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)

Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from Firefly and Serenity

How you get to where you're going is the worthier part.

Doing the impossible makes us mighty.

Even at the corner of "no" and "where" you are rarely alone as you think you are.

If ever someone tries to kill you, you try and kill 'em right back.

There's some things not to be mistaken for suggestions.

There is no defense against Naked and Articulate

It's important to be respectful of other cultures; some people juggle geese.

Tearing the clothes off your spouse is work work work, but hey, someone's gotta do it.

A stegosaurus and a T-Rex will never be friends for long; Betrayal is sudden but inevitable.

Swearing is okay in Chinese.

Nothin into nothin, carry the nothin is NOTHIN!

When you and you and your crew arrive in the nick of time, that makes you Big Damn Heroes.

Sometimes a thing gets broke can't be fixed.

Sometimes, it's very important to interrogate buffet tables.

You don't fix faith; it fixes you.

There is a special level of Hell reserved for Child Molesters and people who talk at the theater.

The Bible is against killin', but it's a mite fuzzy on the subject of kneecaps.

Sometimes the voices in your head are right.

We are all dreaming.

No power in the 'verse can stop me.

"Whore" is just another way to say "I love you"

It's important to fall in love with a man of mystery, because so few men are.

"A man can get a job, he might not look to close at what the job is. But a man learns all the details of a situation like ours, well, he has a choice."

"I don't believe he does."

It's not altogether wise, sneakin up on a fella when he's handling his weapon.

Ah, but a government is just a body of people, usually notably ungoverned.

People who wear blue latex gloves are not to be trusted.

There's a very big difference between seeing somebody undressed and seeing them naked.

When you can't run, you walk. And when you can't walk, you crawl. And when you can't do that... you find someone to carry you.

Just because you want to be in command of the ship, doesn't mean you can.

Even if you're on the losing side, it doesn't mean you're on the wrong one.

The wheel keeps turnin', but it only matters to those on the rim.

Never admit that you're unarmed.

There's always time for some thrillin' heroics.

Reputation? It's gossip; people talking.

You can't stop the Signal.

You shouldn't hit a man with a closed fist but it is, on occasion, hilarious.

‘Sanguine’ means both Hopeful and Bloody, which just about covers everything.

If you can't do something Smart, do something Right.

Telling someone you're going to shoot them doesn't give them incentive to talk.

Most History was written by someone hiding the truth.

Soar like a Leaf on the Wind

Just because you’re lost don't mean you're done.

What you plan and what takes place ain't necessarily gonna be similar. Be prepared for emergencies.

Sometimes, you've just gotta reassure everyone that everything's shiny. And frettin' ain't gonna change it.

If you ever go to kill someone, it's only fair to make sure that they're awake, facing you, and armed.

“I got people with me, people who trust each other, who do for each other and ain’t always looking for the advantage. There’s good people in the ‘verse. Not many, lord knows, but you only need a few.”

Education, Books, Study, & Thought

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. (Aristotle)

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. (Sydney J. Harris)

Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. (Roger Lewin)

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. (Maya Angelou)

If your mind goes blank, don't forget to turn off the sound. (Red Green)

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. (William Butler Yeats)

Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't. (Pete Seeger)

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! (Theodore Geisel)

If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't. (Emerson M. Pugh)

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. (Mahfouz Naguib)

Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself. (Chinese Proverb)

We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand those laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moved the constellations. (Albert Einstein)

Better build schoolrooms for the boy, than cells and gibbets for the man. (Eliza Cook)

I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. (Galileo Galilei)

There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience. (Archibald McLeish)

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. (Joseph Addison)

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. (Mark Twain)

Some books are to be tasted, others swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. (Bacon, Essays of Studies)

The brain is like a muscle. When we think well, we feel good. Understanding is a kind of ecstasy. (Carl Sagan)

I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. (Anonymous English Professor, Ohio University)

A home without books is like a body without a soul.

An open mind is not the same as an empty mind.

A good book is like an unreachable itch. You just can't leave it alone. (Laura Bush)

At the desk where I sit, I have learned one great truth. The answer for all our national problems - the answer for all the problems of the world - come to a single word. That word is 'education.' (Lyndon B. Johnson)

You'll never have any mental muscle if you don't have any heavy stuff to pick up. (Diane Lane)

If all the rich and all the church people should send their children to public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals. (Susan B. Anthony)

The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive, and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept everything they are offered. (Jean Piaget)

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
Adams, John (1735 - 1826)

Letter to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780.

