Weekly Winner: September 27, 2009

Entry 1

This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.

Exclamation by Winston Churchill after an editor clumsily rearranged one of his sentences to avoid ending in a preposition.

Submitted by John

Weekly Winner: May 10, 2009

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.

-Albert Einstein

Submitted by Mike

Weekly Winner: May 3, 2009

"There are no genuine philosophical problems, philosophy is simply a byproduct of misunderstanding language."

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Submitted by John

Weekly Winner: April 26, 2009

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

Stephen Hawking

Submitted by Adam

Weekly Winner: April 19, 2009

"I think it would seem a little easier if the memories were shared. You and I wouldn't have to bear so much by ourselves, if everyone took a part." The Giver sighed, "You're right," he said, "But then everyone would be burdened and pained. They don't want that...They selected me-and you-to lift that burden from themselves

....The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry

Submitted by Mike

Weekly Winner: April 12, 2009

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

T.S. Eliot
Preface to Transit of Venus: Poems by Harry Crosby

Submitted by Jake

Weekly Winner: April 5, 2009

“The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins because he always treats me as a flower girl and always will. But I know that I shall always be a lady to Colonel Pickering because he always treats me as a lady, and always will.”

President Monson quoting Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady

Submitted by Adam

Weekly Winner: March 29, 2009

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

Submitted by Jake

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

Weekly Winner: March 15, 2009 (see below for new entries)

The fact is that neither of us knows anything beautiful and good, but he thinks he does know when he doesn’t, and I don’t know and don’t think I do: so I am wiser than he is by only this trifle that what I do not know I don’t think I do.

Plato quoting Socrates in Apology (The Apology of Socrates)

Submitted by Adam

Weekly Winner: March 8, 2009

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question "Whither?"

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Robert Frost
(Submitted by Mike)

Weekly Winner: March 1, 2009

Entry 2 -- Passage from Les Miserables

Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.

Victor Hugo

Poll Results
Entry 1 -- 2 (15%)
Entry 2 -- 5 (38%)
Entry 3 -- 3 (23%)
Entry 4 -- 3 (23%)