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Text Box: B
 
Baby
Baby Boomer
Baby Sitters 
Bachelors 
Bachelors
Back Fence
Backache
Bad
Bad Luck
Bald
Bankbook
Banks
Banquets 
Baptism
Barbers 
Bargains 
Bark
Bars
Bath
Bathing Suits
Bathroom
Bathtub
Beatles
Beauty
Bed
Bedlam
Bees
Begging
Begin
Behavior 
Belief
Bells
Belly
Benefit
Best
Betrayal
Better
Beware
Bible
Bid
Bigamy 
Bigotry 
Bills
Biography
Bird
Birth
Birth Control
Birthdays 
Black
Blame
Blind
Blowing
Blushing 
Boast
Boasting 
Body
Boldness
Book
Boredom
Bores 
Borrow
Bosses
Bow
Bowling
Boy
Bragging
Brain
Breeding
Brevity
Bribe
Brides
Bridge
Brook
Budget
Build
Bully
Burdens
Bureaucracy
Burglars
Bus
Business
Businessmen
Busy
Buy
 
Baby

 

A loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

Ronald Knox

 

Every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

Charles Dickens

 

Feeding a baby is one sure way of finding out how badly your suit spots.

 

A soiled baby, with a neglected nose, cannot conscientiously be

regarded as a thing of beauty.

Mark Twain

 

A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.

Carl Sandburg

 

Baby Boomer

 

A Baby Boomer is a man who hires someone to cut the grass so he can

play golf for the exercise.

 

Baby Sitters

 

A baby sitter is not experienced until she knows which kid to sit with and which kid to sit on.

 

There's an art to baby sitting. It isn't easy to watch TV, read a book, and eat a ‑sandwich while the kids are crying.

 

A baby sitter is a teen‑ager you hire to let your children do whatever they are big enough to do.

 

A baby sitter is a teen‑ager who behaves like an adult, while the adults are out behaving like teen‑agers.

 

Baby sitting is a big business because it meets a crying need.

 

It's extremely difficult for a baby sitter to wake up five or ten minutes before the par home.

 

A baby sitter feeds the baby at ten, twelve, and two ‑ and herself at nine, eleven, and one.

 

A baby sitter is a teen‑ager who behaves like an adult, while the adults are out behaving like teen‑agers.

 

Little Willie is at the awkward age ‑ too young to leave him home alone, and too old to trust with baby sitters.

 

One of life's mysteries is why a girl who has done baby‑sitting ever gets married.

 

A grandmother is a baby sitter who watches the kids instead of the television.

 

Bachelors

 

Nowadays it's easy for a bachelor to remain single. Every time he turns his TV set on he hears that most women have stringy hair, rough red hands, bad breath, and are over­weight.

 

A Florida bachelor sent his picture to a Lonely Hearts Club. They replied, "We're not that lonely."

 

Any bachelor knows that June rhymes with groom and doom.

 

A bachelor is a man who is completely dedi­cated to life, liberty, and the happiness of pursuit.

 

The happiest day of a bachelor's life is the one when he almost got married but didn't.

 

Bachelors avoid a woman who has a ring in her voice.

 

Any man who speaks without fear of contra­diction is probably a bachelor.

 

Many bachelors claim they never got mar­ried because they couldn't afford the luxury of a divorce.

 

A man who refuses to fight used to be called a coward. Today they call him a bachelor.

 

There are two kinds of bachelors: those too fast to be caught, and those too slow to be worth catching.

 

Most bachelors have quit chasing girls ‑they can't find any that'll run.

 

Did you hear about the bachelor who said he could have married any girl he pleased, but he never could find one he pleased?

 

Lots of men are bachelors by choice ‑ a choice some girls didn't want to make.

 

A bachelor is a man who takes advantage of the fact that marriage isn't compulsory.

 

Flattery is what makes husbands out of bach­elors.

 

A girl admires the tone of a bachelor's voice when there's a ring in it.

 

In Hollywood it's difficult for a bachelor to remain a bachelor ‑ and even more difficult for a husband to remain a husband.

 

When a husband dreams he's a bachelor, it's a sign he's going to be disappointed when he wakes up.

 

Kissing is a practice that shortens life ‑ sin­gle life!

 

The thought of marriage frightens a lot of bachelors ‑ and a few husbands too!

 

Kissing is a practice that shortens life ‑ sin­gle life!

 

Warning to all single men: There's a new per­fume on the market with a secret ingredient ‑ it makes a man think he can support a wife.

 

A wife is a great comfort to a husband during the distressing times a bachelor never has.

 

Give a bachelor enough rope and he'll detect the noose.

 

There are four ways for a bachelor to remain happy: north, south,

east, and west.

 

A smart bachelor stops up his ears when a woman's voice has a ring

in it.

 

Not all men are fools – some are bachelors.

 

A bachelor is a man who can keep his foot out of a

trap--particularly his own.

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in

possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Jane Austen

 

Back Fence

 

The back fence is the shortest distance between two gossips.

 

Backache

 

A backache is man's greatest labor-saving device.

 

Bad

 

A bad reaper never gets a good sickle.

Gaelic proverb

 

Bad Luck

 

Bad luck is bending over to pick up a four-leaf clover and being

infected by poison ivy.

 

Bald

 

A gentleman complains that when long hair became stylish his started to fall out.

 

A hair in the head is worth two in the brush.

 

Hair seems important only when we no longer have any.

 

A man in Nevada says that when he was a boy his hair was light; then it turned dark, then it turned grey, then it turned loose.

 

People worry about their gray hair, but it's actually great to have gray hair. Ask any man who's bald.

 

People are always telling a woman how pretty her hair looks ‑ but the only time they comment about a man's hair is when he no longer has any.

 

No baldheaded man was ever converted by a sermon during the fly season.

 

Men usually worry more about losing their hair than their heads.

 

Nothing better has ever been developed for baldness than a hat.

 

There's one nice thing about baldness ‑ it's neat.

 

Man's oldest fall‑out problem is baldness.

 

Sadder than falling leaves is falling hair.

 

To the baldheaded man, dandruff is a thrill.

 

There's a new remedy on the market for bald­ness. It's made of alum and persimmon juice. It doesn't grow hair but it shrinks your head to fit what hair you have left.

 

Nature seems determined to make us work. The less hair we have, the more face we have to wash.

 

Baldheaded people should remember that when God made heads He covered up the ones He didn't like.

 

The advantage of being bald is this: When you expect callers, all you have to do is straighten your tie.

 

Our great problem is not production, but dis­tribution. This strikes a baldheaded man with peculiar force every time he shaves.

 

The baldheaded man may be ridiculed, but he's the first in the group to know when it starts to rain.

 

Better a bald head than none at all.

 

A bald head is something nobody wants to have, and nobody wants to lose.

 

Baldheaded men never think of themselves as bald; they think everybody else is hairy.

 

Barbers seem to take great delight in calling attention to the bald spot that you're trying to forget.

 

The big advantage of being bald is that you can style your hair

with a damp cloth.

 

Bankbook

 

Last night I read a book that brought tears to my eyes--it was my

bankbook.

 

Banks

 

Some banks guarantee maximum interest rates for several years, which is more than a marriage license can do.

 

There's a bank in California that has a "west­ern window" for those who are quick on the draw.

 

Bank interest on a loan is so high that if you can afford to pay it you don't need the loan.

 

Drive‑in banks were established so that auto­mobiles could see their real owners occasion­ally.

 

A bank is a place where you can keep the government's money until the IRS asks for it.

 

Many banks have a new kind of Christmas club in operation. The new club helps you save money to pay for last year's gifts.

 

A bank is a financial institution where you can borrow money if you can present suffi­cient evidence to show that you don't need it.

 

Said a banker's son, "My pop went on a diet; there was too much collateral in his blood."

 

Many people seem to think a home is only good to borrow money on.

 

Modern prosperity means two cars in the ga­rage, a boat in the driveway, and a note due at the bank.

 

Being prosperous means your credit is good enough to borrow money at the bank.

 

If money doesn't grow on trees, how come banks continue to sprout

branches?

 

I know of a bank that is so big that they even have a special

window for hold-ups.

 

Banks are peculiar institutions that urge you to save as much as

possible of what you earn and urge you to borrow as much as you can

spend, so you can spend more than you make.

 

It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank

clerk.

Bertolt Brecht

 

Banquets

 

At most banquets you'll find more after‑din­ner speakers than after‑dinner listeners.

 

Too often a banquet is a plate of cold chicken and peas surrounded by warm appeals for funds.

 

The banquet's honored guest was introduced as follows: "We're very pleased to have as our guest speaker a man who has to catch a plane in twenty minutes."

 

A banquet is an affair where you eat a lot of food you don't want before talking about something you don't understand to a crowd of people who don't want to hear what you have to say.

 

No man is as smart as he sounds at his alumni banquet.

 

Baptism

 

Baptism points back to the work of God, and forward to the life of faith.

J. Alice Motyer

 

In baptism, the Christian is born. His old self is buried and the new

self emerges. Whether in the case of infants or adults, baptism

signifies this more as a promise than as an actually fulfilled fact.

The direction is indicated rather than the arrival.

Friedrich Rest (1913- )

 

Barbers

 

A barber's remarks are sometimes more keen and cutting than his razor.

 

Barbers seem to take great delight in calling attention to the bald spot that you're trying to forget.

 

Most barbers have a scraping acquaintance with a great many people.

 

Sign in a Baltimore barber shop: "Six Bar­bers ‑ Panel Discussions."

 

The only difference between a "hair stylist" and a regular barber is the price.

 

One guy who always goes to the top is a bar­ber.

 

Then there's the barber whose specialty is "roadmap shaves"; when he's done, your face is full of short cuts.

 

Nothing makes a barber suffer in silence as much as not talking.

 

Bargains

 

Nowadays everything is a bargain ‑ because by the time you get it home the price has gone up.

 

A bargain is when two people are sure they got the better of each other.

 

It's easy to tell when you've got a bargain ‑it doesn't fit.

 

Soon after purchasing a used car a man finds out how hard it is to drive a bargain.

 

A bargain sale is where women fight for mer­chandise that's reduced in price because no­body wanted it in the first place.

 

Anything you buy at a low price that you don't need is not a bargain.

 

A bargain is something you can't use at a price you can't resist.

 

One of the best bargains you can get these days is parking on what's left of the other fellow's dime.

 

A bargain is anything that is only moder­ately overpriced.

 

A bargain is something that looks better than it is and sells for less than it was.

 

A bargain is defined as a "ludicrous transac­tion in which each party thinks he has cheated the other."

 

There would be fewer divorces if women hunted for husbands with as much thought as they hunt for bargains.

 

The best exercise today is hunting for bar­gains.

 

Good government is a bargain at any price.

 

Heaven is a bargain, however great the cost.

 

One of the problems of modern life is for a husband to teach his wife that even bargains cost money.

 

Don't buy it for a song ‑ unless you're sure you know what the pitch is.

 

One of the most difficult tasks in the world is to convince women that even a bargain costs money.

 

A bargain is anything that costs no more to­day than it did last week.

 

Today a bargain is anything that is only moderately overpriced.

 

Women may be the weaker sex, but not at a bargain counter.

 

"Bad, bad," says the buyer; but when he goes his way, then he

boasts.

Proverbs 20:14

 

Necessity never made a good bargain.

Benjamin Franklin

 

Bark

 

Barking dogs seldom bite.

 

His bark is worse than his bite.

 

Bars

 

Many a man goes into a bar for an eye-opener and comes out blind.

 

Bath

 

My doctor told me to take a bath before retiring. But the way

business is going, I won't be able to retire for twenty years.

 

Bathing Suits

 

I spent a weekend at the beach and couldn't decide whether bikinis

are getting smaller or girls are getting bigger.

 

With bathing suits being what they are today, the girls who

complain they have nothing to wear are usually wearing it.

 

Bathroom

 

The most frightening horror tales are those told by bathroom

scales.

 

Bathtub

 

I'm using a square bathtub so I can't get a ring.

 

Beatitudes

 

Beatitudes, just by virtue of having been spoken by him, have enriched

our mortal existence beyond imagining, putting a yeast of love into

the unlikely dough of human greed and human spite and human

willfulness, so that it can rise marvelously.

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990)

 

If you were to take the sum total of all authoritative articles ever

written by the most qualified of psychologists and psychiatrists on

the subject of mental hygiene-if you were to combine them and refine

them and cleave out the excess verbiage-if you were to take the whole

of the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to have these

unadulterated bits of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by

the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and

incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount. And it would suffer

immeasurably through comparison. For nearly two thousand years the

has been holding in its hands the complete answer to

its restless and fruitless yearnings. Here. . . rests the blueprint

for successful human life with optimism, mental health, and

contentment.

J. T. Fisher

 

The People's Beatitudes:

Happy are the pushers for they get on in the world.

Happy are the hard-boiled for they never let life hurt them.

Happy are they who complain for they get their own way in the end.

Happy are the blasé for they never worry over their sins.

Happy are the slave drivers for they get results.

Happy are the knowledgeable men of the world for they know their

way around.

Happy are the troublemakers for they make people take notice of

them.

J. B. Phillips (1906-1982)

 

We hear it said that Jesus Christ taught nothing contrary to common

sense. Everything Jesus Christ taught was contrary to common sense.

Not one thing in the Sermon on the Mount is common sense. The basis of

Christianity is neither common sense nor rationalism.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

Beatles

 

Christianity will go. We're more popular than Jesus now.

John Lennon

 

Beauty

 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever; its loveliness increases; it will

never pass into nothingness. . . .

John Keats (1795-1821)

 

Beauty is God's handwriting-a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every

fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for

it as a cup of blessing.

   Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

 

Beauty, unaccompanied by virtue, is as a flower without perfume.

French Proverb

 

God's fingers can touch nothing but to mould it into loveliness.

George Macdonald (1824-1905)

 

The beautiful can have but one source . . . God.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

 

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

 

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

 

Beauty always comes from within--within jars, tubes, and compacts.

 

Beauty is power; a smile is its sword.

Charles Reade

 

Beauty and honesty seldom agree.

