Category: Quotations

Knowledge and Wisdom

Image © Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2022

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in full Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Freshwater (born 6 August, 1809, Somersby, Lincolnshire, England — died 6 October, 1892, Aldworth, Surrey) an English poet often regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian age in poetry. He was raised to the peerage in 1884.

Source https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Lord-Tennyson

Wise and Weird 22/2/2022

Yeah Yeah Yeah

♦   What if my dog only brings back the ball because he thinks I like throwing it?

♦   Your future self is watching you right now through memories.

♦   If poison expires, is it more poisonous or is it no longer poisonous?

♦   Which letter is silent in the word “Scent,” the S or the C?

♦   Do twins ever realise that one of them is unplanned?

♦   Why is the letter W, in English, called double U? Shouldn’t it be called double V?

♦   Maybe oxygen is slowly killing you and it just takes 75-100 years to fully work.

♦   Every time you clean something, you just make something else dirty.

♦   The word “swims” upside-down is still “swims”.

♦   One hundred years ago everyone owned a horse and only the rich had cars. Today everyone has cars and only the rich own horses.

♦   The doctors who told Stephen Hawking he had two years to live in 1953 are probably dead.

♦   If you replace “W” with “T” in “What, Where and When” you get the answer to each of them.

♦   Many animals probably need glasses, but nobody knows it.

♦   If you rip a hole in a net, there are actually fewer holes in it than there were before.

♦   Please note I am only the purveyor of these words of weirdly wiseness.

♦   When 22/2/2022 (Australian format) falls on Tuesday, we can call it “2’s Day”.

♥   Gretchen Bernet-Ward

Postscript:
This is one of my earliest blog posts circa 2017.
I never thought I’d be reblogging it.
A lot has happened over the intervening years!

Calendar Date 22.2.2022
     Where will you be on Twosday?  I will be at an Art Discussion group – GBW

The Cat Says…

Cat quote modelled by JoJo @ Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2022

Read the card…

There are 24 quotes in The Cat’s Whiskers box (little affirmations to encourage a pawsitive life) and the next card purrs “The primary business of a cat is comfort” which surely comes under the same banner as relaxing, catnapping and sleeping.

All of which cats probably invented and certainly claim superior mastery.

Charles Dickens is reputed to have said “What greater gift than the love of a cat?” because cat-lovers around the world know that feline love is sometimes hard-won but worth it.

How easy it is for us to be smitten by a kitten.

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

🐱 🐱 🐱 🐱 🐱


acknowledgement to
Affirmations Publishing House
Bellingen NSW Australia

IN MEMORY OF BELOVED BINAH

‘The Fishermen Know…’ said Vincent

Design and image © Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2021

Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853-1890) was a post-Impressionist painter whose works, notable for their beauty, emotion and colour, highly influenced 20th century art. He struggled with mental illness and remained poor and virtually unknown throughout his life.

Posthumously, he became one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art.

Vincent van Gogh

The eldest of six living children, van Gogh had two younger brothers (Theo, who worked as an art dealer and supported his older brother’s art, and Cor) and three younger sisters (Anna, Elizabeth and Willemina). Theo would later play an important role in his older brother’s life as a confidant, supporter and art dealer.

Vincent’s lifestory makes fascinating reading, he was truly the classic tortured genius, but there is much more to be learned behind the scenes, e.g. his own mother destroying many of his paintings; hoping to become a minister he prepared to take the entrance exam to School of Theology in Amsterdam; Vincent was fluent in French, German and English, as well as his native Dutch.

Wheatfield with Crows 1890 by Vincent van Gogh

Fascinating facts and more:

https://www.biography.com/artist/vincent-van-gogh

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

‘Blank Pages’ Edith Lovejoy Pierce said…

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Out goes the old © Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2021

“We will open the book, its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day”

IMG_20210101_100253
In comes the new © Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2021

Edith Lovejoy Pierce (1904-1983) was a twentieth-century poet and pacifist.

Pierce was born in 1904 in Oxford, England. She married an American in 1929 and moved to the U.S. the same year. She and her husband lived in Evanston, Illinois. Information Boston University.

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

What if..? Jade Hameister’s Challenge

Jade Hameister Polar Skier and Sandwich
Jade Hameister Polar Skier (Image Credit: @jadehameister)

“What if young women around the world were encouraged to be more, rather than less? What if the focus shifted from how we appear, to the possibilities of what we can do?”

Quote from Jade Hameister – world record-breaking polar skier.

When told to “make me a sandwich” by a number of male internet trolls in response to her TED talk, Hameister made one, posted a picture of herself with the sandwich at the South Pole and captioned the photo:

“I made you a sandwich (ham & cheese), now ski 37 days and 600 kilometres to the South Pole and you can eat it.”

Star Fish 02Jade Hameister OAM (born 5 June 2001) is an Australian woman who, age 16, became the youngest person in history to pull off the “polar hat-trick”, ski to the North and South Poles, and cross the second largest polar icecap on the planet: Greenland.  Wikipedia.

Quote source:
 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-culture/2018/03/in-her-words-inspiring-quotes-from-australias-ground-breaking-women/

TED talk:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Jade+Hameister+TED+Talk

Facebook post:
 https://www.facebook.com/jadehameister/photos/a.224825967879767.1073741829.207513589611005/524715937890767/?type=3&theater

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

Bernard Shaw says…

IMG_20200617_141756

 

Bernard Shaw (he disliked his first name George) was not a good scholar but developed a wide knowledge of music, art, and literature from his mother’s influence and his visits to the National Gallery of Ireland.

In 1876 Shaw resolved to become a writer and he joined his mother and elder sister, by then living in London.  Like most creatives in their 20s, Shaw suffered continuous frustration and poverty.  He depended upon his mother’s pound a week from her husband and her earnings as a music teacher.

I love a good rags-to-riches story

Shaw’s early days were spent in the British Museum reading room, writing novels and reading what he had missed at school… eventually he became an internationally known and celebrated playwright, producing more than sixty plays.  His work is still performed today, the most well-known from 1912 is ‘Pygmalion’ aka ‘My Fair Lady’, and in 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The rest of Shaw’s long and remarkable life can be found in Britannica—
https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Bernard-Shaw

Gustavo’s blogspot has the original source of Shaw’s quote—
http://shawquotations.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-power-of-acute-observation-is.html

Film Camera Lights Action MovieNOTE:  Britannica shows a film clip of Bernard Shaw (in his 70s) speaking on the marvels of Movietone and the novelty of technology; excerpt from a Hearst Metrotone newsreel (c. 1930), (29 sec; 2.6 MB)  J. Fred MacDonald & Associates.

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward