Absolutely The Last Post Until August 15

It seems, in deleting my post last week, I created a "Not Found" link in many sites that connect to "A Robert Brault Reader." Rather than have that sit around for six weeks, I thought I'd post a new current link. Some of the following are from the old post; some new. My thanks to Sue and Ken for their comments on my deleted post; I just felt that a few of the thoughts were below standard. Cheers to all.




For a parent, there is no scientific theory of the universe that sufficiently answers the question: "Who entrusted to me this child?"



"Now and then it's good to list all the things you regularly do for which there used to be a good reason."



"There comes a morning in life when you wake up a new person; that is to say, you wake up the same person but you realize it's nobody's fault but your own."



"In the end it comes down to whether those who are willing to die for liberty are all dead."



Perhaps there should be one day a week when you tackle your "Things I Gotta Undo" list.



"If I have a regret in life, it's that I lost my childhood view of the world only because I wasn't smart enough at the time to argue for my position."



Occasionally ask, "What do I believe that gives me no advantage over anyone?"



"In your own eyes, do justice, and let others determine if it be charity."



"To deny any truth is to begin a chain of denial that must eventually deny every truth there is."



"Perhaps God made the elephant to prove that a vegetarian can rule its habitat."



" If you will focus not on what you are but on what you might become, the first thing you will find yourself doing is changing your politics."



~~ Robert Brault

This, That and a Grammar Lesson

"We happily accumulate possessions and happily give them away. It is only possessing them that gives no happiness."



"It is not that the honest pursuit of one's selfish interests cannot be a social good. It is that if one is selfish, why would one be honest?"



"According to science, the universe began as a swirl of gas that, as it cooled, spun off the Ten Commandments."



"As an experiment, I have trapped some cooling gas in a bottle, and I'm waiting to see if a universe develops."



"We look at the smiling faces in an old family photo, and we think how happily innocent we were, which is exactly what those smiling faces wanted us to think."



"There is no expert on what happiness is but many on what it might have been."



God sends the dawn
that we might see
the might-have-beens
that still might be.



"If the light goes out when you close a refrigerator door, do the smiles vanish when you close a family photo album?"



"Observing your child at make-believe, you realize that the most underrated of family values is its entertainment value."



"As parents, we guide by our unspoken example. It is only when we're talking to them that our kids aren't listening."



"The clash between child and adult is never so stubborn as when the child within us confronts the adult in our child."



"There is a moment between child and parent when the child first realizes that someday this person is going to need serious help."




Grammar Anyone?

If you say "hone in" instead of "home in," have you ever seen a honing pigeon?


If you say "different than" instead of "different from," do you think a horse differs than a pig?


If you say, "between you and I" instead of "between you and me," do you say "between you, I and the fencepost?"


~~ Robert Brault

Five From The Fairway (Plus Bonuses)

I missed a few putts yesterday while thinking these up, so I hope you like. If it seems that I am posting every Wednesday, it's beginning to seem that way to me, too.



"Once in a while it's good to retrace our footsteps, just to remind ourselves that they are all our own."



"To have a child is to know that of all the lives you might have lived, only one was ever really possible."



"Our destiny hides among our free choices, disguised as the free-est of all."



"It is a common fancy that we have the children of our destiny with the partner of our choice."



"Between destiny and free will, there's enough to ponder without wondering where our parents figured in."



Plus Bonuses...



"Know thyself" said the ancient Greeks, not necessarily ruling out a second opinion.



"It was perhaps after viewing an action adventure that God, in His mercy, decided to make life a mystery."



"Man is the only animal who believes that there is a list of exquisite tortures that other animals like having done to them."



"Whenever you hear talk of the betterment of a species, you know that the individual specimens of that species are in for hell."



~~ Robert Brault

Thoughts From The Microwave

Here's ten from my mental microwave, each having had a minute or so on HALF-BAKE.



"A people conditioned to believe what is false will believe most firmly what is most demonstrably false."



