The Fridge Idea

A silly idea to introduce a little culture into our apartment by posting literary quotes or odd bits of poetry on our apartment refrigerator has turned into an outreach effort to enlighten and stimulated the minds of our friends and the casual passersby. Each roommate will submit a weekly quote or image from literature, history, art, cinema, etc. You are invited to explore our weekly entries and to vote on the entry that will adorn our fridge for the next week. Perhaps you may begin by considering the cultural, historical, or artistic significance of each entry; what do you think we should “digest” this week. The selection criteria should remain quite elastic and be driven by you. Really, we just hope that on occasion we might inspire you to revisit a book you’ve set aside, memorize a bit of verse, rent a movie you haven’t seen, or stroll through a museum gallery. Enjoy!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Weekly Entries for Week of March 30 - April 5, 2009

Entry 1

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

From The Ladder of St. Augustine (follow link to read complete poem)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Entry 2















The Lonely Pine by George Inness (Great American landscape artist, 1825-1894).
Currently located at the Detroit Institute of Art

Entry 3

I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long ago in the Army: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of 'emergency' is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning.

Dwight D Eisenhower


Entry 4

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

Richard Feynman - US educator & physicist (1918 - 1988)

Monday, March 23, 2009

Weekly Winner: March 22, 2009

A person without a sense of humour is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble in the road.

Henry Ward Beecher
Submitted by Mike