“Friendship is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties
of all the others…They are, like all beauties, derived from Him, and then,
in a good friendship, increased by Him through the friendship itself.”
C. S. Lewis, 1898-1963
Irish author and scholar
Lookout over Unicoi County on I-26 near TN/NC border
“My spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature;
the past was blotted from my memory, the present was tranquil,
and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy.”
Mary Shelley, 1797-1851
in Frankenstein
Johnson County, TN
“It is not easy to walk alone in the country without musing upon something.”
Charles Dickens, 1786-1851
in Little Dorrit
Bald Eagle Rehabilitation Center, Grandfather Mountain
“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy,
and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it
and to foster its renewal is our only hope.”
Wendell Berry, 1934-
Southern author
Tree Bark
“Contrary to popular belief, unmet desires are not necessarily
divine punishment for a flaw. Sometimes, when we line it all up,
life simply is not fair.”
Unicoi County, TN
“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”
W.C. Fields, 1880-1946
American comedian, actor, juggler
“There are no events but thoughts and the heart’s hard turning,
the heart’s slow learning where to love and whom.”
Annie Dillard, 1945-
“Holy the Firm”
Pulitzer Prize winning American author
“Sit and be still
until in the time
of no rain you hear
beneath the dry wind’s
commotion in the trees
the sound of flowing
water among the rocks,
a stream unheard before,
and you are where
breathing is prayer.”
Wendell Berry, 1934-
Given (2005), Sabbaths 2001
Old Tweetsie Railroad, Doe River Gorge
“There is no way to success in art but to take off your coat, grind paint,
and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882
“The woods are never solitary—they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life.”
Lucy Maud Montgomery, 1874-1942
Anne’s House of Dreams (1917)
View from Creeper Trail, Abingdon, Washington Co., VA
“Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men;
but be careful that you do not take the day,
and leave out the gratitude.”
E. P. Powell
“Any act often repeated soon forms a habit; and habit allowed,
steady gains in strength, At first it may be but as a spider’s web,
easily broken through, but if not resisted it soon binds us with chains of steel.”
Tyron Edwards, 1809-1894
American theologian
“I can always tell which is the front end of a horse,
but beyond that, my art is not above the ordinary.”
Mark Twain, 1835-1910
American humorist, satirist, lecturer and writer
MATTIE: “I’ve held my breath my whole life, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
AL: “God only has one shoe.”
Anne Lamott, 1954-
Blue Shoe
Rocky Fork, Unicoi Co., TN
“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like
to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never
really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.”
Frederick Buechner, 1926-
Presbyterian minister and American author
Creeper Trail, Abingdon, VA
“It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene,
and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate
with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow,
while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts
into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet.”
Washington Irving, 1783-1859
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820)
“As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity.
The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber
Burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning.
So one generation of men will grow while another dies.”
Homer, c. 8 BC
Iliad
“Boys are found everywhere — on top of, underneath, inside of, climbing on,
swinging from, running around or jumping to. Mothers love them,
little girls hate them, older sisters and brothers tolerate them,
adults ignore them and Heaven protects them. A boy is Truth with dirt on its face,
Beauty with a cut on its finger, Wisdom with bubble gum in its hair
and the Hope of the future with a frog in its pocket.”
Alan Marshall Beck
——
“Only an Aunt…
can give hugs like a mother,
can keep secrets like a sister,
and share love like a friend.”
Unknown
Bridge on trail to Laurel Falls
“Mistakes are the usual bridge between inexperience and wisdom.”
Phyllis Theroux,
Essayist and columnist
“The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands,
its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves,
was like a theater after the performance—
all strewn with crumpled playbills.”
Henry James, 1843-1916
The Turn of the Screw (1898)
Lower trail to Laurel Falls, Carter County, TN
“Life is easier than you’d think;
all that is necessary is to accept the impossible,
do without the indispensable, and bear the intolerable.”
Kathleen Norris
Best-selling author of The Cloister Walk,
Dakota, and Amazing Grace
Carter County, TN
“The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it,
or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only
by adding something better to it.”
Wendell Berry, 1934-
Southern author
“Whatever you would do, begin it.
Boldness has courage, genius, and magic in it.”
Goethe, 1749-1832
One of the key figures of German literature
“Two weeks from now the colorful leaves will have whirled to the ground
and the trees will be bare, announcing the coming of winter and snow.
It will be only a few months before all the hills will be white and the
green of the winter wheat covered with a thick blanket of frozen snow.
But then we can remember the rich powers hidden underneath
which will show themselves again to those who have the patience to wait.”
Henri Nouwen, 1932-1996,
Dutch Catholic priest and author
Beauty Spot, Unaka Mountain
“There is a fine line between giving God space to work in certain ways,
and demanding, if ever so subtly, that he work in the ways we envision.”
