Import Test : Quotes

Quotes of the Week 7: On Diversity

Matt Scales — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:48:46 GMT

"If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place."
- Margaret Mead

"But diversity could just as well represent an opportunity as a problem. Difference is the wellspring of innovation. People who see the world differently have fresh ideas and see new possibilities."
- Peter Senge

"In the matter of religion, people eagerly fasten their eyes on the difference between their own creed and yours; whilst the charm of the study is in finding the agreements and identities in all the religions of humanity."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival."
- Rene Dubos

"For those who have seen the Earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will, the experience most certainly changes your perspective. The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us."
- Donald Williams

“We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.”
- Maya Angelou

" If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity."
- John F. Kennedy

Quotes of the Week 6

Matt Scales — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 15:09:27 GMT

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if it were a nail.
--Abraham Maslow

Quotes of the Week 5: On Little Things

Matt Scales — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 14:52:42 GMT

"Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things - I am tempted to think there are no little things."
- Bruce Barton

"The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself."
- Henry Miller

"He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great."
- John Ruskin

"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small."
- Neil Armstrong

"Two boys arrived yesterday with a pebble they said was the head of a dog until I pointed out that it was really a typewriter."
- Pablo Picasso

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."
- Carl Sagan

Quotes: On Vision & Productivity

Matt Scales — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 18:34:47 GMT

"A vision without a task is but a dream, a task without a vision is drudgery, a vision and a task are the hope of the world."
~from a church is Sussex, England, c.1730

"Cherish your vision and your dreams as they are the children of your soul; the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.”
~ Napoleon Hill

“Are you closer right now to where you want to be than you were a half-hour ago?”
~ Robert Cooper

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues."
~Duke Ellington

Quotes: On Risk Taking

Matt Scales — Mon, 20 Dec 2004 11:00:00 GMT

Years ago I recall a psychology professor citing a research survey in which mental health professionals were asked what personality characteristics were most representative of good psychological health. Surprisingly, the most frequently mentioned characteristic was the ability to take risks. It's interesting to reflect on our willingness to take meaningful risks in our professional and personal lives. Below are several quotes on "risk taking."

"All of life is on the wire, all else is waiting."
— Anonymous circus aerialist

"If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough."
—Mario Andretti (race car driver)

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures."
— William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

"I don't want to come to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well."
-- Diane Ackerman

"Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish."
–Ovid

"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."
- Jack London

"There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community."
--M. Scott Peck:

Quotes of the Week 4

Matt Scales — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:00:00 GMT

On Education and Teaching:

"We teach what we like to learn and the reason many people go into teaching is vicariously to reexperience the primary joy experienced the first time they learned something they loved."
--Stephen Brookfield

"Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token to save it from that ruin, which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and the young, would be inevitable. An education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their choice of undertaking something new, something unforseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world."
--Hannah Arendt, Teaching as Leading

"Every truth has four corners: as a teacher I give you one corner, and it is for you to find the other three."
--Confucius

On Ambiguity & Not Knowing

Matt Scales — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 10:00:00 GMT

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings." --Wendell Berry

"Ambiguity is the warp of life, not something to be eliminated. Learning to savor the vertigo of doing without answers or making shift and making do with fragmentary ones opens up the pleasures of recognizing and playing with pattern, finding coherence within complexity, sharing within multiplicity. Improvisation and new learning are not private processes; they are shared with others at every age. The multiple layers of attention involved cannot safely be brushed aside or subordinated to the completion of tasks. We are called to join in a dance whose steps must be learned along the way, so it is important to attend and respond. Even in uncertainty, we are responsible for our steps." --Mary Catherine Bateson in Peripheral Visions: Learning Along the Way

For a review of Peripheral Visions visit http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/bateson.html

Quote of the Week 8

Matt Scales — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 10:00:00 GMT

"It appears, therefore, that some development of the capacity to be alone is necessary if the brain is to function at its best, and if the individual is to fulfill his highest potential. Human beings easily become alienated from their own deepest needs and feelings. Learning, thinking, innovation and maintaining contact with one's own inner world are all facilitated by solitude." --Anthony Storr

Quote of the Week 7

Matt Scales — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 15:20:10 GMT

Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be chaos. Before a brilliant person begins something great, they must look foolish in the crowd. --I Ching

Quotes of the Week 3

Matt Scales — Tue, 04 May 2004 10:00:00 GMT

"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order." --Alfred North Whitehead "I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving -- we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it -- but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor." --Oliver Wendell Holmes

Quote of the Week 6

Matt Scales — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 10:00:00 GMT

Our quote this week is offered by Donna Duffy: "To teach is to create a space in which obedience to truth is practiced." --Abba Felix

Quote of the Week 5

Matt Scales — Tue, 20 Apr 2004 10:00:00 GMT

Thanks to Jean Kreis from the University of Arizona for bringing the following quote to my attention: "..there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things." -- Macchiavelli, The Prince

Quote of the Week 4

Matt Scales — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 10:00:00 GMT

"Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that’s training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed" -- Thomas Moore

Finding a Quiet Place

Matt Scales — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 10:00:00 GMT

How do we create space to regenerate amidst our busy lives? Reading, yoga, meditation, exercise, and hobbies are a few possibilities. It might be interesting to share our strategies. The following quote offered by Judith Kamber (Northern Essex Community College) offers a meditative approach. "You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be umasked, it has no choice. It will roll in ecstacy at your feet." --Franz Kafka

Quote of the Week 3

Matt Scales — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 10:00:00 GMT

Our quote this week is offered by Jennifer Hawrylciw from Northern Essex Community College: This quote is from Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year. I highly recommend this fast and hilarious read

So much of teaching is sharing. Learning results in sharing, sharing results in change, change is learning. The only other job with so much sharing is parenting. That’s probably why the two are so often confused. You can’t test what sort of teacher someone will be, because testing what someone knows isn’t the same as what someone is able to share. This will be different for every teacher. ~Esme Raji Codell