Character, Persistence, Honor, Manners

Live your life as an Exclamation, not an Explanation.

Be the kind of person that, when speaking of you, people say "That crazy old broad," not "That poor child."

Be sure of what you stand for, lest you fall for anything.

Patience is bitter but its rewards are very sweet.

Rule No. 1-Don't sweat the small stuff.  

Rule No. 2-It's (almost) all small stuff.  

Life is made up of small stuff that becomes big only if we sweat it.

Remember the tea kettle.  Though up to its neck in hot water, it continues to sing. (Priceless, Dave Ramsey)

Honour is better than Honors. (Abraham Lincoln)

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. (Dalai Lama)

The only difference between a stepping stone and a stumbling block is the use to which each is put.

What we see [in life] depends on mainly what we look for. (John Lubbock)

The greatest oak was once a little nut that held its ground. (Priceless, Dave Ramsey)

Great souls have wills; feeble ones have only wishes. (Chinese Proverb)

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them. (Mark Twain)

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give. (Sir Winston Churchill)

Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot. (Clarence Thomas)

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. (2 Cor 4:8-9)

A lot of maturing takes place between "It fell" and "I dropped it."

Be at war with your vices; at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man. (Benjamin Franklin)

To keep your character intact, you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time. (Katherine Hepburn)

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look at the stars. (Henry Van Dyke)

When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere. (La Rochefoucauld)

Talent develops in quiet, alone; character is sharpened in the torrent of the world. (Goethe)

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. (Albert Einstein)

Good character, like good soup, is made at home.

We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers - but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change, you're the one who has got to change. (Katherine Hepburn)

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian. (Dennis Wholey)

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Long ago... I resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his color might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. (Booker T. Washington)

Be the kind of person you want your kids to be when they grow up.

The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others. (Hasidic saying)

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. (Eleanor Roosevelt)

The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. (Thomas Paine)

People will treat you exactly the way you allow them to treat you.

The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return; it's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale (Arthur C. Clarke)

Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking.

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. (Malachy McCourt)

If you haven't found something worth dying for, you aren't fit to be living. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

You cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with. (Dr. Wayne W. Dyer)

Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it, so it goes on flying anyway. (Mary Kay Ash)

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip. (Will Rogers)

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. (Mohandas Gandhi)

Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway. (John Wayne)

The time is always right to do the right thing. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

When I focus upon the small steps right in front of me, I rarely have time to worry about the big ones down the road somewhere.

It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. (Chinese Proverb)

Worry is stewing without doing.

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change you attitude. Don't complain. (Maya Angelou)

Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not. (Oprah Winfrey)

If you have a terrible tragedy, you come out of it either enhanced or diminished. (Art Linkletter)

A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.

Hatred and anger are but slow methods of suicide.

What the world needs is more warm hearts and fewer hot heads.

We can't choose what we go through but we can choose how we go through it.

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.... 

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.... 

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. 

(Maya Angelou)

Ability may get you to the top, but it's character that will keep you there.

Courage is holding on just a few minutes longer.

Revenge gets you even with your enemies, forgiveness puts you above him.

If you can see some good in everybody, then almost everybody will see some good in you.

Be as friendly to the janitor as you are to the chairman of the board.

Meekness is not weakness, but strength under proper discipline.

When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?" (Sydney J. Harris)

Conscience is God's presence in man. (Swedenborg)

As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, as if we are what we have, and as if we are what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgements, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to the need to put people in their place. (Brennan Manning)

Live every day like it's your last, 'cause one day you're gonna be right. (Ray Charles)

If you lack the courage to start, you have already finished.

The heaviest thing you can carry is a grudge.

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today. (James Dean)

A poor man is not that one without a cent.  A poor man is that one without a dream.

The optimist has no brakes; the pessimist has no motor. (Melvin M. Maxwell)

What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other. (George Eliot)

Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. (Albert Einstein)

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. (Herm Albright)

Reputation is what men and women think of us. Character is what God and the angels know of us. (Thomas Paine)

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. (Ernest Hemingway)

Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen. (Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection)

Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question. (Albert Camus)

Catholics and Communists have committed great crimes, but at least they have not stood aside, like an established society, and been indifferent. I would rather have blood on my hands than water like Pilate. (Graham Greene)

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. (Robert Heinlein)

Curtsey while you're thinking of what to say. It saves time. (Lewis Carroll)

One must dare to be himself, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.

