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With homage to WhitmanO'Neill, Dr. Bill, and TheFallibleFiend
"We are here to be excited from youth to old age, to have an insatiable curiousity about the world. Aldous Huxley once said that to carry the spirit of the child into old-age is the secret of genius. And I buy that. We are also here to genuinely, humbly and sincerely help others by practicing a friendly attitude. And every person is born for a purpose. Everyone has a God-given potential, in essence, built into them. And if we are to live life to its fullest, we must realize that potential."
Norman Vincent Peale
The Power of Positive Thinking
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One big difference between children and adults is that children have not become cynical. I like the definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
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Aldous Huxley once said that to carry the spirit of the child into old-age is the secret of genius.
A motto I love -- because it has a profound meaning wrapped up at the core of the obvious silly one -- is
You're only young once, but you can be immature forever.
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Uno Mas
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and at worst if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat,"
T. Roosevelt
April 23, 1910
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Things worth remembering...
The value of time.
The success of perseverance.
The dignity of simplicity.
The worth of character.
The virtue of patience.
The wisdom of economy.
THE POWER OF KINDNESS.
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And the quiet pride of having lived by the Golden Rule
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Uno MasThanks for that, marylynn...and for all the other fine, uplifting words you've shared. 
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marylynn I agree that T. Roosevelt's speech is a good one. On a lighter note, here is a tongue-in-cheek sign a friend of mine has posted in her lab:
"Lord, please grant me the patience to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of all those people I had to kill because they were getting on my nerves."
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"Lord, please grant me...
And on my office wall...
Lord, please grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference
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the spirit of a child in old age
Aldous Huxley may have said it best, but Sir Francis Bacon, still acknowledged as "the founder of modern science", said it first:
Into the kingdom of knowledge, as into the kingdom of Heaven, one must become as a little child."
And what of Wordworth's "trailing glory", and the final image in Stanley Kubrick's "2001, A Space Odyssey"?
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So true about children. Their secret, I believe, is "maintaining freshness of appreciation". A difficult task as we grow older but one that if we can remember it helps us live a fuller and happier life.
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I like the definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Sorry Bill. That's an accountant not a cynic.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Dear CK: What would you call the accountant who helped Enron rob so many of so much? Not cynics, to be sure, not quite crooks, but what? Not quite simply cowards, though fear of job loss was a big factor. Not quite co-conspirators, but close to it. What do you call a man who sees a blind man about to step into a manhole, but says nothing?
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Lord, please grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference
that a bit like the old irish prayer, angel,
May God bless them that loves us,
And then, that don't, May God turn their hearts.
And if he can't turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles,
So we will know them by their limping!
but the most common one i heard as a child was
May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil even knows you're dead!
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I've saved this for a long time, I don't remember where it came from.
To all my female heroes out there, homage to you all:
"Does a hero know she's a hero if no one tells her? Do you know a hero no one else knows? A hero doesn't have to save a busload of school kids from certain disaster. Or score the winning point in the big game. A hero can be anyone who inspires you, anyone you look up to, anyone who cheers you on, makes you better than you were before-just as they made themselves better than they were before. Do you know a hero? Tell her. Then tell everyone."
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What do you call a man who sees a blind man about to step into a manhole, but says nothing?
Jerk!
...but that would be after a few others... way after!
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...
The dignity of simplicity.
...
I imagine the meaning behind simplicity in this context is "sincerity", yet it has been forever since I have heard it used that way!
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The dignity of simplicity.
...
I imagine the meaning behind simplicity in this context is "sincerity", yet it has been forever since I have heard it used that way!
musick, as far as I can tell, the phrase you quoted is demonstrated perfectly in Bingley's posts. Exactly.
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I won't name names for obvious reasons, but to me a heroine is someone who: gets up every day and does whatever it is that needs doing, day in and day out, in the face of continual stressors like wondering whether there'll be enough money for necessities; having faced--and survived--trauma(s); raising kids as a single parent; not always even having the necessities; not knowing whether things will ever get better. And on, and on. I admire you so much. All of you. You have already demonstrated strength far beyond what I could ever hope to achieve.
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I like the definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Sorry Bill. That's an accountant not a cynic.
