Photo by Brian Shortsleeve

My son Max called me from school recently and told me that one of his recent Cape Cod Life Facebook posts reached 102,000 people. It was one of our beautiful photos plus one of the quotes from our “Harboring Thoughts” collection.

I am learning from the younger members of our Cape Cod Life Publications staff. Last  I knew “social media” meant meeting a group of friends at the library. Max’s call got me thinking not only of the wide spread appreciation of Cape Cod Life, but of the popularity of the gorgeous photos and the fun of the “Quips & Quotes.”

With this in mind we have included here two of my recent sunset photos and a number of my favorite “Harboring Thoughts” quotes for your enjoyment.

My Best,

Brian

“Moses dragged us for 40 years through the desert to bring us to the one place in the Middle East where there was no oil.” Golda Meir

“My ancestors wandered lost in the wilderness for forty years because even in biblical times, men would not stop to ask for directions.” Elayne Boosler

“I know a man who gave up smoking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the time he killed himself.” Johnny Carson

“The only thing that holds a marriage together is the husband bein’ big enough to step back and see where his wife is wrong.” Archie Bunker

“I went out to dinner with a Marine last weekend. He looked across the table and he goes, ‘I could kill you in seven seconds.’ I go, ‘I’ll just have the toast then’.” Margaret Smith

“The most serious doubt that has been thrown on the authenticity of the biblical miracles is the fact that most of the witnesses in regards to them were fishermen.” Arthur Binstead

“I’ve been reading in an Alabama newspaper that one man shot another man dead because he beat him in a Bible-quoting competition.” Richard Dawkins

“You’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.” Dean Martin

“Infatuation is when you think he’s as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Connors. Love is when you realize he’s as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford – but you’ll take him anyway.” Judith Viorst

“By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.” Socrates

“The years teach much which the days never know.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“No man can be happy without a friend nor be sure of his friend until he is unhappy.” Thomas Fuller

“The human animal needs a freedom seldom mentioned, freedom from intrusion. He needs a little privacy quite as much as he wants understanding or vitamins or exercise or praise.” Phyllis McGinley

“Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones just as the wind blows out a candle and fans a fire.”  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“I learned at least this by my experiments. That if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put something behind and will pass an invisible boundary.” Henry David Thoreau

“Would that life were like the shadow cast by a wall or a tree, but it is like the shadow of a bird in flight.” The Talmud

“The heart has reasons that the reason knows nothing of.” Blaise Pascal

“The most evident token and apparent sign of true wisdom is a constant and unconstrained rejoicing.” Michel de Montaigne

“It is not the shilling I give you that counts, but the warmth that carries with it from my hand.” Miguel de Unamuno

“The evening of a well spent life brings its lamps with it.” Joseph Joubert

“When one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot feel old, no matter what his years may be.” Amos Bronson Alcott

“People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Photo by Brian Shortsleeve

“Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.” Fred Astaire

“The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.” Lucille Ball

“If you live to be one 100, you’ve got it made. Very few people die past that age.” George Burns

“Ours seems to be the only nation on Earth that asks its teenagers what to do about world affairs and tells its golden-agers to go out and play.” Julian Gerow

“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.” Abraham Joshua Heschel

“To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

“I don’t feel 80. In fact, I don’t feel anything till noon. Then it’s time for my nap.” Bob Hope

“Do not resist growing old – many are denied the privilege.” Irish toast

“Youth had been a habit of hers for so long that she could not part with it.” Rudyard Kipling

“If you wish to live long, you must be willing to grow old.” George Lawton

“My husband said when he was young, he used to live in the country. I said, ‘When you were young, everybody lived in the country’.” Moms Mabley

“Middle age is a time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel as good as ever.” Don Marquis

“You don’t stop laughing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop laughing.” Michael Pritchard

“A mature person is one…who deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that…all of us need both love and charity.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“One thing is certain, and I have always known it—the joys of my life have nothing to do with age.” May Sarton

“The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of the blood.” Logan Pearsall Smith

“When I turned 2 I was really anxious because I’d doubled my age in a year. I thought, if this keeps up, by the time I’m 7 I’ll be over a hundred.” Wright Stevens

“Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of 80 and gradually approach 18.” Mark Twain