Musings, Meditations, and a Touch of Tomfoolery


Character is defined by choices.

Use your own best judgement in all situations.

May the clouds in your life form only a background for a glorious sunset.
[an Irish toast]

Bloom where you're planted.

As I think, I am. As I act, I become.

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.
[Goethe]

We ask for information, but are interested most in what confirms our opinions.

Wealth is not only what you have; it is also what you are.
[Sterling W. Sill]

What we do for ourselves dies with us; what we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.
[Albert Pine]

Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.
[Phillips Brooks]

It isn't so much how busy you are--but why you are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted.

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
[Mother Teresa]

I hope our wisdom will grow with power, and teach us that the less we use our power, the greater we will be.
[Thomas Jefferson]

Because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
[Edward Everett Hale]

The great use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it.
[William James]

Bigot: one who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
[Ambrose Bierce]

Hope 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]

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.
[Freya Stark]

In the long run, the pessimist may be proved to be right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip.
[Daniel L. Reardon]

The best creed we can have is charity toward the creeds of others.
[Josh Billings]

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand--and melting like a snowflake. Let us use it before it is too late.
[Marie Beynon Ray]

Restlessness and discomfort are the first necessities of progress.
[Thomas A. Edison]

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.

When in charge, ponder. When in trouble, delegate. When in doubt, mumble.
[James Boren]

All bitter feelings are avoided, or at least greatly reduced, by prompt face-to-face discussion.
[Walter Pitkin]

A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
[Frederick Douglas]

Uniformity is not required; understanding is.
[Leonard W. Mann, Lakeside 1996]

People can be divided into three groups: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened.

If you are calm and collected while others are losing their heads, maybe you don't understand the situation.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
[Elbert Hubbard]

Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
[Theodore Roosevelt]

If you can get all the facts, your judgement can be right; if you don't get all the facts, it can't be right.
[Bernard Baruch]

Curiosity is as much the parent of attention as attention is of memory.
[Richard Whatley]

War will disappear, like the dinosaur, when changes in world conditions have destroyed its survival value.
[Robert A. Millikan]

It is not doing the thing we like, but liking the thing we have to do that makes life happy.
[Goethe]

It's not so much what we have, but how much we enjoy that makes happiness.

Teachers are merely guides who wake others to their own powers.

Be reasonable, do it my way.

Old age occurs the moment you realize there isn't something wonderful about to happen just around the corner. In some people this occurs very soon; in others, not at all.
[D. E. Short]

Only some of us can learn by other people's mistakes. The rest of us have to be the other people.

Our wisdom comes from our experience, and our experience comes from our foolishness.

A genius is someone who shoots at something no one else can see, and hits it.

The art of living consists in knowing which impulses to obey and which must be made to obey.

A person who talks about his inferiors hasn't any.

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
[Abba Eban]

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible--and achieve it, generation after generation.
[Pearl S. Buck]

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.
[Newt Gingrich]

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
[Dalai Lama]

Naps are nature's way of reminding you that life is nice--like a beautiful, softly swinging hammock strung between birth and infinity.
[Peggy Noonan]

He that would be a leader must be a bridge.
[Welsh proverb]

No two men are alike, and both of them are happy for it.
[Morris Mandel]

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
[Mother Teresa]

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.
[Harper Lee]

We live by encouragement and die without it--slowly, sadly, angrily.
[Celeste Holm]

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened.
[Billy Graham]

Optimism is an intellectual choice.
[Diana Schneider]

You will stay young as long as you learn, form new habits and don't mind being contradicted.
[Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach]

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
[Annie Dillard]

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
[John Morley]

My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.
[Clarence Budington Kelland]

Too much agreement kills a chat.
[Eldridge Cleaver]

Education is not training but rather the process that equips you to entertain yourself, a friend and an idea.
[Wallace Sterling]

Character is what you know you are, not what others think you are.
[Marva Collins and Civia Tamarkin]

Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone.
[G. B. Stern]

The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.
[Gaylord Nelson]

The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, "I was wrong."
[Sydney J. Harris]

For every problem there is one solution that is simple, neat and wrong.
[H. L. Mencken]

The time is always right to do what is right.
[Martin Luther King, Jr.]

Courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway.
[John Wayne]

When all think alike, no one thinks very much.
[Walter Lippmann]

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them.
[Lady Bird Johnson]

The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.

It is an illusion to think that more comfort means more happiness. Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to be needed.
[Storm Jameson]

The most important things in life aren't things.

Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering.
[Arthur C. Clarke]

Talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much.
[John Wayne]

Gossip needn't be false to be evil--there's a lot of truth that shouldn't be passed around.
[Frank A. Clark]

Question authority, but raise your hand first.
[Bob Thaves]

I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.
[Lou Holtz]

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
[Dwight D. Eisenhower]

The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
[William Safire]

In every real man a child is hidden who wants to play.
[Friedrich Nietzsche]

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.
[Gen. Colin L. Powell]

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.
[Theodore Hesburgh]

The miracle is this--the more we share, the more we have.
[Leonard Nimoy]

Spoon-feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.
[E. M. Forster]

A great teacher never strives to explain his vision--he simply invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself.
[The Rev. R. Inman]

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
[John Wooden]

Measure wealth not by the things you have, but by the things you have for which you would not take money.

Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.
[Dan Stanford]

Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.
[James Harvey Robinson]

Experience is a wonderful thing; it enables you to recognize a mistake every time you repeat it.

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.
[Robert Brault]

What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.

Only dead fish swim with the current.

So far as we have reason, we have a right to use it in determining what is right and wrong, and we should pursue that path we believe to be right.
[Black Hawk, Sauk]

Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty.
[Stanislaw J. Lee]

Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.
[Daniel J. Boorstin]

Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio or looked at television. They had "loneliness" and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would work.
[Carl Sandburg]

(Plato noted that) there are two ways to have abundance. One is to have a lot of things; the other is to not need very much. Obviously, the hardship is in needing too much.
[Richard Imgrund]

Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. The only time you don't fail is the last time you try something, and it works. One fails forward toward success.
[Charles F. Kettering]

Establish a policy of taking all criticism as friendly. Once you insist to yourself that the other person is well-intentioned, you'll get value from legitimate criticism, if there's any there to get, and you won't be bothered by the rest. When you concede a critic's good will, you disarm an attacker and encourage an ally.
[Carroll O'Connor]

Glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us.
[Paul in Romans]

Good leaders take more than their share of the blame, less than their share of the credit.

Popular opinion is not always right.

Leadership is not bestowed, it is earned.

Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

The glory of springtime is the same to all. But there are many different points of view. A child sees it best from the middle of a mud puddle.
[Pearl Swiggum]


Two men see a river. One considers it a problem, the other considers it a challenge. Guess who gets to the other side first.
[Glenn Cunningham]

One way to get high blood pressure is to go mountain climbing over molehills.

Happiness is like a butterfly. The more you pursue it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it comes and lands softly upon your shoulder.

The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.

America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.

Happiness is the art of making a bouquet out of those flowers within reach.

If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

Whatever your lot in life, build something on it.

God is truth, and light his shadow.

A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is making another mistake.

Our country right or wrong. When right to be kept right, when wrong to be put right.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; the cauliflower is but a cabbage with a college education.

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections are overcome.

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.

Science at best is not wisdom; it is knowledge. Wisdom is knowledge tempered with judgement.

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.

A pat on the back, though only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, is miles ahead in results.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Smile; it makes people wonder what you've been up to.

Discipline is the capacity to endure the unwelcome in order to achieve the desirable.

Savages we call them, because their manners are different from ours.

