Home Page Quotations
The Thought for Friday, September 10, 2010 Comes from Jean Kerr:
On Marriage: Marriage is like buying something you've been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn't always go with everything else in the house.
The Thought for Thursday, September 9, 2010 Comes from Jean Kerr:
On Marriage: Being divorced is like being hit by a Mack truck. If you live through it, you start looking very carefully to the right and to the left.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 8, 2010 Comes from Grenville Kleiser:
On Politeness: Tact, the kind of tact you should cultivate, is not a form of deception or make-believe, but a cultivated taste which gives fine perception in seeing and doing what is best under all circumstances. There is nothing which will so readily bring you into favor, or disarm an opponent, as the right use to tact.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 7, 2010 Comes from Edward Bulwer-Laytton:
On Politeness: There is no policy like politeness; and a good manner is the best thing in the world either to get a good name, or to supply the want of it.
The Thought for Monday, September 6, 2010 Comes from Baltasar Gracian:
On Politeness: Politeness is the chief sign of culture.
The Thought for Sunday, September 5, 2010 Comes from Knute Rockne:
On Football: The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven.
The Thought for Saturday, September 4, 2010 Comes from Knute Rockne:
On Football: It isn't necessary to see a good tackle. You can hear it.
The Thought for Friday, September 3, 2010 Comes from Aristotle:
On Understanding Leadership: He who is a great ruler must first have been ruled.
The Thought for Thursday, September 2, 2010 Comes from Hermann Hesse:
On Wisdom: Knowledge can be communicated, but wisdom cannot. A man can find it, he can live it, he can be filled and sustained by it, but he cannot utter or teach it. (Ed's Note: It is my personal, life-long belief that you can read every book in every library in the world and still not have wisdom. I believe you can only get wisdom from God, and only then if you sincerely ask God for wisdom. Should you choose to do so, I believe God will grant you wisdom through His grace. In His mercy, God grants me that which I cannot give to myself, and for this I am both grateful and thankful.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 1, 2010 Comes from John Updike:
On Perfection: Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solitude is the enemy of well-being.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 31, 2010 Comes from R. H. Grant:
On Hiring: When you hire people that are smarter than you are, you prove you are smarter than they are.
The Thought for Monday, August 30, 2010 Comes from Vince Lombardi:
On Winning: If it doesn't matter who wins or loses why do they keep score?
The Thought for Sunday, August 29, 2010 Comes from Ambrose Bierce (Creator of The Devil's Dictionary):
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. (Ed's Note: Amen and amen, Ambrose. Truer words were never spoken since God created man and allowed him (by his free will) to do his own bidding.)
The Thought for Saturday, August 28, 2010 Comes from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar:
On Greatness: Great players are willing to give up their own personal achievement for the achievement of the group.
The Thought for Friday, August 27, 2010 Comes from Jerry Seinfeld:
On the Media: It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.
The Thought for Thursday, August 26, 2010 Comes from Emeril Lagasse:
On Life: Life just doesn't hand you things. You have to get out there and make things happen.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 25, 2010 Comes from Andy Rooney:
On Appearance: A smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 24, 2010 Comes from Napoleon Bonaparte:
On Loneliness: Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
The Thought for Monday, August 23, 2010 Comes from Harry Truman:
On Politics: You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.
The Thought for Sunday, August 22, 2010 Comes from Pope Paul VI:
On Helping Others: Never reach out your hand unless you are willing to extend an arm.
The Thought for Saturday, August 21, 2010 Comes from Ernest Hemingway:
On Courage: Courage is grace under pressure.
The Thought for Friday, August 20, 2010 Comes from Muhammad Ali:
On Courage: He who is not courageous to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
The Thought for Thursday, August 19, 2010 Comes from Colin Powell:
On Self-Reliance: Don't bother people for help without first trying to solve the problem yourself.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 18, 2010 Comes from Arnold Palmer:
On Accomplishment: The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 17, 2010 Comes from Ronald Reagan:
On Change: All great change begins at the dinner table.
The Thought for Monday, August 16, 2010 Comes from Brad Paisley:
On Being Genuine: Anytime you do something from the heart, people just know it.
The Thought for Sunday, August 15, 2010 Comes from John Lennon:
On Dreams: A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.
The Thought for Saturday, August 14, 2010 Comes from Dalai Lama:
On Values: Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
The Thought for Friday, August 13, 2010 Comes from Malcolm Forbes:
On Decision-Making: Being right half the time beats being half-right all the time.
The Thought for Thursday, August 12, 2010 Comes from Oprah Winfrey:
On Change: We can't become what we need to be by remaining what we are.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 11, 2010 Comes from Jack Welch:
On Destiny: Control your own destiny or someone else will.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 10, 2010 Comes from Aristotle:
On Quality: Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
The Thought for Monday, August 9, 2010 Comes from Tiger Woods:
On Life: You should live your own life and live up to your own expectations. (Ed's Note: It is clear that Tiger Woods said this prior to his being caught cheating on his wife in a number of extramarital affairs. I have told anyone who would listen for years to listen carefully to what a man has to say, and then watch more carefully what he does. What he does is really who he is. Live and learn, or live with the consequences.)
The Thought for Sunday, August 8, 2010 Comes from Elvis Presley:
On Ambition: Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.
The Thought for Saturday, August 7, 2010 Comes from Bill Cosby:
On Success: In order for you to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.
The Thought for Friday, August 6, 2010 comes from Andrew Carnegie:
On Character: As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
The Thought for Thursday, August 5, 2010 Comes from an Anonymous Source:
On the Impossible: When someone tells you nothing is impossible, ask them to dribble a football.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 4, 2010 Comes from an Anonymous Source:
On Compromise: A compromise is an agreement whereby both parties get what neither of them wanted.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 3, 2010 Comes from Billy Crystal:
On Humor: I don't like heights. This is why I stopped growing in the fifth grade.
The Thought for Monday, August 2, 2010 Comes from Buddha:
On Thoughts: The mind is everything. What you think, you become.
The Thought for Sunday, August 1, 2010 Comes from Alan Alda:
On Wisdom: Be as smart as you can but remember that it is always better to be wise than smart.
The Thought for Saturday, July 31, 2010 Comes from Garth Brooks:
On Wealth: You aren't wealthy until you have something money can't buy.
The Thought for Friday, July 30, 2010 Comes from Tony Robbins:
On Commitment: Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.
The Thought for Thursday, July 29, 2010 Comes from Louis D. Brandeis:
On Achievements: Most of the things worth doing in this world had been declared impossible before they were done.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Comes from Erica Jong:
On Advice: Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 27, 2010 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Gun Control: The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
The Thought for Monday, July 26, 2010 Comes from Erma Bombeck:
On Materialism: Before trying to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they are not trying to keep up with you.
The Thought for Sunday, July 25, 2010 Comes from Warren Beatty:
On Success: You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play.
The Thought for Saturday, July 24, 2010 Comes from Tony Blair:
On Leadership: The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.
The Thought for Friday, July 23, 2010 Comes from Mary Kay Ash:
On Thoughtfulness: No matter how busy you are you must take time to make the other person feel important.
The Thought for Thursday, July 22, 2010 Comes from Alfred North Whitehead:
On Civilization: Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 21, 2010 Comes from Ed Bagley:
On Commitment: Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian, any more than standing in a garage makes you a car, or having a long-term relationship without marriage gives you any sense of security.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 20, 2010 Comes from Tom Brokaw:
On Life: It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference.
The Thought for Monday, July 19, 2010 Comes from Aristotle:
On Courage: Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees the others.
The Thought for Sunday, July 18, 2010 Comes from Steve Allen:
On Problems: One of the nice things about problems is that a good many of them do not exist.
The Thought for Saturday, July 17, 2010 Comes from Keanu Reeves:
On Attention: The small act of paying attention can take you a long way.
The Thought for Friday, July 16, 2010 comes from Paula Abdul:
On Challenges: Keep the faith, don't lose your perseverance and always trust your gut instinct.
The Thought for Thursday, July 15, 2010 Comes from Abraham Lincoln:
On Character: Nearly all men can stand adversity, but it you want to test a man's character, give him power.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 14, 2010 Comes from Agnetha Faltskog:
On Change: There is danger in changing to much in search of perfection.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 13, 2010 Comes from Arthur Ashe:
On Success: One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.
The Thought for Monday, July 12, 2010 Comes from Lance Armstrong:
On Effort: Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.
The Thought for Sunday, July 11, 2010 Comes from Alfred Adler:
On Life: The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.
The Thought for Saturday, July 10, 2010 Comes from Ed Bagley:
On Writers: All great writers are complex people who are sometimes eccentric and occasionally enigmatic.
The Thought for Friday, July 9, 2010 Comes from Pedro Calder:
On Resourcefulness: One may know how to gain a victory, and know not how to use it. (Ed's Note: I purposefully do not give the birth and death dates of the people I quote, nor do I tell you what they do or where they are from. I do this on purpose to nudge you to Google their name so you will learn these facts and more about the people I quote.)
The Thought for Thursday, July 8, 2010 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Priorities: Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones that you did do.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 7, 2010 Comes from James Monroe:
On Government: The best frame of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 6, 2010 Comes from Anatole France:
On Life: It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.
The Thought for Monday, July 5, 2010 Comes from George Halas:
On Effort: Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.
The Thought for Sunday, July 4, 2010 Comes from Sir Winston Churchill:
On Freedom: If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
The Thought for Saturday, July 3, 2010 Comes from Charles M. Schultz:
On Life: Life is like a 10-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.
The Thought for Friday, July 2, 2010 Comes from Charles M. Schultz:
On Problems: No problem is so formidable that you can't walk away from it.
The Thought for Thursday, July 1, 2010 Comes from Charles M. Schultz:
On Good Fortune: Sometimes I lie awake at night and ask why me? Then a voice answers nothing personal, your name just happened to come up.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 30, 2010 Comes from Charles M. Schultz:
On Life: My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?
The Thought for Tuesday, June 29, 2010 Comes from Charles M. Schultz:
On Belief: It doesn't matter what you believe just so long as you're sincere.
The Thought for Monday, June 28, 2010 Comes from Charles M. Schultz:
On Youth: If I were given the opportunity to present a gift to the next generation, It would be the ability for each individual to learn to laugh at himself.
The Thought for Sunday, June 27, 2010 Comes from Charles M. Schultz:
On Life: I've discovered the secret of life – you just hang around until you get used to it.
The Thought for Saturday, June 26, 2010 Comes from Charles M. Schultz:
On Appearances: Decorate your home. It gives the illusion that your life is more interesting than it really is.
The Thought for Friday, June 25, 2010 Comes from Charles M. Schultz:
On People: I love mankind; it's people I can't stand.
The Thought for Thursday, June 24, 2010 Comes from Charles M. Schultz:
On Family: Big sisters are the crab grass in the lawn of life.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 23, 2010 Comes from Charles M. Schulz:
On Hope: A whole stack of memories never equal one little hope.
The Thought for Tuesday, June 22, 2010 Comes from Justice John W. Hill:
On Family: The antidote for crime should be administered in childhood, by the parents. The problem is not fundamentally that of the improper child so much as it is that of the improper home.
The Thought for Monday, June 21, 2010 Comes from Theodore Hesburgh:
On Family: The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
The Thought for Sunday, June 20, 2010 Comes from George Herbert:
On Family: One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.
The Thought for Saturday, June 19, 2010 Comes from an Anonymous source:
On Laughter: When you laugh, be sure to laugh at what people do, and not at what they are.
The Thought for Friday, June 18, 2010 Comes from Agnes Repplier:
On Irony: Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.
The Thought for Thursday, June 17, 2010 Comes from Dwight D. Eisenhower:
On the Future: Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of future to run over him.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 16, 2010 Comes from Roger Dodson:
On Being an American: If we vote, if we participate in our community or nation in some capacity, if we pay our taxes honestly then we all serve our nation and bless us all for we are the ones who are America; even though that means some of us are anti-American in how we disrespect gays, minorities, women's rights; we are still Americans if we participate in building this Country to the best of our abilities and conscience.
The Thought for Tuesday, June 15, 2010 Comes from Heywood Hale Broun:
On Accomplishment: Sweat is the cologne of accomplishment.
The Thought for Monday, June 14, 2010 Comes from William Arthur Ward:
On Gratitude: Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
The Thought for Sunday, June 13, 2010 Comes from Minna Antrim:
On Contempt: Between flattery and admiration there often flows a river of contempt.
The Thought for Saturday, June 12, 2010 Comes from a Lord's Letter to a Bishop:
On Power: The fight for good government is perpetual. No sooner is one bunch of rascals, cowards or thieves swept out (of office) than another arises to take their place. The worst part is that the people you have elected by great effort tend eventually to exemplify Lord Acton's brilliant observation in an 1887 letter to Bishop Creighton, a professor of ecclesiastical history at Cambridge University, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.
The Thought for Friday, June 11, 2010 Comes from Billy Graham:
On Character: When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.
The Thought for Thursday, June 10, 2010 Comes from Yogi Berra:
On Direction: If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 9, 2010 Comes from Alfred Adler:
On Life: The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.
The Thought for Tuesday, June 8, 2010 Comes from Stacey Charter:
On Life: Life is all about timing . . . the unreachable becomes reachable, the unavailable becomes available, the unattainable . . . attainable. Have the patience, wait it out. It's all about timing.
The Thought for Monday, June 7, 2010 Comes from a Wise But Anonymous Person:
We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds. Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath.
The Thought for Sunday, June 6, 2010 Comes from John Wooden (1910 to 2010 - John Wooden would have been 100 years old on October 14, 2010.)
On Life: You can't live a
perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay
you.
The Thought for Saturday, June 5, 2010 Comes from George Washington Carver:
On Success: How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong because someday in your life you will have been all of these.
The Thought for Friday, June 4, 2010 Comes from Russell H. Ewing:
On Bosses: A boss creates fear, a leader confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting. A boss is interested in himself or herself, a leader is interested in the group. (Ed's Note: These are some important differences between a boss and a leader.)
The Thought for Thursday, June 3, 2010 Comes from Eleanor Roosevelt:
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 2, 2010 Comes from Aristotle:
On Adversity: The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
The Thought for Tuesday, June 1, 2010 Comes from Rosa Luxemburg:
On Freedom: Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.
The Thought for Monday, Memorial Day, May 31, 2010 Comes from George Washington:
On Conscience: Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.
The Thought for Sunday, May 30, 2010 Comes from Margaret Mead:
On Retiring: Sooner or later I'm going to die, but I'm not going to retire. (Note from Celeste Champagne, my New York Editor: Margaret Mead's philosophy rings true for a lot of people except for many it's a necessity not to retire rather than a choice.)
The Thought for Saturday, May 29, 2010 Comes from Elizabeth Bowen:
On Spring: Autumn arrives in early morning, but spring at the close of a winter day.
The Thought for Friday, May 28, 2010 comes from one very smart woman who shall remain anonymous:
On Women: Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she will give you a baby. If you give her a house, she will give you a home. If you give her groceries, she will give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she will give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of crap in return. (Ed's Note: All guys would be well advised to pay close attention to this expression by a very smart woman.)
The Thought for Thursday, May 27, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, then they are simply jerks with a billion dollars. (Ed's Note: Money only makes you more of what you already are. What is important is that good people should remain good people, whether they are rich or poor.)
The Thought for Wednesday, May 26, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: We do not have, never have had, and never will have an opinion about where the stock market, interest rates, or business activity will be a year from now. (Ed's Note: The answer is to ignore the stock markets daily gyrations, and do this: Focus on determining the long-term economic value of the companies that have a durable competitive advantage and then determine where they are selling in relationship to that value.)
The Thought for Tuesday, May 25, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: We believe that (giving) the name investors to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic. (Ed's Note: Buying stocks on a quarter-point drop in interest rates, and a month later selling the same stock at a quarter-point rise in interest rates is not investing, it is speculating under the guise of investing.)
The Thought for Monday, May 24, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: As far as I am concerned, the stock market doesn't exist. It is only there as a reference to see if anybody is offering to do anything foolish. (Ed's Note: Buffett became a multi-billionaire by acting on the short-sightedness of stock pickers from large mutual funds.)
The Thought for Sunday, May 23, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth. (Ed's Note: When a company has a durable competitive advantage, the growth will be there. When you pay too much for a stock, you essentially reduce the amount of money you will make in the future, which reduces your annual rate of return.)
The Thought for Saturday, May 22, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians. (Ed's Note: Understanding business history is important to understanding what can happen, but it will not tell you what will happen and when it will happen. That takes some foresight on the part of the investor. Buffett tries to predict the future by staying with businesses that make products that do not change over time—think beer, candy, chewing gum, razor blades and auto insurance. When you buy into companies that are constantly having to change their products—like technology companies and auto companies—you cannot predict the future as easily.)
The Thought for Friday, May 21, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can't produce a baby in 1 month by getting 9 women pregnant. (Ed's Note: It takes time for business value to build up. Buffett waited 15 years for his initial investment of $45 million to turn into $2.3 billion. That equates to an annual return of 29%--just imagine getting a 29% on your investment for 15 straight years. That's why Warren Buffett is Buffett and you are you, wishing you could be Warren Buffett. You will never be Warren Buffett because you do not have the patience even if you do pay the right price for your stock. (I am hoping you will get mad, and get smarter.)
The Thought for Thursday, May 20, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: To many on Wall Street, both companies and stocks are seen only as raw materials for trades. (Ed's Note: Professional money managers do not see companies and stocks as businesses rather than bouncing numbers on a computer monitor screen. Buffett has to think about a burning theater. The only way to leave our seat in a burning financial market is to find someone to take your seat, which isn't easy. However, this creates buying opportunities for those who know the long-term value of a business.)
The Thought for Wednesday, May 19, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Great investment opportunities come around when excellent companies are surrounded by unusual circumstances that cause the stock to be mis-appraised. (Ed's Note: Great companies can make correctable mistakes. Buffett bought $45 million in GEICO stock when it was near insolvency because it was under-pricing its products, a mistake that was correctable (his stock investment is now worth $2.3 billion).
The Thought for Tuesday, May 18, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Look at stock market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy—profit from folly rather than participate in it. (Ed's Note: Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. In the 1973-1974 market crash, Buffett bought $10 million worth of Washington Post stock (it's now worth $1.5+ billion); in the 1987 market crash, he bought $1 billion of Coca-Cola stock (it's now worth $8+ billion); in the banking recession, he bought $400 million of Wells Fargo stock (it's now worth $1.9+ billion).
The Thought for Monday, May 17, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: What we learn from history is that people don't learn from history. (Ed's Note: Those who ignore history are destined to repeat it. People make the same mistakes over and over and over in the stock market—they overpay for a business in the hope of making money on the short-term price movements of the company's shares. If I didn't know better, I would think that people are dumber than dog dirt, when in fact they are just plain stupid.)
The Thought for Sunday, May 16, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don't have to swing at everything—you can wait for our pitch. The problem when you're a money manager is that your fans keep yelling: "Swing, you bum!" (Ed's Note: Money managers are basically slaves to the quarterly and yearly figures. If you want to make big money in the stock market, stay away from the professional fund managers and learn to use their shortsighted stock-trading gymnastics to take advantage of their long-term pricing mistakes.)
The Thought for Saturday, May 15, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for 5 years. (Ed's Note: Buffett buys on the assumption that he is buying into a business. The stock market sometimes allows him to do this at a cost below what the whole business would sell for to a private buyer. If you buy the right company at the right price, the only thing time does is increase the value of the business, which makes you richer and richer and richer as the stock price increases to reflect the underlying value of the business. The point is: If the stock market closed for 5 years, the underlying value of the business would still increase.)
The Thought for Friday, May 14, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: A pin lies in wait for every bubble, and when the two eventually meet, a new wave of investors learn some very old lessons. (Ed's Note: A speculative frenzy occurs when the general public goes wild for stocks. It happens big-time about once every 30 years, usually with the advent of new technology—such as with radio, airplanes, autos, computers, biotech and the Internet. Buffett has missed every speculative bull market since he began investing 45 years ago; he views speculation as paying high prices for future earnings that might never appear, and , in most cases, did not appear. Hence, the most recent example of the Internet boom being followed by the Internet bust—too many of the companies being invested in were not making money, the investors were just lulled into believing that they would make money without the underlying economics to support a very faulty assumption.)
The Thought for Thursday, May 13, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The smartest side to take in a bidding war is the losing side. (Ed's Note: A bidding war means that the price is going higher and higher, as both sides battle it out, which means the return on the investment shrinks lower and lower. The higher the price goes, the less of a good deal it becomes, and if the price gets too high, it can become a really bad deal. The fact is, no one ever got rich by paying too much for something.)
The Thought for Wednesday, May 12, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: At the beginning, prices are driven by fundamentals, and at some point, speculation drives them. It's that old story: What the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end. (Ed's Note: A wise man buys when the fundamentals are in his favor; that way he has a margin of safety as to how low prices can go. Time is also the friend of fundamentals in that all prices eventually correct themselves to reflect the fundamental long-term economic value of the business as measured by what it will earn.)
The Thought for Tuesday, May 11, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The key is that the stock market basically just sets prices, so it exists to serve you, not instruct you. (Ed's Note: Buffet sees the stock market as a place where shares of companies are valued on their short-term economic prospects, which creates lots of price gyrations over the short term, which means prices often get out of line with the long-term realities of the business. As a rule the stock market tends to overvalue stocks.)
The Thought for Monday, May 10, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: That which goes up doesn't necessarily have to come down. (Ed's Note: Berkshire Hathaway's stock price rose from $19 a share in 1965 to $95,000 a share in 2006. A company with an expanding intrinsic value—like Berkshire Hathaway—can find itself with a stock price that keeps rising and rising and rising.)
The Thought for Sunday, May 9, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: For some reason people take their cues from price action rather than from values. Price is what you pay. Value is what you get. (Ed's Note: Buffett believes that how much you pay determines the amount of value you get—pay too much and you get little value; the less you pay, the more value you get. If a business earns $10 million a year and you pay $100 million to buy it, you get far more value than if you had paid $150 million for the same business and opportunity. The secret to the game is to always pay less and get more.)
The Thought for Saturday, May 8, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: It won't be the economy that will do in investors; it will be investors themselves. (Ed's Note: Investors get caught up emotionally in investing instead of looking at it rationally as buying a fractional interest in businesses. They will be undone by their shortsighted quest for quick profits blinding them from the long-term economics of the business.)
The Thought for Friday, May 7, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I'm very suspect of the person who is very good at one business—it also could be a good athlete or a good entertainer—who starts thinking they should tell the world how to behave on everything. For us to think that just because we made a lot of money, we're going to be better at giving advice on every subject—well, it's just crazy. (Ed's Note: Just think of loud-mouthed, outspoken Hollywood actors who know exactly how everyone should live and think, especially regarding politics and religion. It is the obnoxious folly of the rich to assume that money makes you intelligent.)
The Thought for Thursday, May 6, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield. (Ed's Note: In the business world hindsight is always perfect. But the future is always hidden in a rapidly changing environment. It is hard to tell where you are going if you cannot see the road ahead. This is why Buffett stays with the tired-and-true products. He can see where they are going to be in 15 years. Do you think we are going to stop buying car insurance, or stop drinking Coke, or stop chewing Wrigley's gum?)
The Thought for Wednesday, May 5, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Any business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by studies prepared by his troops. (Ed's Note: If you make your living pleasing the boss, you will certainly please the boss by supporting his position, regardless of your true feelings. This is why Buffett looks in the mirror when he wants advice—it's speedier, cheaper, and right or wrong, it always leads to the same brilliant decision. And if you cannot be your own boss at work, you should at least try to be your own boss in life.)
The Thought for Tuesday, May 4, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: If we can't find things within our circle of competence, we don't expand the circle. We'll wait. (Ed's Note: In 1967 he wrote to his investment partners telling them that he was returning their money since it was getting harder and harder to find investments that he understood and that were selling at attractive prices. He then stood on the sidelines until 1973, when the entire stock market collapsed and suddenly even the best companies were selling at bargain prices. In the investment game it pays to be stubborn and principled and patient in choosing a company to invest in.)
The Thought for Monday, May 3, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: If they need help to manage the enterprise, we are probably both in trouble. (Ed's Note: Just because you are a great investor does not mean that you are a skilled business manager. Recognizing talent is different from having talent. A great investor has to be able to recognize talent—the way a football coach has to be able to recognize a great player. Buffett says his secret for growing a corporation through diverse acquisitions is to buy a good business, for a reasonable price, that already has competent management running it, then get out of the way and let them do their thing. Think about this: Though Berkshire has about 180,000 employees among the companies it has acquired outright, only 17 of these are at its headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. Buffett essentially leaves his managers alone to run their businesses, putting them in charge of all operating decisions.)
The Thought for Sunday, May 2, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Investment must be rational; if you don't understand it, don't do it. (Ed's Note: This could be Buffett's greatest key to his success. For example, he never invested in high-technology companies because he did not understand what they do. When the dot.com boom became the dot.com bust, Buffett's investors lost nothing. Buffett was then cash rich to take advantage of the recovery and run up in the following bull market.)
The Thought for Saturday, May 1, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: If you don't make mistakes, you can't make decisions. (Ed's Note: Some people can make decisions and some people can't. The ones who can will lead, and the ones who can't will follow. A CEO can make mistakes as long as he also makes a lot of money.)
The Thought for Friday, April 30, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I want to be able to explain my mistakes. This means I do only the things I completely understand. (Ed's Note: If you do not understand what you are doing, then why are you doing it? The proper investment approach is not intuitive—it is rational mixed with the right temperament. If you want to be able to explain what you did right, and why you did it in the first place.)
The Thought for Thursday, April 29, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: We never look back. We just figure there is so much to look forward to that there is no sense thinking of what we might have done. It just doesn't make any difference. You can only live life forward. (Ed's Note: Buffett does not have much use for regrets in life, business or investments. If you make 100 decisions and 10 turn out bad, you could end up obsessing over your mistakes and neglect the new decisions that have to be made. In the investment game, you will make countless errors of omission, none of which will hurt you.)
The Thought for Wednesday, April 28, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: A good managerial record is far more a function of what business boat you get into than it is of how effectively you row. Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks. (Ed's Note: When you get out of school, get a jump on the pack and go to work for a company that has great underlying economics, for no matter what your level of ambition, the great economics of the business will always make you look good and pay you more.)
The Thought for Tuesday, April 27, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: That which is not worth doing at all is not worth doing well. (Ed's Note: Many people spend years working hard for businesses with poor inherent economics, which means the prospects for making money are equally poor. Why learn to be good at a business that has inherent poor economics and is never going to make you any money?)
The Thought for Monday, April 26, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: We also believe candor benefits us as managers: The CEO who misleads others in public may eventually mislead himself in private. (Ed's Note: A CEO who is honest with the public about his mistakes is more likely to learn from them. When the CEO is always trying to blame someone or something for his mistakes, he will probably lie to himself about other important things, and will most certainly never be honest with the shareholders, especially in matters involving accounting. Buffett says that managers who always promise to "make the numbers" will be tempted to make up the numbers.)
The Thought for Sunday, April 25, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The only time to buy these is on a day with no "y" in it. (Ed's Note: Buffett is talking about IPOs (initial public offerings). He figures the investment banker doing the selling has already fully priced the issue. There is no chance that an investor is going to get a bargain price, hence Buffett has never invested in IPOs.)
The Thought for Saturday, April 24, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing. (Ed's Note: Buffett says, "I never buy anything unless I can fill out on a piece of paper my reasons why. I may be wrong, but I would know the answer to 'I'm paying $32 billion today for Coca-Cola Company because . . . '. Questions compel us to think, but answers tell us whether to act.)
The Thought for Friday, April 23, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: We don't go into companies with the thought of effecting a lot of changes. That doesn't work any better in investments than it does in marriages. (Ed's Note: Buffett believes that, in most cases, the underlying economics of the business will remain constant regardless of the manager in charge. In essence, a great business will produce great results regardless of who is in charge.)
The Thought for Thursday, April 22, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I buy stocks when the lemmings are headed the other way. (Ed's Note: Here is what Buffett did when no one wanted these stocks: Buffett bought into Disney in the 1966 bear market, he bought into the Washington Post Company in the 1973 bear market, he bought into General Foods in the 1981 bear market, he bought into Coca-Cola in the 1987 bear market, and he bought into Wells Fargo in the 1990 bear market. Buffett bought when prices were low and everyone else was desperate to sell.)
The Thought for Wednesday, April 21, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: If at first you do succeed, quit trying. (Ed's Note: Buffett finds a good investment, buys and then sits on the investment. It is better to rest on your merits than sell for a modest profit and go looking for another company. Buffett sits because he wants to allow his good investment to let the stock price grow with the company 's earnings. Hint: If the company is debt-ridden and not enjoying a positive, growing cash flow, it is not a good investment.)
The Thought for Tuesday, April 20, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging. (Ed's Note: If you find you're in a bad investment, the worst thing you can do is continue to throw money at it. You should cut your losses before you have nothing. Even Buffett can make mistakes—in the early eighties he invested heavily in the aluminum industry, and got out when he realized his mistake, thereby reducing his losses.)
