onions also know that taking responsibility for looking after their own inner emotional needs at layer 8 is the greatest gift they can give to themselves. Our inner layer needs our continuing care and attention if each of us is to thrive as an emotionally secure person.

I am a happy onion. Are you? If you are not, explore your inner self, identify your emotional layers and start learning how to manage your relationships with others.

If you want to change the WORLD By Michael Angier

Mahatma Gandhi believed that we must be the change we want to see in the world. This was well demonstrated when he helped India gain its independence. Gandhi was a revolutionary man, but he accomplished India's emergence as a nation without starting a revolution. In fact, he advocated no violence. One of the most powerful countries in the world yielded to the commitment of one man and the dream of millions.

What change can we effect? What's the difference we want to make in the world?

Gandhi said, "In a gentle way you can shake the world." Here are some things to think about how to do just that …

1. Know that all significant change throughout history has occurred not because of nations, armies, governments and certainly not committees. They happened as a result of the courage and commitment of individuals. People like Joan of Ark, Albert Einstein, Clara Barton, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison and Rosa Parks. They might not have done it alone, but they were, without question, the change makers.

2. Believe that you have a unique purpose and potential in the world. It's not so much something to create as to be discovered. And it's up to you to discover it. Believe that you can and will make a difference.

3. Recognize that everything you do, every step you take, every sentence you write, every word you speak-or DON'T speak--counts. Nothing is trivial. The world may be big, but there are no small things. Everything matters.

4. To be the change you want to see in the world, you don't have to be loud. You don't have to be eloquent. You don't have to be elected. You don't even have to be particularly smart or well educated. You do, however, have to be committed.

5. Take personal responsibility. Never think "it's not my job". It's a cop-out to say, "What can I do, I'm only one person." You don't need everyone's cooperation or anyone's permission to make changes. Remember this little gem, "If it's to be, it's up to me."

6. Don't get caught up in the how of things. If you're clear on what you want to change and why you want to change it, the how will come. Many significant things have been left undone because someone let the problem solving interfere with the decision-making.

7. Don't wait for things to be right in order to begin. Change is messy. Things will never be just right. Follow Teddy Roosevelt's timeless advice, "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

8. The genesis for change is awareness. We cannot change what we don't acknowledge. Most of the time, we aren't aware of what's wrong or what's not working. We don't see what could be. By becoming more aware, we begin the process of change.

9. Take to heart these words from Albert Einstein--arguably one of the smartest change masters who ever lived: "All meaningful and lasting change starts first in your imagination and then works its way out. Imagination is more important than knowledge."

10. In order for things to change, YOU have to change. We can't change others; we can only change ourselves. However, when WE change, it changes everything. And in doing so, we truly can be the change we want to see in the world.

My Favourite Quotes of Mahatma Gandhiji

Be the change you want to see in the world

No body can hurt me without my permission

The best way to find yourself is to LOOSE yourself in the service of others

Live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to LIVE forever

- Mahatma Gandhi

Republic Day - Pledge - Voting

Take a Pledge that you would VOTE for sure next time after analyzing, if you dont like anyone too choose atleast the option "I DONT WANT TO SELECT ANYBODY"
So people cant misuse your vote.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Pledge you would VOTE FOR SURE

ITS YOUR RIGHT

Republic Day - Pledge

Republic Day Celebration - To improve self, country.

You can pledge to buy and eat/use as locally as possible. Purchasing food and goods that are produced within India.
If your home takes a little effort and research, if we all did have stronger local and national economies and less conflict over resources and labor. Local manufactures get supports local farmers and you will probably eat healthier than buying products that have been treated to prolong its life.

Friday, January 25, 2008

It all starts with a vision

Yes, It all starts with a vision

A vision is an inspired idea. It is a concept that motivates you and pushes you into action. You know when a vision hits you, by the energy and excitement you feel,. A clear vision gets you charged and keeps you going, the very thought fills you with energy and positive feelings.

Your visions inspire a sense of purpose and direction. They give you a target to aim for, an aspiration to live for. With the motivation that comes from visions, you can transform yourself and your life.

Once you have a vision in mind, use the energy it inspires to create a plan. Then, imagine the plan in motion and the vision achieved. That's how visions become realities!

