From the Quote of the Week files, Memorial Day 2006

Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers;
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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It is Memorial Day in America.

Every year, on the last Monday in May, Americans observe Memorial Day. Originally called "Decoration Day," Memorial Day is a holiday that commemorates those who have died in battle while serving in the U.S. armed forces. Today We are reminded that they died so that we could live and continue to cherish the things they loved.

The Quote of the Week honors those who gave their lives for our future freedoms and the acknowledge those men and women who serve in our armed forces today.

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"When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today"

Kohima Epitaph

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Links to Memorial Day History and the the Kohima Epitaph...

http://www.rootsweb.com/~nyseneca/memorial.htm
http://www.burmastar.org.uk/epitaph.htm

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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week files, May 22, 2006

Welcome to the Quote of the Week!! The place to go to where you can get timeless wisdom at bargain basement prices!!
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The Secret of Life...

The search for this week's quote bought me to the March 27th issue of The New Yorker magazine and Calvin Trillen's essay, Alice, Off Page, which is a tribute to his late wife. Here is an excerpt from that essay that may explain the secret of life.

Once, for the program at the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp gala, some volunteer counselors contributed short passages about their experiences at camp, and Alice wrote about one of the campers, a sunny little girl she called L. At camp, Alice had a tendency to gravitate toward the child who needed the most help, and L. was one of those. "Last summer, the camper I got closest to, L., was a magical child who was severely disabled, " Alice wrote. "She had two genetic diseases, one which kept her from growing and one which kept her from digesting any food. She had to be fed through a tube at night and she had so much difficulty walking that I drove her around in a golf cart a lot....One day, when we were playing duck-duck-goose, I was sitting behind her and she asked me to hold her mail for her while she took her turn to be chased around the circle. It took her a while to make the curcuit, and I had time to see that on top of the pile was a note from her mom. Then I did something truly awful, which I'm reluctant now to reveal. I decided to read that note. I simply had to know what this child's parents could have done to make her so spectacular, to make her the most optimistic, most enthusiastic, most hopeful human being I had ever encountered. I snuck a quick look at the note, and my eyes fell on this sentence: 'If God had given us all the children in the world to choose from, L., we would only have chose you.' Before L. got back to her place in the circle, I showed the note to Bud, who was sitting next to me. 'Quick. Read this,' I whispered. 'It's the secret of life.'

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Here is a link to the full text...

http://www.math.missouri.edu/~krishna/alice
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A Recycled Quote of the week classic...

"A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses."

Chinese Proverb
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week files, May 15, 2006

Welcome to the Quote of the Week! Your First Aid for Pessimism!
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Wisdom from across the bar...

Life, work and careers were the subject of the conversation I had with Dave and Leslie, an interesting couple I met at the bar of a local restaurant. Passionate about her career, Leslie summed up her philosophy of work and getting ahead in the quote below. I thought it was pretty interesting and made it this week quote. Enjoy!
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"What's the point of getting where you want to go if your are not going to help others get where they want to go?"

Leslie Dyer
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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic…

"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or horror, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they could be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."

J.W. Goethe
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week files, May 7, 2006

Today's quote comes from the book The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian which contains 300 short paragraphs of insights, reflections, and advice. Below is #140. I think this will be my challenge for this coming week... Go straight to the Good of Everything!
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Go Straight to the Good in Everything

"It is the happy lot of those with good taste. The bee goes straight for the sweetness, and the viper for the bitterness it needs for its poison. So with tastes: some go for the best, others for the worst. There is nothing that doesn't have some good, especially books, where good is imagined. Some people's temperaments are so unfortunate that among a thousand perfections they will find a single defect and censure it and blow it all out of proportion. They are the garbage collectors of the will and the intellect, burdened down with blemishes and defects: punishment for their poor discernment rather than proof of their subtlety. They are unhappy, for they batten on bitterness and graze on imperfections. Others have a happier sort of taste: among a thousand defects they discover some perfection that good luck happened to drop."

Baltasar Gracian
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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic...

"The more faithfully you listen to the voices within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside."

Dag Hammarskjold
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week files, May 1, 2006

Happy talk, keep talkin' happy talk,
Talk about things you'd like to do.
You got to have a dream,
If you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?

If you don't talk happy,
And you never have a dream,
Then you'll never have a dream come true!

Rogers and Hamerstein
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It is funny how things can come together...

Last week I was reading an article by business guru Tom Peters on 100 Ways to Succeed (see link below) with Rogers and Hammestein play South Pacific blaring in the background (nothing else was on). Just as I am finishing the Peters’ 15th way to succeed titled, You must be able to answer this question! And the question is: What’s the Dream?, the song above song, Happy Talk starts playing.

Now this is a song that I have heard many times over the years without really paying much attention to the lyrics. But the reading of Tom Peter’s article bought new meaning to these words...

You got to have a dream,
If you don't have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true?

So now not only do I find myself singing this song in the shower and the car during these past few days but more importantly, I am asking myself, What is my dream? Hmm, I going to have to give this some thought!!!

By the way, What is your dream?
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Link to Tom Peters Article...

http://www.tompeters.com/blogs/freestuff/uploads/

Link to the lyrics of Happy Talk...

