Let us permit nature to have her way; she understands her business better than we do.

 –Michel de Montaigne (1522-1592)

How refreshing, the whinny of a packhorse unloaded of everything.

–Zen saying

Man is the only animal who has to be encouraged to live.

 –Friedrich Nietzsche

Adults look upon a child as something empty that is to be filled through their own efforts, as something inert and helpless for which they must do everything, as something lacking an inner guide and in constant need of inner direction… An adult who acts in this way, even though he may be convinced that he is filled with zeal, love, and a spirit of sacrifice on behalf of his child, unconsciously suppresses the development of the child’s own personality.

  –Maria Montessori

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.

 –Anne Frank

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,/ And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; / Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,/ And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

–William Butler Yeats

Every man has it in his power to make one woman happy by remaining a bachelor.

   –Daisy F. Ayers

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

 –Ralph Waldo Emerson

A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.

–Steve Martin

People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they were willing actually to remain fools.

–Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens

 

When a fool is silent, he too is counted among the wise.

 –Yiddish Proverb

If I had kept my mouth shut, I wouldn’t be here.

 –Sign under a mounted fish

Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

– Sign outside a Hong Kong tailor shop

Never iron clothes while they are being worn.

 –Warning label on a household iron

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities. 

– Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr Seuss)

 (Each week this column features quotations gleaned from the readings and experiences of our editors, reporters, readers, and friends. All are invited to submit quotations for inclusion here. They may be sent to Gleanings, c/o The Newtown Bee, 5 Church Hill Road, Newtown, CT 06470 or e-mailed to editor@thebee.com.)