Today's Quote: Thomas Jefferson

Text:
...we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.
~ Thomas Jefferson

Today's Quote: George Eliot

Text:
Even our failures are a prophecy.
~ George Eliot

George Eliot, aged 30, painted by Alexandre-Louis-François d'Albert-Durade, National Portrait Gallery, London.

Today's Quote: Alex Mathers

Text:
You need to be OK with making stuff you don't like. Just keep making more. Be relentless.
~ Alex Mathers

Graphic courtesy Alex Mathers at redlemonclub.com. Check it out for more messages of support!

Giveaway

Kintsugi Heart Enamel Pin by Pteroble

Have you fixed your heart up, mended the cracks with gold? Then you might appreciate this kintsugi heart pin! We're giving two away! Send your name and mailing address to mistakesanthology@gmail.com or leave your name and email address in the comments. Deadline August 17, 2018.

Today's Quote: Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Text:
I tell you the future can hold no terrors
  For any sad soul while the stars revolve,
If he will stand firm on the grave of his errors,
  And instead of regretting, resolve, resolve.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Fool

From 1878, but still relevant...don't let worrying about not being "up with the times" make you agree with a fool!

The Fool
By Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

There lived a fool.

For a long time he lived in peace and contentment; but by degrees rumours began to reach him that he was regarded on all sides as a vulgar idiot.

The fool was abashed and began to ponder gloomily how he might put an end to these unpleasant rumours.

A sudden idea, at last, illuminated his dull little brain.... And, without the slightest delay, he put it into practice.

A friend met him in the street, and fell to praising a well-known painter....

'Upon my word!' cried the fool,' that painter was out of date long ago ... you didn't know it? I should never have expected it of you ... you are quite behind the times.'

The friend was alarmed, and promptly agreed with the fool.

'Such a splendid book I read yesterday!' said another friend to him.

'Upon my word!' cried the fool, 'I wonder you're not ashamed. That book's good for nothing; every one's seen through it long ago. Didn't you know it? You're quite behind the times.'

This friend too was alarmed, and he agreed with the fool.

'What a wonderful fellow my friend N. N. is!' said a third friend to the fool. 'Now there's a really generous creature!'

'Upon my word!' cried the fool. 'N. N., the notorious scoundrel! He swindled all his relations. Every one knows that. You're quite behind the times.'

The third friend too was alarmed, and he agreed with the fool and deserted his friend. And whoever and whatever was praised in the fool's presence, he had the same retort for everything.

Sometimes he would add reproachfully: 'And do you still believe in authorities?'

'Spiteful! malignant!' his friends began to say of the fool. 'But what a brain!'

'And what a tongue!' others would add, 'Oh, yes, he has talent!'

It ended in the editor of a journal proposing to the fool that he should undertake their reviewing column.

And the fool fell to criticising everything and every one, without in the least changing his manner, or his exclamations.

Now he, who once declaimed against authorities, is himself an authority, and the young men venerate him, and fear him.

And what else can they do, poor young men? Though one ought not, as a general rule, to venerate any one ... but in this case, if one didn't venerate him, one would find oneself quite behind the times!

Fools have a good time among cowards.

Michelle Kogan

“We shall never go hungry, now that we know how to make soup from stones.”
~Marcia Brown

IMPERFECT poet Michelle Kogan is thinking about how someone cleverly turns inhospitable behavior into a lesson about hospitality. Isn't it cool when you can help someone learn from their mistakes on the spot?

Hungry traveler
visits your town only
to be turned down—but
he schemes an entire meal
with his wit and appeal!

Stone Soup
photo by aehdeschaine

MICHELLE KOGAN is an artist, illustrator, instructor, and writer. She grew up on Chicago's South Side and studied first at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, receiving a BFA, and went on to receive an MFA in painting from Northern Illinois University. Michelle's poem "Temptation" is included in IMPERFECT. Her web site is located at https://www.michellekogan.com/.

Today's Quote: Proverbial Wisdom

Text:
Be happy with what you have, and you will have plenty to be happy about.
~ Irish proverb

Warming up with a favorite no

Big Life Journal featured an article by Alexandra Eidens called 14 Books and Activities To Help Your Kids Learn from Mistakes.

One of the things Ms. Eidens shared was this cool teaching exercise, My Favorite No:

Ruth Bowen Hersey

IMPERFECT poet Ruth Bowen Hersey weighs the pros and cons of being late...

This is just to say
that I'm sorry I was late
to my meeting this morning
except not that sorry.
I stopped to take some pictures
of the tomatoes in my yard.
They were so beautiful.
So small and green
and so flecked with
rainwater.
And the meeting
seemed so far away.

Paul Hayday, Tomatoes

RUTH BOWEN HERSEY lives in Haiti where she teaches English, including poetry, to seventh and eighth graders at an international Christian school.

Today's Quote: Oliver St. John Gogarty

Text:
By Perfection fooled too long,
I will dream of that no longer!
~ Oliver St. John Gogarty

Portrait of Oliver St. John Gogarty by William Orpen, Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland.

Today's Quote: Anne Brontë

Text:
There is always a "but" in this imperfect world.
~ Anne Brontë

Today's Quote: Harry W. Yeatts Jr.

Text:
time grants the chance
for hard humiliations
to morph to soft humblings.
~ Harry W. Yeatts Jr.