Ability

Ability is what will get you to the top if the boss has no daughter. What one cannot, another can. William Davenant Don't envy anybody. Every person has some­thing no other person has. Develop that one thing and make it outstanding. We increase our ability, stability, and respon­sibility when we increase our sense of ac­countability to God. You can do everything you ought to do. The tragedy is that so many have ambition and so few have ability. Ability will enable a man to get to the top, but it takes character to keep him there. Be big enough to admit and admire the abili­ties of people who are better than you are. You can always tell luck from ability by its duration. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. Executive ability is the art of getting credit for all the hard work that somebody else does. No man is fully accomplished until he has acquired the ability to attend to his own busi­ness. Ability is what will get you to the top if the boss has no daughter. Personal magnetism is that indefinable something that enables us to get by without ability. We rate ability in men by what they finish, not by what they attempt. Ability without ambition is like a car without a motor. The remarkable thing about most of us is our ability to live beyond our means. Ability is the most important tool in your life. Many people doubt their ability, but few have any misgivings about their importance. There is far more opportunity than there is ability. Executive ability is a talent for deciding something quickly and getting someone else to do it. It is better to have a little ability and use it well than to have much ability and make poor use of it. The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and influence their actions. John Hancock There is no need to show your ability before everyone. Baltasar Gracian Everyone excels in something in which another fails. Latin proverb Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do the work. John G. Pollard They are able because they think they are able. Virgil

Absence

Presents, I often say, endear absents. Charles Lamb I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence. Brendan Behan Heart soon forgets what the eye sees not. Out of sight, out of mind. Homer Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones just as the wind blows out a candle and fans a fire. La Rochefoucauld The absent are always wrong. English proverb Absence - that common cure of love. Miguel de Cervantes Greater things are believed of those who are absent. Tacitus Absences are a good influence on love and keep it right and delicate. Robert Louis Stevenson The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity. Ouida Failing to be there when a man wants her is a woman's greatest sin, except to be there when he doesn't want her. Helen Rowland Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones just as the wind blows out a candle and fans a fire. La Rochefoucauld It takes time for the absent to assume their true shape in our thoughts. After death they take on a firmer outline and then cease to change. Colette Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated. Alphonse de Lamartine The absent are always wrong. English proverb Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Isle of Beauty, Fare thee well! Thomas H. Bailey, Isle of Beauty

Abstinence

It is easier to abstain than to restrain. French proverb

Absurdity

There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. Oliver Goldsmith

Abundance

Abundance, like want, ruins man. Benjamin Franklin A pure, honest, and stable spirit is not distracted by a lot of activity. He does everything to honor God and is at rest within himself. He seeks to be free from all selfishness. Thomas À Kempis (C. 1380-1471) Fulfillment comes as a by-product of our love for God. And that satisfaction is better than we ever imagined. God can make the pieces of this world's puzzle fit together; he helps us view the world from a new perspective. Erwin W. Lutzer (1941- ) God's restrictions not only hold us down, but they also hold us up. We will never achieve fulfillment unless he is in control . Erwin W. Lutzer (1941- ) People can meet superficial needs. But only God can meet our deep needs. Forrester Barrington Until we have learned to be satisfied with fellowship with God, until he is our rock and our fortress, we will be restless with our place in the world. Erwin W. Lutzer (1941- ) You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

Abuse

There is more credit in being abused by fools than praised by rogues. F. E. Smith I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. William Shakespeare A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still. Samuel Johnson Abuse is the weapon of the vulgar. Samuel Griswold Goodrich There are none more abusive to others than they that lie most open to it themselves; but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me today will have somebody to laugh at him tomorrow. Seneca

Academia

The average Ph.D. thesis is nothing but the transference of bones from one graveyard to another. J. Frank Dobie

Accidents

Accidents happen every hunting season because both hunter and gun are loaded. Most accidents occur in the home. Many men use this as an excuse to stay out late. A certain gentleman in Oregon read that most accidents take place in airplanes and bathtubs - he hasn't been in either since. The worst thing about accidents in the kitchen is that you usually have to eat them. Politically speaking, the ideal accident would be a collision between the man seeking the office and the office seeking the man. Anybody who thinks hit-and-run accidents aren't on the increase hasn't been in a supermarket lately. Most accidents happen accidentally. One way to reduce motor accidents is to build cars so they can't go any faster than the average person thinks. A rock and roll singer had a bad accident recently. His partner slammed the car door on his hair. Man blames most accidents on fate - but feels a more personal responsibility when he makes a hole-in-one on the golf course. Most accidents are caused by motorists who drive in high while their minds are in neu¬tral. It's reported that half of all accidents occur at home. Apparently the rest happen in voting booths. According to sales reports, automobile manufacturers had a bang-up year. According to accident reports, so did their customers. It's not the fall that injures; it's the sudden stop. The number of accidents in the home are rising; people aren't spending enough time there to know their way around. It's the nut behind the wheel and not the nut on the wheel that causes traffic accidents. Accidents A man in Mississippi was told that most accidents happen within twenty miles of home so he moved to another town fifty miles away. You can't get anywhere unless you start. There are two places the jet planes have brought closer together ‑ this world and the next. Some hospitals are so crowded that the only way you can get in is by accident. There are a lot of men in this world who started at the bottom ‑ and stayed there. A good way to get your name in the newspaper is to cross the street reading one. "All the world is a stage," and railroad crossings furnish some of the exits. Skiing may be a winter activity, but some think of it as a fall sport. The lesson you learn in a traffic accident could be your last one. Highway accidents will diminish when brainpower matches horsepower. Some accidents are caused by two motorists aiming at the same pedestrian. Auto accident statistics prove that telephone poles are getting more careless all the time. Anybody who thinks hit‑and‑run accidents aren't on the increase hasn't been in a supermarket lately. One way to reduce motor accidents is to build cars so they can't go any faster than the average person thinks. Most accidents are caused by motorists who drive in high while their minds are in neutral. According to sales reports, automobile manufacturers had a bang‑up year. According to accident reports, so did their customers. It's the nut behind the wheel and not the nut on the wheel that causes traffic accidents. Fewer accidents are caused by traffic jams than by pickled drivers. America is a land where, thanks to its high birthrate, people are being born faster than the automobile can kill them. Drive carefully. Uncle Sam needs every taxpayer he can get. Nothing will add heat to an argument like rubbing car fenders together. If you think a seat belt is uncomfortable, you've never tried a stretcher! Automobiles did away with horses and now they're working on people. The auto industry accounts for one out of every twenty jobs in the United States ‑ and this does not include morticians. The springs of the late‑model cars are of such high quality that you can hardly feel the bump when you run over a pedestrian. There are few Americans who have never seen an automobile, but plenty who have not seen one soon enough. Automobiles are gradually doing away with absent‑minded people. In these days of high speed and crowded highways, it doesn't take much of a car to last a lifetime. The first thing that strikes a visitor in New York City is a big car. Our grandparents never dreamed that the steering wheel would become America's only family circle. It's not only the cost and the upkeep of a car that worries you, but also the possible turnover. Power brakes may stop a car on a dime, but it usually costs more than a hundred dollars to get the rear end fixed. An automobile has been described as a four‑wheeled vehicle that runs‑up hills and down pedestrians. An automobile can help you see the world, but it's up to you to decide which world! Accidents will occur in the best‑regulated families; and in families not regulated by that pervading influence which sancti­fies white it enhances the‑a‑I would say, in short by the influ­ence of Woman, in the lofty character of Wife. . . . Dickens, David Copperfield

Accountability

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) Life is like a cash register in that every account, every thought, every deed, like every sale, is registered and recorded. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979) My Spirit searches the deep things of the heart. I not only taste the fruit, I test the soundness of the tree. I do not look at the leaves, but examine the roots. I behold not the shape of the tree, but test the heart. Frances J. Roberts The sins ye do by two and two, ye must pay for, one by one. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) What difference does it make to you what someone else becomes, or says, or does? You do not need to answer for others, only for yourself. Thomas A Kempis (C. 1380-1471)

Accountant

An accountant is a man hired to explain that you didn't make the money you did. Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions. A. A. Latimer

Achievement

It is not only what you do, but also what you don't do, for which you are accountable. The only thing in life achieved without effort is failure. You must first be a believer if you would be an achiever. The only thing some people can achieve on their own is dandruff. Today's preparation determines tomorrow's achievement. ` Some men achieve distinction by the kind of car they drive ‑ others by the kind of wife that is driving them. If you want a place in the sun, you will have to expect some blisters. Man's maximum achievement often falls short of God's minimum demands. The world has finally achieved perpetual commotion. Do something. Either lead, follow, or get out of the way! A man whose actions leave his wife speechless has really done something! We never see the target a man aims at in life; we see only the target he hits. Choice, not chance, determines destiny. Some of the world's greatest deeds have been accomplished by two types of men ‑ those who were smart enough to know it could be done, and those too dumb to know it couldn't. Education is not received. It is achieved. If it were as easy to arouse enthusiasm as it is suspicion, just think what could be accomplished! Fear of criticism is the kiss of .death in the courtship of achievement. Having money and friends is easy. Having friends and no money is an accomplishment. A genius shoots at something no one else sees ‑ and hits it! To be born a gentleman is an accident ‑ to die one is an accomplishment. Happiness is a by‑product of achievement. Money, achievement, fame, and success are important, but they are bought too dearly when acquired at the cost of health.

Acting

An actor is a guy who takes a girl in his arms, looks tenderly into her eyes, and tells her how great he is. Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience. Paul Newman A certain Hollywood actor would really become a big star if the public liked him as much as he does. One of the Ringling Brothers trapeze artists refuses to travel by plane ‑ even if they put a net under it. The only thing an actor fears more than losing his mind--is regaining it. The one nice thing about actors--they don't go around talking about other people. Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion. Kate Reid The lines actors like best are the ones in front of the box office. You can pick out actors by the glazed look that comes to their eyes when the conversation wanders away from themselves. There are lots of bad actors who are not on the stage. A Hollywood actor denies he is egotistical. He says he just deeply admires people with great talent. An actor is a man who tries to be everything but himself. Some actors think they are elevating the stage when they're merely depressing the audience. Did you hear about the Hollywood actor with so little personality that he appeared on a color TV show and it came out in black and white? There's a new alarm clock on the market for actors. It doesn't ring ‑ it applauds. A Hollywood star boasts he's been happily married for twenty years. Of course, it took him five marriages to do it. It is more important to deserve the applause of people than to obtain it. Nostalgia has really caught on in show business. Some Hollywood actors are remarrying their ex‑wives. A Hollywood celebrity recently hired two press agents to tell the world how modest he is. The best acting job done in Hollywood is done by the man congratulating his ex‑wife's husband on the choice he made. A certain Hollywood actor carries a note in his wallet, "I am a celebrity. In case of an accident ‑ call a reporter." Ordinary people have sore throats. Broadway stars have laryngitis. A good actor must never be in love with anyone but himself. Jean Anouilh Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him. Orson Wells Actors are the only honest hypocrites. William Hazlitt Drama is life with the dull bits cut out. Alfred Hitchcock Film-making has become a kind of hysterical pregnancy. Richard Lester Not to go to the theatre is like making one's toilet without a mirror. Arthur Schopenhauer You can't automate in the arts. Since the sixteenth century there has been no change in the number of people necessary to produce Hamlet. William T. Wylie When actors begin to think, it is time for a change. They are not fitted for it. Stephen Leacock Opening night is the night before the play is ready to open. George Jean Nathan A Hollywood actress is now teaching a course on educational TV ‑ husbandry! Someone described an aging film beauty, "Her figure was legendary ‑ but now the legend is beginning to spread." A young actress in a southern state insists she's not conceited, "although you understand I have every right to be." There's an unusual actress in Hollywood she's signed more marriage certificates than autographs. On TV talk shows the Hollywood actresses always seem to mention either their last picture or their next husband. The age of an actress is like the speedometer on a used car ‑ you know it's been set back but you can't tell how far. An actress in Hollywood described her ex‑husband, "He's six feet tall in his socks and $2,000 short in his alimony payments." Did you hear about the movie actress who was so sentimental she got divorced in the same dress her mother was wearing when she got her divorce?" An actress in New York City has broken up so many homes that she's listed in the Yellow Pages under "Demolition Experts." A Hollywood actress once had an hourglass figure, but the sands of time have shifted. Many actresses won't wear a dress that's not original, but they'll take a secondhand husband. A Chicago actress says she's been so busy planning her sixth marriage she hasn't time to cook for her fifth husband. To some young actresses the difference between fame and farm is form. An actor's a sculptor who carves in snow. Edwin Booth An actor's a guy who, if you ain't talking about him, ain't listening. Marlon Brando The unencumbered stage encourages the truth operative in everyone. The less seen, the more heard. The eye is the enemy of the ear in real drama. Thornton Wilder The live entertainment Canadians like most is the intimate review, a collection of songs and sketches, preferably with a satirical bias. Nathan Cohen Acting is happy agony. Lec Guinness With the collapse of vaudeville new talent has no place to stink. George Burns When the audience knows you know better, it's satire, but when they think you can't do any better, it's corn. Spike Jones The person who wants to make it has to sweat. There are no short cuts. And you've got to have the guts to be hated. Batte Davis True tragedy may be defined as a dramatic work in which the outward failure of the principal personage is compensated for by the dignity and greatness of his character. Joseph Wood Krutch A fan club is a group of people who tell an actor he is not alone in the way he feels about himself. Jack Carson The real actor-like any real artist-has a direct line to the collective heart. Bette Davis The best actors do not let the wheels show. Henry Fonda A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships. Gore Vidal Many play's certainly mine, are like blank cheques. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them. Thornton Wilder You need three things in the theatre -- the play, the actors and the audience, and each must give something. Kenneth Haigh From the point of view of the playwright, then, the essence of a tragedy, or even of a serious play, is the spiritual awakening, or regeneration, of his hero. Maxwell Anderson Acting consists of the ability to keep an audience from coughing. Jean-Louis Barrault Hamlet is the tragedy of tackling a family problem too soon after collage. Tom Masson A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet. Orson Wells The whole motivation for any performer is `Look at me Ma.' Lenny Bruce If you give audiences a chance they'll do half your acting for you. Katharine Hepburn Show business is like sex. When it's wonderful, it's wonderful. But when it isn't very good, it's still all right. Max Wall will happen in the best regulated families. Olive Herford All the movies used to be `colossal.' Now they're all `frank.' I think I liked `colossal' better. Beryl Pfizer Satire is what closes Saturday night. George S. Kaufman A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good. T.S. Eliot By increasing the size of the keyhole, today's playwrights are in danger of doing away with the door. Peter Ustinov We do not go (to the theatre) like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our experience of it. Charles Lamb A play visibly represents pure existing. Thornton Wilder I sweat, If anything comes easy to me, I mistrust it. Lilly Palmer I sometimes wish they would swagger more now, buy bigger overcoats and wilder hats, and retain those traces of make-up that put them outside respectability and keep them rogues and vagabonds, which is what, at heart -- bless 'em --they are. I know it was wonderful, but I don't know how I did it. Laurence Oliver (After a brilliant performance as `Othello') Very few people go to the doctor when they have a cold, they go to the theatre instead. W. Boyd Gatewood The unique thing about Margaret Rutherford is that she can act with her chin alone. Among its many moods I especially cherish the chin commanding, the chin in doubt, and the chin at bay. Kenneth Tynan There are five stages to an actor's career: who is Herschel Bernardi? Get me Herschel Bernardi; get me a Herschel Bernardi type; get me a young Herschel Bernardi; and who is Herschel Bernardi? Herschel Bernardi On stage I make love to twenty-five thousand people; then I go home alone. Janis Joplin In Hollywood, if you don't have happiness, you send out for it. Rex Reed Long experience has taught me that in England nobody goes to the theatre unless he or she has bronchitis. James Agate Playing Shakespeare is very tiring. You never get to sit down, unless you're a king. Josephine Hull Theatre is simply what cannot be expressed by any other means; a complexity of words, movements, gestures that convey a vision of the world inexpressible in any other way. Eugene Ionesco