I am always ready to learn, but I do not always like being taught.
[Winston Churchill]

To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; to have a deference for others guides our manners.
[Laurence Sterne]

A sharp tongue usually hides a dull mind.

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
[Anatole France]

Never throw mud.
You may miss your mark but you will have dirty hands.
[Joseph Parker]

Some people regard discipline as a chore.
For me, it's a kind of order that sets me free to fly.
[Julie Andrews]

There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools.
[Nicholas Chamfort]

You can do what you think you can, nothing more.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
[Abraham Lincoln]

Each day is another chance to be a better person.

If good things are happening, good people come.
The more things happening, the more people get involved.

In cases of difficulty and when hopes are small, the boldest counsels are the safest.
[Livy]

Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?
[Frank Skully]

Learn from the mistakes of others.
You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.
[Eleanor Roosevelt]

There never was a valley unless there was a high hill nearby.

I may not be absolutely right all of the time, but I've got a corner on the market.

From the errors of others a wise man corrects his own.

Ridicule is the first and last argument of fools.
[Charles Simmons]

I have never met anyone who couldn't tell me something I hadn't known before.
[Charles M. Kimbrough]

The only stupid question is the one you didn't ask.

I seldom think about my limitations and they never make me sad.
[Helen Keller]

If you light a candle in a very dark place, it shines a long way.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love
and something to hope for.
[Joseph Addison]

If you face the sunshine the shadows will fall behind you.

Strong feelings do not necessarily make a strong character.
The strength of a man is to be measured by the power of the feelings he subdues,
not by the power of those which subdue him.

A man's judgement is no better than his information.

Don't mind criticism: If it is untrue, disregard it.
If it is unfair, don't let it irritate you.
If it is ignorant, smile.
If it is justified, learn from it.

The interruptions on our lives are a measure of our influence on the lives of others.

There is many a good man to be found under a shabby hat.
[Chinese proverb]

When we are flat on our backs there is no way to look but up.
[Roger Babson]

One man with courage makes a majority.
[Andrew Jackson]


Remember that the faith that moves mountains always carries a pick and a shovel.

Don't bother me with facts; my mind's made up.

Making the most of every moment helps to make life merry.

Nothing is so strong as gentleness; nothing so gentle as real strength.
[DeSales]

Move forward, or get out of the way.

The best training any parent can give a child is to train the child to train himself.
[A. P. Gouthey]

One of the surprising things in this world is the respect a worthless man has for himself.
[Ed Howe]

Do not always assume that the other fellow has intelligence equal to yours.
He may have more.
[Terry Thomas]

Doing an injury puts you below your enemy.
Revenging one makes you but even with him.
Forgiving it sets you above him.

The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
[William James]

A government is free in proportion to the rights it guarantees to the minority.
[Alfred M. Landon]

The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.

One must not tie a ship to a single anchor nor life to a single hope.
[Epictetus]

If nothing has happened for which you can be thankful, you can be thankful for what hasn't happened.

The ideal government serves, not rules, the individual.

Democracy is a bad form of government, but the others are much worse.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
But God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless.
[Admiral Chester Nimitz]

Patience is the art of concealing your impatience.

Two cheers for democracy: one because it admits variety, and two because it permits criticism.
[E. M. Forster]

Real success comes from tackling jobs where odds favor failure.

Resolutions for the future do not affect your life until they are set in motion.

You are your best source of help.

Willingness overcomes difficulty.

Education has as its object the formation of character.
[Herbert Spencer]

If we are to live together in peace, we must come to know each other better.
[Lyndon Baines Johnson]

What you believe in should not be different from what you do.

When I hear somebody say "life is hard," I am always tempted to say, "compared to what?"
[Sydney Harris]

Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn.

This world belongs to the man who is wise enough to change his mind in the presence of the facts.
[Roy Smith]

A man's life consists not of what he has, but what he is.

Happiness comes to people who are too busy to seek it.

If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who will dress for battle?

I may look busy, but I'm just confused.

