Bob Warren was a voracious reader, with wide-ranging and diverse tastes. In 2005, Bob introduced an Observer column with a focus extending beyond the Suffield community. From 2005 to 2013 his “Food For Thought” column presented items skillfully excerpted from recent issues of news media including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post and The Week. He tended to focus on climate change, health, education, politics, and economics but also included many fascinating statistics in over 30 categories. One of Bob’s consistent topics was “Timeless Truths.” The following quotations are gleaned from Bob’s lists of “Timeless Truths” and embody his philosophies about life. In addition, we have selected some random news items that provide interesting perspectives.
Bob loved all racket sports: paddle, squash and tennis.
Bob’s Timeless Truths
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you; it’s the things you know that ain’t so.”
— Mark Twain
“Fear is the enemy of learning, it gives ignorance its power.”
— William Sloan Coffin
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Success isn’t permanent and failure isn’t fatal.”
— Mike Ditka
“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”
— Benjamin Franklin
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
— Winston Churchill
“Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.”
— Aldous Huxley
“Critics know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.”
— Oscar Wilde
“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.”
— Bertrand Russell
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
— Peter Drucker
“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”
— Mohammad Ali
“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“Integrity has no need of rules.”
— Albert Camus
“The world is a dangerous place not because of those who do harm, but because of those who look at it without doing anything.”
— Albert Einstein
“Character – the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life – is the source from which self-respect springs.”
— Joan Didion
“Originality and a feeling of one’s own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.”
— Fyodor Dostoevsky
“The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.”
— Abraham Lincoln
“It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.”
— J.K. Rowling
The Warrens celebrate the acquisition of two new family members.
Bob’s Gleanings from the News
“The House recently passed legislation requiring states to turn 190 million driver’s licenses into national ID cards… this is one of the ways Sept. 11 has shaped our lives.”
— Lamar Alexander, Washington Post (2005)
“Greenland is feeling the effects of global warming more quickly than any other part of the globe. Average winter temperatures rose 11 degrees from 1991 to 2003.”
— The Week 6/22/07
“Research conducted by the National Foundation for American Policy shows that 60 percent of the nation’s top science students and 65 percent of the top mathematic students are children of immigrants.”
—The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
“An uninhabited island in the Bay of Bengal had long been claimed by India and Bangladesh. It completely disappeared when it was submerged by the rising sea level, thereby ending the dispute.”
— The Week 4/9/10
“Researchers have announced that they have nearly finished sequencing the genome of the wooly mammoth, extinct these last 100,000 years, raising the prospect of the species being brought back to life. The question is, just because we might be able to do it one day, should we do it?”
— The Week 12/5/08
“Second-hand smoke appears to significantly raise the risk of dementia, a report in the British Medical Journal said.”
— Wall Street Journal 2/3/09
“When the federal income tax was first established in 1913, the tax code was 400 pages. Today the tax code is 70,320 pages.”
— USA Today/The Week 4/24/09
“Cleaner air over the past two decades has added nearly five months to average U.S. life expectancy.”
— Wall Street Journal 1/22/09
“‘I do not believe it is wrong to criticize the war on terror or any aspect thereof,’ Mr. Cheney said in an appearance before the American Enterprise Institute. ‘Disagreements, arguments and debate are the essence of democracy, and none of us should want it any other way.’”
— The New York Times, 11/21/05
“The average American eats 16 pounds of French fries, 23 pounds of pizza and 20 pounds of candy every year.”
— FastCompany.com/The Week 8/7/09
“A Kenyan man offered Hillary Clinton 20 cows and 40 goats in exchange for her daughter Chelsea’s hand in marriage.”
— The Week 8/21/09
Bob reads to his grandchildren, Robin Warren and Margo Warren and Andrew Johnson.
In memory of Bob Warren’s “Food For Thought” column, the Observer staff encourages Suffield residents to donate “Food” as well as personal care items (ie. toothpaste, paper towels, etc.) to the Suffield Emergency Aid Association. Collection boxes will be at the Suffield Emergency Aid and Observer offices in February.