Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.for today, hope for tomorrow.”
— Albert Einstein
“Antony: If I lose mine honor, I lose myself.”
— Shakespeare
“Think and wonder. Wonder and think.”
— Dr. Seuss
“Don't kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy.”
— Abraham Lincoln
“I have the same goal I've had since I was a little girl. I want to rule the world.”
— Madonna
“Some are mathematicians. Some are doctor's wives. Don't know how it all got started. Don't know what they're doin' with their lives.”
— Bob Dylan, “Tangled Up in Blue”
“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.”
— Mohandas Gandhi
“It is in giving that we receive.”
— St. Francis of Assisi
“If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change.”
— Michael Jackson, “Man in the Mirror”
“All rising to great place is by a winding stair.”
— Francis Bacon
“Show a little faith, there's magic in the night.”
— Bruce Springsteen,
“Thunder Road”
“In the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, ‘Au revoir, gopher.'”
— Carl Spackler, “Caddyshack”
“Morality, compassion, generosity are innate elements of the human constitution.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“In the end, the love you take
is equal to the love you make.”
— The Beatles, “The End”
“A man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”
— Mark Twain
“You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine. Just own the night like the 4th of July.”
— Katy Perry, “Firework”
“The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“You're gonna
need a bigger boat.”
— Chief Brody, “Jaws”
“Freedom is always within
the framework
of destiny.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Sources: Quotationary; elyrics.net; imbd.com
When you pop open an email from Omaha real estate agent Neil Vacek, you get more than just his message.
You get a line from Michael Jackson's song, "Man in the Mirror."
Click on an email from Mary Thunker, president of a local nonprofit group, and you'll spot a quote from Albert Einstein.
Song lyrics from singers like Jackson and Bob Dylan and quotes from everyone from Gandhi to Dr. Seuss crop up in email signatures these days. You also see plenty of emoticons — those facial expressions made from punctuations.
There's a goal behind all of those quotes and smiley faces, said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Center's Internet and American Life Project.
The knock on electronic communications since the start has been that it can lack a human element — no tone of voice, no facial expressions.
The quotes help people reveal themselves.
"These are little signals people are trying to send about who they are and what kind of personality they have,'' Rainie said.
In the past five to 10 years, he said, there's been an increase in people personalizing themselves on social media sites such as Facebook and in other electronic communication. For example, people's lists of favorite movies and bands have grown on Facebook. Clicking the "like" button is another way people can reveal themselves.
Twitter has room for a profile and so does LinkedIn, an online professional network.
The quotes on emails allow people to at least give a snapshot of who they are, Rainie said.
His group has not researched whether anyone actually pays attention to the quotes. But Rainie said he believes folks notice them, particularly if an email is from someone new.
Vacek started adding quotes or song lyrics to his emails a couple years ago. The line from the Jackson song is the newest: "If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change."
For Vacek, the quote is about courage and finding solutions to problems.
"You have to stand up and make the change,'' said Vacek, who also works for Family Housing Advisory Services, a nonprofit group that provides housing counseling. "It has to start with somebody."
The country's housing finance crisis is an example of a problem that could have been avoided if more people had spoken out when the warning signs developed, he said.
Jonna Holland, associate professor of marketing and management at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said you've got to be careful about what quotes you tack onto business emails.
A religious quote could be a problem. So could a political one.
Some people might agree with it, while others could be offended.
Holland said the trick is finding a quote that is interesting and revealing about yourself, but inoffensive.
Rainie said there's also the potential for quotes to simply annoy others. Some people might think it's just silly, for example, if your mundane emails end with a quote from Gandhi.
Vacek said he has never worried how people might react to his quotes or that a potential real estate customer might hate Michael Jackson.
Vacek thinks that as long as he's good at what he does, clients won't be turned off.
Thunker began tacking an Einstein quote onto her emails three years ago: "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."
She's the president and co-founder of Alphabet Soup Kids, an Omaha-based nonprofit group that advocates for children and young adults with mental illness and behavioral disorders. The quote, she said, reflects her organization's philosophy that education and support are essential to helping families cope with those problems.
Her role includes lobbying state senators on mental health funding. When she emails legislators, she said, the quote gives her another way to spread her group's message.
Michael Pawlovich, a data engineer with the Iowa Department of Transportation, adds quotes onto his emails, including one from H.L. Mencken, a journalist and literary critic: "For every complex problem, there is a simple solution that is elegant, easy to understand and wrong."
He said the quote reflects his belief about statistics. You can't look at just one set of statistics if you're trying to solve a problem, he said. You must look at statistics more broadly and see how one set of numbers interconnects with another set.
Pawlovich said the quote subtly lets people know where he stands.
"It's a non-in your face way,'' he said.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1122, michael.oconnor@owh.com
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