International Day of Friendship

July 30 is the International Day of Friendship. According to the official website, “The International Day of Friendship was proclaimed in 2011 by the UN General Assembly with the idea that friendship between peoples, countries, cultures and individuals can inspire peace efforts and build bridges between communities.” In his declaration for this day UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon said in part, “When greed supersedes concerns about the health of our planet or its inhabitants, when fanatic attachment to ideology is pursued at all costs, and when people suffer human rights violations because they are considered somehow less than equal, the heritage of humanity is betrayed and our future wellbeing is placed in peril… On this International Day of Friendship, let us resolve to cherish and cultivate as many warm relationships as possible, enriching our own lives and enhancing the future.” So you can see this is about friendship between nations, as well as friendship between people.

All friendship is a gift, but even better to reach across boundaries to be a friend to someone not in your immediate circle, whether that is literally on another continent, or another race, or different socio-economic background, or anyone different than yourself. Building bridges like that can remind us we all belong to the human race.

Quotes about friendship

Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make every day a holiday and celebrate just living.–Amanda Bradley

Choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense, and choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable.

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.–Anais Nin

A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.–Ralph Waldo Emerson

A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?–Kahlil Gibran

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.–Ed Cunningham

Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.–George Washington

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”-—C. S. Lewis

Hold a true friend with both hands.–Nigerian proverb

I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me a heart full of joy. Let’s face it, friends make life a lot more fun.–Charles R. Swindoll

If you want to make friends, go out of your way to do things for other people–things that require time, energy, unselfishness, and thoughtfulness.–Lawrence G. Lovasik

It is our families that shape us from the very beginning, but it is our friends that truly define us down the road. They are the ones we get to invite into our lives.–Courtney E. Martin

My friends are my most precious asset.–Erynn Miller

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.–Henry David Thoreau

One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.—Euripides

A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.–Walter Winchell

Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same.

Find more than 9000 inspirational quotes and a link to the Quote of the Day list, as well as quotation related merchandise, at http://www.quotelady.com.

National Milk Chocolate Day

July 28 is National Milk Chocolate Day. How could I pass that up? As I mentioned in a previous post, I consider chocolate to be one of the four major food groups, with popcorn being one of the others. So anything to do with chocolate interests me!

Quoting from the Serious Eats Website: “Like all chocolate, milk chocolate is a suspension of cocoa solids in cocoa butter and sometimes other fat, with sugar added for sweetness. In the U.S., milk chocolate must be at least 10% cocoa solids and 12% milk solids…” You can get milk chocolate that has been mass-produced, such as Hershey’s or Cadbury’s, or seek out high-quality milk chocolate made with only the finest beans, and likely a much larger percentage of cocoa solids. Some things to always look for in the chocolate you buy is where the beans come from and how they are harvested. Chocolate companies have been accused of using child labor in the cultivation and harvest of the beans, so for me, fair trade or ecological chocolate is the choice.

However, if you really want to know about chocolate in all its many wonderful forms, you need to read Sandra Boynton’s Chocolate: the Consuming Passion, newly updated at the end of 2015. She says her book was “written for the Chocolate Elite — the select millions who like chocolate in all its infinite variety, using ‘like’ as in ‘I like to breathe.’” Or as she sometimes more succinctly puts it: Chocolate: it’s not just for breakfast anymore.

Chocolate

Quotes about milk chocolate

As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.–Sandra Boynton

All of the evil that people have thrust upon chocolate is really more deserved by milk chocolate, which is essentially contaminated. The closer you get to a pure chocolate liquor (the chocolate essence ground from roasted cacao beans) the purer it is, the more satisfying it is, the safer it is, and the healthier it is.–Arnold Ismach

There are four basic food groups-milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and chocolate truffles.

Chocolate is the Answer. Who cares what the Question is?

The 12-step chocoholics program: Never be more than 12 steps away from chocolate!–Terry Moore

Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of the pieces.–Judith Viorst

Chocolate is God’s apology for broccoli.–Richard Paul Evans

It’s not that chocolates are a substitute for love. Love is a substitute for chocolate. Chocolate is, let’s face it, far more reliable than a man.–Miranda Ingram

All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt!–Lucy Van Pelt (in Peanuts by Charles Schulz)

I have this theory that chocolate slows down the aging process…. It may not be true, but do I dare take the chance?

In the beginning, the Lord created chocolate, and he saw that it was good. Then he separated the light from the dark, and it was better.

Chocolate knows no boundaries; speaks all languages; comes in all sizes; is woven through many cultures and disciplines … it impacts mood, health, and economics, and it is a part of our lives from early childhood through the elderly years.–Herman A. Berliner

My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished 2 bags of M&M’s and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.–Dave Barry

Nobody knows the truffles I’ve seen.–George Lang

Find more than 9000 inspirational quotes and a link to the Quote of the Day list, as well as quotation related merchandise, at http://www.quotelady.com.

Tolerance

I want to talk about tolerance today because lately there seems to be so little of it in the world. There are too many who are eager to set one person against each other because of their nationality, their religion, their race, their gender, their political beliefs, etc. Those who wish to divide us work on our fears, or our ignorance, because one who is afraid is more likely to look to a strong leader, whoever he or she is, to make them safe again. We are fed scary stereotypes that have very little to do with reality. We repeat slogans until we believe they are true. We believe what we read from news sources that confirm our prejudices and dismiss others with a different viewpoint. We see the best or worst in someone because of what group they belong to, rather than who they are as an individual. And with oh so many groups and persons ready to stoke that fear, it becomes very hard to find the truth.

Tolerance takes work. So does the next step, which is respect for others. It’s so much easier to paint all the members of a group with a broad brush than to dig deep and look for the truth. It’s so easy to drop into a “circle the wagons mentality,” than to listen to what others different than ourselves are saying, because we might then have to admit there is truth in their words. But let us be courageous to listen and learn from those who are different than us. Let us educate ourselves, so we can understand others points of view. In the end, understanding and respect are the only things that can save us or give us lasting peace.

Quotes about tolerance

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.–Mohandas Gandhi

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.–Martin Luther King Jr.

Tolerance is the only real test of civilization.–Arthur Helps

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.–Alice Walker

Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand; with a grip that kills it.–Rabindranath Tagore

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to root out prejudice:
For you have already given us eyes
With which to see the good in all people
If we would only use them rightly.–Rabbi Jack Riemer

It’s a universal law – intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.–Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The color of the skin makes no difference. What is good and just for one is good and just for the other, and the Great Spirit made all men brothers.–White Shield

When we clearly understand that there is no superior sex or superior race, we will have opened the door of communication and laid the foundation for building winning relationships with all people in this global world of ours.–Zig Ziglar

Greetings, I am pleased to see that we are different. May we together become greater than the sum of both of us.–Vulcan greeting

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
Of people whose skin is a different shade.
You’ve got to be carefully taught.–Oscar Hammerstein II (from South Pacific)

How do we create a harmonious society out of so many kinds of people? The key is tolerance–the one value that is indispensable in creating community.–Barbara Jordan

Find more than 9000 inspirational quotes and a link to the Quote of the Day list, as well as quotation related merchandise, at http://www.quotelady.com.

National Tell an Old Joke Day

Knock-knock!
Who’s there?
Boo!
Boo Who?
Try not to cry, it’s just National Tell an Old Joke Day.

What’s the proper response to that? That’s so funny. The last time I heard it I fell off my dinosaur.

Yes, it’s that time of year again, National Tell an Old Joke Day. Please note though old people may tell old jokes, it’s not a day to tell jokes about being old! Do that, and once I find my glasses, I’ll come over and beat you with my cane.  🙂

So I have scoured the internet for the oldest, corniest jokes I could find. If you have other groaners, add them in the comments.

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.

Why did the chicken go to the séance? To get to the other side.

Why did the dinosaur cross the road? Because the chicken joke wasn’t invented yet.

Why did the cow cross the road? To get to the udder side.

I recently stumbled upon my favorite new sports team. It’s a woman’s bowling squad called 
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Gutter.

What do you call a parade of rabbits hopping backwards? A receding hare-line.

How do you get down from an elephant? You don’t. You get down from a goose.

Why do cows have bells? Because their horns don’t work.

What does Charles Dickens keep in his spice rack? The best of thymes, the worst of thymes.