...

For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk along.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed,

revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand,

you will find one at the end of each of your arms.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands;

one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others.

(Audrey Hepburn's 'Beauty Tips')

Family & Children

A child's life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark. (Chinese Proverb)

Children are in our lives to teach us about hanging in.

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. (Carl Sandburg)

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it. (Harrry Truman)

Level with your child by being honest. Nobody spots a phony quicker than a child. (Mary MacCracken)

Making a decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. (Elizabeth Stone)

One hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in my bank account, nor what my clothes looked like, but the world may be a little better because I was important in the life of a child. (Audrey Jeanne Roberts)

And I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. (2 Cor 6:18)

If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much. (Jackie Kennedy)

A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.

I learned about stress management from my kids. Every night after work, I drink some chocolate milk, eat sugary cereal straight from the box, then run around the house in my underwear screaming like a monkey. (Randy Glasbergen)

We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve years telling them to sit down and shut up. (Phyllis Diller)

Discipline your son, and he will give you peace, he will bring delight to your soul. (Proverbs 29:17)

A baby is born with a need to be loved - and never outgrows it. (Frank A. Clark)

Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap. (Barbara Jordan)

If you then, as earthly as you are, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father in Heaven give good things to those who ask him? (Matthew 7:11)

There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience. (Anatole Broyard)

It is not giving children more that spoils them; it is giving them more to avoid confrontation. (John Gray, "Children Are From Heaven")

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. (Jane Howard, "Families")

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city. (George Burns)

Kids are like Legos, lots of fun to make, but sooner or later, they only end up messing up the house.

Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your own children.

Raising kids is part joy and part guerilla warfare. (Ed Asner)

There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it. (Chinese Proverb)

A pat on the back will develop character if given hard enough, often enough, and low enough.

There are two lasting things we can give our children - roots and wings.

Hold your child's hand every chance you get.

Children tend to rise to the level of their parents' expectations.

Wrinkles are hereditary - parents get them from their children.

Nothing makes a child as smart as having grandparents.

It is not at his mother's knees, but across them, that a youngster learns his best lessons.

The best coaches are always in the stands.

Mothers hold their children's hands for just a little while... and their hearts forever.

God could not be everywhere and therefore He made mothers. (Jewish Proverb)

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. (Thackeray, "Vanity Fair")

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

Children are a poor man's wealth. (Danish Proverb)

A family is a unit composed not only of children, but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold. (Ogden Nash)

Father asked us what was God's noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad, but babies never are. (Louisa May Alcott)

Small children give you headaches; big children heartaches. (Russian Proverb)

Be nice to your kids; they'll choose your nursing home.

The things about my mother that I resented as a boy are the things that I am most grateful for as a man. (Andy Horner, founder of Premier Designs)

A family tradition is when you do the same old thing - only it's still fun.

Being a grandparent is vastly different from being a parent. I'm not raising these sweet babies - they have their own Mommy and Daddy who are doing an expert job. That leaves me free to just enrich their lives. In other words, I don't need to bake the cake, I can just apply the icing. (Suzanne Dale Ezell)

Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.

The main purpose of holding children's parties is to remind you that there are children more awful than your own.

If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: "Take two aspirin" and "Keep away from children."

As a young mother, I asked the Lord to teach me of Himself and of myself through my children. He gave me eight children. Apparently, I had a lot to learn. (Helen Widger Middlebrooke, Lessons for A Super Mom)

We childproofed our homes, but they are still getting in.

Mothers of teens now undershand why some animals eat their young.

Lessons Learned From My Children:

1. A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 square foot house 4 inches deep.

2. If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and roll over them with rollerblades, they can ignite.

3. If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42-pound boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20x20 ft. room.

4. When you hear the toilet flush and someone says "uh oh," it's already too late.

5. Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it. (Please don't try to prove this at your house)

6. Most Legos can pass through the digestive tract of a 4-year old.

7. Play dough and microwave should not be used in the same sentence.

8. Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving.

9. Always look in the oven before you turn it on.

10. Cats throw up twice their body weight when made dizzy by going through the spin cycle on the washing machine.

Mommy Test

I was out walking with my then 4 year old daughter. She picked up something off the ground and started to put it in her mouth. I asked her not to do that. "Why?"

