from The Brown Book

A life which is unexamined is not worth living
- Plato -

Summer Afternoon

" Summer afternoon - summer afternoon...
the two most beautiful words
in the English language"

- Henry James -

{photo is from my wedding day}

All of it, unknown to us, exists within us - The Brown Book

"I am led to believe that everything we have seen, known, perceived, heard- even the trees of a deep forest- nay, even the disposition of the branches, the form of the leaves and the variety of the colours, the green tints and the light; the look of grains of sand at the edge of the sea, the unevenness of the crests of waves, whether agitated by a light breeze, or churned to foam by a storm, the multitude of human voices, of animal cries, and physical sounds, the melody and harmony of all songs, of all pieces of music, of all the concerts we have listened to, all of it, unknown to us, exists within us."
~Diderot

From The Brown Book

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are
tiny matters compared to what lies within
US"

- Emerson -

From The Brown Book

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry from Le Pétit Prince

From The Brown Book

A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.

- Lao Tzu

The Brown Book

No one can come close to another, let alone love him, without coming close to his sufferings.

- Houselander -

Carry On

Carry on, carry on -
as withered as you feel,
carry on.
The winds of life
will breathe air into
your tired lungs.
Trust, trust, trust.

from The Brown Book
- Sunflower -

Lives of great men remind us,
We can make our lives sublime
And departing leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time

from The Brown Book
- H.W. Longfellow -

Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows;
for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be we shall touch the happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho 'much is taken, much abides; & tho'
We are not now that strength which in old
days moved earth & heaven; that which we
are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time & fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

- Alfred Lord Tennyson -
An English poet often regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian age in poetry, 1809-1892
from The Brown Book

This world is full
of opportunities
which so few ever
do find;
They search the earth
near and far
but thet never
search their minds

- Laudividni -
from The Brown Book

Fragile Things

How fragile is a flower!
It may not last an hour!
Even more fragile are imaginings.

Yet thoughts and flowers both
possess the gift of growth.
I wonder at the strength of fragile things:

On a harsh peak, where rock
is shattered by the shock
of wind & frost, a fragile flower survives.

Oh, and one Christ-centred thought,
too tenuous to be caught
alters the whole direction of our lives.

James Dillet Freeman
from The Brown Book

I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favour to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

from The Brown Book
Ecc. 9 v 11

In order to seek
one's own direction,
one must SIMPLIFY the
mechanics of ordinary,
everyday life.

From the Brown Book
- Plato -