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')

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)