Quote of the Day

Let us resolve to be masters, not the victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions.
- John F. Kennedy

Quote of the Day

Prose = words in their best order
Poetry = the best words in the best order.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Quote of the Day

It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one. But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit of the priests. Sweep away their gossamer fabrics of fictitious religion, and they would catch no more flies.
- Thomas Jefferson, to John Adams

Quote of the Day

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
- Walter Scott, "Sound, sound the clarion"

Quote of the Day

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range,
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.
- Alfred Tennyson, from "Locksley Hall"

Quote of the Day

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
- Alfred Tennyson, from "In Memoriam"

Quote of the Day

Nothing endures but change.
- Heraclitus

Quote of the Day

Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote of the Day

Time ripens all things. No man is born wise.
- Miguel de Cervantes

Quote of the Day

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
- Robert Heinlein

Quote of the Day

I think my favorite sport in the Olympics is the one in which you make your way through the snow, you stop, you shoot a gun, and then you continue on. In most of the world, it is known as the biathlon, except in New York City, where it is known as winter.
- Michael Ventre

Quote of the Day

Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally, the god market was fairly glutted and heaven crammed with these phantoms.
- Robert Ingersoll

Quote of the Day

An informal survey shows that what most people want for Christmas is two more weeks to prepare for it.
- Bob Stanley

Happy Festivus!

Once again, I would like to wish all my readers (both of you) a wonderful Festivus!

Quote of the Day

Nobody ever forgets where he buried a hatchet.
- Kin Hubbard

Quote of the Day

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.
- Rita Mae Brown

Quote of the Day

If it can’t be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion.
- Robert A. Heinlein

Quote of the Day

Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon or star.
- Confucius

Quote of the Day

The waste basket is the writer's best friend.
- Isaac Bashevis Singer

Quote of the Day

Men use thought only to justify their wrongdoings and words only to conceal their thoughts.
- Voltaire

Quote of the Day

You can't shame or humiliate modern celebrities. What used to be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity. And forget about traditional Character assassination. If you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert and a drug addict, all it means is that you've read his autobiography.
- P.J. O'Rourke

Quote of the Day

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
- Dorothy Parker

Quote of the Day

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.
- Edgar Watson Howe

Quote of the Day

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.
- Niels Bohr

Quote of the Day

Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent.
- Robert G. Ingersoll

Quote of the Day

At school I was taught that money isn’t everything and that the most important thing is to be good. When my mother found out, I had to change schools immediately.
- Zsa Zsa Gabor

Quote of the Day

The fool wonders; the wise man asks.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Quote of the Day

Comedy is tragedy plus time.
- Carol Burnett

Quote of the Day

Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning.
- General George Patton

Quote of the Day

An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.
- Confucious

Quote of the Day

The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.
- W. C. Fields

Quote of the Day

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Quote of the Day

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
- Steven Wright

Quote of the Day

It is true that wealth won't make a man virtuous, but I notice there ain't anybody who wants to be poor just for the purpose of being good.
- Henry Wheeler Shaw

Quote of the Day

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
- Werner von Braun

Quote of the Day

Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.
- Charles Caleb Colton

Quote of the Day

Women like silent men. They think they're listening.
- Marcel Archard

Quote of the Day

On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks.
- H. Allen Smith

Quote of the Day

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.
- Kurt Vonnegut

Quote of the Day

You can get a lot more done with a kind word and a gun, than with a kind word alone.
- Al Capone

Quote of the Day

Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no profession is necessary.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

Quote of the Day

Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.
- P. J. O’Rourke

Quote of the Day

We all agree that your theory is crazy, but is it crazy enough?
- Niels Bohr to Albert Einstein

Quote of the Day

To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors.
- John Stuart Mill

Quote of the Day

Blushing is the color of virtue.
- Diogenes

Quote of the Day

We don’t devote enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.
- Bill Watterson, American cartoonist "Calvin and Hobbes"

Quote of the Day

Susie: You’d get a good grade without doing any work.
Calvin: So?
Susie: It’s wrong to get rewards you haven’t earned.
Calvin: I’ve never heard of anyone who couldn’t live with that.
- Bill Watterson, 'Calvin and Hobbes'

Quote of the Day

Heck, what’s a little extortion among friends?
- Bill Watterson, American cartoonist "Calvin and Hobbes"

Quote of the Day

The real fun of living wisely is that you get to be smug about it.
- Bill Watterson, American cartoonist "Calvin and Hobbes"

Quote of the Day

If something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway.
- Bill Watterson, American cartoonist "Calvin and Hobbes"

Quote of the Day

Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles!
- Bill Watterson, American cartoonist "Calvin and Hobbes"

Quote of the Day

For your information, I’m staying like this, and everyone else can just get used to it! If people don’t like me the way I am, well TOUGH BEANS! It’s a free country! I don’t need anyone’s permission to be the way I want! This is how I am - Take it or leave it!
- Bill Watterson, American cartoonist "Calvin and Hobbes"

Quote of the Day

The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.
- Paul Valery

Quote of the Day

They spell it Vinci and pronounce it Vinchy; foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.
- Mark Twain

Quote of the Day

It is not only the most difficult thing to know one's self, but the most inconvenient.
- Henry Wheeler Shaw

Quote of the Day

The value of life lies, not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them.
- Michel De Montaigne

Quote of the Day

Being a politician is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game and stupid enough to think that it is important.
- Eugene McCarthy

