Mary Anne <[log in to unmask]> wrote:"If this were in Romanian or Catalán  I could probably make sense of it, as I have studied Latin, Spanish, French, & Portuguese. On the other hand, I have great difficulty with the Teutonic languages. How about some interpretation of your quotes, some of which seem to be ads from Yahoo"

Hullo Mary Ann and all!
The first is Swedish, a Yahoo-ad as you guessed.
"Höstrusk och grå moln - köp en resa till solen på Yahoo! Resor" translates into English:
"Foul autumn weather and grey clouds - buy a trip to the sun at Yahoo! Travels"

That's Sweden for ya! We even have a special word (höstrusk = "autumn-grim") where English has to paraphrase.

My German signature consists of three linked two-liners out of a larger collection by the 17th century Roman-catholic mystic and baroque-poet Johannes Scheffler, aka Angelus Silesius ie: "The Silesian messenger". Since its beauty is based on German puns and "word-flavour", it's hard to convey more than the meaning of the words, but here goes:
"O Man! Be significant, because when the world ends,
then the accidentals fall away. The significance remains.
To have a lot does not make rich; he is a rich man
who can lose all that he has without pain.
Friend! If you are that, do not stay standing still:
one must go out of one light and into Another."

"Wesen" actually means being/entity, "wesentlich" means significant.

Finally, I did study Dutch one term long ago, but I'd rather not make a fool of myself, so I'll leave the last one to someone else.
EF


"Mensch, werde wesentlich! Denn wenn die Welt vergeht,
so fällt der Zufall weg; das Wesen, das besteht.
Viel haben macht nicht reich. Der ist ein reicher Mann,
der alles was er hat, ohn' Leid verlieren kann.
Freund, so du etwas bist, so bleib doch ja nicht stehn:
Man muß aus einem Lichte fort ins and're gehn."
        Angelus Silesius
Höstrusk och grå moln - köp en resa till solen på Yahoo! Resor