 

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.

Edmund Burke

 

Beauty without virtue is a flower without perfume.

French proverb

 

Beauty is a short-lived reign.

Socrates

 

Rare is the union of beauty and modesty.

Juvenal

 

Bed

 

Early to bed and early to rise is a sure sign that you're fed up

with television.

 

As you make your bed, so you must lie on it.

 

Early to bed and early to rise,

Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

 

Bedlam

 

Man has made his bedlam; let him lie in it.

Fred Allen

 

Bees

 

We learn two lessons from the bees: one is not to be idle, and the

other is not to get stung.

 

Honey is sweet, but the bee stings.

 

Begging

 

Better to beg than steal, but better to work than beg.

Russian proverb

 

Beggars should be no choosers.

 

Begin

 

Everything is difficult at first.

Chinese proverb

 

All glory comes from daring to begin.

 

Everything must have a beginning.

 

Good to begin well, better to end well.

 

He who begins many things, finishes but few.

 

The first step is as good as half over.

 

The beginning is half the whole.

Greek proverb

 

Well begun is half done.

Horace

 

Before beginning, prepare carefully.

Cicero

 

I start where the last man left off.

Thomas Edison

 

Begin it, and the work will be completed.

Johann Goethe

 

Once begun, a task is easy.

Horace

 

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.

Henry W. Longfellow

 

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

Plato

 

Belief

 

Believe not all that you see nor half what you hear.

 

What a man desires he easily believes.

 

Seeing is believing.

 

Every man who attacks my belief diminishes in some degree my

confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy, and I am angry with

him who makes me uneasy.

Samuel Johnson

 

Bells

 

If you love not the noise of bells, why do you pull the ropes?

 

Belly

 

A full belly is the mother of all evil.

 

An empty belly hears nobody.

 

When the belly is full, the mind is amongst the maids.

 

Bend

 

Best to bend while it is a twig.

 

Benefit

 

When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it.

Benjamin Franklin

 

Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble.

 

To accept a benefit is to sell one's freedom.

Latin proverb

 

If you stop to think about it, there are very few benefits in your

life for which you can take sole credit.

Gary Smalley

 

Best

 

The best things in life are free.

 

Better

 

Better a bare foot than none at all.

 

Better to wear out than to rust out.

 

Beware

 

Beware of no man more than of thyself.

 

Behavior

 

Think what others ought to be like, then start being like that yourself.

 

To know what is right and not do it is as bad as doing wrong.

 

Statistics show there are three ages when men misbehave: young, old, and middle.

 

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.

 

There are no detour signs along the straight and narrow path.

 

Anybody whose behavior is normal these days is probably considered to be slightly ec­centric.

 

Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.

 

How did people ever get along before they had all those government bureaus to tell them what to do?

 

It sometimes looks foolish for folks to be spending so much time loving their enemies when they should be treating their friends a little better.

 

A father is usually more pleased to have his child look like him than act like him.

 

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.

 

We count our blessings on our fingers and our miseries on an adding machine.

 

Men and nations do behave wisely, once all other alternatives have been exhausted.

 

We try to see some good in everybody we meet, but occasionally there are some folks who make us realize our eyesight isn't as good as it once was.

 

The behavior of some children suggests that their parents embarked on the sea of matri­mony without a paddle.

 

Don't be a carbon copy of something. Make your own impressions.

 

Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level.

 

You can't hold another fellow down in the ditch unless you stay down there with him.

 

Some people never say anything bad about the dead, or anything good about the living.

 

Wouldn't it be wonderful if everybody be­haved as he thinks the other fellow ought to behave?

 

No man has a right to do as he pleases, except when he pleases to do right.

 

When people speak evil of you, live so that no one will believe them.

 

It's easy to save face. Just keep the lower half of it tightly closed.

 

Blowing out the other fellow's candle won't make yours shine any brighter.

 

By the time most folks learn to behave them­selves they're too old to do anything else.

 

Good behavior gets a lot of credit that really belongs to a lack of opportunity.

 

You are young only once. If you act foolish after that you'll have to find some other ex­cuse.

 

There's nothing consistent about human be­havior except its tendency to drift toward evil.

 

Judging from the way some people behave these days, they must think that hell is air‑conditioned!

 

We should never assume that people are go­ing to behave as we expect them to.

 

Many pious people would rather study the Bible than practice what it teaches.

 

The business to stay out of is the other fel­low's.

Some people continue to change jobs, mates, and friends ‑ but never think of changing themselves.

 

A true test of a man's character is not what he does in the light, but what he does in the dark.

 

It isn't what you have, but what you are, that makes life worthwhile.

 

Children disgrace us in public by behaving just like we do at home.

 

The better we understand Christianity, the less satisfied we are with our practice of it.

 

If people have to ask you if you're a Christian ‑ you're probably not.

 

Every Christian occupies some kind of a pul­pit and preaches some kind of a sermon every day.

 

Conventions are something a lot of people leave behind when they attend one.

 

A person's faith is not judged by what he says about it, but by what he does about it.

 

Faith with works is a force. Faith without works is a farce.

 

No one will ever know of your honesty unless you give out some samples.

 

A lot of good behavior is due to poor health.

 

Folks would enjoy us more if we gave as much thought to our own behavior as we do to our neighbor's.

 

No matter what you do, someone always knew you would.

 

When you make a mountain out of a molehill, don't expect anyone to climb up to see the view.

 

Let's all sympathize with the poor girl who spent four years learning how to behave in polite society and the rest of her life trying to locate it.

 

Most of us don't put our best foot forward until we get the other one in hot water.

 

No man is as smart as he sounds at his alumni banquet.

 

No one can stay young very long, but some manage to act like children all their lives.

 

What a scarcity of news there would be if everybody obeyed the Ten Commandments!

 

Actually there's only a slight difference be­tween keeping your chin up and sticking your neck out, but it's worth knowing.

 

Temper gets people into trouble, but pride keeps them there.

 

We all might as well face our problems. We can't run fast or far enough to get away from them all.

 

There's a growing suspicion that what the world needs now is a religion that will cover the other six days of the week.

 

A man has no more religion than he acts out in his life.

 

We are more comfortable with Christ in print than in practice.

 

True religion is the life we live, not the creeds we profess.

 

People don't really pay much attention to what we say about our religion, because they'd rather watch what we do about it.

 

Your religion doesn't amount to very much unless it causes you to come out of the grand­stand onto the playing field.

 

If some folks lost their reputation, they should consider themselves very lucky.

 

What chance can a man have to control his destiny when he can't control himself?

 

You never have to take a dose of your own medicine if you know when to keep your mouth shut.

 

An open mind and a closed mouth make a happy combination.

 

Spending half of the time keeping quiet and the other half saying nothing is one way to keep out of trouble.

 

Might as well keep your mouth shut. If you talk about yourself you're a bore, and if you talk about others you're a gossip.

 

A man's conscience, and not his mattress, has most to do with his sleep.

 

If you can't crown yourself with laurels, you can wreathe your face in smiles.

 

To succeed ‑ keep your head up and your overhead down.

 

A successful man continues to look for work after he has found a job.

 

Some men succeed by what they know, some by what they do, and a few by what they are.

 

One secret of success is to be able to put your best foot forward without stepping on any­body's toes.

 

When in Rome do as the Romans do, that is, if the Romans do as they ought to do.

 

The kind of behavior that once brought shame and disgrace now brings a book, movie, or a television contract.

 

To really know a man, observe his behavior with a woman, a flat tire, and a child.

 

Most of us want other people's children to behave the way ours should.

 

Behavior is a mirror in which everyone re­flects his own image.

 

When adults behave like children we call them juvenile; when children behave like adults we call them delinquents.

 

Benevolence

 

Be grateful to the beggar; he gives you the chance to do good.

Jewish Proverb

 

Bread for myself is a material question; bread for my neighbor is a

spiritual question.

Jacques Maritain (1882-1973)

 

Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good actions; try to

use ordinary situations.

Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825)

 

In this world it is not what we take up but what we give up that makes

us rich.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)

 

My piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else

has a share and that no one starves while I eat.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

 

The best portions of a good man's life-His little, nameless,

unremembered acts of kindness and love.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

 

Who gives to the poor, lends to God.

Spanish Proverb

 

Betrayal

 

This night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

Matthew 26:34

 

Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?

Luke 22:48

 

A man may betray Jesus Christ by speaking too many words, and he may

betray him through keeping his mouth shut.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

Does not he to whom you betray another. . . know that you will at

another time do as much for him?

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592)

 

To say the truth, so Judas kiss'd his Master,

And cried, "All hail," whereas he meant all harm.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

 

When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself.

   Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991)

 

Bible

 

A Bible that's falling apart probably belongs to someone who isn't.

Christian Johnson

 

A bit of the Book in the morning, to order my onward way.

A bit of the Book in the evening, to hallow the end of the day.

Margaret Sangster (1838-1912)

 

A glory gilds the sacred page,

Majestic like the sun;

It gives a light to every age,

It gives, but borrows none.

William Cowper (1731-1800)

 

A loving Personality dominates the Bible, walking among the trees of

the garden and breathing fragrance over every scene. Always a living

Person is present, speaking, pleading, loving, working, and

manifesting himself whenever and wherever his people have the

receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation.

A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)

 

A man who loves his wife will love her letters and her photographs

because they speak to him of her. So if we love the Lord Jesus, we

shall love the Bible because it speaks to us of him.

John R. W. Stott (1921- )

 

A new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our

Bible with the idea that it is . . . a book which is now speaking.

A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)

 

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

W H. Auden (1907-1973)

 

It takes a big man to sympathize ‑ a little man can criticize, and usually does.

 

Formula for tact: Be brief, politely; be aggres­sive, smilingly; be emphatic, pleasantly; be positive, diplomatically; be right, graciously.

 

Teen‑agers haven't changed very much. They still grow up, leave home, and get married. The big difference is that today they don't always do it in that order.

 

Trouble causes some people to go to pieces; others to come to their senses.

 

The best way to surprise your wife is fre­quently.

 

Will power cannot be furnished by anyone but you.

 

What a nice world this world would be if we loved others as we love ourselves.

 

Perpetual worry will get you to one place ahead of time ‑ the cemetery.

 

We are only young once. This is all society can stand.

 

Being young comes only once in life. The trick is to make it last as long as you can.

 

About the only way to stay young is to live honestly, eat sensibly, sleep well, work hard, worship regularly, and lie about your age.

Bible

 

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."

 

The Bible is most helpful when it is open.

 

A Bible that's falling apart often belongs to one who isn't.

 

Thousands of people don't like the Bible be­cause it cramps their lifestyle.

 

Carrying a Bible will never take the place of reading it.

 

The most desirable time to read the Bible is as often as possible.

 

Keep your Bible open and you will not find the door to heaven shut.

 

A Bible in the hand is worth two in the book­case.

 

A single line in the Bible has consoled me more than all the books I

have ever read.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

 

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college

education.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

 

All things desirable to men are contained in the Bible.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

 

Any single verse of the Bible, taken in isolation, may actually be

dangerous to your spiritual health. Every part of it must be read in

relation to the whole message.

Louis Cassels (1922-1974)

 

As in paradise, God walks in the Holy Scriptures, seeking man.

Saint Ambrose (C. 340-397)

 

Be astounded that God should have written to us.

Antony of Egypt (C. 251-356)

 

Born in the East and clothed in Oriental form and imagery, the Bible

walks the ways of all the world with familiar feet and enters land

after land to find its own everywhere. It has learned to speak in

hundreds of languages to the heart of man. It comes into the palace to

tell the monarch that he is a servant of the Most High, and into the

cottage to assure the peasant that he is a son of God. Children listen

to its stories with wonder and delight, and wise men ponder them as

parables of life.

Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933)

 

Centuries of experience have tested the Bible. It has passed through

critical fires no other volume has suffered, and its spiritual truth

has endured the flames and come out without so much as the smell of

burning.

W. E. Sangster

 

If you couldn't get another Bible, what would yours be worth?

 

Dust on your Bible is not evidence that it is a dry book.

 

Many Christians expect the world to respect a book they neglect.

 

How can you have faith in the Bible unless you know what's in it.

 

A book which will lift men up to God must have come down from God.

 

Satan can quote Scripture for his purpose.

 

The Bible contains the vitamins for a healthy soul.

 

Bible verses will save you from spiritual re­verses.

 

It's a terrible responsibility to own a Bible. We should study the Bible as a privilege, not as a duty.

 

Don't criticize the Bible; let the Bible criticize you.

 

The Bible has nothing to fear ‑ except ne­glect.

 

Read your Bible. A chapter a day keeps Satan away.

 

The Bible is the constitution of Christian civi­lization.

 

A Bible known is worth a dozen merely owned.

 

The Bible is not only the world's best seller, it is man's best purchase.

 

A Bible stored in the mind is worth a dozen stored in the bottom of a trunk.

 

The Bible promises no loaves to the loafer.

 

One evidence of the value of the Bible is the character of those who oppose it.

 

Satan is not afraid of a Bible with dust on it. Those who don't read the Bible have no ad­vantage over those who can't read it.

 

Study the Bible to be wise, believe it to be safe, practice it to be holy.

 

Men do not reject the Bible because it contra­dicts itself, but because it contradicts them. No one is saved by buying a Bible he does

not use, nor is one saved by reading a Bible he does not obey.

 

Go to your Bible regularly, open it prayer­fully, read it expectantly, live it joyfully.

 

An aged grandfather explained why he reads the Bible several hours every day, "You might say I am cramming for my final exami­nation."

 

One of the best evidences of the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible is that it has survived the fanaticism and ignorance of its friends.

 

Bumper stick on a car in Tyler, Texas: "Read the Bible ‑ it'll scare hell out of you."

 

There are a number of splendid translations

 

of the Bible. However, the most effective is its translation into the lives of people.

 

A person who merely samples the Word of God never acquires much of a taste for it.

 

The family Bible can be passed from genera­tion to generation because it gets so little wear.

 

The Bible is a book of prayers. Out of 667 recorded prayers, there are 454 recorded an­swers.

 

Other books were given to us for information, but the Bible was given to us for transforma­tion.

