Re: The Quote Thread

[bettinaxox]

Dear Sensor, by my rough calculations (why did I compose a very awkward number of 17 questions and not 20?) you achieved a very respectable score of 79% which, although not a HD is a Credit so put on the mortar board rather than be mortified (bad pun intended)!
Seriously though, Mr Squiggle is a pencil, not a pen and he shouldn't be blamed at all! ;)
Yes, I'm afraid that with Mark Latham and Paul Keating gone, we won't be entertained very often be hilariously rude ejaculations in parliament. I'm all right as my husband provides me with many of those at home, but what about you?
The rudest that Kevin Rudd gets is when he shouted something about "flaming lot" the other day so we're in for a politely boring time. :study:

[Angeo]

Har,har. Yes Rudd is boring in parliament. But it's the quiet ones we need to watch! Checked out any Canberra strip clubs?

[sensor]

Credit?? Credit you say??
And now there'll be another mark deducted for not knowing the difference between a bloody pencil and a pen!! That Squiggle has it IN for me I tell ya!! :evil:

Bettina!! Parliamentary ejaculations!! And many of them premature as well, now that I think of it...

Kevin is a tad noice, isn't he. Perhaps a little personality-challenged. I think that's why the German Shepherd is by his side - she adds the bite to his woof...:lol:

Ooh Bettina, I see you have an avatar. Is that you and other half - he who provides all the lovin?? Well done and very cool!!

As for my home, it is a wasteland of unrequited love. B/f is forever working and is never here!! I could go into some kind of emotional abyss about it, but being the independent woman I am, will not let a little thing like NO HUMAN CONTACT, get ME down!!

[bettinaxox]

Actually, I have a confession to make. After my husband (yes -that's him and moi in my brand-spanking-new avatar) and Carl(of course) the next bloke on my wonderful-man list is Kevin! He's so intelligent; I'd love to meet him! I don't suppose that I'll always agree with his policies and decisions but I think/hope he is a compassionate and decent man.
Poor Sensor, men are rarely around when you really need them! Or if they are technically nearby, they're often focussed on something else, or in their office, den or cave. That's why we need close girlfriends, our own work/projects, a little creature to love (be it human or animal), a good book, a telephone, a great forum like this, a movie to cry over and chocolate. But I'm sure your bf is a lovely guy; at least he has taste and discernment! And you are a strong and independent woman (with a pencil fetish!)

I have really wandered off the topic in this thread so I will remedy that by quoting from a beautiful book by Stephanie Dowrick, "Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love". She quotes Zen master, Hakuin:

"Not knowing how near Truth is,
People seek it far away - what a pity!
They are like he who, in the midst of water,
Cries in thirst so imploringly."

[sensor]

Maybe I'm naive, but I think most people choose politics as a career because they do want to help. I like to think they're caring and compassionate people. However, many seen to be swallowed up by the machine and they learn to play the game...

Hope you get to meet the PM one day!! And I won't tell Carl or husband of your feelings for Kevin , if you won't!! :lol:

Great quote. The elusive truth - and often it's staring us in the face!! I think Mark Twain said that a lie travels halfway around the world while the truth is still putting its shoes on!! Funny guy!!

Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know on Earth and all ye need to know. ~ John Keats

[bettinaxox]

"Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Sonsor, I think you must live by this maxim, if the time you posted yesterday's offering is an indication! Plus, you are wise. Or couldn't you sleep?
I'm amazed at how many great quotes you seem to have at your fingertips. I feel like drawing a cartoon of a person with quotes oozing out from their fingernails, like a plant sprouting. That's the mental image I have of you!
I love the Mark Twain quote; he really was a great thinker and observer of life, wasn't he? In today's sydney morning herald I came across another saying of his:
"A man is about as big as the things that make him angry." In other words, try and reserve your anger for the things that really matter. My family should try and follow that more often, cause we tend to bellyache about all sorts of little things! :x

I have a treat for all the contributers to this wonderful thread. Google the name "Mark Vernon" and you'll find the website of this contemporary philosopher. His latest book is called, 42: Deep
Thought on Life, The Universe, and Everything." Vernon has chosen 42 wise and witty aphorisms and commented on them. And, on the website are the 42 sayings! Enjoy! :)