The Thought for Monday, April 19, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Of the 7 deadly sins, envy is the silliest, because if you have it, you don't feel better. You feel worse. I've had some good times with gluttony . . . we won't go into lust. (Ed's Note: The happiest rich people are those who love the business life that goes with making money, and haven't the least interest in other people's wealth.)
The Thought for Sunday, April 18, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: When you combine ignorance and borrowed money, the consequences can get interesting. (Ed's Note: Ignorance will blind you from folly. Can you believe that a group no one ever heard of called Long-Term Capital was able to borrow $100 billion (not million, but billion) to invest in derivatives and then blew the entire $100 billion on investing in derivatives. This act of ignorance combined with borrowed money almost brought down the country's entire financial system. The only question left is: Where the people who loaned the money, or the people who borrowed the money and then blew the money, the biggest idiots?)
The Thought for Saturday, April 17, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: A stock does not know that you own it. (Ed's Note: When you humanize a stock (an inanimate object) your emotional thought replaces your rational thought. When it is time to sell, you don't want to hesitate because you "love" the stock. And, when the stock decreases in value, there is no reason to be mad at it—it doesn't know you own it.)
The Thought for Friday, April 16, 2010 comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The fact that people are full of greed, fear, or folly is predictable. The sequence is not predictable. (Ed's Note: Buffett says avoid the greed and let fear and folly create the opportunity. That is the way of the intelligent investor.)
The Thought for Thursday, April 15, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: When proper temperament joins up with the proper intellectual framework, then you get rational behavior. (Ed's Note: Buffett says the best temperament for good investing is to be greedy when others are scared, and scared when others are greedy. When coupled with an investment philosophy that focuses on businesses with superior long-term economics working in their favor, you have a winner almost every time.)
The Thought for Wednesday, April 14, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: In the search for companies to acquire, we adopt the same attitude one might find appropriate in looking for a spouse. It pays to be active, interested, and open-minded, but it does not pay to be in a hurry. (Ed's Note: Invest like you should look for a spouse, very carefully, knowing that marriage should be a lifetime deal—you hand onto a great investment forever.)
The Thought for Tuesday, April 13, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me. (Ed's Note: Buffett is cheap because he knows the value of compounding interest. He made billions, but he was famous for driving around Omaha in an old Volkswagen Beetle. Compounding at 20% a year, $25,000 would come to $958,439 after 20 years, and to Warren that was just way too much to pay for a car. No wonder the guy is a billionaire and one of the richest people on the planet.)
The Thought for Monday, April 12, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Imagine that you had a car and that was the only car you'd have for your entire lifetime. Of course, you'd care for it well, changing the oil more frequently than necessary, driving carefully, etc. Now, consider that you only have one mind and one body. Prepare them for life, care for them. You can enhance your mind over time. A person's main asset is themselves, so preserve and enhance yourself. (Ed's Note: Buffett sees his mind and body as a business asset, so he guards it very carefully.)
The Thought for Sunday, April 11, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I've never swung at a ball while it's still in the pitcher's glove. (Ed's Note: Buffett reads, learns, retains and applies everything he is interested in, including baseball. After reading Ted Williams' book on The Science of Hitting, he considered what Ted said about hitting—to become a great hitter you have to keep yourself from swinging at bad pitches, what you are looking for is the perfect pitch to hit. Buffett took it as an analogy to investing: To be a great investor he only had to wait for the right opportunity. And while Williams only had 3 strikes to deal with, Buffett could wait days, months or years for the perfect investment opportunity. Buffett: A very smart investor.)
The Thought for Saturday, April 10, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs. (Ed's Note: Prudence in making investment decisions can save you from folly and make you rich.)
The Thought for Friday, April 9, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: There is nothing like writing to force you to think and get your thoughts straight. (Ed's Note: Buffett says if you can't write it, you haven't really thought about it. Writing about something makes you think about it, and thinking about where to invest your money is a good thing, which is why writing about it is even a better thing.)
The Thought for Thursday, April 8, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: If you let yourself be undisciplined on the small things, you will probably be undisciplined on the large things as well. (Ed's Note: Discipline is the key to success in the investment game—just as it is a key to success in much of life. Buffett so believes in a disciplined approach that he has turned down a $2 golf bet because the odds were against him. His holdings are currently worth $47 billion.)
The Thought for Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong. (Ed's Note: Buffett decided early on that it would be impossible for him to make hundreds of right investment decisions, so he decided to only invest in the businesses that he was absolutely sure of and then bet heavily on them. Buffett owes 90% of his wealth to just 10 stock decisions. Buffett's wealth was $62 billion before the meltdown of the American economy; currently it is at $47 billion.)
The Thought for Tuesday, April 6, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful." (Ed's Note: Buffett is very careful about investing in a company, but when he does, he watches it like a hawk.)
The Thought for Monday, April 5, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Wall Street makes its money on activity. You make your money on inactivity. (Ed's Note: For you to make money in the stock market, you need to buy a great company at a fair price or below and hold it for a long time—thereby letting the company's retained earnings build up its underlying value.)
The Thought for Sunday, April 4, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they're doing. (Ed's Note: If your investment advisor recommends broad diversification, he is really telling you that he doesn't know what his is doing and he wants to protect you from this ignorance.)
The Thought for Saturday, April 3, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I can't be involved in 50 or 75 things. That's a Noah's ark way of investing—you end up with a zoo that way. I like to put meaningful amounts of money in a few things. (Ed's Note: Buffett says that you only have to make a few right decisions to end up rich, and that if you are getting more than one brilliant investment idea a year, you are probably deluding yourself.)
The Thought for Friday, April 2, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Recommending something to be held for 30 years is a level of self-sacrifice you'll rarely see in a monastery, let alone a brokerage house. (Ed's Note: Your stockbroker would starve to death before he would adopt Buffett's strategy of buy and hold. Stockbrokers make all their money on the commissions they receive by getting you into and out of stocks.)
The Thought for Thursday, April 1, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult. (Ed's Note: Every profession is ultimately a conspiracy against the laity. Only when something is made difficult to understand is there a need for experts, who can charge high fees for having figured it all out. Their scheme is simple—they are going to get rich off making you rich. But no one ever asks why, if they are so smart, do they need other people's money to get rich? As Woody Allen once said, "A stockbroker is someone who invests other people's money until it's all gone.")
The Thought for Wednesday, March 31, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective. (Ed's Note: The simplest explanation is usually the best explanation. The problem with this idea is that priests of any profession need complexity to keep the laity from performing their priestly magic. If you understood the investment process, there would be no need for investment analysts and advisers, nor would we need mutual funds or any of the other priests of the "profession". The so-called priests of Wall Street are preaching short-term investment strategies, which, in truth, are completely geared for making the adviser, and not the advisee, rich.)
The Thought for Tuesday, March 30, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought. (Ed's Note: It is easy to buy stocks that everyone else is buying, but you will pay a higher price for your feeling of safety in buying a popular stock. When you buy an unpopular stock with good underlying economics, you will pay a lower price for that same feeling of safety, and you will make far more money on your investment.)
The Thought for Monday, March 29, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Forecasts usually tell us more of the forecaster than of the forecast. (Ed's Note: Wall Street makes its money off your moving around your money from one investment to another, so, naturally, Wall Street forecasters, also known as analysts, are going to find lots of reasons for you to do just that, move from one investment to another. The problem is that all this activity has nothing to do with making you rich.)
The Thought for Sunday, March 28, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Never ask a barber if you need a haircut. (Ed's Note: Ask an adviser if there is a problem and he will find a problem—even if there isn't one. People who are paid to fix problems will always find problems because if there isn't a problem, there is nothing to fix.)
The Thought for Saturday, March 27, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: A friend of mine spent 20 years looking for the perfect woman; unfortunately, when he found her, he discovered that she was looking for the perfect man. (Ed's Note: Business relationships are just like personal relationships—they are best started by showing an interest in the other person, and in finding out what that person's needs are, because ultimately we are selling to those needs.)
The Thought for Friday, March 26, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don't like because you think that it will look good on your resume. Isn't that a little like saving up sex for your old age? (Ed's Note: People who love what they are doing are the ones who rise to the top of their fields and end up making the most money.)
The Thought for Thursday, March 25, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: If you hit a hole in one on every hole, you wouldn't play golf for very long. (Ed's Note: A job with challenges keeps things interesting, creates high self-esteem, promotes creativity, and attracts the highest-quality people.)
The Thought for Wednesday, March 24, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds, though I have learned to live with those also. (Ed's Note: People who are passionate about their jobs will come to rule their trade or profession because they love the process more than the money. The funny thing about passion is that money usually follows it.)
The Thought for Tuesday, March 23, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Wouldn't it be great it we could buy love for $1 million. But the only way to be loved is to be lovable. You always get back more than you give away. If you don't give any, you won't get any. There's nobody I know who commands the love of others who doesn't feel like a success. And I can't imagine people who aren't loved feel very successful. (Ed's Note: Buffett's love and respect for his managers is so strong that he trusts them completely with the businesses they run. He gives them complete control over them, which promotes a strong sense of responsibility.)
The Thought for Monday, March 22, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The really good business manager doesn't wake up in the morning and say, "This is the day that I am going to cut costs," any more than he wakes up and decides to practice breathing. (Ed's Note: If you read that a company is instigating a cost-cutting program, then you know that management has been slacking in keeping costs low from the start.)
The Thought for Sunday, March 21, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: When ideas fail, words come in very handy. (Ed's Note: This is Buffett quoting Goethe, and what he means is when the CEO of a company makes a terrible decision that results in a terrible result for the company and its stockholders, the CEO conjures up a great excuse to justify his or her stupidity, or, more correctly, incompetence.)
The Thought for Saturday, March 20, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked. (Ed's Note: Creative accounting can get you into a lot to trouble, as Enron found out. When the tide went out, Enron was naked and exposed, proving that it is much easier to stay out of trouble than it is get out of trouble.)
The Thought for Friday, March 19, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Can you really explain to a fish what it is like to walk on land? One day on land is worth a 1,000 years talking about it, and one day running a business has exactly the same kind of value. (Ed's Note: Dealing with real manufacturing problems and getting and keeping real customers is what separates the academics from the managerial real world.)
The Thought for Thursday, March 18, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: In looking for someone to hire, you look for 3 qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. But the most important is integrity, because if they don't have that, the other two qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you. (Ed's Note: People without integrity are not honest, and they will find lots of clever ways to make all your money theirs.)
The Thought for Wednesday, March 17, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: It's hard to teach a young dog old tricks. (Ed's Note: Buffett has found that the business acumen that comes with age is next to impossible to teach to younger managers. In Buffett's world, 65 is just getting started—age and experience can be far greater virtues than youth and enthusiasm when it comes to making money the old-fashioned way.)
The Thought for Tuesday, March 16, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: You want to learn from experience, but you want to learn from other people's experience when you can. (Ed's Note: Experience is the best teacher, but it can be expensive if you are learning from your own mistakes. It is better to learn from the mistakes of others. Buffett studies failure stories to learn why people failed; business schools teach study only success stories. Who do you think has become more successful: Buffett or business college professors?)
The Thought for Monday, March 15, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. (Ed's Note: Buffett has always subscribed to the idea that the better the teacher, the smarter the student body. Thus, the smarter the journalists, the smarter the society. The only people who don't want a smarter society are liars, thieves, and politicians who are trying to hide something.)
The Thought for Sunday, March 14, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: You have to think for yourself. It always amazes me how high-IQ people mindlessly imitate. I never get good ideas talking to other people. (Ed's Note: On Wall Street the dominant investment strategy is based on imitating what the herd is doing—it is easier to sell you something that is popular as opposed to something that is unpopular. Buffett in not trying to sell anyone investments—he is trying to get rich off investments.)
The Thought for Saturday, March 13, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: If calculus or algebra were required to be a great investor, I'd have to go back to delivering newspapers. (Ed's Note: The math skills you need to be a great investor are addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and the ability to rapidly calculate percentages and probability.)
The Thought for Friday, March 12, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: You pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus. (Ed's Note: If everyone agrees with you that a particular stock is the next Microsoft, you are going to have to pay a steep price, which leaves little upside and lots of downside.)
The Thought for Thursday, March 11, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: If principles become dated, they're no longer principles. (Ed's Note: Buffett woke up one morning and discovered that the investment principles he had learned from his teacher Ben Graham were no longer useful. Buffett changed his investing strategy to suit the change in the world of investing—he adopted a philosophy of investing in exceptional companies that had a durable competitive advantage, as long as they were selling at reasonable prices, and then let the rising waters of time and earnings life the price of the stock.)
The Thought for Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and a better businessman because I am an investor. (Ed's Note: To be great at investing you need to be like the businessman and know a good business from a bad one, and when you go to buy a business, you need to be like the smart investor and know whether it is selling cheap or it is overpriced.)
The Thought for Tuesday, March 9, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Read Ben Graham and Phil Fisher, read annual reports, but don't do equations with Greek letters in them. (Ed's Note: Buffett took Ben Graham's "buy at a low price to get a margin of safety" and combined it with Phil Fisher's "buy the highest-quality company and hold it forever" and ended up with "buy high-quality companies at low prices in relation to their value and then hold them for a long, long time.)
The Thought for Monday, March 8, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: With enough inside information and a million dollars, you can go broke in a year. (Ed's Note: Realize that by the time inside information gets to you, everyone else has heard it and traded on it. Realize also that trading on inside information is against the law. Famed 1920s investment great Bernard Baruch was famous for selling out a stock position as soon as someone gave him a hot tip on it; he died a very, very rich man.)
The Thought for Sunday, March 7, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. (Ed's Note: If not for the hard work of Warren's mentor Benjamin Graham in developing the concept of value investing, Warren might never have gotten out from behind the counter at his grandfather's grocery store.)
The Thought for Saturday, March 6, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I look for businesses in which I think I can predict what they're going to look like 10 to 15 years down the road. Take Wrigley's chewing gum. I don't think the Internet is going to change how people chew gum. (Ed's Note: Consistent products equal consistent earnings. If the product doesn't have to change, you can reap all the benefits of not having to spend money on research and development, nor do you have to fall victim to the ups and downs of fashion. For examples, think beer, soda pop and candy.)
The Thought for Friday, March 5, 2010 comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: You don't have to make money back the same way you lost it. (Ed's Note: When you buy a low-quality business selling at a high price, you will lose money on your investment. When you have a losing stock, don't wait for your luck to change. With stocks, your investment is about only two factors—the quality of the company and the price you pay for its shares in relation to that quality. Cut your losses and make a better investment choice.)
The Thought for Thursday, March 4, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: When a chief executive officer is encouraged by his advisers to make deals, he responds much as would a teenage boy who is encouraged by his father to have a normal sex life. It's not a push he needs. (Ed's Note: It is often easier for a CEO to buy a new set of problems than it is to try to fix an old set. Hundreds of companies have gone under from expanding too quickly when they had no financial foundation to do so.)
The Thought for Wednesday, March 3, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: You can always juice sales by going down-market, but it's hard to go back upmarket. (Ed's Note: Certain products own a piece of your mind—they are brand name products that you think of when you have a particular need. If a manufacturer, in the name of increasing profits, decreases the quality of these quality, brand-name products, the manufacturer takes a huge risk of losing its ownership of the consumer's mind. Just think of what happened to Coca-Cola when it tried to change its original formula; it was a terrible mistake in marketing, fortunately, Coke recovered by going back to what had been working well for decades.)
The Thought for Tuesday, March 2, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: In a difficult business, no sooner is one problem solved than another surfaces—never is there just one cockroach in the kitchen. (Ed's Note: Poor profit margins and poor earnings mean a constant battle with costs and, when you add competition, you are going nowhere, constantly beset with money problems.)
The Thought for Monday, March 1, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: There is a huge difference between the business that grows and requires lots of capital to do so, and the business that grows and doesn't require capital. (Ed's Note: This advice from Buffett is the basis of his buy-and-hold-forever strategy—if your stock buy is a business that requires lots of capital to grow, your stock is never going to grow in value. All of the capital that is spent to remain competitive is capital you do not have to expand operations, buy back stock or buy new businesses that do not require lots of capital to grow.)
The Thought for Sunday, February 28, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The reaction of weak management to weak operations is often weak accounting. (Ed's Note: When the business has lousy economics, and the management lacks integrity, it will support corrupt accounting to reflect earnings that do not exist. Just think Enron.)
The Thought for Saturday, February 27, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Managing your career is like investing—the degree of difficulty does not count. So you can save yourself money and pain by getting on the right train. (Ed's Note: If you work for a company with poor long-term economics, you will never do well as the company will never do well. Choose a company with great long-term economics, and as the profit of the company increases, so will your salary and opportunities increase.)
The Thought for Friday, February 26, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: If a business does well, the stock eventually follows. (Ed's Note: Buffett is betting that if the underlying business does well over a long period of time, the stock price will increase to reflect the underlying increase in the value of the company. Always remember why the dot.com boom became the dot.com bust—the Internet stocks dropped like a rock off of a 20-story building when they failed to make any money over the long run. Buffett was smart enough to not take the lure of Internet stocks as their prices rose through the roof in a bull market. Basically, a lot of young kids got angel investors to put up millions in a concept, really sold nothing, made no money and had no prospect of making money, and then the kids took out millions for themselves and let the Internet company fold when the economy turned and the market caught them with their pants down. The investors, of course, lost millions in this fiasco. The underlying business economics of many Internet start-ups were terrible; they were selling dreams, and living a dream until the nightmare arrived.)
The Thought for Thursday, February 25, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Turnarounds seldom turn. (Ed's Note: A business with poor underlying economics selling at what seem like bargain prices are no bargain at all—poor businesses remain poor businesses regardless of what you pay for them. When you find a business with great underlying economics at bargain price, don't hesitate to buy in and hold your stake for the long term.)
The Thought for Wednesday, February 24, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Accounting is the language of business. (Ed's Note: Accounting will teach you how to read a company's financial statement. If you can't read the scorecard, you can't keep score, which means you can't tell the winners from the losers.)
The Thought for Tuesday, February 23, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: When management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact. (Ed's Note: There are great businesses with great underlying economics, and businesses with poor underlying economics. No matter how brilliantly a mediocre business is run, its poor inherent economics will keep it forever anchored to poor results.)
The Thought for Monday, February 22, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Anything that can't go on forever will end. (Ed's Note: Most businesses that are doing well now will, at some future point, do poorly. Things do change—it is only a matter of time. Buggy whips and video players were once great businesses, but not today. Pay attention to the businesses you invest in.)
The Thought for Sunday, February 21, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Money, to some extent, sometimes lets you be in more interesting environments. But it can't change how many people love you or how healthy you are. (Ed's Note: Buffett believes that a country prospers better if society is a meritocracy, with people earning what they get. In other words, no free lunches, you work for what you get based on your own merit—the use of your talent, expertise, industry and experience.)
The Thought for Saturday, February 20, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: With each investment you make, you should have the courage and the conviction to place at least 10% of your net worth in that stock. (Ed's Note: Conviction is based on what you know will happen; faith is based on what you hope will happen.)
The Thought for Friday, February 19, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: You should invest in a business that even a fool can run, because someday a fool will. (Ed's Note: Some businesses have great underlying economics, some do not. Invest in the former and not the latter, because companies with great underlying economics are hard to damage. Some companies are dumb-proof, like Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Wal-Mart, Wrigley's, Hershey, and H&R Block.)
The Thought for Thursday, February 18, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: My idea of a group decision is to look in the mirror. (Ed's Note: Buffett does not seek affirmation of his ideas from others, his ideas are almost always opposite of what the herd is thinking and doing. To make big money in the investment world you have to learn to think independently; to think independently you need to be comfortable standing alone against the world.)
The Thought for Wednesday, February 17, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: You should look at stocks as small pieces of a business. (Ed's Note: Sometimes when people invest, they forget that they are actually buying a fractional interest in a business. Buffett multiples the stock price by the number of shares outstanding, then asks himself whether this would be a good deal or a bad deal if he were buying the whole business. If the price is too rich to be buying the whole business, then it is too rich to be buying even a single share.)
The Thought for Tuesday, February 16, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results. (Ed's Note: Buffett is shooting for a 20% annual rate of return, not a 200% annual rate of return. Invest $10,000 for 20 years at 20% a year and you end up with $3.8 million; hold it for 30 years and you end up with $23.7 million.)
The Thought for Monday, February 15, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The chains of habit and too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. (Ed's Note: Bad business habits do not become apparent until it is too late, such as cost cutting after your business is in trouble, which should have been done long before you even got to the doorstep of danger.)
The Thought for Sunday, February 14, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I don't try to jump over 7-foot bars; I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over. (Ed's Note: Buffett looks for the sure thing—companies with products that don't have to change, businesses that he knows will still be around in 20 years, selling now at a low price that would make business sense even if he were buying the whole company.)
The Thought for Saturday, February 13, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The market, like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do. (Ed's Note: The stock market is there to make you rich if you know what you are doing. But if you don't know what you are doing, it will show no mercy in making you poor.)
The Thought for Friday, February 12, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to lose it. If you think about that, you will do things differently. (Ed's Note: Buffett says that Berkshire can afford to lose money, even lots of money; but it can't afford to lose reputation, even a shred of reputation, and in the long run, Berkshire will have whatever reputation it deserves.)
The Thought for Thursday, February 11, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Happiness does not buy you money. (Ed's Note: Buffett never confuses being rich with happiness. When asked by some college students to define success, he said it is being loved by the people you hope love you.)
The Thought for Wednesday, February 10, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls-Royce to get advice from those who take the subway. (Ed's Note: Buffett thinks it strange that highly successful and intelligent businesspeople will take investment advice from stockbrokers too poor to take their own advice. If their advice is so great, why aren't they all rich? Could it be because stockbrokers make their money by charging you commissions on the transactions they advise you to take?)
The Thought for Tuesday, February 9, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: You should invest like a Catholic marries—for life. (Ed's Note: You should view an investment decision from the perspective that you will never be able to undo it. In 1973 Buffett put $11 million into the Washington Post Company. The first 33 years he held the investment, it increased in value to $1.5 billion.)
The Thought for Monday, February 8, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: It is easier to stay out of trouble than it is to get out of trouble. (Ed's Note: To stay out of trouble, just do the right thing at the right time. To get out of trouble, you need a lot of money and a lot of legal talent, and even then, you may end up serving a lot of time.)
The Thought for Sunday, February 7, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: It is impossible to unsign a contract, so do all your thinking before you sign. (Ed's Note: Before signing a contract, imagine all the things that could go wrong, because they often do go wrong.)
The Thought for Saturday, February 6, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: The great personal fortunes in this country weren't built on a portfolio of 50 companies. They were built by someone who identified one wonderful business. (Ed's Note: The key to Warren's success is that he has been able to identify exactly what the economic characteristics of a wonderful business are—a business that has a durable competitive advantage that owns a piece of the consumer's mind.)
The Thought for Friday, February 5, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: You can't make a good deal with a bad person. (Ed's Note: If you can't trust them now, you won't be able to trust the later, so why trust them at all? The most important trait any person has is integrity. People with integrity are predisposed to perform; people without integrity are predisposed not to perform. It is best not to get the two confused.)
The Thought for Thursday, February 4, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Never be afraid to ask for too much when selling or offer too little when buying. (Ed's Note: How much you get from a sale or how much you have to pay when making a purchase determines whether you make or lose money and how rich you ultimately become.)
The Thought for Wednesday, February 3, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I made my first investment at age 11. I was wasting my life up until then. (Ed's Note: The first lesson of investing is patience. Start early and sit on your investment until it has time to hatch, it may take 20 or 30 years to hatch, but if you are in the right investment you will do very well. Do not keep moving your money into and out of different investments—all that does is make your broker rich at your expense.)
The Thought for Tuesday, February 2, 2010 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1. (Ed's Note: The great secret to getting rich is getting your money to compound for you, and the larger sum of money you start with, the faster it will compound.)
The Thought for Monday, February 1, 2010 Comes from Adlai Stevenson:
On Understanding: Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them.
The Thought for Sunday, January 31, 2010 Comes from Anonymous:
On Speaking: There is nothing wrong with having nothing to say—unless you insist on saying it.
The Thought for Saturday, January 30, 2010 Comes from John Shaw Billings:
On Speaking: On speaking, first have something to say, second say it, third stop when you have said it, and finally give it an accurate title.
The Thought for Friday, January 29, 2010 Comes from Thomas Carlyle:
On Speaking: Speech is too often not the art of concealing thought, but of quite stifling and suspending thought, so that there is none to conceal.
The Thought for Thursday, January 28, 2010 Comes from an English Proverb:
On Leisure: The busiest men have the most leisure.
The Thought for Wednesday, January 27, 2010 Comes from Henry David Thoreau:
On the Individual: There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all of its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.
The Thought for Tuesday, January 26, 2010 Comes from Josepha Murray Emms:
On the Individual: Regardless of circumstances, each man lives is a world of his own making.
The Thought for Monday, January 25, 2010 Comes from Cyrus Eaton:
On the Individual: What counts in any system is the intelligence, self-control, conscience and energy of the individual.
The Thought for Sunday, January 24, 2010 Comes from Gustav Metzman:
On Order: There is an easier, better and quicker way to do most everything, and now as never before, we must seek those easier, better, quicker ways and methods.
The Thought for Saturday, January 23, 2010 Comes from Thomas Mann:
On Order: Order and simplification are the first steps toward the master of a subject. The actual enemy is the unknown.
The Thought for Friday, January 22, 2010 Comes from Harper Lee:
On Understanding: You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.
The Thought for Thursday, January 21, 2010 Comes from Napoleon Bonaparte:
On Courage: Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.
The Thought for Wednesday, January 20, 2010 Comes from Jean Anouilh:
On Courage: Until the day of this death, no man can be sure of his courage.
The Thought for Tuesday, January 19, 2010 Comes from The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.:
On Darkness: Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
The Thought for Monday, January 18, 2010 Comes from Robert Browning:
On Truth: Truth never hurts the teller.
The Thought for Sunday, January 17, 2010 Comes from Anatole France:
On the Future: That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.
The Thought for Saturday, January 16, 2010 Comes from John Foster:
On the Future: It is a poor and disgraceful thing not be able to reply, with some degree of certainty, to the simple questions, "What will you be? What will you do?"
The Thought for Friday, January 15, 2010 comes from Chester O. Fischer:
On the Future: The future that we study and plan for begins today.
The Thought for Thursday, January 14, 2010 Comes from Epicurus:
On the Future: The man least dependent upon tomorrow goes to meet tomorrow most cheerfully.
The Thought for Wednesday, January 13, 2010 Comes from a Japanese Proverb:
On the Future: He who can see three days ahead will be rich for three thousand years.
The Thought for Tuesday, January 12, 2010 Comes from Arkansas:
On the Cold Spell in Arkansas: It's been so cold here lately that I've actually seen Democrats with their hands in their own pockets! (Ed's Note: A friend of mine said his aunt sent him this observation.)
The Thought for Monday, January 11, 2010 Comes from Ben Graham:
On Financial Strategies: Several decades were to pass, and many vicissitudes to be undergone, before I could master the simplest and most important of all rules of material welfare: The most brilliant financial strategy consists of living well within one's means.
The Thought for Sunday, January 10, 2010 Comes from Hal Borland:
On New Beginnings: Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.
The Thought for Saturday, January 9, 2010 Comes from Albert Einstein:
On Communication (a very long time ago): You see, wire telegraph is a kind of very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Long Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates the exact same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. (Ed's Note: Each advancement in communication technology has carried with its discovery a sense of wonder. Those of us fortunate enough to have lived 65 years remember when there was no Internet, no email, no cell phones, no pagers, no iPods, no Blackberries, no fax machines, etc. We still relish a good, old-fashioned, eyeball-to-eyeball conversation, and some of us, like me, relish complete silence even more.)
The Thought for Friday, January 8, 2010 Comes from Tay Hohoff:
On Cats: There are few things in life more heartwarming than to be welcomed by a cat.
The Thought for Thursday, January 7, 2010 Comes from Blaise Pascal:
On Insight: We must learn our limits. We are all something, but none of us are everything.
The Thought for Wednesday, January 6, 2010 Comes from Gelett Burgess:
On Opinions: If in the last few years you have not discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.
The Thought for Tuesday, January 5, 2010 Comes from Isaac Barrow:
On Opinions: We should allow others' excellences, to preserve a modest opinion of our own.
The Thought for Monday, January 4, 2010 Comes from Walter Bagehot:
On Opinions: So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to the punish opinions of others, even if their judgment tells them that it is unwise, and their conscience tells them that it is wrong.
The Thought for Sunday, January 3, 2010 Comes from Canon Lindsay Dewar:
On God: Every one comes between men's souls and God, either as a brick wall or as a bridge. Either you are leading men to God, or you are driving them away.
The Thought for Saturday, January 2, 2010 Comes from G. K. Chesterton:
On God: If there was not God, there would be no atheists.
The Thought for Friday, January 1, 2010 (New Year's Day) Comes from Charles Kettering:
On Resolution: No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm. (Editor's Note: Do not be a fair weather person when it comes to making, keeping and achieving resolutions. As Thomas Edison has said: Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.)