You become what you think about most of the time.

The tide turns when it's at its lowest.

Fairness has little to do with reality.

We are apt to forget that children watch examples better than they listen to preaching.
[Roy L. Smith]

The more you learn, the more you should reexamine your own convictions.

If it is to be, it is up to me.

Minority opinions are sometimes right.

We have no problems, only challenges.

Following a precedent is an easy substitute for thinking.

Four-Way Test of everything we think, say or do: Is it the truth?
Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

Curiosity is a willing, a proud, an eager confession of ignorance.
[S. Leonard Rubinstein]

If my IQ were any lower, I'd be a plant.
[Lee Trevino]

I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent.
[Ashleigh Brilliant]

Never tell people how to do things.
Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
[Gen George S. Patton, Jr.]

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.
[J. B. Priestly]

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by;
but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.
[James M. Barrie]

The smart ones ask when they don't know.
And, sometimes, when they do.
[Malcolm S. Forbes]

A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.
[Daniel Webster]

The cure for boredom is curiosity.
There is no cure for curiosity.
[Ellen Parr]

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.
[Ovid]

The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it.
[Will & Ariel Durant]

If you are planning for a year, sow rice...If you are planning for a decade, plant trees...
If you are planning for a lifetime, educate a person.
[Chinese proverb]

The task of a leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
[Henry Kissinger]

There are two kinds of executives: one tries to get around him better people than himself;
the other tries to get around better people than himself.

Live every day for all it's worth.
You've got to enjoy the life you've already got as well as the life you're going to have.

A coincidence is a small miracle where God chose to remain anonymous.
[Heidi Quade]

The only reason that some people get lost in thought is that it is unfamiliar territory.

Change your routine; a rut is nothing more than a grave with the ends kicked out.

Ignorance plus Enthusiasm
(A tough combination to beat.)

You can't make a dill pickle by squirting a little vinegar on a cucumber.
(You gotta let it soak in.)

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

You can only slide in one direction.

Blessed are those who never doubt their knowledge. They live in peace and never learn.
(A doubting mind is hard to live with.)

The only things we ever really keep in life are the things that we give away.
[Dr. Albert Schweitzer]

What would an imaginative person do with your job?

Sometimes a majority simply means that all the fools are on the same side.
[Claude McDonald]

Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.
[Art Linkletter]

An Islamic proverb states that each word we utter should pass through three gates before we say it.
At the 1st gate, the gatekeeper asks "Is it true?"
At the 2nd gate, he asks "Is it necessary?" and at the 3rd gate, "Is it kind?"

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

Good enough is not enough.
It is ever the enemy of the best.

Flexibility is the key.

Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done.
God may have been waiting for centuries for somebody ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing.
[John Andrew Holmes]

The penalty for censuring what your children may be taught is children who are no brighter than you.
[Frank A. Clark]

Thunder is good. Thunder is impressive.
But it is lightning that does the work.
[Mark Twain]

It is not who is right, but what is right that is important.

When one door closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door
that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.

All things come to him who waits.
Sometimes, though, it's just the leftovers from the fellows who got there first.

I may not walk the straight and narrow, but I try to cross it as often as I may.

Why worry about tomorrow; we may not make it through today.

Don't worry if you don't know all the answers.
You probably won't be asked all the questions.

I have found that the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want,
and then advise them to do it.
[Harry S. Truman]

I expect to pass this way but once; any good that I can do, or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect, for I shall not pass this way again.

Fighting or disagreeing is only natural.
It is the working out of a solution to two different ideas that builds a lasting relationship.

Prejudice and precedent are the two watchdogs at the door of progress.

No problem is so big or so complicated that it can't be run away from.

Nobody can be as persuasive as the one who is not hampered by facts or the truth.

There are two kinds of fools:
One says "This is old, therefore it is superior."
The other says "This is new, therefore it is better."

Never wrestle with a hog; you and the hog will get dirty, and only the hog will like it.

