Just because nobody complains doesn’t mean all parachutes are perfect.
[Benny Hill]
Category Archives: quotes
Quotes of the Week
Another in our occasional series of quotations encountered during he week which have struck me.
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy: They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
[Marcel Proust]A mind committed to compassion is like an overflowing reservoir – a constant source of energy, determination and kindness. This mind can also be likened to a seed; when cultivated, it gives rise to many other qualities, such as forgiveness, tolerance, inner strength, and the confidence to overcome fear and insecurity.
[Dalai Lama]Put three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space is with stars.
[Sir James Jeans]How much does it cost in pesetas to do something else?
[Antonia Cornwell]
Quotes of the Week
Another in our occasional series of quotations encountered during he week which have struck me: because of their zen-ness, their humour, or their verisimilitude.
Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting and … ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to “walk about” into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?
[Wassily Kandinsky, 1910]The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it’s only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.
[Chuck Palahniuk]It doesn’t matter what you’ve got in your pants if there’s nothing in your brain to connect it to.
Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
… the result of some wobbly high-heel work at a drink addled giggle-fest.
[Alison Cross]
Back Numbers
As hinted a couple of days ago I’ve now retrieved and reformatted the posts from the first incarnations of this weblog. Well almost all. What I found the other day was everything pre-March 2005, so there was a gap which I had not realised. I have today found another file containing a further 79 posts from 2006.
However I am still missing a minimum of 20 posts from 2006 which were on a Yahoo!-based system and which I cannot now locate.
Adding that lot (and the posts of the last couple of days) to my previous totals gives me a grand total of 1117 posts, with 983 of those being specifically to this Zen Mischief weblog.
If anyone really wants to read all this old tripe you can find it in two PDF files:
But be warned: there are almost 70 pages of it!
Quote: Belief
Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
[Douglas Adams]
Milestones Passed in the Dark
Last night I had a realisation, the way one does, that I must have written quite a few blog posts. But how many? Having awoken at stupid o’clock this morning I figured I’d use the time to try to work it out. Could I even do it? This weblog has been through at least three different incarnations and the old blogs are no longer online.
Wait! I have backups. Do I still have the old files? No, not on my current PC: well I did trash a lot of old data when I migrated to this machine recently. So let’s search the archive disks … and … Lo! we do have the old files, saved in an archive of my PC three before last. (How sad is that?!) So I was able to do a count …
“I don’t believe it!” If I go back to when I started blogging in January 2004 I reckon I’ve written 879 Zen Mischief weblog posts (this will be number 880). And we can add to this another 134 for the Anthony Powell Society. That’s a total of 1013 in 6½ years, or three a week. Not prolific by many blogger’s standards, but prolific enough for me, especially when you add in almost 2000 photos (and that’s just the edited ones!) posted on Flickr since February 2006.
While not everything I write is wholly original (whose writing is?) I’ve covered everything from beer, by way of diversions into naturism, science and Bagpuss, to zen. Hmmm … not bad!
Quotes of the Week
Another in our occasional series of quotations encountered during he week which have struck me: because of their zen-ness, their humour, or their verisimilitude.
Although the world’s religions may differ fundamentally from one other in their metaphysical views, when it comes to their teachings on the actual practice of ethics, there is great convergence. All the faith traditions emphasize a virtuous way of being, the purification of the mind from negative thoughts and impulses, the doing of good deeds, and living a meaningful life.
[Dalai Lama]Don’t forget those irregular verbs like hoggo, piggeri, swini, gruntum.
[pmh {at} cix]Sex and money: the forked root of evil
[Ross Macdonald, The Drowning Pool]Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
[Tom Robbins]Girls are like pianos. When they’re not upright, they’re grand.
[Benny Hill]
Whatever Next?
I went past a building today. When I was a kid it would have been called St Bloggs’ Junior School. Today it is called St Bloggs Children’s Centre. Hmmm ….
Quote: Infinity
To infinity and beyond
[Buzz Lightyear in Toystory]
Quote: Furry Animals
I like small furry animals – as long as they’re tasty
[Lisa Jardine]