Sorry, CK. Bill has it right. Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, Act 3:
Lord Darlington. What cynics you fellows are!
Cecil Graham. What is a cynic? [Sitting on the back of the sofa.]
Lord Darlington. A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Cecil Graham. And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn't know the market price of any single thing.
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You're only young once, but you can be immature forever.
That's a favourite of mine also -- and can be attributed to Ogden Nash, I believe.
Hev
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Oh my god! Another Ogden Nash fan!
[racing, along with W'ON, to buy plane tickets to OZ -e]
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Dear hev: Documentation of your assertion.
.Aphorisms, Quotations, & Wisecracks--Aging
... of someone else and usually is.--Ogden Nash (1902-1971). ... You're only young once,
but you can be immature forever.--John Greier. ...
http://littlecalamity.tripod.com/Quotes/Aging.html
More Results From: littlecalamity.tripod.com
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How about...
"I wouldn't belong to a club that had someone like me as a member?" -Milton Berle or Groucho Marx?
Don't know how that fits in but I was feeling frisky.
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PREFACE TO THE PAST
by Ogden Nash
Time all of a sudden tightens the tether,
And the outspread years are drawn together.
How confusing the beam's from memory's lamp are;
One day a bachelor, the next a grampa.
What is the secret of the trick?
How did I get so old so quick?
Perhaps I can find by consulting the files
How step after step added up to miles.
I was sauntering along, my business minding,
When suddenly struck by affection blinding.
Which led to my being a parent nervous
Before they invented the diaper service.
I found myself in a novel pose,
Counting infant fingers and toes.
I tried to be as wise as Diogenes
In the rearing of my too little progenies,
But just as I hit upon wisdom's essence
They changed from infants to adolescents.
I stood my ground, being fairly sure
That one of these days they must mature.
So when I was properly humbled and harried,
They did mature, and immediately married.
Now I'm counting, the cycle being complete,
The toes on my children's children's feet,
Here lies my past, good-by I have kissed it;
Thank you, kids, I wouldn't have missed it.
© 1950 by Ogden Nash
Your Happy Epeolatrist!
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Max, other factors are usually more influential, and I doubt very much that the choice is made, either way, by virtue of a poem.
An W'ON, given that I became an empty-nester a few months ago, I enjoyed that poem with a particular poignancy. Thank you.
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The only part of my life I would really like to be able to live through again is the time when my kids were small.
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Dear hev: Documentation of your assertion.
Hmmm, I looked up your site Dr Bill, and it attributes the quote to John Greier, as do many other quote sites. I've bought magnets (for friends that are getting older, but not more mature  ) that have this quote attributed to Ogden Nash.
Can anyone clarify this?
Hev
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Hev, I love Nash but more importantly, was a Nash fiend for many of my formative years, and thus know his poems reasonably thoroughly. I don't recall that line from his work; of course that's not dispositive.
Other than that all I know is what I found from google, which duplicates what dr. bill found.
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I have been amazed at the depth and breadth of everyones knowledge on a vast array of subjects. . .I've been hunkering down in my read-o-tron trying my darnest to recite Chaucer from heart. So it's kosher to travel around the web to gather significant info and then relay it?
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Dear mlc: I learned your word "kosher" by asking a friend carrying a package with large black symbols I had never seen before. I asked him what the symbols meant, and he said it means the meat is Kosher. I asked him what kosher meant, and he said it meant it was meat the rabbi had pissed on.
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Wrong thread, dr. bill. That post more properly belongs in the impissataion thread.
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I wouldn't belong to a club that had someone like me as a member... -Milton Berle or Groucho Marx?
Groucho. Definitely Groucho. With a word-order twist:
"Any club that would have me as a member I wouldn't wanna join! [making-with-the-eyebrows]"
But I forget which movie.
PS. Is there a name for that gesture of raising-and-lowering-the-eyebrow(s)-two-or-three-times archly ?
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Groucho's eyelid semaphore seemed to me to mean "Am I not right?" But I can't think of a name for it.
We had a prof who looked like Groucho, and deliberately used that bon mot signal.