[Angeo]

I have a treat for all the contributers to this wonderful thread. Google the name "Mark Vernon" and you'll find the website of this contemporary philosopher. His latest book is called, 42: Deep
Thought on Life, The Universe, and Everything." Vernon has chosen 42 wise and witty aphorisms and commented on them. And, on the website are the 42 sayings! Enjoy! :)

I don't know who Mark Vernon is but is he some kind of aficionado or associate of Douglas Adams who wrote The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Life the Universe and Everything? One 'character' of Adams' book was the ultimate supercomputer 'Deep Thought' who was programmed to find out the meaning of life and eventually the answer he gave was '42'.

You've intrigued me so I'm off to google. Whilst I have this opportunity bettinaxox, I'll just say welcome back wherever you've been. I'm sort of from the Idol Carl Fan forum but joined late and didn't post that often. But I recall our first encounter was inauspicious when you picked up my comment on a general topics thread about 'webspeak' where I used a post from a Carl fan as an example of extreme acronym language becoming the norm. (I also changed my moniker when I changed forums :) )

[bettinaxox]

Hi Angeo! I remember our first encounter, too! Nice to re-acquaint this side of the tracks. I haven't yet read Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy so I must make that my next book. :idea: I just hadn't got around to it before. I hope you enjoy your visit to Mark Vernon's website. I read an article by him in the Herald and was impressed. He is a philosopher who writes in a more accessible way than many other philosophers! :)

[sensor]

I am an early riser - used to practise singing/piano a couple of hours before school every day and just became used to it. Oh sorry, did I just make you drop off?? :lol:

I'd never heard about Mark Vernon before, but he and Douglas Adams obviously come from vastly different perspectives.
I guess Vernon is taking the more 'spiritual' approach to the meaning -of -life debate, whereas Adams took a satiric, atheistic approach...
I think we're all influenced by where we've come from - how grammatically dainty!! - and Vernon speaks to me of that. He comes from a religious background, which understandably influences his thought.
Righteous anger - like the sound of that. Biblical and humanist at the same time!! My Nanna used to say, "don't go to bed with anger in your heart" and I think that's a good philosophy. Think it's Biblical too...

However, I feel anger is a very useful tool - unlike Seneca who thought it a waste of time. That man definitely had no sense of fun...


Now about my having tentacle-fingers...Yoiks, I sound like a squid!! I know a few quotes, but google is also a wondrous tool...

[Altair]

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You, too? Thought I was the only one." ~ C.S. Lewis

(btw, I've enjoyed catching up on this thread ... loved the trivia qns! )

[sensor]

Hi alty!
You must be up, up and away to see Matchbox 20 soon, but I've forgotten their concert date in Melbourne!! :silent:

I see the sig has gone - and your age has changed dramatically.
Since I think you turn - a certain age - sometime soon, are we seeing the beginnings of a pre-midlife crisis here?? And can I help?? :lol:



Not drowning; waving!! hehe

Seriously, all I have to say is, Celebrate!!
And while you're in Melbourne, whatever you do, don't forget to do this:
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; :king: ; ; ; even if you end up in this!!

[Altair]

Signature? What signature?

Egads!! They don't call you 'Inspector Sensor' for nothing!

I think I've been sprung

awwwww thanks for your well wishes - LOL @ all the little emoticons! I am so excited at the moment I can hardly think of anything else (although the cricket news has been a welcome diversion today :cheers: ) ...

"When people are screaming and roaring and shouting, the humbling thing is to realize it's not really for the band or artist on the stage. It's for their connection with the songs. A song just can own you…I think that's why concerts are so powerful. If that song is such a part of your life, and you hear it, it's too much almost." ~ Bono

[sensor]

Age is just a number and mine's unlisted. ~ Durward Kirby


As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes and I can't remember the other two. ~ Unknown (to me)


Birthdays are nature's way of telling us to eat more cake. ~ (again, unknown to me)

[bettinaxox]

Wow Sensor! You gave Alty an explosion of emoticons! It makes a very pretty picture indeed!

A mysterious young lady named Alty
Wrote her age mischievously falty
Along came the Inspector
AKA Sensor
Whose emoticons made us laugh till we howled-ty.