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/happytalk.htm

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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week, April 24, 2006

"To the extent that your work takes into account the needs of the world, it will
be meaningful; to the extent that through it you express your unique talents, it
will be joyful."

Laurence G Boldt; How to Find the Work You Love

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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic...

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by
yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on
the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little
clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote
itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to
the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I
can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more
I live. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I
have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as
possible before handing it on to future generations."

George Bernard Shaw
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week Files, April 17, 2006

Carry On

It's easy to fight when everything's right,
And you're mad with the thrill
and the glory;
It's easy to cheer when victory's near,
And wallow in
fields that are gory.
It's a different song when everything's wrong,
When you're feeling infernally mortal;
When it's ten against one, and
hope there is none,
Buck up, little soldier, and chortle:

Carry on! Carry on!
There isn't much punch in your
blow.
You're glaring and staring and hitting out blind;
You're muddy and
bloody, but never you mind.
Carry on! Carry on!

You haven't the ghost of a show.
It's looking like death,
but while you've a breath,
Carry on, my son! Carry on!

And so in the strife of the battle of life
It's easy to fight when you're winning;
It's easy to slave, and starve and be brave,
When the dawn of success is beginning.
But the man who can meet despair and defeat
With a cheer, there's the man of God's choosing;

The man who can fight to Heaven's own height
Is the man who can fight when he's losing.

Carry on! Carry on!
Things never were looming so black.
But show that you haven't a cowardly streak,
And though you're
unlucky you never are weak.
Carry on! Carry on!
Brace up for another attack.
It's looking like hell, but -- you never can tell:
Carry on, old man! Carry on!

There are some who drift out in the deserts of doubt,
And some who in brutishness wallow;
There are others, I know, who in piety go
Because of a Heaven to follow.
But to labour with zest, and to give of your best,
For the sweetness and joy of the giving;
To help folks along with a hand and a song;
Why, there's the real sunshine of living.

Carry on! Carry on!
Fight the good fight and true;
Believe in your mission, greet life with a cheer;
There's big work to do, and that's why you are here.
Carry on! Carry on! Let the world be the better for you;
And at last when you die, let this be your cry:
Carry on, my soul! Carry on!

Robert Service
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From the Quote of the Week files; April 10, 2006

This past Friday, I had the privilege of taking my Dad to Long Island to have lunch with his brothers and sisters. They were all there and i t was fun watching them interact, share memories and reminisce with each other. It also inspired this quote by T.S. Eliot. Enjoy!
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There's no vocabulary
For love within a family,
love that's lived in
But not looked at,
love within the light of which
All else is seen,
the love within which
All other love finds speech.
This love is silent.

T.S. Eliot
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Reycled Quote of the Week Classic...

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

T.S. Eliot
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week files; April 3, 2006

Today's quote is a life lesson on how to be authentic by Abraham Maslow.
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On being Authentic...

Discover your true identity.
Strive to be honest in the sense of allowing your behavior and speech to be a true and spontaneous expression of your inter feelings.
Live in a way that expresses your real desires and characteristics.
Know yourself.
Authenticity is the reduction of phoniness toward the zero point.

Abraham Maslow; The Further Reaches of Human Nature, 1971
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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic...

"There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first. When you learn to live for others, they will live for you."

Paramahansa Yogananda
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!

From the Quote of the Week files; March 27, 2006

A cup of tea, No Joe’s Café and a Dairy truck!

Today’s quote comes by way of a Dairy Truck that passed through beautiful downtown Red Bank yesterday morning as I was having a tea at No Joe’s Café with the owner Mike and friends Art and Chuck. As part of its advertisement, the truck had this short but powerful quote...
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'The key to life is what you add to it. Add something!"

On a Garelick Farms Dairy Truck

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And in honor of the first day of Spring, this reminder...

"The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month."

Henry Van Dyke, Fisherman's Luck, 1899

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A Recycled Quote of the Week Classic…

Remember that Right Now...

Somebody is very proud of you.
Somebody is thinking of you.
Somebody is caring about you.
Somebody misses you.
Somebody wants to talk to you.
Somebody wants to be with you.
Somebody hopes you aren't in trouble.
Somebody is thankful for your support.
Somebody wants to hold your hand.
Somebody hopes everything turns out all right.
Somebody wants you to be happy.
Somebody wants you to find him/her.
Somebody is celebrating your successes.
Somebody wants to give you a gift.
Somebody thinks that you are a gift.
Somebody hopes you're not too cold, or too hot.
Somebody wants to hug you.
Somebody loves you.
Somebody admires your strength.
Somebody is thinking of you and smiling.
Somebody wants to be your shoulder to cry on.
Somebody wants to go out with you & have a lot of fun.
Somebody thinks the world of you.
Somebody wants to protect you.
Somebody would do anything for you.
Somebody wants to be forgiven.
Somebody is grateful for your forgiveness.
Somebody wants to laugh with you.
Somebody remembers you and wishes you were there.
Somebody needs to know your love is unconditional.
Somebody values your advice.
Somebody wants to tell you how much they care.
Somebody wants to share their dreams with you.
Somebody wants to hold you in their arms.

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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!