More quotes

I did intend to start doing a few more quotes on this blog but haven't quite got around to it well here at last is a collection of some quotes that I have enjoyed or found inspiring:

Photo: Randwick Woods

"The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world – we've actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other."
Joanna Macy

"I wake up every morning thinking … this is my last day. And I am putting everything into it. There's no time for mediocrity. This is no damned dress rehearsal. You've got one life, so just lead it. And try to be remarkable."
Anita Roddick

"It is more important to be good than to do good."
Lao Zi

"Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable."
Milton Friedman

"The walls of those who doubted the peak seemed to be impregnable. Nonetheless, you marched around the walls seven times and then blew the trumpets and the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. But acceptance by knowledgeable people is not enough. The political order should respond. Nonetheless, our willingness, let alone our ability, to do anything serious about the impending inability to increase oil output is still a long way off."
Dr. James Schlesinger , Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (1971-73), Secretary of Defense (1973-75), Director of the CIA and was the first Secretary of Energy (1977-79). 01 November, 2010

"If you suffer from occasional insomnia. The best solution is to get up and consider night gardening. This might sound preposterous to the uninitiated, not so. Rise at 3 am put on some warm clothing and a head torch and off you go. Weeding, pruning and gathering leaves for composting are best. You don't need to be entirely compos mentis for these tasks are they are quiet. Any desire to start chain sawing or wood chopping are best left till after daybreak regardless how frustrated you feel at your inability to sleep. The hours pass and by daybreak you may have done half a days work and transformed an area of your garden. It is a solitary pursuit, rare indeed to find neighbours at it too. It is their loss, night gardening is fine counterpoint to daylight work."
Simon (Nailsworth resident)