Now far and wide the spreading mist Brings revels to a finish. It’s certain in a time like this, That one day I shall perish. —Mascha Kalèko: 24 Lines on Autumn

“You have no obligation except to investigate and use your best efforts.” “Your pronouns again.” “All right, ‘we’ and ‘our.’” “That's better. Just so, our best efforts. The strongest obligation possible for a man with self-esteem, and we both have our full share of that.”

In my solitude I have seen very clearly things that are not true —Antonion Machado, Proverbs and Canticles #haiku

Noh-play is over silence of Autumn returns mask loses its soul —Kyoshi #haiku

Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.—Bertrand Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World (1914)

Like a temple bell the fragrance of flowers strikes just after sunset —Bashō #haiku

The leaves on trees, a man may go and count them— For on a branch just three may still hang on. And then the wind will come again and steal them. It steals and doesn't think it’s wrong. —Kästner: Elegy in All Directions, published Oct. 28, 1930 after the Nazi’s gains in Sept.

To educate the soul consists in teaching it to transform its envy into admiration.—Nicolás Gómez Davila (1913-1994)

If only Shakespeare and Milton had had the Internet. Think what they might have achieved.

Civilization is a very thin crust over a volcano.—Ernst Cassirer

Those who can defy the gale should not think they can defy the hurricane.

Daughter of Neptune freed from the chains of the sea strides across the sky #haiku

It's not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it. …our lifetime offers ample scope to the person who maps it out well—Seneca: On the Shortness of Life