WHAT IS A HOME?

 

WHAT IS A HOME?

A dictionary will give you the following answers:

1. The place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.
2. An institution for people needing professional care or supervision. For example:  an old people’s home; an orphanage; an observation home; a remand home; a juvenile justice home, etc.
3. A place where a person feels most comfortable, loved, and protected.
4. A house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household . Its synonyms are: domicile, habitation, dwelling and abode.     

According to a popular saying: East or west, home is the best.

            The English divine August W. Hare (1792-1834) said: To Adam paradise was home. To the good among his  descendants , home is paradise.

            The German poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is reported to have said: He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds place in his home.

            According to the English clergy James Hamilton (1814-67): Six things are requisite to create a “happy home.” Integrity must be the architect, and tidiness the upholsterer. It must be warmed by affection, lighted up with cheerfulness; and industry must be the ventilator, renewing the atmosphere and bringing in fresh salubrity day by day; while over all, as a protecting canopy and glory, nothing will suffice except the blessing of God.”

            A home without affectionate, loyal. helpful, kind-hearted and sympathetic members is in no way a sweet home. It is like a battleground, full of anger and bitterness. Such a home is governed by the devil, not by God. It does not provide health and happiness.

            To conclude, here is a short quote: No matter who you are or where you are , instinct tells you to go home.

                                                            *****

G.R.Kanwal

29 April 2025

 

 

 

DON’T PUT OFF TILL TOMORROW

 

            DON’T PUT OFF TILL TOMORROW

            We live in a world of fleeting time;  and time itself is defined as “what is measured in minutes, hours, days, months, years, etc.

            Don’t put off till tomorrow is an incomplete proverbial statement. The addition of “what you can do today” makes it complete.

            Like all proverbs this one is also short, pithy, truthful and illuminative.

Time is classified as present, past and future. Of these, present is real. It is here and now but transitory. It does not stay even for a moment. It changes  into past in the twinkling of an eye.

            Tomorrow means on or during the day after today. It is like a dream which may not turn into reality. Yet it is in the nature of human beings to put off lots of activities till tomorrow---a tomorrow that may never come.

            Look at the following quote from William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth:

            Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

            Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

            To the last syllable of recorded time;

            And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

            The way to dusty death.

           

Out , out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

            That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

            And then is heard no more.

            It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

 

            Here is another proverbial saying: “Take time by the forelock.” This  means be proactive. Seize every opportunity quickly and make the most of favourable circumstances which are here before you.

 

            To conclude, a quote by the English author Francis Quarles (1592-1644}:

 

Make use of time if thou lovest eternity; yesterday cannot be recalled; tomorrow cannot be assured; only today is thine, which if thou procrastinate, thou losest; and which lost is lost forever. One today is worth two tomorrows.                                                  

                                                            **********

G.R.Kanwal

28 April 2025

KNOWLEDGE IS EVERYWHERE

 

          KNOWLEDGE IS EVERYWHERE

            Dictionaries define knowledge as the information, understanding, and skills that one gains through education or experience.

            Briefly speaking, the sources of knowledge are unlimited and the amount of knowledge is immeasurable.

            The truth is that there is knowledge everywhere and about a number of   things existing there.

            Schools, colleges, universities, specific institutes, fields, farms, mines, rivers, mountains, valleys and religious  places are not  the  only limited places for acquiring knowledge.  

           Jaques, a character in Shakespeare’s  play As You Like It, Act II, Scene 1 says:  

          And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running books, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

            According to the English essayist and philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626): Knowledge is not a couch whereon to rest a searching mind and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect ; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise  itself upon; or a sort of commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for profit and sale; but a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man’s estate.

          A number of thinkers rightly claim that knowledge is power

          Finally, this quote by the Scottish essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) : “Properly, there is no other knowledge  but that which is got by working; the rest is yet all a hypothesis of knowledge; a thing to be argued of in schools; a thing floating in the clouds, in endless logic-vortices, till we try and fix it.

                                      ********

G. R. Kanwal

27 April 2025

 

 

  

A MEMORABLE SPEECH FROM A SHAKESPEARE’S PLAY

 

                                 A MEMORABLE SPEECH

                             FROM A SHAKESPEARE’S PLAY

There is a number of great speeches in the plays of the English poet-playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616). All of them are on significant themes.  Their relevance to human affairs is everlasting. The language in which they are expressed is powerful. It catches the mind, appeals to the heart and uplifts the soul.

 

The speech quoted below is from Shakespeare’s  play The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1.

 

The speaker is Shylock, the Jew. The indirectly mentioned addressees are Christians. The theme is that all men are subject to similar physical, mental and emotional reactions. Since there is no difference between the feelings of a Jew and those of a Christian, both should be respected equally.

 

Shylock asks:

 

“If you prick us, do we not bleed: If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

 

After referring to these shared human experiences and vulnerabilities of both Jews and Christians, he claims:

“If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in other wrongs done to us.

 

“If a Jew wrongs a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge.”

 

In this short speech, Shylock demands equality of rights on the basis of religion.  And what he said about five hundred years ago is true even today. Equality of rights is the basis of great religions.

 

                                                            ********

G.R.Kanwal

26 April 2025

LEAD KINDLY LIGHT

 

          LEAD KINDLY LIGHT

            No body knows how old this world is and how it looked like at the time of its creation.

For ages together man was a savage, a brute. He was like wild animals.  Today he is refined, enlightened, cultured and civilized, yet frequently inhuman  and barbaric.

The natural world , said the English poet John Keats (1795-1821) is a thing of beauty with its planets like the moon and the sun and many other eternally charming objects which are a source of ever-increasing joy.

 What is regrettable is that instead of seeking light from God man often  becomes self-reliant for his decisions.  At such times, his decisions turn out to be awfully wrong a nd ruinous.

What  follows is a hymn Lead Kindly Light written by Cardinal Henry Newman (1801-90) . Here, he prays to God to guide him not only in the present gloom, but also in the dark and thorny tracks of the future.

Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th' encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on.
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!

                                      **********

G.R.Kanwal

25 April 2025                                 

 

 

WAR AND PEACE

 

          WAR AND PEACE

What follows are some important views on war and peace.

WAR

1.Lord Krishna justifies war against evil. As for casualties, he says nobody dies forever.  Only his old body perishes and his soul takes a new form. The soul is immortal.

  2. A great war leaves the country with these armies ---an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.----German Proverb.

3. War is the business of barbarians.---General and King of Italy (1769=1821).

4. War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses. ----3^rd U.S. President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826).

5. Who has ever told the evils and the curses and the crimes of war? Who can describe the horrors of the carnage of battle? Who can portray the fiendish passions which reign there! If there is anything in which earth, more than any other, resembles hell, it is its wars.----American clergy Albert Barnes (1798-1870).

                                                ……

PEACE

6.Peace is the evening star of the soul, as virtue is its sun; and the two are never far apart. ---English clergy Caleb Colton (1780-1832).

7. Five great enemies to peace inhabit with us: viz., avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride. If those enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.----Italian poet Petrarch (1304-74).

8. We love peace, but not peace at any price. There is a peace more destructive of the manhood of living man, than war is destructive of his body.—Chains are worse  than bayonets,---English dramatist Douglas Jerrold (1803-57).

9. Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than war. ----The English poet John Milton (1608-74).

10. to be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.  ----1^st President of United States  George Washington (1732-99).

                                                            *******

G.R.Kanwal

24 April 2025

 

                                                  

QUOTING SHAKESPEARE

 

          QUOTING  SHAKESPEARE

The British poet-playwright William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon on 23 April 1564 and died on the same date in 1616.

His father was a prosperous citizen but later on fell upon evil days. Except that he attended the grammar school of the town, Shakespeare had no formal education.

He was eighteen years old when he married a local woman Anne Hathaway eight years older than himself.     

          He left Stratford in 1584 because of falling into trouble as a poacher. After arriving in London he worked at a theatre in some minor capacity, and gradually became an actor as also a playwright.

A born literary genius, when he retired to his native town, he had gained the most enviable reputation as a poet and playwright.

 

            Look this quote from the poem titled “Shakespeare” written by the English poet Matthew Arnold (1822-88):            

 

Others abide our question. Thou art free.

