"Reality is merely an illusion,
albeit a very persistent one."
- Albert Einstein

"The edge ... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who know where it is are those that have gone over"
Hunter S. Thompson

"The true measure of a man is not how he acts in times of comfort, but rather his conduct during times of hardships." -Laddie Shaw

Rainbows, we don't usually get to teach when there are rainbows.

-Ken Hudonjorgensen

I don't always know what I am talking about but I know I'm right.

-Muhammed Ali 

Your playing small doesn't serve the world.

-Nelson Mandela

( I got the previous two quotes from the BD catalog, those guys know where to find the quotes)

"When once you have tasted flight, you will
 forever walk the earth with your eyes turned
 skyward, for there you have been, and there
 you will always long to return."

           - Leonardo da Vinci

 

When once this idea has invaded the brain it possesses it exclusively. 

        -Orville Wright 

The Completed Task

There's no fun in easy flying, when the sky is clear and blue

There's no joy in merely doing, things which anyone can do

But there is some satisfaction, that's mighty nice to take

When you reach a destination, that you thought you couldn't make...

-James D. Santacroce (my granddad)

 

The Way of the White Cloud !

A white cloud is a mystery.

The coming, the going, the very being of it.

There are many reasons,

and it is good to ponder and meditate on them.

A white cloud exists without any roots-

it is an unrooted phenomenon, grounded nowhere,

or grounded in the nowhere.

 

But it still exists.

The whole existence is like a white cloud-

without any causality, without any ultimate cause.

It exists, it exists as a mystery.

A white cloud has no way of its own.

It drifts.

I has nowhere to reach; no destiny to be fulfilled;

no end.

You cannot frustrate a white cloud,

because wherever it reaches is the goal.

A white cloud drifts wherever the wind leads-

it doesn't resist, it doesn't fight.

A white cloud is not a conqueror,

and yet it still hovers over everything.

You cannot conquer it, you cannot defeat it.

It has no mind to conquer -

that's why you cannot defeat it.

A white cloud has nowhere to go.

It moves, it moves everywhere.

All dimensions belong to it. all directions belong to it.

Nothing is rejected.

Everything is, exists, in a total acceptability.

Hence I call my way

The Way of the White Clouds.

-Given to my dad, James B. Santacroce by my grandmother "Gammy"