There was a man who entered a pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

How many tech-support folks does it take to change a light-bulb? We have a light-bulb here, and it works fine. Can you tell me what kind of bulb you have? OK. There could be four or five things wrong. Now, have you turned the light switch off and on?

How many introverts does it take to screw in a light bulb? Why does it have to be a group activity?

I used to think the brain was the most important organ. Then I thought, look what’s telling me that.

There was a prison break and I saw a midget climb up the fence. As he jumped down her sneered at me and I thought, well that’s a little condescending.

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

Just went to an emotional wedding. Even the cake was in tiers.

What is the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don’t know, and I don’t care.

Why did the cookie go to the hospital? Because he felt crummy.

Why is there a gate around cemeteries? Because people are dying to get in!

What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta

What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire? Frostbite

What would Bears be without Bees? Ears

Why don’t you ever see hippopotamus hiding in trees? Because they’re really good at it.

How do you keep a bull from charging? By canceling its credit card.

The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.–Miss Piggy

I’d go to the end of the world for my husband. Of course, if he’d just stop and ask directions, I wouldn’t have to.–Martha Bolton

Bumper sticker: Auntie Em: Hate the farm, hate Kansas, taking the dog. Dorothy.

So there you have it – a collection of boners. Hope you got a chuckle out of a few.

ind more than 9000 inspirational quotes and a link to the Quote of the Day list, as well as quotation related merchandise, at http://www.quotelady.com.

National Zoo Keepers Week

This week we celebrate zoo keepers (or zookeepers). I didn’t really know what they do (except that they work with animals) before I started doing research for this. It reminded me of my profession, which is that of librarian. Outside the field, people have the idea that being a librarian means getting to read all day, which is about the last thing we have time for. Likewise, people have the idea that being a zookeeper means getting to hug animals all day. The reality is quite different.

In a blog entitled “Why Being a Zookeeper Isn’t Always a Dream Job,” Ms. Host talks about some of the harder aspects of her job. The first is that animals die, despite how well you take care of them. And the following paragraph, which I quote in full: “Frogs require wearing special gloves to prevent us contaminating them with a deadly fungus. Elephants can drop about 150 lbs of manure each, PER DAY. Some animals eat a thin slurry that gets everywhere and dries to the consistency of cement and has to be scrubbed off each and every morning. Antelope poo comes out in little balls that range from sunflower seed size to chocolate covered cashew size, and we have to rake it all up. Bales of hay weigh over a 100 pounds, and yes, we do have to move them on our own. We cut thick branches off of trees we farm for the purpose of feeding. We clean dishes, we sweep floors, we dust, we mop, we empty the trash. We have to work in weather that reaches below freezing and over 100 degrees, in the full sun, in the rain, on holidays, on weekends, early in the morning and late, late at night. Some animals can kill you. Some animals can make you very sick. Some animals can cripple you for life.” This is a job done by people who really love animals. It’s good there are such people, though I am definitely not one of them!

I also realize that zoos are controversial, in that many feel animals should be left in the wild. I offer no opinion except to say that when I do visit a zoo, I want it to be one where the animals have a large enclosure and places to hide from prying human eyes.

Quotes about zoos

I am personally not against keeping animals at zoos, as they serve a huge educational purpose, but treating them well and with respect seems the least we could do, and with ‘we’ I mean not just zoo staff, but most certainly also the public.–Frans de Waal

Zoo animals are ambassadors for their cousins in the wild.–Jack Hanna

I love to go to the zoo. But not on Sunday. I don’t like to see the people making fun of the animals, when it should be the other way around.–Ernest Hemingway

Though not a natural world by any means, more like a collection of living dioramas, a zoo exists in its own time zone, somewhere between the seasonal sense of animals and our madly ticking watch time.–Diane Ackerman

Even if you can’t afford to travel the world, you can take your children to the museum, zoo or local park.–Kimora Lee Simmons

I love acting, but it’s much more fun taking the kids to the zoo.–Nicole Kidman

Someone told me it’s all happening at the zoo.–Paul Simon

Zoos have always fascinated me. What child hasn’t wondered what would happen if all the animals escaped from the zoo? Or what would happen if they got caught in an enclosure?–Matthew Reilly

I love zoo sanctuaries.–Nancy Travis

What’s the reality of being inside a zoo, for the animals and for the people who love and care for those animals? There’s a lot of joy, and there’s a lot of loss.–Thomas French

Find more than 9000 inspirational quotes and a link to the Quote of the Day list, as well as quotation related merchandise, at http://www.quotelady.com.