Yes...
I use the energy from my visions to inspire and motivate me into action

Quotes forever and ever

"Keep a positive outlook even when faced with life challenges."
Catherine Pulsifer

"Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, "This is the real me," and when you have found that attitude, follow it."
James Truslow Adams

"Your words, your expressions will reflect your attitude.
Be conscious of how and what you say."
Catherine Pulsifer

"The last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Dr. Viktor E. Frankl

"Learning to control and adjust your attitude to a positive one reflects wisdom of mind."
Catherine Pulsifer

"Your outlook determines your output."
Catherine Pulsifer

Attitude Decides our Future

"Your attitudes and the choices you make today will be your life tomorrow, build it wisely."

Author Unknown

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Healthy Eating Habits

There is a saying:
"Eat like a king for breakfast, a queen for lunch and a pauper for dinner."

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Be PROACTIVE instead of REACTIVE

Self-awareness - the understanding that you do have a choice between stimulus and response. If someone insults you, you can choose not to become angry. If you are offered a donut, you can choose not to eat it.

Conscience - the ability to consult your inner compass to decide what is right for you. You can make decisions based on unchanging principles, regardless of what is socially favored at the moment.

Creative Imagination - the ability to visualize alternative responses. By using your imagination, you can mentally generate and evaluate different options.

Independent Will - You have the freedom to choose your own unique response. You aren’t forced to conform to what others expect from you

Wealth or health

"The first wealth is health."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Its Time for something new

Its Time for something new

Remember your first day of school or the first time you rode a bike? or how about the excitement of your first crush

The older we get, it seems those "firsts" are fewer and further between. When's the last time you started something new, or tried something for the very first time?

Life gets busy, and we can get so wrapped up in our day-to-day lives that starting something new can seem like an underserved indulgence. But it shouldn’t be!

Starting a new project, trying something you've always wanted to, or revisiting an old activity you used to love doing is a great way to renew your spirit and energy,

if there’s something you've been thinking of doing, but not getting around to - make at least one step toward it today/

you deserve something "new" in your life every once in a while

I have taken steps toward trying something new

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Stop taking things personally

Stop Taking Things Personally

Do you feel hurt by someone on a regular basis?

If so, I suggest you learn how to stop taking things personally using self-help.
A Typical Example (official life)
Your boss hires a new employee who is obviously quite competent. You next discover that he's invited the new guy to a charity event you've been wanting to attend for six months.
When you find out, you feel hurt and angry. Your boss notices your dismay and invites you along. Feeling like an afterthought, you reject the invitation and fume over his insensitivity.
Why We Take Things Personally
We take things personally because we've trained our mind to do so.
We do not realize this, of course. When events trigger our outrage, we believe our hurt and anger is justified.
How We Take Things Personally
When we take another person's behavior personally, we do the following 3 things:
• Assume his behavior is a reflection of how he feels towards you (vs. a reflection on him and his environment)
• Magnify his hostility towards you by remembering similar ways you've been hurt in the past
• Activate your self-righteousness by believing you would never do this to him, e.g., treat him unfairly, reject him, under-appreciate him, etc.
You can magnify hostility the same way you amplify love: by mentally reflecting on events and giving them meaning.
When we amplify love, we think about how wonderful, inspiring, and funny our partner is.
When we amplify hostility, we think about how much another person is trying to hurt, undermine, or embarrass us.
I'm not suggesting that people never do hurtful things
There is much unconsciousness in the world, and people do transgress against us.
Sometimes, the person is acting a little rejective towards you in an effort to communicate something important.
However, there are more effective ways to handle negative events than taking them personally.
Which I shall continue in few of my next postings

Stop taking things personally

Stop Taking Things Personally

Do you feel hurt by someone on a regular basis?