Actions

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible. Hope is the anchor of the soul, the stimulus to action, and the incentive to achievement. One sure way for you to gain adherents to your cause is to start winning. It's a mistake to try to judge a man's horsepower by the size of his exhaust. Liberty is not a gift of God but a hard‑won achievement with the help of God. With many people telling lies is not a shortcoming but is one of their major achievements. You cannot control the length of your life, but you can control its breadth, depth, and height. A mistake is proof that someone was at least trying to accomplish something. Most of us measure our success by what others haven't done. You can't get anywhere unless you start. Kind actions begin with kind thoughts. Actions speak louder than words ‑ and speak fewer lies. The thing to try when all else fails is again. Just over the hill is a beautiful valley, but you must climb the hill to see it. Do it now! Today will be yesterday tomorrow. Giving it another try is better than an alibi. It's better to look where you're going than to see where you've been. The best time to do the dishes is right after your wife tells you to. People may doubt what you say, but they will always believe what you do. We cannot do everything we want to do, but we should do everything God wants us to do. Don't forget that people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold ‑ but so does a hard‑boiled egg. The shortest answer is doing. Lord Herbert Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome. Samuel Johnson I want to see you shoot the way you shout. Theodore Roosevelt I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day. Albert Camus Action takes precedence over study. Judah Hanasi Action is eloquence. William Shakespeare Action makes more fortunes than caution. Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues Actions speak louder than words. Business is like a wheelbarrow ‑ it stands still unless somebody pushes it. A true test of a man's character is not what he does in the light, but what he does in the dark. Think right, act right; it is what you think and do that makes you what you are. A person is never what he ought to be until he is doing what he ought to be doing. It isn't what you have, but what you are, that makes life worthwhile. Cheerfulness is contagious, but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier! Christianity requires the participants to come down out of the grandstand and onto the playing field. Christians are the light of the world, but the switch must be turned on. The Christian who is pulling the oars doesn't have time to rock the boat. The Christian's walk and talk must go together. A genuine Christian is like a good watch: he has an open face, busy hands, is made of pure gold, is well‑regulated, and is full of good works. Some church members are like wheelbarrows ‑ they go only when they are pushed. A committee of three gets things done if two don't show up. Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done. It might be more worthwhile if we stopped wringing our hands and started ringing our congressman. A man's conscience tells him what he shouldn't do ‑ but it does not keep him from doing it. Those who can ‑ do. Those who can't ‑ criticize. You don't have time to criticize when you harmonize, sympathize, and evangelize. If it were not for the doers, the critics would soon be out of business. Your creed may be interesting but your deeds are much more convincing. Few people ever get dizzy from doing too many good turns. The smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention. You can't reduce by talking about it. You must keep your mouth shut. The true object of education should be to train one to think clearly and act rightly. We make more enemies by what we say than friends by what we do. We won't go far without enthusiasm, but neither will we go far if that's all we have. Experience is a form of knowledge acquired in only two ways ‑ by doing and by being done. Failure always overtakes those who have the power to do without the will to act. There are a lot of ways to become a failure, but never taking a chance is the most successful. Failure is not the worst thing in the world. The very worst is not to try. Faith without works is like an automobile without gas. In all relationships of life, faith is worthless unless it leads to action. Faith with works is a force. Faith without works is a farce. The fellow who's always leaning on his family tree never seems to get out of the woods. No farmer ever plowed a field by turning it over in his mind. Even if a farmer intends to loaf, he gets up in time to get ,an early start. The one thing worse t ' er is them who is afraid to start. The only thing we have to fear is not doing something about the fear we have. Promises may get friends, but it is performance that keeps them. We make our future by the best use of the present. Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99‑ percent perspiration. People who live by the Golden Rule today never have to apologize for their actions tomorrow. If a soldier or a laborer complains of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing. Blaise Pascal The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit of doing them. Benjamin Jowett If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. G. K. Chesterton The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts. John Locke It is by acts and not by ideas that people live. Anatole France Lose no time; be always employed in something useful. Benjamin Franklin Activity is contagious. Ralph Waldo Emerson It's pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious. Kin Hubbard He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence. William Blake The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact. Henry David Thoreau If you want a thing done, go - if not, send Benjamin Franklin Anon Don't just stand there ‑ do something! It pays to keep your feet on the ground, but keep them moving. Action is what you don't take when the other guy is bigger than you are. Our actions are our own; their consequences are not. Every action of our‑Ifs'9ome chord that will vibrate in eternity. Having a great aim in life is important. So is knowing when to pull the trigger. If you're going to climb, you've got to grab the branches, not the blossoms. The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts. It is a deal better to do all the thingsyou should do t a the rest of your life wishing you had. Kind words can never die, but without kind deeds they can sound mighty sick. Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often. It doesn't do any good to sit up and take notice if you keep on sitting. The man who gets ahead is the man who does more than is necessary‑and keeps on doing it. "Push" will get a person almost everywhere ‑ except through a door marked "pull." Doing beats stewing. God gives us the ingredients for our daily bread, but He expects us to do the baking. The fellow who does things that count doesn't usually stop to count them. There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone to do it, or forbid your kids to do it. No thoroughly occupied man has ever been known to be miserable. Begin where you are. But don't stay where you are. You can do everything you ought to do. Knowing without doing is like plowing without sowing. The best time to do something worthwhile is between yesterday and tomorrow. You can never get much of anything done unless you go ahead and do it before you are ready. Actions speak louder than words ‑ and are just as apt to be misquoted or misinterpreted. A man whose actions leave his wife speechless has really done something! No one ever climbed a hill just by looking at it. When you do something and don't want anybody to know it, it's either very good or very bad. A man ordinarily has time to do all the things he really wants to do. Don't sit back and take what comes. Go after what you want. Our ship would come in much sooner if we'd only swim out to meet it. The fellow who has an abundance of push gets along very well without pull. If you don't climb the mountain, you can't see the view. Where we go and what we do advertises what we are. There's no sense aiming for a goal with no arrow in your bow. Having the right aim in life doesn't mean a thing if you're loaded with blanks. It is useless to have an aim in life unless one has ammunition to back it up. Many people have a good aim in life, but for some reason they never pull the trigger. Too many of us shoot blanks when aiming at our goals. Think what others ought to be like, then start being like that yourself. The surest way to gain respect is to earn it by conduct. It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. None of us is responsible for all the things that happen to us, but we are responsible for the way we act when they do happen. Many pious people would rather study the Bible than practice what it teaches. It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it. All glory comes from daring to begin. Anon Action is eloquence. Shakespeare, (Coriolanus) From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought. Alfred North Whitehead The great end of life is not knowledge, but action. Thomas Fuller The men who act stand nearer to the mass of man than the men who write; and it is in their hands that new thought gets its translation into the crude language of deeds. Woodrow Wilson We accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice between the comforts of further inertia and the irksomeness of action. Learned Hand It is much easier to do and die than it is to reason why. G. A. Studdert-Kennedy There are two reasons for doing things - a very good reason and the real reason. Anon Mean to' don't pick no cotton. Anon. Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits. Thomas A. Edison The bell never rings of itself; unless someone handles or moves it, it is dumb. Plautus It is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit; divorced from it, they remain barren. Bertrand Russell The great end of life is not knowledge, but action. Thomas Huxley There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction. John F. Kennedy Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. Andrew Jackson You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try. Beverly Sills When you appeal to force, there's one thing you must never do-lose. Dwight D. Eisenhower In action, be primitive; in foresight, a strategist. Rene Char I am not built for academic writing. Action is my domain. Gandhi Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events not of words. Trust movement. Alfred Adler Let us act on what we have, since we have not what we wish. Cardinal Newman Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a good thing to say. Will Durant A = r + p (or Adventure equals risk plus purpose.) Robert McClure For purposes of action nothing is more useful than narrowness of thought combined with energy of will. Henri Frederic Amiel I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgement, it takes place every day. Albert Camus Blessed is he who carries within himself a god and an ideal and who obeys it - an ideal of art, of science, or gospel virtues. Therein lie the springs of great thoughts and great actions. Louis Pasteur I learn by going where I have to go. Theodore Roethke He who is outside his door already has a hard part of his journey behind him. Dutch proverb The shortest answer is doing. English proverb Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions. Joseph Conrad We will either find a way, or make one. Hannibal If you have anything to tell me of importance, for God's sake begin at the end. Sara Jeannette Duncan What the world needs is some `do-give-a-damn' pills. William Menniger We should not copy what great men do - but that they did it. I am surprised nothing has been made of the fact that astronaut Neil Armstrong carried no sidearm when he landed on the moon. Justice Arthur Goldberg "What would you call the highest happiness?" Wratislaw was asked. `The sense of competence,' was the answer, given without hesitation. John Buchan The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. Edward Gibbon How many `coming men' has one known? Where on earth do they all go to? Arthur Wing Pinero He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power of the greatest obstacles. Henry David Thoreau They are able who think they are able. Virgil The biggest things are always the easiest to do because there is no competition. William Van Horne What we do upon some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are: and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline. H. P. Liddon Nothing great is created suddenly, anymore than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, than ripen. Epictetus Out of the strain of the Doing, Into the peace of Done. Julia Louise Woodruff It's them that takes advantage that gets advantage in this world. George Eliot Anything you're good at contributes to happiness. Bertrand Russell I think knowing what you cannot do is more important than knowing what you can do. Lucille Ball There is endless merit in a man's knowing when to have done. Thomas Carlyle It's the whole, not the detail, which matters. German Proverb Long is the road from conception to completion. Moliere One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. `Which road do I take?' she asked. His response was a question: `Where do you want to go?' `I don't know,' Alice answered. `Then,' said the cat, `it doesn't matter.' Lewis Carroll Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. Robert F. Kennedy Back of every achievement is a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law. Books Hays God-dependence is the only true independence. Frank Juelich Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid. Mark Twain We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. Theodore Roosevelt Do what you can, Being what you are. Shine like a glow-worm, If you can't be a star. anon About all some men accomplish in life is to send a son to Harvard. Edgar Waston Howe He has half the deed done who has made a beginning. Horace Give me where to stand, and I will move the earth. Archimedes The only way round is through. Robert Frost If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music that he hears, however measured or far away. Henry David Thoreau Is there anything in life so disenchanting as attainment? Robert Louis Stevenson I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back. Abraham Lincoln One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Neil Armstrong You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren. William Henry Hudson Out of the best and most productive years of each man's life, he should carve a segment in which he puts his private career aside to serve his community and his country, and thereby serve his children, his neighbours, his fellow men, and the cause of freedom. David Lilienthal Business is like a wheelbarrow ‑ it stands still unless somebody pushes it. A true test of a man's character is not what he does in the light, but what he does in the dark. Think right, act right; it is what you think and do that makes you what you are. A person is never what he ought to be until he is doing what he ought to be doing. It isn't what you have, but what you are, that makes life worthwhile. Cheerfulness is contagious, but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier! Christianity requires the participants to come down out of the grandstand and onto the playing field. Christians are the light of the world, but the switch must be turned on. The Christian who is pulling the oars doesn't have time to rock the boat. The Christian's walk and talk must go together. A genuine Christian is like a good watch: he has an open face, busy hands, is made of pure gold, is well‑regulated, and is full of good works. Some church members are like wheelbarrows ‑ they go only when they are pushed. A committee of three gets things done if two don't show up. Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done. It might be more worthwhile if we stopped wringing our hands and started ringing our congressman. A man's conscience tells him what he shouldn't do ‑ but it does not keep him from doing it. You don't have time to criticize when you harmonize, sympathize, and evangelize. If it were not for the doers, the critics would soon be out of business. Your creed may be interesting but your deeds are much more convincing. Few people ever get dizzy from doing too many good turns. The smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention. You can't reduce by talking about it. You must keep your mouth shut. The true object of education should be to train one to think clearly and act rightly. We make more enemies by what we say than friends by what we do. We won't go far without enthusiasm, but neither will we go far if that's all we have. Experience is a form of knowledge acquired in only two ways ‑ by doing and by being done. Failure always overtakes those who have the power to do without the will to act. There are a lot of ways to become a failure, but never taking a chance is the most successful. Failure is not the worst thing in the world. The very worst is not to try. Faith without works is like an automobile without gas. In all relationships of life, faith is worthless unless it leads to action. Faith with works is a force. Faith without works is a farce. The fellow who's always leaning on his family tree never seems to get out of the woods. No farmer ever plowed a field by turning it over in his mind. Even if a farmer intends to loaf, he gets up in time to t an early start. The one thing worse than a quitter is the man who is afraid to start. The only thing we have to fear is not doing something about the fear we have. Promises may get friends, but it is performance that keeps them. We make our future by the best use of the present. Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99‑percent perspiration. People who live by the Golden Rule today never have to apologize for their actions tomorrow. Good is not good, where better is expected. Thomas Fuller Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road. Dag Hammarskjold We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears. La Rochefoucauld Practice yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater. Epictetus For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is. Goethe He that leaves nothing to Chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things. George, Lord Halifax When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion. Ethiopian Proverb Everyone must row with the oars he has. English Proverb Every calling is great when greatly pursued. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one. Sam Rayburn God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them. German Proverb Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity. Louis Pasteur What one has to do usually can be done. Eleanor Roosevelt The world is all gates, all opportunities, string of tension waiting to be struck. Ralph Waldo Emerson I confess that altruistic and cynically selfish talk seems to me about equally unreal. With all humility, I think `whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might,' infinitely more important than the vain attempt to love one's neighbour as one's self. If you want to hit a bird on the wing you must have all your will in focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbour; you must be living with your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do, than what one can do. Lin Yutang To achieve great things, we must live as though we were never going to die. Vauvenargues I am easily satisfied with the very best. Winston Churchill The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more astonishing becomes what human beings have achieved. Bertrand Russell Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. David Lloyd George There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. Peter F. Drucker Each morning sees some task begun, Each evening sees it close. Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night's repose. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. Ralph Waldo Emerson God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas, but for scars. Elbert Hubbard There are two kinds of people: those who are always well and those who are always sick. Most of the evils of the world come from the first sort and most of the achievements from the second. Louis Dudek Great things are done when men and mountains meet; This is not done by jostling in the street. WILLIAM BLAKE, Gnomic Verses, 1 Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night's repose: LONGFELLOW, The Village Blacksmith If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly. Shakespeare, Machbeth, I, 7 How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, V, 1 The vilest deeds like poison weeds Bloom well in prison‑air: It is only what is good in Man That wastes and withers there: Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Adam

Whilst Adam slept, Eve from his side arose: Strange his first sleep should be his last repose. Anon. The Consequences Adam the goodliest man of men since born His sons, the fairest of her daughter Eve. MILTON, Paradise Lost, IV In Adam's fall We sinned all New England Primer Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they escaped teething. MARK TWAIN, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

Admiration

Admiration is the daughter of ignorance. Benjamin Franklin Distance is a great promoter of admiration! Denis Diderot

Adolescence

Adolescence is when children start bringing up their parents. Some adolescents become bad eggs because they have been set on too long ‑ or not long enough. Adolescence is the‑awkward age when a child is too old to say something cute and too young to say something sensible. All anybody expects of an adolescent is that he act like an adult and be satisfied to be treated like a child. Adolescence is that period when a young man can show you the best crop of hair he'll ever own. Adolescence is something like a hitch in the army ‑ you'd hate to have missed it, but you'd hate to repeat it. An adolescent is a youth old enough to dress himself if he could just remember where he dropped his clothes. Adolescence is the period when children are certain they will never be as stupid as their parents. An adolescent is a minor who is sometimes a major problem. Adolescence is a period of rapid change. Be­tween the ages of twelve and seventeen, for example, a child may see his parents age twenty years. Adolescence is the awkward age in the life of a youngster. They're too old for an allowance and too young for a credit card.

Adultery

What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, Is much more common where the climate's sultry. Byron, Don Juan, I

Adults

A boy becomes an adult three years before his parents think he does . . . and about two years after he thinks he does. Lewis Hershey Adults are really not wiser than children; they're just more cunning.

Advancement

Build momentum by accumulating small successes. Anonymous I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work. Harry S Truman When you're safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you're having an adventure you wish you were safe at home. Thornton Wilder One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. Andre Gide

Adversity

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health. Carl Jung In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends. J. Churton Collins Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. William Shakespeare Night brings our troubles to the light rather than banishes them. Seneca Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes. Henry J. Kaiser The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it. Woodrow Wilson Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become. Brooke Foss Westcott Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist--it reduces him to his fighting weight. Josh Billings No untroubled day has ever dawned for me. Seneca They say a reasonable amount o' fleas is good for a dog--it keeps him from broodin' over bein' a dog mebbe. Edward Noyes Westcott

