February 6, 2010 at 6:40 PM (Flowers & Plants, Henri Nouwen)
“What makes the temptation to power so seemingly irresistible?
Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love.
It seems easier to be God than to love God,
easier to own life than to love life . . .
The temptation of power is greatest when intimacy is a threat.”
Henri Nouwen
“In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership”
February 3, 2010 at 8:22 PM (Bugs & Insects, Flowers & Plants)
“Hate no one; hate their vices, not themselves.”
J. G. C. Brainard, 1795-1828
American poet, lawyer, editor
February 1, 2010 at 5:00 PM (Boone, Scenes)
Blue Ridge Mountains near Boone, NC
“The most beautiful adventures
are not those we go to seek.”
Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894
January 31, 2010 at 5:00 PM (Roan Mountain, Scenes)
“The grass is not, in fact, always greener
on the other side of the fence.
Fences have nothing to do with it.
The grass is greenest where it is watered.
When crossing over fences, carry water with you
and tend the grass wherever you may be.”
Robert Fulghum, b. 1937
“It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It”
January 30, 2010 at 8:32 PM (Flowers & Plants)
“It’s innocence when it charms us,
ignorance when it doesn’t.”
Mignon McLaughlin
January 29, 2010 at 6:21 PM (Flowers & Plants)
“What I was really hanging around for,
I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by.
I mean I’ve left schools and places
I didn’t even know I was leaving them.
I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-by or a bad good-by,
but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it.
If you don’t, you feel even worse.”
J. D. Salinger, 1919-2010
The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 1
January 28, 2010 at 3:41 PM (Scenes)
“Rocky top, you’ll always be
Home sweet home to me.
Good ‘ole Rocky top
Rocky top Tennessee”
January 26, 2010 at 7:00 AM (Buffalo Mountain, Scenes)
“A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.”
John le Carre, b. 1931
British author
January 25, 2010 at 9:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“Conscience is what makes a boy
tell his mother before his sister does.”
Evan Esar, 1899-1995
American humorist
January 24, 2010 at 7:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one’s preconceived ideas.
In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity,
their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizzare
which seems inherent in them.”
Jean Cocteau, 1889-1963
Les Enfants Terribles
January 23, 2010 at 9:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“In a world where there is so much to be done
I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do.”
Dorothea Dix, 1802-1887
Social reformer and nurse during Civil War
January 22, 2010 at 5:00 PM (Jonesborough, Scenes)
1788 Christopher Taylor house, Andrew Jackson’s home, Jonesborough
“We require from buildings, as from men,
two kinds of goodness:
first, the doing their practical duty well:
then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it;
which last is itself another form of duty.”
John Ruskin, 1819-1900
The Stones of Venice, 1880
January 21, 2010 at 5:00 PM (Scenes)
Unaka Mountain
“If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.”
Tryon Edwards, 1809-1894
American theologian
January 20, 2010 at 5:00 PM (Flowers & Plants)
“Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.”
Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784
English author
January 19, 2010 at 5:00 AM (Red Fork Falls, Unicoi County, Water)
Red Fork Falls
“When you drink the water, remember the spring.”
Chinese Proverb
January 18, 2010 at 1:01 PM (Flowers & Plants, Martin Luther King Jr)
“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”
Martin Luther King Jr., 1929-1968
January 17, 2010 at 10:33 AM (Blue Ridge Parkway, Scenes)
Blue Ridge Parkway
“In the name of God, stop a moment,
cease your work, look around you.”
Leo Tolstoy, 1828-1910
Russian novelist
January 15, 2010 at 8:24 PM (Flowers & Plants, Oliver Wendell Holmes)
“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809-1894
January 12, 2010 at 5:00 PM (Scenes)
Appalachian Trail crossing Jane Bald, Roan Mountain
“Be master of your petty annoyances
and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things.
It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out –
it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.”
Robert W. Service, 1874-1958
“The Bard of the Yukon”
January 11, 2010 at 8:14 PM (Flowers & Plants)
“Always and never are two words
you should always remember never to use.”
Wendell Johnson, 1906-1965
Psychologist and speech pathologist
January 10, 2010 at 5:00 PM (Linville Falls, Thomas a Kempis, Water)
Linville Falls
“Never be entirely idle;
but either be reading, or writing,
or praying or meditating or endeavoring
something for the public good.”
Thomas a Kempis, 1380-1471
January 9, 2010 at 10:48 AM (Bugs & Insects, Flowers & Plants)
“Only the mediocre are always at their best.”
Jean Giraudoux, 1882-1944
French author and diplomat
January 7, 2010 at 7:00 PM (Carter County, Flowers & Plants, Roan Mountain)
Flame Azalea on Roan Mountain
“Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain
the least triviality that happens to us,
and yet not good enough to recollect
how often we have told it to the same person?”
Francois de La Rochefoucauld, 1613-1680
French author
January 6, 2010 at 7:00 PM (Bugs & Insects)
“Laws are like sausages.
It’s better not to see them being made.”
Otto von Bismarck, 1815-1898
January 5, 2010 at 7:20 PM (Flowers & Plants)
“A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.”
Charlotte Bronte, 1816-1855
January 4, 2010 at 10:18 PM (Flowers & Plants, Leonardo Da Vinci)
“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep,
so life well used brings happy death.”
Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519
January 3, 2010 at 7:00 PM (Flowers & Plants, Oliver Wendell Holmes)
“Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch;
nay, you may kick it about all day like a football,
and it will be round and full at evening.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809-1894
January 2, 2010 at 7:51 PM (Flowers & Plants)
“So you see, imagination needs moodling –
long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.”
Brenda Ueland, 1891-1985
Journalist, editor, teacher
January 1, 2010 at 3:00 PM (Flowers & Plants)
“It’s a new day, it’s a new time…
and there’s a new way I’m gonna live my life…
All the old has passed away and the new has come…
Thank God, It’s a brand new day!”
Avalon,
“New Day”
December 31, 2009 at 8:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
Oprah Winfrey, b. 1954
O Magazine
December 30, 2009 at 5:00 AM (Bugs & Insects, Kingsport, Warrior's Path Park)
“If all the insects were to disappear from the earth,
within 50 years all life on earth would end.
If all human beings disappeared from the earth,
within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.”
Jonas Salk, 1914-1995
Medical researcher, discovered first polio vaccine
December 29, 2009 at 1:59 PM (C. S. Lewis, Flowers & Plants, Roan Mountain)
Columbine, Roan Mountain
“God, who foresaw your tribulation,
has specially armed you to go through it,
not without pain but, without stain.”
C.S. Lewis
December 28, 2009 at 7:00 PM (Flowers & Plants)
“The greatest conflicts are not between two people
but between one person and himself.”
Garth Brooks, b. 1962
December 27, 2009 at 9:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“In love’s service only wounded soldiers can serve.”
Thorton Wilder, 1897-1975
December 26, 2009 at 5:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“Never esteem anything as of advantage to you
that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.”
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 121 AD-180 AD
Meditations
December 25, 2009 at 5:00 AM (Asheville, Rich Mullins)
Basilica of St. Lawrence, Asheville, NC
“If there is any meaning in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, it is this:
that there is a God who created us, and who loves us so much
that He would stop at nothing to bring us to Him.
And I really suspect that of all the things we think we want to know,
the only thing we really want to know is that we are loved.
And if Jesus means anything, He means that you are loved.
I hope you know that. And I hope you stop worrying
about all the stuff you don’t know,
because I don’t think it amounts to a hill of beans.”
Rich Mullins, 1955-1997
An Arrow Pointing to Heaven
December 24, 2009 at 1:00 AM (Blowing Rock, Frederick Buechner, Scenes)
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Blowing Rock, NC
“‘The Word became flesh,’ wrote John,
‘and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14).
That is what the incarnation means.
It is untheological. It is unsophisticated. It is undignified.
But according to Christianity, it is the way things are….
One of the blunders religious people are particularly fond of making
is the attempt to be more spiritual than God.”
Frederick Buechner, b. 1926
December 23, 2009 at 7:00 PM (Bugs & Insects, Flowers & Plants)
“Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful.
If it’s bad, it’s experience.”
Victoria Holt, 1906-1993
British author
December 22, 2009 at 7:00 PM (Flowers & Plants)
“What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears
as easily as we open and shut our eyes!”
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, 1742-1799
German scientist and philosopher
December 21, 2009 at 6:23 PM (Blue Ridge Parkway, Grandfather Mountain, Scenes)
Grandfather Mountain, Blue Ridge Parkway
“And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us — listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!”
Susan Cooper, b. 1935
British author
December 20, 2009 at 7:53 PM (Erwin, Rock Creek Park, Scenes)
Rock Creek Park (last winter)
“Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be.”
Jim Horning
December 19, 2009 at 7:03 PM (Scenes, Unicoi County)
My home in today’s lovely snow
“There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you….
In spring, summer and fall people sort of have
an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country,
can you have longer, quiet stretches
when you can savor belonging to yourself.”
Ruth Stout, 1884-1980
Organic gardener
December 18, 2009 at 7:00 PM (Asheville, Biltmore Estates, Flowers & Plants, Scenes)
Biltmore, Asheville, NC
“A human being is only interesting if he’s in contact with himself.
I learned you have to trust yourself, be what you are,
and do what you ought to do the way you should do it.
You have got to discover you, what you do, and trust it.”
Barbra Streisand, b. 1942
December 17, 2009 at 7:40 PM (Flowers & Plants, Francis Bacon)
“There is no excellent beauty that
hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”
Sir Francis Bacon, 1561-1626
“Of Beauty”
December 16, 2009 at 6:30 PM (Bays Mountain, Bugs & Insects, Ralph Waldo Emerson)
“This time, like all times, is a very good one,
if we but know what to do with it.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882
December 15, 2009 at 8:00 PM (Helen Keller, Rocky Fork, Unicoi County, Water)
Rocky Fork
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens;
but often we look so long at the closed door
that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
Helen Keller, 1880-1968
December 14, 2009 at 8:00 PM (Flowers & Plants)
“Living is a constant process of
deciding what we are going to do.”
José Ortega y Gasset, 1883-1955
Spanish philosopher
December 13, 2009 at 8:00 PM (Uncategorized)
Rhododendron blossom
“In three words I can sum up
everything I’ve learned about life.
It goes on.”
Robert Frost, 1874-1963
December 12, 2009 at 8:00 PM (Backbone Rock, Scenes)
December 11, 2009 at 8:00 PM (Flowers & Plants)
Trout Lily
“You can’t be brave
if you’ve only had wonderful things
happen to you.”
Mary Tyler Moore, b. 1936
Funds produced from the sale of the new Tennessee AT license plate will be shared with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy for the support and management of the Appalachian Trail. Click here.