If so, I suggest you learn how to stop taking things personally using self-help.
A Typical Example (official life)
Your boss hires a new employee who is obviously quite competent. You next discover that he's invited the new guy to a charity event you've been wanting to attend for six months.
When you find out, you feel hurt and angry. Your boss notices your dismay and invites you along. Feeling like an afterthought, you reject the invitation and fume over his insensitivity.
Why We Take Things Personally
We take things personally because we've trained our mind to do so.
We do not realize this, of course. When events trigger our outrage, we believe our hurt and anger is justified.
How We Take Things Personally
When we take another person's behavior personally, we do the following 3 things:
• Assume his behavior is a reflection of how he feels towards you (vs. a reflection on him and his environment)
• Magnify his hostility towards you by remembering similar ways you've been hurt in the past
• Activate your self-righteousness by believing you would never do this to him, e.g., treat him unfairly, reject him, under-appreciate him, etc.
You can magnify hostility the same way you amplify love: by mentally reflecting on events and giving them meaning.
When we amplify love, we think about how wonderful, inspiring, and funny our partner is.
When we amplify hostility, we think about how much another person is trying to hurt, undermine, or embarrass us.
I'm not suggesting that people never do hurtful things
There is much unconsciousness in the world, and people do transgress against us.
Sometimes, the person is acting a little rejective towards you in an effort to communicate something important.
However, there are more effective ways to handle negative events than taking them personally.
Which I shall continue in few of my next postings

Three powerful techniques for Positive Thinking


The following techniques can help you maintain your initial good mood throughout the day:

Breath

Breathing is essential to life. In fact, it is the first thing that you do when you wake up to a new day of positive thinking. When you breathe properly you help your body and your mind relax. Learn to control your breath to gain calm and feel better.
Take some time for yourself or find a quiet spot to breath properly. With your mouth closed, take a slow deep breath and let it go slowly too. Focus on the air coming inside your diaphragm and out. Repeat for a few times or a minute - you will feel better.
Practise this slow breathing every time you feel stressed or negative, or simply to improve your general state. Trust the results.

Focus

It is easy to get distracted and loose focus in a new day of positive thinking with the amount of information we come across (think newspapers or TV with bad news, or someone complaining at the office). If you find yourself being overwhelmed or negative, it is time to focus.
Go back to yourself and your goals. Remind yourself of your current goal, and what it is that you are busy with. Think about why you want to achieve your goal. Feel the satisfaction of accomplishment in advance.
You may find it useful to think about who and how you want to be - mainly a negative or a positive person? Focus on yourself for a while and regain peace.

Handle just the present

Although our bodies are physically here, our minds are many times reviving the past or fearing the future. This makes us loose focus of our positive day, as we become easily wrapped into the negative thoughts of uncertainty, fear, worry or anger.
An excellent way to gain calm is by living in the present. Focus on what you are actually doing - be that making dinner, brushing your teeth or having a conversation. Pay attention at doing it with care and to the best of your standards.

When you simply focus on doing well whatever you are doing, you can reach a state of calm easily. You block any other thoughts that keep your mind distracted and you gain a sense of fullness: the beauty of you being alive at that moment, doing what you do.
Apply these techniques frequently to create a habit of maintaining your positive mood and so start building a positive attitude.

No matter what happens today, every day is a new day of positive thinking. In the words of a famous cyclist:

"I take nothing for granted.I now have only good days, or great days"
Lance Armstrong

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Life of Helen Keller

Person whom i Love and Admire

Helen Adams Keller was born on 27 June 1880 in Tuscumbia, a small rural town in Northwest Alabama, USA. The daughter of Captain Arthur Henley Keller and Kate Adams Keller she was born with full sight and hearing.