Adversity

Adversity is the only diet that will reduce a fat head. We learn some things from prosperity, but we learn many more from adversity. The average man can stand adversity better than prosperity. He who swells in prosperity will shrink in adversity. When you're down and out something always turns up ‑ and it's usually the noses of your friends. Adversity is never pleasant, but sometimes it's possible to learn lessons from it that can be learned in no other way. In adversity a man can become very well ac­quainted with himself because he is free from admirers. Another thing learned in adversity is that a tire isn't the only thing you can patch. When things get rough, remember: It's the rubbing that brings out the shine. Your character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose. The address of character is often carved on the corner of Adversity Avenue and Determi­nation Drive. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. Character, like sweet herbs, should give off its finest fragrance when pressed. The difficulties of life are intended to make us better ‑ not bitter. There are two ways of meeting difficulties: alter the difficulties, or alter yourself to meet them. Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity. All men need a faith that will not shrink when washed in the waters of affliction and adversity. How would a person ever know whether his faith was weak or strong unless it has been tried and tested? The friends you make in prosperity are those you lose in adversity. A real friend will tell you your faults and follies in times of prosperity, and assist you with his hand and heart in times of adversity. Prosperity makes friends; adversity tries them. God often tries us with a little to see what we would do with a lot. When you're up to your ears in trouble, try using the part that isn't submerged. The triumphal song of life would lose its mel­ody without its minor keys. The ladder of life is full of splinters, but you never realize it until you begin to slide down. Love is a fabric which never fades, no matter how often it is washed in the water of adver­sity and grief. You can usually determine the caliber of a man by ascertaining the amount of opposi­tion it takes to discourage him. The reformers need not worry. The movies are never as wicked and vulgar as the adver­tisements promise. Some people pray for a bushel, but carry a cup. Most people who sit around waiting for their ship to come in often find it is a hardship. In times of prosperity men ask too little of God. In times of adversity, they ask too much. Usually it is on the detours that we pick up the tacks. I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian. Alexander Pope Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on. Frederic Chopin Adversity introduces a man to himself. Anonymous The diamond cannot be polished without friction, nor the man perfected without trials. Chinese proverb There is no education like adversity. Benjamin Disraeli When it is dark enough, men see the stars. Ralph Waldo Emerson Into each life some rain must fall. Henry W. Longfellow Bloody noses are great teachers. Joseph McKinney Our strength often increases in proportion to the obstacles which are imposed upon it. Rene Rapin Advise and counsel him; if he does not listen, let adversity teach him. Japanese proverb Adversity is the first path to truth. Lord Byron There is no education like adversity. Benjamin Disraeli Gold is tried by fire, brave men by adversity. Seneca The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity. Seneca Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters. Victor Hugo There are only two forces that unite men - fear and interest. Napoleon Bonaparte Night brings our troubles to the light rather than banishes them. Seneca Too much happens . . . Man performs, engenders so much more than he can or should have to bear. That's how he finds that he can bear anything. William Faulkner A great man does not lose his self-possession when he is afflicted; the ocean in not made muddy by the falling in of its banks. Panchatantra I've had an unhappy life, thank God. Russell Baker Do not show your wounded finger, for everything will knock up against it. Balthazar Gracian They sicken of the calm that know the storm. Dorothy Parker Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes. Henry J. Kaiser The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it. Woodrow Wilson The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Martin Luther King Jr. Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become. Brooke Foss Westcott What does not destroy me, makes me strong. Friedrich Nietzsche I long ago came to the conclusion that all life is six to five against. Damon Runyan (Adversity is) the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free from admirers then. Samuel Johnson Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist - it reduces him to his fighting weight. Josh Billings From a fallen tree, all make kindling. Spanish proverb The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the heroical virtue. Francis Bacon The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities. Sophocles No untroubled day has ever dawned for me. Seneca You can't have more bugs than a blanketful. Spanish proverb Even in the deepest sinking there is the hidden purpose of an ultimate rising. Thus it is for all men; from none is the source of light withheld unless he himself withdraws from it. Therefore the most important thing is not to despair. Hasidic saying Trouble will rain on those who are already wet. Anon. They say a reasonable, amount o' fleas is good for a dog - it keeps him from broodin' over bein' a dog mebbe. Edward Noyes Westcott There is nothing the body suffers which the soul may not profit by. George Meredith The burden is equal to the horse's strength. The Talmud Nothing befalls a man except what is in his nature to endure. Marcus Aurelius I am escaped by the skin of my teeth. Job 19:20 Prosperity tries the fortunate; adversity the great. Pliny the Younger Be willing to have it so; acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. William James Ad astra per aspera. (To the stars through hardship.) Motto of the State of Kansas If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart. Solon I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian. Alexander Pope When the world has once begun to use us ill, it afterwards continues the same treatment with less scruple or ceremony, as men do to a whore. Jonathan Swift Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Jeremiah 8:22 Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on. Frederic Chopian Fire tries gold, misfortune men. Anon. The fiery trials through which we pass will light us down in honour or dishonour to the latest generation. Abraham Lincoln Thou hast shown thy people hard things: thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment. Psalms 60:3 Sweet are the uses of adversity; Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. Shakespeare, As You Like It, II, 1 A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor a man made perfect without trials. Chinese Proverb A good pilot is best tried in a storm. A kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you. Walt Disney (1901-1966) A saint's life is in the hands of God as a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see; he stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says, "I cannot stand any more." But God does not heed; he goes on stretching until his purpose is in sight, then he lets fly. We are here for God's designs, not for our own. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) Adversities do not make a man frail; they show what sort of man he is. Thomas A Kempis (C. 1380-1471) Adversity can either destroy or build up, depending on our chosen response. Tim Hansel Adversity introduces a man to himself. Adversity is the diamond dust heaven polishes its jewels with. Archbishop Robert Leighton (1611-1684) Adversity is the first path to truth. Lord George Noel Gordon Byron (1788-1824) Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not. Henry Fielding (1707-1754) Adversity makes a man wise, not rich. John Ray (1627-1705) Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it. Horace (65-8 B.C.) All that a man bears for God's sake, God makes light and sweet for him. Meister Eckhart (C. 1260-C. 1327) An hour of pain is as long as a day of pleasure. Aromatic plants bestow No spicy fragrance while they grow; But crushed or trodden to the ground Diffuse their sweetness all around. Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774) As sure as ever God puts his children in the furnace, he will be in the furnace with them. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) Ask not that all troubles end, for when troubles end, life ends too. Bad is called good when worse happens. Calamity: the test of integrity. Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) Christ made no promise that those who followed him in his plan of re-establishing life on its proper basic principles would enjoy a special immunity from pain and sorrow-nor did he himself experience such immunity. He did, however; promise enough joy and courage, enough love and confidence in God to enable those who went his way to do far more than survive. J. B. Phillips (1906-1982) Count each affliction, whether light or grave, God's messenger sent down to thee; do thou with courtesy receive him. Aubrey Thomas De Vere (1814-1902) Cripple him, and you have a Sir Walter Scott. Lock him in a prison cell, and you have a John Bunyan. Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge, and you have a George Washington. Raise him in abject poverty, and you have an Abraham Lincoln. Strike him down in infantile paralysis, and he becomes Franklin Roosevelt. Deafen him, and you have a Ludwig van Beethoven. Have him or her born black in a society filled with racial discrimination, and you have a Booker T. Washington, a Marian Anderson, a George Washington Carver. . . . Call him a slow learner; "retarded," and write him off an uneducable, and you have an Albert Einstein. Ted W. Engstrom (1916- ) Crosses are ladders that lead to heaven. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. William James (1842-1910) Beethoven composed his deepest music after becoming totally deaf. Pascal set down his most searching observations about God, man, life and death in brief intervals of release from a prostrating illness. Robert J. McCracken (1904-1973) Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves. Sir William Davenant (1606-1668) Calamity is virtue's opportunity. Lucius Annaeus Seneca (C. 4 B.C.-A.D. 65) Every wise workman takes his tools away from the work from time to time that they may be ground and sharpened; so does the only-wise Jehovah take his ministers oftentimes away into darkness and loneliness and trouble, that he may sharpen and prepare them for harder work in his service. Robert Murray McCheyne (1813-1843) For God to explain a trial would be to destroy its purpose . . . calling forth simple faith and implicit obedience. Alfred Edersheim (1825-1889) God could have kept Daniel out of the lions' den. . . he could have kept Paul and Silas out of jail.. . . he could have kept the three Hebrew children out of the fiery furnace. . . but God has never promised to keep us out of hard places . . . what he has promised is to go with us through every hard place, and to bring us through victoriously. Merv Rosell God does not offer us a way out of the testings of life. He offers us a way through, and that makes all the difference. W. T. Purkiser God never answers the why, because the person who asks why doesn't really want an explanation; he wants an argument! Robert Harold Schuller (1926- ) God often puts us in situations that are too much for us so that we will learn that no situation is too much for him. Erwin W. Lutzer (1941- ) God only is holy; he alone knows how to lead his children in the paths of holiness. Even though there are clouds around, and your way seems dark, he is directing all, and what seems a hindrance will prove a blessing since he wills it. Jean Nicolas Grou (1731-1803) God promises a safe landing but not a calm passage. God tests us so that we might stand; the devil tests us that we might stumble. Adrian Rogers God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars. Elbert Green Hubbard (1856-1915) Great and small suffer the same mishaps. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) Happiness is like a sunbeam which the least shadow intercepts, while adversity is often as the rain of spring. Chinese Proverb Have you not learned great lessons from those who reject you, and brace themselves against you? Or who treat you with contempt, or dispute the passage with you? Walt Whitman (1819-1892) He said not, Thou shall not be tempested, Thou shall not be travailed, Thou shall not be afflicted, But he said, Thou shall not be overcome. Julian of Norwich (C. 1342- After 1413) He who sees the calamity of other people finds his own calamity light. Arabian Proverb How often we look upon God as our last and feeblest resource! We go to him because we have nowhere else to go. And then we learn that the storms of life have driven us, not upon the rocks, but into the desired haven. George Macdonald (1824-1905) I wondered why the years have flown unto my hand Cling weaker, sadder ones who walk alone-I understand. If God sends us on stony paths, he will provide us with strong shoes. Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910) If we can enter into our trials and temptations, our spiritual darkness and dry spells, with an attitude of gratitude, they will cease to be horrible experiences from which we try to run away. John Michael Talbot If we had no winter; the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. Anne Bradstreet (C. 1612-1672) If you carry the cross willingly, it will carry you. If you are forced against your will to carry the cross, then you make it difficult for yourself, adding to your load. No matter what attitude you have, you must bear the burden. If you manage to throw away one cross, you will certainly find another; and it may be even heavier. Thomas A Kempis (C. 1380-1471) If your every human plan and calculation has miscarried, if, one by one, human props have been knocked out, and doors have shut in your face, take heart. God is trying to get a message through to you, and the message is: "Stop depending on inadequate human resources. Let me handle the matter." Catherine Wood Marshall (1914-1983) It doesn't matter how great the pressure is. What really matters is where the pressure lies-whether it comes between you and God or whether it presses you nearer his heart. James Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) It is a misery to be born, a pain to live, a trouble to die. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) It is good for us that we sometimes have sorrows and adversities, for they often make a man lay to heart that he is only a stranger and sojourner; and may not put his trust in any worldly thing. It is good that we sometimes endure contradictions and are hardly and unfairly judged when we do and mean what is good. For these things help us to be humble and shield us from vainglory. Thomas A Kempis (C. 1380-1471) It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. In every cloud he brings, God wants us to unlearn something. God's purpose in the cloud is to simplify our belief until our relationship to him is exactly that of a child. God uses every cloud which comes in our physical life, in our moral or spiritual life, or in our circumstances, to bring us nearer to him, until we come to the place where our Lord Jesus Christ lived, and we do not allow our hearts to be troubled. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) It is trial that proves one thing weak and another strong. A house built on the sand is in fair weather just as good as if builded on a rock. A cobweb is as good as the mightiest cable when there is no strain upon it. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) It takes a rough stone to sharpen the edge. Life is literally filled with God-appointed storms. These squalls surge across everyone's horizon. We all need them. Charles R. Swindoll (1934- ) Life is short and full of blisters. American Negro Proverb Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above it. Washington Irving (1783-1859) Look upon adversities as adventures. Robert Harold Schuller (1926- ) Misfortune is an occasion to demonstrate character. Lucius Annaeus Seneca (C. 4 B.C.-A.D. 65) Misfortunes come on wings and depart on foot. Neither usefulness nor duty is God's ultimate purpose. His aim is to bring out the message of the gospel, and if that can only be done by his "bruising" me, why shouldn't he? Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) No man is fit to comprehend heavenly things who hath not resigned himself to suffer adversities for Christ. Thomas A Kempis (C. 1380-1471) No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown. William Penn (1644-1718) One is given strength to bear what happens to one, but not the one hundred and one different things that might happen. C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) One's attitude toward a handicap determines its impact on his life. James C. Dobson (1936- ) Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems. . . create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. M. Scott Peck (1936- ) Rebuke is cruel in adversity. Latin Proverb Rejection is the sand in the oyster; the irritant that ultimately produces the pearl. Burke Wilkinson Remember the teakettle: when it's up to its neck in hot water; it sings. Some oysters are never wounded. . . and those who seek for gems toss them aside, fit only for stew. Charles Swindoll (1934- ) Storms make oaks take deeper root. Sweet are the uses of adversity. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us. The marathons-the relentless, incessant, persistent, continual tests that won't go away-ah, these are the ones that bruise but build character. Charles R. Swindoll (1934- ) The roots grow deep when the winds are strong. Charles R. Swindoll (1934- ) The same boiling water that hardens the egg will soften the carrot. The tests of life are to make, not break us. Trouble may demolish a man's business but build up his character. The blow at the outer man may be the greatest blessing to the inner man. If God, then, puts or permits anything hard in our lives, be sure that the real peril, the real trouble, is that we shall lose if we flinch or rebel. Maltbie D. Babcock (1858-1901) There are disasters to be faced by the one who is in real fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. God has never promised to keep us immune from trouble. He says, "I will be with him in trouble," which is a very different thing. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) There are no crown wearers in heaven who were not cross bearers here below. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) There is always someone worse off than yourself. Aesop (Fl. C. 550 B.C.) There is no education like adversity. Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) There is no situation so chaotic that God cannot from that situation create something that is surpassingly good. He did it at the creation. He did it at the cross. He is doing it today. Bishop Handley Carr Glyn Moule (1841-1920) Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm. Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832) To mourn adversity multiplies the misfortune. It is not hypocrisy to rejoice in distress. It is obedience. Frances J. Roberts Tough times never last, but tough people do. Robert Harold Schuller (1926- ) Trial is God's alchemy by which the dross is left in the crucible, the baser metals are transmuted, and the character is enriched with gold. William Morley Punshon (1824-1881) Trials are medicines which our gracious and wise physician prescribes because we need them; and he proportions the frequency and weight of them to what the case requires. Let us trust in his skill and thank him for his prescription. John Newton (1725-1807) Tribulation: God's fastest road to patience, character; hope, confidence, and genuine love. Bill Gothard Virtue flourishes in misfortune. German Proverb Virtue is like precious odors-most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) We are always in the forge, or on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) We bring God to the bar of our judgment and say hard things about him: "Why does God bring thunderclouds and disasters when we want green pastures and still waters?" Bit by bit we find, behind the clouds, the Father's feet; behind the lightning, an abiding day that has no night; behind the thunder a still, small voice that comforts with a comfort that is unspeakable. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) We contradict the Lord to his face when we say: It is hard, it is difficult; we cannot, we are men; we are encompassed with fragile flesh. O blind madness! O unholy audacity! We charge the God of all knowledge with a twofold ignorance, that he does not seem to know what he has made nor what he has commanded, as though, forgetting the human weakness of which he is himself the author; he imposed laws upon man which he cannot endure. Pelagus (C. 354-After 418) What does not destroy me makes me stronger. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) What though my joys and comforts die? The Lord my Savior liveth; What though the darkness gather round? Songs in the night he giveth; No storm can shake my inmost calm, while to that refuge clinging; Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing? Robert Lowry What we call adversity, God calls opportunity. When compassed about on every side with tribulations, remember that it is the way of the saints, through which they passed to the kingdom of heaven. Learn to comfort thyself also, because that in this thou art made like unto Christ Jesus, thy Lord; and return thanks, if thou art in any small degree able to repay this to him. For I say unto thee that it is a greater merit in thee to suffer affliction patiently than to perform good works. Thomas A Kempis (C. 1380-1471) When the work presses, and the battle thickens, and the day seems long in coming, it is good for the heart to remember that the present conflict is with defeated foes, and that there is no room for question as to the final issue, for the Man of Nazareth is not only seated in the place of authority, he carries forward the work of active administration. C. Campbell Morgan (1863-1945) When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer; never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) Wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in whatever commonplace and homely way, there God is hewing out the pillars for his temple. Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) Worship God in the difficult circumstances, and when he chooses, he will alter them in two seconds. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) You fight dandelions all weekend, and late Monday afternoon there they are, pert as all get out in full and gorgeous bloom, pretty as can be, thriving as only dandelions can in the face of adversity. Hal Borland (1900-1978) You need a few splinters in your thumb. They may help you forget the worries in your head. Charles R. Swindoll (1934- ) If adversity hath killed his thousands, prosperity hath killed his ten thousands; therefore adversity is to be preferred. The one deceives, the other instructs; the one is miserably happy, the other happily miserable; and therefore many philosophers have voluntarily sought adversity and commend it in their precepts. Robert Burton (1577-1640) Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it. William Hazlitt (1778-1830) Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New which carries the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God's favor. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) There is in every heart a spark of heavenly fire which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity. Washington Irving (1783-1859) We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right. Lucius Annaeus Seneca (C. 4 B.C.-A.D. 65) Stars may be seen from the bottom of a deep well when they cannot be discerned from the top of a mountain. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity is not without comforts and hopes. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) There are many men who appear to be struggling against adversity, and yet are happy; but yet more, who, although abounding in wealth, are miserable. Cornelius Tacitus (C. 56-C. 120) We can stand affliction better than we can prosperity, for in prosperity we forget God. Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899)

Advertising

Advertising helps raise the standard of living by raising the standard of longing. Advertising encourages people to live beyond their means, but then, so does marriage. Advertising can be very expensive--especially if your wife can read. Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket. George Orwell What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself. Abraham Lincoln Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the trouble is, I don't know which half. John Wanamaker Give them quality. That's the best kind of advertising. Milton S. Hershey Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. Stephen Leacock Sign in a florist's window: "Smoking, or forgetting your wife's birthday, can be hazardous to your health." Where we go and what we do advertises what we are. Advertising can be very expensive, especially if your wife can read. Classified ad in an Oklahoma City newspaper: "Used tombstone for sale. Ideal for a family named Jones." In good times businessmen want to advertise; in bad times they have to. Advertising is a good deal like marriage. There may be a better way, but what is it? One form of advertising that's a liability instead of an asset is a person blowing his own horn. The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time. A loan company's advertisement: "We take the moaning and groaning out of loaning." Nothing makes installment buying as easy as the advertising. Advertising pays ‑ particularly for the advertising agency. Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you're doing, but she doesn't. Advertising is the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. A small town newspaper in Texas advertised, "Read your Bible to know what people ought to do. Read this paper to know what they actually do." Advertising is the fine art of making you think you have longed for something all your life that you never heard of before. Some resort ads don't always tell the truth. One place that promised "miles of uncrowded beaches" turned out to be a naval gunnery range. Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. Jerry Della Femina The best ad is a good product. Alan H. Meyer The philosophy behind much advertising is based on the old observation that every man is really two men - the man he is and the man he wants to be. William Feather The number of agency people required to shoot a commercial on location is in direct proportion to the mean temperature of the location. Shelby Page Buy me and you will overcome the anxieties I have just reminded you of. Michael Schudson First Law of Wing Walking: Never leave go of what you've got hold of until you've go hold of something else. I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. Berry & Homer Inc. If I were starting life over again, I am inclined to think that I would go into the advertising business in preference to almost any other. The general raising of standards of modern civilization among all groups of people during the past half-century would have been impossible without that spreading of the knowledge of higher standards by means of advertising. Franklin D. Roosevelt Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement. Samuel Johnson The deeper problems connected with advertising come less from the unscrupulousness of our `deceivers' than from our pleasure in being deceived; less from the desire to seduce than from the desire to be seduced. Daniel J. Boorstin Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century. Marshall McLuhan The advertisement is one of the most interesting and difficult of modern literary forms. Aldous Huxley What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself. Abraham Lincoln Advertising helps raise the standard of living by raising the standard of longing. Advertising is what transforms a yawn into a yearn. Few people at the beginning of the nineteenth century needed an adman to tell them what they wanted. J.K. Galbraith The art of publicity is a black art. Learned Hand Advertising is legalized lying. H.G. Wells Advertising is what you do when you can't go to see somebody. That's all it is. Fairfax Cone The consumer is not a moron. She's your wife. David Ogilvy (advice to advertising copywriters)

Advice

One picture may be worth ten thousand words, but some advertisers believe in using both in the same ad. Newspaper ad in New Orleans: "Retired trombone player will sell one dozen sport jackets with one arm longer than the other." Sign on an antique shop in Stockton, California: "Come in and buy what your grandmother threw away." Sign in an antique shop in Baltimore: "Our prices are firm. The management is not emotionally equipped to haggle." A bachelor in Denver advertised for a wife in a newspaper: "Bachelor with waterbed desires to meet a nice, hard‑working girl with short toenails." Sign in a Baltimore barber shop: "Six Barbers ‑ Panel Discussions." Sign in a South Dakota bookstore, "Read a good novel before Hollywood ruins it." If it's as easy to borrow money from a bank as the advertisements claim, why should anybody want to rob it? On December 22,1977, the following sign appeared in a Los Angeles church: "Come in and pray today. Beat the Christmas rush." Anti‑cigarette Commercial: "Truth or consequences." If you listen to the loan company commercials, you'll almost believe you can borrow yourself out of debt. Do you realize we're living in a time when almost everybody reads a newspaper, and the only thing they believe are the ads? Any man who has to ask for advice probably isn't married Advice is like mushrooms. The wrong kind can prove fatal. You sometimes profit from the advice you don't take. Anybody can give advice--the trouble comes in finding someone interested in using it. When we ask advice we are usually looking for an accomplice. It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a greater man to accept it graciously. Most of us find it impossible to take advice from people who need it more than we do. Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most like it least. Before you offer a man advice, be sure to find out what kind will suit him best. We don't mind if someone wants to give us advice; we only object if they insist we take it. Advice is that which the wise don't need and fools won't take. When a man gets too old to set a bad example, he usually starts giving good advice. Offering good advice may be noble and grand, but it's not the same as a helping hand. Most people, when they come to you for advice, want their opinions strengthened, not corrected. Always listen to the advice of others ‑ it won't do you any harm, and it will make them feel better. Advice to hunters: Don't get loaded when your gun is. In many instances the person who gives advice to another hasn't tried it himself and wishes to see it tested so he can know whether or not it really works. The only time to give advice is when it is asked for ‑ and then only in small doses. People sensible enough to give good advice are also sensible enough not to. The best advice you'll get is from someone who made the same mistake himself. Anybody who has to ask for advice probably doesn't have any close relatives. A word to the wise usually starts an argument. Most people find that running a business is no trouble at all ‑ as long as it's the other fellow's. Many a man's idea of charity is to give advice to others that he can't use himself. Giving advice to the poor is about as close to charity as some people get. When a man asks you for advice you can figure he isn't married. Both medicine and advice are easy to prescribe but hard to take. The best time to give advice to your children is while they're still young enough to believe you know what you're talking about. Never give advice in a crowd. Arab Proverb Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties. Aesop Be frank and explicit. That is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of others. Benjamin Disraeli Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind. Samuel Taylor Coleridge The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not and never persist in trying to set people right. Hannah Whitall Smith Don't fight forces; use them. Buckminster Fuller When offering helpful advice, make it a small helping. If you can separate good advice from bad advice, you really don't need any advice. Advice is what you get when you're not going to get anything else. Giving good advice does not qualify as charity. A bit of advice: Say nothing often. Never give advice before you're asked ‑ or after! It's a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, normal to ignore it. Advice is least heeded when most needed. Too many people are anxious to give you advice when what you really need is help. To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it. Don't hesitate to give advice. It passes the time and nobody listens to it anyway. Advice to the bridegroom: No matter how she treats you, always try to look a little hurt. It's extremely difficult to take advice from some people ‑ they need it so much themselves. Some people never take advice from anybody; others take advice from everybody. We might be more eager to accept good advice if it did not continually interfere with our plans. Advice is like a laxative ‑ easy to take but hard to predict the outcome. What good is good advice if you don't take it? Advice to some people: If you had your life to live over ‑ don't do it! The most valuable advice you can get usually comes from one who is the most reluctant to give it. It is as easy to give advice to yourself as to others ‑ and as useless. The trouble with giving advice is that people want to repay you. Advice is the only commodity on the market where the supply always exceeds the demand. Seldom does the one who really needs advice ask for it. The best advice is only as good as the use we make of it. An intelligent person not only knows how to take advice, but also how to reject it. No one gives advice with more enthusiasm than an ignorant person. We can give advice but we can't give the wisdom to profit by it. Advice is like snow ‑ the softer it falls, the deeper it goes. Never give advice ‑ sell it! Advice to men over fifty: Keep an open mind and a closed refrigerator. Who needs advice? We've got a lot of it passed down from generation to generation that's never been used. The fellow who tells you "frankly" what he would do if he were in your place probably doesn't know what to do in his own place. Advice is never appreciated. If it turns out well, the recipient thinks it was his own idea; and if it turns out badly, he eternally blames the giver. Advice is like medicine ‑ the correct dosage works wonders, but an overdose can be dangerous. An advisory capacity is the only capacity in which some people are willing to serve. Advice is the one thing which is "more blessed to give than to receive." The better the advice, the harder it is to take. Be careful when you give advice ‑ somebody might take it. "Be yourself" is about the worst advice you can give to some people. We naturally admire the wisdom and good judgment of those who come to us for advice. Giving advice to the poor is not the best form of charity. Some advice isn't worth the trouble of taking. People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise. W. Somerset Maugham He who builds to every man's advice will have a crooked house. Danish proverb Whatever advice you give, be brief. Horace No one is more confusing than the fellow who gives good advice while setting a bad example. When a man won't listen to his conscience, it's usually because he doesn't want advice from a stranger. A bad cold wouldn't be so annoying if it weren't for the advice of your friends. Every father should remember that one day his son will follow his example instead of his advice. A good example has twice the value of good advice. What can't be done by advice can often be done by example. What the world wants is not advice but examples. Any fool can talk. Maybe children could keep on the straight and narrow path if they could get information from someone who's been over the route. Advice when most needed is least heeded. In the multitude of counselors there is safety. Proverbs 11:14 Nothing is given so freely as advice. French proverb He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other. Francis Bacon I remember my father telling me the story of the preacher delivering an exhortation to his flock, and as he reached the climax of his exhortation, a man in the front row got up and said, `O Lord, use me. Use me, O Lord - in an advisory capacity!' Adlai Stevenson Be frank and explicit. That is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of others. Benjamin Disraeli To make pleasure pleasant, shorten. Charles Buston Put all thine eggs in one basket and - watch that basket. Mark Twain It has seemed to be more necessary to have regard to the weight of words rather than to their number. Cicero A pint of example is worth a gallon of advice. People take your example far more seriously than they take your advice. Trying to give people the benefit of your experience is one way of getting a lot more. If you want people to notice your faults, start giving advice. The best way to lose a friend is to tell him something for his own good. The best thing one friend can do for another is to refrain from giving advice. One form of generosity that can lead to trouble consists in giving others a piece of your mind. About all some people are giving these days is advice. Don't offer me advice, give me money. Spanish proverb If you aren't rich, you should always look useful. Louis-Ferdinand Celine He who can lick can bite. French proverb When a man comes to me for advice, I find out the kind of advice he wants, and I give it to him. Josh Billings We only make a dupe of the friend whose advice we ask, for we never tell him all; and it is usually what we have left unsaid that decides our conduct. Dinne de Poitiers I give myself, sometimes admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it. Mary Wortley Montague Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into, the mind. Samuel Taylor Coleridge The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not and never persist in trying to set people right. Hannah Whitall Smith `Be yourself!' is about the worst advice you can give to some people. Tom Masson Juvenile delinquency would disappear if kids followed their parent's advice instead of their examples. A juvenile delinquent usually prefers vice to advice. Marriage is perhaps the most expensive way to get advice for nothing. The worst thing about growing old is having to listen to a lot of advice from one's children. Old age is that period when a man is too old to take advice but young enough to give it. A bull does not enjoy fame in two herds. Rhodesian proverb The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Fewer things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. Mark Twain There only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never any use to oneself. Oscar Wilde A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice. Edgar Watson Howe There is little serenity comparable to the serenity of the inexperienced giving advice to the experienced. Anon. Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least. Lord Chesterfield It is well enough, when one is talking to a friend, to lodge in an odd word by way of counsel now and then; but there is something mighty irksome in its staring upon one in a letter, where one ought to see only kind words and friendly remembrances. Mary Lamb Men of much depth of mind can bear a great deal of counsel; for it does not easily deface their own character, nor render their purposes indistinct Arthur Helps Have more than thou showest, Speak less than thou knowest. Shakespeare, `King Lear' What you don't see with your eyes, don't invent with your tongue. Jewish proverb If you keep your mind sufficiently open, people will throw a lot of rubbish into it. William A. Orton Don't fight forces; use them. Backminster Fuller Drink nothing without seeing it; sign nothing without reading it. Spanish proverb What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers. Marina Horner