Nothing would be done at all if we waited till we could do it so well that no one could find fault with it.

The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.

We only manage things.
People we lead.

Our opinions become fixed at the point we stop thinking.

There's no fool like an old fool: experience counts.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
[Seneca]

Never bow to authority, but always tip your hat.
[Jim Fiebig]

The trouble with most folks isn't so much their ignorance, as knowing so many things that ain't so. 
[Josh Billings]

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
[Martin Luther King, Jr.]

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
[Mother Teresa]

Optimism is a cheerful frame of mind that enables a teakettle to sing though in hot water up to its nose.

The most solid stone in the structure is the lowest one in the foundation.
[Kahlil Gibran]

Ideals are like the stars.
We never reach them but, like the mariners on the sea, we chart our course by them.

The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been kindness, beauty, and truth.
[Albert Einstein]

If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers.
[Doug Larson]

You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea.

It is wise to remember that you are one of those who can be fooled some of the time.
[Laurence J. Peter]

I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love.
His hat was old, his coat was threadbare, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.
[Victor Hugo]

Always let your subordinates do their thinking for themselves. It is the only way to establish responsibility, it takes much of the load off of you, and on many occasions they will arrive at solutions you have overlooked.

Learning about and learning how to result in very different types of knowledge.
[Moffett]

Don't dismiss a good idea simply because you don't like the source.
[H. Jackson Brown, Jr.]

To handle yourself, use your head.
To handle others, use your heart.
[Eleanor Roosevelt]

You can't learn anything new from people who always agree with you.

There are no mistakes, only lessons.
[Bill Marvin]

No matter what happens, someone will find a way to take it too seriously.
[Dave Barry]

Don't tell me what I'd like to hear; but what I ought to hear.

True enough, we have obligations and duties toward our fellow men.
But it does seem curious enough that in modern, neurotic society, men's energies are consumed in making a living, and rarely in living itself.
It takes a lot of courage for a man to declare, with clarity and simplicity, that the purpose of life is to enjoy it.
[Lin Yutang]

When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so.
Now that I am 50, I read them openly.
When I became a man, I put away childish things--including the fear of childishness
and the desire to be grown up.
[C. S. Lewis]

Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester.
The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
[Sydney J. Harris]

Mohandas K. Gandhi often changed his mind publicly.
An aide once asked him how he could so freely contradict this week what he had just said last week.
The great man replied that it was because this week he knew better.
[Detroit News editorial]

The aristocrat is right in that only a few people in any society make a real difference, but the democrat is more deeply right when he insists that we cannot predict where such valuable people are coming from and therefore have an obligation to keep all lines open.
[Sydney J. Harris]

The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good,
and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back.
[Abigail Van Buren]

Thrusting my nose firmly between his teeth, I threw him heavily to the ground on top of me.
[Mark Twain]

If you never want to like a kid, don't get to know them.
[Dave Holland]

As the old man walked the beach at dawn, he noticed a young man ahead of him picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Finally catching up with the youth, he asked him why he was doing this.
The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun.
"But the beach goes on for miles and there are millions of starfish," countered the other.
"How can your effort make any difference?"
The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it to safety in the waves.
"It makes a difference to this one," he said.

When all think alike, no one thinks very much.
[Walter Lippman]

Be where you are when you're there.

Ten Traits of Successful Leaders:
1. They observe with application. They observe and absorb.
They look at everything like it's the first and last time they'll see it.
2. They know how to listen. Listening is wanting to hear.
3. They take copious notes. They capture ideas as their senses alertly respond to react to them.
4. They welcome ideas. They urge others to bring their best thinking on a subject.
They're open, responsive, sensitive, aware and encouraging.
5. They value time highly. They use it skillfully.
6. They set regular goals. They expend their energies toward solving ways to reach these goals.
7. They try to understand first. Then, and only then, do they judge.
8. They always anticipate achievement. They build on their strength.
9. They know how to ask clear, courteous and incisive questions.
Questions are the creative acts of intelligence.
10. They know how to organize their approach. They immediately focus their total mind power on the relevant.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason so few engage in it.
[Henry Ford]

The last words of General Sedgwick during the civil war: "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist...."

