“Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007
“Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes
Tagged humor, literary oddities, philosophy/religion
“stem” A question or statement on a multiple-choice test that poses a choice for the test taker. See also distracter; foils; multiple-choice item.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
“There are three reasons for becoming a writer. The first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; and the third is that you can’t think what to do with the long winter evenings.”
Excerpted from: Sherrin, Ned, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes
Tagged humor, lgbtq history, literary oddities
“On a withered branch
A crow has settled—
Autumn nightfall.”
Matsuo Basho, Poem (translation by Harold G. Henderson)
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
“Tenzing Norgay: (1914-1986) Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer, born in Solo Khumbu, he served on numerous expeditions before joining Edmund Hillary as sirdar, or organizer of porters. In 1963, he and Hillary became the first two people to reach the summit of Mount Everest. A devout Buddhist, he left an offering of food at Everest’s summit.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Northern Wei sculpture: Chinese sculpture, dominated by simple images of the Buddha, dating from the eral of the Northern Wei dynasty (AD 386-534/535). The art represents the first major influence of Buddhism on China, and may be divided into two major periods. The first style (c.452-494), an amalgam of foreign influences traceable to the Buddhist art of India, is characterized by heavy stylization of blocky volumes. The second style (c.494-535) clothes the Buddha in the costume of the Chinese scholar and emphasizes a sinuous cascade of drapery falling over an increasingly flattened figure.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“So far, the clumsily long name ‘quasi-stellar radio sources’ is used to describe these objects…. For convenience, the abbreviated term ‘quasar’ will be used throughout this paper.”
Hong-Yee Chiu, Physics Today May 1964
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in Quotes
Tagged asian-pacific history, professional development, science literacy
“Akiko Yosano: (1878-1942) Japanese poet. Akiko’s first volume of tanka, Midaregami (1901; tr Tangled Hair, 1935), startled her contemporaries with its bold affirmation of female sexuality and exerted an immense influence on later poets who sought release from semifeudal morality as well as from conventional idioms of tanka. Akiko’s translation of Japanese classics, such as the Tale of Genji, into the modern vernacular were highly influential, as were her pioneering and passionate essays on woman’s rights.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Mesopotamia: Region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in western Asia, constituting the greater part of modern Iraq. The region’s location and fertility gave rise to settlements from c.10,000 BC, and it became the cradle of some of the world’s earliest civilizations. Its seat was the city of Mesopotamia, founded in the 4th millennium BC by the Sumerians. It was ruled by the third dynasty of Ur, and later by Babylon, which gave its name to the southern portion of Mesopotamia. The city declined under the Hurrians and the Kassites 1600-1450 BC. It was conquered by the army of Ashur. Mesopotamia was ruled by Seleucids from c.312 BC until the 2nd century BC, when it became part of the Parthian empire. In the 7th century AD the region was conquered by Muslim Arabs. The region’s importance declined after the Mongol Invasion of 1258. The Ottoman Turks ruled in the 16th-17th centuries. The area became a British mandate in 1920; the following year, Iraq was established there.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
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