Afflictions

I thank God for my handicaps, for through them, I have found myself, my work and my God. Helen Keller Affliction is able to drown out every earthly voice. . . but the voice of eternity within a man it cannot drown. When by the aid of affliction all irrelevant voices are brought to silence, it can be heard, this voice within. Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855) Affliction is God's shepherd dog to drive us back to the fold. Affliction, like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites. Afflictions are but the shadow of God's wings. George Macdonald (1824-1905) Afflictions make the heart more deep, more experimental, more knowing and profound, and so, more able to hold, to contain, and beat more. John Bunyan (1628-1688) All your fingernails grow with inconvenient speed except the broken one. Ogden Nash (1902-1971) As in nature and in the arts, so in grace: it is rough treatment that gives souls, as well as stones, their luster. The more the diamond is cut, the brighter it sparkles, and in what seems hard dealings God has no end in view but to perfect our graces. Thomas Guthrie (1803-1873) As out of Jesus' affliction came a new sense of God's love and a new basis for love between men, so out of our affliction we may grasp the splendor of God's love and how to love one another; Thus the consummation of the two commandments was on Golgotha; and the Cross is, at once, their image and their fulfillment. Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990) As the sea is subject to storm and tempests, so is every man in the world. John Donne (1572-1631) By afflictions God is spoiling us of what otherwise might have spoiled us. When he makes the world too hot for us to hold, we let it go. Sir John Powell (1633-1696) Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves. Sir William Davenant (1606-1668) God has many sharp cutting instruments and rough files for the polishing of his jewels; and those he especially loves and means to make the most resplendent, he often uses his tools upon. Archbishop Robert Leighton (1611-1684) God ne'er afflicts us more than our desert, Though he may seem to overact his part Sometimes he strikes us more than flesh can bear But yet still less than grace can suffer here. Robert Herrick (1591-1674) God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late, They touch the shining hills of day. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) Good when he gives, supremely good, Nor less when he denies, E'en crosses from his sovereign hand Are blessings in disguise. James Hervey (1714-1758) If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace. If he has made it bitter; drink it in communion with him. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) Men think that God is destroying them when he is tuning them. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) On the top of those very billows which look as if they would overwhelm us walks the Son of God. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) Open thy gate of mercy, gracious God! My soul flies through these wounds to seek out thee. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Take the cross he sends as it is, and not as you imagine it to be. Cornelia Augusta Peacock Connelly (1809-1879) The flame will not corrode or blacken gold, for fire burns it pure and clean, and gives it a shining color. Saint Mechthild of Magdeburg (C. 1210-C. 1280) The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) The only way to meet affliction is to pass through it solemnly, slowly, with humility and faith, as the Israelites passed through the sea. Then its very waves of misery will divide and become to us a wall, on the right side and on the left, until the gulf narrows before our eyes and we land safe on the opposite shore. Dinah Maria Mulock Crane (1826-1887) There are disasters to be faced by the one who is in real fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. God has never promised to keep us immune from trouble. He says, "I will be with him in trouble," which is a very different thing. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) This is the blessing of affliction to those who will lie still and not struggle in a cowardly or a resentful way. It is God speaking to Job out of the whirlwind, and saying, "In the sunshine and the warmth you cannot meet me; but in the hurricane and the darkness when wave after wave has swept down and across the soul, you shall see my form and hear my voice and know that your Redeemer lives." Frederick William Robertson (1816-1853) Turn your scars into stars. Robert Harold Schuller (1926- ) When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord's choicest wines. Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661) When it is dark enough, men see the stars. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) When our faith, hope, and love ends, God's begins. Chris Anderson Who in this mortal life would see The Light that is beyond all light, Beholds it best by going forth Into the darkness of the night. Angelus Silesius (1624-1677)

Aging

Old age is when you find yourself using one bend-over to pick up two things. By the time we learn to watch our step, we're not stepping out very much. In youth the days are short and the years are long; in old age the years are short and the days long. Nikita Panin The first forty years of life give you the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it. Arthur Schopenhauer You are permitted to kill a woman who has injured you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. Ambrose Bierce When people tell you how young you look, they are also telling you how old you are. Cary Grant To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old. Oliver Wendell Holmes Age is what makes furniture worth more and people worth less. Which do‑you suppose ages faster ‑whiskey or the man who drinks it? Age is like love. It cannot be hidden. Forty is the age when you begin to realize how much fun you had when you were twenty. By the time a man finds greener pastures, he's too old to climb the fence. A man is usually as young as he feels but seldom as important. The time‑tested method of slowing down advancing age seems to be misrepresentation. Age is the best possible fire extinguisher for flaming youth. Sixty‑five is the age when one acquires sufficient experience to lose his job. To be seventy years young is sometimes more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old. You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea. The awkward age is when you are too old for the Peace Corps and too young for Social Security. People aren't really living any longer ‑ it just seems that way. Regardless of their age, most folks are not as old as they hope to be. Some people think the proper age for a man to start thinking of marriage is when he's old enough to realize he shouldn't. Life's golden age is when the children are too old to need baby sitters and too young to borrow the family car. By all means go ahead and mellow with age. Just be wary of getting rotten. A California woman says her husband is at the dangerous age when all females look alike to him ‑ desirable! Age has nothing to do with learning new ways to be stupid. How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was? Satchel Paige The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. Oscar Wilde The beauty of old men is the grey head. Proverbs 20:29 Age is a sorry traveling companion. Danish proverb No one is so old as to think he cannot live one more year. Cicero When a woman tells you her age it's all right to look surprised, but don't scowl. Wilson Mizner If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should never grow old. James A. Garfield The woman who tells her age is either too young to have anything to lose or too old to have anything to gain. Chinese proverb A woman is as old as she looks; A man is old when he stops looking. Nobody loves life like him who is growing old. Sophocles There are so few who can grow old with a good grace. Richard Steele When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice. The worst thing, I fear, about being no longer young, is that one is no longer young. Harold Nicolson It is time to be old, To take in sail. Ralph Waldo Emerson Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavor to understand him. George Santayana Few people know how to be old. La Rochefoucauld I really believe that more harm is done by old men who cling to their influence than by young men who anticipate it. Owen D. Young A man over ninety is a great comfort to all his elderly neighbors: he is a picket-guard at the extreme outpost; and the young folks of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy must get by him before he can come near their camp. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Age is a high price to pay for maturity. Tom Stoppard To know how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living. Henri Frederic Amiel When I was very young, I was disgracefully intolerant but when I passed the thirty mark I prided myself on having learned the beautiful lesson that all things were good, and equally good. That, however, was really laziness. Now, thank goodness, I've sorted out what matters and what doesn't. And I'm beginning to be intolerant again. G. B. Stern No wise man ever wished to be younger. Jonathan Swift I must be getting absent-minded. Whenever I complain that things aren't what they used to be, I always forget to include myself. George Burns Growing old--it's not nice, but it's interesting. August Strindberg They tell you that you'll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don't tell you is that you won't miss it very much. Malcolm Cowley To be seventy year young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. One of the delights known to age, and beyond the grasp of youth, is that of `not going.' J.B. Priestley A man of sixty has spent twenty years in bed and over three years in eating. Arnold Bennett The role of a retired person is no longer to possess one. Simone de Beauvoir Middle age: when you're sitting at home on Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn't for you. Ogden Nash No Spring, nor Summer beauty hath such grace, As I have seen in one Autumnal face. John Donne If you live long enough the venerability factor creeps in; you get accused of things you never did and praised for virtues you never had. I.F. Stone The worst thing, I fear, about being no longer young, is that one is no longer young. Harold Nicholson I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left. Voltaire Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy man has no time to form. Andre Maurois Old age is an island surrounded by death. Juan Montalvo It is time to be old, To take in sail. Ralph Waldo Emerson I feel age like an icicle down my back. Dyson Carter Old age is a time of humiliations, the most disagreeable of which, for me, is that I cannot work long at sustained high pressure with no leaks in concentration. Igor Stravinsky Dignity, high station, or great riches are in some sort necessary to old men, in order to keep the younger at a distance, who are otherwise too apt to insult them upon the score of their age. Jonathan Swift The young feel tired at the end of an action; The old at the beginning. T.S. Eliot Old foxes want no tutors. Thomas Fuller Old birds are hard to pluck. German proverb A man of fifty looks as old as Santa Claus to a girl of twenty. William Feather How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are? Satchell Paige The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. Oscar Wilde The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another. Quentin Crisp Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavour to understand him. George Santayana Zsa Zsa Gabor, when asked which of the Gabor women was the oldest, said `She'll never admit it, but I believe it is Mama.' When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings. Jonathan Swift When you are forty, half of you belongs to the past ... And when you are seventy, all of you. Jean Anouilh To an old man any place that's warm is homeland. Maxim Gorky By the time a man gets well into his seventies his continued existence is a mere miracle. Robert Louis Stevenson One trouble with growing older is that it gets progressively tougher to find a famous historical figure who didn't amount to much when he was your age. Bill Vaughan Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age. Victor Hugo Middle age is youth without its levity, And age without decay. Daniel Defoe And he (King David) died in a good old age, full of days, riches and honour. 1 Chronicles 29:28 I never dared be radical when young For fear it would make me conservative when old. Robert Frost Old age is by nature rather talkative. Cicero Old age, especially an honoured old age, has so great authority, that this is of more value than all the pleasures of youth. Cicero Age has a good mind and sorry shanks. Pietro Aretino To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am. Bernard Baruch Few people know how to be old. La Rochefoucauld First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to pull your zipper up, then you forget to pull your zipper down. Leo Rosenberg I really believe that more harm is done by old men who cling to their influence than by young men who anticipate it. Owen D. Young He had come to that time in his life (it varies for every man) when a human being gives himself over to his demon or to his genius, according to a mysterious law which orders him either to destroy or to surpass himself. Marguerite Yourcenar The individual succumbs, but he does not die if he has left something to mankind. Will Durant It is always in season for old men to learn. Aeschylus So, lively brisk old fellow, don't let age get you down. White hairs or not, you can still be a lover. Goethe He that has seen both sides of fifty has lived to little purpose if he has no other views of the world than he had when he was much younger. William Cowper Let us respect grey hairs, especially our own. J.P. Senn The spiritual eyesight improves as the physical eyesight declines. Plato A man over ninety is a great comfort to all his elderly neighbours: he is a picket-guard at the extreme outpost: and the young folks of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy must get by him before he can come near their camp. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. An old codger, rampant, and still learning. Aldous Huxley A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Many a man that couldn't direct ye to th' drug store on th' corner when he was thirty will get a respectful hearing when age has further impaired his mind. Finley Peter Dunne The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of their blood. Logan Pearsall Smith Never have I enjoyed youth so thoroughly as I have in my old age. In writing Dialogues in Limbo, The Last Puritan, and now all these descriptions of the friends of my youth and the young friends of my middle age, I have drunk the pleasure of life more pure, more joyful than it ever was when mingled with all the hidden anxieties and little annoyances of actual living. Nothing is inherently and invincibly young except spirit. And spirit can enter a human being perhaps better in the quiet of old age and dwell there more undisturbed than in the turmoil of adventure. George Santayana The arctic loneliness of age. S. Weir Mitchell When pain ends, gain ends too. Robert Browning No gains without pains. Adlai Stevenson The trombone age (moving the page back and forth). Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Longevity is having a chronic disease and taking care of it. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Age is a high price to pay for maturity. Tom Stoppard I'm very pleased with each advancing year. It stems back to when I was forty. I was a bit upset about reaching that milestone, but an older friend consoled me. `Don't complain about growing old -- many people don't have that privilege.' Earl Warren Life has got to be lived -- that's all there is to it. At seventy, I would say the advantage is that you take life more calmly. You know that `this, too., shall pass!' Eleanor Roosevelt It is the fear of being as dependent as a young child, while not being loved as a child is loved, but merely being kept alive against one's will. Malcolm Cowley Happy the man who gains sagacity in youth, but thrice happy he who retains the fervour of youth in age. Dagobert Runes Your old men shall dream dreams; your young men shall see visions. Joel 2:28 I am long on ideas, but short on time. I expect to live only about a hundred years. Thomas A. Edison How beautifully the leaves grow old. How full of light and colour are their last days. John Burroughs In the last few years everything I'd done up to sixty or so has seemed very childish. T.S. Eliot What makes old age so sad is not that our joys but our hopes cease. Jean Paul Richter The young man knows the rules but the old man knows the exceptions. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. To know how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living. Henri Frederic Amiel When you reach your sixties, you have to decide whether you're going to be a sot or an ascetic. In other words if you want to go on working after you're sixty, some degree of asceticism is inevitable. Malcolm Muggeridge Old age is not so bad when you consider the alternatives. Maurice Chevalier Yes, I'm 68, but when I was boy I was too poor to smoke, so knock off ten years. That makes me 58. And since I never developed the drinking habit, you can knock off ten more years. So I'm 48 - in the prime of my life. Retire? Retire to what? W.A.C. Bennett When I was very young, I was disgracefully intolerant but when I passed the thirty mark I prided myself on having learned the beautiful lesson that all things were good, and equally good, That, however, was really laziness. Now, Thank goodness, I've sorted out what matters and what doesn't. And I'm beginning to be intolerant again. G.B. Stern Senescence begins And middle age ends, The day your descendants Outnumber your friends. Ogden Nash Time must needs all the tune and man must follow it. Alain On the day of his death, in his eightieth year, Elliot, `the Apostle of the Indians,' was found teaching an Indian child at his bedside. `Why not to rest from your labours now? asked a friend. `Because,' replied the venerable man, `I have prayed God to render me useful in my sphere, and he has heard my prayers; for now that I can no longer preach, he leaves me strength enough to teach this poor child the alphabet.' S. Chaplin As the world is wearies of me so am I of it. John Knox Middle age is when you have a choice of two temptations and choose the one that will get you home earlier. Anon. No wise man ever wished to be younger. Jonathan Swift The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness. Eric Hoffer Every man who has lived his life to the full should, by the time his senior years are reached, have established a reserve inventory of unfinished thinking. Clarence Randall For the unlearned, old age is winter; for the learned, it is the season of the harvest. Hasidic saying My opportunities were still there; nay, they multiplied tenfold; but the strength and youth to cope with them began to fail, and to need eking out with the shifty cunning of experience. George Bernard Shaw I must be getting absent-minded. Whenever I complain that things aren't what they used to be, I always forget to include myself. George Burns We grow neither better nor worse as we get old, but more like ourselves May Lamberton Becker It's never too late to have a fling For autumn is just as nice as spring And it's never too late to fall in love. Sandy Wilson Growing old -it's not nice, but it's interesting. August Strindberg Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Shakespeare, `Cymbeline If you think that I am to brother myself again before I die about social improvement, or read any of those stinking upward and onwarders-you err - I mean to have some good out of being old. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. They tell you that you'll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don't tell you is that you won't miss it very much. Malcolm Cowley I have learned little from the years that fly; but I have wrung the colour from the years. Frances Pollock Grow up as soon as you can. It pays. The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. Harvey Allen, Anthony Adverse Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life for which the first was made: R. Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra As a white candle in a holy place, So is the beauty of an aged face. Joseph Campbell, The Old Woman We do not count a man's years, until he has nothing else to count. Emerson, Society and Solitude That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times, still succeed the former. Herrick, TO the Virgins Your old men shall dream dreams; your young men shall see visions. Old Testament, Joel, II, 28 Crabbed age and youth cannot live together. Shakespeare, The Passionate Pilgrim I have lived long enough; my way of life Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf: Shakespeare, Macbeth, V, 3 When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book. W. B. Yeats, When You Are Old

Aggressiveness

The individual activity of one man with backbone will do more than a thousand men with a mere wishbone. J. H. Boetcher Not only strike while the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking. Oliver Cromwell You can't achieve anything without getting in someone's way. Abba Eban Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. Ecclesiastes 9:10

Agitation

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. Frederick Douglass

Agreement

I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me. When two men in business always agree about everything, one of them is unnecessary. Reasonable men always agree if they understand what they're talking about. This country needs closer agreement on what this country needs. When you say that you agree to .thing in principle, you mean that you do not have the slightest intention of carrying it out. It's easier to get folks to agree to do better tomorrow‑than to get them to do their best today. A "gentleman's agreement" is a deal which neither party cares to put in writing. An intelligent conversationalist is one who nods his head in agreement while you're talking. The real spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it. A divorce is what couples agree on when they can't agree on anything else. The man who always agrees with you lies to others also. Dudley Field Malone You may easily play a joke on a man who likes to argue--agree with him. Ed Howe

Agriculture

Blessed be agriculture! If one does not have too much of it. Charles Dudley

Aim

Not failure but low aim is crime.

Air

The air is about the only remaining thing that's free, and it is becoming dangerous to breathe.

Air age

There are two places the jet planes have brought closer together ‑ this world and the next. Airplane fares have been increased considerably. Even the cost of going up is going up. You can't fool all the people all the time, but the airplane schedules come pretty close. Our modern airplanes fly so fast we don't have time to get acquainted with all the stewardesses. Our new faster‑than‑sound jet planes are wonderful. You can eat dinner in London and get indigestion in New York City. Air travel is wonderful. It allows you to pass motorists at a safe distance. The wife of a pilot is the only woman who is glad to see her husband down and out. It's a small world, once you've made the long trip to the airport.

