Books

http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300095067 - Rubens and England

Richard III

http://www.stageworkmckellen.com/

Dictionary of National Biographies

Blake

http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2585?docPos=3

'[Catherine Blake] was the most important person in Blake's adult life, a constant companion, helpmate, and faithful believer in his genius. The couple had no children.'

Castlereagh

I met Murder on the way—
He had a mask like Castlereagh—.

Canning

'Although Canning was to disagree with Pitt's political strategy during the Addington ministry, the compact made between them in 1792 was broken only by Pitt's death in 1806, if then. Canning declared in 1812, ‘my political allegiance lies buried in his grave’ (Therry, 6.326), and claimed always to pursue the line that his mentor would have taken.'

Animus -  Hostility or ill feeling.

'[Castlereagh] sent Canning a challenge to a duel. Canning, though he had asked for Castlereagh's removal, had certainly not been responsible for the shilly-shallying of Camden and Portland. But he felt he had to accept the challenge, despite having never fired a pistol in his life. He made his will and wrote a touching farewell letter to his wife. The duel was fought on Putney Heath on 21 September: Canning was wounded but survived. Those in the know criticized Castlereagh for unreasonable overreaction, but the fault was very generally believed to lie with Canning.'

 Sir John Everett Millais

From 1852, when he showed Ophelia and A Huguenot, on St Bartholomew's day, refusing to shield himself from danger by wearing a Roman Catholic badge (priv. coll.) at the Royal Academy exhibition, Millais enjoyed increasing public and critical acclaim. With its touching subject of ill-fated lovers in a historical conflict, A Huguenot was especially popular, preparing the way for his election as an associate of the Royal Academy on 7 November 1853. He went on to paint several variations on the same general theme, including The Proscribed Royalist, 1651 (exh. RA, 1853; priv. coll.), The Order of Release, 1746 (exh. RA, 1853; Tate collection), and The Black Brunswicker (exh. RA, 1860; Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight). He also caught the popular imagination with a scene of a heroic fireman carrying children from a burning house, The Rescue (exh. RA, 1855; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne).

Duke of Wellington
Peevish -  Easily irritated, esp. by unimportant things.
Peremptory - Not open to appeal or challenge; final
Obsolescent - Becoming obsolete

'Though neat and almost dandyish in his dress on formal occasions, Wellington remained spartan in his personal habits, frugal in his diet, and notoriously indifferent to the quality of the food and wine he consumed. Physically he was a trim but never a handsome man.'

'Besides these outward virtues were the more human and endearing aspects: his lack of conceit, his ability to reflect with humorous detachment on his astonishing life, and a fundamental simplicity which charmed his friends and disarmed his enemies.'

'If chance seemed to favour him, it was because he left so little to chance.'

Queen Anne

Reticence - reserve: the trait of being uncommunicative; not volunteering anything more than necessary
Propitiate  - win or regain the favor of (a god, spirit, or person) by doing something that pleases them.

Disraeli's Bicentennary

http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/theme/92729?backToResults=list=yes|group=yes|feature=yes|aor=4|orderField=alpha
'successful oppositions win friends through leaving governments to make enemies.'

George IV

http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/10541?docPos=1

By Christopher Hibbert

'For the prince had fallen in love again and had made up his mind to marry the object of his passion, Mrs Maria Fitzherbert (1756–1837), a handsome, charming, and sedate Roman Catholic widow of twenty-eight, six years older than himself, who had fled to France after the prince had stabbed himself in a frenzied effort to prevent her doing so.'

'Eventually Princess Caroline decided to go to live abroad; but their difficult daughter, Princess Charlotte, talkative, hoydenish, and rather coarse, was left behind to worry him. '

(Hoydenish - used of girls; wild and boisterous)

'Ever since her arrival on the continent Caroline had been providing Europe with scandalous stories about her astonishingly imprudent behaviour; and her husband, who had employed agents to report upon her activities, had good grounds for supposing that she had committed adultery with her major-domo, Bartolomeo Bergami. His agents' reports were, therefore, sent by the king to parliament in the hope that the queen might not only be divorced but tried for high treason. But, since Bergami was Italian and not subject to English law, and since the alleged offences had not taken place in England, it was impossible to institute a trial for high treason; moreover, the king's own conduct had rendered an ecclesiastical divorce unobtainable. The only option was to introduce a bill of pains and penalties, a parliamentary method of punishing a person without resort to a trial in a court of law.

The proceedings in the House of Lords, which opened on 17 August 1820, did not go as well for the king as he had hoped.'