Kate Keller was a tall, statuesque blond with blue eyes. She was some twenty years younger than her husband Captain Keller, a loyal southerner who had proudly served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War.
The house they lived in was a simple, white, clapboard house built in 1820 by Helen’s grandparents. At the time of Helen’s birth the family were far from wealthy with Captain Keller earning a living as both a cotton plantation owner and the editor of a weekly local newspaper, the “North Alabamian”. Helen’s mother, as well as working on the plantation, would save money by making her own butter, lard, bacon and ham.
Helen falls illBut Helen’s life was to change dramatically. In February 1882, when Helen was nineteen months old, she fell ill. To this day the nature of her ailment remains a mystery. The doctors of the time called it “brain fever”, whilst modern day doctors think it may have been scarlet fever or meningitis.
Whatever the illness, Helen was, for many days, expected to die. When, eventually, the fever subsided, Helen’s family rejoiced believing their daughter to be well again.
However, Helen’s mother soon noticed how her daughter was failing to respond when the dinner bell was rang or when she passed her hand in front of her daughter’s eyes.
It thus became apparent that Helen’s illness had left her both blind and deaf.
The following few years proved very hard for Helen and her family. Helen became a very difficult child, smashing dishes and lamps and terrorising the whole household with her screaming and temper tantrums. Relatives regarded her as a monster and thought she should be put into an institution.
By the time Helen was six her family had become desperate. Looking after Helen was proving too much for them. Kate Keller had read in Charles Dickens’ book “American Notes” of the fantastic work that had been done with another deaf and blind child, Laura Bridgman, and travelled to a specialist doctor in Baltimore for advice. They were given confirmation that Helen would never see or hear again but were told not to give up hope, the doctor believed Helen could be taught and he advised them to visit a local expert on the problems of deaf children. This expert was Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, Bell was now concentrating on what he considered his true vocation, the teaching of deaf children.
Alexander Graham Bell suggested that the Kellers write to Michael Anagnos, director of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, and request that he try and find a teacher for Helen. Michael Anagnos considered Helen’s case and immediately recommended a former pupil of the institution, that woman was Anne Sullivan.
Anne SullivanAnne Sullivan had lost the majority of her sight at the age of five. By the age of ten, her mother had died and her father deserted her. She and her brother Jimmie were sent to the poorhouse in February 1876.
Anne’s brother died in the poorhouse. It was October 1880 before Anne finally left and went to commence her education at the Perkins Institution. One summer during her time at the institute, Anne had two operations on her eyes, which led to her regaining enough sight to be able to read normal print for short periods of time.
Anne graduated from Perkins in 1886 and began to search for work. Finding work was terribly difficult for Anne, due to her poor eyesight, and when she received the offer from Michael Anagnos to work as the teacher of Helen Keller, a deaf-blind mute, although she had no experience in this area, she accepted willingly.
Helen meets AnneOn 3 March 1887 Anne arrived at the house in Tuscumbia and for the first time met Helen Keller. Anne immediately started teaching Helen to finger spell. Spelling out the word “Doll” to signify a present she had brought with her for Helen. The next word she taught Helen was “Cake”. Although Helen could repeat these finger movements she could not quite understand what they meant. And while Anne was struggling trying to help her understand, she was also struggling to try and control Helen’s continuing bad behaviour.
Anne and Helen moved into a small cottage on the land of the main house to try and get Helen to improve her behaviour. Of particular concern were Helen’s table manners. She had taken to eating with her hands and from the plates of everyone at the table.
Anne’s attempts to improve Helen’s table manners and make her brush her own hair and button her shoes led to more and more temper tantrums. Anne punished these tantrums by refusing to “talk” with Helen by spelling words on her hands.
Over the coming weeks, however, Helen’s behaviour did begin to improve as a bond grew between the two. Then, after a month of Anne’s teaching, what the people of the time called a “miracle” occurred.
Helen had until now not yet fully understood the meaning of words. When Anne led her to the water pump on 5 April 1887, all that was about to change.
As Anne pumped the water over Helen’s hand , Anne spelled out the word water in the girl’s free hand. Something about this explained the meaning of words within Helen, and Anne could immediately see in her face that she finally understood.
Helen later recounted the incident:
“We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honey-suckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten, a thrill of returning thought, and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.”
Helen immediately asked Anne for the name of the pump to be spelt on her hand and then the name of the trellis. All the way back to the house Helen learned the name of everything she touched and also asked for Anne’s name. Anne spelled the name “Teacher” on Helen’s hand. Within the next few hours Helen learnt the spelling of thirty new words.