The Thought for Thursday, December 31, 2009 (New Year's Eve) Comes from Ed Bagley:
On Life: Each person occupying space on planet Earth is a child of God. These children of God include all who believe with faith and hope for their future, in this life and their next life. The sacred texts of the world's religions include the practice of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and primal religions. God sees all and knows all. No one escapes his scrutiny. What you do in darkness is revealed to God in the light of day. For those of you who do not honor God or who conduct your life as if there is no God, may God have mercy on your soul when your day of reckoning arrives, and may God bless us all in this moment of our life.
The Thought for Wednesday, December 30, 2009 Comes from Alexander Pope:
On Expectation: Blessed is he who expects nothing for he shall never be disappointed.
The Thought for Tuesday, December 29, 2009 Comes from Alexander Pope:
On Self-Sacrifice: Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.
The Thought for Monday, December 28, 2009 Comes from Alexander Pope:
On Judgment: 'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none go just alike, yet each believes his own.
The Thought for Sunday, December 27, 2009 Comes from Victor Hugo:
On Hope: Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.
The Thought for Saturday, December 26, 2009 Comes from Benjamin Franklin:
On Christianity: He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.
The Thought for Friday, December 25, 2009 (Christmas Day) Comes from The Holy Bible, King James Version, Luke, Chapter 2, Verses 10-14:
On Christianity: And the angel said unto (the shepherds), "Fear not, for behold I bring to you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace (and) good will toward men."
The Thought for Thursday, December 24, 2009 (Christmas Eve) Comes from Ed Bagley:
On Christianity: Pause and be thankful tonight for all of the joys and blessings in your life. Bow down and realize your place in the universe. You did not create the environment in which you live, you merely occupy space; therefore, whatever good you are able to do, do it now as a privilege with an open heart and in loving kindness. Many others are here on Earth that will never even sniff your good fortune.
The Thought for Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Comes from the Holy Bible, King James Version, Proverbs, Chapter 20, Verse 7:
On Christianity: The just man walketh (walks upright) in his integrity; his children are blessed after him.
The Thought for Tuesday, December 22, 2009 Comes from The Holy Bible, King James Version, Galatians, Chapter 3, Verses 28-29:
On Christianity: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male or female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
The Thought for Monday, December 21, 2009 Comes from William Faulkner:
On Christianity: No one is without Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by the word. It is every individual's individual code of behavior by means of which he makes himself a better human being than his nature wants to be, if he followed his nature only.
The Thought for Sunday, December 20, 2009 Comes from Brooks Atkinson:
On Church: I have no objection to churches as long as they do not interfere with God's work.
The Thought for Saturday, December 19, 2009 Comes from Alfred Bougeart:
On Ideas: The more an idea is developed, the more concise becomes its expression; the more a tree is pruned, the better is the fruit.
The Thought for Friday, December 18, 2009 Comes from Edward Blakeslee:
On Ideas: Your most brilliant ideas come in a flash, but the flash comes only after a lot of hard work. Nobody gets a big idea when he is not relaxed and nobody gets a big idea when he is relaxed all of the time.
The Thought for Thursday, December 17, 2009 Comes from Marcus Aurelius Antoninus:
On Opinions: Opinion is the main thing which does good or harm in the world. It is our false opinions of things which ruin us.
The Thought for Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Comes from A. Mortimer Astbury:
On Opinions: Point of view must mean more than mere prejudice; it should express conclusions reached by that painful process known as thinking. And when new facts or factors are presented, free men should be as vigilant to change their viewpoints as to confirm them.
The Thought for Tuesday, December 15, 2009 Comes from William Benton:
On Ideas: The rewards in business go to the man who does something with an idea.
The Thought for Monday, December 14, 2009 Comes from George Jay Anyon:
On Ideas: Theory without experience is sterile, practice without theory is blind.
The Thought for Sunday, December 13, 2009 Comes from Winston Churchill:
On Failure: Don't take no for an answer, never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere personal success or acceptance. You will make all kinds of mistakes, but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was made to be wooed and won by youth.
The Thought for Saturday, December 12, 2009 Comes from Joseph Anderson:
On Ideas: In the life of a nation ideas are not the only things of value. Sentiment also is of great value; and the way to foster sentiment in people, and to develop it in the young, is to have a well-recorded past and to be familiar with it. A people that studies its own past and rejoices in the nation's proud memories is likely to be a patriotic people, the bulwark of law and the courageous champion of right in the hour of need.
The Thought for Friday, December 11, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Justice: Every man loves justice at another man's expense.
The Thought for Thursday, December 10, 2009 Comes from Washington Allston:
On Justice: In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate others; for injustice allowed at home is not likely to be correct abroad.
The Thought for Wednesday, December 9, 2009 Comes from Malcolm Forbes:
On Failure: How to fail—try too hard.
The Thought for Tuesday, December 8, 2009 Comes from Malcolm Forbes:
On Failure: Failure is success if we learn from it.
The Thought for Monday, December 7, 2009 Comes from Demosthenes:
On Opportunity: Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.
The Thought for Sunday, December 6, 2009 Comes from William Feather:
On Failure: No man is a failure who enjoys life.
The Thought for Saturday, December 5, 2009 Comes from Confucius:
On Failure: Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.
The Thought for Friday, December 4, 2009 Comes from William J. H. Boetcker:
On Failure: Seven national crimes: 1) I don't think. 2) I don't know. 3) I don't care. 4) I am too busy. 5) I leave well enough alone. 6) I have no time to read and find out. 7) I am not interested.
The Thought for Thursday, December 3, 2009 Comes from Robert J. Donovan:
On Failure: Giving up is the ultimate tragedy.
The Thought for Wednesday, December 2, 2009 Comes from Knute Rockne:
On Football: Four years of football are calculated to breed in the average man more of the ingredients of success in life than almost any academic course he takes.
The Thought for Tuesday, December 1, 2009 Comes from Knute Rockne:
On Football: The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven.
The Thought for Monday, November 30, 2009 Comes from Thomas Edison:
On Failure: Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
The Thought for Sunday, November 29, 2009 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Difficulties: Difficulties exist to be surmounted.
The Thought for Saturday, November 28, 2009 Comes from Laurence J. Peter:
On Thinking: If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk? (Ed's Note: Presumably , the answer to this question implies a choice: Either a clean desk signifies a clear mind, or no mind at all. You decide what Dr. Peter meant.)
The Thought for Friday, November 27, 2009 Comes from John Churton Collins:
On Difficulties: A fool often fails because he thinks what is difficult is easy, and a wise man because he thinks what is easy is difficult.
The Thought for Thursday, November 26, 2009 Comes Ed Bagley:
On Thanksgiving: There is only one holiday that is purely American, and that is today—Thanksgiving Day. It is a time to be grateful for the many blessings we have received. Perhaps Cicero said it best, "Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others."
The Thought for Wednesday, November 25, 2009 Comes from Charles Dickens:
On Difficulties: No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of it for another.
The Thought for Tuesday, November 24, 2009 Comes from Abraham Lincoln:
On Death: If they do kill me, I shall never die another death.
The Thought for Monday, November 23, 2009 Comes from Douglas MacArthur:
On Death: Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.
The Thought for Sunday, November 22, 2009 Comes from Baltasar Gracian:
On Death: Fortunate people often have very favorable beginnings and very tragic endings. What matters isn't being applauded when you arrive—for that is common—but being missed when you leave.
The Thought for Saturday, November 21, 2009 Comes from Charles de Gaulle:
On Death: One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day was; one cannot judge life until death.
The Thought for Friday, November 20, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Friendship: Friendship is not about whom you have known the longest, but about who came and never left your side.
The Thought for Thursday, November 19, 2009 Comes from Abraham Flexner:
On Education: Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education.
The Thought for Wednesday, November 18, 2009 Comes from William Feather:
On Education: Two delusions fostered by higher education are that what is taught corresponds to what is learned, and that it will somehow pay off in money.
The Thought for Tuesday, November 17, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Living: Always remember that yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, but today is a gift, that is why it is called the present.
The Thought for Monday, November 16, 2009 Comes from Bill Bowerman:
On Running: A teacher is never too smart to learn from his pupils. But while runners differ, basic principles never change. So it's a matter of fitting your current practices to fit the event and the individual. See, what's good for you might not be worth a darn for the next guy."
The Thought for Sunday, November 15, 2009 Comes from Oprah Winfrey:
On Running: Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it.
The Thought for Saturday, November 14, 2009 Comes from Lou Holtz:
On Football: When all is said and done, more is said than done.
The Thought for Friday, November 13, 2009 Comes from Charles G. Dawes:
On Manners: How majestic is naturalness. I have never met a man whom I really considered a great man who was not always natural and simple. Affectation is inevitably the mark of one not sure of himself.
The Thought for Thursday, November 12, 2009 Comes from Malcolm Forbes:
On Manners: People who stare deserve the looks they get.
The Thought for Wednesday, November 11, 2009 Comes from Janet Lane:
On Manners: Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important.
The Thought for Tuesday, November 10, 2009 Comes from Martin Luther King, Jr.:
On Ignorance: Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
The Thought for Monday, November 9, 2009 Comes from Suze Orman:
On Dreams: When you make average great, your dreams will become a reality.
The Thought for Sunday, November 8, 2009 is anonymous:
On Living: Live today because tomorrow is not promised.
The Thought for Saturday, November 7, 2009 Comes from a Chinese Proverb:
On Children: A child's life is like a piece of paper on which every passerby leaves a mark.
The Thought for Friday, November 6, 2009 Comes from Abraham Lincoln:
On Children: A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started . . . the fate of humanity is in his hands.
The Thought for Thursday, November 5, 2009 Comes from Ann Landers:
On Children: In the final analysis it is not what you do for your children but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.
The Thought for Wednesday, November 4, 2009 Comes from Garrison Keillor:
On Children: Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.
The Thought for Tuesday, November 3, 2009 Comes from Paul Martin:
On Children: Boys are the building blocks of a nation. The man who gives a boy a helping hand is therefore building sound foundations for the future.
The Thought for Monday, November 2, 2009 Comes from Sydney J. Harris:
On Children: We try to make our children become more like us, instead of trying to become more like them—with the result that we pick up none of their good traits, and they pick up most of our bad ones.
The Thought for Sunday, November 1, 2009 Comes from a Danish Proverb:
On Children: Who takes a child by the hand takes the mother by the heart.
The Thought for Saturday, October 31, 2009 Comes from a 29-year-old's discovery:
On Children: I've learned that people without children always know just how you should raise yours.
The Thought for Friday, October 30, 2009 comes from a Happy Pumpkin, and is given in recognition of Halloween tomorrow, October 31, the Happy Pumpkin's birthday:
On Pumpkins: Having spiritual growth is like being a pumpkin. God picks you up, takes you in, and washes off all of your dirt. He opens you up, touches your heart as no one every has, and cleans out that which is destructive in your life, including your seeds of doubt, past hurts, humiliations, hate, envy and greed. Then He carves you a new smiley face, and puts His light inside you to shine for all to see. Blessed be the living God, and bountiful his mercy, compassion and forgiveness.
The Thought for Thursday, October 29, 2009 Comes from Charles Bradlaugh:
On Freedom: Without free speech no search for truth is possible; without free speech progress is checked and the nations no longer march forward toward the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousandfold abuse of speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial stays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 28, 2009 Comes from Plato:
On Kindness: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
The Thought for Tuesday, October 27, 2009 Comes from Charles Simmons:
On Politeness: A quick and sound judgment, good common sense, kind feeling, and an instinctive perception of character, in these are the elements of what is called tact, which has so many to do with acceptability and success in life.
The Thought for Monday, October 26, 2009 Comes from William Sims:
On Politeness: Tact is one of the first mental virtues, the absence of which is often fatal to the best of talents; it supplies the place of many talents.
The Thought for Sunday, October 25, 2009 Comes from Ed Bagley:
On American Culture: We are slowly but surely moving from a nation of literacy to a nation of larceny.
The Thought for Saturday, October 24, 2009 Comes from Herbert Hoover:
On Freedom: A splendid storehouse of integrity and freedom has been bequeathed to us by our forefathers. In this day of confusion, of peril to liberty, our high duty is to see that this storehouse is not robbed of its contents.
The Thought for Friday, October 23, 2009 Comes from Dwight D. Eisenhower:
On Freedom: The supreme belief of our society is the dignity and freedom of the individual. To the respect of that dignity, to the defense of that freedom, all effort is pledged.
The Thought for Thursday, October 22, 2009 Comes from Edward Everett:
On Freedom: Freedom may come quickly in robes of peace or after ages of conflict and war, but come it will, and abide it will, so long as the principles by which it was acquired are held sacred.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 21, 2009 Comes from William Scargill:
On Politeness: Tact is the interpreter of all riddles, the surmounter of all difficulties, the remover of all obstacles.
The Thought for Tuesday, October 20, 2009 Comes from Henry Wheeler Shaw (Josh Billings):
On Politeness: Politeness is better than logic. You can often persuade when you cannot convince.
The Thought for Monday, October 19, 2009 Comes from Howard W. Newton:
On Politeness: Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
The Thought for Sunday, October 18, 2009 Comes from Ed Bagley:
On the Male Ego: Man is not the measure of all things. Man is not the answer to all problems. Man is the problem. The man who walks alone courts the Devil.
The Thought for Saturday, October 17, 2009 Comes from Robert Collier:
On Belief: You can do anything you think you can. This knowledge is literally the gift of the gods, for through it you can solve every human problem. It should make of you an incurable optimist. It is the open door.
The Thought for Friday, October 16, 2009 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Direction: Every ship that comes to America got its chart from Columbus.
The Thought for Thursday, October 15, 2009 Comes from Claude Bernard:
On Knowledge: Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 14, 2009 Comes from George Matthew Adams:
On Knowledge: You are your greatest investment. The more you store in that mind of yours, the more you enrich your experience, the more people you meet, the more books you read, and the more places you visit, the greater is that investment in all that you are. Everything that you add to your peace of mind, and to your outlook upon life, is added capital that no one but yourself can dissipate.
The Thought for Tuesday, October 13, 2009 Comes from Franklin P. Adams:
On Knowledge: I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.
The Thought for Monday, October 12, 2009 Comes from William Penn:
On Kindness: I expect to pass through life but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow-being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.
The Thought for Sunday, October 11, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Wrinkles: Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
The Thought for Saturday, October 10, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Intent: Actions speak louder than words but not nearly as often.
The Thought for Friday, October 9, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Associations: Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.
The Thought for Thursday, October 8, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Learning: One learns through the heart, not the eyes or the intellect.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 7, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Friendship: The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong.
The Thought for Tuesday, October 6, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Recognition: It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
The Thought for Monday, October 5, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Indecencies: Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.
The Thought for Sunday, October 4, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On the Environment: Go to heaven for the climate, hell for the company.
The Thought for Saturday, October 3, 2009 Comes from William James:
On Fatigue: Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging of an uncompleted task.
The Thought for Friday, October 2, 2009 Comes from Charles Dickens:
On Attitude: Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
The Thought for Thursday, October 1, 2009 Comes from Carl Jung:
On Self-Discovery: Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 30, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Obedience: Always obey your parents—when they are present.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 29, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Success: To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
The Thought for Monday, September 28, 2009 Comes from Bertrand Russell:
On Thinking: The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
The Thought for Sunday, September 27, 2009 Comes from Francois de la Rochefoucauld:
On Satisfaction: A man who is always satisfied with himself is seldom satisfied with others.
The Thought for Saturday, September 26, 2009 Comes from Jan Ignance Paderwski:
On Satisfaction: There have been a few moments when I have known complete satisfaction, but only a few. I have rarely been free from the disturbing realization that my playing might have been better.
The Thought for Friday, September 25, 2009 Comes from Teilhard de Chardin:
On Science: That there is an evolution of one sort or another is now common ground among scientists. Whether or not that evolution is directed is another question.
The Thought for Thursday, September 24, 2009 Comes from Marcus Valerius Martial.
On Satisfaction: To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 23, 2009 Comes from Hans Margolius:
On Satisfaction: It is not futile sometimes to be dissatisfied with life. To be dissatisfied with the order of human affairs as they are, also means to start building a better world.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 22, 2009 Comes from Thomas Edison:
On Satisfaction: Show me a thoroughly satisfied man—and I will show you a failure.
The Thought for Monday, September 21, 2009 Comes from Vannevar Bush:
On Science: Science can give mankind a better standard of living, better health and a better mental life, if mankind in turn gives science the sympathy and support so essential to its progress.
The Thought for Sunday, September 20, 2009 Comes from Ambrose Bierce:
On Science: Observatory: A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.
The Thought for Saturday, September 19, 2009 Comes from John Dryden:
On Satisfaction: Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is, with thoughts of what may be.
The Thought for Friday, September 18, 2009 Comes from Honore de Balzac:
On Satisfaction: Little minds find satisfaction for their feelings, good or bad, in little things.
The Thought for Thursday, September 17, 2009 Comes from Marcus Aurelius Antoninus:
On Satisfaction: Be satisfied with your business, and learn to love what you were bred to.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 16, 2009 Comes from W. H. Auden:
On Science: Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 15, 2009 Comes from Milton Berle:
On Science: We owe a lot to Thomas Edison—if it wasn't for him, we'd be watching television by candlelight.
The Thought for Monday, September 14, 2009 Comes from Agatha Christie:
On Science: An archeologist is the best husband any woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.
The Thought for Sunday, September 13, 2009 Comes from Frederick Grant Banting:
On Ideas: No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.
The Thought for Saturday, September 12, 2009 Comes from Colette:
On Wisdom: Be happy. It's one way of being wise.
The Thought for Friday, September 11, 2009 Comes from William Shakespeare:
On Living: Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none. (from "All's Well That Ends Well")
The Thought for Thursday, September 10, 2009 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Time: This time, like all times, is a very good one, when we know what to do with it.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 9, 2009 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Kindness: You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 8, 2009 Comes from Arthur Lydiard:
On Running: When aerobic running becomes a daily habit, strength and confidence follow.
The Thought for Monday, September 7, 2009 Comes from Yoga Philosophy:
On Fear: Fear and fatigue block the mind. Confront both, and courage and confidence will flow into you.
The Thought for Sunday, September 6, 2009 Comes from Yoga Philosophy:
On Character: Just as we can learn from our mistakes, we can gain character from our disappointments.
The Thought for Saturday, September 5, 2009 Comes from Yoga Philosophy:
On Integrity: Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
The Thought for Friday, September 4, 2009 Comes from Yoga Philosophy:
On Soul: When the mind is controlled and still, what remains is the soul.
The Thought for Thursday, September 3, 2009 Comes from Yoga Philosophy:
On Control: When stability becomes a habit, maturity and clarity follow.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 2, 2009 Comes from Yoga Philosophy:
On Impulse: Yoga taught me "impulse control"—the ability to feel an urge and delay acting on it.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 1, 2009 Comes from Yoga Philosophy:
On Success: Everything that belongs to me will come to me when I create the capacity to receive it.
The Thought for Monday, August 31, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Advice: Seek advice from those who are competent through their own experience and success to give advice.
The Thought for Sunday, August 30, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Imagination: A mind once stretched by a new idea moves beyond its old constraints, never returning to its former, limited dimensions. It is called "Imagination".
The Thought for Saturday, August 29, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Belief: At any given place on any given day at any given time, something magical can happen. It is called "Belief".
The Thought for Friday, August 28, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Acceptance: Always remember that no matter what anyone is saying to you from the outside, the most important conversation is the one you are having with yourself on the inside.
The Thought for Thursday, August 27, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Acceptance: What you think about me is none of my business. What is most important is what I think about myself.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 26, 2009 Comes from George S. Clason:
On Success: Each man has to work out his own understanding of what needs to be done, and then prepare himself to take advantage of the opportunity to succeed in a big way.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 25, 2009 Comes from George S. Clason:
On Initiative: It was apparent that no one could do for the scribe what the scribe had done for himself.
The Thought for Monday, August 24, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Blame: When you blame others, you give up your power to change.
The Thought for Sunday, August 23, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Character Traits: If you lack the will for change, there is no one who can show you the way. Not even Jesus Christ.
The Thought for Saturday, August 22, 2009 Comes from Thomas Edison:
On Failure: Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
The Thought for Friday, August 21, 2009 Comes from George S. Clason:
On Wealth: One may not condemn a man for succeeding financially because he knows how. Neither may one with justice take away from a man what he has fairly earned, to give to men of less ability.
The Thought for Thursday, August 20, 2009 Comes from W. Somerset Maugham:
On Money: Money is like a sixth sense without which we cannot make a complete use of the other five.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 19, 2009 Comes from Albert Schweitzer:
On Success: Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 18, 2009 Comes from Abraham Lincoln:
On Happiness: People are about as happy as they make up their mind to be. (Ed's Note: Well said, Abe. I couldn't agree more.)
The Thought for Monday, August 17, 2009 Comes is Anonymous:
On Life: We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment is a gift from God, and both a miracle and a mystery.
The Thought for Sunday, August 16, 2009 is Anonymous :
On Success: What you did to get where you are at will not be enough to get you where you want to go.
The Thought for Saturday, August 15, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Success: To get what you've never had, you must do what you have never done.
The Thought for Friday, August 14, 2009 Comes from Rich Dad, Poor Dad:
On Cash Flow: Your mind, more than your actions, determines your cash flow.
The Thought for Thursday, August 13, 2009 Comes from Rich Dad, Poor Dad:
On Net Worth: Your mind, more than your actions, determines your net worth.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 12, 2009 Comes from John F. Kennedy:
On Opinions: Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 11, 2009 Comes from Henry Ford:
On Thinking: The hardest thing in the world to do is to think, and that is why people do so little thinking.
The Thought for Monday, August 10, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Education: I never let schooling interfere with my education.
The Thought for Sunday, August 9, 2009 Comes from a Yiddish Proverb:
On Trouble: He that cannot endure the bad, will not live to see the good.
The Thought for Saturday, August 8, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Trouble: Temper is what gets most of us into trouble. Pride is what keeps us there.
The Thought for Friday, August 7, 2009 Comes from an Italian Proverb:
On Trouble: He who would have no trouble in this world must not be born in it.
The Thought for Thursday, August 6, 2009 Comes from Herbert Casson:
On Trouble: The average man takes life as a trouble. He is in a chronic state of irritation at the whole performance. He does not learn to differentiate between troubles and difficulties, usually, until some real trouble bowls him over. He fusses about pin-pricks until a mule kicks him. Then he learns the difference.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 5, 2009 Comes from Louis Brandeis:
On Trouble: Nine-tenths of the serious controversies which arise in life result from misunderstandings; result from one man not knowing the facts which to the other man seem important, or otherwise failing to appreciate his point of view.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 4, 2009 Comes from Henry Fielding:
On Trust: It is a good maxim to trust a person entirely or not at all.
The Thought for Monday, August 3, 2009 Comes from a Chinese Proverb:
On Conscience: He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes.
The Thought for Sunday, August 2, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Congress: It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctively native American criminal class except Congress.
The Thought for Saturday, August 1, 2009 Comes from Marty Liquori:
On Training: Overtraining is the biggest problem incurred by runners who lack the experience or discipline to cope with their own enthusiasm.
The Thought for Friday, July 31, 2009 Comes from David Brinkley:
On Success: A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.
The Thought for Thursday, July 30, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Banks: I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. (Ed's Note: Jefferson offered this assessment in 1802, 207 years ago. Jefferson knew that pigs don't know that pigs stink. Too bad that Thomas Jefferson is not still around to witness the current meltdown in the American economy due to the greed of financial institutions, banks and money brokers, not to mention the millions of former homeowners who are losing their home through foreclosure.)
The Thought for Wednesday, July 29, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Taxes: To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 28, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Liberty: The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
The Thought for Monday, July 27, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Tyranny: The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
The Thought for Sunday, July 26, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Personal Protection: No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
The Thought for Saturday, July 25, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On History: My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
The Thought for Friday, July 24, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On the Future: I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
The Thought for Thursday, July 23, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Debt: It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 22, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Democracy: The Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 21, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Growth: When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
The Thought for Monday, July 20, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Newspapers: If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
The Thought for Sunday, July 19, 2009 Comes from Gordon R. Dickson:
On Advice: Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it.
The Thought for Saturday, July 18, 2009 Comes from William Zinsser:
On Writing: If writing seems hard, it is because it is hard. It is one of the hardest things people do.
The Thought for Friday, July 17, 2009 Comes from John F. Kennedy:
On Congress: It is much easier in many ways for me—and for other Presidents, I think, who felt the same way—when Congress is not in town.
The Thought for Thursday, July 16, 2009 Comes from Art Buck:
On Congress: In starting on a spending spree, the Congress all too frequently, can't make its way from A to B, without a genuflect to Z.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 15, 2009 Comes from John Adams:
On Congress: I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 14, 2009 Comes from Henry Adams:
On Congress: You can't use tact with a Congressman. A Congressman is a hog. You must take a stick and hit him on the snout.
The Thought for Monday, July 13, 2009 Comes from Benjamin Franklin:
On Silence: Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
The Thought for Sunday, July 12, 2009 Comes from a French proverb:
On Silence: Silence makes no mistakes.
The Thought for Saturday, July 11, 2009 Comes from Gracie Fields:
On Silence: An educated man is one who knows a lot and says nothing about it.
The Thought for Friday, July 10, 2009 Comes from Phillips Brooks:
On Silence: A man who lives right, and is right, has more power in his silence than another has by his words.
The Thought for Thursday, July 9, 2009 Comes from Thomas Carlyle:
On Silence: Thought works in silence, so does virtue. One might erect statues to silence.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 8, 2009 Comes from Gene Fowler:
On Men: Men are not against you; they're merely for themselves.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 7, 2009 Comes from Oscar Wilde:
On Gossip: There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
The Thought for Monday, July 6, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Government: It gets harder and harder to support the government in the manner in which it has become accustomed.
The Thought for Sunday, July 5, 2009 Comes from Charles P. Steinmetz:
On Fools: No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.
The Thought for Saturday, July 4, 2009 Comes from Francois Rabelais:
On Fools: If you wish to avoid seeing a fool you must first break your mirror.
The Thought for Friday, July 3, 2009 Comes from a French Proverb:
On Fools: Young people tell what they are doing, old people what they have done, and fools what they wish to do.
The Thought for Thursday, July 2, 2009 Comes from Jean de la Bruyere:
On Truth: The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 1, 2009 Comes from Robert Browning:
On Truth: Truth never hurts the teller.
The Thought for Tuesday, June 30, 2009 Comes from William Blake:
On Truth: A truth that's told with bad intent, beats all the lies you can invent.
The Thought for Monday, June 29, 2009 Comes from Bill Bowerman:
On Running and Racing: If someone says, "Hey, I ran 100 miles this week. How far did you run?" ignore him! What the hell difference does it make? The magic is in the man (the runner), not the 100 miles.
The Thought for Sunday, June 28, 2009 Comes from Josh Billings:
On Truth: As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.
The Thought for Saturday, June 27, 2009 Comes from the Internet:
On Time: At five minutes and six seconds after 4 a.m. on the 8th of July this year, the time and date will be: 04:05:06 07/08/09. This will never happen again in the history of time.
The Thought for Friday, June 26, 2009 Comes from Marty Liquori:
On Training: Just remember this: No one ever won the olive wreath with an impressive training diary.
The Thought for Thursday, June 25, 2009 Comes from Epictetus:
On Learning: It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 24, 2009 Comes from Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain):
On Fathers: When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in 7 years.
The Thought for Tuesday, June 23, 2009 Comes is Anonymous:
On Life and Living: Life is not the way it is supposed to be. It is the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.
The Thought for Monday, June 22, 2009 Comes from George Matthew Adams:
On Envy: Upon every hand we meet with those who have some secret resentment that is ever being nurtured within their hearts. They resent the success, or happiness of some one whom they think is less deserving than they are. They resent the just recognition that comes to others from work and long effort to excel. Or, they may resent being born poor—or resent the fact that they were even born! Strive to excel, strive to achieve, where others have failed, and you will find no space within your mind to lodge resentment. Resentment is the child of selfishness, foolish envy, and inactivity. Our life upon this earth is too valuable for resentment of any kind. There is so much to do, so much to learn—so little time in which to live and work it all out.
The Thought for Sunday, June 21, 2009 Comes from Theodore Roosevelt:
On Laws: The cornerstone of this Republic, as of all free government, is respect for and obedience to the law. Where we permit the law to be defied or evaded, whether by rich man or poor man, by black man or white, we are by just so much weakening the bonds of our civilization and increasing the chance of its overthrow, and of the substitution therefore of a system in which there shall be violent alternations of anarchy and tyranny.
The Thought for Saturday, June 20, 2009 Comes from Mickey Rooney:
On Failure: You always pass failure on the way to success.
The Thought for Friday, June 19, 2009 Comes from James Freeman Clarke:
On Happiness: Do not run after happiness, but seek to do good, and you will find that happiness will run after you. The day will dawn full of expectation, the night will fall full of repose. The world will seem a very good place, and the world to come a better place still.
The Thought for Thursday, June 18, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Running and Racing: Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle—when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 17, 2009 Comes from Billy Mills:
On Running and Racing: I haven't seen too many American distance men on the international scene willing to take risks. I saw some U. S. women in Barcelona willing to risk, more than men. The Kenyans risk. Steve Prefontaine risked. I risked—I went through the first half of the Tokyo race just a second off my best 5000 time.