I took advantage of it once. In his bacteriology class, the girl in front of me would never let me look at her notes which she typed from her shorthand. But she constantly interrupted me to ask me to tell her what was in her microscope's field. One day when we were looking at preparations from our own throat cultures, she did it once too often. I took one look, and said in a congratulatory tone: "Why, Annie, you have the Mycobacterium smegmatis in your throat culture!" Just as I knew she would, she dashed up to the prof to brag about this. And just as I knew he would, he gave her his best Groucho leer, and inquired archly: "My dear young lady, are you inviting comment concerning your extra curricular activities?" (Eyebrow semaphore) His tone told her she had been had. She slunk back to her seat, and looked it up. The back of her neck got very red, and she never bothered me again. The "botanical epithet" is in every dictionary.
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[whistling-e]
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Heya, Bill,
I also did a mean thing once to someone who was bullying me.
I had just moved back to KY from AK and was starting into chemistry in the new high school. There were two football players sitting near me. One of them was a really nice guy who was also in my Latin class. The other fellow was continually ragging on the new guy. I don't know why he started in on me - maybe I was just smaller or maybe he just need to vent. But I immediately became the object of his (very poorly executed) ridicule. The fellow's last name was "Duffy," however, which inspired me to return a little of what I had been getting. I turned around so I could talk to both of them, and asked, "Duffy ... hey, is that a Latin name?"
He looked at me and then at his teammate who shrugged his shoulders. "I don't think so. Why?"
"Well ... you know ... DoofUS, DoofEE, DoofUM ..." at which point he jumped up and began chasing me around the room. Meanwhile his buddy was laughing so hard he was almost in tears.
(As I relate this story, I'm thinking it must have happened at the start of the year after I got back.)
Another cute story about the nice teammate. He and I were playing chess and I was taking just about every piece he had. He looked up reproachfully at me and said, "You know, when the masters play, they don't take all of each other's pieces!" at which point I replied "That's because when masters play, they don't givem away."
In fact, these were both pretty decent guys, though.
Thanks for bringing that back to me, Dr. Bill. Words are our friends.
k
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But I forget which movie.
Wofa, that would be the 1930 movie "Animal Crackers".
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to someone who was bullying me.
"Adversity doesn't develop character; it reveals it."
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So true about children. Their secret, I believe, is "maintaining freshness of appreciation".Kids don't pull their punches. They don't think of them as punches....They are refreshingly honest. Take my niece, who took one look at me when I came in from a walk in the wind and said, "What happened to your hair, Auntie Mary? It's a mess!" Ah, if only groanups could be so forthright without being insulting.....Perhaps, on the QT, something like, "What happened to your front tooth? It's green!" (for after eating broccoli or spinach) or "What happened to your shoe? it's sprouted toilet paper!" Or....perhaps not. 
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You're right about kids being forthright; however, I disagree strongly that they're not being insulting. (That you are mature enough not to take offense at a child's observations is good, but irrelevant.) They are not always trying to be insulting, but very often are.
All you gotta do is watch the he-said/she-said for a little while to realize that very often the kids say things that are truly mean, sometimes knowing full well that it's mean, but very often not realizing it until it's pointed out to them. Further, kids very easily get their feelings hurt. A lot of the turmoil they go through, though, is learning that "Yes, words can be hurtful. I should be careful what I say and how I say it. I know this because I've gotten my own feelings hurt and didn't like." Well, this is the theory anyway. I was always a slow learner.
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I offer without comment, just to hilight what FF says above:
"Yes, words can be hurtful. I should be careful what I say and how I say it. I know this because I've gotten my own feelings hurt and didn't like." Well, this is the theory anyway.
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As FF says, kids can make very shrewdly mocking remarks, yet be very vulnerable to them. Sometimes you get a flash of real humor from small kids. One of my cousins at about age five when I had correctd him said:" I'll cut off your head and throw it in your face!" With a grin that proved he was aware of the incongruity. One time he made palm prints in fresh paint when I was painting his father's house. When I deadpan asked him who had done it, he replied with an equally straight face: "Ella Maud Rowe did it." She was a little African-American girl. When I asked him how he knew she was the culprit, he repllied " 'Cause it was dark, and I couldn't see her."
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