(http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw00036/The-Trial-of-Queen-Caroline-1820?LinkID=mp03045&role=sit&rNo=1)
'After George IV's death at Windsor on 26 June 1830 and his burial in St George's Chapel, Windsor, on 15 July, obituarists had little good to say of this ‘Leviathan of the haut ton’.'

'Very few of the king's contemporaries saw fit to give thanks for the treasures which had been bestowed upon the nation by this greatest royal patron since Charles I, and which were his true memorial.'

'[George IV] had bought fine works by Rembrandt and Rubens, Dou, Steen, and De Hooch, and had welcomed Canova to London and immediately commissioned sculptures from him; he had also commissioned paintings from almost every commendable British artist of the day, including Gainsborough and Reynolds, Stubbs and Beechey, Hoppner, Cosway, and Constable. '

'Yet, in the end, [Wellington] was forced to recognize that, tiresome and evasive as[George IV] was when political matters had to be discussed, the nation would always have cause to be grateful to a man who had been ‘a most magnificent patron of the arts in this country, and in the world’. '

John Quicy Adams

This is the last of Earth. I am content.' - John Quincy Adams

Music Videos

Thttp://www.keanemusic.com/video.php - Keane - Official Website

http://www.snowpatrol.com/player/default.aspx?meid=5425 - Snow Patrol - Official Website


Somewhere Only We Know , Everybody's Changing, Bedshaped - http://www.keanemusic.com/video.php

Yellow (audio), Warning Sign (audio), Fix You (video) - http://www.coldplay.com/recordings.php

What Must Be Done - Nick Cave and Warren Ellis - http://www.nickcaveandthebadseeds.com/music/what-must-be-done

Golden Skans - Klaxons - http://www.klaxons.net/video.php

This Is The Life - Amy MacDonald - http://www.amymacdonald.co.uk/gb/video/

Anti - D - Wombats - http://www.thewombats.co.uk/video,antid_6.htm

I'll Follow You Into The Dark - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rePcHxFJIuU&ob=av3n


World Spins Madly On - The Weepies - http://www.theweepies.com/


Tokyo - Audio Player - Wombats - http://www.thewombats.co.uk/_popup/audio.aspx

Such Great Heights - The Postal Service - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wrsZog8qXg

Say You Don't Want It - One Night Only - http://www.onenightonlyonline.com/video

The Suburbs, Ready To Start - Arcade Fire - http://www.arcadefire.com/videos/

You Might Die Trying - Dave Matthews Band - http://www.davematthewsband.com/#/sounds

Fell In Love With A Girl - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTH71AAxXmM&feature=BFa&list=AVGxdCwVVULXcbkKTIFvzc_MGe9-XWi67k&index=3

We're Going To Be Friends - http://www.youtube.com/user/whitestripes#p/u/10/PKfD8d3XJok

Ready To Start - http://www.arcadefire.com/videos/

Mixed Tape - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdW48xSbb9s

Empire of the Sun Videos - http://www.walkingonadream.com/

Stolen - Dashboard Confessional - http://www.dashboardconfessional.com/player/default.aspx?meid=83

C0llide - Howie Day - http://howieday.com/2011/video/collide/#

Music Videos - Official

http://www.keanemusic.com/video.php - Keane - Official
http://www.snowpatrol.com/media/ - Snow Patrol - Official

Crack The Shutters - http://www.snowpatrol.com/player/default.aspx?meid=3250

Just Say Yes - http://www.snowpatrol.com/player/default.aspx?meid=5280

Radio 4 Archives

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/2011/08/some_summer_holiday_listening.html

Disraeli and Gladstone

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/disraeli_benjamin.shtml - BBC Profile

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/disraeli_gladstone_01.shtml - Disraeli and Gladstone

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/gladstone_william_ewart.shtml = Gladstone

http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/10787?docPos=9 -

He maintained his diary daily and almost unbroken until 1894, then spasmodically until 29 December 1896 (about 25,200 entries). Its terse first entry established its usual format: lists of reading, correspondence, and activities both religious and secular, only exceptionally fleshed out with reflections or comments, and these usually telegraphic in form.

