3. Haiku

The practice of including verse and rhyme is never better understood than by the Chinese artists in Chinese art, where the calligraphy completes the paintings. Verse and rhyme have a way of enhancing any artwork as they add intensity and an enhanced mood to any artwork. Similarly such common and uncommon verse and rhyme may be made a part of any greeting card or note card so as to add interest and a personal touch to the card or notepaper. Try it.

For now, the quotes and verses are presented under the following headings:

(Click on subject)

Ambition	Beauty	Birthday	Friendship	Happines	Inspirational	Love	Marriage	Money	Philosophy
Solitude	Time	Truth	Wisdom	X'mas

 

Ambition
• It is better to shoot for the stars and miss them than to aim at the gutter and hit it. (Anonymous)

• Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.(Les Brown)
• Man's reach should exceed his grasp or what's a heaven for? (Robert Browning)
Beauty
• Less is more. ( Mies van der Rohe)

• A weed is no more than a flower in disguise. (James Lowell)

• The tide recedes and leaves behind bright seashells on the sand
The sun goes down but gentle warmth still lingers on the land
The music stops and yet it echoes on in sweet refrains
For every joy that passes something beautiful remains. (Anonymous)

• What's in a name?
That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet .(William Shakespeare)
Birthday
(To use for cards with a bear illustration)
• A Birthday Wish Just For You
"Huggy Birthday!"

• Here's hoping you never act your age
Happy Birthday!

• May your birthday be as you wish it to be!
Many happy returns of the day!

• May the joys of your birthday
Last throughout the year!

• It's your birthday today!
Wish you joy
Today
Tomorrow &
Always!
• It's your birthday...
...a time to cherish the past
embrace the present,
and welcome the future...
...a time to celebrate life!
Happy Birthday!
...
Friendship
• True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable.(Dave Tyson Gentry)
• It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. (William Blake)
• Friends are made by many acts - and lost by only one (Winston Churchill)
• Real friends are those who, when you've made a fool of yourself , don't feel you've done a permanent job (Confucius)
• A true friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else (Len Wein)
• The surest bond of friendship is having enemies in common.(John F Kenedy)
• Hold a true friend with both your hands. (Nigerian proverb)
• Before borrowing money from a friend decide which you need more.(Edison H Hallock)
• He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout
But Love and I had the wit to win
We drew a circle that took him in!
(Edwin Markham)
Happiness
• I have the happiness of the passing moment, and what more can mortal ask? (George R Gissing)
• Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply to think  freely, to risk life, to be needed. (Storm Jameson)
• It is a kind of happiness to know to what extent we may be unhappy. (La rochefoucauld)
• Where ambition ends happiness begins (Hungarian proverb)
• It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves and it is not possible to fine it elsewhere. (Agnes Repplier)
• There is more to life than having everything. (Maurice Sendak)
• Happiness is good health and a bad memory. (Ingrid Bergman)
• Wings
Be like the bird
That, pausing in her flight
Awhile on boughs too slight
Feels them give way
Beneath her and yet sings
Knowing that she has wings.
(Victor Hugo)
• Oh , how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes. (William Shakespeare)
• Beauty is also to be found in a day's work. (Mamie Sypert Burns)
• We do not remember days we remember moments. (Cesare Pavese)
Inspirational
• Large streams from little mountains flow, tall oaks from little acorns grow. David Everett
• Hope is a risk that must be run. (George Bernanos)
• I shall grow old , but never lose life's zest,
Because the road's last turn will be the best (Henry Van Dyke)
• The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
• Thine was the prophet's vision, thine
The exaltation, the devine
Insanity of noble minds,
That never falters nor abates,
But labors and endures and waits
Till all that it forsees it finds
Or what it cannot find creates.
(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
• Hitch your wagon to a star. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
• Experience is largely nontransferable. (Cyrus HK Curtis)
• The refreshing definition of a camel: a horse planned by a committee (Vogue Magazine, July 1958)
• Character is power. (Booker T Washngton)
• Knowledge is power. (Sir Francis Bacon 1597)
• Professionals built the Titanic, amateurs the ark. (Frank Pepper)
Love
• ...Stoney limits cannot hold love out. (William Shakespeare)
• I am missing you
far better than
I ever loved you. (unknown)