An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject, and how to avoid them. (Werner Heisenberg)

It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. (René Descartes)

Mere poets are sottish as mere drunkards are, who live in a continual mist, without seeing or judging anything clearly. A man should be learned in several sciences, and should have a reasonable, philosophical and in some measure a mathematical head, to be a complete and excellent poet. (John Dryden)

If you ask mathematicians what they do, yo always get the same answer. They think. They think about difficult and unusual problems. They do not think about ordinary problems: they just write down the answers. (M. Egrafov)

 [The universe] cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word. (Galileo Galilei)

To be a scholar of mathematics you must be born with talent, insight, concentration, taste, luck, drive and the ability to visualize and guess. (Paul R. Halmos)

Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything. (Jules Henri Poincaré)

Books say: she did this because. Life says: she did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. (Julian Barnes)

What literature can and should do is change the people who teach the people who don't read the books. (A. S. Byatt)

I respect faith but doubt is what gets you an education. (Wilson Mizner)

The motto of all the mongoose family is, 'Run and find out.' (Rudyard Kipling)

Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. (Mark Haddon)

It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well. (René Descartes)

Essay by a New Teacher: 

Let me see if I've got this right. You want me to go into that room with all those kids, and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning. Not only that, I'm to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, behaviorally modify disruptive behavior, and observe them for signs of abuse, weapons, or drugs. I am to fight the war on drugs and sexually-transmitted diseases, check their backpacks for guns and raise their self-esteem. I am to check their heads occasionally for lice, maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of potential antisocial behavior, offer advice, write letters of recommendation for employment and scholarships, encourage respect for diversity, and oh yeah, teach!

I am to teach them patriotism, citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, how, where and why to register to vote, how to balance a checkbook and how to apply for a job. I am to decide who might be dangerous and/or liable to commit crimes in school or who is possibly being abused, and I can be sent to jail for not mentioning these suspicions to those in authority. I am to incorporate technology into the learning, but monitor all Web sites for appropriateness while providing a personal one-on-one relationship with each student. I am to make sure ALL students pass the state and federally mandated testing and all classes, whether or not they attend school on a regular basis or complete any of the work assigned. I am to communicate frequently with each student's parent by letter and phone.

I'm to do all of this with just a piece of chalk, a few books, a bulletin board and a big smile? And you want me to do ALL OF THIS and expect me to do it WITHOUT PRAYING?

Money, Cash, Dollars, Wealth

A fine is a tax for doing wrong.  A tax is a fine for doing well.

It doesn't matter how much you have.  What matters is how much you are willing to give from what you have. (2 Cor 8:12)

It is better to give than to lend, and it costs about the same. (Sir Philip Gibbs)

Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it. (Henry David Thoreau)  --No, it takes a woman to know how to spend it!

Pay your debts as they come due.  However, one debt you can never finish paying is the debt of love you owe one another. (Romans 13:4)

How come when something tickles your fancy, it usually beats up your pocketbook?  (Priceless, Dave Ramsey)

Budgeting is people telling their money where to go instead of wondering where it went. (John C. Maxwell)

God loves the one who gives gladly. (2 Cor 9:7)

Debt is something you get into when you spend as much as you claim to earn. (Priceless, Dave Ramsey)

Before borrowing money from a friend, it's wise to decide if you need the money more than you need the friend.

Just about the time you think you can make both ends meet, someone moves the ends.

When your ship finally does come in, how come the IRS is on the dock unloading it?  (Priceless, Dave Ramsey)

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. (Prov 22:7)

Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant. (P.T. Barnum)

Most of us would be happy to pay as we go if only we could catch up to where we've been. (Priceless, Dave Ramsey)

A budget tells us what we can't afford, but it doesn't keep us from buying it. (William Feather)

Cheer up - birds have bills, but they sing anyway.

Make money your god and it will plague you like the devil. (Henry Fielding)

It's not your salary that makes you rich, it's your spending habits. (Charles A. Jaffe)

In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has. (Prov 21:20)

A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart. (Jonathan Swift)

No one can serve two masters.  Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and Money. (Mat 6:24)

The art of living easily as to money is to pitch your scale of living one degree below your means. (Sir Henry Taylor)

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. (Bertrand Russell)

Even if you have a fifteen-bedroom house, you can only sleep in one room at a time.

Earn all you can; save all you can, give all you can.

Don't wait for your ship to come in if you haven't sent one out.

The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives. (Psalms 37:21)

It's easy to make a buck, it's a lot tougher to make a difference. (Tom Brokaw)

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man! (Lana Turner)

In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. (Benjamin Franklin)

Very often he that his money lends

Loses both his gold and his friends.

