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    Musings of a Meandering Stream: Reflections on Life
    Musings of a Meandering Stream: Reflections on Life
    Musings of a Meandering Stream: Reflections on Life
    Ebook234 pages56 minutes

    Musings of a Meandering Stream: Reflections on Life

    By Donald Redheffer

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    About this ebook

    Speak the truth and let the profit go;
    For those who seek to please, reap as they sow.

    A SAMPLING FROM
    The Musings of a Meandering Stream

    To admit error openly and without hesitation brings an authenticity that being correct can never provide.

    Resentment of authority is the inevitable response to a world where the unfit with rare exceptions rise to power.

    Nature and nurture contrive to make us one of a kind, and yet we strive to be one of the many.

    Creativity seldom survives the standardized tests of life.

    Whom do we believe? Censure's sincerity may be suspect, but flattery rarely escapes its desire to please.

    Culture writes its indelible message on our tabula rasa, capturing us for life.

    Time shapes recollections to serve our needs.

    Virtue becomes vice when it is merely adopted as effective strategy.

    Those who go the wrong way down the one-way streets of life are far less dangerous than the thoughtless majority, whose mindless adherence to prevalent views of the moment is uncorrupted by evidence to the contrary.

    The tender touch of a hand can express the most profound feelings of love and longing.

    What is hell but immortality without love.

    Memory evokes a creative portrait of the past.

    Neutrality in the face of evil is no virtue.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateJan 23, 2009
    ISBN9780595614257
    Musings of a Meandering Stream: Reflections on Life
    Author

    Donald Redheffer

    Donald Redheffer is a retired teacher of mathematics whose interests go far beyond that subject. As a youth he excelled in athletics, possessing great strength, speed, and coordination. However, by his teen years he discarded sports for philosophy and poetry, having developed an extraordinary intellectual curiosity and verbal fluency. At that time he also exhibited a strong tendency to challenge authority, including that of his teachers. An indifferent student yet widely knowledgeable, he says that he never let school interfere with his education. His challenging of authority also included all popular beliefs, including religion. His very different perspective on matters, coupled with an exceptional ability to articulate his views, have amazed and amused people over the years. Mr. Redheffer is also an accomplished nature photographer and has traveled to Africa, the South Pacific, and the Americas to pursue this hobby. He is a graduate of DePaul University. Mr. Redheffer is a native of Chicago, where he now resides. Robert Smythe

