Sunday, 10 Sep 2023
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By R.S. Karunaratne
The leech is an aquatic or terrestrial annelid worm with suckers at both ends. Many species are bloodsucking parasites. This has given rise to the transferred sense of a person who extorts profit from or sponges on others. Leeches were traditionally used in medicine to draw off blood from patients. Its saliva contains an anticoagulant used after reconstructive surgery to...
It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its first impression on us. - Arthur Schopenhauer
The first impression can take less than 30 seconds to make, but it will last for months or years. Body language accounts for 55 percent of a first impression and what you say is just seven percent. To make a first impression you need to keep your arms at your sides and...
Some people grow old gracefully. When they mention their age, people find it hard to believe them. We had a schoolteacher who was about to retire, but she looked as if she was in her 40s.
Despite age some men and women maintain a healthy figure radiating vitality. You may have heard of a heart surgeon called Michael De Bakey. In 1997, at the age of 88, he supervised...
Most problems in marriage, office work and friendship arise as a result of our inability to understand the communicating style of others. No two people think alike. However much you love a person, you cannot expect the other person to think like you. The celebrated Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung has dealt with this problem in depth in his “Psychological types” which remains...
A budding poet approached me and made a request: “Please review my poetry book in your free time.” I wondered for a time whether there is a thing called “free time.” Even when I relax in my easy chair you can call it leisure time.
Although some of us waste time on frivolous activities, time is something invaluable. Time wasted cannot be recalled. You have only a limited...
By R.S. Karunaratne
Whenever you read a book, magazine or newspaper, you should be grateful to trees. There are, of course, some people who never...
Most of us have experienced the warm glow that comes from performing a good deed and getting credit for it. However, there is a...
If you don’t get out of the box you’ve been raised in, you won’t understand how much bigger the world is. Angelina JolieAll...
The reason why worry kills more people than work is that they worry without working.- Robert Lee FrostPeople rush around worrying...
We love and care for children without knowing that they too can lead us – like Pied Pipers in reverse – back to the bright world...
Many young people who wish to be writers follow the trial and error method because there are no writing schools in Sri Lanka....
When we were children, we loved to listen to ghost stories narrated by our elders. The stories were about all types of demons...
Ageing is a natural process and we cannot do anything about it. However, some of us remain sluggish and unhappy sitting around...
Collision is as necessary to produce virtue in men, as it is to elicit fire in inanimate matter; and so chivalry is of the...
There are many young and not-so-young men and women who are seeking life partners in many parts of the world. Some people are...
A child prodigy is defined in psychology as a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain at the...
Most people have emotional problems and countries have economic problems. To solve both emotional and economic problems, we need...
Every instant of time is a pinprick of eternity. Marcus AureliusThey say time is money because we need to save it at any cost....
Most of us experience mood swings. Sometimes we are happy even euphoric; at other times, we feel upset, saddened or depressed....
Time is too slow for those who wait,Too swift for those who fear,Too long for those who grieve,Too short for those who rejoice;...
When I stepped into my friend’s home for the first time, I felt there was something wrong somewhere. His one-storey brick house...
Attitude is the opinion and feelings that you usually have about someone or something. It also means the way you behave towards...
People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges. - Joseph Fort NewtonDr. Paul Tournier, the eminent Swiss...
The word ‘meditation’ connotes various images. You can visualise a bhikku meditating in a cave or at the foot of shady tree. You...
The world is full of strange events. The literary world is no exception. Most literary figures have become immortal because...
Vidya Jeyarajan, a certified yoga instructor from Akshar yoga and a Himalayan yogini, was the only Sri Lankan who took part in...
Success doesn’t mean absence of failures; it means the attainment of ultimate objectives. It means winning the war not every...
Aman’s true greatness lies in the conscious estimate of an honest purpose in life, founded on a just estimate of himself and...
Malcolm Cowley, a distinguished man of letters, in his book ‘Life’ said he discovered a different life in the land beyond 80....
Max Schling, New York florist, ran an advertisement in the prestigious New York Times entirely in shorthand. A lot of businessmen...
Light is a magic element. The great builders of the past used it masterfully to manipulate almost everything. The Egyptians cut...
What are spoonerisms? How did they originate? Such questions have not been answered fully in books dealing with English grammar...
One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some...
Good resolutions are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account. - Oscar WildeAs the New Year – 2023 – is...
You may have heard of Ronald L. Graham, a 57-year-old mathematician in the United States who was learning Japanese and playing...
The children who gathered to hear another Christmas story were waiting eagerly for the arrival of Peduru Seeya.“There...
Thomas Mann always worked on each book for a very long time. Even when the manuscript was supposedly ready, he continued to work...
Peduru Seeya sat in his easy chair to relate another Christmas story. As usual he asked the children what he should tell them....
The power of the mind is being used to treat everything from pain to phobia – provoking that there is something to the age-old...
When Bill Clinton was the President of the United States, an American magazine published an unusual cartoon about him. The...
The village children sat round Peduru Seeya’s easy chair once again to listen to another story. He saw the distant hills and the...
A Christmas story
Christmas was approaching and the village children were waiting for the arrival of Peduru Seeya. He was a great story...
Unknown to many people, your success in any field partly depends on the number of words you know. Unfortunately, most young...
South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol has declared a period of national mourning after a Halloween crush killed 153 people in a...
Yoga is an ancient medicational art and science that has been practised for the past thousands of years. Yoga originated in the...
Scientists and inventors -10:
With constant power cuts, today, we have realised the value of electricity. We should be grateful to Michael Faraday for...
The harnessing of steam power was one of the scientific marvels. Of course, man had some knowledge of the power of steam in...
From the earliest times scientists have been trying to harness the mysterious force which we call electricity today. Luigi...
Can the son of a poor parish clergyman and an ordinary mother become the greatest actor of the 20th century? The world is a place...
There is a plethora of books written on time management. You may have read some of them and absorbed the salient points. The...
A proverb has been defined as a wise old saying and as a short and frank expression. It has also been referred to as a byword or...
Rex was employed in a Government department. He received a modest salary, some prestige, and he was entitled to a pension. He was...
Most of the people who lived in the Land of Nowhere were simple and honest. However, as in any other country, there were rogues.A...
The children in the Land of Nowhere were not different from others. They had their own dreams and asked for various things from...
On New Year’s Day Maginona kept herself busy in the small kitchen cooking kiribath (milk rice). Her husband – Andiris – was away...