Mubarak

It is perhaps the ultimate indignity for vainglorious types like dictators that their final acts in office so often involve nothing more heroic than saving their own skins as well as their own fortunes — and Mubarak appears to have salvaged both.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2048708,00.html#ixzz1DxeRITLN

Quote

我愿化做石桥，受五百年风吹，五百年日晒，五百年雨打；只为你能从桥上经过.

<<剑雨>>

Nobel Prize Is Seen as Rebuke to China

Few nations today stand as more of a challenge to the democratic model of governance than China, where an 89-year-old Communist Party has managed to quash political movements while creating a roaring, quasi-market economy and enforcing a veneer of social stability.

Edward Wong, International Herald Tribune

Quote on Canadian's selection of hockey players

This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prohesy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.

Robert Merton

Defence of Singapore's judiciary

If we do not do so and allow vicious falsehoods to perversely masquerade themselves as truth, we will eventually lose our moral authority and, with it, our effectiveness to achieve our mission to keep Singapore safe and secure.

~Wong Kan Seng

Quote

To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.

The Art of War by Sun, Tzu

Quote from FB, with some editing

When you close the door of chance, you close the door of failure, but with that, you also close the door of success and permanently so.

Quote from FB, with some editing

We are given: Two hands to hold. Two legs to walk. Two eyes to see. Two ears to listen. But, only one heart, because the other has been given to someone else, for us to find.

Freddie, from FB

Quote from FB

It's funny how men extol the beauty of love, and then lambast the crude reality of it when they're sober.

Ryan Midget

Law Quote

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

 A quote from FB.

Quote

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. 

~ Mark Twain

Law quote

Where the law is subject to some other authority and has none of its own, the collapse of the state, in my view, is not far off; but if law is the master of the government and the government is its slave, then the situation is full of promise and men enjoy all the blessings that the gods shower on a state.

Plato 

Shakespeare

All that glisters is not gold, 
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold,
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms infold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscroll'd.
Fare you well, your suit is cold. 

In Merchant of Venice  
Prince of Morocco, reading Portia's note, scene vii

Love Quote

Friends are what we look forward to having. 

Buddies are what we are supposed to cherish. 

And love; it is what everyone is lacking.

By Anonymous 

 

Mr N Speaks

Think not of love as one between a man and a woman, boy and girl, or likewise thereof, but that between two people of varied relationships, videlicet, mother and child, school and student, earth and humans, et cetera. 

The Best is Yet to BE

The Past we inherit, the Present we create, but for those who hope, work and play, the Best is Yet to Be. 

By T. W. Hinch
Principal of Anglo-Chinese School
1929-1947

Quote

A quote retrieved from FB.

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.

Of English Language

As a preamble to the Oxford English Dictionary,

The Vocabulary of a widely diffused and highly cultivated living language is not a fixed quantity circumscribed by definite limits... there is absolutely no defining line in any direction: the circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference.

Toss a coin

"When faced with two choices, simply toss a coin. It works not because it settles the question for you, but because, in that brief moment when the coin is in the air, you suddenly know what you are hoping for."

from Lifehacker by Kevin Purdy

Quote

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

~ FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

 

Reflection

An aphorism by Charles Dickens, "Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."

As I glean from the messages posted by teenagers of today on FB, I cannot help but sigh on how pessimistic life seems to afford them, or at least that is how they perceive it. As chided by Dickens, one really ought to look at the beautiful side of each situation and appreciate what left of her beauty, if one is in a dire situation, for it is when one forces oneself to veer away from the tremendous whirlpool of negative suction, and often indulgence, that one is able to break away from the vicious cycle of melancholy.

Life is good, as I have often reminded myself; yes, I need to remind myself often when situations are not pretty. Life must be good for the 'propaganda' has a magical and magnetic effect of setting one in the direction of goodness, and hopefully, happiness. Looking at the life and death dramatic experience of the Haitians, Iin relativity to our lives in Singapore, I cannot help but unknowingly let out a soft, but convincing, "Life's good".