Editor’s Note: Hummingbird is pleased to continue our collection of eminently quotable people and their thoughts. Each week a new one will be added. The quote might be ripped out of today’s headlines, or possibly sage words from writers we have known over time. Regardless, the purpose is to engage and entertain you--to present something you might agree or disagree with; maybe laugh (or cry) about.
December 26, 2022
“Life offered no auditions for the many roles I had to play.” Sidney PoitierDecember 19, 2022
“Volunteering is one of the best, most certain ways we can find a purpose and meaning in our life,” Val Walker, the author of 400 Friends and No One to Call: Breaking Through Isolation and Building CommunityDecember 12, 2022
“New Day, New Tweet. Winning Country gets the Buds. Who will get them?” BudweiserDecember 5, 2022
“It’s frustration to begin with. But after reflecting for that quick moment, you could just really sit here and think it’s probably the first time in a long time where people will say, ‘Wow, this team has something special.’” Tyler AdamsNovember 28, 2022
“We are pleased to have assisted Montgomery County (MD) Fire and other local emergency personnel on the effort to safely rescue the individuals who were stranded in the airplane. We have restored electric service for all customers who were impacted by tonight’s incident.” Pepco Official StatementNovember 21, 2022
“From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.” John Jay Ray IIINovember 14, 2022
“Appearances can be deceiving.” Frida KahloNovember 7, 2022
“God made a fighter. God said I need someone to be strong, advocate truth in the midst of hysteria, challenge conventional wisdom and isn’t afraid to defend what he knows to be right and just.” Ron DeSantis VideoOctober 31, 2022
“I know you feel the same way as I do. I don’t want any more hate. I don’t want any more anger. I want people who care about each other. I want some forgiveness. I want some grace.” Tim Ryan, U.S. Representative, 2022 Senate Candidate, OhioOctober 24, 2022
“There is no doubt we face profound economic challenges. We now need stability and unity, and I will make it my utmost priority to bring my party and country together.” Rishi SunakOctober 17, 2022
“You never want to be in a bases-loaded, no-outs position, but dammit, when you're there, you better enjoy it. You better not sit there and sulk about it. You better rise up and figure it out.” Gerrit ColeOctober 10, 2022
“I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind.” Edna St. Vincent MillayOctober 3, 2022
'“Danny," she would say, “Hurricanes are as close to God as you can get.” The lesson she drew from them was that storms never last. Blue skies always follow, eventually. If you have the soul and the spirit, you’ll see it through. Just steel your will; keep on keeping on. Brighter days are coming.'
Dan RatherSeptember 26, 2022
“You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” C. S. LewisSeptember 19, 2022
“I am 41 years old; I have played more than 1,500 matches over 24 years. Tennis has treated me more generously than I ever would have dreamed, and now I must recognize when it is time to end my competitive career.” Roger FedererSeptember 12, 2022
“… Whenever we parted, Poppi would say, ‘Te amo. Vaya con Dios.’ And this morning, I want to say the same thing to you, Poppi. I love you. Go with God.” Catherine HernandezSeptember 7, 2022
“All the months are crude experiments, out of which the perfect September is made.” Virginia WoolfAugust 29, 2022
“I think these new players are too damn serious. The joy of it, the fun of it, is something that jazz has lost. I mean, we are entertainers, after all. If you don’t look like you’re having fun onstage, how is anyone in the audience supposed to?” Joey DeFrancescoAugust 22, 2022
“Watching the hummingbirds take their rest on the closest perch to the feeder while the rain comes down, makes me wonder... If they can move along happily in inclement weather, why can't we?" Alex FerroneAugust 15, 2022
“That is why as I talk about a place that doesn’t just value dialogue and freedom of speech, freedom of thought; this place exists because of those values, and I’m here to tell you it will exist for the next 150 years founded on those values as well. We condemn the cowardly attack on Salman Rushdie and we condemn any individual or any group that dare violate the sanctity of a place like Chautauqua or to attempt an assassination on a world leader.” NY Governor Kathy HochulAugust 8, 2022
“I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought, the second, a good word; and the third, a good deed.” Friedrich NietzscheAugust 1, 2022