Space Exploration Day

July 20 is the day Neil Armstrong became the first of twelve human being to set foot on the moon. It is also sometimes known as Moon Day. For those of us old enough to remember that day in 1969, when we watched those unclear, blobby pictures of the event on our television screens, it can still bring back that feeling of amazement and pride in our achievement as human beings – and the sadness that we pulled back so sharply from space exploration. I’d hoped by now to be able to vacation on the moon or Mars. But it seems we must enjoy the pictures sent back by machines. Still amazing, but not really the same.

And today we celebrate not only the moon landings but also other space exploration. Whether it be Curiosity on Mars, Juno’s approach to Jupiter, or the Voyagers’ missions to the stars, we have seen some amazing pictures of our neighbors. And we also celebrate exploration done only by telescope, particularly the new one being built in South Africa, which is already making discoveries, such as the radio glow of some 1,300 distant galaxies spotted in a patch of sky about 20 times the size of the full moon, where only 70 galaxies had been counted before.

Quotes about space exploration.

That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.–Neil Armstrong

HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH
FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON
JULY 1969, A.D.
WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND
The words on a plaque left on the Moon by Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.

Mars has been flown by, orbited, smacked into, radar examined, and rocketed onto, as well as bounced upon, rolled over, shoveled, drilled into, baked and even blasted. Still to come: Mars being stepped on.–Buzz Aldrin

Since, in the long run, every planetary civilization will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring–not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive. –Carl Sagan

To set foot on the soil of the asteroids, to lift by hand a rock from the Moon, to observe Mars from a distance of several tens of kilometers, to land on its satellite or even on its surface, what can be more fantastic? –Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky

The second best thing about space travel is that the distances involved make war very difficult, usually impractical, and almost always unnecessary. This is probably a loss for most people, since war is our race’s most popular diversion…–Robert A. Heinlein

Suddenly, from behind the rim of the Moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth … home.–Edgar Mitchell

What are we doing here? We’re reaching for the stars.–Christa McAuliffe

I’m really hopeful about the future of space exploration and human spaceflight. Civilization as we know it has been defined by exploration. You know, we need to go off and find out what’s around the next corner and what’s just beyond what we already know. It’s part of our being; it’s part of our moral fiber to go off and explore.–Alan G. Poindexter

By refocusing our space program on Mars for America’s future, we can restore the sense of wonder and adventure in space exploration that we knew in the summer of 1969. We won the moon race; now it’s time for us to live and work on Mars, first on its moons and then on its surface.–Buzz Aldrin

Space exploration is a force of nature unto itself that no other force in society can rival.–Neil deGrasse Tyson

Find more than 9000 inspirational quotes and a link to the Quote of the Day list, as well as quotation related merchandise, at http://www.quotelady.com.

Nelson Mandela International Day

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born July 18, 1918, in the village of Mvezo in Umtata, then a part of South Africa’s Cape Province. Nelson’s father, Gadla, was a polygamist, having four wives, four sons, and nine daughters, who lived in different villages. Nelson’s mother was Gadla’s third wife, Nosekeni Fanny. He grew up in his mother’s home.

Mandela studied to become a lawyer and became increasingly committed to and active in, the African National Congress which was against apartheid. He was arrested several times through the years, sometimes getting off, sometimes serving small sentences. But in July 1963, he and several other were arrested. Mandela and two of the others were found guilty of four counts of sabotage and conspiracy to violently overthrow the government, found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Recovering from tuberculosis exacerbated by the dank conditions in his cell, in December 1988 Mandela was moved to Victor Verster Prison near Paarl. Here, he was housed in the relative comfort of a warder’s house with a personal cook, using the time to complete his LLB degree. The newly elected leader of South Africa, F. W. de Klerk met with Mandela in December 1989 to discuss the situation, a meeting both men considered friendly, before legalizing all formerly banned political parties in February 1990 and announcing Mandela’s unconditional release.

