Good Morning Friends & Digital Neighbors! A few quotes on friendship from Forbes' Book of Quotations. Such a good book, I have a entire shelf of assort books of quotations, proverbs and other pithy things humans have said. I have television and the internet for the less quote worthy things humanity has said. On to the quotes & babble!😊
The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality. - John Quincy Adams
I occasionally wonder how much time will pass before I am forgotten after I die. How many years will pass when the last relative or friend of memory passes on and my memories fade with them. It is a sobering and humble thought that 99.99999999% of humanity passes into obscurity, only the extreme get remembered and that is not even a guarantee if there is collapse of society, many notables of the ancient world will never be known to us because of lost history. However something you said or did that conveyed your attitude of goodness and humanity may live for many generations as it is taught to those receive the lesson without knowing the teacher. I wonder what bits of wisdom or positive traits of attitude my great, great, great grandparents passed on to me without knowing their names or anything about their lives. It is perhaps one of the most selfless acts one is capable of since we can give without knowing and one can receive without knowing the giver.
A friend is one who sees through you and still enjoys the view. - Wilma Askinas
Warts and all. Now you can't be anything but warts, but good friends can see the mix in us and work to emphasize what is good and help us smooth out those rough edges. It is a strange dance of acceptance and growth.
What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other. - George Eliot
Everyone is fighting a battle - be kind. I like George's quote and wish more people thought that way. Too many dwellers in the mind of misery want to share that with others rather than find a path out of their misery. Helping people out of their misery is one of the reasons I am a shepherd of souls. While it is the love and friendship with the Master that matters most, to relate to the world as I believe He does is one of my constant goals and prayers. Enough for a Wednesday. Have a great day my friends.
Meanwhile in Alberta, Canada is this wonderful old barn. If it could talk, what stories would it tell?
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
Padre - Tom Miller invites you to a Coffee Talk, Speakeasies, Schmoozes, Tea Times, Afterhours and other gatherings.
https://teams.live.com/meet/93792382189049?p=DiBHsYfuECPgDrG7vO
2026 Coffee Talk with the ADD Irregulars
Thursday, January 1, 2026
6:00 AM - 8:00 AM (CST)
Occurs every day starting 1/1 until 12/31/2027
Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
White Pilled Wednesday - A break from the heaviness of news and current events to focus upon things more personal & positive for the first hour of Coffee Talk.
Afternoon Chats - Most Tuesday, Friday & Sundays 2:00 PM Central
Other chats as posted in the community.
The Beautiful
Said the Disciple to the Lover, “Sir, before I left the world I heard certain men who were held in high esteem and thought to know the will of the Beloved say that those who loved the Beautiful did not love the Beloved but loved idols, yet in the Garden of the Beloved we are ever striving to create beauty for the pleasure of the Beloved. Were they then speaking the truth?”
The Lover answered, “Those who said this had never glimpsed the form of the Beloved nor ever truly sought Him, for all beauty is but the reflection of the beauty of the Beloved, although seen very dimly as in a dark and faulty mirror, even as all goodness is a dim reflection of the goodness of the Beloved. So it is that those who love beauty and goodness recognize dimly in them the form of the Beloved and though often in ignorance those who are seeking the Beautiful and the Good are seeking after the Beloved.”
The Comforting of the Disciple
Now the Beloved often came into the Garden both because of the great joy He had in the Garden and because of the great love He bore the Lover and the Disciple. Often He talked with the Lover, but the Disciple because he was not yet perfected in Love could neither hear nor see the Beloved, though he often felt a strange joy, he did not know why. Therefore he was sorrowful, for it seemed to him that on account of his sins he would never find the Beloved. So weeping he came to the Lover and said, “Sir, I know that I am a very sinful man and I much fear that though I search all my life yet on account of my sins I shall never find the Beloved.”
In reply the Lover smiled gently and said, “My son, when you first came into the Garden do you remember what sort of day it was?”
“Yes,” said the Disciple, “I remember it. It was dark and gloomy as if no sunlight ever entered the Garden.”
“When you began to strip off your rich robes,” the Lover asked, “what happened to the day?”
“It seemed,” said the Disciple, “as if the sun had suddenly broken through the clouds and the whole Garden shone with glorious and celestial light: such light as shines daily in the Garden.”
The Lover replied, “Know that the Beloved Himself is the light of the Garden, so that when you began searching for the Beloved even then you found Him, for how can any know the desire to search for the Beloved if He had not already without his knowing revealed Himself to him.”
So the Disciple was greatly comforted by knowing that although he could not see or hear Him he had already found the Beloved, and he labored the more joyously to do the service of the Beloved.
