Tony's Garden

Happy Nowruz! THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “I am the poet of the poor, because I was poor when I loved; since I could not give gifts, I gave words.” — Ovid BIRTHDAYS: 43 BC Ovid [Publius Ovidius Naso], Roman poet famous for writing “Metamorphoses”, born in Sulmo, Italy, Roman Republic. 1741 Jean-Antoine Houdon, French neoclassical…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “We know that the National Socialists were thoroughly collectivistic and strongly anti-individualistic. For them the relevant groups were the Germanic Aryans—and all the others. Individuals were defined by their group identity, and individuals were seen only as vehicles through which the groups achieved their interests. The Nazis rejected the Western liberal…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview – nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.” — Stephen Jay Gould BIRTHDAYS: 1844 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer. Scheherazade op.35 (52:08) 1915 Richard Condon, American author (The Manchurian Candidate). MISCELLANEOUS: Sic ’em, boy! Scientists Turn Bacteria Into…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Hatred and anger are the greatest poison to the happiness of a good mind.” — Adam Smith BIRTHDAYS: 1578 Francesco Albana, Italian painter. 1628 François Girardon, French sculptor. 1665 Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, French harpsichordist, organist, singer, and composer (Les pièces de clavessin; Céphale et Procris). Prélude & Chaconne “L’Inconstante”…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Just as in the sciences we have learned that we are too ignorant to safely pronounce anything impossible, so for the individual, since we cannot know just what are his limitations, we can hardly say with certainty that anything is necessarily within or beyond his grasp. Each must remember that no…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “All that would be required to prevent the disease [cholera] would be such a close attention to cleanliness in cooking and eating, and to drainage and water supply, as is desirable at all times.” — John Snow BIRTHDAYS: 1813 John Snow, English physician and a leader in the development of anaesthesia…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” — attributed to Albert Einstein BIRTHDAYS: 1692 Pieter Musschenbroek, Dutch mathematician and physician (Leyden jar). 1804 Johann Strauss the Elder, Austrian composer and…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin BIRTHDAYS: 1700 Michel Blavet, French composer. Sonata Op.2 No.3, and Concerto in a-moll MISCELLANEOUS: THIS DOES NOT BODE WELL. How risky is the…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” — Alan Kay BIRTHDAYS: 1515 Caspar Othmayr, German composer and Lutheran pastor, born in Amberg, Duchy of Bavaria. Hüt Du Dich 1672 Richard Steele, Anglo-Irish writer, playwright and politician best known as the co-founder of the magazine The Spectator alongside…

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “My ‘thinking’ time was devoted mainly to activities that were essentially clerical or mechanical: searching, calculating, plotting, transforming, determining the logical or dynamic consequences of a set of assumptions or hypotheses, preparing the way for a decision or an insight. Moreover … the operations that fill most of the time allegedly…