Wisdom from Benjamin Franklin

I was just going to post the first one here, but all of these are so good...


"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."

A longer version of the same quote: "If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."


"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."


"As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence. "


"Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of."


"If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality. "


"How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them."


"If you desire many things, many things will seem few."


"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do things worth writing. "


"It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous."


"It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them."


"It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it."


"Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards."


"Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it. "


"Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody."


"You may delay, but time will not."


I got these quotes from: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/benjamin_franklin.html

church sign

There is a church in my neighborhood, on a corner, that has a sign on which they post funny things sometimes. Right now it says, "God so loved the world He didn't send a committee."

Fun with the Dad of the family

I grew up in a family that could sing in harmony, if we so desired. But, with the 'Happy Birthday' song especially, it was usually most fun to see how out of tune and tempo and loud we could be. It just made it seem more festive to sing with gusto!

Now, in my little family, we have a nightly tradition of kneeling in family prayer, and we sing a song to let the children (or parents) know that it is time to gather in a circle. My husband is blessed with perfect pitch. I'm blessed with being able to sing out of tune and enjoy the 'interesting' harmonies. (Or should I say dissonance?) He used to join me in whatever key I happen to be singing in. I like to sing alto and that song is in the soprano range.
When he is the one to start the song, (hardly ever!), then he sings it in the right key.

Lately, he tries to sing it in the right key no matter what key I sing in. It's actually become quite fun for the kids and I to watch his pained expression as we are all singing whatever notes we want, while he tries hard to stay in the 'right' key.
Good times.

He compared it to living the gospel, trying to stay on the strait and narrow, while the world goes wide and crooked.
Good analogy.

37 Books in 2007

I'm posting this here for my own record. My sister-in-law inspired me by writing down every book she read in 2006, then set a goal to read more in 2007. So, I started keeping track at the beginning of last year, to see how many I read on average. Now that I have a baseline, I can set a goal to read more, or whatever. Most of these are kids books, because I like to know what my kids are reading, but I got a few classics in there. (Although I didn't write down every little book I read to my kids.)

Here is my list:
The Anybodies, by N.E. Bode
Shepherds Why This Jubilee?, by Jeffrey R. Holland
Man of the Family, by Ralph Moody
each little bird that sings, by Deborah Wiles
Beauty, A Retelling of the Story of Beauty & The Beast, by Robin McKinley
Just Ella, by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Becoming Naomi Leon, by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Messenger, by Lois Lowry
Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Steven Covey
The View From Saturday, by E.L. Konigsburg
The Final Farewell, by Patricia Wiles, A Kevin Kirk Chronicle
The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
Ultra Marathon Man, by Dean Karnazes
Doll Hospital #1, Tatiana Comes to America, by Joan Holub
Walden; or, Life in the Woods, by Henry David Thoreau
Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine
Austenland, by Shannon Hale
What Child Is This, A Christmas Story, by Caroline B. Cooney
Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld
Pretties, by Scott Westerfeld
Doll Hospital #2, Goldie's Fortune, by Joan Holub
Specials, by Scott Westerfeld

Audio:
Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates, by Mary Mapes Dodge
Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites Series #5-10
A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
The Story of My Life, by Farah Ahmedi
109 East Palace, Jennet Conant
The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho
Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne
Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell

greatness in two hours a day

This past summer we went to a performance of the Five Browns: http://www.the5browns.com/

Actually, it was a musical fireside at church, so they each took turns playing and speaking. They are each such good pianists. Since there was only one piano on stage, the most that could play together was three of them. I imagine it would be wonderful to hear all five at the same time.

The father said they get a lot of compliments on how talented their children are and he said that his usual response is, "Well, you do anything for 2 hours a day for 16 years or so and you'll get pretty good at it, too."
(That's not an exact quote, but that's the gist of it.)

So, what do I spend two hours a day doing that I am becoming great at?

Want to change the world?

E. T. Sullivan once wrote these interesting words: “When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn’t stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, he has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home and of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother’s heart, and she puts it into the baby’s mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies.”

Inspiring Quote

From 'A Thomas Jefferson Education" Revised Edition, p.112

"As a ... wife and mother, some of you will face a seemingly never-ending pile of laundry, dishes and housework. You may wonder what happened to the 'great expectations' of leadership ablilites that you learned in the classics.

Yet it is in exactly such circumstances that the character of leaders, statesmen, Founding Fathers and Mothers is forged. It is in the small and simple things that greatness is obtained. When the day comes that you are called upon for what the world calls 'great things,' you will see clearly that they are no greater than the things you did at home.

By the way, that call will come. If you have paid the price of greatness through classics and mentors, and if you continue to pay the price of greatness in the next phase of your education - the everyday life phase- you will become great, and you will be called upon to change the world."