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Words of Wisdom

PostPosted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 7:35 pm
by mannytheseacow
I've been meaning to start this thread for a long time. I'm a big reader and have lots of favorite quotes. Hope to keep this thread active for a while. Please share yours, too!

I'll start it with the guy who put Sand County, Wisconsin, (just north of me) on the map.

“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.”
-Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

Re: Words of Wisdom

PostPosted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 8:04 pm
by thickstrings
Manny, you have struck a chord.... " Goodness is the only investment that never fails" Thoreau " The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention" Gibran "We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us for what we have done" Longfellow "Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory" F Adams " Never ruin a apology with an excuse" K Johnson and " I have never let my schooling interfere with my education" Twain

Re: Words of Wisdom

PostPosted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 10:27 pm
by mannytheseacow
Whoa! Slow down there, TS! :lol: I'm slow and have to digest all that! Many more to come. ;)

I always like a good story, too. Got a story relating these quotes?

Re: Words of Wisdom

PostPosted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 11:10 pm
by thickstrings
No story really, just things to ponder.... if they ring true. I am a quote "nut"

Re: Words of Wisdom

PostPosted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:52 pm
by mannytheseacow
I was traveling in Hawaii several years ago and happened into a used book store. I was studying the spread of civilization through Asia and into Alaska and Polynesia and got chatting with the store owner about the similarities in Polynesian art and Native American art in the Pacific Northwest. We ended up discussing our particulars and it turns out that this guy was in the process of opening another used book shop.... in my town. 65 degrees away on the planet. What are the odds?

Anyway, long-story-short... I walked out of there with a couple of books that day. One on Gary Snyder's travels through India, and a book on the ethnology of the Koyukuk in Alaska. The final paragraph of that second book contained one of the most powerful text which I have ever read:

"We often remember ancient or traditional cultures for the monuments they have left behind- the megaliths of Stonehenge, the temples of Bankok, the pyramids of Teotihuacán, the great ruins of Machu Picchu. People like the Koyukon have created no such monuments, but they have left something that may be unique- greater and more significant as a human achievement. This legacy is the vast land itself, enduring and essentially unchanged despite having supported human life for countless centuries. Koyukon people and their ancestors, bound to a strict code of morality governing their behavior toward nature, have been the land's stewards and caretakers. Only because they have nurtured it so well does this great legacy of land exist today." - Richard Nelson, Make Prayers to the Raven.

Re: Words of Wisdom

PostPosted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 2:00 pm
by matt walker
Good stuff fellas. How about "make hay....". Ugh, I'm buried in sunshine right now and am making so much hay, but I'm ready for a break. What's that quote?..

Re: Words of Wisdom

PostPosted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 3:13 pm
by thickstrings
Matt, does the sun really come out in the Pacific NW? : ;) " Man--despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments--owes his existence to a six inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains." unknown A 6" layer of topsoil where I live would be an exaggeration....

Re: Words of Wisdom

PostPosted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 3:29 pm
by mannytheseacow
Urgh! Hay, the bane of my existence. I'm hardly sustainable with the amount of hay I go through. Doing that this weekend, myself.

“Human domination over nature is quite simply an illusion, a passing dream by a naïve species. It is an illusion that has cost us much, ensnared us in our own designs, given us a few boasts to make about our courage and genius, but all the same it is an illusion.” -Don Worstor, Under Western Skies: Nature and History in the American West

Re: Words of Wisdom

PostPosted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 3:01 pm
by DrewInToledo
This has always stuck with me, author unknown - "Expect nothing and you have it all."
Something my grandfather used to say, "Anger is the wind that bloweth out the candle in the mind." Not sure where that one originated from either. Fun thread!
Oh and the one I mostly live by which I preach often: "The only time I open my mouth is to change feet."

Re: Words of Wisdom

PostPosted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 6:22 pm
by thickstrings
" Live so that the Preacher doesn't have to lie at your funeral"...... Anonymous ..... Drew, love the foot, mouth...I subscribe...