The Library ~ Larry McMurtry

“Today the sight that discourages book people most is to walk into a public library and see computers where books used to be. In many cases not even the librarians want books to be there. What consumers want now is information, and information increasingly comes from computers. That is a preference I can’t grasp, much less share, though I’m well aware that computers have many valid uses. They save lives, and they make research in most cases a thing that’s almost instantaneous.They do many good things, but they don’t really do what books do, and why should they usurp the chief function of a public library, which is to provide readers access to books? Books can accommodate the proximity of computers but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Computers now literally drive out books from the place that should, by definition, be books’ own home: the library.”

 ~Larry McMurtry

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_McMurtry

Every Hour of the Day ~ Old Order Mennonite Farmer

"I don't see beauty in expensive goods. I see beauty in woodwork. Woodwork to me is building barns and putting up anything in the old fashioned way....why I see beauty in these old timbers, all these old boards. I see beauty in each part of the barn here. I see beauty in the hay crop here and I even see beauty in the way the bales are stacked...I regret some of the beauties you don't see any more , like sheaves of wheat and straw stacked in front of the barn... every hour of the day there's beauty to think about being close to nature on the family farm."

~ Old Order Mennonite farmer quoted by John L Ruth.

More at http://www.bookreporter.com/authors/john-l-ruth
Artwork by Paul Gauguin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gauguin

To Belong Within ~ Ann Barnes

"Perhaps I should be asking 'Why did it take me so long to find the Quakers?' For finding it has felt like a homecoming.I have found the beauty of silent worship - the silence where I may find my Inner Self and seek to listen to that deep, Inner, Sacred Voice.I have found the challenge and freedom of a form of worship that holds no dogma, creed, liturgy, ritual or clergy. And yet this has been no home-coming - rather a stepping out on a new phase of that most challenging of life's journeys, the search for Truth, for inner peace and for a better understanding of what it means to belong within the Christian faith."

 ~ Ann Barnes

More at http://thefriend.org/article/of-bath-water-and-plastic-ducks/

Artwork by unknown artist (please let me know if you have that information).

That Which is Morally Wrong ~ London Yearly Meeting 1822

"The arguments of the Christian, like the religion from which they are derived, are plain and simple, but they are in themselves invincible. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is a system of peace, of love, of mercy, and of good-will..… That which is morally wrong cannot be politically right."

~ London Yearly Meeting 1822

More at http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/9674607

Artwork from Quaker artist Samuel Lucas
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Lucas_(1805%E2%80%931870)

Nothing I am Doing is Wasted Time~Sue Bender

"The hardest times have been when it looks as though nothing is happening, or, worse, when it looks as though something is definitely wrong in my life.  “It’s not working,” I say to myself.  Then I remember the scrap pile filled with odd pieces of material of those early quilters.  Nothing was wasted.  Out came those glorious quilts.  I have to keep reminding myself that nothing I am doing is wasted time.  I may not understand or like what is happening, but I can begin to appreciate that the impasse is another marker on the way.  It took me a very long time to discover that I didn’t need reasons for doing what I did.  I don’t have to explain, or convince, or come up with answers for what happened.  I went on this journey because I had to.  Learning to follow your heart is reason enough."

~Sue Bender

More at  http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/PROFILE-Sue-Bender-Journeys-of-the-spirit-2880524.php

Quilt by unidentified Amish quitmaker(s) 1925

https://folkartmuseum.org/exhibitions/midwestern-amish-quilts/