• the greatest gift is to fill a need unnoticed. (Peter McWilliams)

• 'Tis never for their wisdom that one loves the wise, nor for their wits that one loves the wittiest. 'Tis for benevolence and virtue and honest fondness one loves people; the other qualities make one proud of loving them too. (unknown)

Marriage

• Marriage is excellent because it combines the best of temptations with the best of opportunities. (George Bernard Shaw)
• Marriage may be compared to a cage: the birds outside frantic to get in and those inside frantic to get out.(Montaigne, 1588)
Money
• Money will buy a pretty good dog, But it won't buy the wag of its tail. (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
• Money is like muck, not good unless spread. (Francis bacon, 1625)
• In order to get a loan you must first prove you dont't need it. (Vic Oliver)
• In suggesting gifts: Money is appropriate and one size fits all. (William Randolph Hearst)
• I've never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is ony a temporary situation. (Mike Tood, theatrical entrepreneur)
• October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April. November, May, March. June, December, August and February.Mark Twain)
Philosophy
• To see the world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour. (William Blake)

• All sunshine makes a desert. ( Arabic proverb)

• There are forty kinds of lunancy but only one kind of common sense. (African proverb)

• There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. (Edith Wharton)

• A man of gladness seldom falls into madness. (Unknown)

• That man is blest who does his best and leaves the rest. (Charles F Deems)

• Life is very dull for those too timid, too unimaginative, too sane to bring it to a sense of personal style, of individual purpose, of verve, fun and excitement." (unknown)
Solitude
• Solitude is a good place to visit but a poor place to stay. (Josh Billings)
Time
• The butterfly counts not months but moments
And has time enough. (Rabindranath Tagore)

• If you want to kill time, try working it to death. (Sam Levenson)

• We do not remember days, we remember moments. (Cesare Pavese)
• The years teach what the years never know.(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
• I have no Yesterdays
Time took them away;
Tommorow may not be -
But I have Today.
(Pearl Yeadon McGinnis)
• ...Time is a circus- always packing up and moving away.(Ben Hetch)
• Life has a certain ending and uncertain timing.
• In time we hate that which we often fear. (William Shakespeare - Anthony & Cleopatra)
Truth
• A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent. (William Blake)

• This above all; to thine own self be true
And it must follow, as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man. (William Shakespeare)
• Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.(Edward Abbey)
Wisdom
• Brevity is the soul of wit. (William Shakespeare)

• Quality is not an act. It is a habit. (Aristotle)

• The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

• Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.(Hugh Prather)

• Everything good is costly, and the developement of the personality is one of the most costly of all things. It will cost you your innocence, your illusions, your certainty. (unknown)

Xmas Greetings
• I wish you all the joys of the season, the best in the new year...
...and happiness today and always!

• Wishing you the merriest X'mas ever!
Happy Holidays!
Happy New Year!
Happy Always!

• Greetings of the Season!
May the quiet beauty of this lovely season
Bring you deep joy and warm memories
To cherish throughout the coming year
Happy Holidays!

• Thinking of you warmly
while this special season's here -
And wishing you a world of joy
throughout the coming year!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

• May this Christmas season
Bring you blessings, joy and happiness!
Merry Christmas!

• The nicest thing about Christmas
Is letting friends know that we care and remember.
Happy Holidays!

• Wishing you the best that life offers...
this Christmas and always.
Have a wonderful holiday
• It's Christmas time...
A time to remember
To be of good cheer
A time to greet together
This joyous time of year!
Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year!

• May the joys of Christmas
Light up your days
Throughout the coming year!
MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

• What would Christmas be
Without friends like you.
MERRY CHRISMAS &
A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2. Traditional & contemporary 'pantun'

Bahasa & Budaya

-Pantun

1.Tinggi tinggi mata hari

Anak kerbau mati tertambat

Sudah lama saya mecari

Baru sekarang saya mendapat.

