Wise Birthday Quotes

The circumstances surrounding your birth is not as important as the opportunity to live life.

Time passes by you like a bullet," he says. "and fear gives you the excuses you're craving to not do the things you know you should. Don't doubt yourself, don't second guess, don't let fear hold you back, don't be lazy, and don't base your decisions on how happy it will make others. Just go for it, okay?

The circumstances surrounding your birth are not as important as the opportunity to live life.

I celebrate life with holy thanks.

The paradox of life; everyone desire a fuller life. But no one wishes to increase in age.

You will get what you wish to have.

The birth of a child is a sacred phenomenon.

Celebrate life in a cheerful mood.

Tired of his lack of understanding, she asked him for an unusual birthday gift: that for one day he would take care of the domestic chores. He accepted in amusement, and indeed took charge of the house at dawn. He served a splendid breakfast, but he forgot that fried eggs did not agree with her and that she did not drink café con leche. Then he ordered a birthday luncheon for eight guests and gave instructions for tidying the house, and he tried so hard to manage better than she did that before noon he had to capitulate without a trace of embarrassment. From the first moment he realized he did not have the slightest idea where anything was, above all in the kitchen, and the servants let him upset everything to find each item, for they were playing the game too. At ten o’clock no decisions had been made regarding lunch because the housecleaning was not finished yet, the bedroom was not straightened, the bathroom was not scrubbed; he forgot to replace the toilet paper, change the sheets, and send the coachmen for the children, and he confused the servants’ duties: he told the cook to make the beds and set the chambermaids to cooking. At eleven o’clock, when the guests were about to arrive, the chaos in the house was such that Fermina Daza resumed command, laughing out loud, not with the triumphant attitude she would have liked but shaken instead with compassion for the domestic helplessness of her husband. He was bitter and offered the argument he always used: “Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you if you tried to cure the sick.” But it was a useful lesson, and not for him alone. Over the years they both reached the same wise conclusion by different paths: it was not possible to live together in any way, or love in any other way, and nothing in this world was more difficult than love.

Humans are like mirrors: We reflect each other. When a wise person wants something from others, she first does what she desires from them, exemplifying rather than asking for it. If you want a friend to remember your birthday, remember hers first. If you want your husband to give you a massage, give him a massage first. If you want your children to watch less TV, turn off your TV first. Don’t just wait for what you want to happen. Act first.

Sunset, oh sunset, who took the years of my youth. Today you're hiding, maybe last year didn't go so smooth. I've got many questions unanswered and many answers too. You've been with me through joy and pain, I'll spend another moment here with you. When love was in my heart, you were there smiling too. And when it all fell apart, it was again just me and you. As you take another year of my life, may I be able to let it all go to you, take all the memories with it, the time when I was twenty-two. I cannot take regrets, resentment and pain through. With your last rays, light up the candles on my cake. From tomorrow onwards, I'll be a new me, a little more wild or wise, or maybe a bit free.. See you in the morning, the new me will be twenty-three.

The sacred gift of parenthood is inscribe in the universal words ‘Papa’ and ‘Mama’.

Six express tracks and twelve locals pass through Palimpsest. The six Greater Lines are: Stylus, Sgraffito, Decretal, Foolscap, Bookhand, and Missal. Collectively, in the prayers of those gathered prostrate in the brass turnstiles of its hidden, voluptuous shrines, these are referred to as the Marginalia Line. They do not run on time: rather, the commuters of Palimpsest have learned their habits, the times of day and night when they prefer to eat and drink, their mating seasons, their gathering places. In days of old, great safaris were held to catch the great trains in their inexorable passage from place to place, and women grappled with them with hooks and tridents in order to arrive punctually at a desk in the depth, of the city. As if to impress a distracted parent on their birthday, the folk of Palimpsest built great edifices where the trains liked to congregate to drink oil from the earth and exchange gossip. They laid black track along the carriages’ migratory patterns. Trains are creatures of routine, though they are also peevish and curmudgeonly. Thus the transit system of Palimpsest was raised up around the huffing behemoths that traversed its heart, and the trains have not yet expressed displeasure. To ride them is still an exercise in hunterly passion and exactitude, for they are unpredictable, and must be observed for many weeks before patterns can be discerned. The sport of commuting is attempted by only the bravest and the wildest of Palimpsest. Many have achieved such a level of aptitude that they are able to catch a train more mornings than they do not. The wise arrive early with a neat coil of hooked rope at their waist, so that if a train is in a very great hurry, they may catch it still, and ride behind on the pauper’s terrace with the rest of those who were not favored, or fast enough, or precise in their calculations. Woe betide them in the infrequent mating seasons! No train may be asked to make its regular stops when she is in heat! A man was once caught on board when an express caught the scent of a local. The poor banker was released to a platform only eight months later, when the two white leviathans had relinquished each other with regret and tears.