The art of progress is to preserve amid order change and to preserve change amid order.
[Alfred North Whitehead]

I'm lost. I've gone to look for myself.
If I should return before I get back, please ask me to wait.

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done,
and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
[Theodore Roosevelt]

The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions.
[Claude Lévi-Strauss]

Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens.
The sleeper must awaken.
[Frank Herbert]

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.
[Richard Bach]

Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.
[Daniel Boorstin]

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.
[Ivy Baker]

Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated.
You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.
[David Lloyd George]

At the timberline where the storms strike with the most fury, the sturdiest trees are found.

I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.
[Everett Dirksen]

It’s not good enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.
[Sir Winston Churchill]

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
[Dr. Seuss]

It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
[Charles Darwin]

If you have something to say, raise your hand and put it over your mouth.

Humankind.
Let us be both.

What is freedom of expression?
Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
[Salman Rushdie]

All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground...and miss.
[Douglas Adams]

Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.
[Tom Stoppard]

Think about who you want to be before you think about what you want to be.

The key is not the “will to win”...everybody has that.
It is the will to prepare to win that is important.
[Bobby Knight]

Ninety percent of the putts that fall short don’t go in.
[Yogi Berra]

A life isn’t significant except for its impact on other lives.
[Jackie Robinson]

Make it a good day.

And whoever will not receive you nor hear you, when you depart from there,
shake off the dust under your feet as a testimony against them.
[Mark 6:11]

What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other.
[George Eliot]

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
[Ogden Nash]

Do not compute the totality of your poultry population until all the manifestations of incubation have been entirely completed.
[William Jennings Bryan]

It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path.
[Paulo Coelho]

Unexpected intrusions of beauty.
That is what life is.
[Saul Bellow]

Life is too important to be taken seriously.
[Oscar Wilde]

You are judged by what you do while passing through.

If I had to do it over, I would love more and learn more.

Go with God, as you understand the Divine to be.

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.
[Paul Boese]

Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.
[Werhner von Braun]

Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened.
[Dr. Seuss]

We find comfort among those who agree with us -- growth among those who don't.
[Frank Howard Clark]

I think, therefor I am dangerous.
[seen on bumper sticker]

The best way out is always through.
[Robert Frost]

Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.
[Dwight D. Eisenhower]

What failure of imagination caused me to forget that life was full of other possibilities...
[Nora Ephron]

You can only stumble if you're moving.

I have decided to stick to love...
Hate is too great a burden to bear.
[Martin Luther King]

If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.
[Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat; paraphrased]

Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
[Isaac Asimov]

Never take life seriously.
Nobody gets out alive anyway.
[Sydney J. Harris]

I came, I saw, I started to conquer...but I got tired and said to heck with it.
[cat birthday card]

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.
[Amelia Earhart]    .....9-11-14 :(

I can accept failure, everyone fails at something.
But I can’t accept not trying.
[Michael Jordan]

I can be changed by what happens to me.
But I refuse to be reduced by it.
[Maya Angelou]

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings a happy death.
[Leonardo da Vinci]

Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.
[H. Jackson Brown Jr.]

It didn’t matter how big our house was; it mattered that there was love in it.
[Peter Buffett]

A little bit of light pushes away a lot of darkness.

I seldom end up where I want to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.
[Doug Adams]

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
[Gilbert K. Chesterton]

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
[Jane Goodall]

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may.
We ourselves must walk the path.
[Buddha]

You are somebody.
If there is a wrong, do something about it.