 

The value of the Bible doesn't consist in merely knowing it, but in obeying it.

 

If you will carry the Bible while you are young, it will carry you when you are old.

 

The study of the Bible is a postgraduate course in the richest library of human experi­ence.

 

You can't understand all you read in the Bi­ble, but you can obey what you do under­stand.

 

The Bible finds us where we are, and, with our permission, will take us where we ought to go.

 

Our forefathers built this country with three tools: an ax, a plow, and a book. That book was the Bible.

 

Many pious people would rather study the Bible than practice what it teaches.

 

If all the neglected Bibles in this country were dusted off at the same time, we would suffer the worst dust storm in years.

 

Christ is the master; the Scriptures are only the servant.

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

 

Come, Holy Ghost, for moved by thee

The prophets wrote and spoke;

Unlock the truth, thyself the key,

Unseal the sacred book.

John Calvin (1509-1564)

 

Do you know a book that you are willing to put under your head for a

pillow when you are dying? Very well; that is the book you want to

study when you are living. There is only one such book in the world.

Joseph Cook (1838-1901)

 

Every Christian must refer always and everywhere to the Scriptures for

all his choices, becoming like a child before it, seeking in it the

most effective remedy against all his various weaknesses, and not

daring to take a step without being illuminated by the divine rays of

those words.

Pope John Paul II (1920- )

 

Father made me learn so many Bible verses every day that by the time I

was eleven years of age, I had learned about three fourths of the Old

Testament and all of the New by heart.

John Muir (1838-1914)

 

One controlling, guiding, unifying mind must have been operative

through all the weary ages to produce out of such composite elements a

result so wonderfully unique, uplifting, and unfathomable as the

Bible; and that mind in the nature of things could not have been

human.

William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898)

 

The Gideons should send a Bible to those ho­tel authorities who determine the room rates.

 

A thumbprint on the Bible is more important than a footprint on the moon.

 

The way some people use the "Sword of the Spirit," one would think it was made for split­ting hairs.

 

If the Bible is mistaken in telling us from whence we came, how can we trust it to tell us where we are going?

 

It is impossible to mentally and socially en­slave a Bible‑reading people.

 

There's a vast difference between books that men make and the BOOK that makes men.

 

Noah was the first businessman mentioned in the Bible. He floated a company at a time when the rest of the world was under liquida­tion.

 

In the Book of Revelation we read of a book which no man could open. Some believe this was the pocketbook.

 

Our Lord does not open the windows of heaven to the person who keeps his Bible closed.

 

The knowledge, understanding, and appro­priation of God's Word are the means by which a Christian grows.

 

A real highbrow is a person who can quote Shakespeare without attributing it to the Bi­ble.

 

The Bible has vitamins for a healthy soul.

 

If some Christians knew as little about their jobs as they do the Bible, they would have to be guided to their work benches every morn­ing.

 

A critically‑ill lawyer was found frantically leafing through the Bible in his hospital room. When asked the reason, he replied, "Looking for loopholes."

 

The Bible admonishes us to love our neigh­bors, and also to love our enemies ‑ probably because they are generally the same people.

 

An immoral man is dangerous whether he is armed with a rifle or a Bible.

 

The sword of the Spirit never becomes dull from use.

 

Be careful how you live. You may be the only Bible some people will ever read.

 

No matter how many new translations of the Bible are made, the people still sin the same way.

 

The three greatest sins of today are indiffer­ence to, neglect of, and disrespect for the Word of God.

 

The only way to succeed in life is to work hard, stay clean, walk with your back to the wall, and keep your Bible handy.

 

The student of truth keeps an open Bible, an open dictionary, and an open mind.

 

Give the Bible to the people, unadulterated, pure, unaltered,

unexplained, uncheapened, and then see it work through the whole

nature. It is very difficult indeed for a man or for a boy who knows

the Scriptures ever to get away from it. It follows him like the

memory of his mother. It haunts him like an old song. It reminds him

like the word of an old and revered teacher. It forms a part of the

warp and woof of his life.

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)

 

God did not write a book and send it by messenger to be read at a

distance by unaided minds. He spoke a book and lives in his spoken

words, constantly speaking his words and causing the power of them to

persist across the years.

A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)

 

God the Father is the giver of Holy Scripture; God the Son is the

theme of Holy Scripture; and God the Spirit is the author,

authenticator, and interpreter of Holy Scripture.

J. I. Packer (1926- )

 

God's Book is packed full of overwhelming riches; they are

unsearchable-the more we have the more there is to have.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

He was great on texts, the doctor was. When he had a point to prove,

he'd just go through the Bible and drive all the texts ahead of him

like a flock of sheep; and then, if there was a text that seemed

against him, why, he'd come out with his Greek and Hebrew and kind of

chase it around a spell, just as you see a fellow chase a contrary

bell-weather, and make him jump the fence after the rest. I tell you,

there wasn't no text in the Bible that could stand against the doctor

when his blood was up .

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

 

He who hath heard the Word of God can bear his silences.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)

 

How petty are the books of the philosophers with all their pomp

compared with the Gospels!

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

 

However powerful and learned he may be, the Bible always sets man face

to face with God, reminding him thus of his frailty and his weakness.

Paul Tournier (1898-1986)

 

I am sorry for men who do not read the Bible every day. I wonder why

they deprive themselves of the strength and the pleasure .

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)

 

I discover an arrant laziness in my soul. For when I am to read a

chapter in the Bible, before I begin I look where it ends. And if it

ends not on the same side, I cannot keep my hands from turning over

the leaf, to measure the length on the other side; if it swells to

many verses, I begin to grudge. Surely my heart is not rightly

affected. Were I truly hungry after heavenly food, I would not

complain of meat. Scourge, Lord, this laziness of my soul; make the

reading of your Word, not a penance, but a pleasure to me; so I may

esteem that chapter in your Word the best which is the longest.

Sir Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)

 

I know the Bible is inspired because it finds me at a greater depth of

my being than any other book.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

 

I never had any doubt about it being of divine origin. . . point out

to me any similar collection of writings that has lasted for as many

thousands of years and is still a best-seller, world-wide. It had to

be of divine origin.

Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911- )

 

I never knew all there was in the Bible until I spent those years in

jail. I was constantly finding new treasures.

John Bunyan (1628-1688)

 

I read my Bible to know what people ought to do, and my newspaper to

know what they are doing.

Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

 

I study my Bible as I gather apples. First, I shake the whole tree

that the ripest might fall. Then I shake each limb, and when I have

shaken each limb, I shake each branch and every twig. Then I look

under every leaf.

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

 

I use the Scripture, not as an arsenal, to be resorted to only for

arms and weapons. . . but as a matchless temple, where I delight to be

to contemplate the beauty, the symmetry and the magnificence of the

structure.

Robert Boyle (1627-1691)

 

I was reading the Bible in many different languages, and I saw that it

cannot really be translated, the real meaning cannot be given in

another language. It is only in Hebrew that you feel the full meaning

of it-all the associations which a different word has.

David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973)

 

In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to

give me light and strength.

Robert Edward Lee (1807-1870)

 

In teaching me the way to live, it taught me how to die.

George Pope Morris (1802-1864)

 

In the Bible there is no twilight, but intense light and intense

darkness.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

In the case of Shakespeare the dependence is so obvious as to have

obtained from Emerson the verdict, "Shakespeare leans upon the Bible."

His mind is saturated with Scripture. He thinks naturally in terms of

Scripture. These are the marks of one who has read and absorbed the

Bible. Indeed, so close is the resemblance of Shakespeare to the Bible

in quality and tone that memory sometimes stumbles and we ask, "Is

this from the one or the other?" To take the Bible out of Shakespeare

would leave not merely a great gap-it would leave a deep wound in the

side. The Bible is woven in with the very texture of the immortal

plays. If the Bible were lost, much of its language and incident,

together with much of its spirit, would be preserved to us in

Shakespeare.

Edgar W. Work

 

In the Old Testament the new lies hidden, in the New Testament the old

is laid open.

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

 

It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother

me, it is the parts that I do understand.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

 

It is a profound source of literary stimulation, both because of its

majestic prose, and because of its ideas.

Stuart Chase (1888-1985)

 

It is impossible to mentally or socially enslave a Bible-reading

people.

Horace Greeley (1811-1872)

 

It is not possible ever to exhaust the mind of the Scriptures. It is a

well that has no bottom.

Saint John Chrysostom (C. 347-407)

 

Its critics, who claimed it to be filled with forgery, fiction, and

unfulfilled promises, are finding that the difficulties lie with

themselves, and not the Bible. Greater and more careful scholarship

has shown that apparent contradictions were caused by incorrect

translations rather than divine inconsistencies. It was man and not

the Bible that needed correcting. It is the blueprint of the Master

Architect.

Billy Graham (1918- )

 

Its light is like the body of heaven in its clearness; its vastness

like the bosom of the sea; its variety like scenes of nature.

Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

 

Make it the first morning business of your life to understand some

part of the Bible clearly, and make it your daily business to obey it

in all that you do understand.

John Ruskin (1819-1900)

 

My deepest regret, on reaching threescore years and ten, is that I

have not devoted more time to the study of the Bible. Still in less

than nineteen years I have gone through the New Testament in Chinese

fifty-five times.

Jonathan Goforth (1859-1936)

 

My own experience is that the Bible is dull when I am dull. When I am

really alive, and set in upon the text with a tidal pressure of living

affinities, it opens, it multiplies discoveries, and reveals depths

even faster than I can note them. The worldly spirit shuts the Bible;

the Spirit of God makes it a fire, flaming out all meanings and

glorious truths.

Horace Bushnell (1802-1876)

 

No one ever graduates from Bible study until he meets the author face

to face.

E. T. Harris

 

Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our

years.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)

 

Once you and I are face to face with the Word of God. . . we can only

accept or reject it. Jesus becomes the two-edged sword that cuts right

down the middle, dividing us into believers and nonbelievers.

John Powell

 

One of the many divine qualities of the Bible is this: that it does

not yield its secrets to the irreverent and censorious.

J. I. Packer (1926- )

 

One who uses the Bible as his guide never loses his sense of

direction.

 

Other books were given for our information, the Bible was given for

our transformation.

 

Read the Bible. Free gift inside.

 

Scripture is far higher and wider than our need.

Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

 

Sin will keep you from this book. This book will keep you from sin.

Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899)

 

Some people unfortunately try to reduce the great mystery to an absurd

kind of magic. They open the Bible at random, stab their fingers at a

verse, and expect therein to find God's instant answer to whatever is

troubling them at that moment. The notion that divine guidance is

dispensed in such a mechanical, penny-in-the-slot manner is an insult

to God and puts the Bible on a par with a ouija board.

Louis Cassels (1922-1974)

 

The amazing wealth of the Bible is precisely what makes it a difficult

book to study.

Paul Tournier (1898-1986)

 

The Bible contains more of my little philosophy than all the libraries

I have seen; and such parts of it as I cannot reconcile to my little

philosophy, I postpone for future investigation.

John Adams (1735-1826)

 

The Bible deals with terrors and upsets, with. . . all that the devil

can do, and yet all through there is the uncrushable certainty that in

the end everything will be all right.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

The Bible does not thrill, the Bible nourishes. Give time to the

reading of the Bible, and the recreating effect is as real as that of

fresh air physically.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

The Bible furnishes the only fitting vehicle to express the thoughts

that overwhelm us when contemplating the stellar universe.

Ormsby M. Mitchell (1809-1862)

 

The Bible grows more beautiful as we grow in our understanding of it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

 

The Bible has been the Magna Charta of the poor and oppressed.

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)

 

The Bible has meant a great deal to me always, not only for the

spiritual values it asserts, but for many other reasons-the beauty of

its poetry, the fact that it is the most human book or collection of

books ever written, containing the story of all human weaknesses and

strength. I enjoy it also because it contains nearly all the great

stories that have been written and rewritten many times and because it

contains the Ten Commandments, which provide the best formula ever set

down by which people can live together in civilized justice and

understanding. It is unquestionably the greatest of books and the

whole compendium of human experience in the real world as well as in

the spiritual one.

Louis Bromfield (1896-1956)

 

The Bible holds up before us ideals that are within sight of the

weakest and the lowliest, and yet so high that the best and the

noblest are kept with their faces turned ever upward.

William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)

 

The Bible is. . . the bedrock foundation of all our literature and,

therefore, if you want to know anything, the Bible is where you must

go to find it. . . . It is too big for systems, it comprehends man and

all his thoughts. . . . a great gallery of superb human portraits.

Thomas Lansing Masson (1866-1934)

 

The Bible is a letter from God with our personal address on it.

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

 

The Bible is a living book, an ever-enlarging book.

James C. K. McClure (1848-1932)

 

The Bible is a page torn out of the great volume of human life; torn

by the hand of God and annotated by his Spirit.

Joseph Parker (1830-1902)

 

The Bible is a stream wherein the elephant may swim and the lamb may

wade.

Pope Gregory the Great (540-604)

 

The Bible is a supernatural book and can be understood only by

supernatural aid.

A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)

 

The Bible is a universe of revelation facts which have no meaning for

us until we are born from above; when we are born again we see in it

what we never saw before. We are lifted into the realm where Jesus

lives and we begin to see what he sees.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

The Bible is a vein of pure gold, unalloyed by quartz or any earthly

substance. This is a star without a speck; a sun without a blot; a

light without darkness; a moon without its paleness; a glory without a

dimness. O Bible! It cannot be said of any other book that it is

perfect and pure; but of thee we can declare all wisdom is gathered up

in thee, without a particle of folly. This is the judge that ends the

strife, where wit and reason fail. This is the book untainted by any

error; but is pure, unalloyed, perfect truth.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)

 

The Bible is a window in this prison-world through which we may look

into eternity.

Timothy Dwight (1752-1817)

 

The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it

has hands, it lays hold on me.

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

 

The Bible is God's chart for you to steer by, to keep you from the

bottom of the sea, and to show you where the harbour is, and how to

reach it without running on rocks and bars.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)

 

The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through his telescope,

then he sees worlds beyond; but if he looks at his telescope, then he

does not see anything but that. The Bible is a thing to be looked

through, to see that which is beyond.