‘No, sir; if you please, we will not leave it yet’ -Gladstone

'I thrice kissed my Father's cheek & forehead before & after his death: the only kisses that I can remember’ -Gladstone

http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36652?docPos=15 - Victoria

'From 1830 onwards the duchess and Conroy implemented what was termed the ‘Kensington system’. Their aim was to ensure that Victoria was totally dependent on them, and would not look to others for advice when she came to the throne. The duchess was appointed regent in the event of William IV dying before Victoria reached eighteen, and Conroy's aim was to get the princess to agree to appoint him her private secretary. There was thus a practical, political reason for keeping Victoria away from the court, where she might find other advisers, and away from society, in which she might find alternative sources of support. The Kensington system was, however, more than an exercise in ambition: the aim was to make Victoria herself popular and ensure the survival of the monarchy. The Britishness of her education and upbringing was to be stressed, while her youth and purity marked her out as the herald of a new future, distanced from the moral and political corruption of the British ancien régime.'

'In this they misread Victoria's character completely. Strong-willed, intelligent, emotionally sensitive, lonely, with a fierce temper kept firmly in check, the young Victoria had a deep sense of duty and obligation instilled in her by Lehzen, and also a profound sense of propriety.'

'King William IV survived for another month, before finally succumbing on 20 June 1837. Lord Conyngham (the lord chamberlain) and William Howley (the archbishop of Canterbury) were dispatched at once to Kensington Palace to bring the news to the new queen. Victoria was summoned from her bed by her mother at six in the morning to receive them, which she did ‘(only in my dressing gown), and alone’ (Girlhood, 1.196). That characteristic emphasis pointed to the total and immediate failure of the Kensington system as far as it concerned the ambitions of its progenitors: Conroy was immediately banished from the royal presence, and although the duchess was regularly called upon to attend her daughter in public, she was systematically excluded from all the new queen's decisions and counsels.'

'even when fully grown she was only 4 feet 11 inches tall'

Shakespeare Poetry

Pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth - http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/1999/03/pardon-me-thou-bleeding-piece-of-earth.html - Marc Antony

The Quality of Mercy is not Strain'd -- William Shakespeare - http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2004/04/quality-of-mercy-is-not-strain-william.html

Where the bee sucks  - http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2000/01/where-bee-sucks-william-shakespeare.html

The Tempest 2010 - movie

The Tempest - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Miranda_-_The_Tempest_JWW.jpg

Come, Night; Come, Romeo -- William Shakespeare  - http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2000/10/come-night-come-romeo-william.html

Our revels now are ended -- William Shakespeare  - http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/1999/06/our-revels-now-are-ended-william.html

Fear no more the heat o' the sun -- William Shakespeare - http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2000/07/fear-no-more-heat-o-sun-william.html - 'Death is not the thief of time, he is, instead, the purveyor of
eternal rest and quietude'  - wondering minstrels 

 Sonnet 116 - http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2000/03/let-me-not-to-marriage-of-true-minds.html

Sonnet 55 - http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2004/12/not-marble-nor-gilded-monuments-sonnet.html
 - http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/sonnets/55.htm

 Sonnet 6: Then Let Not Winter's Ragged Hand Deface - http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/sonnets/6.htm

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow -- William Shakespeare

- http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/1999/10/to-morrow-and-to-morrow-and-to-morrow.html

Sonnet 33 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_33

Sonnet 21 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_21

Sonnet 27 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_27 - 'Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed'

Sonnet 29 -When In Disgrace With Fortune and Men's Eyes -  http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/sonnets/29.htm - http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2005/05/when-in-disgrace-with-fortune-and-men.html

Sonnet 46 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_46 - 'Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war'

Sonnet 49 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_49 - 'Against that time, if ever that time come'

Sonnet 50 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_50 - 'How heavy do I journey on the way'

When that I was and a little tiny boy -- William Shakespeare -http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/1999/10/when-that-i-was-and-little-tiny-boy.html

Sonnet 14 -  Not From The Stars Do I My Judgement Pluck http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/sonnets/14.htm - http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2001/06/not-from-stars-do-i-my-judgment-pluck.html

For Done Are Shakespeare's Days - http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/folio1.htm#Holland

Sonnet 153 - http://nfs.sparknotes.com/sonnets/sonnet_153.html - 'Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep.'
Sonnet 154 - http://nfs.sparknotes.com/sonnets/sonnet_154.html -'The little love-god lying once asleep'


Act 3, Scene 2 - Juliet
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess'd it, and, though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy'd

King Richard II, Act 2 scene 1
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.


Henry V
“I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’”

http://allpoetry.com/poem/8449723-The_Procreation_Sonnets__1_-_17_-by-William_Shakespeare - Procreation Sonnets

---

Quotes 2

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."
— Dr. Seuss (I Can Read with My Eyes Shut)

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not."
— Dr. Seuss (The Lorax)

"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."
— Dr. Seuss

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."
— Dr. Seuss

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is better to light a candle than to curse the dark" - In The beginning, Knann

“A relationship, I think, is like a shark, you know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies."