Oh dear, that was woeful! It's really hard to fit "emoticon" into any sort of rhythm and I ran out of things to rhyme with Alty.
Who cares! Let's just celebrate!

[Altair]

oh that's brilliant, bettina! I had just sent you a PM before I read your post ... Gosh, your rhyme made me laugh


I only have on age-related quote in my journal ... it's kind of sweet:

Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone. ~Jim Fiebig

[monetgo]

Finally, just finish reading :study: the 3-pages of this thread...and wow what a great class you got here Prof. Alty, what subject is this? Political Science 101? or Poetry and Drama 12? or English Literature 26? anyhoo, whatever it is i'm in! and here's my homework...

" Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need -- a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink, for thirst is a dangerous thing." -- Jerome Klapka Jerome

Forgive the lateness, sir...errr... ma'am i'm lost finding this page...err...classroom :)

[sensor]

LOVE that ice-cream quote alty!!
There's a child lurking in all of us I reckon - probably the best part of us...
I know I won't be growing up any time soon!! :lol:

Bettina!! "Howled-ty" Hilarious!!
I'm still juvenile enough to enjoy looking at a page splashed with colour. Pathetic but true... Love all the little emoticons - damn that word! - because they make me feel happy!!

Such an intriguing, beautiful quote monetgo...especially since we live in the age of "ME", where we're trying to pack our boats with as much as we can without capsizing it!!

Does this mean my shopping sprees for clothes, shoes and bags are out?? I sense a meltdown...

Okay, I'll try to be better!! ;)

[Altair]

Hello monetgo! Welcome to class! If it pings your heart and/or your brain - it's part of the curriculum! :cheers:

Love the quote - I don't have a cat (allergic to them) nor a pipe - but apart from that, you've described my life to a 'T' :lol:

[Altair]

Just because somebody doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have. ~Author Unknown

[Altair]

In Flanders' Fields

In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead, short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders’ fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe,
To you from failing hands we throw
The Torch: be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders’ fields.

~Colonel John McCrae, 1915

[sensor]

Oh alty, that poem has just made me bawl...
I've loved it since I studied it in school. The first three lines make me cry whenever I read them...

I've been thinking how appropriate it is for Carl's album to be released so close to Anzac Day. It must be a very significant time for him; and it seems fitting.

I have nothing but awe for our Service men and women, past and present; and while war is abhorrent to me, I think that torch of remembrance has been handed on.
It's such an honour to remember them...

[monetgo]

I don't have a cat (allergic to them) nor a pipe -

Don't have the cat either..not that i don't like or allergic to them...but i only read two materials at the moment: one is "Simplify Your Life" by Elaine St. James (have this little greeny book for five years now and still reads it, it's one of those companion for life books)and second, travel books.

It's my day off today and watched a bit of 'Godfather'...so here's what i've got...

"You spend time with your family? Good. Because a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man." ~Don Vito Corleone

[Altair]

hey monetgo *waves* ... I had a look at Simplify on the web - sounds like a good little book ... what are your favourite bits from it? Love the quote from GF ... coming so soon after my lovely weekend away with my husband and son, I can relate . My son has been away on holiday with his GPs and cousins for the last week ... I miss his kisses ... but he's due home anytime now so I'm hanging out for the 'we're back!' phone call :cheers:

[Altair]

Oh alty, that poem has just made me bawl...
I've loved it since I studied it in school. The first three lines make me cry whenever I read them...

I've been thinking how appropriate it is for Carl's album to be released so close to Anzac Day. It must be a very significant time for him; and it seems fitting.

I have nothing but awe for our Service men and women, past and present; and while war is abhorrent to me, I think that torch of remembrance has been handed on.
It's such an honour to remember them...

I'm with you on the bawling, Sensor ... I love our service men and women.

Anzac Day is my favourite day of the year. I love reading all the stories that appear in the papers - I sit and have a bawl as I read them. I remember one year going to a dawn service at Simpson Barracks in Melbourne (my husband was a soldier there at the time). We had caught up with some friends at about 4am (they were on shift) and then I went to wait at the cenotaph on my own for the service to begin. It was dark and cold and everyone was quietly waiting ... then we heard the soldiers' footsteps, soft and distant to start off with and then stronger and louder as they got closer ... I will never forget that morning - it was like all the soldiers from the past were marching with them.

