Just a few tidbits collected… Return Home: www.mindspring.com/~cjamison
“The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life,
turning a man from the snares of death.”
“Facts are stupid things”
- Ronald Reagan
I heard him say this on national TV. He never corrected himself, and no one has
ever used it again. I believe he meant
to say ‘facts are stubborn things’. I
remember once Walter Mondale (or was it Jimmy Carter?) was giving a stump
speech in
“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head."”
- C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man p. 27
Remember this for homeschooling. Don’t turn kids into little cynics, but show them what is right and what is wrong. A natural consequence of this is to read the classics of literature in order to learn the basic themes of life.
Remember how bankers are taught to identify counterfeit bills: they spend lots of time handling good money, so that if a fake bill presents itself, they will know it not by its fakeness, but by its not being good.
“Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor”
- Robert Frost
“The primary difference between information and knowledge is relevance, a personal applicability that renders the … blizzard of data into infostreams that – when an individual draws unique relationships between them – become knowledge.”
From ‘Portal Knowledge’ in IntelligentKM magazine (part of Intelligent Enterprise) October 20, 2000. Written by John Harney.
The emphasis shown is my addition. The question is, how do we draw knowledge out of information?
This quote had a particular interest to me in establishing the relations between data, information, knowledge and wisdom. I have pursued this from a biblical perspective in other writings.
“Attention is the state of mind which allows us to perceive what has to be”
- Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), Composer, Conductor and Teacher
This quote hung in my cubicle at SE Technologies. Unfortunately, I cannot remember why it is significant to me! From “The Cardinal Virtues: Conversations with Nadia Boulanger” - found at http://www.sol.com.au/kor/17_02.htm
“Revenge, at first though sweet, bitter ere long back on itself recoils”
- John
Milton,
I just like the sound of it.
“All the sins we commit are assertions of the self against either God or man”
John R. W. Stott, Basic Christianity
“You will pay for the whole seat, but you will only need the edge”
Jon P. Elliot, Baan Education
The tag line on an e-mail from him inviting us to attend an on-line training workshop for Baan Enterprise Planning. This is a common cliché in the movie reviewing business.
“Success gives you the confidence to be patient with your failures”
Eric Rohmann, 2003 Caldicott medal winner
Said on an interview with NPR, Jan 27, 2003
“Nobody likes change except a wet baby”
Mark Twain
“Wine is sunlight, held together by water”
Galileo Galilei
“Work is accomplished when the pressure to get it done exceeds the pain of doing it”
This is known in the office as “Brock’s Law”
“Women bear children; men build monuments.”
Chris Jamison
…on our quest for capturing the creative force, eternity, permanence, meaning and relevancy in the universe.
9/2005: Check out http://209.239.56.130/theopenheart/springtides/menbuild.htm
Compare to Calvin Coolidge’s remarks:
"Men
build monuments above the graves of their heroes to mark the end of a great
life, but women seek out the birthplace and build their shrine, not where a
great life had its ending but where it had its beginning, seeking with a truer
instinct the common source of things not in that which is gone forever but in
that which they know will again be manifest."
The
Price of Freedom p.
18
“Time is nature’s way of preventing everything from happening all at once.”
Mark Twain
Found at a website (www.theorderoftime.com) while doing some research on the nature of time. I am trying to sort out the creation time & what a ‘day’ <yom> is. I googled on ‘the dual nature of time’ and got all sorts of interesting stuff.
“I’ve found that many people like to talk politics, but few like to listen.”
I went to a church men’s group meeting. The talk turned to politics. I just kept my mouth shut. People were talking about that which they new nothing. I wanted no part of it. Why have a discussion with someone who’s mind is closed?
“Improvise, Modify, Adapt, Overcome”
This is the motto of the Marines? It comes in several forms; sometimes only three (removing Adapt, I think); sometimes rearranged. I quote it this way from the 2003 movie “The Recruit”. Here, it is applied toward CIA agents.
“When you come to the end of the road, go straight.”
From 1988 or so – my favorite directions to someone’s farm.
“Problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness that created them.”
Albert Einstein
Attributed to Big Al in an Orion magazine article (Summer, 2002).
Think about it for a while.
“… a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.”
“… time is the only relationship between the way different things change.”
Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in
the Night-Time
This is a book about an autistic teenage boy who investigates a dog’s murder.
I’m not too sure if there may not be other things besides time: maturity, character come to mind.
“Stick to your gifts and your gifts will stick to you”
Hawkeye, in The Deerslayer, by James Fenimore Cooper
“What if you make each moment with someone feel like your first?”
Katherine Vaz, in A World Painted by Birds (short story in Green Man anthology)
What a great way to keep love fresh!
“Poetry is space interrupted by words”
Unknown, heard on ‘Cutting a Dash’ series of British radio essays on punctuation in language.
“Bullet point culture”
Unknown, but often seen in conjunction with derogatory reference to Microsoft’s PowerPoint.
“Contentment is turning your desires toward what you already have, not what you don’t”
“Stress is the gap between what we expect to happen and what is actually happening.”