Air Conditioning

The best thing about an air conditioner is that the neighbors can't borrow it.

Airplane

It will soon take only two hours to get around the world--one hour for the flying and one hour to get to the airport.

Airports

It would have helped a lot if the pioneers had located cities closer to airports.

Alarm Clocks

One thing an alarm clock never arouses is our better nature. Did you ever have one of those days when the only thing that goes off as planned is your alarm clock? What most folks need is an alarm clock that will ring when it's time for them to rise to the occasion. There's a new alarm clock on the market for actors. It doesn't ring ‑ it applauds. The trouble with alarm clocks is that they always go off when you're asleep. An alarm clock is a device for awakening people who don't have small children. When the alarm clock rings the best part of the day is over. A fortune awaits the inventor of an alarm clock that can't go off. Blessed is the man who can hear his alarm clock on Sunday as well as on Monday. An alarm clock is a device that makes men rise and whine. You can often gauge a man's ambition by whether he hates his alarm clock or considers it his dear friend. The only thing worse than hearing the alarm clock in the morning is not hearing it. Some men have alarm clocks; I have my wife's elbow.

Alcoholics

Accidents happen every hunting season because both hunter and gun are loaded. The favorite drink of an alcoholic is the next one. To escape alcoholism is simple. Never take the drink just before the second one. An alcoholic can neither live with alcohol nor without it. No alcoholic is really anonymous. An alcoholic is not one who drinks too much, but one who can't drink enough. The typical alcoholic insists he drinks only on special occasions, like when the sun goes down every day. An alcoholic claims a little too much liquor is just about right. An alcoholic from Texas says he refused a drink only once in his life and that was when he misunderstood the question. Alcoholic joys are brief ‑ the results are lasting. It is useless for alcoholics to worry about the future for there will soon be no future for them to worry about. Alcoholics Alias is a group in which they continue to drink, but under an assumed name. A man in Colorado complains that the only thing lit up on his block after 11 P.M. is his neighbor. With all the diets we hear and read about, it appears there are more problem eaters than problem drinkers. A drunkard can live neither with alcohol nor without it. There's nothing more stubborn than a drunkard trying to convince you he isn't. Some folks drink liquor as if they want to be mentioned in "BOOZE WHO." Some recent laws would indicate the lawmakers not only passed the bar but also stopped there.

Ale

And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man. A. E. Houseman, A Shropshire Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale? Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II 3 Back and side go bare, go bare: Both foot and hand go cold; But belly, God send thee good ale enough, Whether it be new or old. John Still (?), Gammer Gurton's Needle

Alibis

Giving it another try is better than an alibi. The worst buy is an alibi. Many a husband has learned that an ironclad alibi isn't as effective as a diamond‑studded one. An alibi is first cousin to an excuse, and they're both mighty poor relatives. An alibi is the legal proof that a person wasn't where he was and, therefore, couldn't do what he did. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but it's better than no alibi at all. What the weatherman saves for a rainy day is probably an alibi.

Alimony

Alimony is repossessed love that one must still pay out on the installment plan. Alimony is the fee you have to pay for name dropping. An actress in Hollywood described her ex‑husband, "He's six feet tall in his socks and $2,000 short in his alimony payments." Paying alimony is like paying installments on a car after you've wrecked it. Alimony is different from take‑home pay; it's leave‑home pay. A man doesn't know the value of a woman's love until he starts paying alimony. In the old days a woman. married a man for his money, but now she divorces him for it. There's only one thing more expensive than a wife ‑ an ex-wife! Anybody who thinks severance pay is something new probably doesn't understand alimony. Alimony is when a fellow mails home the money instead of bringing it. A man never realizes how short a month is until he starts paying alimony. Alimony is a system in which one pays for the mistakes of two. Alimony is another war debt a lot of husbands would like to see cancelled. Alimony probably works out right after all. The less a woman deserves it, the more it's worth to be rid of her. Alimony is payment for services not rendered. The word alimony is a contraction of "all his money." Americans have always been willing to pay and price for freedom. If you don't believe it, look at the divorce statistics! Some girls get married for financial security; others get divorced for the same reason. In Hollywood there's a group called Divorce Anonymous. If a male member feels the urge to get a divorce, they send over an accountant to talk him out of it. Nothing makes for undying love in Hollywood like the prompt arrival of alimony checks. A guaranteed income is nothing new in this country. We've had alimony for years. Alimony is the high cost of leaving.

Alliances

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations ‑entan­gling alliances with none. Jefferson, First Inaugural Address

Alliteration

Who oft but without success, have prayed For Apt Alliteration's Artful Aid. Charles Churchill, Prophecy of Famine An Austrian army, awfully arrayed, Boldly by battery besieged Belgrade; Cossack commanders cannonading come, Dealing destruction' devastating doom; A. A. Watts, The Siege of Belgrade

Allowance

An allowance is what you pay your children to live with you.

Alone

Better be alone than in bad company.

Amateurs

Show me an amateur, and I'll show you a person who is always willing to give you the benefit of his inexperience.

Ambition

Ambition may be all right, but it sure can get a fellow into a lot of hard work. When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank. Cicero Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions. Henry W. Longfellow I have no political ambitions for myself or my children. Joseph P. Kennedy The ripest peach is highest on the tree. James Whitcomb Riley I had ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before, but as far as it was possible for a man to go. Captain James Cook We grow small trying to be great. E. Stanley Jones We rate ability in men by what they finish, not by what they attempt. Some fellows dream of worthy accomplishments and others stay awake and do them. Every accomplishment, great or small, starts with the right decision, "I'll Try." Don't just stand there ‑ do something! Don't sit back and take what comes. Go after what you want. The fellow who has an abundance of push gets along very well without pull. Once it was ambition that kept people on the move. Now it's no parking signs. The average man's modest ambition is to make his weekly paycheck last a week. You can often gauge a man's ambition by whether he hates his alarm clock or considers it his dear friend. One of the secret ambitions of many people is to be able to enjoy some of the evils which go with having too much money. Ambition never gets anywhere until it forms a partnership with work. Young men who leave home to set the world on fire usually have to come back home for more matches. The average man's ambition is to be able to afford what he's spending. Ambition in America is still rewarded with high taxes. Watch out for ambition! It can get you into a lot of hard work. Every man has a secret ambition to outsmart horses, fish, and women. Too low they build who build below the skies. Edward Young All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind. Joseph Conrad All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries of others. Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) Ambition destroys its possessor. Talmud The tragedy is that so many have ambition and so few have ability. Our forefathers founded an enduring republic that has had to endure a lot more than they thought it would have to endure. A man with a burning ambition is seldom fired. The ambition of some girls is to make a man a good husband. Ambition without determination has no destination. There are only two kinds of failures: the man who will do nothing he is told, and the man who will do nothing else. Abraham Lincoln was great, not because he once lived in a cabin, but because he got out of it. The plain fact is that human beings are happy only when they are striving for something worthwhile. If more husbands had self‑starters, fewer wives would have to be cranks. Don't wait for your ship to come in if you haven't sent one out. Most lazy people have about as much initiative as an echo. The average man doesn't want much and usually gets less than that. The man with PUSH will pass the man with PULL. Most great men come from small towns. We don't know whether it's because of ambition or gossip. It is the secret ambition of every loyal American to discover the stream in which a president should never be changed in the middle of. The best ammunition to fight poverty is a load of ambition fired with effort toward a definite goal. The world has too many cranks and not enough self‑starters. Just about everybody will agree that our country is on the move, though there is plenty of argument about the direction. This country needs closer agreement on what this country needs. Ambition is greed for power. Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832) Ambition is ruthless; any person that it cannot use it throws aside. Ambition is the grand enemy of all peace. John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) Ambition is to become a foreman so you can get paid for watching other people work. Ambition: a mental condition that compels one to work one's self to death in order to live. However high we reach, we are never satisfied. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) I charge thee, fling away ambition: By that sin fell the angels. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) In our natural life our ambitions are our own. In the Christian life we have no aim of our own, and God's aim looks like missing the mark because we are too shortsighted to see what he is aiming at. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) Personal ambition and empire building are hindering the spread of the gospel. John R. W. Stott (1921- ) The fruit of the Spirit is not push, drive, climb, grasp, and trample. Don't let the rat-racing world keep you on its treadmill. There is a legitimate place for blood, sweat, and tears; but it should have its roots in the call of God, not in the desire to get ahead. Life is more than a climb to the top of the heap. Richard J. Foster (1942- ) The Lord frustrates our plans, shatters our purposes, lets us see the wreck of all our hopes, and whispers to us, "It's not your work I wanted, but you." You cannot be anything if you want to be everything. Solomon Schechter (1847-1915) You may get to the very top of the ladder and find it has not been leaning against the right wall. A. Raine All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulity of mankind. Joseph Conrad, A Personal Record I would rather be the first man here than the second in Rome. Julius Caesar (according to Plutarch) I had Ambition, by which sin The angels fell; I climbed and, step by step, O Lord, Ascended into Hell. W. H. DAVIES, Ambition Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition: By that sin fell the angels; Shakespeare, Henry VIII, III, 2

America and Americans

America is one place where the people have complete control over how they pay their taxes--cash, check, or money order. America is still the land of opportunity. Where else could you earn enough to owe so much? Americanism means finding fault with other countries for not solving their problems, while we wait without hope for the Government to solve ours. I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country. Nathan Hale Americans are like a rich father who wishes he knew how to give his son the hardships that made him rich. Robert Frost (A country where) the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience. Oscar Wilde We are now at the point where we must decide whether we are to honour the concept of a plural society which gains strength through diversity, or whether we are to have bitter fragmentation that will result in perpetual tension and strife. Errol Warren Part of the American dream is to live long and die young. Edgar Z. Friedenberg Why, if you're not in New York you are camping out. Thomas W. Dewing Nothing ever gets settled in this town (Washington). It's not like running a company or even a university. It's a seething debating society, in which the debate never stops; in which people never give up, including me, and that's the atmosphere in which you administer. Secretary of State, George P. Shultz The skyline of New York is a monument of a splendour that no pyramids or palaces will ever equal or approach. Ayn Rand Whoever wants to know the hearts and minds of America had better learn baseball. Jacques Barzun Americans are like a rich father who wishes he knew how to give his son the hardships that made him rich. Robert Frost America . . . an economic system prouder of the distribution of its products than of the products themselves. Murray Kempton The United States was born in the country and moved to the city in the nineteenth century. Anon. Delaware: a state that has three counties when the tide is out, and who when it is in. J.J. Ingalls Washington is an endless series of mock palaces clearly built for clerks. Add Louise Huxtable The Americans believe they answered all first questions in 1776: since then they've just been hammering out the practical details. Ray Smith The trouble with the American public is that it thinks something is better than nothing. Alfred Stieglitz Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf. Lewis Mumford Americans have a special horror of letting things happen their own way, without interference. They would like to jump down their stomachs, digest the food, and shovel the shit out. William Burroughs When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply `Ours.' Vine Deloria, Jr. In the United States `First' and `Second' class can't be painted on railroad cars, for all passengers, being Americans, are equal and it would be `un-American.' But paint `Pullman' on a car and everyone is satisfied. Owen Wister The true America is the Middle West, and Columbus discovered nothing at all except another Europe. W.L. George By the laws of probability, North America ought to speak French, not English, today. Alan Gowans In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. This is what makes America what it is. Gertrude Stein You say to your soldier, `Do this' and he does it. But I am obliged to say to the American, `This is why you ought to do this' and then he does it. Baron von Steuben The greatest American superstition is belief in facts. Hermann Keyserling America should care more for its poor and reform itself in other ways; but even if it won't to those things, it remains the least constrained society on earth. Robert M. Adams Florida: God's waiting room. Glenn le Grice If I were to go over my life again, I would be a shoemaker rather than an American statesman. John Adams The Englishman is under no constitutional obligation to believe that all men are created equal. The American agony is therefore scarcely intelligible, like a saint's self-flagellation viewed by an atheist. John Updike There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong. G.K. Chesterton Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. H.L. Mencken Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris. Thomas Gold Appleton The sorrows and disasters of Europe always brought fortune to America. Stephen Leacock The American's conversation is much like his courtship . . . He gives an inkling and watches for a reaction; if the weather looks fair, he inkles a little more, Wishing neither to intrude to intrude nor be intruded upon, he advances by stages of acceptance, by levels of agreement, by steps of concurrence. Donald Lloyd The central fact of North American history is that there were fifteen British Colonies before 1776. Thirteen rebelled and two did not. June Callwood The word of New York is activity. V.S. Pritcheff A natural New York is a native of the present tense. V.S. Pritcheff New York is notoriously inhospitable to the past, disowning it whenever it can. John D. Rosenberg That enfabled rock, that ship life, that swarming, million-footed, towermasted, sky-soaring citadel that bears the magic name of the Island of Manhattan. Thomas Wolfe I don't like the life here in New York. There is no greenery. It would make a stone sick. Nikita S. Khrushchev New York, the nation's thyroid gland. Christopher Morley You will find the Americans much as the Greeks found the Romans: great big, vulgar bustling people more vigorous than we are and also more idle, with more unspoiled virtues but also more corrupt. Harold Macmillan As for what you're calling hard luck - well, we made New England out of it. That and codfish. Stephen Vincent Benet The lusts of the flesh can be gratified anywhere; it is not this sort of licence that distinguishes New York. It is, rather, a lust of the total ego for recognition, even for eminence. More elsewhere, everybody here wants to be somebody. Sydney J. Harris After twenty annual visits, I am still surprised each time I return to see this giant asparagus bed of alabaster and rose and green skyscrapers. Cecil Beaton He speaks English with the flawless imperfection of a New Yorker. Gilbert Millstein A town that has no ceiling price, A town of double-talk; A town so big men name her twice, Like so: `N'Yawk, N'Yawk.' Christopher Morley And this is good old Boston The home of the bean and the cod- Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots, And the Cabots talk only to God. J.C. Bossidy A Bostonian - an American, broadly speaking. G. E. Woodberry The swaggering underemphasises of New England. Heywood Brown New England is a finished place. Its destiny is that of Florence or Venice, not Milan, while the American empire careens onward toward its predicted end . . . it is the first American section to be finished, to achieve stability in the conditions of its life. It is the first old civilization, the first permanent civilization in America. Bernard de Voto A well-established village in New England or the northern Middle -West could afford a town drunkard, a town atheist and a few Democrats. D.W. Brogan I shall enter on no encomuim upon Massachusset; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. Daniel Webster The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February. Joseph Wood Krutch Boston is a moral and intellectual nursery always busy a applying first principles to trifles. George Santayana America - the best poor man's country in the world. William Allen Chicago - a facade of skyscrapers facing a lake and behind the facade every type of dubiousness. E.M. Forster I'm form Indiana, the home of more first-rate second-class men than any other state in the union. Thomas R. Marshall Pennsylvania, the state that has produced two great men: Benjamin. Franklin of Massachusetts, and Albert Gallatin of Switzerland. J.J. Ingalls Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders. Carl Sandburg `Chicago' I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me. Willard D. Vandiver Washington is a place where men praise courage and act on elaborate personal cost-benefit calculations. J.K. Galbraith America! America! God shed His grace on thee. KATHARINE L. BATES, America the Beautiful O, Columbia, the gem of the ocean, The home of the brave and the free, The shrine of each patriot's devotion, A world offers homage to there. THOMAS A. BECKET (an English actor, 1843) Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day; Time's noblest offspring is the last. GEORGE BERDELEY, Bishop of Cloyne, On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America (1745) Bring me men to match my mountains, Bring me men to match my plains, Men with empires in their purpose, And new eras in their brains. S. W. FOSS, The Coming American Hail, Columbia! Happy land! JOSEPH HOPKINSON, Hail, Columbia (1789) The land of the free and the home of the brave. FRANCIS SCOTT KEY, The Star‑spangled Banner Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other coun­try. SINCLAIR LEWIS, Speech Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great! LONGFELLOW, The Building of the Ship It will never be possible for any length of time for any group of the American people, either by reason of wealth or learning or inheritance or economic power, to retain any mandate, any perma­nent authority to arrogate to itself the political control of American public life. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, Address, June 1936 The American people never carry an umbrella. They prepare to walk in eternal sunshine. ALFRED E. SMITH, Speech My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing; SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH America (1831) The United States is not a nation of people which in the long run allows itself to be pushed around. DOROTHY THOMPSON, On the Record America is God's Crucible, the great Melting‑Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming. ISRAEL ZANGWILL, The Melting‑Pot, 1 I am not a Virginian, but an American. PATRICK HENRY, Speech, Sept. 5 1774 I am willing to love all mankind except an American. SAMUEL JOHNSON (Boswell, Life, III) . . . who reads an American book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue? . . . SYDNEY SMITH, Edinburgh Review (Jan. 1820) Some Americans need hyphens in their names because only part of them has come over. WOODROW WILSON, Address, May 16, 1914

Amusements

I am a great friend to public amusements, for they keep people from vice. Samuel Johnson

Ancestry

I would rather make my name than inherit it. W. M. Thackeray I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know who his grandson will be. Abraham Lincoln The Jukes were an old family too. LILLIAN HELLMAN, The Children's Hour I have often noticed that ancestors never boast of the descendants who boast of ancestors; I would rather start a family than finish one blood will tell but often it tells too much DON MARQUIS, a roach of the taverns The man who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors is like a potato ‑ the only good belonging to him is underground. SIR THOMAS OVERBURY, Characters (1614)

Angel

An angel is a spiritual creature created by God without a body for the service of Christendom and of the church. Martin Luther (1483-1546) Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Angels guard you when you walk with Me. What better way could you choose? Frances J. Roberts Angels see only the light, and devils only the darkness. Jakob Bohme (1575-1624) Around our pillows golden ladders rise, And up and down the skies, With winged sandals shod, The angels come and go, the Messengers of God! Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903) Cherubim, seraphim, all the angelic host as they are described in Scripture, have a wild and radiant power that often takes us by surprise. They are not always gentle. They bar the entrance to Eden, so that we may never return home. They send plagues upon the Egyptians. They are messengers of God. They are winds. They are flames of fire. They are young men dressed in white. Madeleine L'Engle (1918- ) Christians should never fail to sense the operation of angelic glory. It forever eclipses the world of demonic powers, as the sun does a candle's light. Billy Graham (1918- ) Hush! my dear; lie still and slumber; Holy angels guard thy bed. Heavenly blessings without number Gently falling on thy head. Isaac Watts (1674-1748) Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep: All these with ceaseless praise his works behold Both day and night. John Milton (1608-1674) The angels are the dispensers and administrators of the divine beneficence toward us; they regard our safety, undertake our defense, direct our ways, and exercise a constant solicitude that no evil befall us. John Calvin (1509-1564) The earth is to the sun what man is to the angels. Victor Hugo (1802-1885) The stars shine on brightly while Adam and Eve pursue their way into the far wilderness. There is a sound through the silence, as of the falling tears of an angel. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) There stands an angel by every man as soon as he is born to guide him through the mystery of life. Greek Proverb When angels come, the devils leave. Arabian Proverb How many angels can dance on the point of a very fine needle without jostling each other? ‑ISAAC D'ISRAELI, Curiosities of Literature (on an idea in Thomas Aquinas) Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. NEW TESTAMENT, Hebrews, XIII, 2 And flight of angels sing thee to thy rest! Shakespeare, Hamlet, V, 2