The anger towards the past you carry in your heart, the less capable you are of loving in the present.
[Barbara De Angelis]

Do all the good you can.
By all the means you can.
In all the ways you can.
[John Wesley]

Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
[Marilyn Monroe]

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
[George Carlin]

For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter.
[Maya Angelou]

Sometimes you don’t get closure.
You just move on.

Anyone who thinks fallen leaves are dead has never watched them dancing on a windy day.
[Shira Tamir]

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, and compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
[Lao Tzu]

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing everyday.

We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.
[Dakota Proverb]

The real winners in life are the people who look at every situation with an expectation that they can make it work or make it even better.
[Barbara Pletcher]

A good journey begins where you are and goes to where you’ve not been.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
[Anais Nin]

When it comes to enjoying life, the sooner we get started, the longer we get to enjoy it.
[Tom Wilson via Ziggy]

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.
The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
[Thomas A. Edison]

Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.
[Malcolm X]

I follow three rules: Do the right thing, do the best you can, and always show people you care.
[Lou Holtz]

It may be half full of water, precious in itself, but in the other half
there’s a rainbow that could exist only in the vacant space.
[Alice Walker]

Change is just an invitation to grow in new directions.

Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.
[Chinese proverb]

Why waste time learning when ignorance is instantaneous?
[Hobbes the Tiger; Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson]

Don’t judge people for the choices they make when you don’t know the options they had to choose from.

I am not what has happened to me, I am what I choose to become.
[Carl Jung]

Never be a prisoner of your past.
It was just a lesson, not a life sentence.

Did you know that the only way a lobster can grow is by discarding its shell?
Sometimes you need to feel that pressure.
[Tom Batiuk in comic “Funky Winkerbean”]

I’m not bossy, I just know what you should be doing,

The Universe is God’s dwelling place.
There is no place from which God is absent.

Forget your perfect offering; there’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.
[Leonard Cohen]

The first to apologize is the bravest.
The first to forgive is the strongest.
The first to forget is the happiest.

The purpose of life is to discover your gift.
The meaning of life is to give it away.
[David Viscott]

I can’t Brain today. I have the Dumb...…
Now what?

Be not afraid.
There is enough.

Stop finding all the ways that you can’t do something and find all the ways that you can.
[Issa Rae]

First connect, then correct.
[Karen Purvis, child psychologist]

All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.
[Michael John Bobak]

The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

Time is where you take it. It will not linger for you.
[Lois McMaster Bujold]

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.
[Tennessee Williams]

Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are.
[Julius Charles Hare]

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.
[Chauncey Depew]

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
[John Quincy Adams]

We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count.
[Neal A. Maxwell]

Naps are a renewable energy source. :)

Focus on the journey, not the destination.
Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.
[Greg Anderson]

Do not question authority...
’tis much better to annoy authority; more effect, less effort.

The noise of living gets in the way of what’s important in life.

The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.
[Thich Nhat Hanh]

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
[Dr. Seuss]

There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.
[Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes]

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
[Isaac Asimov]

Is it...True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, Kind
[THINK]

Inside of me there are two dogs.
One is mean and evil and the other is good and they fight each other all the time.
When asked which one wins I answer, the one I feed the most.
[Sitting Bull]

There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.
[Bill Watterson]

If you don’t understand something, you should just try to learn more, that’s all.
[Lois McMaster Bujold]

I like the chattering voices, they keep me company.
[Laura Elizabeth Reams, 2003, aged 19]

I think everyone deserves a chance to see things my way.

It is not our differences that divide us.
It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.
[Audre Lord]

We must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.
[Audre Lord]

Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities:
integrity, intelligence, and energy.
But if they don’t have the first, the other two will kill you.
[Warren Buffett]

Doing nothing is very hard to do – you never know when you’re finished.
[Leslie Nielsen]

Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows.
Therefore, as water retains no constant shape...so there are no constant conditions.
[Sun Tzu: The Art Of War]

I have picked flowers where I find them.
[Georgia O’Keefe]