Michelangelo's David

Michelangelo's famous statute, David, returns to Italy this week after a successful 12 week, 20 city, US tour.

Inspiration

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be sure either is true or becomes true.—John Lilly [via Jerry Courshon]

"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go" - T.S. Elliot

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.—Robert Louis Stevenson [via Jerry Courshon]

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult." - Seneca

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars.—Henry David Thoreau [via Sonia Tita Puopolo]

Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.—St. Augustine [via Jerry Courshon]

Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I may not forget you.—William Arthur Ward [via Jerry Courshon]

If I had listened to the critics I’d have died drunk in the gutter.—Anton Chekhov [via Jerry Courshon]

The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.—Benjamin Disraeli [via Jerry Courshon]

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising up every time we fall.—Confucius [via Jerry Courshon]

Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.—anon [via Jerry Courshon]

I don’t defend my movies.—Roman Polanski [via Jerry Courshon]

If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.—Milton Berle [via Jerry Courshon]

If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.—Frank A. Clark [via Jerry Courshon]

If you have the will to win, you have achieved half your success; if you don’t, you have achieved half your failure.—David Ambrose [via Jerry Courshon]

Any fact facing us is not as important as your attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure.—Norman Vincent Peale [via Jerry Courshon]

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.—Benjamin Disraeli [via Jerry Courshon]

"Running provides happiness which is different from pleasure. Happiness has to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing" - George Sheehan

Noting has any meaning, except the meaning we give it.—CIM [via Jerry Courshon]

I’ll make an exception tonight—like every night.—Beth Gallagher, Burnside 4/5/08

When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?—John Maynard Keynes [via David Mamet]

I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.—Nietzsche [via Kayoko Atchity Mitsumatsu]

It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, ,a challenge. If you bring love to that moment—not discouragement—you will find the strength is there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life! What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow.—Joseph Conrad [via Kayoko Atchity Mitsumatsu]

My prize, in a stunning example of irony, was a year’s subscription to New York, which rag (apart from Mary Ann’s “Competition”) I considered an open running sore on the body of world literacy—this due to the presence in its pages of John Simon, whose stunning amalgam of superciliousness and savagery, over the years, was appreciated by that readership searching for an endorsement of proactive mediocrity.—David Mamet, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’ [via David Angsten]

Only a habit can subdue another habit.—Og Mandino

I think that dreams are a way that people’s minds illustrate the nature of their problems. Or maybe even illustrate the answers to their problems in symbolic language.—Stephen King [Writers Dreaming, Naomi Epel]

I don’t know how dreams work but I know how writers work, and it might not be a bad analogue for the way the imagination works when it’s making dreams. The imagination is operating in both instances. When we’re making fiction and poetry one of the things we do is monitor what we’ve done. We play some cards perhaps almost at random and then, like a good card player, we remember what cards we’ve played and so we work them. I do it actually with little lists and notes.It’s like starting out with any six colored yarns and then you make the argyle sock. You see it’s time for the blue yarn to come back so now I’m going to cross this with the red one, et cetera.—John Barth [Writers Dreaming, Naomi Epel]

Have the confidence of the trip and nobody can ever take it from you. Because it belongs to you from the very word one. It belongs to you.—Clive Barker [Writers Dreaming, Naomi Epel]

I usually don’t...like people to tell me long stories about themselves. Or writers who talk endlessly about their work. Tell me something that you think will be useful to me. Don’t just tell me something that you find interesting.—Richard Ford [Writers Dreaming, Naomi Epel]

Your style really comes out of your attitude, how you see things. [Writers Dreaming, Naomi Epel]

I don’t believe in writer’s block. I don’t know what that is. There are just certain little areas that I know I’m going to get through. It’s just a matter of finding a way. [Writers Dreaming, Naomi Epel]