Reindeer are like metaphoric rain for Christmas lore: they soften the heart and give the soul dreams to grow on all year round.

Christmas reigns triumphant not only in the mind of a reindeer but in Christmas hearts, young and old.

Prancer and Dancer live more than in just a single, if not very popular, Christmas song; they live in the resting place that our collective Christmas revels make, rising to make the holiday something worth showing up for.

Christmas without reindeer is like snow without moonlight: it loses its sparkle.

Reindeer are the very twinkling in the eye of the holiday that we call Christmas.

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All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
Abraham Lincoln

I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.
Marilyn Monroe

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
Michelangelo

In heaven an angel is nobody in particular.
George Bernard Shaw

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint.
Albert Schweitzer

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Understanding is a two-way street.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.
Coco Chanel

Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.
Zig Ziglar

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.
Albert Camus

A man in the house is worth two in the street.
Mae West

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In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
Albert Camus

Now is the winter of our discontent.
William Shakespeare

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.
Victor Hugo

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
William Blake

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.
Hal Borland

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True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island... to find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.
Baltasar Gracian

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island.
Walt Disney

The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.
Ralph W. Sockman

Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.
Isaac Bashevis Singer

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A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
George Bernard Shaw

Sharing the holiday with other people, and feeling that you're giving of yourself, gets you past all the commercialism.
Caroline Kennedy

All journeys eventually end in the same place, home.
Chris Geiger

After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.
Kenneth Grahame

We are so used to working that not working is the new hard work.”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Confessions of a Misfit

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Albert Einstein at his best:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.


A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.


Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.


The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

and the end


Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

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I learned the value of hard work by working hard.
Margaret Mead


Keep working hard and you can get anything that you want.
Aaliyah


Working hard is great, being lazy sometimes is great, but failed potential is the worst.
Campbell Scott


Working hard and working smart sometimes can be two different things.
Byron Dorgan

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“AUTUMNAL

Pale amber sunlight falls across
The reddening October trees,
That hardly sway before a breeze
As soft as summer: summer's loss
Seems little, dear! on days like these.

Let misty autumn be our part!
The twilight of the year is sweet:
Where shadow and the darkness meet
Our love, a twilight of the heart
Eludes a little time's deceit.

Are we not better and at home
In dreamful Autumn, we who deem
No harvest joy is worth a dream?
A little while and night shall come,
A little while, then, let us dream.

Beyond the pearled horizons lie
Winter and night: awaiting these
We garner this poor hour of ease,
Until love turn from us and die
Beneath the drear November trees.” 

― Ernest Dowson, The Poems and Prose of Ernest Dowson

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Sleep is the best meditation.
by Dalai Lama


Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.
by Mahatma Gandhi


But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.
by Robert Frost


The nicest thing for me is sleep, then at least I can dream.
by Marilyn Monroe


A good husband is never the first to go to sleep at night or the last to awake in the morning.
by Honore de Balzac

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"Performance by the aggregation of marginal gains. It means taking the 1% from everything you do; finding a 1% margin for improvement in everything you do."
Sir Dave Brailsford

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Today will be challenging: Monday, rainy and in a 2 day training session, but all will be well right? Happy start of the week!

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If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.
C. S. Lewis

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism.
Thomas Sowell


Stop the habit of wishful thinking and start the habit of thoughtful wishes.
Mary Martin


Wishful thinking is one thing, and reality another.
Jalal Talabani


Wishful thinking is not sound public policy.
Bjorn Lomborg

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Love is like wine. To sip is fine, but to empty the bottle is a headache.

Julio Iglesias


Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.
Joan Lunden


If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: Take two aspirin and Keep away from children.
George Sand

P.S. Travelling to China tonight and I cannot get rid of a nasty migraine, not very amused at the moment!

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“The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. .... The stars died so that you could be here today.”
― Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

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Happiness is infectious, when you feel happy; people around you will surely be infected. Infect more people and make the world a happy home.
by Kemmy Nolan

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Maybe it can explain my silence lately. Please do not worry dear readers, I am fine, just trying to listen.

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A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.  ~James Dent

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