Miscellany - A little of everything.

Sometimes we all forget just how great we are (and there are far too few people who remind us of that fact).

You're only given a little spark of madness. You musn't lose it. (Robin Williams)

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.  (Albert Einstein)

Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together. (Carl Zwanzig)

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. (Salvor Hardin)

Ohhh! The Infinite Value of the Humble Gospel Helpers!  Thousands of people who have no gifts as leaders are Number One Helpers. How grand revival work moves along when Red-Hot Platoons of Fire-Baptized Helpers crowd around God's Heroic Leaders of the Embattled Host!  (Brother Godbey)

No gift that serves others is little.

One only needs two tools in life: WD-40 to make things go, and duct tape to make them stop. (G.M. Weilacher)

Here are we -- and yonder yawns the universe. (H.P. Lovecraft)

Don't be too worthwhile. Always keep a few character defects handy. People love to talk about your frailties. If you must be noble, keep it to yourself. (Edward D. Stone)

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.

A 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away. A 'great' landing is one after which they can use the plane again.

God gives and forgives, people get and forget.

You know you're in trouble when the strange noise from your car is the mechanic laughing underneath it. (Priceless, Dave Ramsey)

Football combines the two worst features of American life: violence and committee meetings. (George Will)

It is a happy talent to know how to play. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Drive On. We'll sweep up the blood later! (Katherine Hepburn)

It has been my experience that people who have no vices have very few virtues. (Abraham Lincoln)

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. (Edmund Burke)

Only when we walk in the dark can we see the stars.

A man said to the Universe, "Sir, I exist!"

"However," the Universe replied, "The fact has not created within me a sense of obligation."

Has it ever occured to you that there might be a difference between having an open mind and having holes in one's head? (Richard Schultz)

We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and.' (Sir Arthur Eddington)

The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough. (Bede Jarrett)

When the game is done, the King and the Pawn go into the same box. (Italian Proverb)

"If I were married to you, I'd put poison in your coffee."  (Lady Astor to Winston Churchill)

"If you were my wife, I'd drink it."  (Winston Churchill, in reply)

Die, v.:  To stop sinning suddenly. (Elbert Hubbard)

Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live. (Henry Van Dyke)

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. (Mark Twain)

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do. (Galileo Galilei)

Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists? (Kelvin Throop III)

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it. (Samuel Johnson)

To know the road ahead, ask those coming back. (Chinese Proverb)

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (Albert Einstein)

It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterward. (Baltasar Gracian)

Whines are the product of sour grapes.

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but one capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Remember - if it never rained, there would be no rainbows.

Three Wise Women Would Have...

Asked directions,

Arrive on time,

Helped deliver the baby,

Cleaned the stable,

Made a casserole,

Brought practical gifts and

There would be Peace on Earth.

I like thinking big. If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big. (Donald Trump)

A good neighbor doubles the value of a house.

I saw the lightning's gleaming rod

Reach forth and write upon the sky

The awful autograph of God.

(Joaquin Miller, "The Ship in the Desert")

Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to. (Mark Twain)

"Hallo, Rabbit," [Pooh] said, "is that you?"

"Let's pretend it isn't," said Rabbit, "and see what happens." (A. A. Milne)

There wouldn't be a sky full of stars if we were all meant to wish on the same one. (Frances Clark)

No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back. (Turkish Proverb)

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away.

An after-dinner speech is like the horns of a bull - with a point here... and a point there... and an awful lot of bull in between. (Castilian Proverb)

The history of the world is but the biography of great men. (Thomas Carlyle)

A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water. (Nancy Reagan or Carl Sandburg)

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. (Mark Twain)

If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?

The wits of the wise the brew can beguile; and make the sage frolic, and make the sad smile. (Homer)

My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.

Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid manikin. (Twinkle, twinkle, little star.)

KILT, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotsmen in America and Americans in Scotland. (Ambrose Beirce)

I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter. (Winston Churchill, on his eightieth birthday)

Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others? (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Do what good you can today - you may not be here tomorrow.

God made the world round so we can never see too far down the road.

When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.