Anger

Never answer a letter while you are angry. Chinese proverb It is easy to fly into a passion--anybody can do that--but to be angry with the right person to the right extent and at the right time and with the right object and in the right way--that is not easy, and it is not everyone who can do it. Aristotle Had Narcissus himself seen his own face when he had been angry, he could never have fallen in love with himself. Thomas Fuller An angry man opens his mouth and shuts up his eyes. Cato He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. Proverbs 16:32 Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. Phyllis Diller I never work better than when I am inspired by anger; for when I am angry, I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart. Martin Luther "Anger" is just one letter short of danger. He is a fool who cannot get angry, but he is a wise man who will not. Never strike a child! You might miss and hurt yourself. Hot words never resulted in cool judgment. He who has a sharp tongue soon cuts his own throat. We never weather the storm by storming the weather. You can't put things across by getting cross. When a man is wrong and won't admit it, he always becomes angry. Speak when you ‑are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. To take the wind out of an angry man's sails ‑ stay calm. The size of a man is measured by the size of the thing that makes him angry. An angry man is seldom reasonable; a reasonable man is seldom angry. Anger is a state that starts with madness and ends with regret. The best way to get rid of a hothead is to give him the cold shoulder. You shouldn't get angry at someone who knows more than you do. After all, it's not his fault. Anger is like the fire extinguisher in a building ‑ it is to be used only in case of emergency. When angry count ten before speaking. When very angry count one hundred and then don't speak. For every minute you're angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness. Men with clenched fists cannot shake hands. No one can be reasonable and angry at the same time. Striking while the iron is hot may be all right, but don't strike while the head is hot. You are not a dynamic person simply because you blow your top. Have you noticed that a fire department never fights fire with fire? The world needs more warm hearts and fewer hot heads. People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing. Anyone who angers you conquers you. To be angry with a weak man is proof that you are not very strong yourself. An angry man stirreth up strife. Proverbs 29:22 Anger is a better sign of the heart than of the head; it is a breaking out of the disease of honesty. Marquess of Halifax Anger is never sudden. It is born of a long, prior irritation that has ulcerated the spirit and built up an accumulation of force that results in an explosion. It follows that a fine outburst of rage is by no means a sign of a frank, direct nature. Cesare Pavese Anger resteth in the bosom of fools. Ecclesiastes 7:9 Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Ephesians 4:26 Anger punishes itself. Angry men seldom want woe. Beware the fury of a patient man. John Dryden When angry, count four; when very angry, swear. Mark Twain Anger is a bad counselor. French proverb Anger renders the man insane and the prophet dumb. Hebrew proverb Anger manages everything badly. P. Statius However weak the hand, anger gives it strength. Ovid When you see a married couple who's coming down the street, the one two or three steps ahead is the one who's mad. The man who cannot be angry at evil usually lacks enthusiasm for good. Be strong enough to control your anger in­stead of letting it control you. No matter whether you are on the road or in an argument, when you begin to see red, STOP! The emptier the pot, the quicker the boil ‑watch your temper! Anger is a wind that blows out the lamp of the mind. Every time you give someone a piece of your mind you make your head a little emptier. The fellow who gets on a high horse is riding for a fall. One of the sorriest spectacles imaginable is the anger of two people who have gotten into an argument over something that neither of them knows anything about. Anger makes your mouth work faster than your mind. There are two things that a man should never be angry at ‑ what he can help, and what he cannot. The man who loses his head is usually the last one to miss it. It's easy to get up in the air. Coming down is what hurts. We have found that it's much easier to re­strain our wrath when the other fellow is bigger than we are. When a person strikes in anger, he usually misses the mark. Form the habit of closing your mouth firmly when angry. The greatest remedy for anger is delay. As a general rule, the angriest person in a controversy is the one who is wrong. The difference between a prejudice and a con­viction is that you can explain a conviction without getting angry. Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the high cost of hatred, and the waste of energy. It is hidden wrath that harms. Seneca The greatest remedy for anger is delay. Seneca Anger is as a stone cast into a wasp's nest. Malabar proverb An angry man is again angry with himself when he returns to reason. Publilius Syrus Whenever you are angry, be assured that it is not only a present evil, but that you have increased a habit. Epictetus When a man is wrong and won't admit it, he always gets angry. Thomas Haliburton A man who can't control his temper is like a city without defenses. Jewish Proverb An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes. Cato The Elder (234-149 B.C.) Anger can be an expensive luxury. Italian Proverb Anger is a weed; hate is the tree. Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Anger is quieted by a gentle word just as fire is quenched by water. Jean Pierre Camus (1584-1652) Anybody can become angry-that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way-that is not within everybody's power and is not easy. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) Arrows pierce the body, but harsh words pierce the soul. Spanish Proverb Control yourself! Anger is only one letter short of danger. Do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you. Isocrates (436-338 B.C.) Don't fly into a rage unless you are prepared for a rough landing. Don't get angry at the person who acts in ways that displease you. Give him the smile he lacks. Spread the sunshine of your Lord's limitless love. Joni Eareckson Tada Doomed are the hotheads! Unhappy are they who lose their cool and are too proud to say, "I'm sorry." Robert Harold Schuller (1926- ) Father expected a good deal of God. He didn't actually accuse God of inefficiency, but when he prayed, his tone was loud and angry, like that of a dissatisfied guest in a carelessly managed hotel. Clarence Shepard Day, Jr. (1874-1935) He that would be angry and sin not must not be angry with anything but sin. Thomas Secker (1693-1768) He who kicks up a storm should expect rough sailing. Heat not so hot a furnace for your antagonist that you burn yourself. Hitting the ceiling is the worst way to get up in the world. Hot heads and cold hearts never solved anything. Billy Graham (1918- ) I was angry with my friend. I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe. I told it not, my wrath did grow. William Blake (1757-1827) I was angry, for I had no shoes. Then I met a man who had no feet. Chinese Proverb It is easier to swallow angry words than to have to eat them. It is raging; the dust is blown high; who shall put out the flame? Arabian Proverb Malice never spoke well. William Camden (1551-1623) People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing. Will Rogers (1879-1935) Satan's most successful maneuver in churches and Christian organizations is to get people angry at one another; to attack and insult our brothers and sisters, thus splitting the body of Christ. James C. Dobson (1936- ) Sharp words make more wounds than surgeons can heal. So long as a man is angry he cannot be in the right. Chinese Proverb Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842-C. 1914) The continuance of anger is hatred. Francis Quarles (1592-1644) The greatest remedy for anger is delay. Lucius Annaeus Seneca (C. 4 B.C.-A.D. 65) The man who loses his temper quickest is the one who finds it quickest. The man you need to beware of is not the man who flares up, but the man who smolders, who is vindictive and harbors vengeance. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) The reason fat people are generally good-natured is that it takes them so long to get mad clear through. The seducer of thought. No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched. George Jean Nathan (1882-1958) The wrath of God is as pure as the holiness of God. When God is angry he is perfectly angry. When he is displeased there is every reason he should be. We tend to think of anger as sin; but sometimes it is sinful not to be angry. It is unthinkable that God would not be purely and perfectly angry with sin. Stuart Briscoe To reply to a nasty remark with another nasty remark is like trying to remove dirt with mud. Two heads are better than one, but not when they are soreheads. Two things a man should never be angry at: what he can help, and what he cannot help. When anger enters the mind, wisdom departs. Thomas A Kempis (C. 1380-1471) When anger was in Cain's heart, murder was not far off. Philip Henry (1631-1696) When angry, take a lesson from technology; always count down before blasting off. When I am angry I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart. Martin Luther (1483-1546) Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. Phyllis Diller Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry. Henry Ward Beecher Who can refute a sneer? William Paley I never work better than when I am inspired by anger; for when I am angry, I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart. Martin Luther There is no passion so much transports the sincerity of judgement as doth anger. Montaigne Don't get mad, get even. Robert F. Kennedy Anger raiseth invention, but it overheateth the oven. George, Lord Halifax Beware the fury of a patient man. John Dryden I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. William Blake When angry, count four; when every angry, swear. Mark Twain A good indignation brings out all one's powers. Ralph Waldo Emerson Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor. Attributed to Queen Elizabeth I It is impossible to express love with a clenched fist. The measure of a man is the size of the thing it takes to get his goat. Patience strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger, subdues pride, and bri­dles the tongue. Blowing your stack adds to air pollution. Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned. William Congreve Anger as soon as fed is dead - 'Tis starving makes it fat. Emily Dickinson Many people lose their tempers merely from seeing you keep yours. Frank Moore Colby

Animals

To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs. Aldous Huxley The quizzical expression of the monkey at the zoo comes from his wondering whether he is his brother's keeper, or his keeper's brother. Evan Esar You have now learned to see That cats are much like you and me And cats are much like you and me Possessed of various types of mind. T.S. Eliot No animal admires another animal Blaise Pascal The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too. Samuel Butler A Shetland pony is nothing but a compact horse. Animals are such agreeable friends; they ask no questions, they make no criticisms. An elephant never forgets. After all, what does it have to remember? Many people don't like horses because they're uncomfortable in the middle and dan­gerous at both ends. An ape is an animal with the effrontery to resemble man. A gorilla in a Dallas zoo watches a TV set near his cage. He appears to be almost hu­man ‑ except that he seems to enjoy the commercials. A racehorse is an animal that can take sev­eral thousand people for a ride at the same time. One nice thing about a horse is that its body won't rust after just one winter on salted roads. Many a bee has been drowned in his own honey. The bee that makes the honey doesn't hang around the hive. Bees can't make honey and sting at the same time. It's real nice for children to have pets until the pets start having children. People love goldfish because they like to see something with a mouth open that's not com­plaining. The reason the cow jumped over the moon was because there was a short circuit in the milking machine. Newfoundland dogs are good to save children from drowning, but you must have a pond of water handy a child, or else there will be no profit in boarding a Newfoundland. H.W. Shaw All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. George Orwell To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs. Aldous Huxley Cats -- a standing rebuke to behavioural scientist . . . least human of all creatures. Lewis Thomas I'd rather have an inch of dog than miles of pedigree. Dana Burnet There are no limits to God's compassion with Paradises over there on, universally felt what; he immediately created other animals besides. God's first blunder: Man didn't find the animals amusing - he dominated them and didn't even want to be an `animal.' Fredrich Nietzsche Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want. Joseph Wood Krutch Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms. George Eliot It is the way of a dog that if he hit by a stone, he bites a fellow dog. The Zohar I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. D.H. Lawrence If you have occasion to criticize a mule, do it to his face. For the holidays, why not give the gift that keeps on giving? ‑ a female cat. Man is the only animal that laughs, but when you look at some people, it's hard to understand how the animals keep from laughing. Veterinarians now devised a birth‑control pills for dogs ‑ it's part of an anti‑litter campaign. A mule is an animal that has no pride in ancestry and no hope of posterity. A farmer once said his mule was awfully backward about going forward ‑ and this is also true of a lot of people today. The donkey and the elephant play important roles in American politics. The bull plays a major role too. A scientist recently crossed a carrier pigeon with a woodpecker. The bird not only carries messages, but he knocks on the door. A robin redbreast in a cage Sets all heaven in a rage. William Blake I think one reason we admire cats, those of us who do, is their proficiency in one-upmanship. They always seem to come out on top, no matter what they are doing - or pretend they do. Rarely do you see a cat discomfited. They have no conscience, and they never regret. Maybe we secretly envy them. Barbara Webster I think I could turn and live with animals they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long, They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that liveth thousands of year ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. Walt Whitmam Cats are living adornments. Edwin Lent The dog is the god of frolic. Henry Ward Beecher

Anniversaries

The biggest surprise the average husband can give his wife on their anniversary is to remember it. Many a man who misses an anniversary catches it later.

Answers

Answers are what we have for other people's problems. No answer is also an answer. Danish proverb

Antipathy

A cruel story runs on wheels, and every hand oils the wheels as they run. Louise Ouida The offender never pardons. George Herbert All the while thou studiest revenge, thou art tearing thy own wound open.

Anticipation

If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble. Elbert Hubbard A man's delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything, the less we enjoy it when it comes. Arthur Schopenhauer We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting. Samuel Johnson Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is to be expecting evil before it comes. Seneca As quoted in Bob Phillips, Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts & Funny Sayings, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1993), p. 20.

Antiques

Antique is a magic word that makes something worthless suddenly priceless. The best antique is an old friend. Antiques are things that one generation buys, the next generation gets rid of, and the following generation buys again. The difference between antiques and junk depends on who's selling what to whom. Sign on an antique shop in Stockton, California: "Come in and buy what your grandmother threw away." An antique is something people forget to throw away until it becomes valuable. Some people who buy modern furniture have antiques by the time they finish paying for it. An antique is a fugitive from the junk yard with a price on its head. Sign in an antique shop in Baltimore: "Our prices are firm. The management is not emotionally equipped to haggle." Generally speaking, an antique is anything that has outlasted its warranty period. Things would be a lot nicer if antique people were valued as highly as antique furniture. Anybody could get rich if he could guess the exact moment at which a piece of junk becomes an antique. Two kinds of families are likely to have a house full of antique furniture: the kind with money and the kind with children. An antique is an object that has made a round trip to the attic. If it is hard to dust, it's probably an antique. One man's junk is another man's rare antique. Antiques aren't always as old as they are cracked up to be.

Anvil

The anvil fears no blows.

Anxiety

Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer. Ann Landers Neurotic means he is not as sensible as I am, and psychotic means he's even worse than my brother-in-law. Karl Menninger Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained. Arthur Somers Roche The thinner the ice, the more anxious is everyone to see whether it will bear. Josh Billings Where everything is bad, it must be good to know the worst. Francis H. Bradley We have a lot of anxieties, and one cancels out another very often. Winston Churchill God never built a Christian strong enough to carry today's duties and tomorrow's anxieties piled on the top of them. Theodore Ledyard Cuyler How much have cost us the evils that never happened! Thomas Jefferson Borrow trouble for yourself, if that's your nature, but don't lend it to your neighbors. Rudyard Kipling If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I wouldn't pass it around. Wouldn't be doing anybody a favour. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble. That's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say, meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer. Ann Landers Trouble is a part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough. Dinah Shore Anxiety is essential to the human condition. The confrontation with anxiety can relieve us from boredom, sharpen the sensitivity and assure the presence of tension that is necessary to preserve human existence. Rollo May We poison our lives with fear of burglary and shipwreck, and, ask anyone, the house is never burgled, and the ship never goes down. Jean Anouilh Anxiety is the experience of Being affirming itself against non-Being. Rollo May Neurosis is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being. Paul Tillich Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. Soren Kierkegaard Anxiety is fear of one's self. Wilhelm Stekel Fear ringed by doubt is my eternal moon. Malcolm Lowry Worries go down better with soup than without. Jewish proverb Neurotic means he is not as sensible as I am, and psychotic means he's even worse than my brother-in-law. Karl Menninger Anxiety is the interest paid on trouble before it is due. William R. Inge Anxiety is a thin steam of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained. Arthur Somers Roche There is a difference between a psychopath and a neurotic. A psychopath thinks two and two are five. A neurotic knows that two and two are four, but he worries it. Anon. Worrying helps you some. It seems as if you are doing something when you're worrying. Lucy Maud Montgomery Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions, and composed our masterpieces. Never will the world know all it owes to them, nor all they have suffered to enrich us. Marcel Proust

Apartments

An apartment building is a place where the landlord and the tenant are both trying to raise the rent. I finally figured out how to make a landlord paint your apartment--move out. The walls in my apartment are so thin that I recently asked a visitor a question and I got three answers.

Apathy

One good thing about apathy is you don't have to exert yourself to show you're sincere about it.

Apologies

Never make a defense or apology before you be accused. King Charles I

Appearance

All things are less dreadful than they seem. Appearances are very deceitful. Life not only begins at forty ‑ it begins to show. Appearances can be deceiving ‑ a dollar bill looks the same as it did twenty‑five years ago. A long face and a broad mind are rarely found under the same hat. Nothing improves a man's appearance as much as the photograph the newspapers use with his obituary. A father is usually more pleased to have his child look like him than act like him. Nothing changes a small boy's appearance as much as soap. Happier faces are seen on bottles of iodine than on some Christians. A few Christians give the impression they have been baptized in vinegar. The world will not be convinced of your faith by the sourness of your face. A real friend will tell you when you have spinach stuck in your teeth. Any girl can be glamorous. All she has to do is stand still and look stupid. Some girls are so homely they could sue their parents for damages. The Lord gives us our faces, but we must provide the expression. The surest sign that a man is not great is when he strives to look great. When happiness gets into your system, it is bound to break out on your face. A beautiful heart more than offsets the handicap of a homely face. It is a mistake to trust a man with an honest face. After all, that may be the only honest part of him. French proverb Things are not always what they seem. Phaedrus All that glitters is not gold. Miguel de Cervantes Don't judge a man by the clothes he wears. God made one; the tailor, the other. Some people will never live to be as old as they look. A plastic surgeon increases your face value. Some preachers are so sad of voice and countenance that they should apply for membership in the embalmer's union. As a general rule, a green salesman is a better producer than a blue one. If plenty of sleep is an aid to good looks, it seems that a considerable number of people are suffering from insomnia. Many folks contend that sleeping out of doors makes one beautiful. That explains the charming appearance of the town drunk. There's a face‑lift you can perform yourself that is guaranteed to improve your appearance. It is called a smile. People seldom notice old clothes if you wear a big smile. The shorter the time to April 15, the longer the face of the taxpayer. Few women believe what their mirrors and bathroom scales tell them. The real secret of looking young is being young. How little do they see what is, who frame their hasty judgments upon that which seems. Robert Southey You are only what you are when no one is looking. Robert C. Edwards The bosom can ache beneath diamond brooches; and many a blithe heart dances under coarse wool. Edwin Hubbel Chapin The proof of the pudding is in the eating, not in its looks. Half the work that is done in this world is to make things appear what they are not. Elias Root Beadle There are no greater wretches in the world than many of those whom people in general take to be happy. Seneca

Aphorists

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again. Andre, Gide Good things, when short, are twice as good. Baltasar Gracian Men's maxims reveal their characters. Marquis de Vauvenargues The only way to read a book of aphorisms without being bored is to open it at random and, having found some-thing that interests you, close the book and meditate. Prince de Ligne Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice. Henry David Thoreau Solomon made a book of proverbs, but a book of proverbs never made a Solomon. Anonymous All the good maxims already exist in the world; we just fail to apply them. Blaise Pascal

Appetite

He who cheats his appetite avoids debt. Chinese proverb A stomach that is seldom empty despises common food. Horace Seek an appetite by hard toil. Horace Always rise from the table with an appetite, and you will never sit down without one. William Penn The one thing bigger than my stomach is my appetite.

