QOTD

Jun. 26th, 2012 09:51 pm
denny: Photo of my face in profile - looking to the right (Default)
"I think there is no better way to invite a human being to view their body differently than by inviting them to be an athlete, by revering one's body as an instrument rather than just an ornament. It's a really great way to reorient how you see your body so you can see it as this incredible, awe-inspiring machine that you need to fuel well in order for it to function."
~ Alanis Morissette
denny: (Politics)
"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."
-- Albert Camus

QOTW

Feb. 24th, 2011 05:21 pm
denny: (Plink...  FOOM)
"If you haven't trashed your computer while doing something questionable, then you're not a computer scientist - you're just an arts grad who didn't get laid." -- http://reg.cx/1Lmy

A quote.

Jul. 7th, 2009 10:48 pm
denny: (Park - dusk)
"People always find it so frustrating that there's no structure they can see, that they just have to follow the river downstream and see what they find. They want to know the plot so they can guess the end, because they're afraid of what it might be. I can understand that, even though I know it's not the way things work. I never know what the hell's going to happen next, but I can live with that."

-- Stark, in Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
denny: Photo of my face in profile - looking to the right (Toon (with text))
On Tue, 2008-09-30 at 10:45 +0100, Denny wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-09-30 at 09:51 +0100, Daniel wrote:
> > Mike wrote:
> > > guys you should know not to use wikipedia as the definitive "truth"
> > 
> > In a recent comparison it was proved to contain less errors as a 
> > percentage of content than the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
> 
> [ needs citation ]
denny: (Gentleman)
From a friend's journal:
"Sometimes... when you hold out for everything, you walk away with nothing. The imperfections of a man, his frailties, his faults, are just as important as his virtues. You can't separate them."

Not sure if it's a quote or something she wrote herself.
denny: (Warning - Self-improving software)
"If you look inside good software, you find that parts no one is ever supposed to see are beautiful too. I'm not claiming I write great software, but I know that when it comes to code I behave in a way that would make me eligible for prescription drugs if I approached everyday life the same way."

http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html
denny: (I'd rather be flying)
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return." -- Leonardo da Vinci

(yoinked from J's quotes list on Facebook)
denny: (Gentleman)
In spring, hundreds of flowers;
In autumn, a harvest moon;
In summer a refreshing breeze;
In winter, snow will accompany you.
If useless things do not hang in your mind,
Any season is a good season for you.

-- Mu-mon, 1228
denny: (Fragile)
<denny> 'when life hands you lemons, make lemonade'
<arachne> When life hands you lemons, you can only make lemon juice. You'd need sugar and water to make lemonade.

Play

Jul. 4th, 2007 12:18 pm
denny: Photo of my face in profile - looking to the right (Default)
Extract from The Way of Aikido, by George Leonard:
What are we doing in the dojo? We might have first come to aikido for self-defense or fitness or balance. But after a few months these considerations fade away. We are doing it, with all that it entails – strenuous exertion, pain, close calls, occasional injury, along with years and years of what you might call 'hard work' – for the sheer delight of it.

We are playing.

Other things can be explained in terms of play, but play, being primordial, can’t be explained in terms of other things. Play precedes culture. It extends beyond the rational, beyond abstraction, beyond matter. Play in short, is irreducible. Let’s simply say that play is whatever absorbs us fully, whatever creates purpose and order, whatever involves us in as much meaningful interaction as possible.

"One's body," Aikido’s founder said again and again, never tiring of the words "is a miniature universe". The evolution of the physical universe has involved the same sorts of interactions as those within the body; the almost impossibly delicate balance of force, close calls, near brushes with disaster. No wonder then that our best myths and dramas as well as our best games involve precarious moments of suspense during which all seem lost and then, somehow, against all odds, is saved. Could it be that the universe itself is a vast conspiracy to maximize play?

If so, how sad it is, as we leave childhood behind, that we are taught in countless explicit and implicit ways to work hard rather than to play joyfully. We find ourselves imprisoned on an iron rack of contingencies. We are taught to do one thing only to achieve another thing. Study hard so that you’ll get good grade. Get good grade so that you’ll get into a good college. Get into a good college so that you’ll get a good job. Get a good job and work hard so that you can have the good things in life. By the time you get the “good things,” however, you can barely remember how to play.

Aikido summons all of us, whether we do aikido or not, to play or to keep playing from childhood to old age, to seek out the possibilities of play in every aspect of living – in what we call “work,” in love and sex, in relationships with family and friends, even in taking a walk around the block.

The strange thing is that when we approach an activity in the spirit of play – fully, joyfully, and primarily for its own sake – we are likely to achieve not only the greatest happiness, but also the best results, the most enduring success.
denny: (Gentleman)
"Treat people as they are, and they will remain that way. Treat them as they are already what they can be, and you help them become what they are capable of becoming." -- Goethe
denny: (Gentleman)
"You know what everyone's greatest fear is? It is that all the dreams we have, all the crazy ideas and aspirations, all the impossible romantic longings and utopian visions can come true, that the world can grant us our wishes... No weight could be harder to bear than the possibility that everything we want is possible. If that is true, then there really are things at stake in this life, things to be truly won or lost." -- Nietzsche
denny: (Politics)
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey
if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and
the harms it would cause if improperly administered." -Lyndon B. Johnson,
36th US president (1908-1973)


(spotted in [livejournal.com profile] aiwendel's journal)
denny: Photo of my face in profile - looking to the right (*smile*)
Instructions: Go to http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 and look through random quotations until you find 5 that you think reflect who you are or what you believe. Then post them in your journal.


What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), Pygmalion, Act 2

I had learnt to seek intensity... more of life, a concentrated sense of life.
Nina Berberova, O Magazine, September 2003

Three failures denote uncommon strength. A weakling has not enough grit to fail thrice.
Minna Thomas Antrim

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.
Eddie Cantor (1892 - 1964)
denny: (Politics)
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin (USA Founding Father)

"Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms." -- John Reid (UK Home Secretary)


(second quote spotted in [livejournal.com profile] wechsler's journal)

Nice...

Jul. 24th, 2006 06:32 pm
denny: (Gentleman)
"Conquer the angry man by love.
Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness.
Conquer the miser with generosity.
Conquer the liar with truth."



(yoinked from [livejournal.com profile] aiwendel's journal - she's been posting a few choice bits of Buddhism lately)

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