Gary Smalley, in The DNA of Relationships
"Children, it is not enough to love much; you must love well. Great love is good, undoubtedly; wise love is better. May yours be as mild as it is strong; may it want nothing, not even indulgence, and may some pity be mingled with it. You are young, beautiful and good; but you are human, and, for that very reason, subject to many miseries. This is why, if some pity does not form part of the feelings you have for each other, these feelings will not be adapted to the circumstances of your common life; they will be like holiday clothes which are no protection against the wind and the rain. You only love those securely whom you love even in their weaknesses and meannesses. Mercy, forgiveness, consolation, that is love and all its science. "
Farewell Speech of King Loc, in Anatole
“The only thing worse than waiting is wishing that I had waited.”
Waiting on God is hard, sometimes. It involves faith & trust. Often the world will accuse you of inaction
and procrastination. Abraham & Sarah
knew God’s promise, but conspired to have a son through Hagar. Think now – does the nation of
“There is no justice, only mercy.”
Adrian Paul as “The Highlander” from the TV series.
It is far nobler for humans to grant mercy rather than to pursue justice (usually disguised as revenge). Justice will be done in this life or the next, regardless of our input.
“It is mine to avenge; I will repay.” says the LORD. Deuteronomy 32:35
3/12/2007 addition: And in James 2:13: “…because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!” (NIV)
“We ask for help when the pain of not knowing exceeds the fear of admitting it.”
Chris Jamison, 7/2006
“Jamison’s Law” – in a nod to Brock’s Law (and Celebrate Recovery’s step one).
“To get back one’s youth one has merely to repeat one’s follies.”
“Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect: simply a confession of failure.”
“There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.”
Quotes from Lord Henry
“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.”
Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Love, in ignorance, squanders what love informed crowds and overfills with tokens of eternity.”
Brother Cadfael in Ellis Peters’ An Excellent
Mystery
Sadly, how true.
“But a certain sign of grace is this:
From the broken earth flowers come up
Pushing through the dirt”
David Crowder Band, “Wholly Yours” from A Collision.
“Curiosity flourishes only when the outcome of experience is in question.”
Robert Michael Pyle, in “The Great Indoors”, an article for “The Tangled Bank” column in Orion magazine (Nov-Dec, 2006)
“I could get a lot done if I didn’t have so much to do.”
Chris Jamison, 2007
“The measure of any knowledge system is not how well it can store data, but how well that information can be retrieved.”
Chris Jamison, January 30, 2007
“Being is the essence of acceptance”
Dr. Robert Roney, February 5, 2007
Accepting ourselves as God made us is sometimes difficult. I do what I know is wrong, and pursue a life more like Christ. The tension between what I think and what I do is very stressful for me. I have great difficulty accepting the situation as it is. This quote was very helpful for me. Being, I can handle, as a first step of accepting the flawed person I am. Thanks, Bob!
“You will not think clearly about your life until you think mythically; until you see with the eyes of your heart.”
John Eldredge, Waking the Dead
I am very much drawn to Mythology, and the idea that I’m meant for ‘something better’. Eldredge affirms this as a valid belief we all should share. And I very much like that he doesn’t shy away from speaking about myth and biblical truth in the same sentence, without lowering the bible to human standards, or dismissing mythology as misguided human attempts to understand God.
“A personal walk with God comes to us through Wisdom and Revelation.”
Eldredge then references Proverbs 1:32-33 and 2:9-11.
“Community cannot survive without solitude.”
John Eldredge, Waking the Dead
Small intimate communities are where the church
lives. This is the
“There is an adventure awaiting a surrendered life.”
Pastor Drew Grubbs, 3/25/7 (during his Sunday message on an obedient heart)
“That which a woman most desires… is to have her will.”
Answer to the Enchanter-Knight’s riddle in Howard Pyle’s The Story of King Arthur and His Knights.
“You can only rationalize with rational human beings.”
David Rosenberg, 5/1/07
“Some people will give you directions. Others simply tell you where to go.”
Chris Jamison, 6/24/7
“If God’s timing is perfect, and if timing is the key to Comedy, does that make God the ultimate comedian?”
Chris Jamison, 6/23/7
“All human beings should try and learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.”
James Thurber
Chapter heading in Holly Black’s Valiant; heard 7/12/2007
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
Philip K. Dick
Chapter heading in Holly Black’s Valiant; heard 7/12/2007
“Guns represent a combination of finality and irresponsibility that makes me extremely nervous.”
Chris Jamison, 8/1/2007
“Bitterness is a poison you drink and hope the other person dies.”
Heard first person, attributed to Anonymous (paraphrased by me), 8/8/2007
8/16/07: Here’s a cool God thing (a godincidence):
Last night I picked up a book I hadn’t read in nearly nine months. I continued on at the chapter head and finished it. I glanced ahead to the next chapter, and saw this quote:
“Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
- Malachy McCourt
“Courage is acting in accordance with your heart, when your heart says ‘this is the right thing to do’, but your gut says ‘don’t do it!’”
Chris Jamison, 8/26/07
“Cookies as big as your head”
That's a nice image.
Thanks for visiting! New: fear and joy. Also, my memory verses
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Copyright 2005-2007 Chris Jamison.
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