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

 

The Bible is meant to be bread for our daily use, not just cake for

special occasions.

 

The Bible is my church. It is always open, and there is my High Priest

ever waiting to receive me. There I have my confessional, my

thanksgiving, my psalm of praise, a field of promises, and a

congregation of whom the world is not worthy-prophets and apostles,

and martyrs and confessors-in short, all I can want, there I find.

Charlotte Elliot (1789-1871)

 

The Bible is such excellent medicine.

S. I. McMillen

 

The Bible is the constitution of Christianity.

Billy Graham (1918- )

 

The Bible is the most thought-suggesting book in the world. No other

deals with such grand themes.

Herrick Johnson (1832-1913)

 

The Bible is the only thing that can combat the devil. Quote the

Scriptures and the devil will run. . . use the Scriptures like a sword

and you'll drive temptation away.

Billy Graham (1918- )

 

The Bible never deals with the domains our human minds delight to deal

with. The Bible deals with heaven and hell, good and bad, God and the

devil, right and wrong, salvation and damnation; we like to deal with

things in-between.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

The Bible redirects my will, cleanses my emotions, enlightens my mind,

and quickens my total being.

E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973)

 

The Bible shows how the world progresses. It begins with a garden, but

ends with a holy city.

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

 

The Bible treats us as human life does-roughly.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

The Bible was never intended to be a book for scholars and specialists

only. From the very beginning it was intended to be everybody's book,

and that is what it continues to be.

F. F. Bruce (1910-1990)

 

The Bible-banned, burned, beloved. More widely read, more frequently

attacked than any other book in history. Generations of intellectuals

have attempted to discredit it; dictators of every age have outlawed

it and executed those who read it. Yet soldiers carry it into battle

believing it more powerful than their weapons. Fragments of it

smuggled into solitary prison cells have transformed ruthless killers

into gentle saints.

Charles Colson (1931- )

 

The Bible? That's the Book.

The Book indeed,

The Book of books;

On which who looks,

As he should do, aright,

Shall never need

Wish for a better light

To guide him in the night.

George Herbert (1593-1633)

 

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one that

makes you think. No other book in the world equals the Bible for that.

James McCosh (1811-1894)

 

The devil is not afraid of the Bible that has dust on it.

 

The empire of Caesar is gone; the legions of Rome are smouldering in

the dust; the avalanches that Napoleon hurled upon Europe have melted

away; the prince of the Pharaohs is fallen; the pyramids they raised

to be their tombs are sinking every day in the desert sands; Tyre is a

rock for bleaching fisherman's nets; Sidon has scarcely left a wreck

behind; but the Word of God still survives. All things that threatened

to extinguish it have only aided it; and it proves every day how

transient is the noblest monument that men can build, how enduring is

the least word that God has spoken.

Albert Baird Cummins (1850-1926)

 

The Good Book-one of the most remarkable euphemisms ever coined.

Ashley Montagu (1905- )

 

The gospel is not merely a book-it is a living power-a book surpassing

all others. I never omit to read it, and every day with the same

pleasure. The gospel possesses a secret virtue, a mysterious efficacy,

a warmth which penetrates and soothes the heart. One finds in

meditating upon it that which one experiences in contemplating the

heavens. The gospel is not a book; it is a living being, with an

action, a power, which invades everything that opposes its extension.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

 

The highest earthly enjoyments are but a shadow of the joy I find in

reading God's Word.

Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554)

 

The Holy Bible is an abyss. It is impossible to explain how profound

it is, impossible to explain how simple it is.

Ernest Hello (1828-1885)

 

The Holy Scriptures tell us what we could never learn any other way:

they tell us what we are, who we are, how we got here, why we are here

and what we are required to do while we remain here.

A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)

 

The incongruity of the Bible with the age of its birth; its freedom

from earthly mixtures; its original, unborrowed, solitary greatness;

the suddenness with which it broke forth amidst the general gloom;

these, to me, are strong indications of its divine descent; I cannot

reconcile them with a human origin.

William Ellery Channing (1780-1842)

 

The most learned, acute, and diligent student cannot, in the longest

life, obtain an entire knowledge of the Bible. The more deeply he

works the mine, the richer and more abundant he finds the ore; new

light continually beams from this source of heavenly knowledge, to

direct the conduct, and illustrate the work of God and the ways of

men; and he will at last leave the world confessing, that the more he

studied the Scriptures, the fuller conviction he had of his own

ignorance, and of their inestimable value.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

 

The mystery of the Bible should teach us, at one and the same time,

our nothingness and our greatness, producing humility and animating

hope.

Henry Dundas Melville (1742-1811)

 

The New Testament holds up a strong light by which a man can read even

the small print of his soul.

John A. Hutton (1868-1947)

 

The perfection of human expression was achieved when the world was

younger: The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's, the Book of Psalms,

the Revelation of St. John the Divine.

Fannie Hurst (1889-1968)

 

The sacred page is not meant to be the end, but only the means toward

the end, which is knowing God himself.

A. W Tozer (1897-1963)

 

The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of

suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.

John Flavel (1627-1691)

 

The third chapter of Genesis is undoubtedly the most important chapter

in the whole Bible. It is the only chapter which, if we could conceive

it as being withdrawn, would leave all the rest of Scripture

unintelligible. Take away this chapter and you take away the key of

knowledge to all the rest of the Bible.

Archbishop Richard Chenevix Trench (1807-1886)

 

There came a time in my life when I doubted the divinity of the

Scriptures, and I resolved as a lawyer and a judge I would try the

book as I would try anything in the courtroom, taking evidence for and

against. It was a long, serious, and profound study; and using the

same principles of evidence in this religious matter as I always do in

secular matters, I have come to the decision that the Bible is a

supernatural book, that it has come from God, and that the only safety

for the human race is to follow its teachings.

Salmon P. Chase (1808-1873)

 

There's far more truth in the book of Genesis than in the quantum

theory.

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990)

 

This little book-it has said everything there is to be said.

Everything is implied and anticipated in it. Whatever one should like

to put into words has already been said in it.

Mordecai Obadiah (1810-1882)

 

To me the memorizing of Scripture has been an unfailing help in doubt,

anxiety, sorrow, and all the countless vicissitudes and problems of

life. I believe in it enough to have devoted many, many hours to

stowing away passages where I can neither leave them behind me nor be

unable to get at them.

Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell (1865-1940)

 

Trying to absorb the depths of the Bible is like trying to mop up the

ocean floor with a sponge.

 

We find the Bible difficult because we try to read it as we would read

any other book, and it is not the same as any other book.

A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)

 

What a book! Great and wide as the world, rooted in the abysmal depths

of creation and rising aloft into the blue mysteries of heaven.

Sunrise and sunset, promise and fulfillment, birth and death, the

whole human drama, everything is in this book. It is the book of

books, Biblia.

Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

 

Why do they put the Gideon Bibles only in the bedrooms, where it's

usually too late, and not in the barroom downstairs?

Christopher Darlington Morley (1890-1957)

 

Without the present illumination of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God

must remain a dead letter to every man, no matter how intelligent or

well-educated he may be. . . . It is just as essential for the Holy

Spirit to reveal the truth of Scripture to the reader today as it was

necessary for him to inspire the writers in their day.

William Law (1686-1761)

 

You can learn more about human nature by reading the Bible than by

living in New York.

William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943)

 

You cannot criticize the New Testament. It criticizes you.

John Jay Chapman (1862-1933)

 

Psalms: a "Little Bible" since it contains, set out in the briefest

and most beautiful form, all that is to be found in the whole Bible.

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

 

Psalms: the songs of the human soul, timeless and universal.

Theodore H. Robinson

 

The book of Psalms contains the whole music of the heart of man, swept

like a harp by the hand of his Maker; In it are gathered the lyrical

burst of his tenderness, the moan of his penitence, the pathos of his

sorrow, the triumph of his victory, the despair of his defeat, the

firmness of his confidence, the rapture of his assured hope.

Rowland E. Prothero (1851-1937)

 

The Psalms are the anatomy of the soul.

John Calvin (1509-1564)

 

The Psalms: a mirror in which each man sees the motions of his own

soul.

Rowland E. Prothero (1851-1937)

 

The Twenty-third Psalm is the nightingale of the psalms. It is small,

of a homely feather, singing shyly out of obscurity; but it has filled

the air of the whole world with melodious joy.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)

 

Bid

 

Be not too hasty to outbid another.

 

Bigamy

 

The penalty for bigamy is two mothers in‑law.

 

A bigamist is a chap who has had one too many.

 

A southern maiden married five GI's. She told the judge that Cupid must have shot her with a shrapnel.

 

Bigamy is having one wife too many ‑ mo­nogamy is often the same.

 

Nothing makes a man faster on his feet than politics, unless it's bigamy.

 

Bigamy is the only crime on the books where two rites make a wrong.

 

Most men would like to have a wife who's beautiful, understanding, economical, and a good cook. Unfortunately, the law allows a man only one wife!

 

Bigotry

 

Bigotry is being certain of something you know nothing about.

 

The bigot agrees there are two sides to every question ‑ his side and the wrong one.

 

A bigot is a person who slams his mind in your face.

 

The mind of the bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you shine into it, the more it will contract.

 

A first‑class mistake is to treat anyone as a second‑class person.

 

People who brag about having an open mind should close it occasionally and think.

 

Bills

 

Some people pay their bills when due, some when overdue, and some

never do.

 

After looking at the bill for my operation, I understand why

doctors wear masks in the operating room.

 

Happiness is getting a bill you've already paid, so you can sit

down and write a nasty letter.

 

Maybe we can keep warm next winter by burning our bills.

 

Alas! How deeply painful is all payment!

Lord Byron

 

Biography

 

You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)

Where breath most breathes--even in the mouths of men.

William Shakespeare

 

Bird

 

Birds of a feather flock together.

 

The early bird catches the worm.

 

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Greek proverb

 

A bird is known by his feathers.

Yiddish proverb

 

Birth

 

Show me a twin birth and I'll show you an infant replay.

 

The government is concerned about the population explosion, and the

population is concerned about the government explosion.

Ruth Rankin

 

Birth Control

 

I want to tell you a terrific story about oral contraception. I

asked this girl to sleep with me and she said no.

Woody Allen

 

Birthdays

 

Our beloved country recently celebrated its two‑hundredth birthday, and all we've learned in that time is how to go fast, work less,

waste more, and die quicker.

 

The least likely way for a middle‑aged woman to celebrate her birthday is annually.

 

George Washington was first in war, first in peace, and first to have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend.

 

The design on a woman's birthday cake is often very beautiful, but the arithmetic is ter­rible.

 

Birthdays are nice to have, but too many of them will kill a person.

 

When a man has a birthday he may take a day off. When a woman has a birthday she may take as much as five years off.

 

Sign in a florist's window: "Smoking, or for­getting your wife's birthday, can be hazard­ous to your health."

 

At the birthday party of a prominent spin­ster, many of the guests were overcome by the heat of the candles.

 

A woman bakes a child's birthday cake big enough to hold all the candles ‑ and her own small enough not to.

 

The best way to remember your wife's birth­day is to forget it once!

 

A diplomatic husband said to his wife, "How do you expect me to remember your birthday when you never look any older?"

 

Her birthday cake had so many candles on it she was fined for air pollution.

 

Bitterness

 

An irritable person is like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way,

tormenting himself with his own prickles.

Thomas Hood (1799-1845)

 

Animosity cloaked in piety is a demon even if it sits in church

praising the Creator.

Calvin Miller

 

By bearing old wrongs you provoke new ones.

Publilius Syrus (First Century B.C.)

 

If there is the tiniest grudge in your mind against anyone ... your

spiritual penetration into the knowledge of God stops.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

If you hug to yourself any resentment against anybody else, you

destroy the bridge by which God would come to you.

Peter Marshall (1902-1949)

 

It is never the big things that disturb us, but the trivial things.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

It's the little things that annoy us; we can sit on a mountain but not

on a tack.

 

Malice has a strong memory.

Sir Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)

 

Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than resentment.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)

 

Resentment becomes a black, furry, growling grudge. Grudge ... starts

with a growl. "Grr..." Like a bear with bad breath coming out of

hibernation.

Max L. Lucado (1955- )

 

There is no torment like the inner torment of an unforgiving spirit.

It refuses to be soothed, it refuses to be healed, it refuses to

forget.

Charles R. Swindoll (1934- )

 

Those who say they will forgive but can't forget, bury the hatchet,

but they leave the handle out for immediate use.

Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899)

 

Blessings

 

A person who is to be happy must actively enjoy his blessings.

Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

 

All that is required to make men unmindful of what they owe to God for

any blessing is that they should receive that blessing often and

regularly.

Richard Whately (1787-1863)

 

Every misery I miss is a new blessing.

Izaak Walton (1593-1683)

 

God particularly pours out his blessings upon those who know how much

they need him.

Robert Harold Schuller (1926- )

 

If you don't get everything you want, think of the things you don't

get that you don't want.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

 

In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

Desiderius Erasmus (C. 1466-1536)

 

It would be a blessing if each human being were striken blind and deaf

for a few days at some time during his adult life. Darkness would make

him more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of

sound.

Helen Adams Keller (1880-1968)

 

Never look at what you have lost; look at what you have left.

Robert Harold Schuller (1926- )

 

Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to

ask the blessings of heaven.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)

 

Once it was the blessing, now it is the Lord.

Albert Benjamin Simpson (1843-1919)

 

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many; not

on your past misfortunes of which all men have some.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

 

The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your

eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just

before you.

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (1850-1894)

 

The greatest blessing we ever get from God is to know that we are

destitute spiritually.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

The Lord gives his blessing when he finds the vessel empty.

Thomas A Kempis (C. 1380-1471)

 

Unwelcome visitors sometimes bring unexpected blessings.

 

Be thou the rainbow to the storm of life,

The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,

And tints tomorrow with prophetic ray!

Lord George Noel Gordon Byron (1788-1824)

 

Bless all who worship thee, from the rising of the sun unto the going

down of the same. Of thy goodness, give us; with thy love, inspire us;

by thy spirit, guide us; by thy power, protect us; in thy mercy,

receive us now and always.

