Don Sem Tob, author of Proverbios Morales came out with some beauties and I’m sure we will be meeting him again. In the meantime here is your daily sweetener; a reminder that good friends are hard to find and impossible to buy.

Amigo claro, leal y verdadero,
Es de faller muy caro
Non se ha por dinero

This quotation from Charles Dickens seemed very fitting for New Year’s Day …

El año nuevo, como el infante heredero del mundo, es recibido con albricias, regalos y alegrías

Happy New Year! I hope this Año Nuevo brings you all you would wish for yourself.

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Life would certainly be a drearier place if it were not for inventor Thomas Edison who brought us both the light bulb and the earliest incarnation of the technology behind movies and film.

Many of his quotations have to do with inspiration and perseverance and today’s sprinkle of wisdom is no different.

El genio es un uno por ciento de inspiración y un noventa y nueve por ciento de sudar.

Many of Edison’s quotations are prime fodder for the motivational market including for example:

If we attempted all the things of which we are capable, we would literally astound ourselves

And…

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

All very rah-rah, nose to the grindstone stuff but there is another of his quotes that seems very odd today…

Direct thought is not an attribute of femininity. In this woman is now centuries behind man.

Thanks a bunch for the lightbulbs you sexist old bugger!

Whoever chose the phrases in Spanish for the sugar sachets must be a romantic soul because today’s offering is yet another observation on love by old silver-tongue himself, William Shakespeare.

Si no recuerdas la más ligera locura en que el amor te hizo caer, no has amado. Muy frecuentemente las lágrimas son la última sonrisa del amor.

Aldo Cammarota was an Argentinian scriptwriter who was born in 1930 in Buenos Aires. He died in 2002 in Los Angeles and is attributed with the saying:

One of the most serious problems facing the world today is that many people believe that because they have studied, they do not have to think.

Today, however, the little Spanish saying on my sugar packet said:

Cuando una mujer se rinde es porque ha vendido.

Given my previous post today’s sugar sachet should have been handed out at Sam’s wedding as a gentle reminder to all present about the meaning of the day:

Amar consiste en econtrar en la felicidad de otro la propia felicidad

The culprit behind this piece of pithiness is Gottfied W. Leibnitz, a German philosopher, mathematician and author.