Things that Bansai left for us

[Toeprint]

"Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race. "
— Henry Miller

maradnu
March 2, 2009, 1:03 am
What about a person with a bellyful of Miller?
bansaisequoia
September 19, 2009, 10:58 pm
What about a person with a bellyful of Heineken?

[Toeprint]

"One must care about a world one will not see. "
— Bertrand Russell

bansaisequoia
August 27, 2009, 8:13 pm
Fight global warming for your grandchildren.

[Toeprint]

"It is a man's world, and you men can have it. "
— Katherine Anne Porter

bansaisequoia
June 22, 2009, 9:24 pm
Of course, her only novel is entitled, "Ship of Fools"!

[Toeprint]

"I do not like poems that resemble hay compressed into a geometrically perfect cube."
— Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko

bansaisequoia
May 5, 2010, 12:08 am
He wrote the text that was used in Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony #13, "Babi Yar."

[Toeprint]

"Even though a number of people have tried, no one has yet found a way to drink for a living."
— Jean Kerr

bansaisequoia
July 6, 2009, 10:42 pm
What about Ernest Hemingway and Charles Bukowski?

[Toeprint]

"You are a child of the Universe, no less than the moon and the stars, you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should."
— Max Ehrmann

JCarlosCuevas
May 14, 2010, 4:20 am
Part of a prose poem entitled "Desiderata".
bansaisequoia
May 21, 2010, 8:53 pm
"...no less than the trees and the stars..." "Moon" is incorrect. I keep seeing "trees," whether it is attributed to Max Ehrmann, or to the 1970s Les Crane song lyrics.
fishbum
March 17, 2011, 12:21 am
It is my understanding that "Desiderata" is unattributed. Found in an old church in Boston.
bansaisequoia
July 22, 2011, 4:44 pm
Au contraire. It was erroneously thought to have originated in a Baltimore, Maryland church in 1692. It was actually written in 1927 by Max Ehrmann. (link)

[Toeprint]

"I happen to feel that the degree of a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic."
— Lisa Alther

Barnabas
April 18, 2011, 6:35 pm
Aunt Clara (Bewitched) must have been a genius, then.
bansaisequoia
August 14, 2011, 8:09 pm
As well as Mr Kimball of Green Acres.

[Toeprint]

"Every game ever invented by mankind is a way of making things hard for the fun of it."
— John Anthony Ciardi

bansaisequoia
May 18, 2010, 4:54 pm
Even Go Fish and War?

[Toeprint]

"The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth."
— Mary McLeod Bethune

chipmunkcheeks
October 3, 2010, 3:29 am
Is Mary McLeod Bethune from Africa. Bansaisequoia you set the record of almost eery cryptogram.
bansaisequoia
January 8, 2012, 7:50 pm
Some of the cryptos I solve are eery. (link)

[Toeprint]

"A wise man first thinks and then speaks and a fool speaks first and then thinks."
— Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib

bansaisequoia
February 5, 2011, 12:44 pm
That sounds like it came off the top of your head.

[Toeprint]

"Only in solitude do we find ourselves, and in finding ourselves, we find in ourselves all our brothers in solitude."
— Miguel de Unamuno

bansaisequoia
July 13, 2010, 8:06 pm
Miguel de Unamuno

[Toeprint]

"I like liquor - its taste and its effects - and that is just the reason why I never drink it."
— Thomas Jackson

bansaisequoia
May 11, 2011, 2:21 am
I find this to be specious reasoning.

[Toeprint]

"I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all. "
— Somerset Maugham

LiveLoveLaugh
May 15, 2010, 8:13 pm
Phone books work in a pinch
beckylou
January 31, 2012, 3:13 pm
Cereal boxes too.
bansaisequoia
May 17, 2012, 3:51 am
Have you ever noticed shampoos frequently contain ammonium lauryl sulfate and methylisothiazolinone?
montyb
November 29, 2014, 6:23 pm
I like to read tee shirts. And yes Bansai, I did. Even most dog shampoos contain those chemicals.
Highpoint
March 4, 2015, 12:01 pm
Yep, kindred spirits recognize each other immediately. The time I spent in the Army was doubly miserable because of the lack of reading material. We were not permitted newspapers, magazines, or books. We had no TV or radio. I had no idea what was going on in the world. I found myself reading bulletin board notices and laundry instructions just to keep my mind awake. I'm convinced that part of my intellectual capacity was irrevocably damaged from the military experience.
marnita
June 24, 2015, 6:52 am
Is this still true in the military?
wvwoman
December 4, 2015, 6:54 am
when was this, highpoint?
abra
March 21, 2016, 8:19 am
I wonder when too, or maybe it was the "where". My husband was in the military for about 21 years. He never had these restrictions. It must be a "when" or a "where". I think all readers HAVE to read. Watch children, when they've just learned to read. It's amazing how quickly, they start reading the cereal box. I wonder what the illiterate do instead. There must be something.
SwampySox
June 5, 2016, 4:17 pm
We buy the CD.
Persephone59
August 25, 2017, 10:42 pm
I'm not Jewish, but reading labels led me to switch to kosher light sour cream. It only has two ingredients. And yes, I too have read the shampoo labels in the shower.
Highpoint
May 9, 2018, 12:31 pm
wvwoman, from 1967-1971. I was in Army Security Agency and stationed in Turkey and later Thailand. There was a belief that the SDS and other left wing organizations were infiltrating the military to spy on us and to foment dissatisfaction among the ranks. That was a rather dubious possibility, but, the officers and NCO's believed it. There was no way to acquire magazines, newspapers, or books where I was stationed, and our lockers were regularly searched for contraband (drugs, weapons, reading material). We were allowed one item of a religious nature. One guy had his Greek Orthodox bible confiscated because the officer who spotted it thought it was written in Russian and went berserk (the Russian Cyrillic alphabet is based upon the Greek alphabet and they are somewhat similar.) Our mail was read and censored by an officer (we were dealing in classified material and this was supposedly to prevent us from revealing something secret.) The reason for confiscating incoming books or magazines was to prevent us from being radicalized. How Sports Illustrated or Playboy was supposed to do that was beyond me. But, I was just an E-4 and did not understand the big picture.

[Toeprint]

"You think America is the biggest place on Earth, but it's not. The view from Mir put everything in perspective."
— Shannon Lucid

datagawa
August 24, 2010, 1:27 pm
I've thought about building a small orbital shuttle and going up one day, but my differential geometry is somewhat shaky.
bansaisequoia
August 14, 2012, 7:20 pm
I've been working on using my psi powers to teleport myself into orbit, and then using trascendental meditation techniques to alter my metabolism to endure the cold and vacuum of space. No luck so far.
skoogie2
August 5, 2013, 4:57 pm
Okay, it's a year later, did it work yet?
JenDiaz72
January 2, 2015, 10:22 am
Ha Ha Ha... obviously not...

[Toeprint]

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money. "
— Samuel Johnson

bonsaisequoia
November 28, 2009, 5:23 am
(link) (Note: Original link is dead, visit https://web.archive.org/web/20101211...ublockhead.jpg instead.)