I sat exhausted, staring in wonder at the juxtaposition between the beautiful planting of wisteria and the vile stinkweed worming its way, virus-like, up the granite walls; I couldn’t believe it’d been ruined by the lackadaisical gardener’s profound inertia.
Here are the given words: wisteria, stinkweed, exhausting, granite, juxtapose, virus, wonder, beautiful, worm, believe – Bonus (we actually had two this time): planting, inertia
©MMXVI Douglas P. Kendrick. All rights reserved.
“For where the prizes offered for virtue are greatest, there are found the best citizens.”
— Thucydides II.xlvi.1, “quoting” Pericles of Athens during his state eulogy for the first fallen in the Peloponnesian War.
“For no one ever carries out a plan with the same confidence with which he conceives it; on the contrary we form our fond schemes with a feeling of security, but when it comes to their execution, we are possessed by fear and fall short of success.”
— Thucydides, I.cxx.5, “quoting” the Spartan Council before the commencement of the Peloponnesian War
“And being free is worth, in my opinion, as much as all manner of possessions.”
— Spartan King Agesilaus, from Xenophon’s Hellenica, IV.i.35
“The energy of book titles and the words inside them are very powerful. In Japan, we say that ‘words make our reality.’ [言葉が現実をつくる] The words we see and with which we come into contact tend to bring about events of the same nature. In that sense, you will become the person that matches the books you have kept. What kind of books would you want in your bookcase to reflect the kind of person you aspire to be? If you choose which books to keep on that basis, you may find that the course of events in your life changes dramatically.”
— Marie Kondo (konmari), Spark Joy, page 130
Buy it here on Amazon.com:
Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up
“I would have my mind of such a quality as this; it should be equipped with many arts, many precepts, and patterns of conduct taken from many epochs of history; but all should blend harmoniously into one. ‘How,’ you ask, ‘can this be accomplished?’ By constant effort, and by doing nothing without the approval of reason.”
— Seneca, Epistle LXXXIV
“This is what our mind should do: it should hide away all the materials by which it has been aided, and bring to light only what it has made of them. Even if there shall appear in you a likeness to him who, by reason of your admiration, has left a deep impress upon you, I would have you resemble him as a child resembles his father, and not as a picture resembles its original; for a picture is a lifeless thing.”
— Seneca, Epistle LXXXIV
journey, not destination 