Month: September 2005

If I keep a green bough in my heart, then the singing bird will come.

Willie Willie Harry Stee
Harry Dick John Harry three;
One two three Neds, Richard two
Harrys four five six… then who?
Edwards four five, Dick the bad,
Harrys (twain), Ned six (the lad);
Mary, Bessie, James you ken,
Then Charlie, Charlie, James again…
Will and Mary, Anna Gloria,
Georges four, Will four, Victoria;
Edward seven next, and then
Came George the fifth in nineteen ten;
Ned the eighth soon abdicated
Then George six was coronated;
After which Elizabeth
And that’s all folks until her death.

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Pythagoras Theorem

The square of the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the sides.

A Proof

Take a square of sides length a + b inscribed by another square connecting the points a distance a from each consecutive cornert of the first square.

Let the length of the sides of the inscribed square be c.

Thus each side of the inscribed sqaure forms the hypotonuse of a right angled triangle having sides of length a, and b.

The area of the larger square is (a+b)² = a²+ b²+2*a*b

The area of the larger square is also equal to the area of the smaller square plus the area of the four right angled triangles of sides length a and b and hypotenuse c.

This is equal to c² + 4* (a*b)/2

So a²+ b²+2*a*b = c²+ 2*a*b

So a² + b² = c²

QED

But neither 30 years of 30 centuries affect the clearness or the charm of geometrical truths. Such a theorem as “The square of the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the sides.” Is as dazzlingly beautiful now as it was on the day when Pythagoras first discovered it and celebrated its advent, it is said, by sacrificing a hectacomb of oxen – a method of doing honour to science that has always seemed to me slightly exaggerated and uncalled for. Even in these degenerate days, marking the epoch of some brilliant discovery by inviting a convivial friend or two over for a beefsteak and a bottle of wine. But a hectacomb of oxen! It would produce a quite inconvenient supply of meat.

Love Without Hope

Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher
Swept off his tall hat to the Squire’s own daughter,
So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly
Singing about her head, as she rode by.

The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.

It is only possible to succeed at second-rate pursuits – like becoming a millionaire or a prime minister, winning a war, seducing beautiful women, flying through the stratosphere or landing on the moon. First-rate pursuits – involving, as they must, trying to understand what life is about and trying to convey that understanding – inevitably result in a sense of failure. A Napoleon, a Churchill, a Roosevelt can feel themselves to be successful, but never a Socrates, a Pascal, a Blake. Understanding is for ever unattainable. Therein lies the inevitability of failure in embarking upon its quest, which is none the less the only one worthy of serious attention.

Prayer (to the sun above the clouds)

Sun that givest all things birth
Shine on everything on earth!

If that’s too much to demand
Shine at least on this our land

If even that’s too much for thee
Shine at any rate on me

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

I am because my little dog knows me.

Love’s Philosophy

THE fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever,
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another’s being mingle:-
Why not I with thine?

See! the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:-
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

During the first world war G K Chesterton was approached by a lady asking him “young man, why aren’t you out at the front”; having a famously rotund profile, he replied simply: “madam, if you go round to my side you will see that I am”

The graveyards are full of indispensable men.

Failure or success seem to have been allotted to men by their stars. But they retain the power of wriggling, of fighting with their star or against it, and in the whole universe the only really interesting movement is this wriggle.

Trust yourself, then you will know how to live.

It is a great art to saunter.

The heights of great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upwards in the night.

Home-thoughts, from the Sea

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish ‘mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest North-east distance dawn’d Gibraltar grand and gray;
‘Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?’–say,
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove’s planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.

You see, that’s the difference between us. I assume the best about people, while you assume the worst. So I get hurt, but you get nothing.