The Thought for Tuesday, June 16, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Laws: Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.
The Thought for Monday, June 15, 2009 Comes from Stuart Cloete:
On Happiness: Happiness is hard thing because it is achieved only by making others happy.
The Thought for Sunday, June 14, 2009 Comes from Juma Ikangaa of Tanzania:
On Running and Racing: The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare.
The Thought for Saturday, June 13, 2009 Comes from Tacitus:
On Laws: When the state is most corrupt, the laws are most multiplied.
The Thought for Friday, June 12, 2009 Comes from Paavo Nurmi:
On Running: Mind is everything: muscle—pieces of rubber. Everything that I am, I am because of my mind.
The Thought for Thursday, June 11, 2009 Comes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
On Happiness: The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions—the little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heart-felt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 10, 2009 Comes from Theodore Roosevelt:
On Laws: No man is above the law, and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it.
The Thought for Tuesday, June 9, 2009 Comes from Bill Rodgers:
On Running: If you wan to win a race you have to go a little berserk.
The Thought for Monday, June 8, 2009 Comes from Charles Caleb Colton:
On Happiness: There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: He that thinks himself the happiest man really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.
The Thought for Sunday, June 7, 2009 Comes from Ovid:
On Laws: The purpose of law is to prevent the strong always having their way.
The Thought for Saturday, June 6, 2009 Comes from Alphonse Kerr:
On Love: Love is a sport in which the hunter must contrive to have the quarry in pursuit.
The Thought for Friday, June 5, 2009 Comes from Thomas Dreier:
On Happiness: If we are ever to enjoy life, now is the time—not tomorrow, nor next year, not in some future life after we have died. The best preparation for a better life next year is a full, complete, harmonious, joyous life this year. Our beliefs in a rich future life are of little importance unless we coin them into a rich present life. Today should always be our most wonderful day.
The Thought for Thursday, June 4, 2009 Comes from John Churton Collins:
On Friends: In prosperity our friends know us, in adversity we know our friends.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 3, 2009 Comes from Peter Marshall:
On Laws: The test, after all, is not whether a certain law is popular, but whether the law is based upon fundamental justice, fundamental decency and righteousness, fundamental morality and goodness. What we need is not law enforcement, by law observance. In a modern society there is no real freedom from law. There is only freedom in law.
The Thought for Tuesday, June 2, 2009 Comes from Benjamin Disraeli:
On Happiness: Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
The Thought for Monday, June 1, 2009 Comes from Pliny:
On Envy: Envy always implies conscious inferiority wherever it resides.
The Thought for Sunday, May 31, 2009 Comes from James Madison:
On Laws: No man can be a competent legislator who does not add to an upright intention and a sound judgment a certain degree of knowledge of the subjects on which he is to legislate.
The Thought for Saturday, May 30, 2009 Comes from Anthony A. Cooper (Lord Shaftesbury):
On Happiness: When men are easy in themselves, they let others remain so.
The Thought for Friday, May 29, 2009 Comes from Horace:
On Envy: The envious man grows lean at the success of his neighbor.
The Thought for Thursday, May 28, 2009 Comes from L. W. Lynett:
On Change: The most effective way to cope with change is to help create it.
The Thought for Wednesday, May 27, 2009 Comes from Charles F. Kettering:
On Change: The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 26, 2009 Comes from William Davy:
On Happiness: Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness, and small obligations given habitually, are what preserve the heart and secure comfort.
The Thought for Monday, May 25, 2009 Comes from Herodotus:
On Envy: It is better to be envied than to be pitied.
The Thought for Sunday, May 24, 2009 Comes from Francois de la Rochefoucauld:
On Change: The only constant in life is change.
The Thought for Saturday, May 23, 2009 Comes from Tryon Edwards:
On Happiness: Seek happiness for its own sake, and you will not find it; seek for duty, and happiness will follow as the shadow comes with the sunshine.
The Thought for Friday, May 22, 2009 Comes from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
On Love: Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted.
The Thought for Thursday, May 21, 2009 Comes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
On Envy: Men are so constituted that ever one undertakes what he sees another successful in, whether he has aptitude for it or not.
The Thought for Wednesday, May 20, 2009 Comes from Soren Kierkegaard:
On Love: No time in life is so beautiful as the early days of love, when with every meeting, every glance, one fetches something new home to rejoice over.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 19, 2009 Comes from T. Boone Pickens:
On Change: I have always believed that it's important to show a new look periodically. Predictability can lead to failure.
The Thought for Monday, May 18, 2009 Comes from John Dryden:
On Happiness: Happy the man, and happy he alone, he, who can call today his own.
The Thought for Sunday, May 17, 2009 Comes from Thomas Dreier:
On Envy: A man shall never be enriched by envy.
The Thought for Saturday, May 16, 2009 Comes from Sam Levenson:
On Love: Love at first sight is easy to understand. It's when two people have been looking at each other for years that it becomes a miracle.
The Thought for Friday, May 15, 2009 Comes from Robert Moss:
On Change: Have no fear of change as such and, on the other hand, no liking for it merely for its own sake.
The Thought for Thursday, May 14, 2009 Comes from Henry Drummond:
On Happiness: Half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness. They think it consists in having and getting, and in being served by others. On the contrary, it consists in giving, and in serving others.
The Thought for Wednesday, May 13, 2009 Comes from Charles Caleb Colton:
On Envy: Our very best friends have a tincture of jealousy even in their friendship; and when they hear us praised by others, will ascribe it to sinister and interested motives if they can.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 12, 2009 is Anonymous:
On Life: Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the people who do not treat you right. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.
The Thought for Monday, May 11, 2009 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Happiness: Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
The Thought for Sunday, May 10, 2009 Comes from Hans Margolius:
On Love: One man all by himself is nothing. Two people who belong together make a world.
The Thought for Saturday, May 9, 2009 Comes from Aeschylus:
On Envy: Few men have the natural strength to honor a friend's success without envy.
The Thought for Friday, May 8, 2009 Comes from Alan Harrington:
On Learning: We are all, it seems, saving ourselves for the Senior Prom. But many of us forget that somewhere along the way we must learn to dance.
The Thought for Thursday, May 7, 2009 Comes from Epictetus:
On Happiness: There is only one way to happiness, and that is cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.
The Thought for Wednesday, May 6, 2009 Comes from Thomas Merton:
On Love: There is no way under the sun of making a man worthy of love, except by loving him.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 5, 2009 Comes from Moliere:
On Love: To live without loving is not really to live.
The Thought for Monday, May 4, 2009 Comes from Euripides:
On Learning: Whoso neglects learning in his youth loses the past and is dead for the future.
The Thought for Sunday, May 3, 2009 Comes from John Locke:
On Learning: None of the things children are to learn should ever be made a burden to them, or imposed on them as a task. Whatever is so imposed presently becomes irksome; the mind takes an aversion to it, though before it were a thing of delight.
The Thought for Saturday, May 2, 2009 Comes from Mary Little:
On Learning: He who devotes 16 hours a day to hard study may become as wise at 60 as he thought himself at 20.
The Thought for Friday, May 1, 2009 Comes from Joseph de Maistre:
On Learning: There is no easy method of learning difficult things. The method is to close the door, give out that you are not at home, and work.
The Thought for Thursday, April 30, 2009 Comes from John Ray:
On Learning: Learning makes the wise wiser and the fool more foolish.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 29, 2009 Comes from Proverbs 1:5 in the Holy Bible:
On Learning: A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 28, 2009 Comes from a Persian Proverb:
On Learning: One pound of learning requires 10 pounds of commonsense to apply it.
The Thought for Monday, April 27, 2009 Comes from Johann Lavater:
On Honesty: The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint.
The Thought for Sunday, April 26, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Honesty: I have not observed men's honesty to increase with their riches.
The Thought for Saturday, April 25, 2009 Comes from Herbert Hoover:
On Honesty: No public man can be a little crooked. There is no such thing as a no-man's-land between honesty and dishonesty.
The Thought for Friday, April 24, 2009 Comes from Amos Bronson Alcott:
On Quotes: One must be a wise reader to quote wisely and well.
The Thought for Thursday, April 23, 2009 Comes from Anne Morrow Lindberg:
On Communication: Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 22, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Government: A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 21, 2009 Comes from Edward Langley:
On Politicians: What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
The Thought for Monday, April 20, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Congress: There is no distinctly native American criminal class . . . save Congress.
The Thought for Sunday, April 19, 2009 Comes from Herbert Spencer:
On Coddling: The ultimate results of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
The Thought for Saturday, April 18, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Taxes: The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
The Thought for Friday, April 17, 2009 Comes from Winston Churchill:
On Socialism: The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
The Thought for Thursday, April 16, 2009 Comes from Ronald Reagan:
On Government: The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 15, 2009 Comes from an Anonymous Source:
On Talk: Talk is cheap . . . except when Congress does it.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Government: No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
The Thought for Monday, April 13, 2009 Comes from Pericles:
On Politics: Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you! (written in 430 B.C.)
The Thought for Sunday, April 12, 2009 Comes from Voltaire:
On Government: In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. (written in 1764)
The Thought for Saturday, April 11, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Humor: I was created in the image of God, but the resemblance was never so great that anyone ever mistook me for Him. (This quote contribution comes from my Vietnam Veteran team member and friend Dan Agee, who now lives in Oregon.)
The Thought for Friday, April 10, 2009 Comes from P. J. O'Rourke:
On Health Care: If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
The Thought for Thursday, April 9, 2009 Comes from Will Rogers:
On Government: I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 8, 2009 Comes from Ronald Reagan:
On Government: Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 7, 2009 Comes from Frederic Bastiat:
On Government: Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
The Thought for Monday, April 6, 2009 Comes from P. J. O'Rourke:
On Government: Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
The Thought for Sunday, April 5, 2009 Comes from Douglas Casey:
On Foreign Aid: Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
The Thought for Saturday, April 4, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Congress: Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself.
The Thought for Friday, April 3, 2009 Comes from George Chapman:
On Fools: Young men think old men are fools, but old men know young men are fools.
The Thought for Thursday, April 2, 2009 Comes from Dale Carnegie:
On Fools: Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain—and most fools do.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 1, 2009 Comes from Samuel Butler:
On Fools: The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself, too.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 31, 2009 Comes from G. Gordon Liddy:
On Liberals: A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
The Thought for Monday, March 30, 2009 Comes from George Bernard Shaw:
On Government: A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
The Thought for Sunday, March 29, 2009 Comes from Winston Churchill:
On Prosperity: I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
The Thought for Saturday, March 28, 2009 Comes from James Bovard:
On Democracy: Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
The Thought for Friday, March 27, 2009 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Newspapers: If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
The Thought for Thursday, March 26, 2009 Comes from John Adams:
On Uselessness: In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 25, 2009 Comes from Edgar Watson Howe:
On Friendship: When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 24, 2009 Comes from Wendell Phillips:
On Solitude: The heart beats louder and the soul hears quicker in silence and solitude.
The Thought for Monday, March 23, 2009 Comes from William J. H. Boetcker:
On Self: That you may retain your self-respect—it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.
The Thought for Sunday, March 22, 2009 Comes from Samuel Johnson:
On Love: The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.
The Thought for Saturday, March 21, 2009 Comes from William J. H. Boetcker:
On Self: If you want to know how rich you really are, find out what would be left of you tomorrow if you should lose every dollar you own tonight.
The Thought for Friday, March 20, 2009 Comes from Marya Mannes:
On Solitude: The great omission in American life is solitude; not loneliness, for this is an alienation that thrives most in the midst of crowds, but that zone of time and space free from outside pressure which is the incubator of the spirit.
The Thought for Thursday, March 19, 2009 Comes from Sophocles:
On Wisdom: Wisdom outweighs any wealth.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 17, 2009 Comes from Luther Burbank:
On Self: Self-reliance and self-respect are about as valuable commodities as we can carry in our pack through life.
The Thought for Monday, March 16, 2009 Comes from James Russell Lowell:
On Solitude: Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
The Thought for Sunday, March 15, 2009 Comes from William J. H. Boetcker:
On Self: If you wish to succeed in managing and controlling others—Learn to manage and control yourself.
The Thought for Saturday, March 14, 2009 Comes from Loretta Baker Pohl:
On Health: Health is wealth.
The Thought for Friday, March 13, 2009 Comes from Louis D. Brandeis:
On Self: The right to be left alone is the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued in civilized man.
The Thought for Thursday, March 12, 2009 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Solitude: It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion—it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the world, keeps with prefect sweetness the independence of solitude.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 11, 2009 Comes from Alfred North Whitehead:
On Order: The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 10, 2009 Comes from Henry Ward Beecher:
On Order: Nothing is orderly till man takes hold of it. Everything in creation lies around loose.
The Thought for Monday, March 9, 2009 Comes from H. G. Bohn:
On Self: He that is master of himself will soon be master of others.
The Thought for Sunday, March 8, 2009 Comes from William J. H. Boetcker:
On Solitude: For the self-development of men and women it is absolutely necessary that they should be alone with themselves at least one hour each day—to get the blessings of solitude.
The Thought for Saturday, March 7, 2009 Comes from John F. Kennedy:
On Computers: Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all. (Ed's Note: At this time in the early 1960s, the most advanced composing machine was the IBM Selectric Typewriter; there were no computers in common use, only the government and military used the then computers for high level communications.)
The Thought for Friday, March 6, 2009 Comes from Henry Winkler:
On Instinct: Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path.
The Thought for Thursday, March 5, 2009 Comes from Miguel de Cervantes:
On Life: When one door is shut, another opens.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 4, 2009 Comes from Confucius:
On Life: Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 3, 2009 Comes from Niccolo Machiavelli:
On Insults: I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words toward anyone, for neither diminishes the strength of the enemy.
The Thought for Monday, March 2, 2009 Comes from Russell Lynes:
On Insults: The only graceful way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you can't ignore it, top it; if you can't top it, laugh at it; if you can't laugh at it, it's probably deserved.
The Thought for Sunday, March 1, 2009 Comes from Henry David Thoreau:
On Home: What a fool he must be who thinks that his El Dorado is anywhere but where he lives.
The Thought for Saturday, February 28, 2009 Comes from Fran Lebowitz:
On Children: Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear the phone is for you.
The Thought for Friday, February 27, 2009 Comes from a Letter to Ann Landers:
On Children: Only two kids enjoy high school. One is the captain of the football team. The other is his girlfriend.
The Thought for Thursday, February 26, 2009 Comes from Ann Landers:
On Children: In the final analysis it is not what you do for your children but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.
The Thought for Wednesday, February 25, 2009 Comes from Nicholas Murray Butler:
On Freedom: The fifth freedom, the Freedom of Individual Enterprise, is the keystone of the arch on which the other Four Freedoms rest. This is what freedom means.
The Thought for Tuesday, February 24, 2009 Comes from Edmund Burke:
On Freedom: Depend upon it that the lovers of freedom will be free.
The Thought for Monday, February 23, 2009 Comes from John S. Bonnell:
On Freedom: Political freedom goes hand in hand with religious freedom. Wherever religion is free men can no longer be kept in chains. Religious freedom means liberty to all, with special favors to none.
The Thought for Sunday, February 22, 2009 Comes from William J. H. Boetcker:
On Freedom: Freedom of press and freedom of speech: What a blessing for a country while in the hands of honest, patriotic men; what a curse if in the hands of designing demagogues.
The Thought for Saturday, February 21, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Freedom: Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
The Thought for Friday, February 20, 2009 Comes from Soren Kierkegaard:
On Freedom: People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have, for example, freedom of thought; instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
The Thought for Thursday, February 19, 2009 Comes from Abraham Lincoln:
On Freedom: Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.
The Thought for Wednesday, February 18, 2009 Comes from Abraham Lincoln:
On Freedom: If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
The Thought for Tuesday, February 17, 2009 Comes from Abraham Lincoln:
On Freedom: Freedom is the last, best hope of Earth.
The Thought for Monday, February 16, 2009 Comes from Blaise Pascal:
On Religion: Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
The Thought for Sunday, February 15, 2009 Comes from John F. Kennedy:
On Religion: What church I go to on Sunday, what dogma of the Catholic Church I believe in, is my business; and whatever faith any other American has in his business.
The Thought for Saturday, February 14, 2009 Comes from Ed Bagley (hey, I know that guy):
On Love: Fear not that love has passed you by; just pay attention so when it comes, you will recognize it for what it is.
The Thought for Friday, February 13, 2009 Comes from Carl Ewald:
On Love: Take spring when it comes, and rejoice. Take happiness when it comes, and rejoice. Take love when it comes, and rejoice.
The Thought for Thursday, February 12, 2009 Comes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
On Love: Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love.
The Thought for Wednesday, February 11, 2009 Comes from Kahlil Gibran:
On Love: Work is love made visible.
The Thought for Tuesday, February 10, 2009 Comes from Kahlil Gibran:
On Love: And think not you can guide the course of love. For love, if it finds you worthy, shall guide your course.
The Thought for Monday, February 9, 2009 Comes from G. K. Chesterton:
On Love: Love means to love that which is unlovable, or it is no virtue at all.
The Thought for Sunday, February 8, 2009 Comes from Lord Byron:
On Love: Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it comes late in life.
The Thought for Saturday, February 7, 2009 Comes from Simeon Ben Eleazar:
On Love: Greater is he who acts from love than he who acts from fear.
The Thought for Friday, February 6, 2009 Comes from Manton S. Eddy:
On America: In a world where so much seems to be hidden by the smoke of falsity and moral degeneration, we Americans must grasp firmly the ideals which have made this country great. We must reaffirm the basic human values that have guided our forefathers. A revival of old-fashioned patriotism and a grateful acknowledgement of what our country had done for us would be good of all our souls.
The Thought for Thursday, February 5, 2009 Comes from James T. Farrell:
On America: America is so vast that almost everything said about it is likely to be true, and the opposite is probably equally true.
The Thought for Wednesday, February 4, 2009 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On America: America is another name for opportunity.
The Thought for Tuesday, February 3, 2009 Comes from William Feather:
On America: The superiority of the American system is eloquently proved by the pressure of people who want to crash our borders.
The Thought for Monday, February 2, 2009 Comes from Confucius:
On Wishes: What you do not wish upon yourself, extend not to others.
The Thought for Saturday, January 31, 2009 Comes from William Ralph Inge:
On Happiness: The happiest people seem to be those who have no particular reason for being so except that they are so.
The Thought for Friday, January 30, 2009 Comes from Thomas Dreier:
On Hate: It is better to give love. Hatred is a low and degrading emotion and is so poisonous that no man is strong enough to use it safely. The hatred we think we are directing against some person or thing or system has a devilish way of turning back upon us. When we seek revenge we administer slow poison to ourselves. When we administer affection it is astonishing what magical results we obtain.
The Thought for Thursday, January 29, 2009 Comes from Harry Emerson Fosdick:
On Hate: Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.
The Thought for Wednesday, January 28, 2009 Comes from Robert G. Ingersoll:
On Happiness: Happiness is not a reward—it is a consequence. Suffering is not punishment—it is a result.
The Thought for Tuesday, January 27, 2009 Comes from William Ralph Inge:
On Happiness: The happy people are those who are producing something; the bored people are those who are consuming much and producing nothing.
The Thought for Monday, January 26, 2009 Comes from Robert G. Ingersoll:
On Happiness: Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.
The Thought for Sunday, January 25, 2009 Comes from John Wayne:
On Life: Life's tough . . . it's even tougher if you're stupid.
The Thought for Saturday, January 24, 2009 Comes from Calvin Coolidge:
On America: It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he not a great man.
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The Thought for Friday, January 23, 2009 Comes from Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.:
On Life: Life's most persistent and urgent question is, "What are you doing for others?"
The Thought for Thursday, January 22, 2009 Comes from Chester Bowles:
On America: Despite whatever agreement there may be between some of us, let us never forget that we are all working whole-heartedly and humbly for the same goal—a country of peace, abundance and prosperity—for all of our people of all races, of all groups—whoever they may be, wherever they may live.
The Thought for Wednesday, January 21, 2009 Comes from Jane Addams:
On America: America's future will be determined by the home and the school. (A) child becomes largely what (he or she) is taught, hence we must watch what we teach (him or her), how we live before them.
The Thought for Tuesday, January 20, 2009 Comes from John Adams on July 3, 1776:
On America: Yesterday the greatest question was decided which was ever debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided upon men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that those United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.
The Thought for Monday, January 19, 2009 Comes from Frances Bacon:
On God: They that deny a God destroy man's nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and, if he be not kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.
The Thought for Sunday, January 18, 2009 Comes from Vince Lombardi:
On Coaches: Coaches who can outline plays on a black board are a dime of dozen. The ones who win get inside their player and motivate.
The Thought for Saturday, January 17, 2009 Comes from Vince Lombardi:
On Success: The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
The Thought for Friday, January 16, 2009 Comes from Truman Capote:
On America: It's a scientific fact that if you stay in California you lose one point of your IQ every year.
The Thought for Thursday, January 15, 2009 Comes from Georges Clemenceau:
On America: America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.
The Thought for Wednesday, January 14, 2009 Comes from Alexander Pope:
On Bribery: Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
The Thought for Tuesday, January 13, 2009 Comes from Alexander Pope:
On the Devil: Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.
The Thought for Monday, January 12, 2009 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On America: It is a very dangerous doctrine to consider the (Supreme Court) judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions. It is one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.
The Thought for Sunday, January 11, 2009 Comes from Gerald S. Lee:
On America: America is a tune. It must be sung together.
The Thought for Saturday, January 10, 2009 Comes from Walter Lippmann:
On America: The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of 50 different peoples. The Thought for Friday, January 9, 2009 Comes from Sinclair Lewis:
The Thought for Friday, January 9, 2009 Comes from Sinclair Lewis:
On America: Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.
The Thought for Thursday, January 8, 2009 Comes from Vince Lombardi:
On Football: Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.
The Thought for Wednesday, January 7, 2009 Comes from Vince Lombardi:
On Football: There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game and that is first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay and I never want to finish second again.
The Thought for Tuesday, January 6, 2009 Comes from an unknown source:
On Christians: Just going to church does not make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
The Thought for Monday, January 5, 2009 Comes from Alfred Lord Tennyson:
On the New Year: Ring out the old, ring in the new. Ring, happy bells, across the snow. The year is going, let him go. Ring out the false, ring in the true.
The Thought for Sunday, January 4, 2009 Comes from Aristotle:
On Hope: Hope is a waking dream.
The Thought for Saturday, January 3, 2009 Comes from Canon Lindsay Dewar:
On God: Every one comes between men's souls and God, either as a brick wall or as a bridge. Either you are leading men to God or you are driving them away.
The Thought for Friday, January 2, 2009 Comes from G. K. Chesterton:
On God: If there was not God, there would be no atheists.
The Thought for Thursday, January 1, 2009 Comes from Charles Kettering:
On Resolution: No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm. (Editor's Note: Do not be a fair weather person when it comes to making, keeping and achieving resolutions. As Thomas Edison has said: Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.)
The Thought for Wednesday, December 31, 2008 (New Year's Eve) Comes from Ed Bagley:
Each person occupying space on planet Earth is a child of God. These children of God include all who believe with faith and hope for their future. The sacred texts of the world's religions include the practice of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and primal religions. God sees all and knows all. No one escapes his scrutiny. What you do in darkness is revealed to God in the light of day. For those of you who do not honor God or who conduct your life as if there is no God, may God have mercy on your soul when your reckoning arrives, and may God bless us all.
The Thought for Tuesday, December 30, 2008 Comes from Alexander Pope:
On Expectation: Blessed is he who expects nothing for he shall never be disappointed.
The Thought for Monday, December 29, 2008 Comes from Alexander Pope:
On Self-Sacrifice: Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.
The Thought for Sunday, December 28, 2008 Comes from Alexander Pope:
On Judgment: 'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none go just alike, yet each believes his own.
The Thought for Saturday, December 27, 2008 Comes from Victor Hugo:
On Hope: Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.
The Thought for Friday, December 26, 2008 Comes from Benjamin Franklin:
On Christianity: He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.
The Thought for Thursday, December 25, 2008 (Christmas) Comes from The Holy Bible, King James Version, Luke, Chapter 2, Verses 10-14:
And the angel said unto (the shepherds), "Fear not, for behold I bring to you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace (and) good will toward men."
The Thought for Wednesday, December 24, 2008 (Christmas Eve) Comes from Ed Bagley (1944-):
Pause and be thankful tonight for all of the joys and blessings in your life. Bow down and realize your place in the universe. You did not create the environment in which you live, you merely occupy space; therefore, whatever good you are able to do, do it as a privilege with an open heart and in loving kindness. Many others are here on Earth that will never even sniff your good fortune.
The Thought for Tuesday, December 23, 2008 Comes from the Holy Bible, King James Version, Proverbs, Chapter 20, Verse 7:
The just man walketh in his integrity; his children are blessed after him.
The Thought for Monday, December 22,
2008 Comes from The Holy Bible, King James Version, Galatians, Chapter 3, Verses
28-29:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither bond nor free, there is neither male or female: for ye are all one in
Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs
according to the promise.
The Thought for Sunday, December 21, 2008 Comes from William Faulkner:
On Christianity: No one is without Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by the word. It is every individual's individual code of behavior by means of which he makes himself a better human being than his nature wants to be, if he followed his nature only.
The Thought for Saturday, December 20, 2008 Comes from Brooks Atkinson:
On Church: I have no objection to churches as long as they do not interfere with God's work.
The Thought for Friday, December 19, 2008 Comes from Rudolf Driekurs:
On Love: A great many people fall in love with or feel attracted to a person who offers the least possibility of harmonious union.
The Thought for Thursday, December 18, 2008 Comes from Christian Bovee:
On Peace: Tranquil pleasures last the longest. We are not fitted to bear long the burdens of great joy.
The Thought for Wednesday, December 17, 2008 Comes from Aristotle:
On Peace: It is more difficult to organize peace than to win a war; but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not well organized.
The Thought for Tuesday, December 16, 2008 Comes from James Allen:
On Peace: Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. It is the result of long and patient effort in self-control. Its presence is an indication of ripened experience and of a more than ordinary knowledge of the laws and operations of thought.
The Thought for Monday, December 15, 2008 Comes from Thomas Dreier:
On Hate: It is better to give love. Hatred is a low and degrading emotion and is so poisonous that no man is strong enough to use it safely. The hatred we think we are directing against some person or thing or system has a devilish way to turning back upon us. When we seek revenge we administer slow poison to ourselves. When we administer affection it is astonishing what magical results we obtain.
The Thought for Sunday, December 14, 2008 Comes from Harry Emerson Fosdick:
On Hate: Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.
The Thought for Saturday, December 13, 2008 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Profanity: Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
The Thought for Friday, December 12, 2008 Comes from Antonio Porchia:
On the Future: Humanity does not know where to go because no one is waiting for it: not even God.
The Thought for Thursday, December 11, 2008 Comes from Thomas A. Edison:
On Business: There is far more danger in a public monopoly than there is in a private monopoly, for when government goes into business it can always shift its losses to the taxpayer. The Government never really goes into business, for it never makes ends meet, and that is the first requisite of business. It just mixes a little business with a lot of politics, and no one ever gets a chance to find out what is actually going on.
The Thought for Wednesday, December 10, 2008 Comes from Josh Billings:
On Children: To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.
The Thought for Tuesday, December 9, 2008 Comes from Jean de la Bruyere:
On Children: Children enjoy the present because they have neither a past nor a future.
The Thought for Monday, December 8, 2008 Comes from Knute Rockne:
On College Football: Four years of football are calculated to breed in the average man more of the ingredients of success in life than almost any academic course he takes.
The Thought for Sunday, December 7, 2008 Comes from Albert Einstein:
On Success: If A is success in life, then A equals X plus Y plus Z. Work is X, Y is play and Z is keeping your mouth shut.
The Thought for Saturday, December 6, 2008 Comes from Bill Rogers:
On Running: My whole feeling in terms of racing is that you have to be very bold. You sometimes have to be aggressive and gamble.
The Thought for Friday, December 5, 2008 Comes from a sign on a runner's office wall:
On Running: Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle—when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.
The Thought for Thursday, December 4, 2008 Comes from B. C. Forbes:
On Careers: Think not of yourself as the architect of your career but as the sculptor. Expect to have to do a lot of hard hammering and chiselling and scraping and polishing.
The Thought for Wednesday, December 3, 2008 Comes from Sir Chinmoy:
On Enemies: I love my enemies for two reasons: They inspire me to recognize my weakness. They also inspire me to perfect my imperfect nature.
The Thought for Tuesday, December 2, 2008 Comes from Harry F. Banks:
On Employees: For employee success, loyalty and integrity are equally as important as ability.
Thought for Monday, December 1, 2008 Comes from William J. H. Boetcker:
On Employees: If you want to be respected, be respectable. If you want to be liked, be likeable. If you want to be loved, be lovable. If you want to be employed, be employable.
The Thought for Sunday, November 30, 2008 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Idleness: Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
The Thought for Saturday, November 29, 2008 Comes from Henry Ford:
On Idleness: Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind. Thinking without constructive action becomes a disease.
The Thought for Friday, November 28, 2008 Comes from Martin Van Buren:
On Jobs: It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn't.
