Speech / Silence

Speech needs company; silence needs solitude

Speech wants to conquer others; silence helps conquer oneself

Speech demands respect, silence commands it

Speech is self -expression; silence is self-experience

Speech is mind bound, silence is soul bound

Speech asserts ego; silence effaces it

Speech dissipates ego; silence conserves it

Speech is human; silence is divine

Speech receives appreciation; silence receives adoration

Great works are inspired by speech but written in silence

Life is a flower; silence is its fragrance

We surround ourselves with noise, because we are uncomfortable with silence.

We fill our lives with distractions, because we are reluctant to confront.

El Computador | Men VS Women Joke

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

"House" for instance, is feminine: "la casa."
"Pencil," however, is masculine: "el lapiz."

A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computadora") because:
1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

(THIS GETS BETTER!)
The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine ("el computador") because:
1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves.
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time, they ARE the problem; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

In America

 Purpose, Direction

Former Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice once told graduates of the Mississippi College School of Law in Jackson that they have a responsibility to be "optimistic" in their lives.

"I first learned this lesson from hearing stories about my paternal grandfather," she said. "Grandfather Rice was a poor farmer's son in Eutaw, Alabama. One day, he decided to get book-learning. So he asked, in the language of the day, where a colored man could go to school.

"They said that a little Presbyterian school, Stillman College, was only about 50 miles away. So he saved up his cotton to pay for the first year's tuition. After the first year, he ran out of cotton and he needed a way to pay. My grandfather asked the school administrators how those other boys were staying in school, and he was told that they had what was called a scholarship.

"They said, 'If you want to be a Presbyterian minister, you could have a scholarship, too.' My grandfather said, 'That's just what I had in mind.'"

The moral of the story, she said: "In America, it is not about where you are coming from, but where you are going."

We are family: we stay together!