“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” - Mark Twain and other Witty Quotes

I love a good quote. I hope you enjoy this eclectic collection.

“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”
- Tom Clancy (1947-), paraphrasing Mark Twain

“Happiness is good health and a bad memory.”
- Ingrid Bergman

“Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.”
- Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower, Chessmaster

“A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.” - Frank Lloyd Wright

“Wit is educated insolence.” - Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

“Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’.” - Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

“Destiny is not a matter of change, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” - William Jennings Bryan

“If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Never forget that it is the spirit with which you endow your work that makes it useful or futile.”
- Adelaide Hasse

“All for one; one for all.”
- Alexander Dumas (1824-1895)

“If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.”
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth

“The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”
- Albert Einstein

“Its not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog.”
- Mark Twain

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”
- Edward Abbey (1927-1989)

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
- Napoleon Bonaparte

“After I’m dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.”
- Cato the Elder (234-149 BC, AKA Marcus Porcius Cato)

“When a man is wrapped up in himself he makes a pretty small package.”
- John Ruskin

“They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist–”
- General John Sedgwick (1813-1864), last words

“I don’t feel good.”
- Luther Burbank (1849-1926), last words

“Ask her to wait a moment – I am almost done.”
- Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), when informed that his wife was dying

“99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.”
- Unknown

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, prepare to die.”
- Klingon Proverb, Star Trek

“The greatest strength is gentleness.”
- Iroquois Proverb

“Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.”
- Proverb

“If you lose your temper, you’ve lost the argument.”
- Proverb

“Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”
- Chinese Proverb

“I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
- Thomas Edison (1874-1931)

“All science is either physics or stamp collecting.”
- Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)

“The only possible conclusion the social sciences can draw is: some do, some don’t.”
- Ernest Rutherford

“A witty saying proves nothing.”
- Voltaire (1694-1778)  *To this I would argue ‘that may be, Voltaire, but it makes life a darn site more entertaining.’

“I would like to be able to admire a man’s opinions as I would his dog – without being expected to take it home with me.”- Frank A. Clark

“As I get older I notice the years less and the seasons more.”
- John Hubbard

***These quotes are from an excellent site: http://www.tk421.net/quotes/

***All royalty free images

A Gardener is An Eternal Optimist

'Gardening is not a rational act.' ~Margaret Atwood

Given our most trying weather of late, I agree with that sentiment, but will never give up. I just reassess. The picture of me on the right of this blog was taken beneath our lovely apricot tree that fell during last week’s fierce windstorm. Many trees and plants went down in that blast. Next spring a new apricot will go into the ground.

It is ever my wish to have a garden like Mr. McGregor‘s, but I must remember that his was in England and did not undergo the brutal trials that have beset  mine. Weather in the Shenandoah Valley swings between the extremes of north and south in the most erratic manner, and is very hard on plants.  Try as I might, only the strong survive.  And sometimes, not even them.

Most of you know me as a writer, and so I am, but I’m a gardener first. My thoughts ever turn to how the plants fare and I grieve when they suffer. Every spring I truly believe this year I will triumph, this year I will not be undone by the vagaries of nature, and each year I have my moments of glory and disappointment. But there’s always next season. And I still hold out hope for a splendid fall. For now, I’m salvaging what  I can.

‘A garden must combine the poetic and the mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy.’  ~Luis Barragan

‘A good garden may have some weeds.’ ~Thomas Fuller

‘A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.’ ~D. Elton Trueblood

’A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.’ ~Doug Larson

‘All gardening is landscape painting.’ ~William Kent

‘But if each man could have his own house, a large garden to cultivate and healthy surroundings – then, I thought, there will be for them a better opportunity of a happy family life.’ ~George Cadbury

‘Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.’ ~Luther Burbank

‘Garden as though you will live forever.’ ~William Kent

‘God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.’~Francis Bacon

***Pre-storm photographs taken by my daughter Elise