We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still,

Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill

That to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea.

                                    ……

Self-schooled, self-scanned , self-honour’d, self-secure,

Didst tread on earth unguesse’d at. Better so!

All pains the immortal spirit must endure,

All weakness that impairs, all griefs that bow,

Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.

 

            The following quotes are taken from Shakespeare’s plays:

 

i).The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

Are of imagination all compact.  

ii).How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is

To have a thankless child!  

 

iii).The web of our life is of mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.

 

iv). Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more; it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

 

v). What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals!

 

vi). An earthly power doth then show likest God’s

When mercy seasons justice.

 

vii). If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

 

viii). We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with sleep.

                                                            *******

G.R.Kanwal

23 April 2025

 

 

 

LIFE IS LABOUR

 

          LIFE IS LABOUR

            We are destined to to do some sort of labour throughout our life. To sit idle is to commit a sin.

 

Labour is work, toil, activity, employment and exertion. It is the mother of one’s luck and prosperity. To shun labour and spend our time like an idler is to invite poverty.

 

            The Scottish essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) said:

Blessed is the man that has found his work. One monster there is in the world, the idle man.

           

            Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) , a cleric in the Church of England, said:  

 Avoid idleness, and fill up all the spaces of thy time with severe and useful employment; for lust easily creeps in at those emptiness where the soul is unemployed and the body is at ease; for no easy , healthful, idle person was ever chaste if he could be tempted; but of all employments, bodily labour is the most useful, and of the greatest benefit for driving away the Devil.     

 

            According to the American orator and statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852 ): Labour is one of the  great elements of society ---the great substantial interest on which we all stand.  No feudal service, or predial toil, or the irksome drudgery by one race of mankind subjected, on account of their colour, to another; but labour, intelligent, manly, independent, thinking and acting  for itself earning its own wages, accumulating those wages into capital, educating childhood and  maintaining worship, claiming the right of the elective francise, and helping to uphold the great of the State ---that is American labour.

 

            The Greek poet Sophocles (495-406 B.C.) said: Without labour nothing prospers.

           

            Finally, this quote  by the French writer and philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778):

                Labour rids us of three great evils ----irksomeness, vice, and poverty.

                                                            *******

G.R.Kanwal

22 April 2025

SOME THOUGHTS ON BOOKS

 

SOME THOUGHTS ON BOOKS

            Dictionaries define a book as “a set of printed pages that are fastened together inside a cover so that you can turn them and read them.”

There were no books when the world was created. All knowledge was a result of experience and it was stored in one’s mind.

Human memory being short, the knowledge gained by the individuals faded day after day.

            Today we have innumerable books on all sorts of subjects.  They can be produced in large numbers and preserved in personal or public libraries for any number of years.

            The number of readers of books is now uncountable. There is hardly a home without some sort of books. Sacred books like the Bible, the Koran and the Gita may be found in every home. They are available in different languages with or without interpretations.

            One must acquire and read books but should not become a bookworm. Experience rather than the bookish lore is the best source of trustworthy knowledge.

            Great thoughts on books deserve to be gone through seriously. Here are a couple of them:

1.Books are a guide in youth, and an entertainment for age, They support us under solitude, and keep us from becoming a burden to ourselves. They help us to forget the crossness of men and things, compose our cares and our passions, and lay our disappointments asleep. When we are weary of  the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation. ----- The English Theatre critic and theologian Jeremy Collier (1650-1726).

            2.Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed , and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. -----The English essayist Francis Bacon (1561-1626).

Finally, this short but unforgettable quote:

A house without books is like a room without windows.

G.R.Kanwal

21 April 2025

 

 

 

 

IN PRAISE OF GOD

 

          IN PRAISE OF GOD

God is the creator of the universe and is the supreme authority in every matter of life and death. His attributes are countless , some of them being --- omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, love, goodness,  mercy, justice, holiness, eternality, transcendence,  changelessness, flawlessness, sovereignty, self-existence and  truthfulness.  

            He is worshipped, praised, prayed and thanked  for any and everything needed by humans because they are  His humble children and He is their benevolent father.

