quotes for hard times

Genius is a plodding intellect, incapable of dreaming up the obstacles that stop the rest of us. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com



Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain. ~Carl G. Jung



The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. ~John Kenneth Galbraith



To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time. ~Clara Ortega



What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. ~Aristotle



If the author had said "Let us put on appropriate galoshes," there could, of course, have been no poem. ~Author Unknown



Grandparents are similar to a piece of string - handy to have around and easily wrapped around the fingers of their grandchildren. ~Author Unknown



"You're more trouble than the children are" is the greatest compliment a grandparent can receive. ~Gene Perret



A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg. ~Samuel Butler



The value of consistent prayer is not that He will hear us, but that we will hear Him. ~William McGill



Monday is a lame way to spend 1/7 of your life. ~Author Unknown



It's difficult to view the world outside our human context. Staying alive and paying the bills both require our attention squarely fixed on our own business. Our sprawling cities and suburbs are wonderful and frightening tributes to creative self-absorption. In them, we spend our microscheduled days bustling between work and the endless details of our private lives, turning in our moments of rest to the buzzing distractions of television and computers - all accelerating toward some ultimate, unseen fulfillment of convenience and hyperreality. Little encourages us to pause and look around, much less question the end goal of all our busyness. Anything slower than the quick cuts of TV commercials is overwhelmed by our impatience and short attention. Unfortunately, we might be missing something important - to our happiness and to our survival. The purpose of this book is to help remind us. ~From the introduction to The Sacred Earth: Writers on Nature & Spirit, edited by Jason Gardner, 1998, New World Library



Codi: "Like a note you'd send somebody after you'd stayed in their house?"



Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray. ~Lord Byron



Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt. ~Jose Ortega y Gassett



A lot of people are willing to give God credit, but so few ever give Him cash. ~Robert E. Harris, Laugh with the Circuit Rider



You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. ~Somerset Maugham



A sky as pure as water bathed the stars and brought them out. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery



You should listen to your heart, and not the voices in your head. ~Matt Groening, The Simpsons, spoken by the character Marge Simpson



Might we not say to the confused voices which sometimes arise from the depths of our being: "Ladies, be so kind as to speak only four at a time?" ~Madame Swetchine