How do people choose their final words? Do they realize their gravity? Are they fated to be wise? By his 83rd birthday, Eddie had lost nearly everyone he'd cared about. Some had died young, and some had been given a chance to grow old before a disease or an accident took them away. At their funerals, Eddie listened as mourners recalled their final conversations. "It's as if he knew he was going to die. . . ." some would say. Eddie never believed that. As far as he could tell, when your time came, it came, and that was that. You might say something smart on your way out, but you might just as easily say something stupid. For the record, Eddie's final words would be "Get back!

The conduct of a new sedoretu is to some extent, and wisely, prescribed by custom and sanctioned by religion. The first night after the ceremony of marriage belongs to the Morning and Evening couples; the second night to the Day and Night couples. Thereafter the four spouses may join as and when they please, but always and only by invitation given and accepted, and the arrangements are to be known to all four. Four souls and bodies and all the years of their four lives to come are in the balance in each of those decisions and invitations; passion, negative and positive, must find its channels, and trust must be established, lest the whole structure fail to found itself solidly, or destroy itself in selfishness and jealousy and grief.

Nikhilananda’s birthday. Maybe we’d Morris dance, naked, around the base of an old-growth California redwood, its branches lavishly festooned with the soiled hammocks and poop buckets of crunchy-granola tree sitters mentoring spotted owls in passive-resistance protest techniques. You get the picture. In place of Santa Claus, my mom and dad said Maya Angelou kept tabs on whether little children were naughty or nice. Dr. Angelou, they warned me, did her accounting on a long hemp scroll of names, and if I failed to turn my compost I’d be sent to bed with no algae. Me, I just wanted to know that someone wise and carbon neutral—Dr. Maya or Shirley Chisholm or Sean Penn—was paying attention. But none of that was really Christmas. And none of that Earth First! baloney helps out once you’re dead and you discover that the snake-handling,

July I watch eagerly a certain country graveyard that I pass in driving to and from my farm. It is time for a prairie birthday, and in one corner of this graveyard lives a surviving celebrant of that once important event. It is an ordinary graveyard, bordered by the usual spruces, and studded with the usual pink granite or white marble headstones, each with the usual Sunday bouquet of red or pink geraniums. It is extraordinary only in being triangular instead of square, and in harboring, within the sharp angle of its fence, a pin-point remnant of the native prairie on which the graveyard was established in the 1840’s. Heretofore unreachable by scythe or mower, this yard-square relic of original Wisconsin gives birth, each July, to a man-high stalk of compass plant or cutleaf Silphium, spangled with saucer-sized yellow blooms resembling sunflowers. It is the sole remnant of this plant along this highway, and perhaps the sole remnant in the western half of our county. What a thousand acres of Silphiums looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked. This year I found the Silphium in first bloom on 24 July, a week later than usual; during the last six years the average date was 15 July. When I passed the graveyard again on 3 August, the fence had been removed by a road crew, and the Silphium cut. It is easy now to predict the future; for a few years my Silphium will try in vain to rise above the mowing machine, and then it will die. With it will die the prairie epoch. The Highway Department says that 100,000 cars pass yearly over this route during the three summer months when the Silphium is in bloom. In them must ride at least 100,000 people who have ‘taken’ what is called history, and perhaps 25,000 who have ‘taken’ what is called botany. Yet I doubt whether a dozen have seen the Silphium, and of these hardly one will notice its demise. If I were to tell a preacher of the adjoining church that the road crew has been burning history books in his cemetery, under the guise of mowing weeds, he would be amazed and uncomprehending. How could a weed be a book? This is one little episode in the funeral of the native flora, which in turn is one episode in the funeral of the floras of the world. Mechanized man, oblivious of floras, is proud of his progress in cleaning up the landscape on which, willy-nilly, he must live out his days. It might be wise to prohibit at once all teaching of real botany and real history, lest some future citizen suffer qualms about the floristic price of his good life. * * *

I do not say this is a decree,” she wrote, her beautiful writing brushing the page with firm yet delicate strokes. “Let it be greeting and invitation, a hope that we may meet again with quiet hearts and wise minds. Come, then, before the ceremonies for my sixtieth birthday. Let us spend an hour together before we mingle with the Court.