The Thought for Thursday, November 27, 2008 Comes from Ed Bagley:
On Thanksgiving: I believe it was the famous American short story writer O. Henry (the pseudonym of William Sydney Porter) who first said that Thanksgiving Day is the only holiday that is purely American (without involvement from other cultures or world events). It was Seneca who advanced the idea that "he who receives a benefit with gratitude repays the first installment on his debt." I would say that he who receives a benefit with gratitude understands the great gift and joy of serving others. Here is wishing you a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving Day.
The Thought for Wednesday, November 26, 2008 Comes from Ray Eppert:
On Careers: Nothing, not even sheer ability, can make up for the dedication required for a successful business career.
The Thought for Tuesday, November 25, 2008 Comes from Knute Rockne:
On Football: Yes, I know that you feel you are not strong enough. That's what the enemy thinks too. But we're gonna fool them.
The Thought for Monday, November 24, 2008 Comes from Knute Rockne:
On Football: At home we're the hosts, and I never liked the idea of being embarrassed in front of our friends.
The Thought for Sunday, November 23, 2008 Comes from Andre Gide:
On Peacemaking: It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.
The Thought for Saturday, November 22, 2008 Comes from Alexander Pope:
On Foolishness: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
The Thought for Friday, November 21, 2008 Comes from Alexander Pope:
On Power: The ends must justify the means.
The Thought for Thursday, November 20, 2008 Comes from Alexander Pope:
On Forgiveness: To err is human, to forgive, divine.
The Thought for Wednesday, November 19, 2008 Comes from Alexander Pope:
On Fools: Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
The Thought for Tuesday, November 18, 2008 Comes from Alexander Pope:
On Right: Always do right. That will gratify some of the people and astonish the rest.
The Thought for Monday, November 17, 2008 Comes from Oliver Goldsmith:
On Adversity: The greatest object in the universe, says a certain philosopher, is a good man struggling with adversity; yet there is still a greater, which is the good man that comes to relieve it.
The Thought for Sunday, November 16, 2008 Comes from a French Proverb:
On Adversity: Adversity makes men; good fortune makes monsters.
The Thought for Saturday, November 15, 2008 Comes from Marcus Aurelious Antoninus:
On Goodness: Let us put an end, once for all, to this discussion of what a good man should be—and be one.
The Thought for Friday, November 14, 2008 Comes from W. H. Auden:
On Goodness: Goodness is easier to recognize than to define.
The Thought for Thursday, November 13, 2008 Comes from Aristotle:
On Goodness: Good has two meanings: it means that which is good absolutely and that which is good for somebody.
The Thought for Wednesday, November 12, 2008 Comes from Knute Rockne:
On Sportsmanship: One man practicing sportsmanship is better than 100 teaching it.
The Thought for Tuesday, November 11, 2008 Comes from Charles Caleb Colton:
On Change: Reform is a . . . cathartic which our political quacks recommend to others, but will not take themselves; it is admired by all who cannot effect it, and abused by all who can.
The Thought for Monday, November 10, 2008 Comes from Winston Churchill:
On Change: There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.
The Thought for Sunday, November 9, 2008 Comes from Arthur C. Clark:
On Imagination: The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.
The Thought for Saturday, November 8, 2008 Comes from John Stuart Mill:
On Individuals: A people, it appears, may be progressive for a certain length of time, and then stop. When does it stop? When it ceases to possess individuality. Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called.
The Thought for Friday, November 7, 2008
Comes from Donald A. Laird:
On Individuals: Be thankful not only
that you are an individual but also that others are different. The world needs
all kinds, but it also needs to respect and use that individuality.
The Thought for Thursday, November 6, 2008
Comes from Dwight D. Eisenhower:
On Voting: Our American heritage is
threatened as much by our own indifference as it is by the most unscrupulous
office or by the most powerful foreign threat. The future of this republic is in
the hands of the American voter.
The Thought for Wednesday, November 5,
2008 Comes from John Quincy Adams:
On Voting: Always vote for a principle,
though you vote alone, and you may cherish the sweet reflection that your vote
is never lost.
The Thought for Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Comes from William Feather:
On Voting: A lot of voters always cast
their ballot for the candidate who seems to them to be one of the people. That
means he must have the same superstitions, the same unbalanced prejudices, and
the same lack of understanding of public finances that are characteristic of the
majority. A better choice would be a candidate who has a closer understanding
and a better education than the majority. Too much voting is based on affability
rather than on ability.
The Thought for Monday, November 3, 2008
Comes from William Bennett Munro:
On Voting: People vote their resentment,
not their appreciation. The average man does not vote for anything, but against
something.
The Thought for Sunday, November 2, 2008
Comes from Knute Rockne:
On Thinking: Most men, when they are
thinking, are merely rearranging their prejudices.
The Thought for Saturday, November 1, 2008
Comes from Herbert V. Prochnow:
On Mistakes: The fellow who never makes
a mistake takes his orders from one who does.
The Thought for Friday, October 31, 2008
Comes from Gamaliel Bradford:
On Greatness: All men who are really
great can afford to be really human and to be shown so.
The Thought for Thursday, October 30, 2008
Comes from Knute Rockne:
On Football: Show me a good and gracious
loser and I'll show you a failure.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 29,
2008 Comes from Edward Gibbon:
On Education: Every man who rises above
the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers, the
second, more personal and important, from himself.
The Thought for Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Comes from Epictetus:
On Gratitude: He is a man of sense who
does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has.
The Thought for Monday, October 27, 2008
Comes from Sophia Loren:
On Mistakes: Mistakes are part of the
dues one pays for a full life.
The Thought for Sunday, October 26, 2008
Comes from Oscar Wilde:
On Mistakes: Experience is simply the
name we give our mistakes.
The Thought for Saturday, October 25, 2008
Comes from Knute Rockne:
On Football: "It isn't necessary to see
a good tackle. You can hear it."
The Thought for Friday, October 24, 2008
Comes from Theodore Hesburgh:
On Decision-Making: Don't make decisions
because they are the easiest, the cheapest, or the most popular. Make your
decision because it's right.
The Thought for Thursday, October 23, 2008
Comes from Cicero:
On Happiness: I do not understand what
the man who is happy wants in order to be happier.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 22,
2008 Comes from Lydia M. Child:
On Happiness: An effort made for the
happiness of others lifts us above ourselves.
The Thought for Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Comes from Ed Bagley:
On Evil: All of those who believe they
can negotiate with an evil person or an evil organization are doomed to fail.
Only the devil knows what is happening. The way to deal with an evil person or
an evil organization is to crush them as you would a cockroach in a dirty place,
recognizing that there is no human force great enough to eliminate all of them
from planet Earth.
The Thought for Monday, October 20, 2008
Comes from Henry L. Doherty:
On Greatness: A great man is one who can
have power and not abuse it.
The Thought for Sunday, October 19, 2008
Comes from John Truslow Adams:
On Greatness: Lincoln was not great
because he was born in a log cabin, but because he got out of it.
The Thought for Saturday, October 18, 2008
Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Evil: The first lesson of history is
that evil is good. (Editor's Note: If you find this quote confusing, recognize
that without evil there would be no good. We recognize good because we can
compare it to evil behavior.)
The Thought for Friday, October 17, 2008
Comes from John Mason Brown:
On Happiness: No man, with a man's heart
in him gets far on his way without some bitter, soul-searching disappointment.
Happy is he who is brave enough to push on to another stage of the journey.
The Thought for Thursday, October 16, 2008
Comes from Eugene V. Debs:
On Greatness: Anybody can be nobody, but
it takes a man to be somebody.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 15,
2008 Comes from William Ellery Channing:
On Happiness: The office of government
is not to confer happiness, but to give men opportunity to work out happiness
for themselves.
The Thought for Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Comes from Edwin Arlington Robinson:
On Gratitude: Two kinds of gratitude:
The sudden kind we feel for what we take; the larger kind we feel for what we
give.
The Thought for Monday, October 13, 2008
Comes from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 8:11:
On Evil: Because sentence against an
evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is
fully set in them to do evil.
The Thought for Sunday, October 12, 2008
Comes from Edward Gibbon:
On History: History is indeed little
more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.
The Thought for Saturday, October 11, 2008
Comes from Fernand Braudel:
On Happiness: Happiness, whether in
business or private life, leaves very little trace in history.
The Thought for Friday, October 10, 2008
Comes from Sebastien Chamfort:
On Happiness: It is with happiness as
with watches: the less complicated, the less easily deranged.
The Thought for Thursday, October 9, 2008
Comes from Confucius:
On Greatness: There are three marks of a
superior man: being virtuous, he is free from anxiety; being wise, he is free
from perplexity; being brave, he is free from fear.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Comes from W. J. Dawson:
On Evil: You need not choose evil; but
have only to fail to choose good, and you drift fast enough toward evil. You do
not need to say, "I will be bad," you have only to say, "I will not choose God's
choice," and the choice of evil is already settled.
The Thought for Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Comes from Plutarch:
On Gratitude: The worship most
acceptable to God comes from a thankful and cheerful heart.
The Thought for Monday, October 6, 2008
Comes from Hobart Brown:
On Happiness: Money doesn't always bring
happiness. People with ten million dollars are no happier than people with nine
million dollars.
The Thought for Sunday, October 5, 2008
Comes from Herbert N. Casson:
On Happiness: If money is all that a man
makes, then he will be poor—poor in happiness, poor in all that makes life worth
living.
The Thought for Saturday, October 4, 2008
Comes from Samuel M. Shoemaker, D.D.:
On Greed: No leader can make a happy,
humane, workable society out of a stubborn lot of individualists who are more
conscious of their rights than of their responsibilities, who accept a low moral
standard in business and family life, who want more than they need, and are
motivated by fear and greed, some of them forcing their will through blocs of
special interests which are prejudicial to the welfare of the whole society.
The Thought for Friday, October 3, 2008
Comes from Edward Dahlberg:
On Evil: Evil, which is our companion
all our days, is not to be treated as a foe. It is wrong to cocker (embrace)
vice, but we grow narrow and pithless if we are furtive about it, for this is at
best a pretense, and the sage knows good and evil are kindred. The worst of men
harm others, and the best injure themselves.
The Thought for Thursday, October 2, 2008
Comes from Winston Churchill:
On Greatness: The price of greatness is
responsibility.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Comes from John Milton:
On Gratitude: A man may be ungrateful,
but the human race is not so.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 30,
2008 Comes from Andrew Carnegie:
On Happiness: The secret of happiness is
renunciation.
The Thought for Monday, September 29, 2008
Comes from Lao-Tzu:
On Greed: There is no calamity greater
than lavish desires; there is no greater guilt than discontentment; and there is
no greater disaster than greed.
The Thought for Sunday, September 28, 2008
Comes from Charles Caleb Colton:
On Evil: Evils in the journey of life
are like the hills which alarm travelers on the road. Both appear great at a
distance, but when we approach them we find they are far less insurmountable
that we had conceived.
The Thought for Saturday, September 27,
2008 Comes from a Chinese Proverb:
On Greatness: There is a great man who
makes every man feel small. But the really great man is the man who makes every
man feel great.
The Thought for Friday, September 26, 2008
Comes from Samuel Johnson:
On Gratitude: Gratitude is the fruit of
great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.
The Thought for Thursday, September 25,
2008 Comes from Lord Byron:
On Happiness: There comes forever
something between us and what we deem our happiness.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 24,
2008 Comes from David Hume:
On Greed: Avarice, or the desire of
gain, is a universal passion which operates at all times, at all places, and
upon all persons.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 23,
2008 Comes from Sir Chinmoy:
On Evil: Do not be afraid of evil. But
be always cheerful in doing good. Evil will soon leave you, for evil is
extremely jealous of good.
The Thought for Monday, September 22, 2008
Comes from a Chinese Proverb:
On Greatness: Great men never feel
great; small men never feel small.
The Thought for Sunday, September 21, 2008
Comes from William James:
On Gratitude: The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be
appreciated.
The Thought for Saturday, September 20,
2008 Comes from Lord Byron:
On Happiness: All who would win joy,
must share it; happiness was born a twin.
The Thought for Friday, September 19, 2008
Comes from Kahlil Gibran:
On Greed: Is not dread of thirst when
your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?
The Thought for Thursday, September 18,
2008 Comes from G. K. Chesterton:
On Evil: The old assumption of the
approximate impossibility of war really rested on a similar assumption about the
impossibility of evil—and especially of evil in high places.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 17,
2008 Comes from Hugh C. Cameron:
On Greatness: Great minds discuss ideas,
average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 16,
2008 Comes from Knute Rockne:
On Coaching: The secret is to work less
as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my 11 best, but my
best 11.
Thought for Monday, September 15, 2008
Comes from Samuel Butler:
On Happiness: We have all sinned and
come short of the glory of making ourselves as comfortable as we easily might
have done.
The Thought for Sunday, September 14, 2008
Comes from a German Proverb:
On Greed: Avarice hoards itself poor,
charity gives itself rich.
The Thought for Saturday, September 13,
2008 Comes from Thomas Carlyle:
On Evil: Men's hearts ought not be set
against one another, but set with one another, and all against evil only.
The Thought for Friday, September 12, 2008
Comes from Ed Bagley:
On Mistakes: There are no mistakes, only
lessons to be learned, and the sooner we learn those lessons the better it will
be for our own good, and the good of our family, our friends, and our neighbors.
The Thought for Thursday, September 11,
2008 Comes from Cicero:
On Gratitude: Gratitude is not only the
greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 10,
2008 Comes from Adam Clarke:
On Happiness: I have lived to know that
the great secret of happiness is this: never suffer your energies to stagnate.
The old adage of too many irons in the fire, conveys an abominable lie. You
cannot have too many—poker, tongs, and all—keep them all going.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Comes from Cicero:
On Greed: Avarice, in old age, is
foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the
road the nearer we approach to our journey's end?
The Thought for Monday, September 8, 2008
Comes from Richard E. Byrd:
On Evil: Man's problem in the last
analysis is man himself. A man beset by evil within and from without can
mobilize his spiritual resources to conquer that evil. Just so can the human
race mobilize its moral and spiritual power to defeat the material power of evil
that threatens it.
The Thought for Sunday, September 7, 2008
Comes from Bruce Barton:
On Greatness: Great men suffer hours of
depression through introspection and self-doubt. That is why they are great.
That is why you will find modesty and humility the characteristics of such men.
The Thought for Saturday, September 6,
2008 Comes from Napoleon Bonaparte:
On Gratitude: Do you know what is more
hard to bear than the reverse of fortune? It is the baseness, the hideous
ingratitude of man.
The Thought for Friday, September 5, 2008
Comes from Adam Clarke:
On Happiness: We communicate happiness
to others not often by great acts of devotion and self-sacrifice, but by the
absence of fault-finding and censure, by being ready to sympathize with their
notions and feelings, instead of forcing them to sympathize with ours.
The Thought for Thursday, September 4,
2008 Comes from George A. Butterick:
On Evil: Only one thing is worse than a
devil and that is an educated devil.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 3,
2008 Comes from Marcus Aurelius Antoninus:
On Greatness: A
man's true greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest purpose in life,
founded on a just estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent
self-examinations, and a steady obedience to the rule which he knows to be
right, without troubling himself about what others may think or say, or whether
they do or do not that which he thinks and says and does.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Comes from St. Ambrose:
On Gratitude: No duty is more urgent
than that of returning thanks.
The Thought for Monday, September 1, 2008
Comes from Edmund Burke:
On Evil: When bad men combine, the good
must associate, else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a
contemptible struggle.
The Thought for Sunday, August 31, 2008
Comes from a Chinese Proverb:
On Happiness: Happiness is someone to
love, something to do, and something to hope for.
The Thought for Saturday, August 30, 2008
Comes from Anatole France:
On Faults: People who have no faults are
terrible; there is no way to take advantage of them.
The Thought for Friday, August 29, 2008
Comes from Albert Einstein:
On Education: Education is that which
remains when one has forgotten everything he learned in school.
The Thought for Thursday, August 28, 2008
Comes from James A. Garfield:
On Education: Next in importance to
freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor
justice can be permanently maintained.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 27 2008 Comes from the great Notre Dame Coach Knute Rockne:
On Sports: I've found that prayers work best when you have big players.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 26 2008 Comes from the great Notre Dame Coach
Knute Rockne:
On Sports: On the road we're
somebody else's guests, and we play in a way that they're not going to forget we
visited them.
The Thought for Monday, August 25, 2008 Comes from Hans Christian Andersen:
On Evil: Eighty percent of our
criminals come from unsympathetic homes.
The Thought for Sunday, August 24, 2008 Comes from Winston Churchill:
On Happiness: One does not leave
a convivial party before closing time.
The Thought for Saturday, August 23, 2008 Comes from Napoleon Bonaparte:
On Evil:
The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together
corrupt each other. They are worse than ever when, at the termination of their
punishment, they return to society. (Editor's Note: Well said, Nappy. Just think
of Level 3 sex offender let loose on society for a third time, or a pedophile
priest who is reassigned to another parish rather than being prosecuted in a
court of law.)
The Thought for Friday, August 22, 2008 Comes from Virginia C. Gildersleeve:
On Education: The ability to
think straight, some knowledge of the past, some vision of the future, some
skill to do useful service, some urge to fit that service into the wellbeing of
the community—these are the most vital things education must try to produce. If
we can achieve them in the citizens of our land, then, given the right to
knowledge and the free use thereof, we shall have brought to America the wisdom
and the courage to match her destiny.
The Thought for Thursday, August 21, 2008 Comes from Ezra Taft Benson:
On Evil: There is no happiness in
wickedness.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 20, 2008 Comes from Josh Billings:
On Conscience: Reason often makes
mistakes, but conscience never does.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 19, 2008 comes from a fact on the inside cap of
a bottle of Peach Diet Snapple (one of my drinks of choice):
On Exercise: An American adult
takes an average of 18,000 steps daily.
The Thought for Monday, August 18, 2008 Comes from Arnold Glasow:
On Education: One of the chief
objects of education should be to widen the windows through which we view the
world.
The Thought for Sunday, August 17, 2008 Comes from Tyron Edwards:
On Education: The great end of
education is, to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the
use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others.
The Thought for Saturday, August 16, 2008 Comes from James M. Barrie:
On Happiness: Those who bring
sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.
The Thought for Friday, August 15, 2008 Comes from James M. Barrie:
On Happiness: It is not in doing
what you like, but in liking what you do that is the secret of happiness.
The Thought for Thursday, August 14, 2008 Comes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
On Education: Alas! How much
there is in education, and in our social institutions, to prepare us and our
children for insanity.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 13, 2008 Comes from John Foster Dulles:
On Education: I wouldn't attach
too much importance to these student riots. I remember when I was a student at
the Sorbonne I used to out and riot occasionally.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 12, 2008 Comes from Harry F. Banks:
On Happiness: Nothing comes easy
that is done well.
The Thought for Monday, August 11, 2008 Comes from William J. H. Boetcker:
On Character: Your greatness is
measured by your kindness— Your education and intellect by your modesty— Your
ignorance is betrayed by your suspicions and prejudices— Your real caliber is
measured by the consideration and tolerance you have for others.
The Thought for Sunday, August 10, 2008 Comes from Gail Godwin:
On Education: Good teaching is
one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theatre.
The Thought for Saturday, August 9, 2008 Comes from Joseph Addison:
On Happiness: Three great
essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and
something to hope for.
The Thought for Friday, August 8, 2008 Comes from John Sloan Dickey:
On Education: The college
undergraduate is a lot of things—many of them as familiar, predictable and
responsible as the bounce of a basketball, and others as startling (and
occasionally as disastrous) as the bouncing of a football.
The Thought for Thursday, August 7, 2008 Comes from Lord Halifax:
On Education: Education is what
remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 6, 2008 Comes from Henry Ward Beecher:
On Character: A man's ledger does
not tell what he is, or what he is worth. Count what is in man, not what is on
him, if you would know what he is worth—whether rich or poor.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 5, 2008 Comes from Marcus Aurelius Antoninus:
On Happiness: The happiness of
our life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard
accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notion unsuitable to virtue and
reasonable nature.
The Thought for Monday, August 4, 2008 Comes from Joseph Addison:
On Happiness: A man should always
consider how much he has more than he wants and how much more unhappy he might
be than he really is.
The Thought for Sunday, August 3, 2008 Comes from G. Stanley Hall:
On Education: Education has now
become the chief problem of the world, its one holy cause. The nations that see
this will survive, and those that fail to do so will slowly perish . . . There
must be re-education of the will and of the heart as well as of the intellect,
and the ideals of service must supplant those of selfishness and greed.
The Thought for Saturday, August 2, 2008 Comes from Harry F. Banks:
On Character: Courtesy, kindness,
sincerity, truthfulness, thoughtfulness and good manners translated into
behavior reflect one's true character.
The Thought for Friday, August 1, 2008 Comes from Somerset Maugham:
On Faults: Like all weak men he
laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
The Thought for Thursday, July 31, 2008 Comes from Ed Bagley:
On Character: Determining a
person's character is easy. Just listen very carefully to what they say, and
then watch even more carefully what they do. What they do is who they are.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 30, 2008 Comes from Roger W. Babson:
On Character: A character
standard is far more important than ever a gold standard. The success of all
economic systems is still dependent upon both righteous leaders and righteous
people. In the last analysis, our national future depends upon our national
character—that is, whether it is spiritually or materially minded.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 29, 2008 Comes from Ernest Dimnet:
On Education: A school is a place
through which you have to pass before entering life, but where the teaching
proper does not prepare you for life.
The Thought for Monday, July 28, 2008 Comes from John A. Hannah:
On Education: Higher education
must lead the march back to the fundamentals of human relationships, to the old
discovery that is ever new, the man does not live by bread alone.
The Thought for Sunday, July 27, 2008 Comes from Max Beerbohm:
On Faults: It is easier to
confess a defect than to claim a quality.
The Thought for Saturday, July 26, 2008 Comes from Robert Harris:
On Education: If Americans have
had a paramount educational objective, it has not been the building of bigger
and bigger intellects but rather the setting of men upon their own feet.
(Editor's Note: I think that Robert Harris meant that a man needs to become
self-reliant, useful and contribute something to society besides occupying space
and looking for a handout.)
The Thought for Friday, July 25, 2008 Comes from Ewin H. Chapin:
On Individuality: Not armies, not
nations, have advanced the race; but here and there, in the course of the ages,
an individual has stood up and cast his shadow over the world.
The Thought for Thursday, July 24, 2008 Comes from Wilma Askinas:
On Character: Don't mistake
personality for character.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 23, 2008 Comes from Russell Lynes:
On Faults: It is always well to
accept your own shortcomings with candor but to regard those of your friends
with incredulity.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 22, 2008 Comes from Frederick E. Crane:
On Individuality: Individuality
is either the mark of genius or the reverse. Mediocrity finds safety in
standardization.
The Thought for Monday, July 21, 2008 Comes from Merimon Cuninggim:
On Education: The teaching
profession is the only profession that has no definition for malpractice.
The Thought for Sunday, July 20, 2008 Comes from Aristotle:
On Character: Character is that
which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or
avoids.
The Thought for Saturday, July 19, 2008 Comes from Peter Drucker:
On Business: The only things that
evolve by themselves in an organization are disorder, friction and
malperformance.
The Thought for Friday, July 18, 2008 Comes from William Feather:
On Individuality: No task is so
humble that it does not offer an outlet for individuality.
The Thought for Thursday, July 17, 2008 Comes from an African Proverb:
On Character: Wherever man goes
to dwell, his character goes with him.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 16, 2008 Comes from Nathaniel Hawthorne:
On Individuality: Every
individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important in some respect,
whether he chooses to be so or not.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 15, 2008 Comes from George L. Brown:
On Business: Life is too short to be unhappy in business. If business were not a
part of the joy of living, we might almost say that we have no right to live,
because it is a pretty poor man who cannot get into the line for which he is
fitted.
The Thought for Monday, July 14, 2008 Comes from Hugh Prather:
On Faults: Unless I accept my
faults, I will most certainly doubt my virtues.
The
Thought for Sunday, July 13, 2008 Comes from John C. Gifford:
On Individuality: One man can
completely change the character of a country, and the industry of its people, by
dropping a single seed in fertile soil.
The Thought for Saturday, July 12, 2008 Comes from George Carlin:
On Bathrooms: Why do they lock
gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?
The Thought for Friday, July 11, 2008 Comes from Jack Nicklaus:
On Faults: Focus on remedies, not
faults.
The Thought for Thursday, July 10, 2008 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Courage: A great part of
courage is having done the thing before.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 9, 2008 Comes from John Drew:
On Business: Never shrink from
doing anything which your business calls you to do. The man who is above his
business may one day find his business above him.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 8, 2008 Comes from Les Brown:
On Faults: Forgive yourself your
faults and your mistakes and move on.
The Thought for Monday, June 7, 2008 Comes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
On Children: Children, love one
another, and if that is not possible—at least try to put up with one another.
The Thought for Sunday, July 6, 2008 Comes from Thomas Edison's Last Public
Message:
On Courage: My message to you is:
Be courageous! I have lived a long time. I have seen history repeat itself again
and again. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has come out
stronger and more prosperous. Be as brave as your fathers before you. Have
faith! Go forward.
The Thought for Saturday, July 5, 2008 Comes from Henry L. Doherty:
On Business: There ought to be
more scrupulous honesty in big business men than in any other human relation.
For big business requires teamwork on a gigantic scale. (Editor's Note: Doherty
must have lived in another age. Too many big business leaders today tend to lie,
cheat and steal their way to fat bonuses at the expense of their stockholders
and customers.)
The Thought for Friday, July 4, 2008 Comes from Bernice Moore:
On Independence: Self-government,
self-discipline (and) self-responsibility are the triple safeguards of the
independence of man.
The Thought for Thursday, July 3, 2008 Comes from Grayson Kirk:
On Children: Our greatest
obligation to our children is to prepare them to understand and to deal
effectively with the world in which they will live and not with the world we
have known or the world we would prefer to have.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 2, 2008 Comes from Pierre Corneille:
On Courage: Every man of courage
is a man of his word.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 1, 2008 Comes from Bernard Berenson:
On Faults: Life has taught me
that it is not for our faults that we are disliked and even hated, but for our
qualities.
Thought for Monday, June 30, 2008 Comes from Thomas E. Dewey:
On Business: Things that are bad
for business are bad for the people who work for business.
The Thought for Sunday, June 29, 2008 Comes from Garrison Keillor:
On Children: Nothing you do for
children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our
eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.
The Thought for Saturday, June 28, 2008 Comes from Charles Caleb Colton:
On Courage: Physical courage,
which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage,
which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another.
The Thought for Friday, June 27, 2008 Comes from Jack Kerouac:
On Faults: My fault, my failure,
is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.
The Thought for Thursday, June 26, 2008 Comes from Jack Warner, Warner Brothers
Co-Founder:
On Relatives: I have a theory of
relatives, too—don't hire 'em.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 25, 2008 Comes from Calvin Coolidge:
On Business: No enterprise can
exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need, it performs some great
service, not for itself, but for others; or failing therein, it ceases to be
profitable and ceases to exist.
The Thought for Tuesday, June 24, 2008 Comes from Winston Churchill:
On Courage: Courage is what takes
to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
The Thought for Monday, June 23, 2008 Comes from Anatole France:
On Deception: It is in the
ability to deceive oneself that the greatest talent is shown.
The Thought for Sunday, June 22, 2008 Comes from Cullen Hightower:
On Children: Adolescence is the
period of life when we first become obsessed with trying to prove we are not a
child—an obsession that can last a lifetime.
The Thought for Saturday, June 21, 2008 Comes from Gerald Ford:
On Bureaucracy: One of the
enduring truths of the nation's capital is that bureaucrats survive.
The
Thought for Friday, June 20, 2008 Comes from Winston Churchill:
On Courage: Courage is the first
of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all the others.
The Thought for Thursday, June 19, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Vision: In the business world,
the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 18, 2008 Comes from Albert Einstein:
Bureaucracy is the death of
achievement.
The Thought for Tuesday, June 17, 2008 Comes from William M. Bryngelson:
On Business: All purchases are
born of dissatisfaction. No purchase of any product anywhere—impluse or
deliberation—is ever made unless the purchaser is first dissatisfied in his
present state.
The Thought for Monday, June 16, 2008 Comes from Epictetus:
On Courage: And have you not
received faculties which will enable you to bear all that happens to you? Have
you not received greatness of spirit? Have you not received courage? Have you
not received endurance?
The Thought for Sunday, June 15, 2008 Comes from Sidney J. Harris:
On Children: We try to make our
children become more like us, instead of trying to become more like them—with
the result that we pick up none of their good traits, and they pick up most of
our bad ones.
The Thought for Saturday, June 14, 2008 Come from Brooks Atkinson:
On Bureaucracy: The perfect
bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all
responsibility.
The Thought for Friday, June 13, 2008 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Courage: Whatever you do, you
need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell
you you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to
believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it
to an end, requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs. Peace has
its victories, but it takes brave men to win them.
