Happy Burns Day! - and a bit of quoting

I get a 'bulletin' email every friday from an organization - and this was a bit of it:-

'Today is the birthday of Robert Burns – whose empathy for the inner dignity of things (the panic of a fieldmouse) often reminds me of our wee brother from Assisi. A man’s a man for a that, raises honest poverty above the tinsel of rank and wealth – and remains one of the world’s great calls to international brotherhood. “Then let us pray that come it may, and come it will for a that. That man to man the world over, will brothers be for a that.” '

and then later:-

'Following my outbreak of optimism last week – reader David Cook sends this powerful quote from a Professor David Landes book, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations.

“In this world, the optimists have it, not because they are always right, but because they are positive. Even when wrong, they are positive, and that is the way of achievement, correction, improvement and success. Educated, eyes open optimism pays, pessimism can only offer empty consolation of being right.
The one lesson that emerges is the need to keep trying. No miracles. No perfection. No millennium. No apocalypse. We must cultivate a sceptical faith, avoid dogma, listen and watch well, try to clarify and define ends, the better to choose means.”'

(thanks to Laurence Demarco for that, oh and to David Cook!)

gosh this is so relevant for me - the optimism thing - i do try hard to be so, but sometimes fall by the wayside - so all encouragement and reminders to be optimistic are welcome!
today someone said that this is the right weather for Rabbie's birthday - i wish i could remember the exact quote - but its to do with him 'arriving' in a January gale (but in Scots, not English!) - and it is incredibly windy and rainy today.

so how did i get there - from Burns to optimism to the weather - for goodness sake!

musttryharder musttryharder musttryharder....
but will stop now.

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