Helen’s progress from then on was astonishing. Her ability to learn was far in advance of anything that anybody had seen before in someone without sight or hearing. It wasn’t long before Anne was teaching Helen to read, firstly with raised letters and later with braille, and to write with both ordinary and braille typewriters.
Michael Anagnos was keen to promote Helen, one of the numerous articles on her that he wrote said of Helen that “she is a phenomenon”. These articles led to a wave of publicity about Helen with pictures of her reading Shakespeare or stroking her dog appearing in national newspapers.
Helen had become famous, and as well as again visiting Alexander Graham Bell, she visited President Cleveland at the White House. By 1890 she was living at the Perkins Institute and being taught by Anne. In March of that year Helen met Mary Swift Lamson who over the coming year was to try and teach Helen to speak. This was something that Helen desperately wanted and although she learned to understand what somebody else was saying by touching their lips and throat, her efforts to speak herself proved at this stage to be unsuccessful. This was later attributed to the fact that Helen’s vocal chords were not properly trained prior to her being taught to speak.
The Frost KingOn 4 November 1891 Helen sent Michael Anagnos a birthday gift of a short story she had written called “The Frost King”. Anagnos was so delighted with the story that he had soon published it in a magazine hailing its importance in literary history.
However, it was soon discovered that Helen’s story was the same as one called “The Frost Fairies” by Margaret Canby. This was ultimately to be the end of Helen and Anne’s friendship with Michael Anagnos. He felt he had been made to appear foolish by what he considered to be Helen’s deception.
There had to be an investigation and it was discovered that Helen had previously been read the story some years before and had obviously remembered it. Helen always claimed not to recall the original story and it should always be remembered that Helen was still only 11 years old, however, this incident created a rift that would never heal between Helen, Anne and Anagnos. It also created great doubt in Helen’s own mind as to whether any of her thoughts were truly her own.
In 1894 Helen and Anne met John D Wright and Dr Thomas Humason who were planning to set up a school to teach speech to the deaf in New York City. Helen and Anne were very excited by this and the assurances of the two men that Helen’s speech could be improved excited them further. Helen thus agreed to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf.
Unfortunately though, Helen’s speech never really improved beyond the sounds that only Anne and others very close to her could understand.
Helen enters Radcliffe CollegeHelen moved on to the Cambridge School for Young Ladies in 1896 and in the Autumn of 1900 entered Radcliffe College, becoming the first deafblind person to have ever enrolled at an institution of higher learning.
Life at Radcliffe was very difficult for Helen and Anne, and the huge amount of work involved led to deterioration in Anne’s eyesight. During their time at the College Helen began to write about her life. She would write the story both in braille and on a normal typewriter. It was at this time that Helen and Anne met with John Albert Macy who was to help edit Helen’s first book “The Story of My Life” which was published in 1903 and although it sold poorly at first it has since become a classic.
On 28 June 1904 Helen graduated from Radcliffe College, becoming the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
John Macy became good friends with Helen and Anne, and in May 1905 John and Anne were married. Anne’s name now changed to Anne Sullivan Macy. The three lived together in Wrentham, Massachusetts, and during this time Helen wrote “The World I Live In”, revealing for the first time her thoughts on her world. It was also during this time that John Macy introduced her to a new and revolutionary way of viewing the world. And in 1909 Helen became a member of the Socialist Party of Massachusetts.
In 1913 “Out of the Dark” was published. This was a series of essays on socialism and its impact on Helen’s public image was immense. Everyone now knew Helen’s political views.
Helen tours the WorldHelen and Anne filled the following years with lecture tours, speaking of her experiences and beliefs to enthralled crowds. Her talks were interpreted sentence by sentence by Anne Sullivan, and were followed by question and answer sessions.
Although Helen and Anne made a good living from their lectures, by 1918 the demand for Helen’s lectures had diminished and they were touring with a more light-hearted vaudeville show, which demonstrated Helen’s first understanding of the word “water”. These shows were hugely successful from the very first performance, a review of which read as follows:
“Helen Keller has conquered again, and the Monday afternoon audience at the Palace, one of the most critical and cynical in the World, was hers.”
At this time they were also offered the chance to make a film in Hollywood and they jumped at the opportunity. “Deliverance”, the story of Helen’s life, was made. Helen was, however, unhappy with the glamorous nature of the film and it unfortunately did not prove to be the financial success that they had hoped for.
The vaudeville appearances continued with Helen answering a wide range of questions on her life and her politics and Anne translating Helen’s answers for the enthralled audience. They were earning up to two thousand dollars a week, which was a considerable sum of money at the time.