The Thought for Thursday, June 12, 2008 Comes from Philip D. Reed:
On Character: It is sometimes
frightening to observe the success which comes even to the outlaw with a
polished technique, and we find ourselves doubting the validity of the virtues
we have been taught. But I believe we must reckon with character in the end, for
it is as potent a force in world conflict as it is in our own domestic affairs.
It strikes the last blow in any battle.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 11, 2008 Comes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
On Conduct: Treat people as if
they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are
capable of being.
The Thought for Tuesday June 10, 2008 Comes from William J. H. Boetcker:
On Confidence: Confidence is the
foundation of all business relations. The degree of confidence a man has in
others, and the degree of confidence others have in him, determines a man's
standing in the commercial and industrial world.
The Thought for Monday, June 9, 2008 Comes from Blaise Pascal:
On Conduct: The virtue of man
ought to be measured by, not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his everyday
conduct.
The Thought for Sunday, June 8, 2008 Comes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
Behavior is a mirror, in which
everyone shows his image.
The Thought for Saturday, June 7, 2008 Come from Robert Frost:
On Banks: A bank is a place where
they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to
rain.
The Thought for Friday, June 6, 2008 Comes from Blaine Lee :
On Leadership: The great leaders
are like the best conductors, they reach beyond the notes to reach the magic in
the players.
The Thought for Thursday, June 5, 2008 Comes from St. Francis de Sales:
On Love: You learn to speak by
speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just
the same way, you learn to love by loving.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 4, 2008 is Anonymous:
On Love: Love does not make the
world go around, but it sure make the ride worthwhile.
The Thought for Tuesday June 3, 2008 Comes from Alfred Lord Tennyson:
On Risk: To strive, to seek, to
find, and not to yield.
The Thought for Monday, June 2, 2008 Comes from Calvin Coolidge:
On Perseverance: Nothing in the
world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common
than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost
a proverb. Education will not; the world if full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The Thought for Sunday, June 1, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Perseverance: If someone were
to ask me to pick one word to describe any success I've enjoyed, I wouldn't
hesitate: the word would be "perseverance".
The Thought for Saturday, March 31, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Excellence: No one attains
greatness simply by doing what is required; it is what they do beyond the
required that takes them to the (top).
The Thought for Friday, May 30, 2008 Comes from Vince Lombardi:
On Excellence: The quality of a
person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence,
regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
The Thought for Thursday, May 29, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Excellence: Countless unseen
details are often the only difference between mediocre and magnificent.
The Thought for Wednesday, May 28, 2008 Comes from John Wooden:
On Adversity: Adversity does not
build character . . . it reveals it.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 27, 2008 Comes from Richard Moss:
On Listening: The greatest gift
you can give another is the purity of your attention.
The Thought for Monday, May 26, 2008 Comes from St. Francis of Assisi:
On Convictions: It is no use
walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.
The Thought for Sunday, May 25, 2008 is an English Proverb:
On Integrity: A quiet conscience
sleeps in thunder.
The Thought for Saturday, May 24, 2008 is Anonymous:
On Priorities: A hundred years
from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I live
in, or the kind of car I drove . . . but the world may be different because I
was important in the life of a child.
The Thought for Friday, May 23, 2008 Comes from Benjamin Franklin:
On Listening: Remember not only
to say the right thing in the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing
at the tempting moment. (Editor's Note: Benjamin Franklin was arguably the most
famous and most effective ambassador in the history of the United States.)
The Thought for Thursday, May 22, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Kindness: We all want to feel
important, and one of the simplest acts of kindness, one of the simplest ways to
make anyone feel important is to sincerely listen to what they have to say.
The Thought for Wednesday, May 21, 2008 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Kindness: One of the greatest
compensations of life is that no person can help another without helping
themselves.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 20, 2008 Comes from William Wordsworth:
On Kindness: The best portion of a good man's life (is) his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.
The Thought for Monday, May 19, 2008 Comes from Aesop:
On Kindness: No act of kindness,
no matter how small, is ever wasted.
The Thought for Sunday, May 18, 2008 is Anonymous:
On Diversity: It takes both the
black and white keys to play the Star Spangled Banner.
The Thought for Saturday, May 17, 2008 Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Exercise: A strong body makes
the mind strong.
The Thought for Friday, May 16, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Patience: I once asked a
surfer if surfing was dangerous. He answered, "Very dangerous if you don’t know
what you are doing." He explained that many people drown when a large wave takes
them under and their instincts tell them to fight to get back to the surface.
The key, he said, is to do just the opposite; let your body go limp and the
currents will bring you to the surface.
The Thought for Thursday, May 15, 2008 is Anonymous:
On Patience: Patience is bitter
but the fruit is sweet.
The Thought for Wednesday, May 14, 2008 Comes from Leo Tolstoy:
On Patience: The two most
powerful warriors are patience and time.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 13, 2008 Comes from Vince Lombardi:
On Discipline: The difference
between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of
knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
The Thought for Monday, May 12, 2008 Comes from Aristotle:
On Discipline: We are what we
repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.
The Thought for Sunday, May 11, 2008 Comes is Anonymous:
On Discipline: To get what you've
never had, you must do what you've never done.
The Thought for Saturday, May 10, 2008 is Anonymous:
On Living: There once was a very
cautious man, who never laughed or cried, he never cared, he never dared, he
never dreamed or tried. And when one day he passed away, his insurance was
denied. For since he never really lived, they claimed he never died.
The Thought for Friday, May 9, 2008 is Anonymous:
On Challenges: By facing our
challenges we discover our potential.
The Thought for Thursday, May 8, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Focus: To accomplish "more" we
need to focus on "less".
The Thought for Wednesday, May 7, 2008 is a Chinese Proverb:
On Focus: If you chase two
rabbits both will escape.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 6, 2008 is an Italian Proverb:
On Focus: Often he who does too
much, does too little.
The Thought for Monday, May 5, 2008 Comes from Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe:
On Taking Action: Knowing is not
enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
The Thought for Sunday, May 4, 2008 is Anonymous:
On Taking Action: Procrastination
is opportunity's natural assassin.
The Thought for Saturday, May 3, 2008 Comes from H. G. Wells:
On Time: We must not allow the
clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment is a miracle and
a mystery.
The Thought for Friday, May 2, 2008 is Anonymous:
On Memories: We don't remember
days, we remember moments.
The Thought for Thursday, May 1, 2008 Comes from George MacDonald:
On Solitude: Work is not always
required of a man. There is such as thing as a sacred idleness, the cultivation
of which is now fearfully neglected.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 30, 2008 Comes from William Penn:
On Solitude: True silence is the
rest of the mind. And it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body—nourishment
and refreshment.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 29, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Courage: So often we worry
about what we don't have and don't spend enough time being thankful for what we
do have.
The Thought for Monday, April 28, 2008 Comes from Helen Keller:
On Courage: Keep your face to the
sunshine, and you will not see the shadows.
The
Thought for Sunday, April 27, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Courage: Heroes are ordinary
people who place their dreams above their fears.
The Thought for Saturday, April 26, 2008 is Anonymous:
On Change: Change is inevitable.
Growth is optional.
The Thought for Friday, April 25, 2008 Comes from John Murphy:
On Change: The key to successful
change is discipline and reprogramming beliefs.
The Thought for Thursday, April 24, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Change: Comfort zones put
padlocks on the doors to growth, discovery and adventure in your life, but three
keys that will unlock those doors are discipline, hard work and faith.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 23, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Change: Sometimes in the winds
of change we find our true direction.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 22, 2008 Comes from John Maxwell:
On Creativity: Lots of folks have
great ideas in the shower, but they seem to lose them when they dry off. (The
message is take action or lose the idea.)
The Thought for Monday, April 21, 2008 Comes from Jordan Ayan:
On Creativity: The 4 steps to creativity are 1) Preparation. You gather
information and resources to fully understand a problem or opportunity. 2)
Incubation. You take no conscious action toward solving your problem; instead
you just let your subconscious mind play with the information. 3) Illumination.
You experience the "Aha" moment, probably when you are least expecting it. 4)
Implementation. You do . . . or you don't.
The Thought for Sunday, April 20, 2008 is Anonymous:
On Imagination: Imagination is
seeing things not as they are but as they can be.
The Thought for Saturday, April 19, 2008 is Anonymous:
On Progress: Goals are dreams
with deadlines.
The Thought for Friday, April 18, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Progress: Experts on
motivation disagree on a lot of things, but one thing they all agree on is that
your levels of motivation are directly tied to your expected probabilities of
success.
The Thought for Thursday, April 17, 2008 is Anonymous:
On Progress: Inch by inch life's
a cinch. Yard by yard life is hard.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 16, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Knowledge: Just like companies
have market value, so do people. In the simplest terms, your market value
increases by knowing and doing more.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 15, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Knowledge: Knowledge is like
climbing a mountain: The higher you reach the more you can see and appreciate.
The Thought for Monday, April 14, 2008 Comes from Albert Schweitzer:
On Purpose: I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the
only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found
how to serve.
The Thought for Sunday, April 13, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Purpose: What are your greatest gifts? How can you best serve mankind? These
are questions you must answer to find your true purpose in life. Who am I? What
am I meant to do here? and What am I trying to do with my life?
The Thought for Saturday, April
12, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Purpose: May it is said, when the sun sets on your life, you made a
difference.
The Thought for Friday, April 11,
2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Attitude: Researchers have investigated why some people can't cope and found
three reasons: 1) Low self-esteem, 2) Living in the past, and 3) Can't laugh at
themselves. In fact, one study indicates that we need a minimum of 12 laughs a
day just to stay healthy.
The Thought for Thursday, April 10, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Attitude: After more than 30 years in business, I'm convinced that the
difference in success and failure is not how you look, not how you dress, not
how you're educated . . . but how you think.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 9, 2008 Comes from Zig Ziglar:
On Attitude: Your attitude almost always determines your altitude in life.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 8, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Enthusiasm: Many things will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your
heart . . . pursue those.
The Thought for Monday, April 7, 2008 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Enthusiasm: Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
The Thought for Sunday, April 6, 2008 Comes from Rich DeVos:
On Belief: The only thing that stands between a person and what they want in
life is the will to try it and the faith to believe it possible.
The Thought for Saturday, April 5, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Belief: Never underestimate the power of belief when it comes to fulfilling
your dreams. I can say with no hesitation that every person I've ever met who
has achieved any degree of success has had one thing in common: they believed
with all their heart they could do it.
The Thought for Friday, April 4, 2008 Comes from Mac Anderson:
On Belief: Behind me is infinite
power. Before me is endless possibility. Around me is boundless opportunity.
What should I fear?
The Thought for Thursday, April 3, 2008 Comes from Sandra Day O'Connor:
On Interdependence: We do not
accomplish anything in his world alone . . . and whatever happens is the result
of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads
from one to another that creates something.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 2, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Stock Tips: With enough inside
information and a million dollars, you can go broke in a year.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 1, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Challenges: If you hit a hole
in one on every hole, you would not play golf for very long.
The Thought for Monday, March 31, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Love: Would not it be great if
we could buy love for $1 million. But the only way to be loved is to be lovable.
You always get back more than you give away. If you do not give any, you will
not get any. There is nobody I know who commands the love of others who does not
feel like a success. And I cannot imagine people who are not loved feel very
successful.
The Thought for Sunday, March 30, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Management: The really good
business manager does not wake up in the morning and say, "This is the day I am
going to cut costs," anymore than he wakes up and decides to practice breathing.
The Thought for Saturday, March 29, 2008 Comes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
On Incompetence: When ideas fail,
words come in very handy. (In the world of CEOs there is a never-ending quest
for good excuses to soothe irate shareholders' anger over management's poor
decisions.)
The Thought for Friday, March 28, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Experience: Can you really
explain to a fish what it is like to walk on land? One day on land is worth
1,000 years talking about it, and one day running a business has exactly the
same kind of value.
The Thought for Thursday, March 27, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Hiring: In looking for someone
to hire, you look for 3 qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. But the
most important is integrity, because if they do not have that, the other two
qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 26, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Information: The smarter the
journalists are, the better off society is. (Buffett subscribes to the idea that
the better the teacher, the smarter the student body. Thus, the smarter the
journalists, the smarter the society. The only people who do not want a smarter
society are liars, thieves and politicians who are trying to hide something.)
The Thought for Tuesday, March 25, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Thinking: You have to think
for yourself. It always amazes me how high-IQ people mindlessly imitate. I never
get good ideas talking to other people.
The Thought for Monday, March 24, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Principles: If principles
become dated, they are no longer principles.
The Thought for Sunday, March 23, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I am a better
investor because I am a businessman, and a better businessman because I am an
investor.
The Thought for Saturday, March 22, 2008 Comes from Lee Iacocca:
On Management: Management is
nothing more than motivating other people.
The Thought for Friday, March 21, 2008 Comes from an Anonymous Source:
On Attitude: If you do not like
the way you are feeling, change the way you are thinking.
The Thought for Thursday, March 20, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Mentors: Someone is sitting in
the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 19, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I look for a
business in which I think I can predict what they are going to look like in 10
to 15 years' time. Take Wrigley's chewing gum. I do not think the Internet is
going to change how people chew gum.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 18, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Management: When a chief
executive officer is encouraged by his advisers to make deals, he responds much
as would a teenage boy who is encouraged by his father to have a normal sex
life. It is not a push he needs.
The Thought for Monday, March 17, 2008 Comes from Blaise Pascal:
On Problems: All man's miseries
derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.
The Thought for Sunday, March 16, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Management: In a difficult
business, no sooner is one problem solved than another surfaces—never is there
just one cockroach in the kitchen.
The Thought for Saturday, March 15, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Management: The reaction of
weak management to weak operations is often weak accounting. (If the business
has lousy economics working against it, and the management lacks integrity, it
will support weak accounting, which manifests itself by creating earnings where
there really are not any. Think Enron.)
The Thought for Friday, March 14, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Management: When management
with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor
fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.
The Thought for Thursday, March 13, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Money: Money, to some extent,
sometimes lets you be in more interesting environments. But it cannot change how
many people love you or how healthy you are.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 12, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: You should invest
in a business that even a fool can run, because someday a fool will.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 11, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Decision-Making: My idea of a
group decision is to look in the mirror. (To make big money in the investment
world you have to learn to think independently; to think independently you need
to be comfortable standing alone.)
The Thought for Monday, March 10, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Marriage: Marrying for money
is probably a bad idea under and circumstances, but it is absolutely nuts if you
are already rich.
The Thought for Sunday, March 9, 2008 Comes from Bertrand Russell:
On Habits: The chains of habit
are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
The Thought for Saturday, March 8, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Reputation: It takes 20 years
to build a reputation and 5 minutes to lose it. If you think about that, you
will do things differently.
The Thought for Friday, March 7, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Success: When asked by college
students to define success, Buffett said "it is being loved by the people you
hope love you."
The Thought for Thursday, March 6, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Trouble: It is easier to stay
out of trouble than it is to get out of trouble. To stay out of trouble, just do
the right thing at the right time. To get out of trouble, you need a lot of
money and a lot of legal talent, and even then, you may end up serving a lot of
time.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 5, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Trust: People with integrity
are predisposed to perform; people without integrity are predisposed not to
perform. It is best not to get the two confused.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 4, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Making Money: Rule No. 1:
Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never Forget Rule No. 1.
The Thought for Monday, March 3, 2008 Comes from Warren Buffett:
On Investing: I made my first
investment at age 11. I was wasting my life up until then.
The Thought for Sunday, March 2, 2008 Comes from Herschel Walker:
On Training: If you train hard,
you'll not only be hard, you'll be hard to beat.
The Thought for Saturday, March 1, 2008 Comes from Abraham Lincoln:
On Happiness: People are about as
happy as they make up their minds to be.
The Thought for Friday, February 29, 2008 Comes from John Locke:
On Leisure: He that will make
good use of any part of his life must allow a large part of it to recreation.
The Thought for Thursday, February 28, 2008 Comes from Lin Yutang:
On Leisure: It is that unoccupied
space which makes a room habitable, as it is our leisure hours which make life
endurable.
The Thought for Wednesday, February 27, 2008 Comes from Henry David Thoreau:
On Productivity: It is not enough
to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?
The Thought for Tuesday, February 26, 2008 Comes from Benjamin Franklin:
On Worry: Industry pays debt,
despair increases them.
The Thought for Monday, February 25, 2008
Comes from Confucius:
Study without reflection is a waste of
time; reflection without study is dangerous.
The Thought for Sunday, February 24, 2008
Comes from Honore de Mirabeau:
On Leisure: I would not exchange my
leisure hours for all the wealth in the world.
The Thought for Saturday, February 23,
2008 Comes from Jean de la Bruyere:
On Love: Love and friendship exclude
each other.
The Thought for Friday, February 22, 2008
Comes from Thomas Jefferson:
On Opportunity: We must dream of an
aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity.
The Thought for Thursday, February 21,
2008 Comes from George Chapman:
On Worry: Do not lie in a ditch and say,
God help me; use the lawful tools He hath (has) lent thee.
The Thought for Wednesday, February 20,
2008 Comes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
On Thinking: If you are not a thinking
man, to what purpose are you a man at all?
The Thought for Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Comes from Alexander Reid Martin:
On Leisure: Don't overorganize your free
time. Use leisure time for spur-of-the-moment impulses.
The Thought for Monday, February 18, 2008
Comes from Ambrose Bierce:
On Love: A temporary insanity curable by
marriage.
The Thought for Sunday, February 17, 2008
Comes from Douglas MacArthur:
On Opportunity: There is no security on
this Earth. Only opportunity.
The Thought for Saturday, February 16,
2008 Comes from Thomas Edison:
On Worry: As a cure for worrying, work
is better than whiskey.
The Thought for Friday, February 15, 2008
Comes from Albert Camus:
On Thinking: We get into the habit of
living before acquiring the habit of thinking.
The Thought for Thursday, February 14,
2008 Comes from Edward Emmett:
On Love: Love never looks for faults, and whenever it
discovers them in others in throws over them the mantle of charity and performs
the two-fold miracle of making itself more beautiful and one in whom the fault
is found more happy.
The Thought for Wednesday, February 13,
2008 Comes from John Barrymore:
On Love: Paper napkins never return from
a laundry, nor love from a trip to the law courts.
The Thought for Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Comes from Major John L. Griffith:
On Opportunities: I do not want anybody
to convince my son that some one will guarantee him a living. I want him rather
to realize that there is plenty of opportunity in this country for him to
achieve success, but whether he wins or loses depends entirely on his own
character, perseverance, thrift, intelligence and capacity for hard work.
The Thought for Monday, February 11, 2008
Comes from Miguel de Cervantes:
On Worry: Sing away sorrow, cast away
care.
The Thought for Sunday, February 10, 2008
Comes from David Leslie Brown:
On Thinking: The way we are going to
think tomorrow depends largely on what we are thinking today.
The Thought for Saturday, February 9, 2008
Comes from Charles Lamb:
On Choice: The measure of choosing well,
is, whether a man likes and finds good in what he has chosen.
The Thought for Friday, February 8, 2008
Comes from Francis Bacon:
On Love: A crowd is not company, and
faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk is but a tinkling cymbal, where
there is no love.
The Thought for Thursday, February 7, 2008
Comes from John B. Gough:
On Opportunities: If you want to succeed
in the world you must make your own opportunities as you go on. The man who
waits for some seventh wave to toss him on dry land will find that the seventh
wave is a long time coming.
The Thought for Wednesday, February 6,
2008 Comes from Charlotte Bronte:
On Worry: The man of regular life and
rational mind never despairs.
The Thought for Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Comes from Edwin Baird:
On Thinking: Some of the greatest
thinking has been done by those who cared little for riches—Pasteur, Edison,
Jane Adams—and who shall say that theirs was not the richer life? Today, the
world knows the poetry of Shakespeare, the music of Wagner, the art of
Rembrandt; but who knows even the names of the money barons of their day—or
cares to know? If you want your name to live after you, you will not give all
your thought to money. But, whether you want to make money, or write a book, or
build a bridge—or do anything else successfully—you will do well to remember
that in all the world there is no word more important than—"Think!"
The Thought for Monday, February 4, 2008
Comes from Leonardo da Vinci:
On Leisure: Every now and then go away,
have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will
be surer, since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power of
judgment. Go some distance away, because then the work appears smaller, and more
of it can be taken in at a glance, and lack of harmony and proportion is more
readily seen.
The Thought for Sunday, February 3, 2008
Comes from Philip Barry:
On Love: Two minds without a single
thought.
The Thought for Saturday, February 2, 2008
Comes from Samuel Goldwyn:
On Opportunities: I think luck is the
sense to recognize an opportunity and the ability to take advantage of it. Every
one has bad breaks, but every one also has opportunities. The man who can smile
at his breaks and grab his chances gets on.
The Thought for Friday, February 1, 2008
Comes from Paxton Blair:
On Worry: Anxiety is the poison of human
life, the parent of many sins and of more miseries. In a world where everything
is doubtful, and where we may be disappointed, and be blessed in disappointment,
why this restless stir and commotion of mind? Can it alter the cause, or unravel
the mystery of human events?
The Thought for Thursday, January 31, 2008
Comes from Philip James Bailey:
On Thinking: The firefly only shines
when on the wing; so it is with the mind; when we rest we darken.
The Thought for Wednesday, January 30,
2008 Comes from Samuel Johnson:
On Leisure: All intellectual improvement
arises from leisure.
The Thought for Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Comes from Honore de Balzac:
On Love: It is as absurd to say that a
man cannot love one woman all the time as it is to say that a violinist needs
several violins to play the same piece of music.
The Thought for Monday, January 28, 2008
Comes from George Eliot:
On Opportunities: It is them as take
advantage that get advantage in this world.
The Thought for Sunday, January 27, 2008
Comes from Josh Billings:
On Worry: There are many people who are
always anticipating trouble, and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows
that never really happen to them.
The Thought for Saturday, January 26, 2008
Comes from Aristotle:
On Thinking: The ultimate value of life
depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere
survival.
The Thought for Friday, January 25, 2008
Comes from Benjamin Franklin:
On Leisure: Leisure is time for doing
something useful, and this leisure the diligent man will obtain.
The Thought for Thursday, January 24, 2008
Comes from Ed Bagley:
On Work: Work at what you do best, and
do not worry about the rest.
The Thought for Wednesday, January 23,
2008 Comes from General Eric Shinseki:
On Change: If you do not like change,
you are going to like irrelevance even less.
The Thought for Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Comes from Thomas Caryle:
On Idleness: Blessed is the man that has
found his work. One monster there is in the world, the idle man.
The Thought for Monday, January 21, 2008
Comes from Percy Bysshe Shelley:
On Learning: The more we study, the more
we discover our ignorance.
The Thought for Sunday, January 20, 2008
Comes from Semon Knudsen:
On Competition: In business, the
competition will bite you if you keep running; if you stand still, they will
swallow you.
The Thought for Saturday, January 19, 2008
Comes from James A. Farley:
On Competition: We find the instinct to
shut out competition deep-rooted even among banks and corporations, among corner
grocers and haberdasheries, among peanut vendors and shoeshine boys—and even
among young ladies in search of a husband.
The Thought for Friday, January 18, 2008
Comes from George Herbert:
On Learning: The love of learning and
the love of money rarely meet.
The Thought for Thursday, January 17, 2008
Comes from Henry L. Doherty:
On Learning: It is the studying that you
do after your school days that really counts. Otherwise, you know only that
which everyone else knows.
The Thought for Wednesday, January 16,
2008 Comes from Benjamin Disraeli:
On Learning: Seeing much, suffering much
and studying much, (these) are the three pillars of learning.
The Thought for Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Comes from Vance Packard:
On Leadership: Leadership appears to be
the art of getting others to want to do something you are convinced should be
done.
The Thought for Monday, January 14, 2008
Comes from Edmund Burke:
On Evil: All that is necessary for the
triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
The Thought for Sunday, January 13, 2008
Comes from Confucius:
On Learning: He who learns but does not
think is lost, he who thinks but does not learn is in danger.
The Thought for Saturday, January 12, 2008
Comes from Niccolo Machiavelli:
On Leadership: There is nothing more
difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its
success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
The Thought for Friday, January 11, 2008
Comes from William Hazlitt:
On Leadership: Those who can command
themselves command others.
The Thought for Thursday, January 10, 2008
Comes from Andrew Chapman:
On Kindness: I often wonder why people
do not make more of the marvelous power there is in kindness. It is the greatest
lever to move the hearts of men that the world has ever known—greater by far
than anything that mere ingenuity can devise or subtlety suggest. Kindness is
the kingpin of success in life; it is the prime factor in overcoming friction
and making the human machinery run smoothly.
The Thought for Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Comes from Robert A. Heinlein:
On Children: Do not handicap your
children by making their lives easy.
The Thought for Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Comes from Art Buck:
On Children: How soon do we forget what
elders used to know: That children should be raised, not left to weeds to grow.
The Thought for Monday, January 7, 2008
Comes from Ernest Hemingway:
On Cities: If you are lucky enough to
have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your
life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
The Thought for Sunday, January 6, 2008
Comes from Richard C. Raines:
On Christianity: Christianity is like
electricity. It cannot enter a person unless it can pass through.
The Thought for Saturday, January 5, 2008
Comes from Malcolm Forbes:
On Children: Re raising kids: Love,
without discipline, isn't.
The Thought for Friday, January 4, 2008
Comes from Ralph W. Sockman:
On Church: We need the fellowship of the
godly to safeguard our fellowship with the ungodly. This is the high function of
the church. It calls its members to enter into social and civic movements. But
it seeks to fill its members with such moral courage and spiritual power that
they become part of the world's solution.
The Thought for Thursday, January 3, 2008
Comes from George Bernard Shaw:
On Church: The British churchgoer
prefers a severe preacher because he thinks a few home truths will do his
neighbors no harm.
The Thought for Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Comes from Robert J. McCracken:
On Christianity: It is true that we have
not deliberately or wholly abandoned the Christian element in our tradition, but
does that element count with us as it once did? Is the moral tone of the
nation—its politics, its business life, its literature, its movies, its radio
networks, its television stations—Christian?
The Thought for Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Comes from Franklin D. Roosevelt:
On Potential: The only limit to our
realization of tomorrow will be our doubts today.
The Thought for Monday, December 31, 2007
Comes from Norman Douglas:
On Children: If you want to see what
children can do, you must stop giving them things.
The Thought for Sunday, December 30, 2007
Comes from Norman Vincent Peale:
On Church: A war fitness conference some
time ago declared that the highest form of recreation is to go to church. The
word recreation should be written re-creation. More real rest can be gained from
an hour and a quarter of worship under these circumstances than by 18 holes of
golf.
The Thought for Saturday, December 29,
2007 Comes from John H. McComb, D.D.:
On Christianity: Christ did not waste
His time trying to change the social order. Christ spent all of His time
fighting sin. Therefore it behooves the witnesses of Christ to say that we do
not have to abolish capitalism and establish socialism or communism, that sin
can flourish under those systems as well. Christianity is not opposed to any
social order, but to sin.
The Thought for Friday, December 28, 2007
Comes from Phyllis Diller:
On Children: Cleaning your house while
your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before its stops snowing.
The Thought for Thursday, December 27,
2007 Comes from Bruce Barton:
On Church: Business checks up on itself
frequently to be sure that it still is headed for its original goals. Is there
not need for a similar check-up on the part of the church?
The Thought for Wednesday, December 26,
2007 Comes from Benjamin Franklin:
On Christianity: He who shall introduce
into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the
face of the world.
The Thought for Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Comes from The Holy Bible, King James Version, Luke, Chapter 2, Verses 10-14:
And the angel said unto (the shepherds),
"Fear not, for behold I bring to you good tidings of great joy, which shall be
to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who
is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: You shall find the babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with
the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, "Glory to
God in the highest, and on earth peace (and) good will toward men.
The Thought for Monday, December 24, 2007
(Christmas Eve) Comes from Ed Bagley (1944-):
Pause and be thankful tonight for all of
the joys and blessings in your life. Bow down and realize your place in the
universe. You did not create the environment you exist in, you merely occupy
space; therefore, whatever good you can do, do it as a privilege with an open
heart in loving kindness. Many are here with you on Earth that will never even
sniff your good fortune.
The Thought for Sunday, December 23, 2007
Comes from the Holy Bible, King James Version, Proverbs, Chapter 20, Verse 7:
The just man walketh in his integrity;
his children are blessed after him.
The Thought for Saturday, December 22,
2007 Comes from The Holy Bible, King James Version, Galatians, Chapter 3, Verses
28-29:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither bond nor free, there is neither male or female: for ye are all one in
Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs
according to the promise.
The Thought for Friday, December 21, 2007
Comes from William Faulkner:
On Christianity: No one is without
Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by the word. It is every individual's
individual code of behavior by means of which he makes himself a better human
being than his nature wants to be, if he followed his nature only.
The Thought for Thursday, December 20,
2007 Comes from Brooks Atkinson:
On Church: I have no objection to
churches as long as they do not interfere with God's work.
The Thought for Wednesday, December 19,
2007 Comes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
On Christianity: He who begins by loving
Christianity better than truth will proceed by loving his own sect better than
Christianity and end in loving himself better than all.