 

The splendor, the love, and the strength of God be upon us.

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

 

Black

 

The pot called the kettle black.

Miguel de Cervantes

 

Blame

 

He must be pure who would blame another.

Danish proverb

 

As long as we incorrectly blame outside sources for our miseries,

it remains impossible to do much about them. However, if we realize

that we upset ourselves over the things that happen to us, we can work

at changing. The first step is to ask: Exactly how did I manage to

upset myself? We then obtain the clues about how to avoid upsetting

ourselves.

Arnold Lazarus, Alan Fay

 

Blind

 

Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the

ditch?

Luke 6:39

 

Better half blind than have both eyes out.

 

Folk of times are most blind in their own cause.

 

None so blind as those who won't see.

 

When the blind man carries the banner, woe to those who follow.

French proverb

 

In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

   -- Erasmus

 

Blowing

 

He that blows in the fire will get sparks in his eyes.

German proverb

 

Blushing

 

A blush is one thing that can't be counter­feited.

 

When a modern girl blushes she's probably been caught doing something proper.

 

Judging from some of the specimens they se­lect, can you blame brides for blushing?

 

Man is the only animal that blushes, and the only one that needs to.

 

An old‑fashioned girl blushes when she is em­barrassed, but a modern girl is embarrassed when she blushes.

 

A blush is the color of virtue.

 

The modern girl has all her blushing done for her by her parents, brothers, and sweet, hearts.

 

Boast

 

Empty barrels make the most noise.

 

He that boasts of his own knowledge proclaims his ignorance.

 

Great boasters, little doers.

French proverb

 

Believe a boaster as you would a liar.

Italian proverb

 

Boasting

 

One form of advertising that's a liability in­stead of an asset is a person blowing his own horn.

 

The man who has nothing to boast about but his ancestors is like a potato ‑ the only good belonging to him is underground.

 

Those who have a right to boast don't need to.

 

A boaster and a liar are first cousins.

 

Folks who boast of being self‑made usually have a few parts missing.

 

The only time you should blow your horn is when you're in the band.

 

Duty is a task we look forward to with dis­taste, perform with reluctance, and brag about afterwards.

 

He who toots his own horn has everybody dodging him.

 

To blow your own horn is more hygienic.

 

Don't brag and blow; it isn't the whistle that pulls the train.

 

Some proud folks are always letting off es­teem.

 

The bouquet you hand yourself usually looks like weeds to the other fellow.

 

An egotist is like a ship in a fog ‑ always blowing his horn.

 

Boasting and sleeping are the forerunners of failure.

 

Flattery will get you nowhere. This is espe­cially true when you give it to yourself.

 

A fool tells you what he will do; a boaster, what he has done. The wise man does it and says nothing.

 

The Lord loves a cheerful giver ‑ until he brags about it.

 

The trouble with people who have broken a habit is that they usually have the pieces mounted and framed.

 

You can't judge an automobile by the sound of its horn ‑ nor a man!

 

A modest person hardly ever blows his "knows" in public.

 

There are a few people among us who are like boats ‑ they toot the loudest when in a fog.

 

People should not forget the mama whale's advice to the baby whale, "Remember, it's only when you spout that you get har­pooned."

 

Politics is the only profession in which a man can make a living solely by bragging.

 

The less power a man has, the more he brags of what he'd do if he had it.

 

The man who sings his own praises may have the right tune but the wrong words.

 

Did you ever suspect that folks who repent loud and long are really just bragging?

 

When selling yourself don't misrepresent the goods.

 

The trouble with blowing one's horn is that it seldom leaves any wind for climbing.

 

When we hear a man boasting about how much liquor he can hold, we get a mental picture of an animated garbage can.

 

A lot of people who boast they never go back on their word don't mind going around it a little.

 

The man who never boasts is always bragging about it.

 

Before you start tooting your own horn, be sure there's plenty of juice in your battery.

 

He who boasts of being self‑made relieves the Lord of a lot of responsibility.

 

The hen that laid the biggest egg usually does the least cackling about it.

 

Most men brag about their hunting experi­ences, though they're chiefly confined to shooting pool, craps, and bull.

 

Some people would rather blow their own horn than listen to the Marine Band.

 

The fellow who boasts of his open mind may only have a vacant one.

 

The person who boasts of having no religious prejudice quite often has no religion.

 

A businessman boasts that he and his wife started out with absolutely nothing, "And we've got most of it left."

 

The man who boasts only of his roots is con­ceding that he belongs to a family that's bet­ter dead than alive.

 

A Hollywood star boasts he's been happily married for twenty years. Of course, it took him five marriages to do it.

 

It's difficult to figure out who does more brag­ging ‑ those who have lost weight or those who have quit smoking.

 

For every person who brags about being bright, there are a dozen ready to polish him off.

 

People who brag about having an open mind should close it occasionally and think.

 

The fellow who brags about how smart he is wouldn't if he was.

 

When a man brags that he wears the pants at home, the chances are his wife tells him which pants to put on.

 

Anybody who brags about what he's going to do tomorrow probably did the same thing yes­terday.

 

The fellow who blows his horn the loudest is usually in the biggest fog.

 

People who brag about taking a middle of‑the‑road position tend to forget they're set­ting themselves up for being hit from both directions.

 

Self‑praise can be put in the same class as anything else you get for nothing.

 

Praising yourself to the sky is not going to get you there.

 

When a man sings his own praise, he usually pitches the tune too high.

 

Self‑praise is the only way some folks get any.

 

Few people need voice lessons to sing their own praise.

 

The man who sings his own praise invariably sings an unaccompanied solo.

 

Success doesn't always go to the head; sometimes it goes to the mouth.

 

A person interrupts and endangers his climb up the ladder of success when he stops to pat himself on the back.

 

The worst use that can be made of success is to boast of it.

 

It takes most men about two years to com­pletely quit smoking cigarettes and twice as long to quit bragging about it.

 

The husband who boasts that he never made a mistake has a wife who did.

 

There are very few who boast of having been born in a log cabin who still live in them.

 

The fellow who boasts of running things at his home most likely means the lawn mower, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, and er­rands.

 

Body

 

A human being: an ingenious assembly of portable plumbing.

Christopher Darlington Morley (1890-1957)

 

Body: not a home but an inn-and that only briefly.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (C. 4 B.C.-A.D. 65)

 

Once you are over fifty and you wake up in the morning without some pain – you are dead.

 

God always locates his spiritual revelations in a physical body. The

great God became Incarnate in flesh and blood; the great thoughts of

God became crystallized in words.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

O God, may we so value our bodies and minds that we never mar them.

May we not be tricked into bad habits by publicity and advertisements

that deliberately mislead, or by the desire for easy applause, or by

the fear of being thought narrow. But may we be sturdy and upright in

our thinking and our behavior, and treat our bodies as the temple of

thy Spirit.

Sid G. Hodges

 

Our body is the most gracious gift God has given us, and that if we

hand over the mainspring of our life to God we can work out in our

bodily life all that he works in. It is through our bodily lives that

Satan works and, thank God, it is through our bodily lives that God's

Spirit works. God gives us his grace and his Spirit; he puts right all

that was wrong, he does not suppress it nor counteract it, but

readjusts the whole thing; then begins our work.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

Our body is to be the temple of the Holy Ghost, the medium for

manifesting the marvelous disposition of Jesus Christ.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

Thank God we are not going to be angels, we are going to be something

tenfold better. By the redemption of Jesus Christ there is a time

coming when our bodies will be in the image of God.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

The Bible, instead of ignoring the fact that we have a body, exalts it.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

The body is matter, but it is God's creation. . . when it is neglected

or scoffed at, God himself is insulted.

Michel Quoist (1921- )

 

The body: a marvelous machine. . . a chemical laboratory, a

powerhouse. Every movement, voluntary or involuntary, full of secrets

and marvels.

Theodor Herzl (1860-1904)

 

The brain and the body are pure mechanisms, there is nothing spiritual

about them; they are the machines we use to express our personality.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar, and is shocked by the

unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves

the novel, and is bored by repetition.

W H. Auden (1907-1973)

 

The ears and eyes are the doors and windows of the soul.

Joseph Joubert (1754-1824)

 

The human body is probably the most amazing example of teamwork

anywhere. Every part needs the other. When the stomach is hungry, the

eyes spot the hamburger. The nose smells the onions, the feet run to

the snack stand, the hands douse the burger with mustard and shove it

back into the mouth, where it goes down to the stomach. Now that's

cooperation!

Joni Eareckson Tada

 

We have a bodily machine which we must regulate. God does not regulate

it for us. Until we learn to bring the bodily machine into harmony

with God's will, there will be friction, and the friction is a warning

that part of the machine is not in working order.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Matthew 26:41

 

Alas, after a certain age, every man is responsible for his own

face.

Albert Camus

 

The body says what words cannot.

Martha Graham

 

We have to treat the body as the servant of Jesus Christ: when the

body says, "Sit," and he says, "Go," go! When the body says, "Eat,"

and he says, "Fast," fast! When the body says, "Yawn," and he says,

"Pray," pray!

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

Boldness

 

In difficult situations the boldest plans are safest.

Titus Livy

 

Audacity augments courage.

Publilius Syrus

 

When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced

courses of action you should take--choose the bolder.

W. J. Slim

 

Books

 

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.

Chinese Proverb

 

A good book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

W H. Auden (1907-1973)

 

All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been; it is lying as in

magic preservation in the pages of books.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

 

The book How to Beat Inflation has just gone from $1.75 to $2.95.

 

Nowadays it seems that more books are read in Laundromats than in libraries.

 

There are a lot of books telling you how to manage when you retire. What most people want is one that'll tell them how to manage in

the meantime.

 

How‑to‑get‑rich books are now filed under FICTION.

 

The one book that always has a sad ending is a checkbook.

 

Sign in a South Dakota bookstore, "Read a good novel before Hollywood ruins it."

 

The trouble with speed reading is that by the time you realize a book is boring, you've finished reading it.

 

Some of our new books are so down‑to‑earth they should be plowed under.

 

In a library the books that aren't dirty are the ones that are dusty.

 

A poor appetite for good books eventually leads to intellectual malnutrition.

 

Children don't read to find their identity, to free themselves from

guilt, to quench the thirst for rebellion or to get rid of alienation.

They have no use for psychology. They detest sociology. They still

believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic,

clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff. . . . When a book

is boring, they yawn openly. They don't expect their writer to redeem

humanity, but leave to adults such childish illusions.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991)

 

Never lend books-nobody ever returns them; the only books I have in my

library are those which people have lent me.

Anatole France (1844-1924)

 

Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of a good

book.

Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832)

 

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762)

 

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for

granted, nor to find talk and discourse-but to weigh and consider.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

 

The Bible is not only the world's best seller, it is man's best purchase.

 

So many books are now being written on how to speak that there ought to be a market for one on how to shut up.

 

We've truly become a nation of book lovers provided they're filled with trading stamps.

 

Some books you can't put down, and others you dare not put down when there are children in the house.

 

A reference book is one in which we can quickly find what it doesn't contain.

 

If you enjoy reading a spicy book, read a Mexican cookbook.

 

The only book that really tells you where you can go on your vacation is your checkbook.

 

There might be more good books if there were more good people to read them.

 

A classic is a book which people praise highly but never read.

 

Some books are not to be lightly thrown aside; they should be thrown with great force.

 

A country hick sent the following request to a public library: "Please send me the name of a good book on personal hygiene. I'm afraid I have it."

 

A rare volume is a borrowed book that comes back.

 

We should be as careful of the books we read as we are of the company we keep.

 

A good test of the worth of a book is the number of times you can read it with profit.

 

There is one good thing you can say for a book. It does not interrupt at the most interesting part for a word from the sponsor.

 

A book is a success when people who haven't read it pretend they have.

 

It is a good book when it is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.

 

Now there's a book on the market for people who disagree ‑ a CONTRADICTIONARY.

 

For many books the backs and covers are by far the best parts.

 

When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to

be alive and talking to me.

Jonathan Swift

 

A drop of ink may make a million think.

Lord Byron

 

There are more books upon books than upon any other subject.

Michel de Montaigne

 

A good book contains more real wealth than a good bank.

Roy L. Smith

 

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the

most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of

teachers.

Charles W. Eliot

 

Every great book is an action, and every great action is a book.

Martin Luther

 

That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed

with profit.

A. Bronson Alcott

 

A book may be as great a thing as a battle.

Benjamin Disraeli

 

Books are ships which pass through the vast seas of time.

Francis Bacon

 

Judge not a book by its cover.

 

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

Cicero

 

Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness

of the flesh.

Ecclesiastes 12:12

 

It is from books that wise men derive consolation in the troubles

of life.

Victor Hugo

 

Friends, books, a cheerful heart, and conscience clear are the most

choice companions we have here.

William Mather

 

No matter what his rank or position may be, the lover of books is

the richest and happiest of the children of men.

John Alfred Langford

 

Some good book is usually responsible for the success of every

really great man.

Roy L. Smith

 

The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own

thinking.

Christopher Morley

 

The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I

had gained a new friend. When I read over a book I have perused

before, it resembles the meeting with an old one.

Oliver Goldsmith

 

While you converse with lords and dukes, I have their betters

here--my books.

Thomas Sheridan

 

You are the same today as you will be five years from now except

for two things . . . the people you meet and the books you read.

Charles E. Jones

 

Except a living man, there is nothing more wonderful than a

book!--a message to us from the dead--from human souls whom we never

saw, who lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away; and yet these, in

those little sheets of paper, speak to us, amuse us, terrify us, teach

us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers . . . I say we

ought to reverence books, to look at them as useful and mighty things.

If they are good and true, whether they are about religion or

politics, farming, trade, or medicine, they are the message of Christ,

the maker of all things, the teacher of all truth.

Charles Kingsley

 

From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was

convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.

Groucho Marx

 

Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a

long day makes that day happier.

Kathleen Norris

 

Do give books--religious or otherwise--for Christmas. They're never

fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal.

Lenore Hershey

 

Book lovers never go to bed alone.

