Never allow what you cannot do to control what you can do.”
— Rabbi Avi Weiss
Tag: …wow.
I mean “wow.” Just … wow.
I believe life’s a mystery; a sacred one. As for faith, that’s a personal and private thing…”
– John Walton Sr.
Blades Runner
THIS IS THE TALE OF a third-degree separation from two of the most prestigious knifemakers in Europe. In addition to regular sharpening and honing, home cooks are supposed to have their knives professionally sharpened once yearly. Thus, one recent Friday,…
Private Fame
TO AN AMATEUR SKYWATCHER (in the original sense of that first word), the beginning of the month is quite special; it’s when the new issue of Astronomy arrives. Among that magazine’s many excellent features and fixtures is “Ask Astro,” where…
The Spiritual Seeker’s Ponder
“DO YOU WANT ANSWERS? Or better, more interesting questions?”
Birds of a Feather
THE SMALL BOY AT SONOMA Plaza came running up to the ducks. Great, I snarled to myself. Just what we need — another damn kid chasing the local waterfowl. Why can’t they leave the birds in peace? As I considered…
The Writer’s Vital Question:
“WHAT’S THE MOST ENTERTAINING THING I can do for the reader next?“
… [T]here is no need for you to go a-begging for aphorisms from philosophers, precepts from Holy Scripture, fables from poets, speeches from orators, or miracles from saints; but merely to take care that your style and diction run musically, pleasantly, and plainly, with clear, proper, and well-placed words, setting forth your purpose to the best of your power and as well as possible, and putting your ideas intelligibly, without confusion or obscurity. Strive, too, that in reading your story the melancholy may be moved to laughter, and the merry made merrier still; that the simple shall not be wearied, that the judicious shall admire the invention, that the grave shall not despise it, nor the wise fail to praise it. … [I]f you succeed in this you will have achieved no small success.”
— Miguel de Cervantes (from the Prologue to Don Quixote)
Blaming others is the suicide of [national] liberty.”
— R’ Jonathan Sacks, zt”l (from https://aish.com/302413231/)
Be not ashamed to learn truth from any source.”
— Rabbi Shlomo ibn Gabirol (1021-1058)
IF YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN IT simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
— Albert Einstein
THE AX EXISTED FOR 1.4 million years before anyone thought to put a handle on it.”
— James Williams