The Thought for Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Comes from G. K. Chesterton:
On Christianity: A Christian is
perpetually balanced between a Christian ideal of loving his enemies, a pagan
ideal of punishing his enemies, and a chivalric ideal of only fighting his
enemies fairly.
The Thought for Monday, December 17, 2007
Comes from Charles Caleb Colton:
On hatred: " We hate some persons
because we do not know them; and we will not know them because we hate them."
The Thought for Sunday, December 16, 2007
Comes from a Hebrew Proverb:
On Kindness: Kindness is the beginning
and the end of the law.
The Thought for Saturday, December 15,
2007 Comes from Harry F. Banks:
On Success: Success is the reward for
accomplishment.
The Thought for Friday, December 14, 2007
Comes from William S. Gilbert:
On Self: You've no idea what a poor
opinion I have of myself—and how little I deserve it.
The Thought for Thursday, December 13,
2007 Comes from Thomas B. Reed:
On Progress: If human progress had been
merely a matter of leadership we should be in Utopia today.
The Thought for Wednesday, December 12,
2007 Comes from a Japanese Proverb:
On Kindness: One kind word can warm
three winter months.
The Thought for Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Comes from Daniel O'Connell:
On Morals: Nothing is politically right
which is morally wrong.
The Thought for Monday, December 10, 2007
Comes from Anne-Sophie Swetchine:
On Wealth: "We are rich only through
what we give, and poor only through what we refuse."
The Thought for Sunday, December 9, 2007
Comes from Groucho Marx:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "I've
had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
The Thought for Saturday, December 8, 2007
Comes from Billy Wilder:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "He
has Van Gogh's ear for music."
The Thought for Friday, December 7, 2007
Comes from Andrew Lang (1844-1912):
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "He
uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts . . . for support rather than
illumination.
The Thought for Thursday, December 6, 2007
Comes from Oscar Wilde:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "Some
cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
The Thought for Wednesday, December 5,
2007 Comes from Mae West:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "His
mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
The Thought for Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Comes from Mark Twain:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "Why
do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"
The Thought for Monday, December 3, 2007
Comes from Forrest Tucker:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "He
loves nature in spite of what it did to him."
The Thought for Sunday, December 2, 2007
Comes from Charles, Count Talleyrand:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "In
order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."
The Thought for Saturday, December 1, 2007
Comes from Thomas Brackett Reed:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "They
never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge."
The Thought for Friday, November 30, 2007
Comes from Robert Redford:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "He
has the attention span of a lightning bolt."
The Thought for Thursday, November 29,
2007 Comes from John Bright:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "He is
a self-made man and worships his creator."
The Thought for Wednesday, November 28,
2007 Comes from Paul Keating:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "He is
simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
The Thought for Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Comes from Samuel Johnson:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "He is
not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."
The Thought for Monday, November 26, 2007
Comes from Stephen Bishop:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "I
feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."
The Thought for Sunday, November 25, 2007
Comes from George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: George Bernard Shaw to Winston Chruchill:
"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend .
. . if you have one." Winston Churchill's reply: "Cannot possibly attend first
night, will attend the second . . . if there is one."
The Thought for Saturday, November 24,
2007 Comes from Oscar Wilde:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "He
has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
The Thought for Friday, November 23, 2007
Comes from Abraham Lincoln:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "He
can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."
The Thought for Thursday, November 22,
2007 Comes from Mark Twain:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "I
didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
The Thought for Wednesday, November 21,
2007 Comes from Walter Kerr:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "He
had delusions of adequacy."
The Thought for Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Comes from Winston Churchill:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "A
modest little person, with much to be modest about."
The Thought for Monday, November 19, 2007
Comes from Clarence Darrow:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "I
have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
The Thought for Sunday, November 18, 2007
Comes from Irvin S. Cobb:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "I've
just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
The Thought for Saturday, November 17,
2007 Comes from Winston Churchill:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "He
has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
The Thought for Friday, November 16, 2007
Comes from Moses Hadas:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: "Thank
you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."
The Thought for Thursday, November 15,
2007 Comes from Benjamin Disraeli:
On Insults with a Touch of Class:
Gladstone, a member of the British Parliament, to Benjamin Disraeli: "Sir, you
will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends,
sir," replied Disraeli, "on whether I embrace your politics or your mistress."
The Thought for Wednesday, November 14,
2007 Comes from Winston Churchill:
On Insults with a Touch of Class: The
exchange between Churchill and Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband,
I'd give you poison," and he replied, "If you were my wife, I'd take it."
The Thought for Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Comes from Thomas Carlyle:
On Purpose: The man without a purpose is
like a ship without a rudder . . .
The Thought for Monday, November 12, 2007
Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Friendship: It is one of the
blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
The Thought for Sunday, November 11, 2007
Comes from Francis Bacon:
On Truth: Truth is the daughter of time,
not of authority.
The Thought for Saturday, November 10,
2007 Comes from G. K. Chesterton:
On Politics: Most politicians have no
politics. They are made entirely by the circumstances of their career. Lincoln
kept clear in his mind from first to last his pure theory of politics. He never
compromised by an inch in the statement of his principles, even when he had to
compromise in the application of them.
The Thought for Friday, November 9, 2007
Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Friendship: I am for frank
explanations with friends in case of affronts. They sometimes save a perishing
friendship or place it on a firmer basis than before. But secret discontent must
always end badly.
The Thought for Thursday, November 8, 2007
Comes from John Richelsen:
On Qualities: Any man will usually get
from other men just what he is expecting of them. If he is looking for
friendship he will likely receive it. If his attitude is that of indifference,
it will beget indifference. And if a man is looking for a fight he will in all
likelihood be accommodated in that. Men can be stimulated to show off their good
qualities to the leader who seems to think they have good qualities.
The Thought for Wednesday, November 7,
2007 Comes from Thomas Carlyle:
On Purpose: Have a purpose in life, and
having it, throw into your work such strength of mind and muscle as God has
given you.
The Thought for Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Friendship: Go often to the house of
thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.
The Thought for Monday, November 5, 2007
Comes from St. Augustine:
On Truth: Purity of soul cannot be lost
without consent.
The Thought for Sunday, November 4, 2007
Comes from William M. Peck:
On Qualities: Credit to the fullest the
good qualities to be found in others, even though they may far outshine your
own.
The Thought for Saturday, November 3, 2007
Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
On Friendship: Friends should be like
books, easy to find when you need them, but seldom used.
The Thought for Friday, November 2, 2007
Comes from John Burroughs:
On Purpose: A man's life may stagnate as
literally as water may stagnate, and just as motion and direction are the remedy
for one, so purpose and activity are the remedy for the other.
The Thought for Thursday, November 1, 2007
Comes from Charles Lindbergh:
On Qualities: I believe that for
permanent survival, man must balance science with other qualities of life,
qualities of body and spirit as well as those of mind—qualities he cannot
develop when he lets mechanics and luxury insulate him too greatly from the
earth to which he was born.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 31,
2007 Comes from Dale Carnegie:
On Friendship: You can make more friends
in two months by becoming really interested in other people, than you can in two
years by trying to get other people interested in you.
The Thought for Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Comes from Oscar Wilde:
On Morals: Morality is simply the
attitude we adopt toward people whom we personally dislike.
The Thought for Monday, October 29, 2007
Comes from Edward Bulwer-Lytton:
On Purpose: What men want is not talent,
it is purpose; in other words, not the power to achieve, but will to labor. I
believe that labor judiciously and continuously applied becomes genius.
The Thought for Sunday, October 28, 2007
Comes from Francis Bacon:
On Friendship: The worst solitude is to
be destitute of sincere friendship.
The Thought for Saturday, October 27, 2007
Comes from Joseph Wardlaw:
On Morals: Morality is religion in
practice; religion is morality in principle.
The Thought for Friday, October 26, 2007
Comes from James Russell Lowell:
On Qualities: A great man is made up of
qualities that meet or make great occasions.
The Thought for Thursday, October 25, 2007
Comes from Julius Bate:
On Purpose: He who wishes to fulfill his
mission in the world must be a man of one idea, that is, of one great
overmastering purpose, overshadowing all his aims, and guiding and controlling
his entire life.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 24, 2007 Comes from
Mark Twain:
On Morals: It is not best when we use our morals on
weekdays; it gets them out of repair for Sundays.
The Thought for Tuesday, October 23, 2007 Comes from
Samuel Butler:
On Friendship: Friendship is like money, easier made
than kept.
The Thought for Monday, October 22, 2007 Comes from
Morris L. Ernst:
On Leisure: As manpower is replaced by
other sources of energy the entire conception of recreation shifts. What we do
with these new leisure hours will determine the value of our culture.
The Thought for Sunday, October 21, 2007 Comes from
Oscar Wilde:
On Power: Wherever there is a man who
exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.
The Thought for Saturday, October 20, 2007 Comes from
Kahlil Gibran:
On Self: You give but little when you
give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
The Thought for Friday, October 19, 2007 Comes from
Juvenal:
On Knowledge: All wish to possess
knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.
The Thought for Thursday, October 18, 2007 Comes from
Orville Dewey:
On Leisure: Men cannot labor on always.
They must have recreation.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 17, 2007 Comes from
Leonard H. Robbins:
On Power: How a minority, reaching
majority, seizing authority, hates a minority.
The Thought for Tuesday, October 16, 2007 Comes from
Benjamin Disraeli:
On Leisure: Increased means and
increased leisure are the two civilizers of man.
The Thought for Monday, October 15, 2007 Comes from
Kahlil Gibran:
On Self: Every man is two men; one is
awake in the darkness, the other asleep in the light.
The Thought for Sunday, October 14, 2007 Comes from
Somerset Maugham:
On Ideas: I am never so happy as when a
new thought occurs to me and a new horizon gradually discovers itself before my
eyes. When a fresh idea dawns upon me, I feel lifted up, apart from the world of
men, into a strange atmosphere of the spirit. It is a new freedom. I feel aloof
from the world, and for a moment I am independent of all my surroundings.
The Thought for Saturday, October 13, 2007 Comes from
Benjamin Franklin:
On Self: What is best for people is what
they do for themselves.
The Thought for Friday, October 12, 2007 Comes from B.
C. Forbes:
On Leisure: The true purpose of
recreation should be not merely to amuse, not merely to afford pleasure, not
merely to kill time, but to increase our fitness, enhance our usefulness, spur
achievement. Any form of recreation that impairs either our physical or mental
efficiency does not recreate. Real recreation quickens aspiration.
The Thought for Thursday, October 11, 2007 Comes from
Abraham Lincoln:
On Ideas: I could not sleep . . . when I
got on a hunt for an idea, until I had caught it; and when I thought I had got
it I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and over again, until I had
put it in language plain enough as I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend.
This was a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck by me.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 10, 2007 Comes from
Benjamin Franklin:
On Self: If you would have a faithful
servant and one that you like, serve yourself.
The Thought for Tuesday, October 9, 2007 Comes from
Benjamin Franklin:
On Leisure: Employ thy time well if thou
meanest to gain leisure.
The Thought for Monday, October 8, 2007 Comes from
Samuel Johnson:
On Ideas: That fellow seems to me to
possess but one idea, and that a wrong one.
The Thought for Sunday, October 7, 2007 Comes from Henry Ford
On Self: The great trouble today is that there are too many people looking for someone else to do something for them. The solution of most of our troubles is to be found in everyone doing something for himself.
The Thought for Saturday, October 6, 2007 Comes from
Sydney J. Harris:
On Leisure: The time to relax is when
you don't have time for it.
The Thought for Friday, October 5, 2007 Comes from
Victor Hugo:
On Ideas: There is one thing stronger
than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.
The Thought for Thursday, October 4, 2007 Comes from
Charles F. Kettering:
In many ways ideas are more important
than people—they are much more permanent.
The Thought for Wednesday, October 3, 2007 Comes from
Jawaharlal Nehru:
There are two things that have to happen
before an idea catches on. One is that the idea should be good. The other is
that it should fit in with the temper of the age. If it does not, even a good
idea may well be passed by.
The Thought for Tuesday, October 2, 2007 Comes from
Plutarch:
It is a thing of no great difficulty to
raise objections against another man's oration—nay, it is a very easy matter,
but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.
The Thought for Monday, October 1, 2007 Comes from
Malcolm Forbes:
The art of conversation lies in
listening.
The Thought for Sunday, September 30, 2007 Comes from
Robert P. Crawford:
Creative thinking is today's most
prized, profit-producing possession for any individual, corporation or country.
It has the capacity to change you, your business, and the world.
The Thought for Saturday, September 29, 2007 Comes from
Frank Crane:
You may be deceived if you trust too
much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough.
The Thought for Friday, September 28, 2007 Comes from
B. C. Holwick:
Good listeners generally make more sales
than good talkers.
The Thought for Thursday, September 27, 2007 Comes from
Carth Cate:
Thinking, for many, is life's most
painful activity. For the fortunate others, there's not much in life that
approaches it.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 26, 2007 Comes
from Raymond Hitchcock:
A man isn't poor if he can still laugh.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 25, 2007 Comes from
George Macdonald:
To be trusted is a greater compliment
than to be loved.
The Thought for Monday, September 24, 2007 Comes from
Walter Lippmann:
While the right to talk may be the
beginning of freedom, the necessity of listening is what makes the right
important.
The Thought for Sunday, September 23, 2007 Comes from
Edmund Burke:
To read without reflecting is like
eating without digesting.
The Thought for Saturday, September 22, 2007 Comes from
Johnson:
Suspicion is no less an enemy to virtue
than to happiness. He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he
that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.
The Thought for Friday, September 21, 2007 Comes from
W. H. Auden:
Among those whom I like or admire, I can
find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: All of them make
me laugh.
The Thought for Thursday, September 20, 2007 Comes from
James Bryce:
To most people nothing is more
troublesome than the effort of thinking.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 19, 2007 Comes
from Wilson Mizner:
A good listener is not only popular
everywhere, but after a while he knows something.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 18, 2007 Comes from
Harry Emerson Fosdick, D.D.:
No virtue is more universally accepted
as a test of good character than trustworthiness.
The Thought for Monday, September 17, 2007 Comes from
George Matthew Adams:
What you think means more than anything
else in your life. More than what you can earn, more than where you live, more
than your social position, and more than what anyone else may think about you.
The Thought for Sunday, September 16, 2007 Comes from
Will Cuppy:
If an animal does something, we call it
instinct; if we do the same thing for the same reason, we call it intelligence.
The Thought for Saturday, September 15, 2007 Comes from
Benjamin Jowett:
Doubt comes in at the window when
inquiry is denied at the door.
The Thought for Friday, September 14, 2007 Comes from
Aldous Huxley:
That men do not learn very much from the
lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons history has to
teach.
The Thought for Thursday, September 13, 2007 Comes from
Mohandas Gandhi:
You must not lose faith in humanity.
Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not
become dirty.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 12, 2007 Comes
from Kahlil Gibran:
Say not, "I have found the truth," but
rather "I have found a truth."
The Thought for Tuesday, September 11, 2007 Comes from
Thomas Carlyle:
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man,
but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand
adversity.
The Thought for Monday, September 10, 2007 Comes from
Thomas Paine:
Let the world see that this nation can
bear prosperity; and that her honest virtue in time of peace is equal to her
bravest valor in time of war.
The Thought for Sunday, September 9, 2007 Comes from
Ambrose Bierce in The Devil's Dictionary published in 1906:
Infidel, n. In New York, one who does
not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.
The Thought for Saturday, September 8, 2007 Comes from
Mark Twain:
It is by the goodness of God that in our
country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech,
freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
The Thought for Friday, September 7, 2007 Comes from an
Arabian Proverb:
Surely the worst of the evils are the
evils of the learned, and surely the best of good is the good of the learned.
The Thought for Thursday, September 6, 2007 Comes from
Henry Adams:
They know enough who know how to learn.
The Thought for Wednesday, September 5, 2007 Comes from
Franklin P. Adams:
I find that a great part of the
information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something
else on the way.
The Thought for Tuesday, September 4, 2007 Comes from
Christian Bovee:
Dishonesty is a forsaking of (the)
permanent for (a) temporary advantage.
The Thought for Monday, September 3, 2007 Comes from
Charles Dickens:
I have known a vast quantity of nonsense
talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional
idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if
there is anything to be got by it.
The Thought for Sunday, September 2, 2007 Comes from
Fyodor Dostoyevsky:
Shower on him every blessing, drown him
in a sea of happiness, give him economic prosperity such that he should have
nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes, and busy himself with the continuation
of the species, and even then, out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would
play you some nasty trick.
The Thought for Saturday, September 1, 2007 Comes from
Orville Dewey:
Men cannot labor on always. They must
have recreation.
The Thought for Friday, August 31, 2007 Comes from
Richard Burton:
Let the world have whatever sports and
recreations please them best, provided they be followed with discretion.
The Thought for Thursday, August 30, 2007 Comes from
William J. Bogan:
Leisure may prove to be a curse rather
than a blessing, unless education teaches a flippant world that leisure is not a
synonym for entertainment.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 29, 2007 Comes from
Scipio Africanus:
I am never less at leisure than when at
leisure, nor less alone than when I am alone.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 28, 2007 Comes from
Lord Chesterfield:
Never seem wiser or more learned than
the company you are with. Treat your learning like a watch and keep it hidden.
Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked.
The Thought for Monday, August 27, 2007 Comes from
Christian Bovee:
It is some compensation for great evils
that they enforce great lessons.
The Thought for Sunday, August 26, 2007 Comes from
Matthew Henry:
That which is won ill, will never wear
well, for there is a curse that attends it which will waste it. The same corrupt
dispositions that incline men to sinful ways of getting, will incline them to
the (same) sinful ways of spending.
The Thought for Saturday, August 25, 2007 Comes from
George Knight:
Dishonesty, cowardice and duplicity are
never impulsive.
The Thought for Friday, August 24, 2007 Comes from
Theodore Roosevelt:
Our first duty is to war against
dishonesty . . . war against it in public life, and . . . war against it in
business life. Corruption in every form is the arch enemy of the Republic, the
arch enemy of the free institutions and of government by the people, an even
more dangerous enemy than the open lawlessness of violence, because it works in
hidden and furtive fashion.
The Thought for Thursday, August 23, 2007 Comes from
Thomas Dreier:
Whenever I hear a man or woman express
hatred for any race, I wonder just what it is in themselves they hate so much.
You can always be sure of this: You cannot express hatred for anything or
anybody unless you make use of the supply of hatred within yourself. The only
hatred you can express is your own personal possession. To hate is to be
enslaved by evil.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 22, 2007 Comes from
William J. H. Boetcker:
Most men believe that it would benefit
them if they could get a little from those who have more. How much more would it
benefit them if they would learn a little from those who know more.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 21, 2007 Comes from
William J. H. Boetcker:
If you want to earn more—learn more. If
you want to get more out of the world, you must put more into the world. For,
after all, men will get no more out of life than they put into it.
The Thought for Monday, August 20, 2007 Comes from
Thomas Blount:
Some will never learn anything because
they understand everything too soon.
The Thought for Sunday, August 19, 2007 Comes from
Niccolo Machiavelli:
Men are so simple and yield so readily
to the wants of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who
will suffer himself to be tricked.
The Thought for Saturday, August 18, 2007 Comes from J.
P. Senn:
Money dishonestly acquired is never
worth its cost, while a good conscience never costs as much as it is worth.
The Thought for Friday, August 17, 2007 Comes from
William McCune:
If a man has any brains at all, let him
hold on to his calling, and, in the grand sweep of things, his turn will come at
last.
The Thought for Thursday, August 16, 2007 Comes from
Cicero:
Let a man practice the profession which
he best knows.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 15, 2007 Comes from
Helen Keller:
We can do anything we want to do if we
stick to it long enough.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 14, 2007 Comes from
Aeschylus:
God lends a helping hand to the man who
tries hard.
The Thought for Monday, August 13, 2007 Comes from
Harriet Braiker:
Striving for excellence motivates you;
striving for perfection is demoralizing.
The Thought for Sunday, August 12, 2007 Comes from John
H. Vincent:
I will this day try to live a simple,
and serene life; repelling promptly every thought of discontent, anxiety,
discouragement, impurity and self-seeking' cultivating cheerfulness,
magnanimity, charity and the habit of silence; exercising economy in
expenditure, carefulness in conservation, diligence in appointed service,
fidelity to every trust, and a childlike trust in God.
The Thought for Saturday, August 11, 2007 Comes from A.
P. Gouthev:
To get profit without risk, experience
without danger, and reward without work is as impossible as it is to live
without being born.
The Thought for Friday, August 10, 2007 Comes from
Alexander Pope:
Get place and wealth, if possible with
grace, if not, by any means get wealth and place.
The Thought for Thursday, August 9, 2007 Comes from
Stanley Goldstein:
Experiments don't fail. When you try
something new, you either learn that it is worthwhile for you or that it does
not work for you, and thus save future time by not trying it again.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 8, 2007 Comes from
Norman Vincent Peale:
There is no sound basis upon which it
may be assumed that all poor men are godly and all rich men are evil, no more
than it could be assumed that all rich men are good and all poor men are bad.
The Thought for Tuesday, August 7, 2007 Comes from
Kenneth S. Davis:
Any life truly lived is a risky
business, and if one puts up too many fences against the risks one ends by
shutting out life itself.
The Thought for Monday, August 6, 2007 Comes from G. K.
Chesterton:
England, left to itself, returns
naturally to sport and laughter, and a genial individualism known as minding
one's one business. It knows and cares very little about politics; that is why
it puts up with politicians.
The Thought for Sunday, August 5, 2007 Comes from John
Mason Brown:
Nowhere are prejudices more mistaken for
truth, passion for reason and invective for documentation than in politics.
The Thought for Saturday, August 4, 2007 Comes from
Chester Bowles:
Government is too big and important to
be left to the politicians.
The Thought for Friday, August 3, 2007 Comes from
William Penn Patrick:
Those who condemn wealth are those who
have none and see no chance of getting it.
The Thought for Thursday, August 2, 2007 Comes from a
Chinese Proverb:
The journey of a 1,000 miles starts with
a single step.
The Thought for Wednesday, August 1, 2007 Comes from
George Brett:
You don't get hits by trying hard. You
try easy.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 31, 2007 Comes from
Darwin P. Kingsley:
You all have powers you never dreamed
of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no limitations
in what you can do except the limitations in your own mind as to what you cannot
do. Don't think you cannot. Think you can.
The Thought for Monday, July 30, 2007 Comes from
Ambrose Bierce:
Conservative: A statesman who is
enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to
replace them with others.
The Thought for Sunday, July 29, 2007 Comes from
Ambrose Bierce:
Alliance: In international politics, the
union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply into each other's pocket
that they cannot separately plunder a third.
The Thought for Saturday, July 28, 2007 is Anonymous:
Every politician, when he leaves office,
ought to go straight to jail to serve his time.
The Thought for Friday, July 27, 2007 Comes from Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe:
Correction does much, but encouragement
does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.
The Thought for Thursday, July 26, 2007 Comes from
Martin Luther:
Everything that is done in the world is
done by hope. No merchant or tradesman would set himself to work if he did not
hope to reap benefit thereby.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 25, 2007 Comes from
Michel de Montaigne:
Not being able to govern events, I
govern myself.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 24, 2007 Comes from
Richard Trench:
That which the fool does in the end the
wise man does in the beginning.
The Thought for Monday, July 23, 2007 Comes from Harry
Thayer:
It is easy to fool yourself. It is more
difficult to fool the people you work for. It is still more difficult to fool
the people you work with. And it is almost impossible to fool the people who
work under your direction.
The Thought for Sunday, July 22, 2007 Comes from Eric
Hoffer:
To some, freedom means the opportunity
to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they don't want to
do.
The Thought for Saturday, July 21, 2007 Comes from
Anatole France:
If 50 million people say a foolish
thing, it is still a foolish thing.
The Thought for Friday, July 20, 2007 Comes from Marie
Corelli:
What the fool cannot learn, he laughs
at, thinking that by his laughter he shows superiority instead of a latent
idiocy.
The Thought for Thursday, July 19, 2007 Comes from
Mahatma Gandhi:
Freedom is not worth having if it does
not connote freedom to err.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 18, 2007 Comes from
Robert A. Heinlein:
A generation which ignores history has
no past—and no future.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 17, 2007 Comes from
Cicero:
It is the particular quality of a fool
to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.
The Thought for Monday, July 16, 2007 Comes from John
Galsworthy:
The measure of a democracy is the
measure of the freedom of its humblest citizens.
The Thought for Sunday, July 15, 2007 Comes from a
Chinese Proverb:
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me
twice, shame on me.
The Thought for Saturday, July 14, 2007 Comes from
Harvey Jacobs:
Freedom is a precious thing today. Those
who have it cherish it; those who fear it want to destroy it; and those who
don't have it will still fight for it.
The Thought for Friday, July 13, 2007 Comes from
William Ralph Inge:
There are two kinds of fools. One says,
"This is old, therefore it is good." The other says, "This is new, therefore it
is better."
The Thought for Thursday, July 12, 2007 Comes from
Oliver Wendell Holmes:
Freedom of speech does not give a person
the right to shout "Fire" in a crowded theater.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 11, 2007 Comes from
Doris M. Smith:
Arguing with a fool proves there are
two.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 10, 2007 Comes from Eric
Hoffer:
The basic test of freedom is perhaps
less what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
The Thought for Monday, July 9, 2007 Comes from Mark
Twain:
Let us be thankful for the fools, but
for them the rest of us could not succeed.
The Thought for Sunday, July 8, 2007 Comes from Malcolm
Forbes:
What's the very first step taken by
every dictatorship since history has been recorded? The prohibition of free
speech, the curbing and elimination of a free press. A perhaps unintended but
insidious assault on the freedom of the press to probe, to inform, is the effort
by the Department of Justice to subpoena journalists and force them to reveal
sources of information . . .The decision by a federal court upholding a
journalist's right to protect his sources is immensely valuable to all . . . To
let rage and pique at the press, for good or bad reasons, lead to a curbing of
enterprising reporting would be a disaster.
The Thought for Saturday, July 7, 2007 Comes from
Francois de La Rochefoucauld:
Sometimes a fool has talent, but never
judgment.
The Thought for Friday, July 6, 2007 Comes from Joseph
Cook:
Safe popular freedom consists of four
things: The diffusion of liberty, of intelligence, of property, and of
conscientiousness, and cannot be compounded of any three out of the four.
The Thought for Thursday, July 5, 2007 Comes from
Oliver Goldsmith:
I chose my wife, as she did her wedding
gown, for qualities that would wear well.
The Thought for Wednesday, July 4, 2007 Comes from C.
Donald Dallas:
Freedom is no heritage. Preservation of
freedom is a fresh challenge and a fresh conquest for each generation. It is
based on the religious concept of the dignity of man. The discovery that man is
free is the greatest discovery of the ages.
The Thought for Tuesday, July 3, 2007 Comes from Arnold
Glasow:
A good father lives so he is a credit to
his children.
The Thought for Monday, July 2, 2007 Comes from Zsa Zsa
Gabor:
Husbands are like fires: They go out
when unattended.
The Thought for Sunday, July 1, 2007 Comes from Sigmund
Freud:
I could not point to any need in
children as strong as that for a father's protection.
The Thought for Saturday, June 30, 2007 Comes from B.
C. Forbes:
It isn't success if it costs you the
companionship and chumminess and love of your children. Very often, busy,
wealthy men of momentous affairs discover too late that they have sacrificed the
finest thing in their life, the affection of their family. Let me relate an
incident (containing) a priceless suggestion for many ultra-busy businessmen.
Frank L. Baker, prominent public utility executive, told a friend that he was
going to give his young son an unusual Christmas present: "I am going to write
my boy a letter telling him I am going to give him an hour of my time every
day." Alas, Mr. Baker died two weeks later.
The Thought for Friday, June 29, 2007 Comes from Samuel
Smith Drury:
The parent's job year in and year out,
here a little and there a little, is to build up a disposition of good
sportsmanship, of taking one's medicine, of facing the music, of being reviled
and reviling not. This sense of not always being right, of recognition that
perhaps we've made a mistake, seems left out of some grown-up children.
The Thought for Thursday, June 28, 2007 Comes from
Oliver Wendell Holmes:
When I want to understand what is
happening today, I try to decide what will happen tomorrow; I look back; a page
of history is worth a volume of logic.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 27, 2007 Comes from Ed
Bagley:
Some Ed advice on my birthday: Ask and
you shall receive, don't and you won't.
The Thought for Tuesday, June 26, 2007 Comes from
Edward Bulwer-Lytton:
When a person is down in the world, an
ounce of help is better than a pound of preaching.
The Thought for Monday, June 25, 2007 Comes from Henry
Ford:
Time and money spent in helping men to
do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.
The Thought for Sunday, June 24, 2007 Comes from Lord
Chesterfield:
Few fathers care much for their sons, or
at least, most of them care more for their money. Of those who really love their
sons, few know how to do it.
The Thought for Saturday, June 23, 2007 Comes from
Confucius:
The father who does not teach his son
his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them.
The Thought for Friday, June 22, 2007 Comes from Omar
Burleson:
Take word "family." Strike out the "m"
for mother and the "y" for youth—and all you have left is "fail."
