“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”
“It’s innocence when it charms us,
ignorance when it doesn’t.”
Mignon McLaughlin
“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
“Rocky top, you’ll always be
Home sweet home to me.
Good ‘ole Rocky top
Rocky top Tennessee”
“A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.”
John le Carre, b. 1931
British author
“Conscience is what makes a boy
tell his mother before his sister does.”
Evan Esar, 1899-1995
American humorist
“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
“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
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
Unaka Mountain
“If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.”
Tryon Edwards, 1809-1894
American theologian
“Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.”
Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784
English author
Red Fork Falls
“When you drink the water, remember the spring.”
Chinese Proverb
“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”
Martin Luther King Jr., 1929-1968
Blue Ridge Parkway
“In the name of God, stop a moment,
cease your work, look around you.”
Leo Tolstoy, 1828-1910
Russian novelist
“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809-1894
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”
“Always and never are two words
you should always remember never to use.”
Wendell Johnson, 1906-1965
Psychologist and speech pathologist
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
“Only the mediocre are always at their best.”
Jean Giraudoux, 1882-1944
French author and diplomat
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
“Laws are like sausages.
It’s better not to see them being made.”
Otto von Bismarck, 1815-1898
“A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.”
Charlotte Bronte, 1816-1855
“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep,
so life well used brings happy death.”
Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519
“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
“So you see, imagination needs moodling –
long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.”
Brenda Ueland, 1891-1985
Journalist, editor, teacher