"Because it's been laying outside and it is dirty and probably has germs."

At this point, she looked at me with total admiration and asked, "Wow! How do you know all this stuff?"

Uh," I was thinking quickly, "...all moms know this stuff. Um, it's on the Mommy Test. You have to know it, or they don't let you be a Mommy."

We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information.

Oh...I get it!" she beamed,  "So if you flunk, you have to be the Daddy."

On Being Successful

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now. (Johann Worfgang von Goethe)

Consider the postage stamp:  its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. (Josh Billings)

Eighty percent of success is showing up. (Woody Allen)

Every miracle in the Bible starts with a Problem. (Dr. John Maxwell)

Just because others have decided what's best for you doesn't mean you are incapable of deciding for yourself.

Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value. (Albert Einstein)

There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way. (Christopher Morley)

To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. (Elbert Hubbard)

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. (Henry Ford)

The proper response to difficulty is not to retreat, it is to prevail. (President George W. Bush)

You don't drown by falling into the water; you drown by staying there.

By failing to plan, you are planning to fail.

Success is getting what you want;

Happiness is wanting what you get.

(Dale Carnegie)

Minds are like Parachutes... they only function when open.

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. (Will Rogers)

Experience is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you. (Aldous Huxley)

Ships are safe in the harbor, but they were never meant to stay there.

It is not whether you get knocked down, it is whether you get up. (Vince Lombardi)

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. (Abraham Lincoln)

One of the biggest troubles with success is that its recipe is often the same as that for a nervous breakdown.

If you can't win the race, make the one ahead of you break the record.

The direction we are facing has a lot to do with our destination.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius. (Joseph Addison)

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. (Henry David Thoreau)

Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. (Winston Churchill)

The secrets of success are a good wife and a steady job.

If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much. (Donald H. Rumsfeld)

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. (Bob Dylan)

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials. (Chinese Proverb)

A bad attitude is like a flat tire - you'll never go anywhere till you fix it.

Don't let what you can't do interfere with what you can do.

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. (Thomas Edison)

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic.

People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don't know when to quit. Most men succeed because they are determined to. (George Allen)

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars. (Les Brown)

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. (Gen. George S. Patton)

You can't get a job by reading the want ads; you get the job by going out and applying for the jobs.

Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. (Henry Van Dyke)

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. (Henry David Thoreau)

The difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says, 'Go!' - a leader says, 'Let's go!'. (E. M. Kelly)

Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment. (Rita Mae Brown OR Barry LePatner)

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. (Confucius)

Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. (Norman Vincent Peale)

We want to be rich, to be admired, to eat like a horse and be skinny as a snake. To have small children ask for our autographs, to be on terrific medications that make us calm and witty and sexy. To sing Irving Berlin and Gershwin and Porter at the Oak Room and be described as 'luminous.' But in the absence of all that, it's enough to be loved. (Garrison Keillor)

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him. (Sidney Greenberg)

He has achieved success who has worked well, laughed often, and loved much. (Elbert Hubbard)

When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened. (John M. Richardson, Jr.)

Sometimes instead of climbing over barricades, you've got to walk around them. (Bono)

The greatestest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. (Walter Bagehot)

One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't. (George Bernard Shaw, "The Apple Cart")

Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present. (Roger Babson)

My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice, too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success. (Helen Hayes)

The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

It is better to have a little ability and use it well, than to have much ability and use it poorly.

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done. (louis D. Brandeis)

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing. (Abraham Lincoln)

I takes 20 years to make an overnight success. (Eddie Cantor)

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me." (Erma Bombeck)

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. (Theodore Roosevelt)

To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone. (Reba McEntire)

You cannot be a success in any business without believing that it is the greatest business in the world... You have to put your heart in the business and the business in your heart. (Thomas Watson Snr.)

When you walk up to Opportunity's door, don't knock it. Kick that bitch in, smile, and introduce yourself. (Dwayne Johnson)

As for conceit, what man will do any good who is not conceited? Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who has a low opinion of himself. (Anthony Trollope)

The important thing in life is not the victory but the contest; the essential thing is not to have won but to have fought well. (Baron Pierre de Coubertin)