View of Buffalo Mountain from Powder Branch Rd, Carter County
“Life is not orderly.
No matter how we try to make life so,
right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg,
fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce.”
Natalie Goldberg, b. 1948
Author, “Old Friend From Far Away:
The Practice of Writing Memoir”
Cloudy evening on Round Bald, Roan Mountain
“Nothing has taught me dependence on God like letting go of people.”
Connally Gilliam
“Revelations of a Single Woman”
“Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit.”
(Bidden or unbidden, God is here.)
Carl Jung, 1875-1961
Swiss psychiatrist
Doe River near Roan Mountain State Park, TN
“Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains,
losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and
we shall soon see them in their proper figures.”
Joseph Addison, 1672-1719
English poet and dramatist
Dennis Cove Falls, Carter County, TN
“Work is not always required…there is such a thing as sacred idleness,
the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.”
George MacDonald, 1824-1905
Scottish author, poet, minister
View from Round Bald, Roan Mountain, TN
“Truly it may be said that the outside of a mountain is good for the inside of a man.”
George Wherry, 1852-1928
Alpine Notes and the Climbing Foot
Doe River near Roan Mountain State Park, TN
“As you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest,
or sprawl wet-legged by a mountain stream,
the great door, that does not look like a door, opens.”
Stephen Graham, 1884-1975, The Gentle Art of Tramping
English novelist and travel writer
”I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. It has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful. Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and benumbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me — I am happy.”
Hamlin Garland, 1860-1940,
American novelist, poet, essayist
Blue Hole – Upper Falls, Carter County, TN
”The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside,
somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God.
Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be…”
Anne Frank, 1929-1945
Jewish girl who wrote a diary while in hiding with her family
during the German occupation of the Netherlands during WWII
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
“First things first, but not necessarily in that order.”
Doctor Who
On this date in 1794, French botanist Andre Michaux (1746-1802)
climbed Roan Mountain for the 2nd time. Read more.
“If you do not raise your eyes
you will think that you are the highest point.”
Antonio Porchia, 1885-1968
Voce
Roan Mountain Rhododendron Festival – today!
“A birthday is just the first day
of another 365-day journey around the sun.
Enjoy the trip.”
Author Unknown
Roan Mountain
“We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing,
while others judge us by what we have already done.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882
View from Round Bald, Roan Mountain
“Go, tell it on the mountain,
Over the hills and everywhere…”
John W. Work, 1872-1925
Pioneer in collecting, performing,
and preserving African-American folk music
Sycamore Shoals, Elizabethton, TN
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
Shakespeare, 1564-1616
English poet and playwright
View of Buffalo Mountain from Powder Branch Rd, Carter County
“Life is not orderly.
No matter how we try to make life so,
right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg,
fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce.”
Natalie Goldberg, b. 1948
Author, “Old Friend From Far Away:
The Practice of Writing Memoir”
Old Tweetsie Railroad, Doe River Gorge
“Whatever course you decide upon,
there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.
There are always difficulties arising which tempt you
to believe that your critics are right.
To map out a course of action
and follow it to an end requires…courage.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882
Another reflection in the Doe River
“Faith is the art of holding on to things
your reason has once accepted,
in spite of your changing moods.”
C. S. Lewis, 1898-1963
Irish author and scholar
Doe River
“We don’t see things as they are,
we see them as we are.”
Anaïs Nin, 1903-1977
Cuban French author
Barn at Dave Miller Homestead, Roan Mountain
“Opportunity is missed by most people
because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Thomas Edison, 1847-1931
American inventor and businessman
Blue Hole, Elizabethton
“All shall be well, and all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well.”
Julian of Norwich, 1342-1416
English mystic
Gray’s Lily in field on Roan Mountain
“My definition of an expert in any field is a person
who knows enough about what’s really going on to be scared.”
Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900
Irish playwright, novelist, poet
Appalachian Trail, Roan Mountain
“A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good
for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult
than all the medicine and psychology in the world.”
Paul Dudley White, 1886-1973
American cardiologist who treated several presidents