There's nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing anyway. (Mark Burnett)

A peacock that rests on his feathers is just another turkey. (Dolly Parton)

If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively. (Mel Brooks)

"I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." ~Henry David Thoreau

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear;

Seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come. (William Shakespeare - Julius Caesar)

"My teeth are tingling again. I feel like I've just got to bite somebody before sundown or I shall go stark raving mad. And yet I know that society frowns on such an action. So what happens? I'm stuck with tingly teeth." (Snoopy, YAGMCB)

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry. (H.L. Mencken)

The discovery in 1846 of the planet Neptune was a dramatic and spectacular achievement of mathematical astronomy. The very existence of this new member of the solar system, and its exact location, were demonstrated with pencil and paper; there was left to observers only the routine task of pointing their telescopes at the spot the mathematicians had marked. (James R. Newman)

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, "I'm with you kid. Let's go." (Maya Angelou)

Glitter is the herpes of the craft world

Life can be understood backward; but must be lived forward. (Soren Aabye Kierkegaard)

"I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other." Quote from Mary Shelly's troubled Frankenstein's Monster


Better than I deserve (Dave Ramsey)

When the wonders of science and the mysteries of faith

come together, a miracle is born -- Hope.

Respect is when I can look up to you, but you never look down on me.

I wish the buck stopped here. I sure could use a few...

The man who runs in front of the car gets tired.

The man who runs behind the car gets exhausted.

Get in the car!

Kids in the back seat cause accidents;

Accidents in the back seat cause kids.

I like cats, too. Let's exchange recipes.

It takes in reality only one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion. (Dean Inge)

Christmas is the Disneyfication of Christianity. (Don Cupitt)

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go. (T.S. Elliot)

The best fame is a writer's fame: it's enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough that you get interrupted when you eat. (Fran Lebowitz)

We must travel in the direction of our fear. (John Berryman)

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. (Vaclav Havel)

Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. (Alfred North Whitehead)

It is better to wear out than to rust out. (Bishop Richard Cumberland)

The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale. (Richard Dawkins)

Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. (R.D. Lang)

Someone said that God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December. (J. M. Barrie)

Never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television. (Gore Vidal)

Speak No Evil - Words and Speech

Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles. (Prov 21:23)

A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control. (Prov 29:11)

It's bad manners to talk when your mouth is full and your head is empty.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. (Plato, Dialogues)

The best thing to do when you are angry is to close your mouth.

To get the best of an argument, stay out of it.

A dog has many friends because he wags his tail instead of his tongue.

'Twas a thief said the last kind word to Christ; Christ took the kindness and forgave the theft. (R. Browning, "The Ring and the Book")

Talk low, talk slow, and don't talk too much. (John Wayne on the Secret of Success)

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. (Plato)

They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad to realize that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days. (Garrison Keillor)

Missles of ligneous or petrous consistency have the potential of fracturing my gaseous structure, however appellations will eternal remain innocuous. (Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.)

A compliment is a statement of an agreeable truth; flattery is a statement of an agreeable untruth. (Sir John A. MacDonald)

Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it. (James Russell Lowell)

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't. (Erica Jong)

You should be careful when you give advice, because someone might take it.

Yawning is usually the act of a person inadvertently opening his mouth when he wishes others would shut theirs.

It is useless to hold a person to anything he says while he's in love, drunk, or running for office. (Shirley MacLaine)

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do. (Dale Carnegie)

Don't use a gallon of speech to express a spoonful of thought.

A fool's tongue is always long enough to cut his own throat.

It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt. (Mark Twain)

Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut. (Ernest Hemingway)

No one has a finer command of language than the person who keeps his mouth shut. (Sam Rayburn)

Flattery is the art of telling people exactly what they think of themselves.

Light travels faster than sound. Is that why some people appear bright until you hear them speak?

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. (Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself")

Why is it the people who know the least know it the loudest?

Stuffed fish on wall:  "If I had kept my mouth shut I wouldn't be here."

When we ask advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice. (Joseph-Louis LaGrange)

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.  But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can.  (Samuel Lover)

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
(Alexander Pope)

Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way round. (David Lodge)

'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
'To talk of many things:
Of shoes - and ships - and sealing wax -
Of cabbages - and kings.'
(Lewis Carroll)

Speech is civilisation itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact - it is silence which isolates. (Thomas Mann)

What is it to thee what they whisper there? Come after me and let the people talk. (Dante Alighieri)

In classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, 'How well he spoke', but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, 'Let us march.' (Adlai Stevenson)

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. (Rudyard Kipling)