“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.” – Thomas Jefferson Drawn 6/4/2009
Day 2
“What people want is simple. They want an America as good as its promise.”
Drawn 7/2/2015
Day 3
“As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.” – George Washington.
Drawn 7/4/2014
Day 4th of July
“What makes a nation great is not primarily its great men, but the stature of its innumerable mediocre ones.”
Drawn 7/4/2010
Day 5
“Unless you change direction, you will get where you are headed.”
Drawn 7/25/2011
Day 6
“Beauty is a brief gasp between one cliche and another.”
Drawn 7/12/2017
Day 7
“She poured coffee as if she was from Oshkosh but she poured it in Texas.”
“The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable.”
Drawn on 6/9/2009
Day 29
“She occasionally stumbled over the truth but hastily picked herself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.” Quote by Winston Churchill, commenting on a political opponent who had insulted him earlier.
“If you feel indispensable, put your finger in a glass of water, withdraw it, and note the hole you have left.”
Drawn 5/8/2012
Day 24
“It may take forever to win men’s minds by persuasion, but that’s quicker than you can do it by force.”
Drawn 5/18/2012
Day 25
“The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.”
Drawn on Memorial Day, 5/30/2011
Day 26
“Just because you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.”
Drawn 5/24/2013
Day 27
‘Writing Lesson Number 1: Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.”
Drawn 5/24/2011
Day 28
“There is nothing like a persuasive speedh to fuddle the mental apparatus, upset the convictions, and debauch the emotions of an audience not practiced in the delusions of oratory.”
Drawn 5/17/2012
Day 29
“Taking Joy in living is a woman’s best cosmetic.”
Drawn 5/24/2013
Day 30
“Never let your persistence and passion turn into stubbornness and ignorance.”
Drawn 5/13/2014
Day 31
“If you have a radical idea, be conservative in how you carry it out.”
“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.”
Drawn 5/6/2016
Day 13
“Mothers are the gardeners of the human race.”
Drawn Mother’s Day 2016
Day 14
“It is a poor family that hath neither a whore nor a thief in it.”
Day 15
“It is hard to tell what brings happiness: poverty and wealth have both failed.” (I vote for art)
Drawn 5/18/2011
Day 16
“At twenty we worry about what others think of us; At forty we don’t care what others think of us; At sixty we realize they haven’t been thinking about us at all.”
Drawn 5/6/2011
Day 17
“You don’t think your way to creative work. You work your way to creative thinking.”
Drawn 5/3/2017
Day 18
“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add but when there is nothing left to take away.”
The first several days of this week were taken up with reintroducing myself to a new audience, explaining how I became the Napkin Dad. You can read that story at ‘Napkin Beginnings’ at the top menu.
Day 5
“Creativity is not the finding of a thing but the making of something after finding it.”
Drawn 5/17/2016
Day 6
“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists primarily of dealings with men.”
Drawn 5/23/2016
Day 7
“The bible tells us to love our neighbors and also to love our enemies – probably because they are generally the same people!”
Drawn 5/19/2011
Day 8
“Mothers are the gardeners of the human race.”
Day 9
“If the world were perfect it wouldn’t be.”
Day 10
“If your morals make you dreary, depend on it, they are wrong.”
Day 11
“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”
“I think it’s about time we vote for people with breasts. After all, we’ve been voting for boobs long enough.”
Drawn 4/16/2012
Day 2
“Do not mistake temptation for opportunity.”
This has been me too many times in my life. I rationalized it as an opportunity when it was just me being drawn to what I desired. Of course, both things can be true at the same time but even if it is an opportunity you might miss it if you are focused on the short term fulfillment of your desire. The long game is the hardest game to play.
Drawn 4/14/2016
Day 3
“If you want to kill a good idea, get a committee working on it.
Drawn 4/28/2016
Day 4
“Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences.”
Drawn 4/12/2011
Day 5
“Don’t let imaginary dangers inflict real wounds.”
Drawn 4/14/2015
Day 6
“Depression is the inability to construct a future.”
Drawn 4/27/2009
Day 7
“You can be misunderstood once. After that, you are just communicating poorly.”
“History is a race between education and catastrophe.”
Drawn 3/15/2011
Day 16
“When calamity has been suffered, remember first how much has escaped.”
Drawn 3/16/2011
Day 17
“Few women admit their age, few men act theirs.”
Drawn 3/17/2013
Day 18
“What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs.”
Drawn 3/18/2011
Day 19
“If you are naturally kind you attract a lot of people you don’t like.”
Drawn 3/18/2014
Day 20
“They say nobody’s perfect then they say practice makes perfect. I wish they would make up their mind.”
Drawn 3/20/2012
Day 21
“The only nice thing about being imperfect is the joy it it brings others.”
I am continuing to post on social media a napkin drawing every day. Here on my site I am posting them weekly. This month i’ve decided to include the commentary I wrote with the napkin on the date originally posted.
Day 1
“Spring, summer, fall fill us with hope; Winter alone reminds us of the human condition.”
Drawn 2/1/2011
Day 2
“Behold the turtle. He only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.”
Drawn 2/2/2010
Day 3
“Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who can’t attain it in anything.”
Drawn on 2/3/2009
Day 4
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
Confucius
Drawn 2/4/2009
Day 5
“Effort and Courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”
Drawn 2/5/2015
Day 6
“here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete: If you are alive, it isn’t.”
Drawn on 2/2/2015
Day 7
“Those who want to imitate anything produce nothing.” – Salvador Dali
“If you don’t know history then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.”
Drawn 1/30/2014
Day 12
“Loving your body only when it’s in perfect shape is like loving your kids only when they’re well-behaved.”
Drawn 1/28/2016
Day 13
“It’s a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you in hot water.”
drawn 1/31/2012
Day 14
“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”
Drawn 1/31/2010
Day 15
“Justice requires us to remember that when any citizen denies his fellow saying, ‘his color is not mine’ or ‘his beliefs are strange’, in that moment he betrays America.” – LBJ
Drawn 1/21/2013
Day 16
“The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living: Forego judgment for enjoyment”
Drawn 1/22/2014
Day 17
“The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living: Expression Defeats Depression”
