interesting quotes

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It is refreshing to be going about your own business, doing what you do. Doing it well, with style, with substance, with thoughtfulness. Because that is the level of attention you bring to what you do. Just because, whether you are noticed or not.

Miss Manner's Guide politely sits on a shelf of a bookcase full of ideas and theories and suggestions. 

I reach for it when I am asked for a book to help with self-esteem issues. Or there are exhausting  concerns about "what other people think." Always startling and delightfully received direction. The simplest message - do not contribute to the thickening brew of rudeness. As tempting as it is  - refrain from correcting others or, perversely, helping others feel more comfortable even as they err. 

And a reminder - reading other people's mind is just plain rude.

In his essay " Politics and the English Language" (1946)  Orwell wrote about the importance of precise and clear language, arguing that vague writing can be used as a powerful tool of political manipulation because it shapes the way we think. In that essay, Orwell provides six rules for writers:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

 Politics are the larger format to "speak for the People" until politicians no longer speak for the people. A constant concern of Orwell's.

Let these rules for writers guide your own listening and speaking. Speak for yourself and others more clearly. Distinctly.  With no gap between your declared and real aims. And listen just as clearly for congruent language in others.

The cure for insincerity is integrity.   

In case you are fuzzy on your recollections of George Orwell from High School or college - Wikipedia does a lovely and thorough job, including the description of Orwell's six rules found above. 

At the very least, a quick check on Wikipedia will tell you that Joseph Wood Krutch was a remarkable man. The biographies of Samuel Johnson and Henry David Thoreau along with the natural history of the Grand Canyon are just a small sampling of his writing. Then there is his ability to observe with wit and rigor and compassion. 

No requirement to be a cat person to recognize the truth. And to be a little jealous. Perhaps the observation could be said for dogs as well. A creature that has troubles and ailments can still manage to sleep. A lovely goal. 

Troubles can make fierce demands on the day. Do not give up all the rewards of sleep. Collect the benefits to better respond to whatever challenges you. 

There are basic sleep hygiene strategies. They appear in magazines and various places on a fairly regular basis. The strategies are useful. They are outlined, with my own commentary and suggested application on the Soothing Slumber page. They are worth taking a thoughtful review. See if any of them can improve your sleep.  If not, after sincere effort, then it may well be time to seek additional help to restore healthy sleep. 

At any given time, approximately half the population is sleep deprived. 

I want to start this occasional series with the quote from Albert Einstein featured in the photo gallery on the home page and repeated here.

Sometimes knowledge is enough. It is important to know useful things. Then there are times when the most useful thing we can know is that we do not know enough and then realize we do know where to go to find the information we need.

Imagination is the pathway to solutions.

Then there is imagination. The creative spark within all of us. An event, experience, dilemma, or challenge ignites possibilities in novel ways. Artists striving to provide a singular new view, musicians mastering sound, writers penning experience into poems, scientists puzzling through questions we didn’t even know how to ask, and philosophers staying thoughtful with the questions mankind has asked throughout the ages.