It reads:

Happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them.

I love inspirational images like this, but it bothers me that they don’t have the complete attribute for them. Who said this? Where was it said (or written)?

I was able to find that author, it was Charles de Montesquieu, but where it was written or said isn’t listed in our quotation collection either. Montesquieu is one of the political philosophers and founding fathers of the U.S. He’s known for his book, The Spirit of Laws, but I have never read that book. Perhaps it’s time for me to do a little reading…

Image via: work sweat achieve

I enjoyed this video so much!

• comics: life with rippy

I have been a fan of Something Positive ever since my sister told me about it years ago. Over the years, I added my favorite of his quotations to our collection. You can read them here:

• Randy K. Milholland Quotes – The Quotations Page

My all-time favorite quote is this one:

Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren’t distracted by the total lack of content in your writing.

Thanks for the shout-out, Randy! Keep up the good work!

It’s rare when I get a quote from a movie, but yesterday while watching Ghost Rider, I wrote down this quote:

You would think that with such a great quote that the movie would be about making good choices in your life, but it seemed to be more about getting a second chance at life.

Here is a preview of the movie:

My favorite bit of inside joke from the movie is the fact that Peter Fonda plays the devil in this movie. Peter Fonda is known for his role in Easy Rider, which is a very different motorcycle movie. You can see the opening credits here:

The complete circle of Peter Fonda as a sort of anti-hero of the sixties to the devil of the present time is my favorite sort of inside joke. It’s probably no coincidence that Ghost Rider was named with such a similar name to Easy Rider (plus the play on words with the famous phrase “ghost writer”).

Ghost Rider was based on the comic book series by the same name. You can purchase the complete comic book collection on DVD-ROM here:

• Ghost Rider the Complete Comic Collection Windows/Mac from Amazon.com

I have never been able to enjoy magazines on a computer; my Mad Magazine collection is sitting in the basement relatively untouched. I prefer REAL books, so here are the trade paperbacks for Ghost Rider.

• Ghost Rider Volume 1: Vicious Cycle by Daniel Way (Author), Mark Texeira (Author), Javier Saltares (Author)

• Ghost Rider Volume 2: The Life & Death Of Johnny Blaze by Daniel Way (Author), Jose Villarrubia (Colorist), Richard Corben (Illustrator), Javier Saltares (Illustrator), Mark Texeira (Illustrator)

• Ghost Rider Volume 3: Apocalypse Soonby Daniel Way (Author), Javier Saltares (Author), Mark Texeira (Author)

• Ghost Rider Volume 4: Revelations by Daniel Way (Author), Javier Saltares (Author), Mark Texeira (Author)

I love comic books and their movies because they deal with the simple story of evil vs. good. Sure, a lot of them try to blur those lines a little, but in the end, I love to have a good guy to root for.

Diane mentioned that Rosie O’Donnell had been in the business for thirty years now and she wanted to know what Rosie would say to that girl from thirty years ago. She said:

I’m always so grateful when stars are willing to be honest about their experiences with fame. Thanks, Rosie!

Via: Diane Sawyer’s Interview with Rosie O’Donnell on Good Morning America, April 8 (Video) | TV Crunch

I’ve also seen it attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, but I cannot find the quote in Bartletts or any other of my quotation books under either name. It was discussed on WikiAnswers here:

• WikiAnswers – Who is frank outlaw

This quote is widely attributed to “Frank Outlaw” on the Web, but no actual other corroborating confirmation actually confirms that this is the correct source.

Popular quotation books – including Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (17th ed., 2002), Roget’s International Thesaurus of Quotations (1970) and The Harper Book of Quotations (3rd ed., 1993) – DO NOT include this quote or any reference to Frank Outlaw.

In July 2003, a woman named “Elizabeth C.,” claimed to have written it in 1998 and sending to members of an e-mail group of people living with lupus.

According to legend, her words were: “these few lines have since taken on a life of their own via the Internet. I was honored when someone asked if they could post it on their work bulletin board. From there it ended up as a desktop theme. It has traveled everywhere.”

Matt Mullenweg, of WordPress fame, talked about this quote and one of his readers commented:

• Ralph Waldo Emerson « Matt on Not-WordPress

Dawn // February 1, 2007 at 4:15 am

And yet sadly no one has attributed this to its true origin…

The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings…

As the shadow follows the body,
As we think, so we become.

• From the Dhammapada
  Sayings of the Buddha

I have added the Budda quote, but until I’m able to find the other in print somewhere, it will continue to be attributed to Unknown. Who is Frank Outlaw? As far as I can tell, he is an imagined author of a quote that may or may not be his.

Here are a few thoughts to keep your mind about this:

And here is one that really IS from Emerson:

Download this video for your iPod

From this lecture, I was able to get one very enjoyable quote from her that is a little different than what she is usually quoted:

If you would like to read more about the lecture in Salt Lake City:

• Pick Me! » Jane Goodall: Peace with Nature Lecture

To learn more about Jane Goodall and the good work she is doing all over the world:

• The Jane Goodall Institute

• Roots & Shoots : Engaging and empowering youth with service learning projects.

• Jane Goodall Institute – Contributions – Regular Membership

Yesterday’s comic from Frazz was an interesting one. So, was it Stalin or Lenin?

I love quotation comics!

Update 09-14-07:

The witty followup:

Not much of a brag, really, but it’s everywhere in the leetspeak world. The question, however, is how do you pronounce “pwn”?

• Language Log: Own, pone, poon, pun, pwone, whatever

How do I pronounce it? I made the geek table laugh when I pronounced it “pawn.” I knew what the word meant and I knew that it was officially a typo of “own”, but it seemed so much more pronounceable as “pawn.” Geek table smackdown ensued.

In the end, it is insanely difficult to pronounce much of the leetspeak that is out there. We are quickly learning that written language can be just as fluid as spoken language. Making sense of both is a full time job for linguists the world over.

• Language Log: Standardizing non-standard language vs. careless misquotation

The Post quoted Clinton Portis (Redskins football player) as saying:

“I don’t know how anybody feels. I don’t know how anybody’s thinking. I don’t know what anyone else is going through. The only thing I know is what’s going on in Clinton Portis’s life.”

Wise quoted him as saying:

“I don’t know how nobody feel, I don’t know what nobody think, I don’t know what nobody doing, the only thing I know is what’s going on in Clinton Portis’s life.”

The word for word transcription was:

“I don’t know how nobody feel, I don’t know what nobody thinking, I don’t know what nobody going through. Only thing I know is what’s going on in Clinton Portis life.”

Which one should go in the collection? Is this a class issue? Did the Post reporter clean up the quote to make Clinton Portis sound better? Is it a simple mistake?

I have written down a lot of quotes that are in our collection. They were things that were said at important events like SXSW or other conventions. Many times, I am able to get the audio recording of the event and check the quote to correct it.

EVERY time I have gotten something wrong. EVERY TIME.

Was I trying to make them sound better? Was it a class issue? Did I clean up the quote?

No, I just am imperfect. I can’t write or type nearly as fast as people can talk.

So, what’s the answer? Which quote should go into the collection? We try to be as accurate as possible. The only problem with that is there are a lot of quotations out there that are WRONG. Everyone remembers them as wrong. Samuel Goldwyn made a living being misquoted on purpose.

In the end, quotation is hard to get right.