 

God is remembered, if not always, surely in adverse circumstances when His devotees seek His help. 

 

An incurably sick man’s last prayer is not to doctors but to God for staying alive.      

           

The  poem that is reproduced below is by Annie R. Pritchard.  Its Title is:  THOU ART ALL.   

According to an available biographical note Annie had received an M.Phil degree for her thesis on French Marxism and feminism from the university of Wales and was about to complete her doctoral thesis on post-structuralism and feminist ethics at the University of Illinois when she suddenly expired in 1994 at a very young age.      

 

The full Text of the poem Reads as follows:

            THOU ART ALL

I praise Thee Lord and Saviour

My shield, my hope and stay

Thou art my sure foundation.

A lamp to light my way.

A friend, and Elder Brother

In whom I can confide.

Thou art my place of refuge

And Thou art all beside.

 

When from Thy pathway straying

I call Thee. Thou dost come

And bid me mark the footprints

Which leads me to Thy home.

My path Thou dost encircle

All through the gloomy night.

And shining through the dimness

Thou makest darkness light.

 

O lead me then, dear Saviour

And ever hold my hand

Until my feet shall enter

That bright and better land,

Where through the endless ages

I’ll praise the matchless grace

Which bought, redeemed and saved me,

And see Thy glorious face.

 

                                                ******

G.R.Kanwal

20 April 2025

SOME THOUHTS ON MAN

 

          SOME THOUHTS ON MAN

            There are so many thoughts about man that no single writer can collect them and put them into any encyclopedia of any length and breadth.

When men were few in the beginning of this world, thoughts about them were also few. Today, human population runs into billions and the number of thoughts related to men are uncountable.

To say the least, each man is a huge volume of thoughts. In every book, magazine, journal, newspaper, readers find a number of old and new thoughts.   To tell their latest tally is impossible.  

 

            Given below is less than even the tiniest number of thoughts on man.  

 

1.Half dust, half deity, alike unfit to sink or soar.

2. Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires.

3. A reasoning rather than a reasonable animal. 

4. A divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.   

5.When perfected by society, the best of all animals.

6. Belongs to one of these three classes – the retrograde, the stationary, and the progressive.

7. A wealth grabber, a pleasure seeker; a power wielder; a thinker; a creative lover.

8. The representative product of the universe.

9. When he becomes a brute, he is the most sensual and loathsome of all brutes.

10. If virtuous, man is free from anxieties; if wise, free from perplexities; if bold, free from fear.

11. Man is society’s servant.

12. He has depths that go to the lowest hell, and heights that reach the highest heaven. 13.By losing faith and honour, man dies.

14. Man is an act and a breath of God.

15. The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man which it forms. It is not what he has, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.  

 

To conclude:  the following words of the English poet-playwright

William Shakespeare(1564-1616):

 

            What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason!

How infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how

express and admirable! In action, how like an angel!

In apprehension, how like a god!

           

                                                *******

G.R.Kanwal

19 April 2025  

 

                      

 

THE COMMON ROAD

 

          THE COMMON ROAD

            “The Common Road” is one of the inspirational poems written by the American poet Silas H. Perkins (1832-1911). It begins with the lines:

                        I want to travel, the common road

                        With the great crowd surging by.

                        Where there’s many a laugh and many a load,

And many a smile and sigh.        

            This  is not a reference to a desolate road where one finds  a small number of elites walking alone, on a quiet ‘sheltered way.”  The poet’s choice is different. He wants to be” thrilled and stirred by the road where he comes across  a large  crowd  of common people.”

               It is obvious from the above-mentioned lines that the poet is a man of  the masses who face all sorts of problems in their life’s journey.  He wants to be with them as a helpful co-traveller.

 Shouldn’t all of us be like him and live a socially useful life.  

             Here are the concluding but very inspirational lines of the poem:

 

I want to laugh with the common man
Wherever he chance to be,
I want to aid him when I can
Whenever there's need of me.
I want to lend a helping hand
Over the rough and steep
To a child too young to understand—
To comfort those who weep.
I want to live and work and plan
With the great crowd surging by,
To mingle with the common man,
No better or worse than I.

                                                *****

G.R.Kanwal

18 May 2025