Happy Halloween!

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. - Edgar Allan Poe  - The Raven.

Autumn

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. -Albert Camus

Yesterday's forgotten quote

I've a grand memory for forgetting.  -Robert Louis Stevenson

Praise be to you, Lord, for the banquet of Christ’s body and blood given us through the apostles, which refreshes us and gives us life. - Petition for Morning Prayer, Feast of Sts. Simon & Jude

The value of money

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated. - H. L. Mencken

Thinking about the election

Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.  - Sydney J. Harris

The darkest hour

It's always darkest before the dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it. ~Author Unknown

Yesterday's missed quote

 If it's stupid but works, it isn't stupid. -Anon.

What do you lack

People do not lack strength, they lack will. - Victor Hugo

What God wants

Therefore, if something happens that we did not pray for, we must have no doubt at all that what God wants is more expedient than what we wanted ourselves. Our great Mediator gave us an example of this. After he had said: Father, if it is possible, let this cup be taken away from me, he immediately added, Yet not what I will, but what you will, Father, so transforming the human will that was his through his taking a human nature. As a consequence, and rightly so, through the obedience of one man the many are made righteous. - St. Augustine, Letter to Proba

Your love and Your truth

I will thank you, Lord, among the peoples, among the nations I will praise you, for your love reaches to the heavens and your truth to the skies. -Psalm 57

Happy, happy, fun time!

Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination. -Mark Twain
The further I stray from sanity the happier I am.  I've heard it is a fine line between sanctity and insanity, I hope I can find one without finding the other.

Favors

People return small favors, acknowledge middling ones, and repay great ones with ingratitude.
- Proverbs for Daily Living
An interesting little book my mom gave years ago that contains quotes from all over the place. However, it doesn't credit the quotes to particular individuals or sources.

Gets you into trouble

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. - Mark Twain

Monday Triple Header Lincoln, Scott & Twain

And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It is the life in your years. - Abraham Lincoln
This is a phrase I use at funerals on a fairly regular basis. We too often assume that someone who lived a long life got a fair shake and those who died younger were cheated. The fair or cheated aspect of life has more to do with our response to life rather than the things that happen to us.
This quote reminds me of a similar quote by Mark Twain:
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. - Mark Twain
Call me odd, but I think of wolverines and shrews with this quote. Small animals that pack a punch compared to animals much larger. Both can fight off large potentially more dangerous predators and bring down prey much large than themselves.
Finally from the back of my office door:
One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation. -Sir Walter Scott

Trust

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough. -Frank H. Crane

Strange & Wonderful

To be matter of fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy -- and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.  -Robert Anson Heinlein
I often experience the tension between an imposing modern pragmatism which makes me want to focus on the the task(s) at hand and evaluated life in terms of productivity and accomplishment and the gentle invitation to pause and appreciate the strange and wonderful world God has shared with us with no goal in mind other than gratitude.

What bothers you?

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand. -Mark Twain

The truth will set you free

Truth is generally the best vindication against slander. -Abraham Lincoln

I'm bored. No, you are boring.

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. -G. K. Chesterton

Reputation

You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do. - Henry Ford

Hardly any difference

My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to the tell the truth, there's hardly any difference. - Harry S. Truman
Few politicians have better lines than President Truman. I think he was the last Democrat I really admired. I'd like to say Kennedy, but I am so tried of political dynasties like the Bush's & Clinton's that I now suffer from a retroactive disdain for previous families of political clout. At least I will spare the Adams.

What is faith?

Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light. - Helen Keller
Of course faith is more than that, but I do like many of her quotes. I find Helen Keller to be one of the more fascinating people in history. I hope to read some books on her someday.

Going against the stream

A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.  - Everlasting Man, 1925 G. K. Chesterton

Entitlement

When a milestone is conquered, the subtle erosion called entitlement begins its consuming grind. The team regards its greatness as a trait and a right. Half hearted effort becomes habit and saps a champion. - Pat Riley

Who owes who?

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. - Mark Twain

Get to "after that" at the beginning

Twenty years a child, twenty years running wild, twenty years a mature man,and after that, praying. -Irish Proverb

Mushroom Management

Keep your employees in the dark and occasionally throw crap at them. - Urban Dictionary 
While I laugh at this quote, I have seen it as a working system far too often and far too frequently.  It leaves people with an immense amount of questions and places too much trust and authority in the hands of a few.

Memorial of St. Francis

It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.  -Francis of Assisi 

Bonus quote: 
Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to His beloved is that of overcoming self.

Christ Jesus came to save sinners!

You can depend on this as worthy of full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I myself am the worst. But on that very account I was dealt with mercifully, so that in me, as an extreme case, Jesus Christ might display all his patience, and that I might become an example to those who would later have faith in him and gain everlasting life. To the King of ages, the immortal, the invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever! Amen. - St. Paul's Letter to Timothy

Yesterday's Missed Quote - The Road

The Road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can, pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say.  -J. R. R. Tolkien

Memorial of St. Therese of Lisieux

I have a lot of distractions during prayer, but as soon as I perceive them I pray for the persons that occupy my imagination and in this way they benefit from my distractions. - St. Therese