Life....

Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
- Amelia Burr

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.
- Chinese proverb

I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.
- Colette

My candle burns at both its ends;
It will not last the night;
But oh, my foes, and oh, my friends --
It gives a lovely light.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay

That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.
- Emily Dickinson

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.
- Isaac Asimov

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
- Mark Twain

And now the end is near
And so I face the final curtain,
My friends, I'll say it clear,
I'll state my case of which I'm certain.
I've lived a life that's full, I've travelled each and evr'y highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way.
Paul Anka

Two poems - Octavio Paz

Between going and staying the day wavers, by Octavio Paz

Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.

All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can't be touched.
Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.
Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.
The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.
I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.
The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.


No More Clichés

Beautiful face
That like a daisy opens its petals to the sun
So do you
Open your face to me as I turn the page.

Enchanting smile
Any man would be under your spell,
Oh, beauty of a magazine.

How many poems have been written to you?
How many Dantes have written to you, Beatrice?
To your obsessive illusion
To you manufacture fantasy.

But today I won't make one more Cliché
And write this poem to you.
No, no more clichés.

This poem is dedicated to those women
Whose beauty is in their charm,
In their intelligence,
In their character,
Not on their fabricated looks.

This poem is to you women,
That like a Shahrazade wake up
Everyday with a new story to tell,
A story that sings for change
That hopes for battles:
Battles for the love of the united flesh
Battles for passions aroused by a new day
Battle for the neglected rights
Or just battles to survive one more night.

Yes, to you women in a world of pain
To you, bright star in this ever-spending universe
To you, fighter of a thousand-and-one fights
To you, friend of my heart.
From now on, my head won't look down to a magazine
Rather, it will contemplate the night
And its bright stars,
And so, no more clichés.

Gibran's "Song of the Soul XXII"

In the depth of my soul there is
A wordless song - a song that lives
In the seed of my heart.
It refuses to melt with ink on
Parchment; it engulfs my affection
In a transparent cloak and flows,
But not upon my lips.

How can I sigh it?
I fear it may
Mingle with earthly ether;
To whom shall I sing it?
It dwells
In the house of my soul, in fear of
Harsh ears.
When I look into my inner eyes
I see the shadow of its shadow;
When I touch my fingertips
I feel its vibrations.
The deeds of my hands heed its
Presence as a lake must reflect
The glittering stars; my tears
Reveal it, as bright drops of dew
Reveal the secret of a withering rose.

It is a song composed by contemplation,
And published by silence,
And shunned by clamor,
And folded by truth,
And repeated by dreams,
And understood by love,
And hidden by awakening,
And sung by the soul.

It is the song of love;
What Cain or Esau could sing it?

It is more fragrant than jasmine;
What voice could enslave it?

It is heartbound, as a virgin's secret;
What string could quiver it?

Who dares unite the roar of the sea
And the singing of the nightingale?
Who dares compare the shrieking tempest
To the sigh of an infant?
Who dares speak aloud the words
Intended for the heart to speak?
What human dares sing in voice
The song of God?

Lines From Gibran's "Song of the Wave XVII"

Many times have I danced around mermaids
As they rose from the depths and rested
Upon my crest to watch the stars;
Many times have I heard lovers complain
Of their smallness, and I helped them to sigh.

Many times have I teased the great rocks
And fondled them with a smile, but never
Have I received laughter from them;
Many times have I lifted drowning souls
And carried them tenderly to my beloved
Shore. He gives them strength as he
Takes mine.

Many times have I stolen gems from the
Depths and presented them to my beloved
Shore. He takes them in silence, but still
I give for he welcomes me ever.

A Few Lines From Gibran's "A Lover's Call XXVII"

Do you have memory of the day we met, when the halo of
You spirit surrounded us, and the Angels of Love
Floated about, singing the praise of the soul's deed?

Do you recollect our sitting in the shade of the
Branches, sheltering ourselves from Humanity, as the ribs
Protect the divine secret of the heart from injury?

Remember you the trails and forest we walked, with hands
Joined, and our heads leaning against each other, as if
We were hiding ourselves within ourselves?

Recall you the hour I bade you farewell,
And the Maritime kiss you placed on my lips?
That kiss taught me that joining of lips in
Love Reveals heavenly secrets which the tongue cannot utter!

George Carlin

“I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete. It's so fuckin' heroic."

“Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist”

“If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten”

A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.

Have you ever noticed that their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff? (or, Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster is a maniac? )

Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.

If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.

Just when I discovered the meaning of life, they changed it.

I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.

Weather forecast for tonight: Dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.

When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front-row seat.

What year did Jesus think it was?

If Helen Keller had psychic ability, would you say she had a fourth sense?

If a man smiles all the time, he’s probably selling something that doesn’t work.

It isn’t fair: the caterpillar does all the work, and the butterfly gets all the glory.

Life is a zero sum game.

Night

Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline

Is there not A tongue in every star that talks with man,And wooes him to be wise? nor wooes in vain;This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.~Anna Letitia Barbauld, A Summer Evening's Meditation

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. ~George Carlin, Brain Droppings, 1997

There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light. ~N.P. Willis

Moonlight is sculpture. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

When the moon, after covering herself with darkness as in sorrow, at last throws off the garments of her widowhood, she does not at once expose herself impudently to the public gaze; but for a time remains veiled in a transparent cloud, till she gradually acquires courage to endure the looks and admiration of beholders. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare,
Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827