Tony's Garden

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “The pessimist is the man who believes things couldn’t possibly be worse, to which the optimist replies: ‘Oh yes they could!’” — Vladimir Bukovsky BIRTHDAYS: 1514 Andreas Vesalius, Flemish anatomist, physician, and author widely regarded as the founder of modern human anatomy for his pioneering emphasis on empirical dissection of human…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “I keep six honest serving men (they taught me all i knew); Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.” — Rudyard Kipling BIRTHDAYS: 1566 Alessandro Piccinini, Italian lutenist and composer, born in Bologna, Papal States. Toccata VII 1678 William Croft, British composer and organist.…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.” — Peter Drucker BIRTHDAYS: 1776 Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist and inventor (waterproof fabric). 1800 Charles Goodyear, American inventor renowned for developing the process of vulcanization, a method of treating rubber with sulfur and heat that transformed it from a…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” — Mortimer J. Adler BIRTHDAYS: 1651 Johann Krieger, German organist and composer, born in the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg, Holy Roman…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “The role of the infinitely small in nature is infinitely great.” — Louis Pasteur BIRTHDAYS: 1571 Johannes Kepler, German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer renowned for formulating the three laws of planetary motion, which mathematically described the orbits of planets around the Sun and laid the groundwork for classical mechanics. 1572 Jan…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.” — Charles Babbage BIRTHDAYS:…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Culture . . . seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light…” — Matthew Arnold BIRTHDAYS: 1564 Abraham Bloemaert, Dutch painter, cartoonist, printmaker, and engraver. 1625…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “The Constitution only guarantees you the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” — Benjamin Franklin BIRTHDAYS: 1644 Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco, Spanish organist, composer. A Este Sol Peregrino 1689 Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, French Baroque composer. Sonata à 4 in E Minor, Op. 34 No. 3…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” — Aristotle BIRTHDAYS: 1639 Jean Racine, French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille, as well as an important literary figure in the Western tradition…