Ten Thoughts in No Particular Order

"The trouble with having a stubbornness contest with your kids is that they have your stubbornness gene."


"The verdict is still out on my life, the judge having not yet instructed the jury, both of whom are me."


"The thing about a friendly smile is not just that it makes people like you but that it makes them like themselves."


"Be of cheerful countenance, and the first thing you will notice is that people approaching you on the street are smiling."


"I nod to a passing stranger, and the stranger nods back, and two human beings go off, feeling a little less anonymous."


"If you smile at me, I will think of ten good things you might have heard about me -- and spend the rest of my day happily trying to decide which it is."


"All parties are masquerade parties. Even "Come as you are" is an invitation to come in casual disguise."


"About the only thing I believed at 25 that I didn't still believe at 40 was that it was too late to start law school."


"The older you get, the fewer things it seems too late to do."


"Science can reconstruct Tyrannosaurus Rex from a fossilized bone and a fancied footprint, but it can't reconstruct God from the whole of creation."


~ Robert Brault

More Thoughts on This and That

Thoughts on Angels and Demons

"Yes, I believe in guardian angels, because otherwise I must believe that life is a string of death-defying miracles -- and I don't believe in miracles."

"Why should I not believe that there are angels when I know for a fact that there are demons?"



Thoughts on Parenting and Choice

"As parents we do not awaken each day to an array of choices. We awaken to a clear duty born of the choice we have made. And to what have we sacrificed our freedom? To the life we wish to live and to the people we wish to live it with."

"Those who avoid the tough choices of life live a life they never chose."

"We structure our lives to keep open our choices and so become enslaved to our freedom. To live the life of one's choice, one must choose."

"I have made my choices in life. I carry them as snapshots in my wallet."

"We complain of having our love taken for granted, until the day it is not, and then we realize that there is nothing we want so much."

"There have been days when I sought respite from my life, only to find myself calling every hour to check on it."

"If life is theater, then parenting is improv."



Thoughts on Politicians

"The chief merit of the U.S. Congress is that it keeps 535 of the country's most advanced cases of megalomania under close observation."

"Built into the human DNA is the double helix, or as observed in the human politician, the double cross."



Thoughts on Language and Liberty

"The French deem themselves a superior race based chiefly on their ability to speak superior French."

"More than any other language, English is the language of constitutional democracy. The American democracy, for one, is framed in a language so exquisitely precise that it cannot be said to exist apart from its language. Given this history, English-speaking people may be forgiven for insisting upon the exclusive use of their language in their public discourse."

"If a language is corruptible, then a constitution written in that language is corruptible."

"Grammar is not a set of arbitrary rules; it is a compact between people who wish to understand each other."

"If I flout the rules of grammar, why should you expect me to honor any other social contract?"

"Do not be surprised when those who ignore the rules of grammar also ignore the law. After all, the law is just so much grammar."

~ Robert Brault

Thoughts in a Garden

"Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again. "

~ Chance the Gardener (Peter Sellers in "Being There")

I cannot hope to match the wisdom of Chance the Gardener, but here nevertheless are a few thoughts:

"I sit in my garden, gazing upon a beauty that cannot gaze upon itself. And I find sufficient purpose for my day."

"A garden never disappoints, but it can be disappointed -- and does not hide its disappointment."

"Does a rose exist that I might behold it? Or do I exist that a rose might be beheld?"

"I cultivate my garden, and my garden cultivates me."

"There are years when my garden lives up to plan, and I behold a miracle. In other years I would settle for anything resembling a floral pattern."

"Spade and hoe in hand, I am summoned into my garden by the morning sun, an acolyte to its altar of worship."

"It pleases me to take amateur photographs of my garden, and it pleases my garden to make my photographs look professional."

Overnight it rained, and the wind switched into the west, and this morning my garden is fresh in the sun, and its scent wafts through my window. But if I sit in my garden, who will keep my appointment in town? But if I don't, who will sit in my garden?

~ Robert Brault

A Few Bonus Thoughts

"First God created time; then God created man that man might, in the course of time, perfect himself; then God decided that He'd better create eternity."


"Our most difficult task as a friend is to offer understanding when we don't understand."


"At some point in parenting, you realize you have accomplished something wildly beyond your capability."


"Politicians don't lie, they misspeak. And they don't steal, they mispocket."


" Life is not about discovering our talents; it is about pushing our talents to the limit and discovering our genius."


"How often in life we complete a task that was beyond the capability of the person we were when we started it."



Today's Multiple Choice Thought

There is no place where a loving touch so completely compensates for an unskilled hand as in:

a. the bedroom
b. the nursery
c. the garden
d. all of the above.


~ Robert Brault

Thoughts of a Miscellaneous Mind

(Note: I have deleted the post "Thoughts From Deep in the Well." This post contains several of the same thoughts.)



I've figured out that my granddad's $6000 salary would be worth about $60,000 in today's money. Makes you wonder what his code of ethics would be worth in today's morals.


At the end of the day, Mother Nature has only one question for us: "What life did you nurture today?"


Despite some famous examples to the contrary, if you can say "new" and you can say "clear", then you can say "new clear."


It is seeing ourselves in others that often prompts the remark, "There's something about that person I don't trust."


After 5000 years of recorded human history, you wonder, "What part of 2,000,000 sunrises doesn't a pessimist understand?"


"It is the abiding faith of mortals that mortality is a temporary condition."



~ Robert Brault