It does not require a majority to prevail
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.
— Samuel Adams
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Eleanor Roosevelt’s 3 (+1) rules for happiness
ByHeatherSomeone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was:
A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others.
But there is another basic requirement, and I can’t understand now how I forgot it at the time…
More Steinbeck on Writing
ByHeatherSometimes in a man or a woman an awareness takes place — not very often and always inexplainable. There are no words for it because there is no one ever to tell. This is a secret not kept a secret, but locked in wordlessness. The craft or art of writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for the wordlessness. In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplainable. And sometimes if he is very fortunate and if the time is right, a very little of what he is trying to do trickles through.
— John Steinbeck, Journals of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters
This is another installment from Steinbeck’s journals written as he was giving birth to East of Eden. It has echos from my Julian Schnabel quote when he said “That is true about all art. The conflict is to try and take what is inside of you and put it inside somebody else.”
Theory of the Universe
ByHeatherThere is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
Berkeley, UNIX, and LSD
ByHeatherThere are two major products to come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don’t believe this to be a coincidence.
— Unknown
Aristotle on Thought
ByHeatherIt is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
— Aristotle
Damn the Torpedos
ByHeatherDamn the torpedos, full speed ahead.
— David Farragut, Union Admiral during the American Civil War
On this date in 1862, David Farragut commanded a Union flotilla past two Confederate forts on the Mississippi River on his way to capture New Orleans. It wouldn’t be until more than two years later, at the Battle of Mobile Bay, when he would utter his famous phrase.