In 1994 he became president and began the difficult work of bringing reconciliation to South Africa. He oversaw the formation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate crimes committed under apartheid by both the government and the ANC, appointing Desmond Tutu as its chair. After suffering from a prolonged respiratory infection, Mandela died on December 5, 2013, at the age of 95, leaving an amazing legacy.

Quotes by Nelson Mandela

Difficulties break some men but make others. No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end.

A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.

I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

One effect of sustained conflict is to narrow our vision of what is possible.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

I like friends who have independent minds because they tend to make you see problems from all angles.

Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front.

Find more than 9000 inspirational quotes and a link to the Quote of the Day list, as well as quotation related merchandise, at http://www.quotelady.com.

Orville Redenbacher & Popcorn

Since I have long considered popcorn to be one of the four major food groups (chocolate being another), it is only fitting that I recognize Orville Redenbacher on his birthday. Redenbacher was born on July 16, 1907, in Brazil, Indiana. Not surprisingly, he grew up on a small corn farm. He studied agronomy at Purdue University and afterwards made his living running a fertilizer company. But popcorn seems to have been his passion. In his spare time, he worked on creating the perfect kernel, and when he felt he had developed it, went into business with a man named Charlie Bowman. They initially named their hybrid RedBow, but were convinced by an advertising agency to use Orville Redenbacher Popcorn instead, and their company took off. As somewhat of a popcorn fanatic myself, I have indeed cherished this brand, as one of my two favorites.

Quoting from Biography.com: “Around 1972, however, Redenbacher began appearing in television commercials, as himself, hawking his new popcorn. He even appeared on the television show, To Tell the Truth where he stumped panelists such as Kitty Carlisle Hart, Peggy Cass and Joe Garagiola.” He was so folksy, that many people assumed he was an actor, but it was always the genuine Redenbacher. Nor was he just a pretty face. Time magazine called Redenbacher “the Luther Burbank of popcorn,” for his scientific work on creating a better popcorn kernel. Alas, he died in 1995 when he had a heart attack in a Jacuzzi and drowned. His biography is called Just Call Me Orville.

The Orville Redenbacher brand is now owned by ConAgra.

Quotes about popcorn

Every once in a while, someone will mail me a single popcorn kernel that didn’t pop. I’ll get out a fresh kernel, tape it to a piece of paper and mail it back to them.–Orville Redenbacher

I had popcorn all over the place, so I decided I might as well be in the Processing Business.–Orville Redenbacher

Popcorn! Our fatal weakness!–Hazel Levesque

Have you ever pondered the miracle of popcorn? It starts out as a tiny, little, compact kernel with magic trapped inside that when agitated, bursts to create something marvelously desirable. It’s sort of like those tiny, little thoughts trapped inside an author’s head that – in an excited explosion of words – suddenly become a captivating fairytale!–Richelle E. Goodrich

Sometimes I think that all anyone needs in life is lots of popcorn…–Sam Savage

“Come in early, so there’ll be time to pop corn,” Mrs. Ray said. If she mentioned popping corn, they always came in early. So she usually mentioned it.–Maud Hart Lovelace

Fresh popcorn is near impossible to resist, second only to fresh doughnuts.–Shannon Wiersbitzky

The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves.–W. C. Fields

American’s love popcorn, and their love doesn’t quit.–Rosecrans Baldwin

The modern era has brought up immense conveniences, but at what price. The human heart is desperate for something more than a quicker serving of popcorn.–John Eldredge

Of course life is bizarre, the more bizarre it gets, the more interesting it is. The only way to approach it is to make yourself some popcorn and enjoy the show.–David Gerrold

I just got a reputation for making popcorn at parties. I don’t mean to brag on myself, but I make the popcorn in the pot, and it comes out fine every time.–Bill Nye

Find more than 9000 inspirational quotes and a link to the Quote of the Day list, as well as quotation related merchandise, at http://www.quotelady.com.

