Have to admit that these quotes are blatently plagiarized from Knowledge News (http://www.knowledgenews.net/). Love Knowledge News, well worth the subscription price. From Oscar Wilde (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde) who was very earnest (frank, too):

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."

"I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself."

"I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect."

"Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing."

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."

"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal."

"A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally."

"To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable."

"I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world."

Wish I had a way with words like that.

There is a whole new world out there! Thanks to Charlie (http://isntlifestrange.blogstream.com/) showing me how to put videos into a blog entry, I have been wandering through the music on YouTube. Found a bunch of my favorites. Mario Lanza singing “Song of India” and Beverly Sills “Vilya”. My parents wanted me to listen to good music but I insisted on the bad stuff – Louis Armstrong (he played at our – USNA '58 - graduation dance) and Benny Goodman. Here is one that my Mom and Dad used to play on their record player. On those old 78's (http://crazy50andcounting.blogstream.com/):

And the hymn that Nana (my Grandmother Stine) used to play on our old pump organ while Mom and her siblings sang it:

Great stuff.

A great video. James Brown and Luciano Pavarotti! Whoda thunkit.

Thanks to Charlie, the Hawk, http://isntlifestrange.blogstream.com/ for the video and how to put it in the blog.

I have been reading a great book, “Einstein, his Life and Universe” by Walter Isaacson. There are a bunch of quotes in it that I need to put into a text document to save.

One that keeps sticking in my mind: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” Einstein was frequently accused of being an atheist. He most certainly was not that. He may have disagreed with organized religion but an unbeliever he was not. He was a tribal Jew but not a religious Jew.

There always seems to be comments that scientists are not believers in God. It would appear to me that it is completely otherwise. I would bet that if you lined up all the people in the world with scientists on one side, philosophers on the other, and the rest of world down at the end, and asked all of the atheists to raise their hands, most of the philosophers would be jumping up and down waving their hands in the air. The rest of the world would have a bunch. But the scientists would be mostly quiet with their belief.

The wonders of mankind, our earth, and of the universe thrilled Einstein. He searched to unlock the mysteries and the beauty and attributed them to God. Certainly have not searched to unlock any mysteries but I can relate to his being thrilled and to his “religion without science” comment. There are no better believers than those who ponder on how things work. Nor than those who question and find some thread of the answer.

The blindness of those who arrested Galileo and centuries later had to apologize. They were more interested in their organization and in promoting their own goals and welfare. And the blindness of those who deny evolution, one of God's and Mother Nature's most spectacular gifts. Once again, putting their own gain first.

See my entries of 10, 12, 16, 18, and 24 February, '07, 8 November, 19 August, 17 and 28 July, 2006. Obviously one of my favorite topics.