I read The Great War by Les Carlyon in January ... a wonderful book. Harrowing, of course, but also beautifully written and a great tribute to the soldiers who fought in France and Belgium.

A reply to In Flanders Fields ... I love this one:

We Shall Keep The Faith

Oh! You who sleep in Flanders’ fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew,
We caught the torch you threw,
And holding high we kept
The faith with those who died.
We cherish too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valour led.

It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders’ fields.

And now the torch and poppy red
Wear in honour of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught
We’ve learned the lesson that ye taught
In Flanders’ fields.

~ Moira Michael, November 1918

[sensor]

Goosebumps thinking about the sound of those footsteps.

My bro. went to Gallipoli for one Anzac Day - I think about three years ago - then onto Crete.
He said the place was so eerily calm, he felt he was standing shoulder to shoulder with those who'd died. He was so moved by it - and said it was one of the most challenging yet peaceful places on earth. Then Crete, which has a wonderful War Memorial, he said was stunningly beautiful. Hard to imagine what had happened...

Have never seen the reply to In Flanders Fields, but it's lovely. What a time those years must've been...

[Altair]

oh wow Sensor now I've got goosebumps too ... I so understand what your brother was feeling - it was exactly like that for me at Simpson Barracks that morning. It's my dream to visit the war memorials and battle fields of the western front one day ... any time is fine by me, but I would love to be there for an Anzac or Remembrance Day service.

[monetgo]

This week we celebrate ANZAC Day.

So why the big fuss about ANZAC Day? Are we trying to glorify war?

ANZAC Day is a reminder to us all of the many blessings that we all have. We had young men and women who believed that we all should enjoy the freedoms that many now take for granted; it was a case of putting their money where their mouth was, walking the talk.

ANZAC Day is about people being willing to lay down their lives for another, being willing to give everything so that others could enjoy the freedoms that they held so dear. It is not to the glory of war, in fact ANZAC Day should more than ever remind us of the cost of war, it should remind us of the price that has been paid and continues to be paid by those willing to lay down their lives for another.

Yes we are blessed we have a wonderful country; we enjoy a way of life and freedom that many in the world do not. We still have people willing to lay down their lives today to help people in other lands establish the kind of freedoms we enjoy. Timor is a good example of this. At the same time that we remember the sacrifice of our service men and women we must also acknowledge the price that others have paid. As a society we owe a debt to those families who have had to struggle on with out a father, mother or other love one. How we treat them and our returned service men and women is a reflection of how much we value the sacrifice. As a society i think we have sometimes been very lax in this area.

Hopefully the increasing numbers of people being involved in ANZAC Day services will tell all those that suffered that we will not forget - we will remember.

The Anzacs and others who have made sacrifices have sometimes not been treated the way they should, we have been lax.

During this week we need to look at the many blessings we have, many are not packed the way we would wish for but they are there. As we enjoy them we take some time to thank, thank for the gifts of life in this country, thank for those who have been willing to pay the ultimate price. Value what we have and pay our dues to those who have passed on so much to us. ~ Stephen Cook

[sensor]

That's a lovely Anzac message monetgo. Who is Stephen Cook? If he's famous, I apologize...
The message actually sounds like a sermon, so I thought he might be a minister/pastor/priest. If so, he should be commended...

[monetgo]

He is the high school principal of my daughter at Mount Maria College. It's his message on the newsletter, i like it too, thought i will share it here.

[Altair]

Thanks for posting that monetgo ... I was curious about the author too.

The other day I finished reading a book called The Lions Of July, Prelude to War, 1914 by William Jannen Jr ... an engrossing read - a chronological account of all the events, main players, treaties, power-plays ... from the assasination of Francis Ferdinand on 28 June to 12 August when England announced it was at war with Austria. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in an in depth analysis of that period.

"At a 1965 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) symposium, it was pointed out that there were two kinds of reactions to threat: that of the rabbit, to flee, and that of the lion, to fight. In 1914, Europe was full of lions." William Janner Jr. - The Lions of July

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