Appreciation

We never know the worth of water till the well is dry. English proverb I now perceive one immense omission in my Psychology--the deepest principle of Human Nature is the craving to be appreciated. William James All is not gold that glitters. David Garrick (1717-1779) Do not judge men by mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over the depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace and joy. Edwin Hubbell (1814-1880) Don't judge a tree by its bark. French Proverb It takes a great deal of energy to maintain an appearance of greatness, more than the really great are able to spare. Van Wyck Brooks (1886-1963) Of all the things you wear; your expression is the most important. Janet Lane The face is the portrait of the mind. Cicero (106-43 B.C.) The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)

Appeasement

Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will turn vegetarian. Heywood Broun My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour . . . I believe it is peace for our time. NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN, Address on return from Munich, Sept., 1938 Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows but only empties today of its strength. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained. Arthur Somers Roche Anxiety is not only a pain which we must ask God to assuage but also a weakness we must ask him to pardon-for he's told us to take no care for the morrow. C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Anxiety is the interest paid on trouble before it is due. William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and his will for us. Billy Graham (1918- ) Anxiety springs from the desire that things should happen as we wish rather than as God wills. Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father; who cares for you today, will take care of you tomorrow, and every day. Either he will shield you from suffering or he will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Saint Francis of Sales (1567-1622) Fretfulness springs from a determination to get my own way. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) God never built a Christian strong enough to carry today's duties and tomorrow's anxieties piled on top of them. Theodore Ledyard Cuyler (1822-1909) If your heart is troubled, you are not living up to your belief. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) Lord Jesus, make my heart sit down. African Proverb Man's world has become a nervous one, encompassed by anxiety. God's world is other than this; always balanced, calm, and in order. Faith Baldwin (1893-1978) Man, like the bridge, was designed to carry the load of the moment, not the combined weight of a year at once. William Arthur Ward (1812-1882) O Lord Jesus Christ, who has told us not to be anxious, we trust ourselves and our loved ones to thy loving care, knowing that round about and underneath are the everlasting arms, and praying thee to give us now and always that peace which the world cannot give, nor take away, but which comes only from the Father and from thee, our Savior and Friend. One cannot remove anxiety by arguing it away. Paul Johannes Oskar Tillich (1886-1965) The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith; and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety. George Muller (1805-1898) There is the danger and the temptation to you of drawing your minds into your business and clogging them with it; so that ye can hardly do anything to the service of God, but there will be crying, "My business, my business"; and your minds will go into the things, and not over the things. . . . And then, if the Lord God cross you, and stop you by sea and land, and take your goods and customs from you, that your minds should not be cumbered, then that mind that is cumbered will fret, being out of the power of God. George Fox (1624-1691) Applause The applause of the crowd makes the head giddy. There's a new alarm clock on the market for actors. It doesn't ring ‑ it applauds. Applause at the beginning of a speech is a manifestation of faith. If it comes in the middle of the speech it's a sign of hope. If it comes at the end it's always charity. It is more important to deserve the applause of people than to obtain it. Richard Steele

Appreciation

You must speak up to be heard, but sometimes you have to shut up to be appreciated. Appreciate what you have before you haven't. The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one. Don't forget that appreciation is always appreciated. Appreciation is like an insurance policy. It has to be renewed occasionally. If you want to really appreciate what an enormous job it is to clean up the environment, start cleaning out your garage. The world's most unsatisfied hunger is the hunger for appreciation. Appreciation is what some people lack when you do them a favor. It is better to appreciate something you have than to have something you can't appreciate. Some wives appreciate their husbands the most while they are away at work. Appreciation makes people feel more important than almost anything you can give them. A slap on the back often pushes out the chest. A single rose for the living is better than a costly wreath at the grave. Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have. Carve your name on hearts ‑ not on marble. School teachers are not fully appreciated by parents until it rains all day Saturday.

April

Oh, to be in England Now that April's there R. BROWNING, Home Thoughts from Abroad April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. T. S. ELIOT, The Waste Land April, April, Laugh thy girlish laughter: Then, the moment after, Weep thy girlish tears! WILLIAM WATSON, Song

Archaeologists

Archaeology is the science that proves you can't keep a good man down. Show me an archaeologist, and I'll show you a man who practices skull drudgery.

Architects and Architecture

Architecture is frozen music. Johann Goethe In architecture the pride of man, his triumph over gravitation, his will to power, assume a visible form. Architecture is a sort of oratory of power by means of forms. Friedrich Nietzsche The materials of city planning are sky, space, trees, steel and cement in that order and in that hierarchy. Le Corbusier Buildings should be good neighbours. Paul Thiry Pictures deface walls oftener than they decorate them. Frank Lloyd Wright Life is rich, changing, always challenging and we architects have the task of transmitting into wood, concrete, glass and steel, of transforming human aspirations into habitable and meaningful space. Arthur Erickson A building is a string of events belonging together. Chris Fawcett Good architecture is like a piece of beautifully composed music crystallized in space that elevates our spirits beyond the limitation of time. Tao Ho Architecture (is) a theatre stage setting where the leading actors are the people, and to dramatically direct the dialogue between these people and space is the technique of designing. Kisho Kurokawa I saw the bathroom fixtures as a kind of American Trinity. Claes Oldenberg Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space. Mies van der Rohe When you look on one of your contemporary `good copies' of historical remains, ask yourself the question: Not what style, but in what civilization is this building? And the absurdity, vulgarity anachronism and solecism of the modern structure will be revealed to you in a most startling fashion. Louis H. Sullivan Light, God’s eldest daughter, is a principal beauty in a building. Thomas Fuller No architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect. John Ruskin Architecture is inhabited sculpture. Constantine Brancusi The flowing of geometry. Ralph Waldo Emerson Society needs a good image of itself. That is the job of the architect. Walter Gropius Architecture begins when you place tow bricks carefully together. Mies van der Rohe An arch never sleeps. Hindu proverb Develop an infallible technique and then place yourself at the mercy of inspiration. Ralph Rapson The reality of the building does not consist in the roof and walls, but in the space within to be lived in. Lao-Tzu Good architecture lets nature in. Mario Pei Architecture should be dedicated to keeping the outside and the inside in. Leonard Baskin Early in life I had to choose between arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change. Frank Lloyd Wright No house should ever be on a hill, or on anything. It should be of the hill. Hill and house should live together, each the happier for the other. Frank Lloyd Wright How can we expect our students to become bold and fearless in thought and action if we encase them in sentimental shrines feigning a culture which has long since disappeared? Walter Gropius The house does not frame the view: it projects the beholder into it. Harwell Hamilton Harris Architecture is space structured to serve man and to move him. Etienne Gaboury Take nothing for granted as beautiful or ugly, but take every building to pieces, and challenge every feature. Learn to distinguish the curious from the beautiful. Get the habit of analysis - analysis will in time enable synthesis to become your habit of mind. `Think simple' as my old master used to say - meaning to reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles. Frank Lloyd Wright Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan. Eero Saarinen In speculative buildings, which are most of our business, there are really only three chances to make architecture: the lobby or entrance, the top and the elevator cab. Chao-Ming Wu A house is a machine for living. Backminster Fuller A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant veins. Frank Lloyd Wright The White House was designed by Hoban, a noted Irish-American architect, and I have no doubt that he believed by incorporating several features of the Dublin style he would make it more homelike for any President of Irish descent. It was a long wait, but I appreciate his efforts. John F. Kennedy Genius is personal, decided by fate, but it expresses itself by means of system. There is no work of art without system. Le Corbusier We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us. Winston Churchill I call architecture `petrified music.' Goethe Form ever follows function. Louis H. Sullivan

Argument

When arguing with a stupid person, be sure he isn't doing the same thing. When you see a married couple who's coming down the street, the one two or three steps ahead is the one who is mad. No matter whether you are on the road or in an argument, when you begin to see red, STOP! One of the sorriest spectacles imaginable is the anger of two people who have gotten into an argument over something that neither of them knows anything about. A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he's talking about. The only people who really listen to an argument are the neighbors. Nothing makes an argument so one‑sided as telling about it. A man never tells you anything until you contradict him. George Bernard Shaw Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality. W. H. Auden Never start an argument with a woman when she's tired ‑ or when she's rested! It is never worthwhile to argue about the religion you haven't got. There are a lot more marital arguments over a wink than a mink. The easiest way to start an argument these days is to get two economists together. When a wise man argues with a woman, he says nothing! Nothing is so apt to start an argument with your wife as winning one. Before arguing with your boss, make absolutely sure you're right ‑ then let the matter drop. Now there's a book on the market for people who disagree ‑ a CONTRADICTIONARY. A diplomat doesn't think it's necessary to understand anything in order to argue about it. An ounce of facts is worth a ton of arguments. A fanatic is one who can't change his opinions and won't change the subject. To be a gentleman is a worthy trait, but it is a great handicap in an argument. Nursing a grudge is like arguing with a policeman ‑ the more you do it, the worse things get. A married couple in Montana is so concerned with their health that whenever they have an argument, she jogs to her mother's. A certain Hollywood couple is so incompatible they can't even agree on what to argue about. More homes are destroyed by fusses than by funerals or fires. There's one thing to be said for ignorance it causes a lot of interesting arguments. It is impossible to win an argument with an ignorant man. We once settled our problems over coffee and cigarettes ‑ now, they're our problems. When a man uses profanity to support an argument, it indicates that either the man or the argument is weak ‑probably both. What a great world this would be if people would spend as much energy practicing their religion as they spend quarreling about it. Arguing about religion is much easier than practicing it. It must be wonderful to be a wife. Just imagine knowing that every time there's an argument you are going to win. Silence is one of the hardest things to refute. Josh Billings A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. Samuel Butler It will do no good to argue if you're in the wrong and if you're right ‑ you don't need to. The best way to win an argument with a woman is to hit her over the head with a new mink coat. Many an argument is sound ‑ and only sound! The more arguments you win, the fewer friends you'll have. A word to the wise usually starts an argument. Before you have an argument with your boss, you'd better take a good look at both sides his side and the outside. Married couples who claim they've never had an argument in forty years either have poor memories or a very dull life to recall. When you're arguing with your wife, make absolutely sure you're right ‑ and then let the matter drop. The best way to get the best of an argument is to listen to it at a safe distance. Sometimes when you're arguing with a fool, he's doing the same thing. An argument produces plenty of heat, but not much light. Never argue with a woman. You might win ‑ and then you'll really be in trouble. It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in an argument. You get out of an argument exactly what you put into it ‑ a lot of hot air. In an argument the best weapon to hold is your tongue. Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument is an exchange of ignorance. A husband and wife in Montana make it a point not to argue over anything not worth arguing about. Of course, this leads to some dandy fights over whether or not a subject is worthwhile. The argument you just won with your wife isn't over yet. There are a lot of hot arguments over "cold cash." An argument is where two people are trying to get in the last word first. Some people are so argumentative they won't even eat food that agrees with them. People who know the least always argue the most. An argument is a collision in which two trains of thought are derailed. One thing a man learns from an argument with a woman is how to be a good loser. If you must argue, the best way to win is to start by being right. An argument is a question with two sides and no end. Don't argue at the dinner table. The one who is not hungry always wins the argument. In most cases all an argument proves is that two people are present. When an argument flares up, the wise man quenches it with silence. It is a rare thing to win an argument and the other fellow's respect at the same time. A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument. It is fair to hear both sides of an argument, it is heavenly to hear the end of it. Never argue with your doctor; he has inside information. Arguing with your wife is as useless as trying to blowout a light bulb. A sure way to stop a red‑hot argument is to lay a few cold facts on it. The only thing worse than being on the wrong side of an argument is being in the middle. Many a family argument has been saved by the doorbell or telephone. After winning an argument with his wife, the wisest thing a man can do is apologize. An argument is like a country road; you never know where it'll lead. The hottest arguments over Canasta start after the guests depart. A contentious man will never lack words. Men may be convinced, but they cannot be pleased, against their will. Samuel Johnson You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. There are two sides to every question. Greek proverb A long dispute means both parties are wrong. Voltaire Any fact is better established by two or three good testimonies than by a thousand arguments. Nathaniel Emmons I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it. Cyrus Ching There is nothing so annoying as arguing with somebody who knows what he is talking about. If you win all your arguments, you'll end up with no friends. Arguments are to be avoided - they are always vulgar and often convincing. Oscar Wilde We're eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just blinked. Dean Rusk Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels. Voltaire There is no good arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat. James Russell Lowell It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. Beaumarchais I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it. Cyrus Ching The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel. George Bernard Shaw I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me. Dudley Field Malone Better be quarrelling than lonesome. Irish proverb Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side. La Rochefoucauld When we quarrel, how we wish we had been blameless. Ralph Waldo Emerson The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Bertrand Russell Every story has three sides to it - yours, mine and the facts. Foster Meharny Russell Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument About it and about; but evermore Came out by the same door wherein I went. OMAR KHAYYAM, Rubaiyat (FitzGerald trans.) I am not arguing with you‑I am telling you. J. MCN. WHISTLER, Gentle Art of Making Enemies

Aristocracy

A degenerate nobleman is like a turnip. There is nothing good of him but that which is underground. English saying

Armaments

The Saviour came. With trembling lips He counted Europe's battleships. "Yet millions lack their daily bread. So much for Calvary!" he said. NORMAN GALE, The Second Coming

Arms

Arms carry peace. Italian proverb Let him who desires peace prepare for war. Vegetius

Arrogance

A know-it-all always seems to have the solution to every problem right in the hollow of his head. A smart aleck knows everything, except how to keep others from thinking him a fool. Arrogance has its own built-in misery. The arrogant person may offend others, but he hurts himself more. Billy Graham (1918- ) Nobody roots for Goliath. Will Chamberlain When two know-it-alls get together; why do they always disagree? All the people like us are We, And everyone else is They. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) I like snobs. A snob has to spend so much time being a snob that he has little time left to meddle with you. William Cuthbert Faulkner (1897-1962) Nothing is so shallow as dogmatism. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) The word snob belongs to the sour-grape vocabulary. Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) Where men are the most sure and arrogant, they are usually the most mistaken. David Hume (1711-1776)

Arrow

I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; I breathed a song into the air, Long long afterward in an oak I found the arrow still unbroken; And the son, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend. LONGFELLOW, The Arrow and the Song

Art and the Artist

Art is poetry without words. Horace If my husband would ever meet a woman on the street who looked like the women in his paintings, he would fall over in a dead faint. Mrs. Pablo Picasso Real books should be the offspring not of daylight and casual talk but of darkness and silence. Marcel Proust A modern artist is one who throws paint on a canvas, wipes it off with a cloth, and sells the cloth. An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture. Jean Cocteau Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. Henry Ward Beecher Art is I, science is we. Claude Bernard The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined, out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails. James Joyce Designers and free lance artists and editors can set their hourly rates by dividing their annual income needs by 1000. Mike Rider Children, like animals, use all their senses to discover the world. Then artists come along and discover it the same way all over again. Eudora Welty When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his experience. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgement. The artist . . . faithful to his person vision of reality becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility of against and intrusive society and an offensive state. John F. Kennedy Art disease is caused by a hardening of the categories. Adina Reinhardt Art is the expression of an enormous preference. Wyndham Lewis Conception, my boy, fundamental brainwork, is what makes the difference in all art. Dante Gabriel Rossetti An artist may visit a museum but only a pedant can live there. George Santayana All profoundly original art looks ugly at first. Clement Greenberg Pioneers did not produce original works of art, because they were creating original human environments; they did not imagine utopias because they were shaping them. George Woodcock Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of external signs, hands on to others feelings he has worked through, and other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them. Leo Tolstoy A picture lives by companionship. It dies by the same token. It is therefore risky to send it out into the world. How often it must be impaired by the eyes of the unfeeling. Mark Roth Ko Abstract art is uniquely modern. It is a fundamentally romantic response to modern life - rebellious, individualistic, unconventional, sensitive, irritable. Robert Motherwell Culture is something you cannot buy, something you cannot import, something you cannot learn or produce at will. A writer, an artist or musician cannot sit down and say `Now I will produce culture.' Culture is something that evolves out of the simple, enduring elements of everyday life; elements most truthfully expressed in the folk arts and crafts of a nation. Thor Hansen Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made. Ted Shawn Art is not an end in itself, but a means of addressing humanity. Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky It is from the artist that society gains its loftier image of itself. Joseph Wood Krutch All art is a revolt against man's fate. Andre Malraux Art is a delayed echo. George Santayana Art is a kind of illness. Giacomo Puccini A work of art is a corner of creation seen through a temperament. Emile Zola Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Pablo Picasso Art gropes, it stalks like a hunter lost in the woods, listening to itself and to everything around it, unsure of itself, waiting to pounce. John W. Gardner Man in Canadian art is rarely in command of his environment or ever at home in it. Elizabeth Kilbourn What's an artist, but the dregs of his work - the human shambles that follows it around? William Gaddis Art has no other object than to set aside the symbols of practical utility, the generalities that are conventionally and socially accepted, everything in fact which makes reality from us, in order to set us face to face with reality itself. Henri Bergson Every artist preserves deep within him a single source from which, throughout his lifetime, he draws what he is and what he says and when the source dries up the work withers and crumbles. Albert Camus As an artist grows older, he has to fight disillusionment and learn to establish the same relation to nature as an adult as he had when a child. Charles Burchfield Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit in every work of art. Ralph Waldo Emerson Nothing can come out of an artist that is not in the man. H.L. Mencken It is not in life but in art that self-fulfilment is to be found. George Woodcock An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it. Paul Valery Interviews with artists are portentous and prejudicial things. Even when they fail in their objective - as they so often do - they can be dangerously affecting. I approach them with profound misgivings and am always sorry afterwards that I approached them at all. They tend to reveal parts of the artist's character that have nothing to do with the public effect of his work, but that linger on under your skin, colouring your opinion of that work. I am convinced it is a mistake to find an artist human outside his work. If you cannot find him human in and through his work, you are better not to know it when you come to formulate an opinion of his public value. Kenneth Winters One must work, nothing but work, and one must have patience. Auguste Rodin Art does not reproduce the visible; rather it makes it visible. Paul Klee The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract. Paul Klee One of the recognizable features of the authentic masterpiece is its capacity to renew itself, to endure the loss of some kinds of immediate relevance while still answering the most important questions men can ask. including new ones they are just learning how to frame. Arnold Stein Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. Pablo Picasso Art is man's nature; is God's art. P.J. Bailey With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists, the small trumpet of your defiance. Norman Mailer All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up. James Baldwin History repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has passed away is never reproduced. It is utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird. Joseph Conrad This is the artist, then - life’s hungry man, the glutton of eternity, beauty's miser, glory's slave. Thomas Wolfe If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: `I am here to live out loud.' Emile Zola Illustrations have as much to say as the text. The trick is to say the same thing, but in a different way. It's no good being an illustrator who is saying a lot that is on his or her mind, if it has nothing to do with the text . . . the artist must override the story, but he must also override his own ego for the sake of the story. Maurice Sendak In any evolutionary process, even in the arts, the search for novelty becomes corrupting. Kenneth Boulding All art has this characteristic - in unites people. Leo Tolstoy The cheap, no matter how charming, how immediate, does not wear so well It has a way of telling its whole story the first time through. William Littler Art at its most significant is a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it. Marshall McLuhan It is well me only when I have a chisel in my hand. Michelangelo Art is based on order. The world is full of` sloppy Bohemians' and their work betrays them. Eduardo Weston Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark. Agnes de Mille Art is called art because it is not nature. Goethe The artist, like the idiot, or clown, sits on the edge of the world, and a push may send him over it. Osbert Sitwell Art-speech is the only truth. An artist is usually a damned liar but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day. And that is all that matters. Away with eternal truth. The truth lives from day to day, and the marvellous Plato of yesterday is chiefly bosh today. D.H. Lawrence Art isn't something you marry, it's something you rape. Edger Degas Art is a lie that makes us realize truth. Pablo Picasso It's not what you see that is art, art is the gap. Marcel Duchamp Art is either plagiarist or revolutionist. Paul Gauguin I always suspect an artist who is successful before he is dead. John Murray Gibbon An artist has to take life as he finds it. Life by itself is formless wherever it is. Art must give it form. Hugh MacLennan In a sense, the modern artist is the liberal who can't believe in himself with man who, as Robert Frost has put it, can't take his own side in a quarrel, and whose search into anarchy is a confession of his only strong intolerance - an intolerance of himself and his role. Malcolm Bradbury All passes. Art alone Enduring stays to us. The Bust outlasts the throne,‑ The Coin, Tiberius. AUSTIN DOBSON, Ars Victrix Art is long and time is fleeting. LONGFELLOW, A Psalm of Life Art lies in concealing art. (Ars est celare artem.) OVID, Art of Love All art is but imitation of nature. (Omnis ars naturae imitatio est.) SENECA, Epistle to Lucilius

Asceticism

A man cannot shut out what is inside by cutting himself off from the outside. Jesus Christ was not a solitary man. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) Asceticism is the passion of giving up things and is recognizable in a life not born again of the Spirit of God. It is all very well if it ends in giving up the one thing God wants us to give up, viz., our right to ourselves, but if it does not end there, it will do endless damage to the life. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh. . . we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) The black shadow of asceticism spread over the sky of the Puritan Fathers. Given two coats, they chose the ugliest one. Given two colors for the woman's garb, they chose the saddest and somberest. Given two roads, they chose the one that held the most thorns and cutting rocks. Given two forms of fear and self-denial, they took both. The favorite text of asceticism is "deny yourself." The favorite color of asceticism is black; its favorite music, a dirge; its favorite hour is midnight; its favorite theme is a tombstone. The mistake of asceticism is in thinking that it has a moral value. Newell Dwight Hillis (1858-1929)

Ask

Do not ask a blind man which is the right way. German proverb Remember that in giving any reason at all for refusing, you lay some foundation for a future request. Arthur Helps

Aspirin

They now have a pill that's half aspirin and half glue. It's for people who get splitting headaches. Aspirin is a miracle drug--a year's supply usually disappears in a month.