Anonymous

 

I read part of it all the way through.

Sam Goldwyn

 

A good book has no ending.

R. D. Cumming

 

No furniture is so charming as books.

Sydney Smith

 

One man is as good as another until he has written a book.

Benjamin Jowett

 

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?

Henry Ward Beecher

 

To me the charm of an encyclopedia is that it knows--and I needn't.

Francis Yeats-Brown

 

A good title is the title of a successful book.

Raymond Chandler

 

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few

to be chewed and digested.

Francis Bacon

 

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.

Chinese proverb

 

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance

of generations and nations.

Henry David Thoreau

 

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of

a book.

Confession is not only good for the soul; in Washington it can be turned into a bestseller.

 

Some folks commit a crime and go to jail; others commit a crime, write a book, and get rich.

 

Readers may be divided into four classes:  1. Sponges, who absorb all

they read and return it nearly in the same state, only a little

dirtied.  2. Sandglasses, who retain nothing and are content to get

through a book for the sake of getting through the time.  3.

Stainbags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.  4. Mogul

diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and

enable others to profit by it, also.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

 

Reading-the nice and subtle happiness of reading. . . . This joy not

dulled by age, this polite and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene,

lifelong intoxication.

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946)

 

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to

be chewed and digested.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

 

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who

cannot read at all.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

 

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest

men of past centuries.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

 

The things you read will fashion you by slowly conditioning your mind.

A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)

 

Generally, women don't like the dictionary, because it has the first and the last word.

 

There's no sense in reading a dictionary; if you've read one, you've read them all.

 

All that some people lose when they buy a book on dieting is the price of the book.

 

An economist in Los Angeles recently com­pleted writing a book titled The Short Story of Money. The book contains only seven

words, "Here it is and there it goes."

 

When an egotist doesn't understand some­thing in a book, he decides it must be a mis­print.

 

Many a man thinks he has become famous when he merely happened to meet an editor who was hard‑up for material.

 

To the average girl the most helpful books are mother's cookbook and father's check­book.

 

In today's novels the boy always gets the girl ‑ at least once in every chapter.

 

Today's novels contain a lot of details that were once told exclusively to the family doc­tor.

 

A lot of modern novels have one common fail­ing ‑ their covers are too far apart.

 

The one book that really tells you where you can go on your vacation is your pocketbook.

 

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

 

All morning I worked on the proof of one of my poems, and I took out a

comma; in the afternoon I put it back.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

 

All who have been concerned in the day-by-day reporting of the game's

progress-I mean the collection, presentation, and dissemination of

what is called news-know better than anyone how slight, fragile, and

fraudulent are the available sources. The bucket dropped into the well

of truth is leaky indeed, and such water as it brings up, brackish and

polluted.

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990)

 

Chaucer had talent, but he couldn't spell.

Artemus Ward (1727-1800)

 

God is not interested only in Christian writers as such. He is

concerned with all kinds of writing. In the same way a sacred calling

is not limited to ecclesiastical functions. The man who is weeding a

field of turnips is also serving God.

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

 

If my stories are incomprehensible to Jews or Muslims or Taoists, then

I have failed as a Christian writer. We do not draw people to Christ

by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong

they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so

lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.

Madeleine L'Engle (1918- )

 

In a very real sense, the writer writes in order to teach himself.

Alfred Kazin (1915- )

 

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole

book.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)

 

Less is more.

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

 

Let me make the newspapers, and I care not what is preached in the

pulpit or what is enacted in Congress.

Wendell Phillips (1811-1884)

 

Logic teaches that if an educated person knows how to use colons in

writing, a semi-educated person must know how to use semicolons.

 

The making of indexes is what gives editors that haggard and querulous

look.

Saxe Commins

 

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when

one will do.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

 

The writer is a kind of evangelist, more subtle than Billy Graham, of

course, but of the same stuff.

Shirley Ann Grau (1929- )

 

There is a type of writing that causes people to commit crime-and

that's the type of writing that's done every day in the newspapers.

One story about a hijacker breeds a thousand. It's sensationalism.

It's more the exposure than the quality of writing. People know a work

of fiction is make-believe. People don't commit murders after reading

Agatha Christie. People do commit murder after reading about murder in

the paper. Similar murders.

William Seward Burroughs (1914- )

 

When I am grappling with ideas which are radical enough to upset

grownups, then I am likely to put these ideas into a story which will

be marketed for children, because children understand what their

parents have rejected and forgotten.

Madeleine L'Engle (1918- )

 

Writing a book or a manifesto is the nearest a man gets to having a

baby.

John R. W. Stott (1921- )

 

Writing is so difficult that I often feel that writers, having had

their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.

Jessamyn West (1907- )

 

Bores

 

A bore only stops talking to see if you're still listening.

 

There are two kinds of bores ‑ those who talk too much and those who listen too little.

 

A bore is as hard to get rid of as a summer cold.

 

A yawn is nature's way of giving the person listening to a bore an

opportunity to open his mouth.

 

A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you

with company.

Gian Vincenzo Gravina

 

He has returned from Italy a greater bore than ever; he bores on

architecture, painting, statuary and music.

Sydney Smith

 

We often forgive those who bore us, but can't forgive those whom we

bore.

La Rochefoucauld

 

A healthy male adult bore consumes, each year, one and a half times

his own weight in other people's patience.

John Updike

 

Someone described a bore: "He reminds me of a toothache I once had."

 

A bore keeps you from feeling lonely and makes you wish you were.

 

One nice thing about bores is that they don't talk about other people.

 

A bore always lights up the room when he leaves.

 

Have you noticed that a bore doesn't stop talking when you've stopped listening?

 

A bore never runs out of talk ‑ only out of listeners.

 

It isn't so much what we say as the number of times we say it that makes us a bore.

 

A bore is someone who boasts about his ac­complishments when he should be boasting about yours!

 

It's easy to keep from being a bore. Just praise the person to whom you're talking.

 

A bore is like a TV commercial ‑ often loud and dull.

 

Have you noticed that a bore always takes his time taking your time?

 

A bore is a guy with a cocktail glass in one hand, and your lapel in the other.

 

A bore is someone who holds a conversation and won't let go.

 

There is only one thing worse than a bore and that's a bore with bad breath.

 

A big shot may also be a big bore.

 

One of the troubles with small talk is that it usually comes in large doses.

 

Some folks are so highly educated they can bore you on any subject.

 

Usually the man who howls loudest about free speech has nothing worth saying.

 

Too many people confuse free speech with loose talk.

 

Talking about others and being a gossip is probably better than talking about yourself and being a bore.

 

One of the best ways for some people to make others happy is to shut up and go home.

 

A man without a single idea is less of a bore than a man with only one idea.

 

Some people never let ideas interrupt the easy flow of their conversation.

 

When an idler sees a job completed, he's sure he could have done it better.

 

A person who never makes a mistake is pretty boring. .

 

A speaker who doesn't strike oil in twenty‑five minutes should stop boring.

 

Might as well keep your mouth shut. If you talk about yourself you're a bore, and if you talk about others you're a gossip.

 

Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.

 

Many public speakers can talk for hours without any notes ‑ or knowledge!

 

Boredom

 

Boredom is . . . a vital consideration for the moralist, since at

least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.

Bertrand Russell

 

Man is so unhappy that he would be bored even if he had no cause

for boredom, by the very nature of his temperament, and he is so vain

that, though he has a thousand and one basic reasons for being bored,

the slightest thing, like pushing a ball with a billiard cue, will be

enough to divert him.

Blaise Pascal

 

Borrowing

 

An acquaintance is a person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

 

Bank interest on a loan is so high that if you can afford to pay it you don't need the loan.

 

A bank is a financial institution where you can borrow money if you can present sufficient evidence to show that you don't need it.

 

The borrower is servant to the lender.

Proverbs 22:7

 

Creditors have better memories than debtors.

 

He that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.

 

Borrowing is not much better than begging.

German proverb

 

Borrowing is the mother of trouble.

Hebrew proverb

 

He who does not have to borrow lives without cares.

Yiddish proverb

 

A rare volume is a borrowed book that comes back.

 

If you have to borrow, always borrow from a pessimist. He doesn't expect to be paid anyway.

 

Anybody who thinks all forms of larceny are illegal doesn't understand borrowing.

 

When a man borrows money from a bank he pays interest, but when he borrows from a friend he often loses interest.

 

The trouble with a chronic borrower is that he always keeps everything but his word.

 

It is a fraud to borrow when you know that you will be unable to repay.

 

A borrower is a person who exchanges hot air for cold cash.

 

The slogan of the borrowing nations today is, "See America First."

 

If it's as easy to borrow money from a bank as the advertisements claim, why should anybody want to rob it?

 

If you listen to the loan company commercials, you'll almost believe you can borrow yourself out of debt.

 

It's easier to love your enemies if you remember that they never try to borrow from you.

 

Warm friends often freeze up at the mention of cash.

 

Friends last longer the less they are used.

 

You can usually tell how close your closest friend is if you ask him for a loan.

 

A friend in need is a drain on the pocketbook.

 

A lifelong friend is. someone you haven't borrowed money from yet.

 

The quickest way to wipe out a friendship is to sponge on it.

 

Many people seem to think a home is only good to borrow money on.

 

It takes a heap o' livin' to make a house a home, but before that, it takes a lot o' borrowin'.

 

We should always strive to live within our incomes, even if we have to borrow money to do so.

 

If life is ever found on the planet Mars, they're certain to ask us for a loan.

 

It's strange how much better our memory becomes as soon as a friend borrows money from us.

 

Every time you lend money to a friend you damage his memory.

 

The reason it is called "cold cash" is because of the way the temperature drops when you try to borrow some.

 

If you want to know the value of money, try and borrow it.

 

B A neighbor likes to borrow your equipment and loan you his troubles.

 

When the new neighbors move in, it's only friendly to keep a close check on what they have that's worth borrowing.

 

The man who borrows trouble is always in debt.

 

A good neighbor is one who, when he wants to borrow your corkscrew, asks you to bring it over.

 

Sympathy is what you give to a man when you don't want to lend him money.

 

The reward for saving your money is being able to pay your taxes without borrowing.

 

Nothing makes time pass faster than vaca­tions and short‑term loans.

 

Time may be money, but it's much easier to persuade a man to give you his time than to lend you his money.

 

Before borrowing money from a friend, decide which you need more.

 

It's easy to borrow money from the government. All you have to do is pretend you're a foreign power.

 

A good neighbor is one who doesn't expect you to return the things you borrow.

 

A cooperative neighbor is one who advises you on what to buy, so he can borrow it later.

 

Borrowing neighbors will take anything but a hint.

 

Lots of people think a house is only good to borrow money on.

 

A boy becomes a man when he stops asking his father for an allowance and requests a loan.

 

Some people feel that a cigarette is not harmful if they borrow it from somebody else.

 

The cancer scare has increased the use of borrowed cigarettes.

 

Bosses

 

Ability is what will get you to the top if the boss has no daughter.

 

Before you have an argument with your boss, you'd better take a good look at both sides ‑his side and the outside.

 

Before arguing with your boss, make abso­lutely sure you're right ‑ then let the matter drop.

 

The only time it's safe to tell the boss where to get off is when he falls asleep on the bus.

 

Watch the man who says he's the boss at home. He may lie about other things too.

 

The hardest job in the world is telling the boss the computer proved him wrong.

 

A certain boss when asked how many people work for him replied, "About half of them."

 

Pity the boss. He has to come in early to see who comes in late.

 

In any office you can tell who the boss is: he's the one watching the clock during the coffee break.

 

Nothing makes a man the boss of his house like living alone.

 

An overbearing boss seldom fires you ‑ he just makes you wish he had.

 

Some bosses are so mean that if they pay you a compliment they expect to get a receipt.

 

The wife isn't always boss in the American home. Sometimes it's her mother.

 

If your boss doesn't pay you what you de­serve, be thankful!

 

Some bosses take great pains ‑ and give them to others.

 

Be loyal to your boss because the next one might be worse.

 

The worst boss anyone can have is a bad habit.

 

A certain boss said to his secretary, "Congrat­ulations! This is the earliest you've been late in a long time."

 

Computers will never replace man entirely until they learn to laugh at the boss's jokes.

 

A man's best boss is a well‑trained con­science.

 

Being diplomatic is telling your boss he has an open mind instead of telling him he has a hole in the head.

 

Nothing is quite as embarrassing as watching your boss do something you assured him couldn't be done.

 

The fellow who is fired with enthusiasm for his work is seldom fired by his boss.

 

Enthusiasm for hard work is most sincerely expressed by the person who is paying for it.

 

You may know more than your employer, but his knowledge pays off.

 

The man who laughs at his boss's jokes do­esn't necessarily have a sense of humor, but he surely has a sense of direction.

 

It is generally understood that leisure time is what you have when the boss is on vacation.

 

The best time to start thinking about retire­ment is before your boss does.

 

He who laughs last at the boss's jokes proba­bly isn't very far from retirement.

 

Ulcers are contagious. You can get them from your boss.

 

Vacations are easy to plan ‑ the boss tells you when, and the wife tells you where.

 

The reason a great many men don't bring their boss home for dinner is because she is already there.

 

If you do all the work and somebody else gets the credit ‑ he's probably your boss.

 

A few people are enthusiastic about work, but most of the time they're the bosses.

 

About the only folks who work like a horse these days have a boss riding them.

 

One way to boost production in this country would be to put the labor bosses to work.

 

Hard work and devotion to duty will surely get you a promotion ‑ unless, of course, the boss has a relative who wants the job.

 

The fellow who can beat his boss at golf is usually prudent enough not to.

 

The man is still boss in the American home ‑ as long as he allows his wife to make all the decisions.

 

A husband often thinks he bosses the house ‑ but actually he only houses the boss.

 

A husband wanted to show his wife who was boss so he bought her a mirror.

 

Imagination is what makes the average man think he can run the business better than his boss.

 

Nothing improves a joke more than telling it to your employees.

 

The fellow who knows more than his boss should be careful to conceal it.

 

Bow

 

Draw not your bow until your arrow is fixed.

