I'm getting ready to decorate my classroom. I like quotes and poems. If anyone has any quotes or poems that have mean a lot to them, please leave them in the comments section here.
(Thanks to everyone who has donated to the cause of Bobby's books. See below for more information.)
Ponderings on Oryx and Crake, and fitting it into my curriculum
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I finished *Oryx and Crake* (Atwood) today, and am thinking pretty serious
about using it.
First off, I really liked it. While it wasn't my favorite book ...
1 week ago
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courage does not always roar. sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "i will try again tomorrow"
- mary anne radmacher
finish each day and be done with it. you have done what you could. some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. tomorrow is a new day. you shall begin it serenly and with too high a spirt to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
- emerson
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
- Steve Jobs
Well, that one won't fit on a poster.
"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb."
"Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught."
"The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning."
"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations."
"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."
All by Winston S. Churchill.
That last one reminds me of you, by the way.
The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be.
-Robert Fulghum
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
-Albert Einstein
A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.
-Burt Bacharach
It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.
- Margaret Bonnano
here's all the ones i use in my classroom:
Education is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the world’s work, and the power to appreciate life. (Brigham Young)
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. (Aristotle)
Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive: easy to govern, but impossible to enslave. (Peter Brougham)
Literature is an ax for the frozen sea within us. (Franz Kafka)
A room without books is like a body without a soul. (G.K. Chesterton)
How can we imagine what our lives should be without the illumination of the lives of others? (James Salter)
I read all the time and don't comment often, but I wanted to add some of my favorites to the list. They're all by e.e. cummings, my favorite poet:
"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."
"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting."
"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."
"Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit."
"You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"
- Stephen Wright
The once was a hermit named Dave,
Who kept a dead whore in his cave,
He said, “I must admit, I’m a bit of a shit;
but think of all the money I’ll save.”
-Grandpa taught me that one when I was five.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that weare powerful beyond measure. It is out light, not our darkness that must frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within is. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. --Marianne Williamson
It has "God" in it, which might not be appropriate for public school. But I don't think she means a certain one. This is my favorite one and I'm glad I got to share it. =)
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
-Jack London
"Spectemur Agendo"
-Simon (and a lot of other people)
Probably isn't appropriate for your classroom, but it should bring back some good memories from Akers!
"I am only me, but I am still someone. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. Just because I cannot do everything does not give me the right to do nothing." -Motto from Amish school
"Be contented and do not worry or try to catch up with the world's uneasiness and speed." -Motto from Amish school
Favorite quote ever.
"It is true that nothing will happen in this world, unless someone takes seriously the need to be a leader." - Tom Madden (no one you've heard of)
"A person's true character is revealed by what he does when no one else is watching."
Not sure who said it, but it's another one that I love, as well as, "Never deprive someone of hope. It may be all they have." (Also unknown)
All by Dr. Seuss (I teach elementary, but I think they apply to everyone.)
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." (The Lorax)
"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own, and you know what you know.
And you are the one who'll decide where you'll go.
Oh the places you'll go."
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”
so, i read all the time, and quotes are my thing. here ya go:
(Sorry if some are repeats)
Only i can change my life. No one can do it for me.- carol burnett
never be afraid to try something new. Remember that amateurs built the ark, proffessionals built the titanic.
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.-john donne
what lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
I will not be a comman man because it is my right to be an uncommon man...i will stir the smooth sands of monotony.- peter o'toole.
Some birds arent meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knew it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that theyre gone.-the shawshank redemption
. do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someones elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.- oscar wilde.
Never compromise yourself.-janis Joplin
expecting life to treat you fairly because youre a good person is like expecting the bull not to charge because youre a vegetarian
our imperfections are undeniable, yet beautiful, as the unformed clay is beautiful in the eyes of the potter.
You gotta have a dream. If you dont have a dream, how are you going to make a dream come true?
i have about 700 more if you're interested...
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back-- Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Hey it's John, I have a couple of Quotes that are fun.
"A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men." -Willy Wonka
"We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams."- Willy Wonka
"Language is Courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so make it true." -Salman Rushdie
These are some of my favorites and they would look good decorating a class room. I hope you are enjoying Michigan.
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