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TCS: Awed By the Power of Words
“We live and breathe words …. It was books that made
“Read, read, read. Read everything —
TCS: Oh to Walk My Way With Kindness
Good Morning!
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It is easier to oppose evil from
the beginning than at the end.
—Leonardo da Vinci
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“When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are
not proving him a liar, you’re only telling
the world that you fear what he might say.”
― George R.R. Martin,
A Clash of Kings
TCS: Everything That Can’t Be Owned
Good Morning!
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Poetry has never been the language of barriers,
it’s always been the language of bridges.
– Amanda Gorman
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“Once a government is committed to the principle
of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one
way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly
repressive measures, until it becomes a source of
terror to all its citizens and creates a country
where everyone lives in fear.”
– Harry S. Truman,
33rd U.S. President
Posted in Poetry, The Coffee Shop
Tagged April is National Poetry Month, Everything That Can't Be Owned, Poets born In April, TCS
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TCS: Choose Your Bread and Your Company
Good Morning!
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“If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech,
there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it.
But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities
will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.”
— George Orwell
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“For if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments
on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming
consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind,
reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be
taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led,
like sheep, to the Slaughter.”
— George Washington,
Address to the Officers of the Army, March 15, 1783
Posted in Poetry, The Coffee Shop
Tagged Choose Your Bread and Your Company, Poets born in March and April, TCS
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TCS: Anything Could Be Real … All the Frontiers End With a Question
Good Morning!
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“People have only as much liberty as they have
the intelligence to want and the courage to take.”
― Emma Goldman
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“Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what
books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is
thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens?
Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be
cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall
a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the
rule of what we are to read, and what we must believe?”
– Thomas Jefferson,
‘Founding Father’ and Third U.S. President
Posted in Poetry, The Coffee Shop
Tagged Anything Could Be Real … All the Frontiers End With a Question, Poets Born in March, TCS
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TCS: The World of the Knowing
Good Morning!
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“The only valid censorship of ideas
is the right of people not to listen.”
― Tommy Smothers
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“Few people have to watch their country die. I have had that
dubious privilege, and I can tell you that it comes not as a
rebel shout but as a sly whisper. The cracks creep in, insidious
as anything I’ve ever seen. It can start as rumblings about an
unreliable press and rumors about political enemies that will
threaten your family, your children. It can deepen with each
disdainful remark about science and art and literature in a pub
on a Friday night. It comes cloaked in patriotism and love
of country, and uses that as armor against any criticism.”
― Brianna Labuskes, from
The Librarian of Burned Books
Posted in Poetry, The Coffee Shop
Tagged Poets Born in March, TCS, The World of the Knowing
2 Comments
TCS: How I Became a Woman – Poems for Women’s History Month
Good Morning!
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“… this bullet had no innocence, did not wish anyone well, you
can’t tell us otherwise by naming it mildly, this bullet was never
the friend of life, should not be granted immunity by soft saying
— friendly fire, straying death-eye, why have we given the wrong
weight to what we do?”
– from “For Mohammed Zeid of Gaza, Age 15”
by Naomi Shihab Nye
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“Censoring books that deal with difficult, adolescent issues does not protect
anybody. Quite the opposite. It leaves kids in the darkness and makes
them vulnerable. Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.
Our children cannot afford to have the truth of the world withheld
from them.”
– Laurie Halse Anderson, author of
Shout, Catalyst, and The Impossible Knife of Memory
Posted in Poetry, The Coffee Shop
Tagged How I Became a Woman, Poems for Women’s History Month, Poetry, Poets Born in March, TCS
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TCS: Sounds We Cannot Hear But Understand in Motion
Good Morning!
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“Banning things gives them more power and mystique than they
had previously. Tell someone they can’t see something, and you
can be sure as soon as you do they will be far more motivated to
seek it out and find out about it than they ever were before.”
– Neil Gaiman
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“Books and ideas are the most effective
weapons against intolerance and ignorance.”
– Lyndon Johnson, 36th U.S. President
Posted in Poetry, The Coffee Shop
Tagged Poetry, TCS, Poets Born in March, Sounds We Cannot Hear But Understand in Motion
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TCS: I Heard This Morning On The News
Good Morning!
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“If news is not really news unless it is bad news, it may
be difficult to claim we are an informed nation.”
— Norman Cousins
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“We are not afraid to entrust the American
people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas,
alien philosophies, and competitive values.
For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge
the truth and falsehood in an open market
is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
— President John F. Kennedy
Posted in Poetry, The Coffee Shop
Tagged I Heard This Morning On The News, Poets born in February and March, TCS
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TCS: When I Was Harmless and Didn’t Know Any Better
Good Morning!
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“The young always have the same problem ─
how to rebel and conform at the same time.
They have now solved this by defying their
parents and copying one another.”
— Quentin Crisp
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“the stars
were always what we knew
they were: the exit wounds
of every
misfired word.”
— Ocean Vuong,
To My Father / To My Future Son
Posted in Poetry, The Coffee Shop
Tagged Poets Born In February, TCS
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