About My Spare Brain

I spend much time searching for things - books, films, stories, quotes, songs, jokes, pictures, poems, prayers, anything really - that helps me see and think differently. Some of the ideas I've come across are presented in my book, See New Now. Others are fleshed out in my other blog. The rest are stored here for use in future books, articles, blog posts, speeches, and workshops. There is little rhyme or reason for what I post here. I do this to encourage visitors to come here as treasure hunters looking for new ways of seeing and thinking vs. researchers looking for new or better answers to questions they already know how to ask.

PLEASE VISIT MY OTHER BLOG

My other blog is Conversation Kindling. Its purpose is to pass along stories, metaphors, quotes, songs, humor, etc. in hopes they'll be used to spark authentic and rewarding conversations about working and living fruitfully. There are at least three things you can gain by getting involved in these conversations. First, you can discover new and important things about yourself through the process of thinking out loud. Second, you can deepen your relationships with others who join you by swapping thoughts, feelings, and stories with them. Finally, you'll learn that robust dialogue centered on stories and experiences is the best way to build trust, create new knowledge, and generate innovative answers to the questions that both life and work ask.
Showing posts with label Jacob Needleman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jacob Needleman. Show all posts

April 7, 2010

ODDS & ENDS: Criminal Minds Quotes, Why Can't We Be Good?, Jeffrey Dahmer, Pit Bulls and Profiling

Criminal Minds - Season 2
"The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body. After all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind." - Francois de la Roche Foucauld

"It has been said that time heals all wounds. I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens, but it is never gone." - Rose Kennedy

"The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children." - Dietrich Boenhoffer

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars." - Khalil Gibran

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." - Oscar Wilde

"The ultimate choice for a man, in as much as he is given to transcend himself, is to create or destroy, to love or to hate." - Erich Fromm

"Crime butchers innocents to secure a prize. And innocence struggles with all its might against the attempts of crime." - Maximilien Robespierre

"If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate." - Elbert Hubbard

"Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always." - Mahatma Gandhi

"Some of the best lessons are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom of the future." - Dale Turner

"Between the desire and the spasm, between the potency and the existence, between the essence and the descent, falls the shadow. This is the way the world ends." - T.S. Eliot

"Evil brings men together." - Aristotle

"There is not a righteous man on Earth who does what is right and never sins." - Ecclesiastes 7:20

"From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate." - Socrates

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." - Thomas Paine

"Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live." - Robert Kennedy

"The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul." - John Calvin

"Happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - Leo Tolstoy

"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms made of the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed." - Herman Melville

"Nothing is permanent in this wicked world. Not even our troubles." - Charles Chaplin

Jacob Needleman, Why Can't We Be Good


Stone Phillips, Jeffrey Dahmer Interview: Segment 2-Part 1


Stone Phillips, Jeffrey Dahmer Interview: Segment 2 - Part 2 (Video)
Stone Phillips, Jeffrey Dahmer Interview: Segment 2 - Part 3 (Video)
Stone Phillips, Jeffrey Dahmer Interview: Segment 2 - Part 4 (Video)
Stone Phillips, Jeffrey Dahmer Interview: Segment 2 - Part 5 (Video)
Stone Phillips, Jeffrey Dahmer Interview: Segment 2 - Part 6 (Video)

From The New Yorker
Troublemakers: What Pit Bulls Can Teach Us About Profiling by Malcolm Gladwell

February 15, 2010

FOCUS: Tips for Working and Living Fruitfully

"Yes, a Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice." - Yoda

"Daniel-san, must talk. Man walk on road. Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk down middle, sooner or later, get squished just like grape. Same here. You do karate ‘yes,’ or do karate ‘no.’ You do karate ‘guess so,’ you get squished. Understand?" - Mr. Miyagi, The Karate Kid

"It does not do you good to leave a dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - J.R.R. Tolkien

"The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something that can be learned in no other way." - Mark Twain

"There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go." - Tennessee Williams

"Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both yes and no." - J.R.R. Tolkien

"Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don't want it. What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone." - Miller Williams.

"He who promotes his own honor at the expense of his neighbor's has no portion in the World to Come." - Rabbi Yehudah ben- Chanina, Jewish World Review, 5/28/09

"For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." - 1 Corinthians 13:12

"Remember the scene in Cat Ballou where a very drunk Lee Marvin goes from unconscious to ranting to triumphant to roaring to weeping defeat and then finally passes out? One of the men watching him says, with real awe, 'I never seen a man get through a day so fast.' Don't let this be you." - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

"If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones." - John Steinbeck


Matt Weinstein,
What Bernie Madoff Couldn't Steal From Me


Jacob Needleman, What Is God?



From FORA TV
On Life, Cheerfulness and Aging by Garrison Keillor (Audio)

From MiamiHerald.com
A Journey into My Colon . . . and Yours by Dave Barry

From Psychology Today Online
Recipe for Maintaining Inspiration: Conversations, Random People, and Big Ideas by David Rock