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      Book preview

      Musings of a Meandering Stream - Donald Redheffer

      Contents

      A few thoughts …

      Acknowledgments

      Foreword

      Prologue

      Achievement

      Acting/Actors

      Admiration

      Adversity

      Advice

      Afterlife

      Aging

      Altruism

      Ambition

      America

      Analogy

      Anger

      Anonymity

      Appearances

      Arrogance

      Assassination

      Authenticity

      Authority

      Autobiography

      Beauty

      Belief

      Betrayal

      Bigotry

      Blame

      Boredom

      Business

      But

      Category

      Causality

      Chance

      Change

      Character

      Childhood

      Choice

      Common Sense

      Communication

      Competition

      Compliments

      Compromise

      Confession

      Conformity

      Consistency

      Contradictions

      Convictions

      Cooking

      Courtesy

      Creativity

      Credibility

      Crime

      Criticism

      Culture

      Custom

      Cynic/Cynicism

      Deception

      Desire

      Despair

      Destiny

      Devil

      Distrust

      Doubt

      Duty

      Education

      Ego

      Emptiness

      Envy

      Equality/Inequality

      Evidence

      Evolution

      Existence

      Expediency

      Faith

      Fame

      Family

      Famous People

      Fantasy

      Farewell

      Fate

      Fear

      Flattery

      Forgiveness

      Freedom

      Friendship

      Gambling

      Golden Rule

      Good Fortune

      Gossip

      Government

      Gratitude

      Greatness

      Greed

      Grief

      Habit

      Happiness

      Heroes

      Honesty/Dishonesty

      Hope

      Human Behavior

      Human Nature

      Human Relations

      Humility

      Humor

      Hypocrisy

      If

      Imagination

      Imitation

      Immortality

      Individuality

      Inspiration

      Intelligence

      Jealousy

      Journalism

      Joy and Sorrow

      Judgment

      Justice

      Knowledge/Ignorance

      Law

      Leadership/Followership

      Leisure

      Life/Death

      Logic

      Love

      Marriage

      Mathematics

      Maturity

      Maxim

      Medicine

      Mediocrity

      Memory

      Merit

      Modesty

      Morality/Immorality

      Nationalism

      Natural Disasters

      Nature

      Nazism

      Neutrality

      Pacifism

      Passion

      Past/Present/Future

      Patriotism

      Peace

      Permanence/Impermanence

      Pets

      Philosophy

      Political Logic

      Politicians

      Politics and Religion

      Pollution

      Poverty/Wealth

      Power

      Praise

      Prejudice

      Pride

      Progress

      Questions

      Quotations

      Reading

      Reality

      Reason

      Regrets

      Religion

      Science

      Science and Religion

      Self-Concept

      Self-Deception

      Self-Esteem

      Self-Praise

      Sincerity/Insincerity

      Skepticism

      Smiles

      Solitude

      Success

      Supernatural

      Survival

      Talent

      Temptation

      Thought

      Time

      Tradition

      Travel

      Truth

      Truth/Lies

      Values

      Vanity

      Vice/Virtue

      War/Peace

      Wealth

      Wisdom

      Words

      Work

      Writing

      Youth

      Epilogue

      About the Author

      A few thoughts …

      The writer siphons the thoughts of a thousand voices,

      hoping to find one of his own.

      Happiness is more in the viewpoint than the view.

      Bigotry filters evidence to preserve the purity of its venom.

      Beauty is a passport to privilege.

      Oh, to be a bore,

      with thoughts that soar skyward beyond the reach of all,

      save a few like-minded souls.

      Love, unlike her many impostors,

      never speaks in past tense.

      Contradict yourself often, for it sets the stage

      for creative synthesis.

      Acknowledgments

      My sincere gratitude goes to those who gave me the encouragement to write this book. Special thanks to my fiancée, Joselita Velasco, for typing the text; and to Robert Smythe for proofreading.

      Foreword

      Musings of a Meandering Stream is a collection of more than one thousand aphorisms that will awaken the reader to insights that are both conceptually compelling and poetically elegant. From the pen of Donald Redheffer, the ideas put forth cover nearly two hundred subjects, including such varied topics as ambition, beauty, causality, conformity, creativity, doubt, faith, happiness, hypocrisy, love, mathematics, morality, politicians, religion, science, and wealth.

      The author views life through a different prism. He challenges the conventional wisdom and popular virtues at every turn. His ideas are often controversial and will encourage the reader to examine his beliefs. Most importantly, they will get the reader to think.

      Robert Smythe

      Lifelong friend

      Prologue

      Speak the truth and let the profit go;

      For those who seek to please, reap as they sow.

      Achievement

      1. Failure in pursuit of excellence is success.

      2. Excellence achieved is only second to excellence sought.

      3. A rewarding life is best achieved by setting unreachable goals.

      4. Great human achievement is an invisible speck on the cosmological countenance.

      5. Does our awareness of the universe imbue us with significance beyond our fragile presence on this planet?

      Acting/Actors

      6. Those actors who cannot cry on command are ill-equipped to pursue their profession. The single thought of never seeing her again results in a flood of tears.

      7. There is no skill more important for surviving encounters with humanity than acting.

      8. An actor’s preferred salutation is applause.

      9. Actors vanish into the characters they portray, hoping never to reappear.

      Admiration

      10. Admiration is farsighted.

      11. Admiration is a mirror.

      Adversity

      12. Adversity exposes the stranger within.

      Advice

      13. Good advice is the easiest to ignore since it is the hardest to implement.

      14. A prescription for getting along: Celebrate the talents of others and never talk about yourself.

      15. I have unwelcome advice for the testosterone-laden male: When trouble comes, walk to the other side of the street.

      16. If the wealthy are wise, they will emulate the poor by walking more and eating less.

      17. How can an advisor compete with the powerful forces that provoke behavior?

      18. Considering the omnipotence of greed, fear, anger, love, and loneliness, giving advice is ill-advised.

      19. The admonition to avoid discussing religion or politics, with their focus on the way we live and think, leaves conversation in the doldrums.

      20. Even the devil can deliver good advice.

      21. Fear advises from a position of strength.

      22. Good advice lies dormant until awakened by fear.

      Afterlife

      23. Afterlife: The faithful are whisked away to a cold and austere land to the north, hearing whispers of a southern paradise.

      Aging

      24. As we grow older, our youthful decisions loom ever

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