“the human likes to say. that I live here rent free. but I would argue. this housing accommodation. is my payment. for a lifetime of love. and excellent company” Thoughts of DogJuly 25, 2022
“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.” Leo TolstoyJuly 18, 2022
“We barely made it to the little white wedding chapel by midnight. They graciously stayed open late a few minutes, let us take pictures in a pink Cadillac convertible, evidently once used by the king himself (but if we wanted Elvis himself to show, that cost extra and he was in bed).” Jennifer LopezJuly 11, 2022
“Town rallies to restore the budget! Democracy lives! But most people here know that’s not the whole story. It’s just the beginning… Showing up. That’s the big lesson. And not just showing up, but also knowing what’s going on.” Chris ProstJuly 7, 2022
“These are the times that try men's souls.” Thomas PaineJune 27, 2022
“I am unwilling to accept defeat.” Kyrsten Sinema, U.S. Senator, ArizonaJune 20, 2022
“Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part.” Representative John LewisJune 13, 2022
“What if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, 0r 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn’t go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t let this happen.” Anne LamottJune 6, 2022
“The world is changed by your example not by your opinion.” Paulo CoelhoJune 1, 2022
“One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy & understanding are sufficient.” Charles M. BlowMay 23, 2022
“When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about the part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see, or hear, or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate. Peace that rises triumphant over war. And justice that proves more powerful than greed. So, in all that you do in all of your life, I wish you the strength and the grace to make those choices which will allow you and your neighbor to become the best of whoever you are.” Fred RogersMay 16, 2022
“We’re not all grim old ladies reading the Bible. We’re not just pious, uptight people. There’s joy and laughter, the full range of human experience. The women in my community are very intelligent, very feisty. They know what they want.” Sister Monica Clare, Episcopal Nun, Mendham, NJMay 9, 2022
“I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.’" Kurt VonnegutMay 2, 2022
“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relatives.” Oscar WildeApril 25, 2022
“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” Howard ZinnApril 18, 2022
“What characterizes a member of a minority group is that he is forced to see himself as both exceptional and insignificant, marvelous and awful, good and evil.” Norman MailerApril 11, 2022
“…use of 'said no one ever' was just the evolution of sticking 'not' on the end of a sentence, that childish craze of the late 1990s which was itself an extension of the playground game of bending double with laughter whenever someone said something and yelling ‘It’s opposites day!’ in their face.” Emma BrockesApril 4, 2022
“Be you, that's it.” Jon Batiste (At the 2022 Grammy Awards upon winning best album.)March 28, 2022
“We now have a chance to show not only to Russia but also any aggressor in the world, any terrorist state that war will destroy not the victim, but the one who unleashed it.” Volodmyr ZelenskyMarch 21, 2022
“Here comes the sun, and I say, It’s all right.” The BeatlesMarch 14, 2022
Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum
“You shall be as God knowing Good and Evil.” GoetheMarch 7, 2022
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” Jimi HendrixFebruary 28, 2022
“What is coming out of Ukraine is simply impossible to produce on such a scale without citizens and soldiers throughout the country having access to cellphones, the internet, and by extension, social media apps. A large-scale modern war will be live-streamed, minute by minute, battle by battle, death by death, to the world. What is occurring is already horrific, based on the information released just on the first day.” Daniel JohnsonFebruary 21, 2022
“You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.” Maya AngelouFebruary 7, 2022
“There is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.” Amanda Gorman, "The Hill We Climb," inaugural poemJanuary 31, 2022
“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.” Mae WestJanuary 24, 2022
“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.”“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.”
Both quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh
January 11, 2022
“carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero” — 'pluck the day, trusting as little as possible in the future' -Roman poet Horace, 23 BCEJanuary 3, 2022
“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” Thomas Merton
