Malibu morning picture of the day - Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Dear friends, family, and gentle readers,

It's Wednesday, and here is your picture.

A good one today for those who love blue. There is a dotted line of clouds off just above the horizon.

And for those of you who love a blaze of sun, here's pic #2.

After yesterday's "Tree of Gold" I suppose it just had to settle down into placid, pacific, blue.

"A serious and good philosophical work
could be written consisting entirely
of jokes."

"The biggest critics of my books
are people who never read them."

I told you last week that a bought a bunch of quotation books. Here's a big, big secret for those of you who want to appear to be smart to your bosses and coworkers. Get one of these and read a one page a day, rather like a morning devotional. A guy (or a team of guys), who ARE smart, spent years of man-hours gleaning the one good thought that a lot of people had the brilliance to put into words that one time. (Shakespeare had many, so don't even try to compete with him...) Just pop out the essence of the quote at the right time and you'll look like a genius (because they'll assume you took the time in school to read all the works of Wittgenstein or Dorothy Parker or Tesla or Jackie Collins.

"I do not think you can name
many great inventions
that have been made by
married men."

If the people around you are writers, forget it. They all know this trick. You're still going to have to fool them with appropriateness, relevance, nuance, and timing. But, I guess if you can do that, you ARE a genius.

"One more drink and I'll be under the host."

"One book I got was Magill's Quotations in Context which is exactly what it says it is. Ralph Waldo Emerson is frequently misquoted as saying: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." As a professional copyeditor you can imagine that I get this one thrown at me to my face or behind my back. But the operative word is omitted there: "[foolish] consistency is ...".   I like to think I have reasons behind all of my standards, thank you.





But let's enjoy the whole contextual quote:

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do ..."

     - Ralph Waldo Emerson from "Self-Reliance" (1841)

Thanks Ralph, I couldn't agree more. And I'm glad that you start your sentences with caps and end them with periods. (And don't you think putting his quote in bold italics make it look more literary?)

Get out there all of you and continue working on being "great souls"; I know you have it in you.

Love,
Pops