In 1918 Helen, Anne and John moved to Forest Hills in New York. Helen used their new home as a base for her extensive fundraising tours for the American Foundation for the Blind. She not only collected money, but also campaigned tirelessly to alleviate the living and working conditions of blind people, who at that time were usually badly educated and living in asylums. Her endeavours were a major factor in changing these conditions.
Helen’s mother Kate died in 1921 from an unknown illness, and this left Anne as the sole constant in Helen’s life. However that same year Anne fell ill again and this was followed in 1922 by a severe bout of bronchitis which left her unable to speak above a whisper and thus unable to work with Helen on stage anymore. At this point Polly Thomson, who had started working for Helen and Anne in 1914 as a secretary, took on the role of explaining Helen to the theatre going public.
They also spent a lot of time touring the world raising money for blind people. In 1931 they met King George and Queen Mary at Buckingham Palace, who were said to be deeply impressed by Helen’s ability to understand what people said through touch.
All the while Anne’s health was getting worse, and with the news of the death of John Macy in 1932, although their marriage had broken up some years before, her spirit was finally broken. She died on 20 October 1936.
When Anne died, Helen and Polly moved to Arcan Ridge, in Westport, Connecticut, which would be Helen’s home for the rest of her life.
After World War II, Helen and Polly spent years travelling the world fundraising for the American Foundation for the Overseas Blind. They visited Japan, Australia, South America, Europe and Africa.
Whilst away during this time Helen and Polly learnt of the fire that destroyed their home at Arcan Ridge. Although the house would be rebuilt, as well as the many mementoes that Helen and Polly lost, also destroyed was the latest book that Helen had been working on about Anne Sullivan, called “Teacher”.
It was also during this time that Polly Thomson’s health began to deteriorate and whilst in Japan she had a mild stroke. Doctors advised Polly to stop the continuous touring she and Helen did, and although initially they slowed down a bit, the touring continued once Polly had recovered.
In 1953 a documentary film “The Unconquered” was made about Helen’s life, this was to win an Academy Award as the best feature length documentary .It was at the same time that Helen began work again on her book “Teacher”, some seven years after the original had been destroyed. The book was finally published in 1955.
Polly Thomson had a stroke in 1957, she was never to fully recover and died on March 21, 1960. Her ashes were deposited at the National Cathedral in Washington DC next to those of Anne Sullivan. It was the nurse who had been brought in to care for Polly in her last years, Winnie Corbally, who was to take care of Helen in her remaining years.
The Miracle WorkerIt was in 1957 that “The Miracle Worker” was first performed. A drama portraying Anne Sullivan’s first success in communicating with Helen as a child, it first appeared as a live television play in the United States.
In 1959 it was re-written as a Broadway play and opened to rave reviews. It became a smash hit and ran for almost two years. In 1962 it was made into a film and the actresses playing Anne and Helen both received Oscars for their performances.
Helen retires from public lifeIn October 1961 Helen suffered the first of a series of strokes, and her public life was to draw to a close. She was to spend her remaining years being cared for at her home in Arcan Ridge.
Her last years were not however without excitement, and in 1964 Helen was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, by President Lyndon Johnson. A year later she was elected to the Women’s Hall of Fame at the New York World’s Fair.
On June 1, 1968, at Arcan Ridge, Helen Keller died peacefully in her sleep. Helen was cremated in Bridgeport, Connecticut and a funeral service was held at the National Cathedral in Washington DC where the urn containing her ashes would later be deposited next to those of Anne Sullivan and Polly Thomson.
Helen’s legacyToday Helen’s final resting place is a popular tourist attraction and the bronze plaque erected to commemorate her life has the following inscription written in braille:
“Helen Keller and her beloved companion Anne Sullivan Macy are interred in the columbarium behind this chapel.”
So many people have visited the chapel, and touched the braille dots, that the plaque has already had to be replaced twice.
If Helen Keller were born today her life would undoubtedly have been completely different. Her life long dream was to be able to talk, something that she was never really able to master. Today the teaching methods exist that would have helped Helen to realise this dream. What would Helen have made of the technology available today to blind and deafblind individuals? Technology that enables blind and deafblind people, like Helen, to communicate directly, and independently, with anybody in the world.
Helen Keller may not have been directly responsible for the development of these technologies and teaching methods. But with the help of Anne Sullivan, through her writings, lectures and the way she lived her life, she has shown millions of people that disability need not be the end of the world.
In Helen’s own words:
“The public must learn that the blind man is neither genius nor a freak nor an idiot. He has a mind that can be educated, a hand which can be trained, ambitions which it is right for him to strive to realise, and it is the duty of the public to help him make the best of himself so that he can win light through work.”
-rnib.org