Three Days, Three Quotes Challenge - Day 3

For my final quotation of this challenge I turn to Ralph Waldo Emerson, who ironically once wrote, "I hate quotation. Tell me what you know."

While I'm not sappy or an optimist, I do deeply believe the idea of this quotation is true. Many of my most meaningful relationships have been long distance at least for a while, and for me physical togetherness is not all that important. The world today makes this especially easy with the internet, social media, and the good old-fashioned telephone. And if it weren't for those methods of immediate communication, I'd write letters and cards.

Emerson's friend and protégé, Henry David Thoreau - another great transcendentalist - wrote "I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another." From personal experience again I can tell you this is very true.

Photo Credit: M (Austrian Alps, 2008)

When I say good-bye to someone I care about, as long as I am confident I will see that person again at some point in the future - or in the afterlife - I am content, even though I realize we can never know.

Today I nominate the following bloggers, in case they are interested:

1. So Long, USA! - a US-American in Germany
2. Heather goes to Deutschland - a US-American in Germany
3. Starting over in Stuttgart - a Brit in Germany

Thus endeth this challenge.

Thanks again, Bev - in part because it gave me the incentive to make my own little quote posters (though now I need to learn how to do them better...)