Nil Desperandum - Do Not Despair / Never Despair

'Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day'


'The world is like a ride at an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think that it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly coloured, and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question - is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us. They say 'Hey! Don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride.' And we...kill those people. Ha ha ha. 'Shut him up! We have a lot invested in this ride. SHUT HIM UP! Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and family. This just has to be real.' It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter because: it's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings, and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourselves off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here's what you can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride....' Bill Hicks

'The Doctor: The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant. And we definitely added to his pile of good things. ' - Doctor Who (Vincent and The Doctor)

'The triumph of hope over experience'  - Dr Johnson on the subject of remarrying

'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life” - Dr Samuel Johnson

'If the law supposes that,'said Mr Bumble...'the law is a ass, a idiot'


'"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people"-Eleanor Roosevelt

'When I get sad, I stop being sad, and be awesome instead... True story !' - Barney Stinson (How I Met Your Mother)

'Yesterday is history, tommorow is a mystery, Today is a gift that's why we call it present '

'Sanity is not statistical.' - George Orwell, 1984.

'The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.' - Hitchens, Feb 2004, Vanity Fair

'Almost every historic battle for free expression, from Socrates to Galileo, has begun as a struggle over what is and is not “blasphemy.”'- Hitchens - Feb 2009

'The phrase "Chasing Cars" came from Lightbody's father, in reference to a girl Lightbody was infatuated with, "You're like a dog chasing a car. You'll never catch it and you just wouldn't know what to do with it if you did."' - Wikipedia

''We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.' This is the famous explanation given by Victorian classicist and historian JR Seeley for the British Empire.' - http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/empiresofabsentmind_article_01.shtml

'There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he would have to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. “That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed. “It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.' - Catch 22, Joseph Heller

'... like a ballerina in a library, devoid of purpose, unable to perform' - Matt Harding, Where The Hell is Matt blog

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" - Shelley

'Love forever love is free. Let's turn forever you and me.' - Feel Good Inc - Gorillaz

'So can you understand?
Why I want a daughter while I'm still young
I wanna hold her hand
And show her some beauty
Before this damage is done
But if it's too much to ask, it's too much to ask
Then send me a son' - Suburbs - Arcade Fire

'And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand' - Iris, Goo Goo Dolls

'And I'm weeping warm honey and milk. That you stay surrounding me, surrounding me.' - Missy Higgins

'Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime.' - Jane Eyre

'He died with his hand on his Shakespeare' - Ian Hislop on Alfred Lord Tennyson, BBC documentary on the Poet Laureates.

'A sophisticated rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity' - Disraeli on Gladstone

'We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'  - Oscar Wilde

Abraham Lincoln
His hand and pen
He will be good but
God knows when
Abraham Lincoln is my name
And with my pen I wrote the same
I wrote in both haste and speed
And left it here for fools to read

"If charnel-houses and our graves must send / Those that we bury back, our monuments / Shall be the maws of kites" 3.4. - Macbeth

'Oh, woe is me,

T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see' - Ophelia, Act 3 Scene 1

 'So unlike the home life of our own dear Queen!' Victorian critique of Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra


Ready To Start - Arcade Fire


Businessmen drink my blood
Like the kids in art school said they would
And I guess I'll just begin again
You say can we still be friends

If I was scared 
I would
And if I was bored 
You know I would
And if I was yours 
But I'm not

All the kids have always known
That the emperor wears new clothes
But to bow to down to them anyway
Is better than to be alone

If I was scared 
I would
And if I was bored 
You know I would
And if I was yours 
But I'm not

Now you're knocking at my door
Saying please come out against the night
But I would rather be alone
Than pretend I feel alright
If the businessmen drink my blood
Like the kids in art school said they would
Then I guess I'll just begin again
You say can we still be friends

If I was scared 
I would
And if I was pure 
You know I would
And if I was yours 
But I'm not

Now I'm ready to start

If I was scared 
I would
And if I was pure 
You know I would
And if I was yours 
But I'm not

Now I'm ready to start
I would rather be wrong
Than live in the shadows of your song
My mind is open wide
And now I'm ready to start
Your mind surely opened the door
To step out into the dark
Now I'm ready 

 'Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them' -http://www.flickr.com/photos/runatasha/5260629376/in/photostream/