M" Mnemosyne’s silent M drives me to the dictionary Her baby sister makes an n run. Youth does not tarry Those diaphanous, luminescent water jellies, Mnemiopsis, small as sneezes, I can only conjure as Knee me up, Sis Spelling? Easier to recall these beauties as invasive carnivorous, cannibalistic, and hermaphroditic (They eat each other and fuck themselves) Mnemonic is a device that helps me remember birthdays and phone numbers of those I no longer love but can recall in traces Or how to sequence pi to a thousand places as Guinness names me a mnemonist. Or my own birthday because my mother died the day before Just a handful of words end in mn, and the soul they limn: autumn, solemn, damn, condemn, the a capella hymn But hundreds contain mn. A standout: that Jurassic cephalopod, belemnite, long gone, yet its name and phallic fossil live on And should those Siamnese twins stand at the head, they’re led by a vowel that takes m by the hand and leaves n to bed another syllable. Amnesia. You are what you forget Still, the mother of all muses has a name hard to set Mnemiopsis, mnemonist, mnemonic, Mnemosyne— such elegance I should be able to recall: these words all begin with silence Perhaps her name once began with A: Out one day, bathing carefree in the Aegean, she fell for a creature she could feel but not see— say, a tentacled jelly—got entangled with the beast, lost the A, Tore her chiton, and returned in disarray Zeus said, Where’s the A I gave you on the birth of Calliope? She, recalling his trysts, yet savoring her berth, wanted no scene Saw in backward glance, the gem wedged in coral’s gritty teeth A’s so plebeian. Words are rife. Alcmene, Europa, Hera, adultery Few can spell my name yet spell I cast when lives are spent I am the Titan Mnemosyne, Goddess of All Memory, and off she went leaving Zeus to rue her gift and curse Yet wise manager, was hers not the golden purse?

They’re celebrating the fact I’m not dead yet, not the fact I’ve achieved something while I’m alive. That’s what birthday celebrations are — a big party to congratulate a person on not being dead.

Birthday is a sacred-life celebration.

If your feeding on the Word of God is only happening when the pastor preaches, then you will suffer from malnourishment. When people become so focused on teaching lessons rather than teaching students, churches can become places where lessons are delivered, but no real change comes about. When members are taught how to budget and manage their money wisely they are more capable of supporting the church’s ministries. When individuals take on leadership roles, they need to be accountable, not only to God, but also to others at the church. The success or failure of your ministry depends on this. So many people would have a better opinion of Christians if they felt that the believers did not have a “holier than thou” attitude. Attract unbelievers; be honest and open. If you have experienced tough problems, and you know that God made a way for you, don’t keep this good news to yourself. Share your testimony; it just might change someone’s life. People like to know that others care about them. You may never know how much a kind word, a discussion, a visit, a brief note, a birthday card or some much needed friendship can influence someone who is not used to thoughtful gestures. It is hard to motivate people to act if they do not see the person leading them setting the proper example. Whenever only one person is responsible for making all of the major decisions for an organization, problems can arise; this is true of churches as well.

That with age, she becomes wise, self assured and confident. Consequently, the happiest women in the world are the ones that understand birthdays are a symbol of beauty. For there is nothing more attractive to a man than a woman who has truly lived. She who wears her age gracefully and with pride. Yes, birthdays for a woman are special. If anything, they announce to the world that you continue to grow more beautiful with time, like a rose coming into full bloom.

Hope is the assurance of positive expectations.

These were my grandmother’s last words: “I have wasted my life.” “Thanks a lot,” said my mother, who tended to make everything about her. I said, “What do you mean, Grandma?” I was interested, as I hoped to learn from her mistakes. I may even have gotten pen and paper ready. (Perhaps my mother and I were more alike than we realized.) “Of course you haven’t, Mum,” said Auntie Pat. But my grandmother just sighed and fiddled irritably with the button on the blue brunch coat I’d bought her for her last birthday. She would really have preferred a paler blue but she supposed it would do. Grandma never said another word. She died ten days later. You never know what your last words are going to be, so try to choose them all wisely.