National Ice Cream Month

I scream, you scream, we all scream for National Ice Cream Month! (Otherwise known as July.) Ice cream has been around a long time. Well, maybe not exactly what we mean to day by ice cream, but the idea of it started quite a ways back. Did you know that in the fifth century BCE the ancient Greeks ate snow mixed with honey and fruit in the markets of Athens? Nope, neither did I. But they weren’t the only ancient civilization interested in cool treats in the summer. Wikipedia tells is, a frozen mixture of milk and rice was used in China around 200 BCE. In 400 BCE, the Persians invented a special chilled food, made of rose water and vermicelli, which was served to royalty during summers. The ice was mixed with saffron, fruits, and various other flavors. And so it went on up through the years. As far as cones, there were recipes for making them as early as 1888, but they were popularized in the US at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.

According to the Food Science department at the University of Guelph, ice cream consists of the following:
Milkfat: >10% – 16%
Milk solids-not-fat (snf): 9% – 12%
Sucrose: 10% – 14%
Corn syrup solids: 4% – 5%
Stabilizers: 0% – 0.4%
Emulsifiers: 0% – 0.25%
Water: 55% – 64%

And all this before adding any fruit, nuts, or other ingredients! Better to make it at home by the looks, with milk (or cream), sugar or sweetener, and whatever additions take your fancy. For me, chocolate ice cream with mint flavoring and chocolate chips. Yum!

Quotes about ice cream

Number of empty Ben & Jerry’s containers: 3 — two mint chocolate cookie, one plain vanilla. (Who buys plain vanilla ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s, anyway? Is there a greater waste?)–Ally Carter

Without ice cream, there would be darkness and chaos.–Don Kardong

Stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot oftener, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more and cry less. Life must be lived as we go along.–Robert J. Hastings

[I]t was the color of someone buying you an ice cream cone for no reason at all.–Lemony Snicket

Sometime all you need is love … Oh wait! And ice cream, and chocolate to go along with it as nowadays love is anything but sweet.–Megha Khare

Ice cream is happiness condensed.– Jessie Lane Adams

“Not having ice cream,” she proclaimed, “is the culmination of all disasters!”–Brandon Sanderson

Eat Ice Cream. Read Books. Be Happy.–Carew Papritz

I can say with unwavering certitude that I have never started a pint of Ben ‘n Jerry’s ice cream that I didn’t finish in its entirety within 6 minutes.–Gregor Collins

Always serve too much hot fudge sauce on hot fudge sundaes. It makes people overjoyed, and puts them in your debt.–Judith Olney

Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone.–Jim Fiebig

Unless your name ends in Baskin or Robbins, I really can’t fit you into my schedule right now.–Uniek Swain

I don’t cry over spilt milk, but a fallen scoop of ice cream is enough to ruin my whole day.–Terri Guillemets

I love dessert. All kinds. But there’s something about ice cream that makes me happy.–Rachel Nichols

My love for ice cream emerged at an early age – and has never left!–Ginger Rogers

I go running when I have to. When the ice cream truck is doing sixty.–Wendy Liebman

Happiness is, the sound of an ice cream truck.

Find more than 9000 inspirational quotes and a link to the Quote of the Day list, as well as quotation related merchandise, at http://www.quotelady.com.

Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau was born on July 12, 1817, and spent most of his life in Concord, Massachusetts. He did well in school, and was able to go to Harvard. After graduation, he tried his hand at teaching, but a dispute with the superintendent led to his dismissal. After that, he worked in his father’s pencil factory, until he and his brother John started their own school. This did well, until John’s lengthy illness, when it became too much for Henry and he closed it.

After that, he went to work for his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was part of the transcendentalist movement. Thoreau began his writing career at that time, getting some poems and essays published. In 1845, he built a house on Walden Pond, on property owned by Emerson. He lived there two years, where he put together his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, and later Walden. He enjoyed only modest success in his lifetime, and actually worked in the pencil factory to make money.

Thoreau was an ardent abolitionist, serving as a conductor on the underground railroad. He died much too early in 1862 of tuberculosis. At his funeral, his friend Emerson said, “The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost. … His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home.”

He left behind some great writing and many memorable quotations. Here is a sampling. You can find many more at QuoteLady.com.

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

Be yourself – not your idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when someone asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!

I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them!

It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify, simplify!

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.

What’s the use of a fine house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?

Find over 9000 inspirational quotes and a link to the Quote of the Day list, as well as quotation related merchandise, at http://www.quotelady.com.