Our school is into promoting good citizenship.  Each month we have a “quote of the month” that we’re encouraged to post in the classrooms and discuss with children.  September’s quote was from Jesse Jackson:

“Don’t look down on anyone unless you’re helping him up.”

That  might not be an exact quote since as soon as I saw that the quote was from Jesse Jackson, I threw away my poster.  There’s no way I would advocate anything a self-promoting racist like Jesse Jackson said, and certainly no way I would put a poster of a Jesse Jackson quote in my classroom.  I love the children I teach too much to subject them to that.

I wonder what school systems are thinking of when they come up with crap like that?  Quotes about treating each other well and being a friend to others are wonderful, and it’s important for children to learn early that people are people and that race, ethnicity  and gender make no difference in our humanity.

They need to make sure the quotes are from people we want our children to emulate - not someone like Jesse Jackson who has single-handedly caused more racial strife than probably anyone else in our modern day world.

To read is to empower;

To empower is to write;

To write is to influence;

To influence is to change;

To change is to live.

~Jane Evershed~

At an a Quantum Learning workshop today, the presenter, Liesl, said something that made an impression on me.  She said: “Multi-tasking is a myth.  People can only attend to one new task at a time.” It’s a good quote.  Everybody seems to go around thinking they can do several things at once, and you really can’t.  One task at a time.  That’s all any of us can do.

In Honor of Mothers’ Day, I present

THIRTEEN QUOTES ABOUT MOTHERS

(1) “When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts.  A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.”

~Sophia Loren~

(2) “Mother: that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries.”

~T. DeWitt Talmage~

(3)  “You don’t really understand human nature, unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around, and why his parents will always wave back.”

~William D. Tammeus~

(4) “My mom is a never ending song in my heart
of comfort,
happiness,
and being.
I may sometimes forget the words
but I always remember the tune.”

~Gaycie Harmon~

(5)  “A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.”

~Tenneva Jordan~

(6)  “Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one mother the wide world over.”

~George Cooper~

(7)  “All mothers are working mothers.”

~Author Unknown~

(8) The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.

She never existed before.

The woman existed, but the mother never.

A mother is something absolutely new.”

~Rajneesh~

(9) “Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.”

~Marion C. Garretty~

(10)  “Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.”

~Oprah Winfrey~

(11)  “A man’s work is from sun to sun,

but a mother’s work is never done.”

~Author Unknown~

(12) “It would seem that something that means poverty, disorder and violence every single day, should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge.”

~Phyllis Diller~

(13) “God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.”

~Jewish Proverb~

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I heard the best quote the other day - don’t know who said it, but here it is:

The grass is not always greener on the other side.  It’s greener where it’s watered!

Thirteen Quotes from American History

1. “National honor is national property of the highest value.” By James Monroe (first Inaugural Address)

2.  “Our country!In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.” By Stephen Decatur

3.  “Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint.” By Daniel Webster

4.  “The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.” By William Ellery Channing

5.  “The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trust, bestowed for the good of a country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.” By J.C. Calhoun

6.  “War is cruel and you cannot refine it.” By William Tecumseh Sherman

7.  “Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart – the best brain.” By Robert Ingersoll

8.  “Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire – conscience.” By George Washington

9.  “The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.” By Patrick Henry

10.  “Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.” By Carl Schurz

11.  “Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.” By Philip Brooks

12.  “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” By Abraham Lincoln (1863, The Gettysburg Address)

13.  “In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.. . . The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it – and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.” By John F. Kennedy (1961, Inaugural Address)

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If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

~George Bernard Shaw~

I love the quote although I really can’t think of any family skeletons that I need to make dance.  It’s a good thought, isn’t it?  Instead of worrying about whatever is “wrong” - use it to your advantage or get some enjoyment out of it. 

Thirteen Things I’d Like To Write in the Sand

Once when I was getting over a heartbreak I went to the beach for a few days by myself, and I wrote the name of the person who had broken my heart in the sand.  Then I watched as the waves washed away the letters - symbolically washing that experience from my mind.   I liked the symbolism of it.  So this week I have listed thirteen things I’d like to write in the sand and then have the waves wash them away.  I’ve also included quotes about each hurtful habit or attitude.

(1) Unkindness  (Be kind to unkind people — they need it the most. ~anonymous) 

(2)  War  (War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice — is often the means of their regeneration. ~Mill, John Stuart)

(3)  Selfishness  (Love is what is left in a relationship after all the selfishness is taken out. ~Richardson, Nick)

(4)  Foolish Pride  (The owl of ignorance lays the egg of pride.  ~Proverb)

(5) Gluttony (Gluttony is the source of all our infirmities and the fountain of all our diseases. As fire extinguished by an excess of fuel, so is the natural health of the body destroyed by an intemperate diet. ~Burton)

(6) Regret  (A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. ~ Barrymore, John)

(7) Worry  (Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson)

(8) Impatience  (A populace never rebels from passion for attack, but from impatience of suffering.  ~Burke, Edmund)

(9) Unloving attitude (Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.  ~Chesterton, Gilbert K.)

(10) Terrorism  (In every child who is born under no matter what circumstances and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again, and in him, too, once more, and each of us, our terrific responsibility toward human life: toward the utmost idea of goodness, of the horror of terrorism, and of God. ~James Agee)

(11) Disorganization  (The fact is, the old clichés work for us in abstract terms, but they never work out in real life quite the same way. Life is messy; clichés are clean and tidy.  ~Hugh Macleod)

(12) Clutter (Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow. ~Og Mandino)

(13) Superficiality (Do not judge men by mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over the depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace and joy. ~Edward Chapin)

I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us.

-Konrad Lorenz, ethologist, Nobel laureate (1903-1989)

Hat-tip to Ruth.