The children’s birthday parties were such fun. We would book Smarty Arty, who was the children’s entertainer of the day. He had a miniature gold coach that he would bring to parties and the birthday girl or boy was allowed to choose one friend, and only one, to go in the coach with them. It was then pulled around by a lady in a very unsuitable tight spangly outfit who took the part of the horse. She drew the coach around the garden and everyone clapped. Of course, it was clever of Smarty Arty only to allow two of the children on the coach, no matter how much the others begged. It made them all desperate for their turn, and the likelihood of him being booked for their parties went up accordingly. Smarty Arty also, very wisely, made sure there was sherry for the nannies, and later, as he got more successful, he suggested champagne, and they loved him even more. They could sit around, drinking and gossiping, while the children were entranced by the golden coach.

Naah.” The cat yawns, yet again, and curls up on the floor next to the 3D printer. “It’s some kinda dodgy business model to get you out of hock to your mom. Better be careful, though—he says its legality is narrowly scoped jurisdiction-wise. Your mom might be able to undermine it if she learns about how it works.” “Wow. Like, how totally cool.” In truth, Amber is delighted because it is her birthday, but Mom’s at work, and Amber’s home alone, with just the TV in moral majority mode for company.

The Eight Myths of Hanukah 1. Hanukah is the Jewish Christmas. False. How many times have I been asked, “Is Hanukah the Jewish Christmas?” Let me set the record straight. Christmas is the Jewish Christmas. Mary and Joseph were Jewish, Jesus was Jewish, and at least one of the Wise Men was Jewish — the one that brought the fur. 2. Hanukah is the holiest of Jewish holidays. False. Hanukah isn’t even a religious holiday. The holiest of Jewish holidays is April 24, Barbra Streisand’s birthday. The second holiest Jewish holiday is December 29, the wedding anniversary of Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. 3. Hanukah is another Jewish holiday where they tried to kill us, they didn’t, so we eat. True. Also known as the Festival of Lights, Hanukah is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the re-dedication of the Holy Temple (the Second Temple) in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the second century BCE, which brings us to ... 4. Hanukah commemorates the miracle that one day’s worth of oil lasted eight days in the Holy Temple. True. But, this is hardly a miracle because I witnessed my grandmother doing the same thing with one tea bag. 5. During Hanukah, children get a gift every night for eight days. False. If you grew up in my house, you got a gift the first night, then for seven nights, you heard about how awful it was to grow up during The Great Depression. The ritual of gift giving is actually very American, since Jewish children in this country are totally exposed to Christmas customs. 6. Hanukah is a holiday when Jewish people eat bland, colorless foods that are fried in oil and difficult to digest. True for ALL Jewish holidays. On Hanukah, we eat latkes (potato pancakes) or sufganiot, if you are Sephardic. Sufganiot are similar to jelly donuts. I am part Sephardic, so I like donuts, just not jelly ones. 7. There are many popular songs about Hanukah, and Jewish people know the words to all of them. False. Other than “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel,” there are no other Hanukah songs we can sing, except for “The Hanukah Song,” by Adam Sandler, which brings us to Number 8 ... 8. Steve & Eydie and Barbra Streisand have recorded Hanukah albums. SO NOT TRUE! Would you believe Steve and Eydie have recorded a Christmas album, and Barbra has recorded not one but two Christmas albums?! And all those Christmas songs we hear on the radio are mostly written, and oftentimes performed, by Jews! Oy vay! This brings us back to myth Number 1, proving once again that Christmas is the Jewish Christmas! So, from my Trailer Park to Yours, here is wishing you a very Happy Jewish Christmas and a Merry Hanukah! 261

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In fact, reading is a discipline: like running regularly, or meditating, or taking voice lessons. Any able adult can run across the backyard, but this ability to put one foot in front of another shouldn’t make him think that he can tackle a marathon without serious, time-consuming training. Most of us can manage to sing “Happy Birthday” or the Doxology when called for, but this doesn’t incline us to march down to the local performing arts center and try out for the lead in Aida. Yet because we can read the newspaper or Time or Stephen King without difficulty, we tend to think that we should be able to go directly into Homer or Henry James without any further preparation. And when we stumble, grow confused or weary, we take this as proof of our mental inadequacy: We’ll never be able to read the Great Books. The truth is that the study of literature requires different skills than reading for pleasure. The inability to tackle, unaided, a list of Great Books and stick to the project doesn’t demonstrate mental inadequacy—just a lack of preparation.