 

Bowling

 

Interest your children in bowling--get them off the streets, into

the alleys.

 

Boys

 

The ambition of every small boy is to wash his mother's ears.

 

Every boy who has a dog should also have a mother, so the dog can

be fed regularly.

 

A boy becomes a man when he wears out the seat of his pants instead

of the soles of his shoes.

 

Remember the good old days when a juvenile delinquent was a boy who

played the saxophone too loud?

 

Boys will be men one day.

 

One boy's a boy, two boys are half a boy; three boys are no boy at all.

Anonymous

 

Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in

sport, but in earnest.

Greek proverb

 

When a boy is growing he has a wolf in his belly.

German proverb

 

Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.

Kin Hubbard

 

Many have said that boys will be boys, but they don't have to be the James boys.

 

Nothing changes a small boy's appearance as much as soap.

 

A boy loves a dog because it's the only thing around the house that doesn't find fault with him.

 

Many a boy is the kind of kid his mother tells him not to play with.

 

A small boy is a pain in the neck when he's around and a pain in the heart when he's not.

 

It's easy to believe that any American boy can become president when you observe some of them who have.

 

One way to keep young boys from getting on the wrong track is to use better switching facilities.

 

The thing a little boy outgrows fastest is his allowance.

 

What a small boy saves for a rainy day is apt to be mischief.

 

A boy is like a canoe ‑ he behaves better if paddled from the rear.

 

If anything is as dirty as a small boy, it's probably his bath towel.

 

Nothing makes a boy smarter than being a grandson.

 

More boys would follow in their father's foot­steps if they weren't afraid of being caught.

 

Many boys are flunking geometry. They just don't know the angles.

 

A boy becomes a man when he stops asking his father for an allowance and requests a loan.

 

Give a boy a rope and he'll tie a stray dog to it.

 

Any parent will tell you there are two kinds of boys ‑ noisy and not yet.

 

A small boy's lament: "While there's life, there's soap."

 

The boy who takes a bath willingly is proba­bly bathing his dog.

 

Waiting to be whipped is the most uninterest­ing period in any boy's life.

 

Boys are often a problem. Some are so slow you want to scream; others are so fast you have to.

 

A boy is the only thing God can use to make a man.

 

Anybody who thinks there is no such thing as a bad boy either doesn't understand boys or doesn't know exactly what bad is.

 

On his examination paper a boy wrote, "A natural death is where you die by yourself without a doctor's help."

 

A boy handed his report card to his parents and said, "Look this over and see if I can sue for defamation of character."

 

Small boys are washable, but a lot of them shrink from it.

 

The time to start worrying about a boy is when he leaves the house without slamming the door.

 

A boy has two jobs. One is just being a boy. The other is growing up to be a man.

 

Having your boy follow in your footsteps can be very disconcerting, especially when you think you've covered your tracks ‑ but aren't

absolutely certain.

 

Do you know what happens to little boys who continually interrupt? They grow up and make a fortune doing TV commercials.

 

While there may be no such thing as a bad boy, there are some who could be with a little encouragement.

 

A boy becomes a man when he decides it's more fun to steal a kiss than second base.

 

To keep a small boy out of the cookie jar, lock it and hide the key under a cake of soap.

 

For every boy with a spark of genius, there are a dozen others with ignition trouble.

 

About the only time a boy manages to stay off the lawn is when you want him to mow it.

 

It used to be when a boy couldn't learn at his mother's knee he found himself over his fa­ther's.

 

When a boy begins to "feel his oats," he should strongly resist the urge to sow a few wild ones.

 

When a small boy doesn't mind soap, he's probably blowing bubbles.

 

The footsteps a boy follows are apt to be those his father thought he'd covered up.

 

A boy is a magical creature. You can lock him out of your workshop, but you can't lock him out of your heart.

 

A small boy said to his best friend, "It may be unconstitutional, but I always pray before an exam."

 

Of course there's no such thing as a bad boy. But an awful lot of them haven't given up trying.

 

College is the only vacation a boy gets be­tween his mother and his wife.

 

There is no such thing as a problem boy. He's just a boy with a problem.

 

Every boy, in his heart, would rather steal second base than an automobile.

 

A boy's mind is a wonderful thing. It starts working the minute he gets up, and never stops until he gets to school.

 

A small boy prayed, "Lord, if you can't make me a better boy, don't worry about it. I'm having a good time as it is."

 

Little boys who don't always tell the truth will probably grow up and become weather forecasters.

 

Some boys seem to have dentists confused with barbers ‑ they see both twice a year.

 

To a young boy there is no such period as "between meals."

 

When a small boy puts something down in black and white it's apt to be a towel.

 

Boys will be boys, particularly when they're away from their wives.

 

Bragging

 

One of the hardest things for most of us to put up with is a

braggart who makes good.

 

Brains

 

Age stiffens the joints and thickens some brains.

 

There's no tax on brains; the take would be too small.

 

The brain is as strong as its weakest think.

 

He that hath a head of wax must not walk in the sun.

 

The only successful substitute for a lack of brains is silence.

 

Be sure your brain is engaged before putting your mouth in gear.

 

The human brain is like a freight car ‑ guar­anteed to have a certain capacity but often running empty.

 

If there is a substitute for brains it has to be silence.

 

Use your brain. It's the little things that count.

 

The marble business must be booming ‑many people seem to have lost theirs.

 

Brains and beauty are nature's gifts; charac­ter is your own achievement.

 

Keeping clean between the ears may be more important than keeping clean behind the ears.

 

A cheap but top‑rate computer is the one be­tween your ears.

 

Nature abhors a vacuum. When a head lacks brains, nature fills it with conceit.

 

If a person has no education he is forced to use his brains.

 

As the chest swells, the brain and the heart shrink.

 

Fishing stimulates the brain ‑ also the imagination!

 

There are relatively few cases of mental indi­gestion. The brain is seldom overworked like the stomach.

 

There are more idle brains than idle hands.

 

Your brain becomes a mind when it's forti­fied with knowledge.

 

Some people have open minds; others just don't have anything between their ears.

 

Some people have more money than brains ‑but not for long.

 

Nature often makes up for a nugget‑size brain with a bucket‑size mouth.

 

God gave eloquence to some, brains to others.

 

Sometimes a handful of patience is worth more than a bucket full of brains.

 

Profanity is an evidence of the lack of a suffi­cient vocabulary ‑ and brains.

 

There is no real substitute for brains, but si­lence does pretty well.

 

The mouths of many people seem to have the habit of going on active duty while their brains are on furlough.

 

Big mouths do not advertise big brains.

 

The human tongue is only a few inches from the brain, but when you listen to some people talk, they seem miles apart.

 

When you're up to your ears in trouble, try using the part that isn't submerged.

It's unfortunate that rusty brains do not squeak.

 

Always remember that a man is not re­warded for having brains, but for using them.

 

Brains are what a man looks for in a wife, after not using any in selecting one.

 

The human brain is the apparatus with which we think we think.

 

Will our brains start shrinking now that ma­chines do our thinking?

 

Nowadays most brains are suffering from chronic unemployment.

 

Most folks would benefit themselves and oth­ers if they would synchronize their tongues with their brains.

 

Breeding

 

Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves

and how little we think of others.

Orson Welles

 

Brevity

 

Brevity is the soul of wit.

 

If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with

sunbeams--the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

Robert Southey

 

Bribe

 

Honesty stands at the gate and knocks, and bribery enters in.

 

Brides

 

The father of the bride should realize he isn't losing a daughter

but gaining a bathroom.

 

Bridge

 

It's not a sin to play bridge, but it's a crime the way some people

play it.

 

Bridge is a friendly game invented by two married couples who

disliked each other.

 

One way to get a real kick out of bridge is to sit opposite your

wife.

 

Brook

 

Before you drink at a brook, it is well to know its source.

 

Brotherhood

 

A jeweled pivot on which our lives must turn is the deep realization

that every person we meet in the course of a day is a dignified,

essential human soul and that we are being guilty of gross inhumanity

when we snub or abuse him.

Joshua Loth Liebman (1907-1948)

 

Brotherhood is not only a generous impulse but a divine command.

Harry S Truman (1884-1972)

 

Brotherhood: helping yourself by helping others.

Elbert Green Hubbard (1856-1915)

 

Brotherhood: to live, think, and suffer with the men of your time, as

one of them.

Henri de Lubac (1896- )

 

Help your brother's boat across, and lo, your own has reached the

shore.

 

However wretched a fellow mortal may be, he is still a member of our

common species.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (C. 4 B.C.-A.D. 65)

 

Human blood is all one color.

Sir Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)

 

I am not born for one corner; the whole world is my native land.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (C. 4 B.C.-A.D. 65)

 

If all good people were clever,

And all clever people were good,

The world would be nicer than ever

We thought that it possibly could.

But somehow, 'tis seldom or never

The two hit it off as they should;

The good are so harsh to the clever,

The clever so rude to the good.

Elizabeth Wordsworth (1840-1932)

 

If any little love of mine may make a life the sweeter,

If any little care of mine may make a friend's the fleeter,

If any little lift may ease the burden of another,

God give me love and care and strength to help my toiling brother.

 

In Christ there is no east or west,

In him no south or north,

But one great fellowship of love

Throughout the whole wide earth.

John Oxenham (1861-1941)

 

It's silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are all

brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all

cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars, hypocrites, poltroons.

Henry Miller (1891-1980)

 

Jesus throws down the dividing prejudices of nationality and teaches

universal love, without distinction of race, merit, or rank. A man's

neighbor is everyone that needs help.

John Cunningham Geikie (1826-1906)

 

Keep Jesus Christ in your hearts and you will recognize his face in

every human being. You will want to help him out in all his needs: the

needs of your brothers and sisters.

Pope John Paul II (1920- )

 

Oh, east is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet,

Till earth and sky stand presently at God's great judgment seat.

But there is neither east nor west, border, nor breed, nor birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the

ends of the earth!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

 

The Christian life was not meant to live in a solitude forever, nor is

it suited to it. It is a social life. All its movements suggest and

prophesy a brotherhood. That brotherhood of believers is the Christian

church.

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

 

The same heart beats in every human breast.

 

The will is the strong blind man who carries on his shoulders the lame

man who can see.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

 

There is a destiny that makes us brothers;

None goes his way alone:

All that we send into the lives of others

Comes back into our own.

Edwin Markham (1852-1940)

 

There is no brotherhood of man without the fatherhood of God.

Henry Martyn Field (1822-1907)

 

To know that all men are brothers is not only to know that all men are

alike, but to know that all men are different.

Robert Burns (1759-1796)

 

We cannot possibly let ourselves get frozen into regarding everyone we

do not know as an absolute stranger.

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)

 

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as

fools.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

 

What is brotherhood? Brotherhood is giving to others the rights you

want to keep for yourself. . . giving to the individual in another

group the same dignity, the same full appreciation that you want to

have yourself.

Everett R. Clinchy (1896- )

 

Without faith in the fatherhood of God, people have a pretty hard time

being brotherly. They drift off into hate societies, or more often,

into the society of the indifferent.

Edwin T. Dahlberg (1892-1986)

 

Yes, you'd know him for a heathen

If you judged him by the hide,

But bless you, he's my brother,

For he's just like me inside.

Robert Freeman (1878-1940)

 

Budgets

 

There's nothing tighter than next year's bud­get and this year's bikini.

 

It's a cinch to balance your budget, if you can earn as much as you yearn.

A budget enables you to spend money with­out enjoying it.

 

Balancing the budget is when money in the bank and the days of the month come out together.

 

The trouble with a budget is that it won't budge.

 

A budget is a system of reminding yourself that you can't afford

the kind of living you've grown accustomed to.

 

A budget is a formula for determining that you need a raise.

 

A budget is a sort of conscience which doesn't keep you from

spending, but makes you feel guilty about it.

 

The bureaucrats in Washington have finally figured out how to

balance the budget--they're going to tilt the country.

 

Budgeting: A method of worrying before you spend instead of

afterward.

Anonymous

 

Nowadays if the family budget balances you can be sure of one thing ‑ you've made a mistake in your figures.

 

A budget is an orderly way of discovering that you can't live on what you're earning.

 

Balance your budget ‑ rotate your creditors!

 

Most people look on budgeting as a nervous breakdown on paper.

 

A family budget is a device to make you worry about money before you spend it.

 

A married couple usually works out a budget together and then breaks it separately.

 

Budgeting doesn't take the whipped cream out of life. It simply means that you can have only the whipped cream you can afford.

 

No wife objects to being put on a budget as long as she isn't expected to stay within it.

 

A budget is like a girdle ‑ not enough room for everything.

 

Nothing helps to stabilize the family budget like an economy drive by the closest neighbors.

 

A budget is what you stay within if you go without.

 

Budgeting is the most orderly way of going into debt.

 

Living on a budget is the same as living beyond your means except that you have a record of it.

 

A budget is an aim that rarely shows good marksmanship.

 

The family budget tells us what we can't afford, but it doesn't keep us from buying it.

 

A budget is like a conscience ‑ it doesn't keep you from spending, but it makes you feel guilty about it.

 

A budget is like a girdle ‑ you take care of the bulge in one place and it pops up in another.

 

A budget is a plan by which you worry about expenditures before you make them ‑ instead of afterwards.

 

A balanced budget is when the month and the money run out together.

 

Keeping a budget is an orderly way of getting through part of the month.

 

About all you can do is dream of a white Christmas, for it seems like it always leaves most of us in the red.

 

It seems that every time Congress sets out to trim the budget, the knife slips and trims the taxpayers instead.

 

With food, rent, and gas prices so high, when you balance the budget there's nothing left to budget the balance.

 

We could get along better with fewer economists and more economizers.

 

You can enjoy a glorious vacation and stay within your budget ‑ but not both in the same summer.

 

The old‑fashioned wife is one who can stay on a budget and a diet.

 

If it weren't for keeping a budget, a lot of people wouldn't know how much they owe.

 

The tax collectors take up so much of your earnings to balance the budget that you just can't budget the balance.

 

A budget helps you pay as you go if you don't go anywhere.

