My Small Boat

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.

No, no, you’re not thinking, you’re just being logical.

If your heart fails thee, climb not at all.
in response to Sir Walter Raleigh’s
Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.
both being scratched in a glass window pane with a diamond ring.

What does education often do? It makes a straight cut ditch of a free meandering brook.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it is tied to everything else in the universe.

Early Bird
Oh, if you’re a bird, be an early bird
And catch the worm for your breakfast plate.
If you’re a bird, be an early bird,
But if you’re a worm, sleep late.

The word “good” has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.

I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline.

Astro-Gymnastics
Go on a starlit night,
stand on your head,
leave your feet dangling
outwards into space,
and let the starry
firmament you tread
be, for the moment,
your elected base.
Feel Earth’s colossal weight
of ice and granite,
of molten magma,
water, iron, and lead;
and briefly hold
this strangely solid planet
balanced upon
your strangely solid head.

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.