The LaughingMaus

Ennet House was not only founded but originally renovated, furnished, and decorated by the nameless local AA ex-con, who -- since sobriety doesn't exactly mean instant sainthood -- used to lead teams of early-recovery dope fiends on after-hours boosting expeditions at area furniture and housewares establishments.

By way of Whiskey River

We are the echo of the future

On the door it says what to do to survive
But we were not born to survive
Only to live

- W.S. Merwin
from his poem The River of Bees

"Each man's life represents a road towards himself, an attempt at such a road, the intimidation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that - one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best as he can."

- Hermann Hesse (Demian)

And this is all I could achieve in a prince's court. For either I would think different thoughts from the rest, and that would be as if I had no thoughts, or else I would agree with them and thus (as Terence's Mitio says) be an accessory to their madness. I do not understand what you mean by saying that a man should guide policy indirectly and strive to make the best of things, so that what is bad will at least be made as good as possible. In councils there is no place for silent and unwilling acquiescence. A man must openly approve of the worst plans and the most pernicious resolutions. One would pass for a spy or even a traitor, if he approved of such plans ony grudgingly. A man has no chance to do good when his colleagues are more likely to corrupt the best of men than be corrected themselves. He will either be corrupted himself by his collegues, or if he remains sound and innocent, he will be blamed for the folly and knavery of others. He is far from being able to mend matters by guiding policy indirectly!

-- Thomas More (Utopia)

While surfing around this morning I wound up at the Freakonomics blog where someone is asking for modern proverbs for a book he is writing. This one was new to me.

“We have a wonderful arrangement. I do her sums, and she gives me cookies.”

— Albert Einstein when asked if an 8 year-old neighbor bothered him.

I ask you all honestly, would mauses share their cookies for better math scores?

The local Maus Pack is undecided. Some say: “Cookies for improved numbers? Better to have improved numbers of cookies.”

While others sit around nodding thier heads and saying: “Thanks to the rise of the internet, the cookies for equations exchange rate has improved to the point that this arrangement could be good for everyone.”

Though, most of them agree: “Cookies make the world go round.” Ahem.

When you have found your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall."

— C.S. Lewis

Remember that foul words or blows in themselves are no outrage, but your judgment that they are so. So when any one makes you angry, know that it is your own thought that has angered you. Wherefore make it your endeavor not to let your impressions carry you away.

—Epictetus

"Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being, between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from the world nor from other men, nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality."

-- Thomas Merton