raymondpoort.com

Lord Chesterfield: “Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness; no laziness; no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”

Scientific research might proof what everyone already knows; women can expect to live longer than men. There are many examples though that show the *real* reason why this is so…below a teaser, you can find many more reasons here, here or here!

OMG!! 🙂

Malcolm X: “The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

Take 5 minutes to watch this beautiful clip with Maya Angelou (who passed away last month): “Love liberates. It doesn’t just hold–that’s ego. Love liberates.”

Yeah, true, unconditional love can do that…

Gordon Parks: “The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed.”

The English language has some nice Tongue twisters and I believe ALL of them have been used in the poem below. 🙂

It is said that if you are able to pronounce every word in this poem correctly, your spoken English is better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world, ha!

Give it a serious try, though I bet most will have their tongue seriously injured and call it quits before finishing the poem. 🙂

Goodluck!!

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

This poem is called ‘The Chaos‘ and written by a dutch guy, Gerard Nolst Trenité. If you want to listen to a spoken version, you can find it on YouTube; here, here or here! 🙂

Felicia Day: “That is not what Geek means to me. We are more than the hobbies that we do or the things that we like. To me, Geek means an outsider, a rebel, a dreamer, a creator, a fighter. It’s a person who dares to love something that isn’t conventional.”

Only in Russia…ROTFLMAO!! Some musicians just cannot stop playing, or perhaps they want (/need? 🙂 ) to use every minute to practise to get better. Very creative, I love it!

I am not sure if the police is taking a picture of the vehicle for legal reasons, or just for their collection of fun moments at work. 🙂

Jane Goodall: “My mission is to create a world where we can live in harmony with nature.”

Rex Hudler: “Be a fountain, not a drain.”

The buildup to the longest day, the kick-off for summer, has been magnificent; I enjoyed lovely summer weather in Norway the past weeks! And then today, summer solstice day @12:51h, THE day, the LONGEST day (18h50m!), the start of summer has been cloudy and a bit chilly, huh?! Still, as mentioned earlier this week, the daylightish nights keep amazing me; I can easily read a book outside without a torch or candle, wow!! (not tonight though, brrrr 🙂 )

Bette Davis: “My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.”

I know that China has been building like crazy the past years, and it is obvious that in order to build stuff one needs cement (to make concrete). What I never realized is just how much cement China has used in the past years…the graphic below puts things into perspective…pretty mind-blowing ah?

(via Bill Gates; from Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization, by the historian Vaclav Smil)

William Cowper: “The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.”

I know that most of you know about ‘karma‘, the Sanskrit word for action (also check the merriam-webster.com definition which I blogged last year, the picture in that post (below) was a 1,000 times easier to understand 🙂 ).

Below are 12 little less known Laws of Karma that will change your life! (if you read, comprehend and follow! 🙂 )

THE GREAT LAW
– “As you sow, so shall you reap”. This is also known as the “Law of Cause and Effect”.
– Whatever we put out in the Universe is what comes back to us.
– If what we want is Happiness, Peace, Love, Friendship… Then we should BE Happy, Peaceful, Loving and a True Friend.

THE LAW OF CREATION
– Life doesn’t just HAPPEN, it requires our participation.
– We are one with the Universe, both inside and out.
– Whatever surrounds us gives us clues to our inner state.
– BE yourself, and surround yourself with what you want to have present in your Life.

THE LAW OF HUMILITY
– What you refuse to accept, will continue for you.
– If what we see is an enemy, or someone with a character trait that we find to be negative, then we ourselves are not focused on a higher level of existence.

THE LAW OF GROWTH
– “Wherever you go, there you are”.
– For us to GROW in Spirit, it is we who must change – and not the people, places or things around us.
– The only given we have in our lives is OURSELVES and that is the only factor we have control over.
– When we change who and what we are within our heart our life follows suit and changes too

THE LAW OF RESPONSIBILITY
– Whenever there is something wrong in my life, there is something wrong in me.
– We mirror what surrounds us
– and what surrounds us mirrors us; this is a Universal Truth.
– We must take responsibility what is in our life.

THE LAW OF CONNECTION
– Even if something we do seems inconsequential, it is very important that it gets done as everything in the Universe is connected.
– Each step leads to the next step, and so forth and so on.
– Someone must do the initial work to get a job done.
– Neither the first step nor the last are of greater significance,
– As they were both needed to accomplish the task.
– Past-Present-Future they are all connected…

THE LAW OF FOCUS
– You can not think of two things at the same time.
– When our focus is on Spiritual Values, it is impossible for us to have lower thoughts such as greed or anger.

THE LAW OF GIVING AND HOSPITALITY
– If you believe something to be true,then sometime in your life you will be called upon to demonstrate that particular truth.
– Here is where we put what we CLAIM that we have learned, into actual PRACTICE.

THE LAW OF HERE AND NOW
– Looking backward to examine what was, prevents us from being totally in the HERE AND NOW.
– Old thoughts, old patterns of behavior, old dreams…
– Prevent us from having new ones.

THE LAW OF CHANGE
– History repeats itself until we learn the lessons that we need to change our path.

THE LAW OF PATIENCE AND REWARD
– All Rewards require initial toil.
– Rewards of lasting value require patient and persistent toil.
– True joy follows doing what we’re suppose to be doing, and waiting for the reward to come in on its own time.

THE LAW OF SIGNIFICANCE AND INSPIRATION
– You get back from something whatever YOU have put into it.
– The true value of something is a direct result of the energy and intent that is put into it.
– Every personal contribution is also a contribution to the Whole.
– Lack luster contributions have no impact on the Whole, nor do they work to diminish it.
– Loving contributions bring life to, and inspire, the Whole.

(via Raven Emrys)

Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.”

Hahaha, check out this YouTube video; very funny to see humans acting like dogs. It is actually interesting to consider that most people think it sweet when a dog acts like this, while they would most likely freak out if a fellow human would behave like this! 🙂

Real Live Preacher: “One of the joys we have in being human is in exercising our freedom to choose and to take each case as it comes to us. We are not robots who are forced into behaviors by their programming. We see things; we think about things; and we choose our course of action or beliefs appropriately. And as long as that remains true of us, we will live every day of our lives on one slippery slope or another. There is no reason to fear this.”

It amazes me every year; the amount of light outside here ‘up North’ at midnight around this time of year! (Ha, and the Oslo region does not even have the full midnight sun!)

Experiencing that is still on my bucket list (I crossed off the Northern Light last February 🙂 ), though I think that the trip to the true midnight sun area even more ‘up North’ will have to wait until next year; no time the coming months…it is still lovely though to come back home and be able to enjoy longgggg nights in lovely summer weather! 🙂

Oprah Winfrey: “I define joy as a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace – a connection to what matters.”