"An optimist is someone who figures that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's the bluebird of happiness."



"One must look hard through history to find when a clear understanding of the truth moved anyone to fire the first shot."



"Cherish the friend who tells you a harsh truth, wanting ten times more to tell you a loving lie."



"When you are through proving a truth, let me have the evidence, and I will prove a perfect illusion."



"Without faith there is no truth, for that is all that truth is."



"You wonder if computer-animated figures go to bed each night pondering the meaning of animation."



"We know we are 5000 years into recorded history. We just don't know whether this is the first time through."



"I guess my favorite Japanese film is "Night of the Zombies," where Tokyo is taken over by an army of walking cremation urns."



Just released for the kiddies is a new video chess game that answers the age-old question, "What happens if the checkmated king is armed with an AK47?"



~~ Robert Brault

Ten For The Road

"Sometimes it is the person closest to us who must travel the furthest distance to be our friend."


"If you have a mom, there is nowhere you are likely to go where a prayer has not already been."


"Sometimes, I believe, we are allowed to get lost that we may find the right person to ask directions of."


"There comes a time in life when you realize that if they will start without you, you don't have to go. "


"Worse than breaking a promise is spending the rest of our lives staying true to a broken promise."


"No matter how mourned your death, there will be a gathering after the funeral where the chief topic of conversation is how good the squash casserole is."


"In people who change the world there is a calm that is the storm."


"There is scarcely one of the Ten Commandments that if acted upon in concert would not be a plot to overthrow the government."


"It takes a while, but eventually we realize that the people who were always there for the special occasions of our childhood had other things to do."


"Thinking that a new government is the answer is like thinking that the road would be safer if there were a new troll under the bridge."


~~ Robert Brault

A Parting Thought

"The aphorist sees in every truth a wise saying, and in every contradiction, two wise sayings."



And with that, I say "till next time" with the intent of taking a long break. Yes, this is the fourth or fifth time I've posted such an intent, so we'll see where it goes. I expect to resume posting on August 15. Because my wish is to take a complete vacation from the blog, I've turned off the comments button. Anyone needing to contact me, for permissions and such, may feel free to use my email.


My appreciation to all and best wishes for a great summer,

rb

Thoughts About Cats 'n' Grammar, Kids and More

One my new followers, KnightOwl, has a site called Cats World, so I thought I'd toss in a few cat quotes, old and new.

"Today is shaping up as a good day with my pets. My dog came running to greet me, and I have a 2:30 appointment with my cat."

"If you could combine a cat and a dog, you'd have man's best accomplice."

"In a world of doors, the inability to open a door can be mistaken for a desire to lie under the dining room table."

"I enjoy many silent moments with my cat, a conversation always resumed exactly where left off."

"At the family's insistence, Aunt Viv consulted a psychoanalyst, who tells her that her need to own ten cats is really a sublimated desire to own twenty cats."

And a thought on animals, generally...

"Do animals ever question their Maker? Perhaps not, and yet... there is this howling at the moon."

Here's one for Maureen, a retired English teacher who stopped by the other day.

"Grammar is not about nouns, verbs and adjectives, any more than history is about names, dates and places. Grammar is about tense, mood and voice, just as history is about trend, climax and change."

A couple on parenting and kids...

"What first-time parents soon realize is that the maternity ward was working on three shifts."

"A mom reads you like a book, and wherever she goes, people read you like a glowing book review."

And a few miscellaneous maunderings...

"My quest for cosmic understanding is a book I have picked up and put down many times, each time failing to insert a bookmark."

"Life is a series of stages, each preparation for the previous."

"Eventually, every politician comes to believe that you need not legislate action; you can just pass a law mandating the consequences."

"Word from Washington is that the President remains open to new ideas, although he has completed his memoirs through 2016."

"I look at it this way. I'm not an eavesdropper; I have an attention surplus disorder."

~~ Robert Brault