Atheism

An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. The trouble with atheism is that it has no future. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Psalms 14:1 Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is no God. Heywood Broun By night an atheist half-believes in God. Edward Young The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. OLD TESTAMENT, Psalms, XIV,1 My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests. GEORGS SANTAYANA, Soliloquies in England. An atheist cannot find God for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman. An atheist is a man who believes himself an accident. Francis Thompson (1859-1907) An atheist is a man without any invisible means of support. John Buchan (1875-1940) Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Atheists put on a false courage and alacrity in the midst of their darkness and apprehensions, like children who, when they fear to go into the dark, will sing or whistle to keep up their courage. Alexander Pope (1688-1744) By night an atheist half believes in God. Edward Young (1683-1765) Every effort to prove there is no God is in itself an effort to reach for God. Charles Edward Locke Few men are so obstinate in their atheism that a pressing danger will not compel them to the acknowledgment of a divine power. Plato (C. 428-348 B.C.) I am an atheist, thank God! What do atheists do with their money? Surely they wouldn't carry around anything that says, "In God We Trust." The atheist can't find God for the same reason that a thief can't find a policeman. A good question for an atheist is to serve him a delicious meal and then ask him if he believes there is a cook. An atheist is the fellow who shakes his fist and defies the God he claims doesn't exist. An atheist hopes the Lord will do nothing to disturb his disbelief. If there are any good traits about the atheist, he got them from Christianity. The trouble with being an atheist is you have nobody to talk to when you're alone. It may be hard to believe in God, but it's much harder not to believe in Him. The worst possible moment for an atheist is when he feels grateful and has no one to thank. There's a service, similar to Dial‑A‑Prayer, called Dial‑A‑Doubt. It's for atheists who aren't sure. I was . . . living, like so many atheists or antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with him for creating a world. C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) If man ever appears as a consummate ass, it's when he denies the existence of God. Billy Sunday (1862-1935) No one is so much alone in the universe as a denier of God. With an orphaned heart, which has lost the greatest of fathers, he stands mourning by the immeasurable corpse of the universe. Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825) Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist there is no God. Heywood Broun (1888-1939) People who tell me there is no God are like a six-year-old boy saying there is no such thing as passionate love-they just haven't experienced it. William Alfred Some are atheists only in fair weather. Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) The number one cause of atheism is Christians. Those who proclaim God with their mouths and deny him with their life-styles is what an unbelieving world finds simply unbelievable. Karl Rahner (1904-1984) The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) There are no atheists in foxholes. William Thomas Cummings (1903-1944) Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) Were every man on earth to become atheist, it could not affect God in any way. He is what he is in himself without regard to any other. To believe in him adds nothing to his perfections; to doubt him takes nothing away. A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) What reason have atheists for saying that we cannot rise again? Which is the more difficult, to be born, or to rise again? That what has never been, should be, or that what has been should be again? Is it more difficult to come into being than to return to it? Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) Really, a young atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully. Dangers lie in wait for him on every side. You must not do, you must not even try to do, the will of the Father unless you are prepared to "know of the doctrine." . . . For the first time I examined myself with a seriously practical purpose. And there I found what appalled me; a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds. My name was legion. C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Atonement

A great many people are trying to make peace, but that has already been done. God has not left it for us to do; all we have to do is to enter into it. Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899) He left his Father's throne above, So free, so infinite his grace! Emptied himself of all but love, And bled for A dam's helpless race. Charles Wesley (1707-1788) The Old Testament Hebrew word that we translate atonement means literally "to cover up." The animal sacrifices were intended to "cover" a man's sins. In the New Testament, however; the meaning of atoning sacrifice is conveyed by the word expiate, which means "to put away." The blood that Jesus shed in our behalf on the cross at Calvary does not merely cover up our sin, it puts away our sin as though it had never been committed. T. W. Wilson When Jesus Christ shed his blood on the cross, it was not the blood of a martyr; or the blood of one man for another; it was the life of God poured out to redeem the world. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, he unites us body, soul, and spirit with God until we are one with God even as Jesus was. This is the meaning of the Atonement-at-one-ment with God. Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

Attention

Attention If you would like to get your wife's attention ‑ just look comfortable! The only thing some people pay is attention. It is extremely easy for us to give our major attention to minor matters. A good listener is one who can give you his full attention without hearing a word you say. The easiest way to get a kid's attention is to stand in front of the TV set. Pay attention to what a man is, not what he has been. It's hard, if not impossible, to get a child to pay attention to you, especially when you're telling him something for his own good. The quickest way to get a lot of individual attention is to make a big mistake. Troubles and weeds‑thrive on lack of atten­tion. When a child pays attention to his parents, they're probably whispering. Everybody likes friendly attention and coop­eration. We always get it when we give it. There would be fewer divorces if men gave as much loving attention to their wives as they do to their cars, boats, and dogs. To get maximum attention, it's hard to beat a big mistake. The quickest way for a mother to get her chil­dren's attention is to sit down and look com­fortable. While science has made giant strides in com­munication in recent years, there's still a lot to be said for paying attention. It's no fun to suffer in silence unless you first make enough noise to attract attention and sympathizers!

Attic

Nobody who can read is ever successful at cleaning out the attic.

Attitude

Words can never adequately convey the incredible impact of our attitude toward life. The longer I live the more convinced I become that life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we respond to it. Charles R. Swindoll This may shock you, but I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. It is more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my successes or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me or say about me, my circumstances, or my position. Attitude is that `single string' that keeps me going or cripples my progress. It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitudes are right, there's no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me. Charles R. Swindoll To travel hopefully is better than to arrive. James Jeans Growl all day and you'll feel dog tired at night. Anonymous Instead of crying over spilt milk, go milk another cow. Erna Asp Life is a grindstone; whether it grinds you down or polishes you up depends on what you're made of. Jacob M. Braude Poverty consists in feeling poor. Ralph Waldo Emerson Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier. Charles Kettering There are really only three types of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who say, What happened? Ann Landers Always imitate the behavior of the winners when you lose. George Meredith Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life. John Homer Miller What we steadily, consciously, habitually think we are, that we tend to become. John Cowper Powys Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, Certainly, I can!--and get busy and find out how to do it. Theodore Roosevelt The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and, if they can't find them, make them. George Bernard Shaw As long as a man imagines that he cannot do a certain thing, it is impossible for him to do it. Benedict Spinoza There is little difference in people . . . the little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative. Clement Stone We lost because we told ourselves we lost. Leo Tolstoy The world is full of cactus, but we don't have to sit on it. Will Foley At any moment in life we have the option to choose an attitude of gratitude, a posture of grace, a commitment to joy. Tim Hansel Attitudes are capable of making the same experience either pleasant or painful. John Powell Attitudes determine our actions, for good or bad. Be careful for nothing, prayerful for everything, thankful for anything. Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899) God. . . gives me the freedom to acknowledge my negative attitudes before him but not the freedom to act them out because they are as destructive for me as they are for the other person. Rebecca Manley Pippert If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you're old. Ed Howe (1853-1937) If your daily life seems poor; do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches. Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) It isn't your problems that are bothering you. It is the way you are looking at them. Epictetus (C. 55-C. 135) It's not what happens to me that matters most; it's how I react to what happens to me. Robert Harold Schuller (1926- ) My attitude determines whether grief causes a disease in me or a glorious and everlasting reward. S. I. McMillen People can alter their lives by altering their attitudes. William James (1842-1910) The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to your father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity. Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930) The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. John Milton (1608-1674) The Sermon on the Mount cuts across differences of temperament and variations in capacity. It outlines the kind of character which is possible for any man, gifted or relatively ungifted, strong or weak, clever or slow. Once more we find Christ placing his finger; not upon the externals, but upon the vital internal attitude. J. B. Phillips (1906-1982) The way in which you endure that which you must endure is more important than the crisis itself. Sam Rutigliano (1932- ) The world is a looking-glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it in turn will look sourly at you; laugh at it, and with it, and it is a jolly, kind companion. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) There is very little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative. W. Clement Stone (1902- ) Think of it as being easy, and it shall be easy. Think of it as being difficult, and it shall be difficult. Arabian Proverb We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them. Elbert Green Hubbard (1856-1915) We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number; but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of his freedoms-to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. Viktor E. Frankl (1905- ) What is this pain? It is the birth pang of a new attitude trying to be born. Robert Harold Schuller (1926- ) With the right attitude, all the problems in the world will not make you a failure. With the wrong mental attitude, all the help in the world will not make you a success. Warren Deaton Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens. Circumstances and situations do color life, but you have been given the mind to choose what the color shall be. John Homer Miller (1722-1791)

Ass

An ass is but an ass, though laden with gold. He that makes himself an ass, must not take it ill if men ride him. Every ass loves to hear himself bray. Every ass thinks himself worthy to stand with the king's horses. When three people call you an ass, put on a bridle. Spanish proverb The ass of a king is still but an ass. German proverb

Assassination

Assassination has never changed the history of the world. Benjamin Disraeli

Aspiration

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood. Make big plans, aim high in hope and work. Daniel H. Burnham 'Tis but a base, ignoble mind that mounts no higher than a bird can soar. William Shakespeare In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high. Henry David Thoreau What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me. R. BROWNING, Rabbi Ben Ezra The shades of night were falling fast, As through an Alpine village passed A youth, who borne, 'mid snow and ice, A banner with the strange device, Excelsior! LONGFELLW, Excelsior

Auction

At an auction keep your mouth shut. Spanish proverb

Author

The two most engaging powers on an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new. W. M. Thackeray What moves men of genius, or rather, what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough. Eugene Delacroix The mind conceives with pain, but brings forth with joy. Joseph Joubert It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one. Honore Balzac There is no amount of praise which a man and an author cannot bear with equanimity. Some authors can even stand flattery. Maurice Baring No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.

Authority

If you wish to know what a man is, place him in authority. Yugoslav proverb Nothing intoxicates some people like a sip of authority. Authority is like a bank account. The more you draw on it, the less you have. Some men who speak with authority at work know enough to bow to a higher authority at home. There is just as much authority in the family today as there ever was ‑ only now the chil­dren exercise it. Give authority to some people and they grow; give it to others and they swell. Nothing pleases a little man more than an opportunity to crack a big whip. If there's anything small, shallow, or ugly about a person, giving him a little authority will bring it out. The time to teach obedience to authority is in the playpen instead of the State pen.

Autobiographies

An autobiography is a book that reveals nothing bad about its writer except his mem­ory. Autobiography is an excellent medium for revealing some of the truth about yourself. Anyone who's written an autobiography learns you can make two kinds of enemies with such a book ‑ the people you mention and those you don't. An autobiography, like charity, covers a mul­titude of sins.

Automation

Automation has opened up a whole new field of unemployment. We often wonder if automation will ever re­place the taxpayer! It's true that automation creates new jobs. It takes more people to correct the mistakes. Another advantage of automation is that the machines don't take time out for coffee breaks. Automation is man's effort to make work so easy that women can do it. Teachers in the lower grades needn't worry about automation until someone invents a machine that can blow noses and remove snowsuits and boots. We are now told that automation is a process that gets all the work done while you just stand there. When we were younger, this pro­cess was called MOTHER. You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative. Walter Lippmann

Automobiles

It is simply remarkable how the apostle Paul covered so much territory and accomplished so much without a car. According to sales reports, automobile manufacturers had a bang‑up year. According to accident reports, so did their customers. Some men achieve distinction by the kind of car they drive ‑ others by the kind of wife that is driving them. No two people in a car can agree on which window should be open ‑ and how much. An American always makes sure his car is working whether he is or not. One day an American worries about going to the poorhouse, and the next day he buys a new automobile. One nice thing about a horse is that its body won't rust after just one winter on salted roads. There may be fewer cars on the road nowadays, but the number of nuts driving them hasn't diminished. If you think your automobile is expensive to operate, try operating a shopping cart in a supermarket. It seems that our modern cars won't start until the seat belt is fastened ‑ and the pocketbook is emptied. The nicest looking car is the one pulling out of a parking space you want. What the average man wants to get out of his new car is the kids. Every year the cars get lower and wider, while the payments get longer and higher. Most of our modern cars have so many warning lights and buzzers around the dashboard that just driving it makes you feel halfnagged to death. What we want most in a new car is us. It's not the used cars that are a menace on the highways ‑ it's the mis‑used cars. Many an old car suffers from "rattle fatigue." One of the major car manufacturers has an unusual problem on its hands. It recently recalled its faulty cars ‑ and got back 5,000 more than it built. The most popular model next year may be a compact car ‑ with payments to match. There was a time when you could rent a car for a week for what it now costs to park it for a day. Some automobile manufacturers have a sneaky way of lowering the list price. For instance, on one model the steering wheel is an optional extra. Statistics show that in 1940 each car on the road had an average of 2.2 persons; in 1950 it was 1.4. At this rate, by 1985 every third car on the road will be empty. Scientists are working on the ultimate economy car. It will just sit in the driveway and impress the neighbors. Soon after purchasing a used car a man finds out how hard it is to drive a bargain. A cheap old car can be quite annoying. But so can a new expensive one. The used car business is on the boom. Old cars that no longer run are rented to young couples who just want to park. One thing we've learned about compact cars is that it takes twice as many of them to make a traffic jam. Nothing depreciates a car faster than having a neighbor buy a new one. Automobiles did away with horses and now they're working on people. A good way to make your present car run better is to have a salesman quote you the price of a new one. Automobiles wouldn't be so dangerous if the horsepower of the engine was proportioned to the horse‑sense of the driver. Nowadays every man wants life, liberty, and an automobile in which to pursue happiness. You have to take your hat off to some of these new compact cars ‑ or get it knocked off as you enter. There are still a few people who can remember when it cost more to operate a car than to park it. Any day now we expect to see power steering for backseat drivers. Our grandparents never dreamed that the steering wheel would become America's only family circle. It's not only the cost and the upkeep of a car that worries you, but also the possible turnover. Is there any music as sweet as that of a car starting on a cold morning? Car sickness is that feeling you get every month when the payment is due. Some of our new cars are so classy the motor no longer purrs ‑ it sneers! New cars these days have a longer guarantee than the people who drive them. Power brakes may stop a car on a dime, but it usually costs more than a hundred dollars to get the rear end fixed. Nothing reduces the value of a car like trading it in. An automobile has been described as a four‑wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians. It was more fun driving a car in the old days when the crank was in front of the engine. Even the best running cars have some jerks in them. The trouble with bucket seats in automobiles is that not everyone has the same size bucket. In adding safety devices to automobiles, why not re‑design the steering wheel into the shape of a harp? The most dangerous thing about an automobile is one nut ‑ the one behind the steering wheel. Sign in a car on an out‑of‑the‑way street: "Attention car thieves ‑ this car is already stolen." An automobile can help you see the world, but it's up to you to decide which world! Always look at the brighter side of things whenever a car is stolen, it creates another parking place. A new car isn't a barometer of how much money a fellow has, but it's a pretty good indication of how much he owes. An automobile dealer in Nevada offers a big extra ‑ he supplies two friendly witnesses for your first accident. Some auto mechanics can estimate the cost of repairs very closely. They can usually get within a dollar or two of what you have in your pocket. You get a pretty good idea of eternity when you start paying for an $8,000 car on the installment plan. Thank heaven! More people get autos than autos get people. Having a big car doesn't always mean you have money; it may mean you once had money. The biggest need in auto safety is the recall of a few million defective drivers. Owning a compact car can be very economical. If you go out with another couple, you have to use their car. Sign in an automobile showroom in Little Rock, Arkansas: "Let's all fight poverty together. Buy a new car. The new cars give you more room by removing the bulge in your wallet. The most effective auto‑safety measure is accidentally locking the keys inside the car. One of the best automobile insurance policies is a Sunday afternoon nap. Whoever called them "pleasure cars" never drove them in traffic. An automotive invention that is sorely needed is brakes that will automatically get tight when the driver does. The auto industry accounts for one out of every twenty jobs in the United States ‑ and this does not include morticians. A limousine is a car with a glass partition to shut out stupid remarks from the backseat. The springs of the late‑model cars are of such high quality that you can hardly feel the bump when you run over a pedestrian. There are few Americans who have never seen an automobile, but plenty who have not seen one soon enough. Bumper sticker on the back of a car in Guthrie, Oklahoma: "Watch out for the driver in the car following me." It is generally agreed that the first thing a new car runs into is money. Automobiles are gradually doing away with absent‑minded people. One percent of the automobiles on the highways are rented ‑ the others are mortgaged. In these days of high speed and crowded highways, it doesn't take much of a car to last a lifetime. Anybody who thinks the automobile has made people lazy never had to pay for one. Present‑day cars are so quiet that the only noise you hear is from the finance company. Isn't it wonderful that our new cars are almost completely automatic? This leaves your mind free to worry about how you're going to make the monthly payments. The first thing that strikes a visitor in New York City is a big car. Today's cars keep a person strapped without safety belts. Engineers are trying to build a car that will stop smoking. We would all like to own a car that would stop drinking. It is estimated that by 1985 there will be more than 190 million automobiles in the United States. If you want to cross the street, you'd better do it now. There are too many people in too many cars in too much of a hurry going too many directions to get nowhere for nothing. Some automobiles have fluid drives; others just have a drip at the wheel. Everybody should learn to drive an automobile. This is especially true of those who sit behind the steering wheel. The first thing you'll notice in the glove compartment of your new car is a little booklet telling you how to lie about your gas mileage. Driving an automobile would be a much greater pleasure if each motorist would use his head as much as he uses his horn. One advantage of the compact car is that when any of the kids start acting up they can be reached by hand. Automobiles continue to be driven at two speeds ‑ lawful and awful. Many people are having trouble with their new cars. The engine won't start and the payments won't stop. Automobiles are like men ‑ the less substantial they are, the more knocking they do. A man in Alabama complains that his new car has been recalled by the dealer ‑ there was a defect in his bank account. The automobile has had a great influence on public morals; it has completely stopped horse stealing. Perhaps the most necessary automobile accessory is a wallet. Modern automobiles have every convenience ‑ except a push button to lower the payments. Bumper sticker on a 1950 Ford: "When passing, watch out for flying parts." An elderly gentleman in Nevada calls his car Abe. It's a Lincoln. After pricing new cars it begins to look like the economy model is the one you're now driving. There was a time when $200 was the down‑payment on a car; now it's the sales tax. By the time a man can afford to buy one of those little sports cars, he's too fat to get into it. There are a lot of nuts rattling around inside automobiles that the manufacturers didn't put there. Nothing lengthens the life of your car like marrying‑off the last of your children. The easiest way to lose control of a car is to forget to make the payments. Don't get discouraged and sell your car. Any day now you may find a place to park it. There are t finishes for automobiles: lac­quer and liquor. The reason the automobile is so popular today is that you can drive one without owning it. If you think a seat belt is uncomfortable, you've never tried a stretcher! The difference between learning to drive a car and learning to play golf is that when you learn to play golf you don't hit anything. The automobile has certainly discouraged walking, particularly among pedestrians. Bumper sticker on an old car: "Don't pass push!" One way to reduce motor accidents is to build cars so they can't go any faster than the aver­age person thinks.

Autumn

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. WILLIAM C. BRYANT, The Death of the Flowers When chill November’s surly blast Made fields and forests bare. ROBERT BURNS, Man Was Made to Mourn

Availability

Most girls find that the one quality they admire the most in a man is availability.

Avarice

A covetous man does nothing well till he dies. He who covets is always poor. Latin proverb

Average

I don't mind being average, because it means I'm as close to the top as I am to the bottom.