 

Many people say a budget is a form of fiction that seldom turns out right in the end.

 

A budget is an attempt to live below your yearnings.

 

Build

 

The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of

the corner.

Psalm 118:22

 

To build is to be robbed.

 

Bully

 

A bully is always a coward.

 

Burdens

 

Every horse thinks his own pack heaviest.

 

None knows the weight of another's burden.

 

A burden shared is a lighter load.

 

God gives the shoulder according to the burden.

German Proverb

 

I do not pray for a lighter load, but for a stronger back.

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

 

I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very

beautiful; but I never read in either of them: "Come unto me all ye

that labour and are heavy laden."

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

 

Life has burdens that no one can escape. Christianity does not remove

the load: it teaches us how to bear the burdens that fall rightfully

to us.

 

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life. Unhappiest are those

who have more of either than they know how to use.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

 

Most churches have little emphasis on bearing one another's burdens.

Indeed, the people do not know one another's burdens even exist, let

alone be concerned enough to bear them.

Erwin W. Lutzer (1941- )

 

Life's heaviest burden is to have nothing to carry.

 

When God allows a burden to be put upon you, He will put His arms underneath you to help you carry it.

 

You will find that if you share your brother's burden, both of you will walk a little straighter.

 

It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.

 

The heaviest burdens in life are the things that might happen but don't.

 

A burden must be carried before we can put it down.

 

Let us pray, not for lighter burdens, but for stronger backs.

 

There will always be enough for today without taking on yesterday and tomorrow's burdens.

 

The burdens that appear easiest to carry are those borne by others.

 

Bearing one another's burdens is very different from bearing down on them.

 

It's better to complain occasionally and carry your own burdens than cheerfully push them off on someone else.

 

Few burdens are heavy when everybody lifts.

 

Some people carry their religion like a burden on their backs, when they should carry it like a song in their hearts.

 

Religion at its best is a lift and not a load.

 

Secrets are a burden. That's the reason we are so anxious to have somebody help us carry them.

 

No burden is too heavy when it is carried with love.

 

No man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow's

burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a

man can bear. Never load yourself so. If you find yourself so loaded,

at least remember this: it is your own doing, not God's. He begs you

to leave the future to him, and mind the present.

George Macdonald (1824-1905)

 

The truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his

burden from him, but to call out his best strength that he may be able

to bear the burden.

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

 

We must distinguish between the burden-bearing that is right and the

burden-bearing that is wrong. We ought never to bear the burden of sin

or doubt, but there are burdens placed on us by God which he does not

intend to lift off. He wants us to roll them back on him.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

 

Bureaucracy

 

How did people ever get along before they had all those government bureaus to tell them what to do?

 

A sure sign of bureaucracy is when the first person who answers the phone can't help you.

 

Bureaucracy is based on a willingness to ei­ther pass the buck or spend it.

 

Bureaucrats live on the fat of the land, while the rest of us stay skinny laboring to pay their salaries.

 

Business needs more orders from customers and fewer from the government.

 

Organized crime can very easily be stopped. All we have to do is form a government agency to run it ‑ then stand back and watch it choke itself to death on red tape.

 

The longer the title, the less important the job.

George McGovern

 

What's needed in government is more horse sense and less nonsense.

 

One solution to the energy problem is to bale up all the government red tape and use it for fuel.

 

A promise cannot be made more binding by using a lot of red tape.

 

Scientists have found a petrified man sitting with his feet elevated. He was probably a primitive bureaucrat.

 

A scientist recently revealed that it took mil­lions of years to carve out the Grand Canyon ‑ a government job, no doubt.

 

Washington is not going to get rid of any bu­reaucrats and bureaus ‑ there has to be some place to put the shirts they are taking off our backs.

 

In a bureaucracy, they shoot the bull, pass the buck, and make seven copies of everything.

 

The proper way to greet a visiting bureaucrat is to roll out the red tape.

 

Burglars

 

The best gift for the man who has everything is a burglar alarm.

 

Say what you will about burglars, they still make house calls.

 

Bus

 

People are strange: they want the front of the bus, the back of the

church, and the center of attention.

 

Business

 

A man's accomplishment in business de­pends partly on whether he keeps his mind or his feet on the desk.

 

Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you're doing, but she doesn't.

 

Never give advice ‑ sell it!

 

An honest merchant is one who puts up a "going out of business" sign ‑ and then goes out of business.

 

Business is so bad that even shoplifters have stopped coming.

 

I see where several of our politicians are predicting a return of

prosperity as soon as business picks up.

 

If efficiency experts are so smart about running a business, how

come they are always working for somebody else?

 

No nation was ever ruined by trade.

Benjamin Franklin

 

When you are skinning your customers you should leave some skin on

to grow again so that you can skin them again.

Nikita Khrushchev

 

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a

courageous decision.

Peter Drucker

 

One man's wage rise is another man's price increase.

Harold Wilson

 

Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.

J. K. Galbraith

 

A man isn't a man until he has to meet a payroll.

Ivan Shaffer

 

Invest in inflation. It's the only thing going up.

Will Rogers

 

If a cluttered desk is an indication of a cluttered mind, what is

indicated by an empty desk?

Anonymous

 

The Middle East is a region where oil is thicker than blood.

James Holland

 

A company is judged by the president it keeps.

James Hulbert

 

Along this tree

From root to crown

Ideas flow up

And vetoes down.

Peter Drucker

 

The man who minds his own business usually has a good one.

Anonymous

 

Business? It's quite simple. It's other people's money.

Alexander Dumas

 

In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words:

people, product, and profits. People come first.

Lee Iacocca

 

It either is or ought to be evident to everyone that business has

to prosper before anybody can get any benefit from it.

Theodore Roosevelt

 

Business is like riding a bicycle. Either you keep moving or you

fall down.

John David Wright

 

Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before

kings.

Proverbs 22:29

 

A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.

Chinese proverb

 

Tell everybody your business and they will do it for you.

Italian proverb

 

The playthings of our elders are called business.

St. Augustine

 

Let every man mind his own business.

Spanish proverb

 

Honesty is one business policy that will never have to be changed to keep up with the times.

 

A disgruntled housewife suspects her butcher of using phony scales, "Just recently I didn't buy anything and it weighed three pounds."

 

Humor is the lubricating oil of business. It prevents friction and wins good will.

 

A husband seldom tells his wife about his business troubles until she wants to buy something expensive.

 

Imagination is what makes the average man think he can run the business better than his boss.

 

Nothing gives a man more leisure time than always being on time for appointments.

 

Nightclub business is so slow these days that even the waiters are insulting each other.

 

No business opportunity is ever lost. If you fumble it your competitor will find it.

 

What we need is less government in business and more business in government.

 

Patriotism is the willingness to make any sacrifice as long as it won't hurt business.

 

The trouble with mixing business and plea­sure is that pleasure usually comes out on top.

 

The man who lives only for himself runs a very small business.

 

A "gentleman's agreement" is a deal which neither party cares to put in writing.

 

Baby sitting is a big business because it meets a crying need.

 

If you want to go far in business, you'll have to stay close to it.

 

Business is "sound," the experts say, but at times the sound is a little mournful.

 

Business know‑how is when a fellow knows his business and what's none of his business.

 

A store window sign in Jackson, Mississippi: "Staying‑in‑business sale now in progress."

 

The marble business must be booming ‑many people seem to have lost theirs.

 

A business is too big when it takes a week for gossip to go from one end of the office to the other.

 

In the business world transactions speak louder than words.

 

Sign on the door of a business office in Omaha: "You might as well come in ‑ every­thing else has gone wrong today."

 

The reason business conditions are so unset­tled is because so many accounts are.

 

In modern business it isn't the crook that we fear, but the honest man who doesn't know what he's doing.

 

If you would like to know how to operate a big business, ask the man who hasn't any.

 

Competition may be the life of trade, but it's often the death of profit.

 

A scissor sharpener is the only person whose business is good when things are dull.

 

Business is something which, if you don't have any, you go out of.

 

Business needs more orders from customers and fewer from the government.

 

Modern business has made buying easy, but paying is as hard as it ever was.

 

Business is like a bicycle ‑ when it isn't mov­ing forward at a good speed it wobbles.

 

A person or persons may decide to go into business, but the public decides whether or not a business stays in business.

 

The secret of business is to count your bless­ings while others are adding up their trou­bles.

 

Business will continue to go where invited and will remain where appreciated.

 

The reason some folks can't mind their own business is because they have very little mind and no business.

 

A shady business never produces a sunny life.

 

Business is the only thing which can be dead and still have a chance to survive.

 

During the depression business was so quiet you could even hear the passing of the divi­dends.

 

People would be delighted to attend to their own business if the government would give it back to them.

 

The best way for any business to keep on the upgrade is to stay on the level.

 

Anyone who thinks the customer isn't impor­tant should try doing without him for a per­iod of ninety days.

 

Business is made good by. yearning, learning, and earning.

 

The best way to go into business is with high hopes and low overhead.

 

A successful executive in business is the one who can delegate all the responsibility, shift all the blame, and appropriate all the credit.

 

Business is a lot like tennis ‑ those who don't serve well wind up losing.

 

He who has the habit of smiling at the cash register instead of the customer won't be smiling long.

 

One trouble with credit business is that there is too much stall in installments.

 

Business forecasters are uncertain about the future and hazy about the present.

 

Business is like an automobile. It won't run itself, except downhill.

 

It isn't exactly true to say that business came back. Certain people went after it.

 

Business is the art of extracting money from another man's pocket without resorting to violence.

 

Most people find that running a business is no trouble at all ‑ as long as it's the other fellow's.

 

The trouble with the business world is that there are too many one‑ulcer men holding down two‑ulcer jobs.

 

Business is tough these days. If a man does something wrong he gets fined; if he does something right he gets taxed.

 

In the hectic confusion of modern society it would be nice to experience a few dull mo­ments occasionally.

 

Crime seems to be the only big business to escape government meddling.

 

A dentist is a man who runs a filling station. He is also a collector of old magazines.

 

The economy is not as bad as we are led to believe. Many merchants report this year's going‑out‑of‑business sales are much better than last year's.

 

An efficiency expert is smart enough to tell you how to run your own business, and too smart to start one of his own.

 

An efficiency expert is a man hired by an executive who is too tenderhearted to fire his own employees.

 

The average efficiency expert is a person who has no business of his own to wreck.

 

Sign on a company bulletin board in Grand Rapids: "To err is human, to forgive is not company policy."

 

When they say a man is a "born executive," they mean his father owns the business.

 

A good executive is judged by the company he keeps ‑ solvent.

 

In the language of flowers, the yellow rose means friendship, the red rose means love, and the orchid means business.

 

A business genius is a man who knows the difference between being let in on a deal and taken in on one.

 

It isn't the number of people employed in a business that makes it successful. It's the number working.

 

Business is like a wheelbarrow ‑ it stands still unless somebody pushes it:

 

It isn't the business you get that counts, it's the business you hold.

 

Not too long ago business got so bad that some men went bankrupt, and some went back to their wives.

 

The business to stay out of is the other fel­low's.

 

A man who is immersed in business all week should come up for a breath of fresh air on Sunday ‑ at church.

 

A good business manager hires optimists as salesmen and pessimists to run the credit de­partment.

 

Businessmen

 

Golf is a game that gives you something to do while you're nailing down a business deal.

Businessmen

 

Executive ability is a talent for deciding something quickly and getting someone else to do it.

 

Executive ability is the art of getting credit for all the hard work that somebody else does.

 

In good times businessmen want to advertise; in bad times they have to.

 

When two men in business always agree about everything, one of them is unneces­sary.

 

A businessman boasts that he and his wife started out with absolutely nothing, "And we've got most of it left."

 

A successful executive in business is the one who can delegate all the responsibility, shift all the blame, and appropriate all the credit.

 

Many businessmen refuse to cash personal checks because sometimes the checks come back but the customers don't.

 

An efficient businessman who found a ma­chine that would do half his work bought two.

 

A businessman in Seattle says he has a rotten sense of timing. "Just as the recession began, I started manufacturing money belts."

 

Every businessman ought to sit back, close his eyes, and meditate for a while every day ‑ and try not to snore.

 

A modern executive is a man who wears out his clothes at the seat of his pants first.

 

Many men are able to solve big problems at the office, but are unable to settle little ones at home.

 

Prosperity is something that businessmen create for politicians to take the credit for.

 

Retirement has cured many a businessman's ulcers ‑ and given his wife one!

 

Among the chief worries of today's business executives is the large number of unem­ployed still on the payrolls.

 

Noah was the first businessman mentioned in the Bible. He floated a company at a time when the rest of the world was under liquida­tion.

 

An Oklahoma businessman reports that if his business gets any worse he won't have to lie on his next income‑tax return.

 

The American businessman has a problem: if he comes up with something new the Rus­sians invent it six months later and the Japa­nese make it cheaper.

 

Sign on a businessman's desk: "My decision is maybe ‑ and that's final."

 

Many a businessman wanted his son to share in the business but the government beat him to it.

 

A certain businessman complained about his partner, "He's a real phony ‑ I wouldn't be­lieve him if he said he was lying."

 

There's a certain businessman in Houston who had to stop attending baseball games. He just couldn't stand hearing the umpire call a

strike.

 

A businessman who came up the hard way observes that about all you can do on a shoe­string these days is trip.

 

A Chicago businessman grumbled, "Things are so bad I can hardly wait for them to im­prove so I can afford a nervous breakdown."

 

The businessman is coming to realize that education is to business what fertilizer is to farming.

 

Busy

 

None so busy as those who do nothing.

French proverb

 

Buy

 

There are more foolish buyers than foolish sellers.

 

The buyer needs a hundred eyes, the seller not one.

Italian proverb

 

Let the buyer beware.

Latin proverb

 

A study of economics usually reveals that the best time to buy

anything is last year.

Marty Allen

 

Who buys has need of two eyes

But one's enough to sell the stuff.

Anonymous

 

Bargain: something you can't use at a price you can't resist.

Franklin P. Jones

 

What costs nothing is worth nothing.

Anonymous

 

People will buy anything that's one to a customer.

Sinclair Lewis