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Monthly Quotes

January
To grow well and to bear well and so merrily let us be. Let every man drink up his glass, and a health to the old apple tree brave boys, and a health to the old apple tree.
- Wassailing the Apple tree
 
I sometimes shy away because I don't want to be too 'showy-offy' but the older I get I think, 'You have a handkerchief, put it in your pocket.'
- Jude Law
On the question of what to do with handkerchiefs when they are not in use.
 
February
Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
- Theodore Roosevelt
 
In his holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a handkerchief.
- Frederick Buechner
(American theologian giving advice to Morris Foremen)

March
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.
- Angela Monet
 
The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word
- Mata Hari

"I suppose this is our national costume.  It’s jolly anyway and jollity should be encouraged, perhaps given a grant"
Vivian Stanshall’s Week 1975
Getting the kit ready for April
 
April - Dancing Season Starts
And not a girl goes walking along the Cotswold lanes; but knows men's eyes in April are quicker than their brains.
- John Drinkwater
 
You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
First dance out? Chaos is about right.
 
Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass... It's about learning how to dance in the rain.
 - Vivian Greene.
A finely executed galley, or dodging April showers?
 
May
The world's favourite season is the spring. All things seem possible in May.
- Edwin Way Teale
 
A sense of humour is just common sense dancing.
-Clive James

There are shortcuts to happiness and dancing is one of them.
- Vicki Baum

June
It is the month of June, the month of leaves and roses,
When pleasant sights salute the eyes and pleasant scents the noses.

- Nathaniel Parker Willis
I think he's referring to Spring Grove after a day's dancing

To be a Morris man is to live a regardless life. These are men apart, oblivious of or immune to the mockery and the curled lips. They keep alive an uncared-for and unwanted tradition – simply for the pleasure of a thing itself, and their own company, and bladder-deforming quantities of beer.
– A.A. Gill in a Times article August 2009
Harsh, but fair.

July
The way to ensure summer in England is to have it framed and glazed in a comfortable room.
- Horace Walpole

When he is dancing, the true morris-man is serious of countenance, yet gay of heart; vigorous, yet restrained; a strong man rejoicing in his strength, yet graceful, controlled, and perfectly dignified withal.

- Cecil Sharp

August
You must realize that a mistress is won by good temper and grace displayed while dancing....
- Thoinot Arbeau's Orchesographie 1588
 
I scarcely am able to govern my muscles, when I see a man start with eager, and serious solicitude, to lift a handkerchief.
- Mary Wollstonecraft
Clearly a fan of Spring Grove's dancing style
 
September - Last opportunity to dance out
Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December,
but the days grow short when you reach September.
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame,
one hasn't got time for the waiting game.

- September Song (K. Weill, M. Anderson)
 
“They walked a little further.
"What was that dance your Jason and his men did when they’d got drunk?" said Granny.
"It’s the Lancre Stick and Bucket Dance, Esme."
"It’s legal, is it?"
"Technically they shouldn’t do it when there’s women present," said Nanny. "Otherwise it’s sexual morrisment."”
—  Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies.
 
October - Practice Season Starts
There comes a time when Autumn asks "What have you been doing all summer?"
- Anon
It must be time for the AGM
 
The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.
- Theodore Roosevelt
A fan of Spring Grove's hanky dances and their assertive stick handling.

November
An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
- HL Mencken
Observe Spring Grove Morris Men and wonder.

The morris step is sturdy
- Cecil Sharp

December
Morris dancing is the most fatuous, tenth-rate entertainment ever devised by man. Forty effeminate blacksmiths waving bits of cloth they've just wiped their noses on. How it's still going on in this day and age I'll never know.
- Edmund Blackadder, 15th Century Duke of Edinburgh

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.
- Gustav Mahler