imagination

So you see, imagination needs moodling-long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.

Calvin is named after John Calvin (1509-1564), a leader of the Reformation. John Calvin was well-known for expressing his opinions in a most lucid, logical and convincing manner. Six-year old Calvin is similarly eloquent in the expression of his opinions and attitudes, though his opinions differ greatly. Although Calvin is a six-year old, his contemplations and observations of the world around him are often extremely insightful. Calvin's curiosity and imagination often get him into trouble. He's not really a brat, just an interesting mixture of immaturity and innate wisdom. Hobbes is named after Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), a philosopher who had a low opinion of human nature. Hobbes, Calvin's tiger friend, is a bit more upbeat but seems to possess an opinion of humans similar to his namesake. It seems that one of the only things Hobbes does which bother Calvin (beside frequent pouncings) is the enjoyment he derives from gloating about being a tiger. Bill Watterson on Hobbes' "split personality": "The so-called gimmick of my strip - the two versions of Hobbes - is sometimes misunderstood. I don't think of Hobbes as a doll that miraculously comes to life when Calvin's around. Neither do I think of Hobbes as the product of Calvin's imagination. The nature of Hobbes's reality doesn't interest me, and each story goes out of its way to avoid resolving the issue. Calvin sees Hobbes one way, and everyone else sees Hobbes another way. I show two versions of reality and each make complete sense to the participant who sees it. I think that's how life works."

People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what's bitter and move on.

At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. This was one of the great events of my life, as dazzling as first love. I had not imagined there was anything so delicious in the world. From that moment until I was thirty-eight, mathematics was my chief interest and my chief source of happiness.

And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? I have lived a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that 'except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.

Philosophy becomes poetry, and science imagination, in the enthusiasm of genius.

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.

Reason clears and plants the wilderness of the imagination to harvest the wheat of art.

I long to embrace, to include in my own short life, all that is accessible to man. I long to speak, to read, to wield a hammer in a great factory, to keep watch at sea, to plow. I want to be walking along the Nevsky Prospect, or in the open fields, or on the ocean - wherever my imagination ranges.

When at eve, at the bounding of the landscape, the heavens appear to recline so slowly on the earth, imagination pictures beyond the horizon an asylum of hope, - a native land of love; and nature seems silently to repeat that man is immortal.