Quote of the Day

Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
- John F. Kennedy

Quote of the Day

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.
- Thomas Alva Edison

Quote of the Day

Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
- Herman Melville

Quote of the Day

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
- Winston Churchill

Quote of the Day

Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.
- Goethe

Quote of the Day

I've never been hurt by anything I didn't say.
- Calvin Coolidge

Quote of the Day

I knew I was on to something because when I went to San Francisco to talk about it everyone said I was mad. So I thought, "Good, it means nobody else is doing it."
- Douglas Adams

Quote of the Day

Be wary of strong spirits. It can make you shoot at tax collectors … and miss.
- Robert A. Heinlein

Quote of the Day

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Quote of the Day

"We're gonna give you a fair trial, followed by a first class hanging."
- Brian Dennehy in "Silverado"

Quote of the Day

"This is where the law stops, and I start."
- Sylvester Stallone in "Cobra"

Quote of the Day

"You aren't too bright, are you? I like that in a man."
- Kathleen Turner, "Body Heat"

Quote of the Day

"FREEZE! Lose the guns or I redecorate in brain-matter grey, got it?"
- Bridgette Wilson in "Last Action Hero"

Quote of the Day

There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers. Here, you are all equally worthless.
- Gunnery Sergeant Hartman "Full Metal Jacket"

Quote of the Day

Mary: Don’t psychoanalyze me. I pay a doctor for that.
Isaac: Hey, you call that guy that you talk to a doctor? I mean, you don’t get suspicious when your analyst calls you at home at three in the morning and weeps into the telephone?
- Woody Allen in "Manhattan"

Quote of the Day

"I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave."
- David Bowie in "Labyrinth"

Quote of the Day

Morality in Europe today is herd-morality.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Quote of the Day

It is a good thing that we do not get as much government as we pay for.
- Will Rogers

Quote of the Day

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself.
- Henry Wheeler Shaw

Quote of the Day

I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.
- Dolly Parton

Quote of the Day

Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.
- Groucho Marx

Quote of the Day

Devils are not so black as they are painted.
- Thomas Lodge

Quote of the Day

In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
- Samuel Johnson

Quote of the Day

If you pray hard enough, you can make water run uphill. How hard? Why, hard enough to make water run uphill, of course!
- Robert A. Heinlein

Quote of the Day

A study in the Washington Post says that women have better verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the authors of that study: "Duh."
- Conan O' Brien

Quote of the Day

Only the wise possess ideas; the greater part of mankind are possessed by them.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Quote of the Day

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote of the Day

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

Quote of the Day

Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.
- Voltaire

Quote of the Day

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
- W.H. Auden

Quote of the Day

Education, which was at first made universal in order that all might be able to read and write, has been found capable of serving quite other purposes. By instilling nonsense, it unifies populations and generates collective enthusiasm.
- Bertrand Russel

Quote of the Day

I would rather make my name than inherit it.
- William M. Thackeray

Quote of the Day

An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.
- Will Rogers

Quote of the Day

I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
- Winston Churchill

Quote of the Day

You should not confuse your career with your life.
- Dave Barry

Quote of the Day

One should never put on one's best trousers to go out to battle for freedom and truth.
- Henrik Ibsen

Trollstigen

The final post from my September drive to the west coast is from one of the most visited tourist spots in Norway: Trollstigen (Troll's ladder). It is a serpentine drive down a tall, steep mountain side down into a narrow valley, with tall mountains on three sides. The view is breathtaking and not a little scary from the top, where there is a viewing platform. Just behind that, there's a tourist center with shops, toilets and a cafe.

These sheep were trotting alongside the road.


This is one of the two main waterfalls coming down the Trollstigen area.


Here's where it disappears off the edge.


And this is where my brain was going "I'm gonna diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie, fuck, fuck, fuck!".


I held on to that thought for some time.


Here I was breathing again. The road, btw has 11 hairpin turns, all named for the road crew that worked that particular turn back in the 1930s.


Actually, since the valley twists and turns, it looks like you've got mountains on all four sides.


Coming down the hill gives you some stunning views though.


The main waterfall coming down. The Norwegian word for a waterfall is "foss".


The other large one is a little further down the edge. From what I can recall, they both cross under the road. One is called Stigfossen, the other Trollfossen.


The view from the relative safety of the valley floor. Notice the RV in front; these hellmachines have gone from being a mainly German nuisance on narrow, west coast roads to near ubiquitous as Norwegians have started to buy them in great numbers too. They're starting to clog up every road in the country, because fuck forbid people can't drag their house with them when on vacation. /rant


Very pretty.

Quote of the Day

In a progressive country, change is constant; change is inevitable.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Quote of the Day

Justitia est regina virtutum
[Justice is queen of the virtues]
- Latin proverb

Quote of the Day

Carpe diem
[Seize the day]
- Latin proverb

Quote of the Day

Volenti non fit iniuria.
[To a person who consents, no injustice is done.]
- Latin proverb

More mountain pics

More pics from wonderful County Road 63 in Norway, between Gudbrandsjuvet and Trollstigen.

This picture was taken from the parking lot of Gudbrandsjuvet.


A little farther up the road.


Muy bien, si?


"...and the rivers sweat from the melting hills."


Norway is full of mountainous vistas like this.


Here and there you can find an idyllic mountain lake.


Or some tall tops.


The road starts dipping down towards Trollstigen (later post).

Quote of the Day

Si non caste, tamen caute
[If not chaste, then (at least be) careful]
- Latin proverb