o, ik weet het niet

O, ik weet het niet,
maar besta, wees mooi.
zeg: kijk, een vogel
en leer me de vogel zien
zeg: het leven is een brood
om in te bijten en de appels zien rood
van plezier, en nog, en nog, zeg iets.
leer me huilen, en als ik huil
leer me zeggen: het is niets.

~Herman de Coninck



Bron: Herman de Coninck

Raise children who care

"God, help us not to raise a new generation of children
With high intellectual quotients and low caring and compassion quotients
With sharp competitive edge but dull cooperative instincts
With highly developed computer skills but poorly developed consciences
With a gigantic commitment to the big "I" but little sense of responsibility to the bigger "We"
With mounds of disconnected and unsynthesized information without a moral context to determine its worth
With more and more knowledge and less imagination and appreciation for the magic of life that cannot be quantified or computerized
With more and more worldliness and less and less wonder and awe for the sacred and everyday miracles of life.
God, help us to raise children who care."

A prayer for 21st Century children. From "A Letter to Parents" in "The Sea is so Wide and my Boat is so Small" by Marian Wright Edelman (2008).

Link: Children's Defense Fund

Polymath

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci - April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519 - was an Italian polymath, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man whose unquenchable curiosity was equaled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote".

“In the normal course of events many men and women are born with remarkable talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single person is marvelously endowed by Heaven with beauty, grace and talent in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind, all his actions seem inspired and indeed everything he does clearly comes from God rather than from human skill. Everyone acknowledged that this was true of Leonardo da Vinci, an artist of outstanding physical beauty, who displayed infinite grace in everything that he did and who cultivated his genius so brilliantly that all problems he studied he solved with ease.”

"Leonardo's disposition was so lovable that he commanded everyone's affection". He was "a sparkling conversationalist" who charmed Ludovico il Moro with his wit. Vasari sums him up by saying "In appearance he was striking and handsome, and his magnificent presence brought comfort to the most troubled soul; he was so persuasive that he could bend other people to his will. He was physically so strong that he could withstand violence and with his right hand he could bend the ring of an iron door knocker or a horseshoe as if they were lead. He was so generous that he fed all his friends, rich or poor.... Through his birth Florence received a very great gift, and through his death it sustained an incalculable loss."

By Giorgio Vasari

Source: Wikipedia