WARREN BUFFET ON FRAUD February 27, 2009
Posted by thenaturalist in Interesting, Wealth.add a comment
In commenting on Bernard Madoff and the crash, Warren Buffet said, “You only learn who’s been swimming naked when the tide goes out.”
HUMAN BODY December 10, 2008
Posted by thenaturalist in Age, Interesting.add a comment
In an interview on the subject of his 2008 book, The Way We Work, David Macaulay said, “A sense of your own mortality is a pretty strong motivator to find out what’s happening to this machine, and how it’s losing a little bit of its amazing ability to take care of itself.”
EZRA POUND ON MUSIC, POETRY, AND DANCE November 3, 2008
Posted by thenaturalist in Ezra Pound, Interesting, Poetry, Rhythm/Rhythms.add a comment
Ezra Pound offers an interesting theory on the relationship of poetry to music and dance: “Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance… poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.”
GRANDMA MOSES October 14, 2008
Posted by thenaturalist in Interesting.add a comment
Grandma Moses, who certainly made an interesting life for herself, said “Life is what we make it — always has been, always will be.”
SHAKESPEARE AND MUSIC August 25, 2008
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In reviewing a musical event involving Shakespearean themes, Alex Ross of the New Yorker says, “When composers have tried to set Shakespeare [to music], they have run up against the problem that his verse creates music in the mind, next to which even the most inspired efforts may be found wanting.” Maybe that’s why I can still hear the rhythms if not the exact words of the famous Shakespearean passages I had to memorize a long time ago.
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTIONS May 24, 2008
Posted by thenaturalist in Curiosity, Interesting, Nature/Natural History.add a comment
In his 2007 book Curiosity and Enlightenment: Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century, Arthur MacGregor quotes 17th century philosopher and statesman, Francis Bacon, as saying that a proper collection was “a model of universal nature, made private.” MacGregor, who is a curator at the Ashmolean Museum in England, shows that the “purposeful collecting” of Western European collectors embodied nothing less than revolutionary thought on cosmology and nature.
THOREAU ON WRITING IN THE DARK March 21, 2008
Posted by thenaturalist in Interesting, Thoreau, Writing.add a comment
Henry David Thoreau had some interesting habits. He once explained, “I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.”
LINUS PAULING ON GOOD IDEAS July 15, 2007
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Two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling once said that the best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
VERMONT’S VIRTUES June 14, 2007
Posted by thenaturalist in Interesting, Vermont/Vermonters.add a comment
When Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute visited the University of Vermont in June 2007, someone asked him what about Vermont could make it an environmental leader. He said, “It’s small enough to work and big enough to matter.” Nice way to think about Vermont.
CARY GRANT ON STYLE AND SUCCESS June 10, 2007
Posted by thenaturalist in Interesting, Success.add a comment
Cary Grant once explained his style and success by saying, “I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be, and I finally became that person.” Not a bad strategy in Cary Grant’s case.