"Everyone should be able to do 1 card trick, tell 2 jokes, and recite 3 poems incase they are ever stuck in an elevator." - Lemony Snicket


'The world is quiet here.' - Lemony Snicket

'I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken'  - Oliver Cromwell

“When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun' - Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

"Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody. " - Jane Austen


'The problem is, that if you don't pay for osmething, you often don't value it (true love, beautiful sunsets and the ruined dreams of a hated rival notwithstanding)' - Natalie Haynes

'No one looks back on their life and remembers the nights they got plenty of sleep' 

'vanity of vanities; all is vanity'

“A misanthrope I can understand - a womanthrope never” - Oscar Wilde

The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed; The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed” - Bronte


There Is a Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths


Take me out tonight
Where there's music and there's people
Who are young and alive
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I haven't got one anymore

Take me out tonight
Because I want to see people
And I want to see life
Driving in your car
Oh please don't drop me home
Because it's not my home, it's their home
And I'm welcome no more

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well the pleasure, the privilege is mine

Take me out tonight
Take me anywhere, I don't care
I don't care, I don't care
And in the darkened underpass
I thought Oh God, my chance has come at last
But then a strange fear gripped me
And I just couldn't ask

Take me out tonight
Oh take me anywhere, I don't care
I don't care, I don't care
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I haven't got one
No, I haven't got one

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes in to us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well the pleasure, the privilege is mine

There is a light that never goes out
There is a light that never goes out
There is a light that never goes out
There is a light that never goes out


 Hamlet: Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

 Ecclesiastes, 1:9:

What has been is what will be,

and has been done is what will be done;

and there is nothing new under the sun.

“I suppose the thing I’d most would have like to have known or be reassured about is that in the world is what counts more than talent, what counts more than energy or concentration or commitment or anything else is kindness. And the more in the world you encounter kindness, and cheerfulness (which is kind of its amiable uncle or aunt), just the better the world always is – and all the big words: virtue, justice, truth, are dwarfed by the greatness of kindness.” - Stephen Fry

“For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice” - John Burroughs

'As Aristotle says, that which no one owns, no one will care for.' Dan Hannan blog, March 12, 2007

Boredom is essentially a thwarted desire for events, not necessarily pleasant ones, but just occurrences such as will enable the victim of ennui to know one day from another. The opposite of boredom, in a word, is not pleasure, but excitement.' 


'Prove me wrong because I want to be right' - anonymous


'Love is not everything but everything is nothing without love' - anonymous


'I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.' - John Keats

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you”

"We have it in our power to begin the world again" Thomas Paine


'the cold glint of moonlight upon a silver coffin plate' - about Robert Peel

'The relationship between England and Scotland, at its best, is like that between Johnson and Boswell: sometimes teasing, occasionally grumpy, but rooted in a deep affection between two free-thinking individuals.' Daniel Hannan , 9 June 2010, Scotsman

'The No Smoking study highlights a problem with controlling people's behaviour that goes far beyond signage: to persuade people not to do something, you first have to raise the issue, thereby increasing its salience in their minds. The same hazard blights personal efforts at habit change: go on a diet, and suddenly you're thinking about food all the time. (That's why the best way to eliminate bad habits is to replace them with specific new habits.) Old-school self-help gurus would have you display signs on your bathroom mirror, with peppy messages to boost your self-esteem – but if all they do is remind you of your low self-esteem, they're worse than useless. Sometimes the best solution to a problem is to forget you had one. Whereas a notice just reminds you to notice.' - Oliver Burkeman -  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/26/change-your-life-signs-burkeman


'Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine! Then the fates will know you as we know you: as Albert Mondego, the man! ' - Count of Monte Cristo (movie)

'God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.'

'You are the best one, of the best ones ' - Stolen, Dashboard Confessional'

'wisdom is the ability to cope' - Archbishop Ramsay(?) - http://pb.rcpsych.org/content/34/3/120.full

'...one loves because one loves' van Gogh

' Stephen Crane, The Black Riders and Other Lines'
“If I should cast off this tattered coat, And go free into the mighty sky; If I should find nothing there, But a vast blue, Echoless, ignorant – What then? -




“Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

'Kindness, more kindness, and even after that more kindness'  - Forster

“Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating
into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.” Elie Wiesel

“We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic love and gunpowder.” - Andre Maurois

“My formula for life is very simple: in the morning, wake up; at night, go to sleep. In between I try and occupy myself as best I can.”

'control yourself / take only what you need from it' MGMT
― Cary Grant