(C. H. Spurgeon)

Still as of old, men by themselves are priced -

For thirty pieces of silver Judas sold himself, not Christ.

(Hester H. Cholmondeley)

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it back in your pocket. (Will Rogers)

It's not the high cost of living, but the cost of living high.

A man who loses his money, gains, at the least, experience, and sometimes, something better. (Benjamin Disraeli)

He is rich who owes nothing. (French Proverb)

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability. (Henry Ford)

If only the people who worry about their liabilities would think about the riches they do possess, they would stop worrying. (Dale Carnegie)

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people He gave it to. (Dorothy Parker)

Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed. (Mohandas Gandhi)

Ere you consult your fancy, consult your purse. (Benjamin Franklin)

If you can't pay for a thing, don't buy it. If you can't get paid for it, don't sell it. Do this, and you will have calm and drowsy nights, with all of the good business you have now and none of the bad. (Benjamin Franklin)

The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any. (Katherine Whitehorn)

Ultimately there is only one way to financial peace, and that is to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. (Dave Ramsey)

Self-worth is more important than net worth. (Talmadge Johnson)

It is necessary to submit to the authorities.... This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: if you owe taxes, pay taxes. (Romans 13:5-7)

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it. (Stephen Leacock)

Resolve not to be poor; whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult. (Samuel Johnson)

On Prayer

If my own people will humbly pray and stop sinning, then I will forgive them.... I will hear their prayers.... (2 Chron 7:14-15)

A lot of kneeling will keep you in good standing.

Stay joined to me and let my teachings become part of you. Then you can pray for whatever you want, and your prayer will be answered. (John 15:7)

Everything you ask for in prayer will be yours, if you only have faith. (Mark 11:24)

Don't pray for rain if you're going to complain about the mud.

Courage is fear that has said its prayers. (Dorothy Bernard)

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays. (Soren Keirkegaard)

The shortest distance between a problem and its solution is the distance between your knees and the floor.

When praying, don't give God instructions, just report for duty.

It's hard to stumble when you're down on your knees.

God doesn't use an answering machine, he takes each call personally.

The man who kneels to God can stand up to anything.

Prayer has a boomerang effect - it blesses the one prayed for and the one who prays.

An important part of praying is a willingness to be part of the answer.

When life knocks you down to your knees, you are in a perfect position to pray.

Prayer does move mountains, but sometimes God just hands us a shovel.

Too many people pray for emergency rations instead of daily bread.

Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.

God is not a cosmic bell-boy for whom we can press a button to get things. (Harry Emerson Fosdick, "Prayer")

The fewer words the better prayer. (Martin Luther)

Practical prayer is harder on the soles of your shoes than on the knees of your trousers. (Austin O'Malley)

I believe in prayer. It's the best way we have to draw strength from heaven. (Josephine Baker)

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees. (Victor Hugo)

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness.... It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. (Mohandas Gandhi)

An angry man is not fit to pray. (Yiddish Proverb)

Call on God, but row away from the rocks. (Indian Proverb)

We neither laugh alone, nor weep alone, why then should we pray alone? (Anna Letitia Barbauld)

From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggetie beasties and things that go bump in the night, good Lord, deliver us. (Scottish prayer)

God, give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. (Reinhold Niebuhr)

If you don't ask, you don't get. (Mohandas Gandhi)

Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action. (Mohandas Gandhi)

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it. (Voltaire)

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools.

God cannot do anything in your life unless you ask Him to.

Dear Lord - So far today, God, I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, haven't lost my temper, haven't been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or overindulgent. I'm really glad about that. But in a few minutes, God, I'm going to get out of bed and from then on I'm probably going to need a lot more help. In Jesus' name, AMEN.

If the only prayer you say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice. (Meister Eckehart)

Pray to the gods only when you're making some effort on your own behalf, otherwise your prayers are wasted (Aesop)

Confession

Jesus, forgive my sins.

Forgive the sins that I can remember,

And also the sins I have forgotten.

Forgive the wrong actions I have committed,

And the right actions I have omitted.

Forgive the times I have been weak in the face of temptation,

And those when I have been stubborn in the face of correction.

Forgive the times I have been proud of my own achievements,

And those when I have failed to boast of your works.

Forgive the harsh judgements I have made of others,

And the leniency I have shown to myself.

Forgive the lies I have told to others,

And the truths I have avoided.

Forgive me the pain I have caused others,

And the indulgence I have shown to myself.

Jesus have pity on me, and make me whole.

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)