Thought for the Day

[Duke of Buckingham]

Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it.

Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star.

Confucius




Confucius (551–479 BCE) was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period of Chinese history. The philosophy of Confucius emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. His followers competed successfully with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era only to be suppressed in favor of the Legalists during the Qin Dynasty. Following the victory of Han over Chu after the collapse of Qin, Confucius's thoughts received official sanction and were further developed into a system known as Confucianism.

Confucius is traditionally credited with having authored or edited many of the Chinese classic texts including all of the Five Classics, but modern scholars are cautious of attributing specific assertions to Confucius himself. Aphorisms concerning his teachings were compiled in the Analects, but only many years after his death.

Confucius's principles had a basis in common Chinese tradition and belief. He championed strong family loyalty, ancestor worship, respect of elders by their children (and in traditional interpretations) of husbands by their wives. He also recommended family as a basis for ideal government. He espoused the well-known principle "Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself", an early version of the Golden Rule.

[Duke of Buckingham]

You cannot do what I do, but I cannot do what you do. The needs are huge, and none of us alone ever do greater things. But we all can do small things.

Together we can do something wonderful and very special, only if we could love enough each other and get out of the selfish blanket that modern society
is teaching us ...
... in everyday.

Ricardo Ferreira

[Duke of Buckingham]

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.

A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.

The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something.

Life has meaning only if one barters it day by day for something other than itself.

I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin.


Antoine de Saint-Exupery




Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (French pronunciation: ​[ɑ̃twan də sɛ̃tɛɡzypeʁi]), officially Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944, Mort pour la France), was a French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of several of France's highest literary awards and also won the U.S. National Book Award. He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Night Flight.

Saint-Exupéry was a successful commercial pilot before World War II, working airmail routes in Europe, Africa and South America. At the outbreak of war, he joined the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force), flying reconnaissance missions until France's armistice with Germany in 1940. After being demobilised from the French Air Force, he travelled to the United States to persuade its government to enter the war against Nazi Germany. Following a 27-month hiatus in North America, during which he wrote three of his most important works, he joined the Free French Air Force in North Africa, although he was far past the maximum age for such pilots and in declining health. He disappeared over the Mediterranean on his last assigned reconnaissance mission in July 1944, and is believed to have died at that time.

Prior to the war, Saint-Exupéry had achieved fame in France as an aviator. His literary works, among them The Little Prince, translated into over 250 languages and dialects, propelled his stature posthumously allowing him to achieve national hero status in France. He earned further widespread recognition with international translations of his other works. His 1939 philosophical memoir Terre des hommes became the name of a major international humanitarian group, and was also used to create the central theme (Terre des hommes–Man and His World) of the most successful world's fair of the 20th century, Expo 67 in Montreal, Canada.

[Duke of Buckingham]

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.

I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.


Anais Nin





Anaïs Nin (Spanish pronunciation: [anaˈiz ˈnin]; born Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell, February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977) was an American author born of Hispanic/Cuban parents in France, where she was also raised. She spent some time in Spain and Cuba but lived most of her life in the United States where she became an established author. She published journals (which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death), novels, critical studies, essays, short stories, and erotica. A great deal of her work, including Delta of Venus and Little Birds, was published posthumously.

[Duke of Buckingham]

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

It always seems impossible until its done.

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.


Nelson Mandela




Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (Xhosa pronunciation: [xoˈliːɬaɬa manˈdeːla]; born 18 July 1918) is a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. His administration focused on dismantling apartheid's legacy, and cutting racism, poverty and inequality. Politically left-wing, he served as president of the African National Congress (ANC) political party from 1990 to 1999.

Born to the Thembu royal family, Mandela attended Fort Hare University and the University of Witwatersrand, studying law. Living in Johannesburg townships and becoming involved in anti-colonial politics, he joined the ANC, becoming a founding member of its Youth League. When the National Party government implemented apartheid in 1948, he rose to prominence in the ANC's 1952 Defiance Campaign, being elected president of the Transvaal ANC branch and overseeing the 1955 Congress of the People. Working as a lawyer, he was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and with the ANC leadership stood on the Treason Trial from 1956 to 1961. Although initially committed to non-violent protest, he adopted a policy of violent resistance, co-founding the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, in 1961. In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela served 27 years in prison, many on Robben Island, while an international campaign lobbied for his release.

Released in 1990, Mandela wrote his autobiography, and led the ANC in negotiations with President F.W. de Klerk leading to apartheid's abolition and the establishment of multi-racial elections in 1994. In that year's elections, he led the ANC to victory. As president, he initiated the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses, while introducing policies aimed at combating poverty and inequality in South Africa. Refusing to run for a second term, and succeeded by his deputy Thabo Mbeki, Mandela became an elder statesman focusing on charitable work in combating poverty and HIV/AIDS.

Mandela has received international acclaim for his anti-colonial and anti-apartheid stance, having received over 250 awards, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, and is held in deep respect within South Africa as the "Father of the Nation", where he is often known under his Xhosa clan name of Mandiba. Controversial for much of his life, critics denounced him as a terrorist for his involvement in Umkhonto we Sizwe.

[Duke of Buckingham]

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.


William Shakespeare




William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, two epitaphs on a man named John Combe, one epitaph on Elias James, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. It was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as "not of an age, but for all time."

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

[Duke of Buckingham]

Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.

I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.

Soli Deo Gloria

Face to the reality.

I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed . . . equally well.

All music should have no other end and aim than the glory of God and the soul's refreshment; where this is not remembered there is no real music but only a devilish hubbub.


Johann Sebastian Bach




Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March [O.S. 21 March] 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist of the Baroque period. He enriched many established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Many of Bach's works are still known today, such as the Brandenburg Concertos, the Mass in B minor, the The Well-Tempered Clavier, his cantatas, chorales, partitas, Passions, and organ works. His music is revered for its intellectual depth, technical command, and artistic beauty.

Bach was born in Eisenach, Saxe-Eisenach, into a very musical family; his father, Johann Ambrosius Bach was the director of the town musicians, and all of his uncles were professional musicians. His father taught him to play violin and harpsichord, and his brother, Johann Christoph Bach, taught him the clavichord and exposed him to much contemporary music. Bach also went to St Michael's School in Lüneburg because of his singing skills. After graduating, he held several musical posts across Germany: he served as Kapellmeister (director of music) to Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, Cantor of Thomasschule in Leipzig, and Royal Court Composer to August III. Bach's health and vision declined in 1749, and he died on 28 July 1750. Modern historians believe that his death was caused by a combination of stroke and pneumonia.

Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected throughout Europe during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the main composers of the Baroque period, and as one of the greatest composers of all time.

[Duke of Buckingham]

A quarrel between friends, when made up, adds a new tie to friendship.

Have patience with all things, But, first of all with yourself.

Be who you are and be that well.

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.

We must never undervalue any person. The workman loves not that his work should be despised in his presence. Now God is present everywhere, and every person is His work.

Those who love to be feared fear to be loved.

True progress quietly and persistently moves along without notice.


Saint Francis de Sales




Francis de Sales, C.O., T.O.M., A.O.F.M. Cap., (French: François de Sales) (August 21, 1567 – December 28, 1622) was a Bishop of Geneva and is honored as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. He became noted for his deep faith and his gentle approach to the religious divisions in his land resulting from the Protestant Reformation. He is known also for his writings on the topic of spiritual direction and spiritual formation, particularly the Introduction to the Devout Life and the Treatise on the Love of God.

[zombie67]

[Duke of Buckingham]