*

2.Tenang tenang ayer di laut

Sampan kolek bawa ke-tanjung

Hati terkenang mulut menyebut

Budi yang baik rasa nak junjung

*

3.Pulau pandan jauh di-tengah

Kunung Daik bercabang tiga

Hancur badan di kandung tanah

Budi yang baik di kenang juga

*

4.Sorong papan tarik papan

Buah keranji dalam perahu

Suruh makan saya makan

Suruh mengaji saya tak tahu

*

5.Buah cempedak di luar paga

Ambil gala tolong jolok-kan

Saya budak baru beljar

Kalau salah tolong tunjukan

*

6.Pokok sireh daun-nya layu

Tumboh dekat pohon kelapa

Orang semua cakap Melayu

Awak sendiri tak tahu apa

(karangan Edah binte Dean)

*

7.Dari Johor ka Majapahit

Singgah bermuat buah pepaya

Sudah mashor nama yang baik

Bertambah pula pangkat mulia

*

8 Kalau roboh kota Melaka

Papan di-Jawa saya dirikan

Kalau sungguh bagai di-kata

Badan nyawa saya serahkan

*

9. Dua tiga kucing belari

Mana sama cucing belang

Dua tiga boleh ku cari

Mana sama abang saorang

*

10. Pisang emas bawa belayar

Masak sebiji di atas peti

Hutang emas boleh di bayar

Hutang budi di bawa mati

*11. Kapal kechil jangan di belok

Kalau di belok patah tiang nya

Budak kechil jangan di pelok

Kalau di pelok patah pinggang nya

*

12. Pulau pandan jauh ke-tengah

Gunung Daik bercabang tiga

Hancur badan di-kandung tanah

Budi yang baik di kenang juga

*

13. Indra Giri pasir nya lumat

Kerang bercampur dengan lokan

Ibarat nabi kasihkan umat

Begitu saya kasihkan tuan

*

14. Layang layang terbang melayang

Jatuh di laut melayang layang

Siapa bilang saya tak sayang

Siang malam terbayang bayang

*

15. Lipat kain lipat baju

Lipat kertas dalam puan

Dari ayer menjadi batu

Sedikit tak lupa budi tuan

*

16. Pukul gendang pukul piano

Mari di pukul dengan rabana

Hati ku rindu dengan si-ano

Hendak di-sebut lupa nama-nya

*

17 Encik Dollah pergi ka Jambi

Pergi pagi kembali petang

Kalau Tuhan hendak membagi

Pintu berkancing rezki datang

3.Haiku

Haiku is a traditional Japanese verse form which has gained international following. This literary genre is characterised by the zen philosophy inherent in the verseform. Haiku demonstrates both in form and in spirit the impact and essence of simple expression. In Haiku the objective is a sharing of experiences; it is an involvment in imagery, colours, and emotions - a literary zen art or a creative doodle if you like, depending on the stage of development of the writer. Haiku has been taught to very young school children from the United States to Singapore, but the art of the Haiku is a serious literary skill.

Briefly described, this Japanese verse form is a three line verse which is not quite concerned in rhymes. Logistically, Haiku is said to be written in the 5/7/5-beat structure. There is however some controversy when Haiku is written in English as some writers believe it should be written to a 2/3/2-beat structure. Contemporary literary works adopting the haiku form have taken this verse form to new horizons.

These two passages by William J Higginson with Penny Harter from The Haiku Handbook best describe what a Haiku is supposed to be and to do:

"Haiku not only give us moments from the writer's experience but go on to give us moments of our own. The central act of haiku is letting an object or event touch us, and then sharing it with another....If we read a haiku, we share the moment, or one like it with the writer.
Being small, haiku lend themselves especially to sharing small intimate things. By recognising the intimate things that touch us, we come to know and appreciate ourselves and our world more. By sharing these things with others we let them into our lives in a very special, personal way."
Some examples of the traditional and contemporary Haikus are reproduced below.
in the flower-field
are rocks, are hollows,
and are flowers
(Yamaguchi Seishi) (in Japanese)
the Milky Way too
has become intense
we said and parted.
(Ogiwara Seisensui) (In Japanese)
chrysanthemums
bloom...amid the stones
of the stone-yard
(Basho) (In Japanese)
On the first day of spring
snow falling
from one bough to another
(Virginia Brady Young)
Under moon shadows
A tall boy flashes knife and
Slices star bright ice
(Etherfidge Knight)
Tenderly again
On the peony I hear
Whispers of the rain
(Kenneth Yasuda)
in meditation
almost breathless...almost