The Thought for Thursday, June 21, 2007 Comes from
Dagwood Bumstead:
I don't care what you say, women make
the best wives.
The Thought for Wednesday, June 20, 2007 Comes from
James Barrie:
Every man who is high up loves to think
that he has done it all himself, and the wife smiles, and lets it go at that.
The Thought for Tuesday, June 19, 2007 Comes from
Charlton Heston:
I think there are probably more closet
conservatives in Hollywood than there are closet homosexuals.
The Thought for Monday, June 18, 2007 Comes from
Michael Wilding:
You can pick out actors by the glazed
look that comes into their eyes when the conversation wanders away from
themselves.
The Thought for Sunday, June 17, 2007 Comes from Wilson
Mizner:
Some of the greatest love affairs I've
known have involved one actor—unassisted.
The Thought for Saturday, June 16, 2007 Comes from Sherwood Anderson:
I find this same problem exists in all fathers and sons. There is something about the relationship that is pretty difficult to put your finger on. I think fathers realize this and have it on their minds a good deal more than the sons realize.
The Thought for
Friday, June 15, 2007 Comes from May Lamberton Becker:
We grow neither better nor worse
as we get old, but more like ourselves.
The Thought for
Thursday, June 14, 2007 Comes from Mark Twain:
Water taken in moderation cannot
hurt anybody.
The Thought for
Wednesday, June 13, 2007 Comes from W. C. Fields:
I feel sorry for people who don't
drink, because when they get up in the morning, it's as good as they'll feel all
day.
The Thought for
Tuesday, June 12, 2007 Comes from Finley Peter Dunne:
Drink never made a man better,
but it made many a man think he was better.
The Thought for
Monday, June 11, 2007 Comes from Winston Churchill:
When I was younger I made it a
rule never to take a strong drink before lunch. Now it is my rule never to do so
before breakfast.
The Thought for
Sunday, June 10, 2007 Comes from John Barrymore:
A man is not old until regrets
take the place of dreams.
The Thought for
Saturday, June 9, 2007 Comes from Lucille Ball:
The secret of staying young is to
live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.
The Thought for
Friday, June 8, 2007 Comes from Francis Bacon:
Men of age object too much,
consult too long, adventure too little, repeat too soon, and seldom drive
business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of
success.
The Thought for
Thursday, June 7, 2007 Comes from Henri Frederic Amiel:
To know how to grow old is the
master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art
of living.
The Thought for
Wednesday, June 6, 2007 Comes from Katharine Hepburn:
Acting is the most minor of gifts
and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could
do it at age four.
The Thought for
Tuesday, June 5, 2007 Comes from George Abbott:
Generally speaking, success
brings out the actors' worst qualities and failure the best.
The Thought for
Monday, June 4, 2007 Comes from an Arabian Proverb:
Who works achieves and who sows
reaps.
The Thought for
Sunday, June 3, 2007 Comes from Morris Adler:
Our prayers are answered not when
we are given what we ask, but when we are challenged to be what we can be.
The Thought for
Saturday, June 2, 2007 Comes from Alfred Adler:
The only worthwhile achievements
of man are those which are socially useful.
The Thought for
Friday, June 1, 2007 Comes from Lord Chesterfield:
Knowledge may give weight, but
accomplishments give (luster), and many more people see than weigh.
The Thought for
Thursday, May 31, 2007 Comes from George P. Burnham:
"I can't do it" never yet
accomplished anything; "I will try" has performed wonders.
The Thought for
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 Comes from Harry F. Banks:
Financial rewards follow
accomplishment, they don't precede it.
The Thought for
Tuesday, May 29, 2007 Comes from Oren Arnold:
Every time a man puts a new idea
across, he faces a dozen men who thought of it before he did. But they only
thought of it.
The Thought for
Monday, May 28, 2007 Comes from William J. Cameron:
Money never starts an idea; it is
the idea that starts the money.
The Thought for
Sunday, May 27, 2007 Comes from Francis Bacon:
He that will not apply new
remedies must expect new evils.
The Thought for
Saturday, May 26, 2007 Comes from Christian Burckel:
One of the most hazardous of
human occupations is the transferring of an idea from one mind to another. It's
hazardous because you presuppose the existence of a second mind.
The Thought for
Friday, May 25, 2007 Comes from George Eliot:
It's them as take advantage that
get advantage in this world.
The Thought for
Thursday, May 24, 2007 Comes from Albert E. Dunning:
Great opportunities come to all,
but many do not know they have met them. The only preparation to take advantage
of them is single fidelity to watch what each day brings.
The Thought for
Wednesday, May 23, 2007 Comes from Demosthenes:
Small opportunities are often the
beginning of great enterprises.
The Thought for
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 Comes from Maltbie Babcock:
Opportunities do not come with
their values stamped upon them. Every one must be challenged. A day, dawns,
quite like other days; in it a single hour comes, quite like other hours; but in
that day and in that hour the chance of a lifetime faces us.
The Thought for
Monday, May 21, 2007 Comes from Roger W. Babson:
Opportunities are greater today
than ever before in history. Young people graduating from our schools have
greater chances for health, happiness and prosperity than had the children of
any previous generation. A little money will do more today in setting up a young
man or woman in business than it would ever do heretofore. There is a greater
demand today for people of character than at any time in the history of America.
Industry, intelligence, imagination and persistence are great gold mines.
The Thought for
Sunday, May 20, 2007 Comes from Victor Chasles:
The sure way to miss success is
to miss the opportunity.
The Thought for
Saturday, May 19, 2007 Comes from David O. McKay:
No worldly success can compensate
for failure in the home.
The Thought for
Friday, May 18, 2007 is Anonymous:
By the time a family pays off the
mortgage for a home in the suburbs, the home isn't home, and the suburbs aren't
suburbs.
The Thought for
Thursday, May 17, 2007 Comes from Bruce Barton:
Many a man who pays rent all his
life owns his own home; and many a family has successfully saved for a home only
to find itself at last with nothing but a house.
The Thought for
Wednesday, May 16, 2007 Comes from James A. Farley:
The best advice I can give to any
young man or young woman upon graduation from school can be summed up in exactly
eight words, and they are—be honest with yourself and tell the truth.
The Thought for
Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Comes from John F. Dodge:
There is no twilight zone of
honesty in business—a thing is right or it's wrong—it's black or it's white.
The Thought for
Monday, May 14, 2007 Comes from Paul Bowles:
Security is a false god; begin making sacrifices to it and you are lost.
The Thought for
Sunday, May 13, 2007 Comes from Robert Half:
Whoever created the name life
insurance had to be the sales genius of all time.
The Thought for
Saturday, May 12, 2007 Comes from Thomas Fuller:
Security is the mother of danger
and the grandmother of destruction.
The Thought for
Friday, May 11, 2007 Comes from Dag Hammarskjold:
It is when we all play safe that
we create a world of utmost insecurity.
The Thought for
Thursday, May 10, 2007 Comes from Johann Wolfgang Goethe:
Man is not born to solve the
problems of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain
himself within the limits of his comprehension.
The Thought for
Wednesday, May 9, 2007 Comes from William S. Gilbert:
When everyone is somebody then no one's anybody.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 8, 2007 Comes
from Malcolm Forbes:
Nobody can make anybody be someone he or
she doesn't want to be.
The Thought for Monday, May 7, 2007 Comes
from Russell Herman Conwell:
Ninety-eight out of 100 of the rich men
in America are honest. That is why they are rich.
The Thought for Sunday, May 6, 2007 Comes
from John Quincy Adams:
To believe all men honest would be
folly. To believe none so, is something worse.
The Thought for Saturday, May 5, 2007
Comes from Malcolm Forbes:
Re raising kids: Love, without
discipline, isn't.
The Thought for Friday, May 4, 2007 Comes
from Norman Douglas:
If you want to see what children can do,
you must stop giving them things.
The Thought for Thursday, May 3, 2007
Comes from the Holy Bible, I Corinthians 13:11:
When I was a child, I (spoke) as a
child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I
put away childish things.
The Thought for Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Comes from James A. Garfield:
Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times
out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed
overboard and compelled to sink or swim.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 1, 2007 Comes
from Benjamin Franklin:
Poverty often deprives a man of all
spirit and virtue, it is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.
The Thought for Monday, April 30, 2007
Comes from George Eliot:
One must be poor to know the luxury of
giving.
The Thought for Sunday, April 29, 2007
Comes from Confucius:
In a country well governed, poverty is
something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to
be ashamed of.
The Thought for Saturday, April 28, 2007
Comes from William Cobbett:
Thousands upon thousands are yearly
brought into a state of real poverty by their great anxiety not to be thought
poor.
The Thought for Friday, April 27, 2007
Comes from Malcolm Forbes:
An inadequate chief executive officer's
time at the top is always too long no matter how short.
The Thought for Thursday, April 26, 2007
Comes from Tiorio:
You can employ men and hire hands to
work for you, but you must win their hearts to have them work with you.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Comes from Henry Doherty:
Plenty of men can do good work for a
spurt and with immediate promotion in mind, but for promotion you want a man in
whom good work has become a habit.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Comes from a Danish Proverb:
Who takes a child by the hand takes the
mother by the heart.
The Thought for Monday, April 23, 2007
Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
There never was a child so lovely but
that his mother was glad to get him asleep.
The Thought for Sunday, April 22, 2007
Comes from a Chinese Proverb:
A child's life is like a piece of paper
on which every passerby leaves a mark.
The Thought for Saturday, April 21, 2007
is Anonymous:
The easy way to teach children the value
of money is to borrow from them.
The Thought for Friday, April 20, 2007
Comes from Benjamin Franklin:
He that lives upon hope will die
fasting.
The Thought for Thursday, April 19, 2007
Comes from an Italian Proverb:
The man who lives only by hope will die
with despair.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Comes from a Chinese Proverb:
Do not anxiously hope for what is not
yet to come; do not vainly regret what is already past.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Comes from an Arabian Proverb:
He who has health, has hope; and he who
has hope, has everything.
The Thought for Monday, April 16, 2007
Comes from Thomas Edison:
There's a better way to do it. Find it!
The Thought for Sunday, April 15, 2007
Comes from Albert Einstein:
The intellect has little to do on the
road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or
what you will, and the solution comes to you and you don't know how or why. All
great discoveries are made in this way.
The Thought for Saturday, April 14, 2007
Comes from Henry Adams:
They know enough who know how to learn
The Thought for Friday, April 13, 2007
Comes from Joseph Addison:
There is nothing which we receive with
so much reluctance as advice.
The Thought for Thursday, April 12, 2007
Comes from Cicero:
We should measure affection, not like
youngsters by the ardor of its passion, but by its strength and constancy.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Comes from Henry Ward Beecher:
Of all earthly music, that which reaches
farthest into heaven is the beating of a truly loving heart.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Comes from J. Ogden Armour:
Most men talk too much. Much of my
success has been due to keeping my mouth shut.
The Thought for Monday, April 9, 2007
Comes from Woodrow Wilson:
As a matter of fact and experience, the
more power is divided the more irresponsible it becomes.
The Thought for Sunday, April 8, 2007
Comes from Abraham Lincoln:
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but
if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
The Thought for Saturday, April 7, 2007
Comes from Francois Fenelon:
We can often do more for other men by
correcting our own faults than by trying to correct theirs.
The Thought for Friday, April 6, 2007
Comes from Georg Christoph Lictenberg:
To many people virtue consists chiefly
in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.
The Thought for Thursday, April 5, 2007
Comes from Arnold Glasow:
There is no reward for finding fault.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Comes from Abraham Lincoln:
Determine that the thing can and shall
be done, and then we shall find the way.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Comes from Finley Peter Dunne:
The last man that makes a joke owns it.
The Thought for Monday, April 2, 2007
Comes from Edward De Bono:
Humor is by far the most significant
activity of the human brain.
The Thought for Sunday, April 1, 2007
Comes from Honor de Balzac:
To live in the presence of great truths
and eternal laws, to be led by permanent ideals—this is what keeps a man patient
when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.
The Thought for Saturday, March 31, 2007
Comes from Thomas Fuller:
Cheat me in the price, but not in the
goods.
The Thought for Friday, March 30, 2007
Comes from Lord Greville:
No man was ever so much deceived by
another, as by himself.
The Thought for Thursday, March 29, 2007
Comes from George Eliot:
Blessed is the man who, having nothing
to say, abstains from giving in words evidence of the fact.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Comes from Gary Cooper:
One nice thing about silence is that it
can't be repeated.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Comes from Confucius:
Silence is a true friend that never
betrays.
The Thought for Monday, March 26, 2007
Comes from G. K. Chesterton:
Silence is the unbearable repartee.
The Thought for Sunday, March 25, 2007
Comes from Robert Benchley:
Drawing on my fine command of language,
I said nothing.
The Thought for Saturday, March 24, 2007
is Anonymous:
There is no wholly satisfactory
substitute for brains, but silence does pretty well.
The Thought for Friday, March 23, 2007 is
Anonymous:
Most of us know how to say nothing; few
of us know when.
The Thought for Thursday, March 22, 2007
Comes from Ed Bagley:
A thought for all mouthy politicians:
Silence is a great peacemaker.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Comes from Theodore Roosevelt:
I care not what others think of what I
do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do: That is character!
The Thought for Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Comes from Andrew Carnegie:
There is no way of making a business
successful that can vie with the policy of promoting those who render
exceptional service.
The Thought for Monday, March 19, 2007 Comes from Malcolm Forbes:
Never hire someone who knows less than you do about what he's (or she's) hired to do.
The Thought for Sunday, March 18, 2007
Comes from Calvin Coolidge:
The business of America is business.
The Thought for Saturday, March 17, 2007
Comes from Peter Drucker:
My greatest strength as a consultant is
to be ignorant and ask a few questions.
The Thought for Friday, March 16, 2007
Comes from Richard Whately:
As one may bring himself to believe
almost anything he is inclined to believe, it makes all the difference whether
we begin or end with the inquiry, "What is truth?"
The Thought for Thursday, March 15, 2007
Comes from Bette Davis:
Growing old is not for sissies.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Comes from Glenn Frank:
The advertising man is a liaison between
the products of business and the mind of the nation. He must know both before he
can serve either.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Comes from George Santayana:
Fanaticism consists in redoubling your
efforts when you have forgotten your aim.
The Thought for Monday, March 12, 2007
Comes from Thomas Carlyle:
Even in the meanest sorts of labor, the
whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony the instant he sets
himself to work.
The Thought for Sunday, March 11, 2007
Comes from Rachel Carson:
There is something infinitely healing in
the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and
spring after winter.
The Thought for Saturday, March 10, 2007
Comes from Jean de la Bruyere:
There are only two ways of getting on in
this world; by one's own industry or by the weakness of others.
The Thought for Friday, March 9, 2007 is
Anonymous:
If you feel you are indispensable, put
your finger in a glass of water, withdraw it, and note the hole you have left.
The Thought for Thursday, March 8, 2007
Comes from Thomas Carlyle:
Speech is too often not the art of
concealing thought, but of quite stifling and suspending thought, so that there
is none to conceal.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Comes from George D. Boardman:
The ignorant man marvels at the
exceptional; the wise man marvels at the common; the greatest wonder of all is
the regularity of nature.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Comes from M. D. Garbrick:
Should one look through a red glass at a
white lily, he would seem to see a red lily. But there would be no red lily. So
it is with humanity's problems. They consist of false mental pictures.
The Thought for Monday, March 5, 2007
Comes from Frank Crane:
Efficiency is doing things—not wishing
you could do them, dreaming about them, or wondering if you can do them.
The Thought for Sunday, March 4, 2007
Comes from an Arabian Proverb:
God is not kind to those who are not
kind to others.
The Thought for Saturday, March 3, 2007
Comes from Jane Austen:
Those who do not complain are never
pitied.
The Thought for Friday, March 2, 2007
Comes from Paxton Blair:
It is pride which plies the world with
so much harshness and severity. We are as rigorous to offenses as if we had
never offended.
The Thought for Thursday, March 1, 2007
Comes from Lao-Tzu:
Kindness in words creates confidence,
kindness in thinking creates profoundness, kindness in giving creates love.
My Thought for Wednesday, February 28,
2007 Comes from Kahlil Gibran:
Braving obstacles and hardships is
nobler than retreat to tranquility. The butterfly that hovers around the lamp
until it dies is more admirable than the mole that lives in the dark tunnel.
My Thought for
Tuesday, February 27, 2007 Comes from My Occasional Need to Expand Upon Biblical
Instruction (this may also be the best line of poetry I have ever written):
Ask and it shall be given; don't
and it won't.
My Thought for
Monday, February 26, 2007 Comes from an Abkhasian Proverb:
Without rest, a man cannot work;
without work, the rest does not give you any benefit.
My Thought for
Sunday, February 25, 2007 Comes from Henry Adams:
One friend in a lifetime is much;
two are many; three are hardly possible.
My Thought for
Saturday, February 24, 2007 Comes from Albert Einstein:
Try not to become a man of
success, but rather a man of value.
My Thought for
Friday, February 23, 2007 Comes from E. Atkinson:
There are two things needed in
these days; first, for rich men to find out how poor men live; and, second, for
poor men to know how rich men work.
My Thought for
Thursday, February 22, 2007 Comes from William J. H. Boetcker:
If you want to know how rich you
really are, find out what would be left of you tomorrow if you should lose every
dollar you own tonight?
Thought for
Wednesday, February 21, 2007:
Unless the job means more than
the pay it will never pay more.
H. Bertram Lewis
Thought for Tuesday, February 20, 2007:
A true measure
of your worth includes all the benefits others have gained from your success.
Cullen Hightower
Thought for Monday, February 19, 2007:
The man who follows the crowd will never
be followed by a crowd.
Richard Donnell
Thought for Sunday, February 18, 2007:
In great matters men show themselves as
they wish to be seen; in small matters, as they are.
Gamaliel Bradford
Thought for Saturday, February 17, 2007:
It isn't the common man at all who is
important; it's the uncommon man.
Nancy Astor
Thought for Friday, February 16, 2007:
It is difficult to live in the present,
ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past.
Jim Bishop
Thought for Thursday, February 15, 2007:
The only way to have a friend is to be
one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thought for Wednesday, February 14, 2007:
Debt is the slavery of the free.
Publilius Syrus
Thought for Monday, February 12, 2007:
Never let your sense of morals prevent
you from doing what is right.
Isaac Asimov
Thought for Sunday, February 11, 2007:
A person may be qualified to do greater
good to mankind and become more beneficial to the world, by morality without
faith than by faith without morality.
Joseph Addison
Thought for Saturday, February 10, 2007:
A great number of people think they are
thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James
Thought for Friday, February 9, 2007:
Nothing is harder to topple than a fact
that supports a deeply held prejudice denied by its holder.
Russell Ackoff
Thought for Thursday, February 8, 2007:
Strange as it may seem, no amount of
learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it.
Stephen Vizinczey
Thought for Wednesday, February 7, 2007:
The trouble with the world is that the
stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell
Thought for Tuesday, February 6, 2007:
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed.
Sara Teasdale
Thought for Monday, February 5, 2007:
Everybody loves to find fault, it gives
(them) a feeling of superiority.
William Feather
Thought for Sunday, February 4, 2007:
Poverty passes from one generation to
the next. Extravagance passes from one Congress to the next.
Cullen Hightower
Thought for Saturday, February 3, 2007:
Think of your own faults the first part
of the night when you are awake, and of the faults of others the latter part of
the night when you are asleep.
Chinese Proverb
Thought for Friday, February 2, 2007:
Assuredly men of merit are never lacking
at any time, for those are the men who manage affairs, and it is the affairs
that produce the men.
Catherine the Great
Thought for Thursday, February 1, 2007:
Where there's marriage without love,
there will be love without marriage.
Benjamin Franklin
Thought for Wednesday, January 31, 2007:
On the whole, I haven't found men unduly
loath to say, "I love you." The real trick is to get them to say, "Will you
marry me?"
Ilka Chase
Thought for Tuesday, January 30, 2007:
My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's
country, not to its institutions or its office-holders.
Mark Twain
Thought for Monday, January 29, 2007:
Poetry: A literary gift—chiefly because
you can't sell it.
Cynic's Cyclopaedia
Thought for Sunday, January 28, 2007:
We will often find compensation if we
think more of what life has given us and less about what life has taken away.
William Barclay
Thought for Saturday, January 27, 2007:
Man ought to know that in the theater of
human life, it is only for Gods and angels to be spectators.
Francis Bacon
Thought for Friday, January 26, 2007:
To live is like to love—all reason is
against it, and all healthy instinct is for it.
Samuel Butler
Thought for Thursday, January 25, 2007:
Consider how hard it is to change
yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have of trying to change
others.
Jacob M. Braude
Thought for Wednesday, January 24, 2007:
I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I
reflect and out of all this I try to form an idea into which I put as much
common sense as I can.
Marquis de Lafayette
Thought for Tuesday, January 23, 2007:
Believe only half of what you see and
nothing that you hear.
Dinah Mulock Craik
Thought for Monday, January 22, 2007:
Debt is the secret foe of thrift, as
vice and idleness are its open foes. The debt-habit is the twin brother of
poverty.
Theodore T. Munger
Thought for Sunday, January 21, 2007:
Truth can never be told so as to be
understood and not be believed.
William Blake
Thought for Saturday, January 20, 2007:
Talking and eloquence are not the same:
to speak, and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man
speaks.
Ben Johnson
Thought for Friday, January 19, 2007:
There is nothing wrong with having
nothing to say---unless you insist on saying it.
Anonymous
Thought for Thursday, January 18, 2007:
No person was ever honored for what he
received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.
Calvin Coolidge
Thought for Wednesday, January 17, 2007:
We make a living by what we get, we make
a life by what we give.
Winston Churchill
Thought for Tuesday, January 16, 2007:
No man has a good enough memory to be a
successful liar.
Abraham Lincoln
Thought for Monday, January 15, 2007:
In a free and republican government, you
cannot restrain the voice of the multitude. Every man will speak as he thinks,
or, more properly, without thinking, and consequently will judge the effects
without attending to their causes.
George Washington
Thought for Sunday, January 14, 2007:
He was the consummate politician; he
didn't lie, neither did he tell the truth.
John Lundberg
Thought for Saturday, January 13, 2007:
One of the most striking differences
between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
Mark Twain
Thought for Friday, January 12, 2007:
I have always been among those who
believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if
a man is a fool the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact
by speaking.
Woodrow Wilson
Thought for Thursday, January 11, 2007:
If we would quit studying history and go
ahead and study the future, we would be much better off. The future course of
your lives will be spent in the future and it ought to be what you think. If you
want a good one, it will be good. If you want a bad one, it will be bad. It can
be good or bad.
Charles F. Kettering
Thought for Wednesday, January 10, 2007:
Man is the only animal that laughs and
weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck by the difference between what
things are and what they might have been.
William Hazlitt
Thought for Tuesday, January 9, 2007:
To wisdom belongs the intellectual
apprehension of eternal things; to knowledge, the rational knowledge of temporal
things.
St. Augustine
Thought for Monday, January 8, 2007:
Riches are gotten with pain, kept with
care and lost with grief.
Thomas Fuller
Thought for Sunday, January 7, 2007:
I am not young enough to know
everything.
James M. Barrie
Thought for Saturday, January 6, 2007:
No man will work for your interests
unless they are his.
David Seabury
Thought for Friday, January 5, 2007:
Life is a magic vase filled to the brim;
so made that you cannot dip into it nor draw from it; but it overflows into the
hand that drops treasures into it—drop in malice and it overflows hate; drop in
charity and it overflows love.
John Ruskin
Thought for Thursday, January 4, 2007:
People who think they know it all are
especially annoying to those of us who do.
Anonymous
Thought for Wednesday, January 3, 2007:
The best portion of a good man's life is
his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
William Wordsworth
Thought for Tuesday, January 2, 2007:
What a pleasure life would be to live if
everybody would try to do only half of what he expects others to do.
William J. H. Boetcker
Thought for Monday, January 1, 2007:
Most good resolutions start too late and
end too soon.
Arnold Glasow
Thought for Sunday, December 31, 2006:
Those who know do not tell; those who
tell do not know.
Lao-Tzu
Thought for Saturday, December 30, 2006:
Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I
know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
Will Durant
Thoughts for Friday, December 29, 2006:
In the matter of belief, we are all
extreme conservatives.
William James
An unaspiring person believes according
to what he achieves. An aspiring person achieves according to what he believes.
Sri Chinmoy
Thought for Thursday, December 28, 2006:
I never did anything worth doing by
accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.
Thomas Edison
Thought for Wednesday, December 27, 2006:
An idealist is one who, on noticing that
a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better
soup.
H. L. Mencken
Thought for Tuesday, December 26, 2006:
The just man walketh in his integrity;
his children are blessed after him.
The Holy Bible, King James Version, Proverbs, Chapter 20, Verse 7
Thought for Monday, December 25, 2006:
And the angel said unto (the shepherds),
"Fear not, for behold I bring to you good tidings of great joy, which shall be
to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who
is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: You shall find the babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with
the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, "Glory to
God in the highest, and on earth peace (and) good will toward men."
The Holy Bible, King James Version, Luke, Chapter 2, Verses 10-14
Thought for Sunday, December 24, 2006:
Pause and be thankful tonight for all of
the joys and blessings in your life. Praise whomever you choose, bow down and
realize your place in the universe. You did not create the environment you exist
in, you merely occupy space; therefore, whatever good you can do, do it as a
privilege with an open heart in loving kindness. Many are here with you on Earth
that will never even sniff your good fortune.
Ed Bagley (1944- )
Thought for Saturday, December 23, 2006:
We perceive when love begins and when it
declines by our embarrassment when alone together.
Jean de la Bruyere (1645-1696)
Thought for Friday, December 22, 2006:
There is also an artificial aristocracy
founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents. The artificial
aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provisions should be
made to prevent its ascendancy.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Thought for Thursday, December 21, 2006:
The truly creative mind in any field is
no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him
. . . a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is
an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to
this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create,
create—so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or
something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must
pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really
alive unless he is creating.
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973)
Thought for Wednesday, December 20, 2006:
Permanent good can never be the outcome
of untruth and violence.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Thought for Tuesday, December 19, 2006:
We must not confuse dissent with
disloyalty.
Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965)
Thought for Monday, December 18, 2006:
To sin by silence when they should
protest makes cowards of men.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Thought for Sunday, December 17, 2006:
Nations begin to dig their own graves
when men talk more of human rights and less of human duties.
William J. H. Boetcker
Thought for Saturday, December 16, 2006:
Everything comes to us that belongs to
us if we create the capacity to receive it.
Rabindranath Tagore
Thought for Friday, December 15, 2006:
Have a place for everything and keep the
thing somewhere else; this is not advice, it is merely custom.
Mark Twain
Thought for Thursday, December 14, 2006:
The way to wealth is as plain as the way
to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality; that is,
waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. Without industry
and frugality nothing will do; with them, everything.
Benjamin Franklin
Thought for Wednesday, December 13, 2006:
The greatest inventions were produced in
the times of ignorance, (such) as the use of the compass, gunpowder and
printing. Jonathan Swift
Thought for Tuesday, December 12, 2006:
Nearly every great discovery in science
has come as the result of providing a new question rather than a new answer.
Paul Meglitsch
Thought for Monday, December 11, 2006:
The problem with being sure that God is
on your side is that you can't change your mind, because God sure isn't going to
change His.
Roger Ebert (1942- )
Thought for Sunday, December 10, 2006:
Literature is the language of society,
as speech is the language of man.
Louis de Donald (1754-1840)
Thought for Saturday, December 9, 2006:
We are not the same persons this year as
last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to
love a changed person.
William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)
Thought for Friday, December 8, 2006:
We can't solve problems by using the
same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Thought for Thursday, December 7, 2006:
In the case of good books, the point is
not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to
you.
Mortimer Adler (1902-2001)
Thought for Wednesday, December 6, 2006:
Too many people spend money they haven't
earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)
Thought for Tuesday, December 5, 2006:
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness
is the attribute of the strong.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Thought for Monday, December 4, 2006:
I hope our wisdom will grow with our
power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Thought for Sunday, December 3, 2006:
Very few established institutions,
governments and constitutions . . . are ever destroyed by their enemies until
they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends.
Walter Lippman (1889-1974)
Thought for Saturday, December 2, 2006:
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for
you never know how soon it will be too late.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thought for Friday, December 1, 2006:
A tyrant must put on the appearance of
uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal
treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other
hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on
his side.
Aristotle (384-322 BC)
Thought for Thursday, November 30, 2006:
A half-truth is a whole lie.
Yiddish Proverb
Thought for Wednesday, November 29, 2006:
The great composer does not set to work
because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven,
Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as
much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They did
not waste time waiting for inspiration.
Ernest Newman
Thought for Tuesday, November 28, 2006:
If you want to annoy your neighbors,
tell the truth about them.
Pietro Aretino
Thought for Monday, November 27, 2006:
Truth is the cry of all, but the game of
the few.
George Berkeley
Thought for Sunday, November 26, 2006:
When you blame others, you give up your
power to change.
Douglas Noel Adams
Thought for Saturday, November 25, 2006:
If a man begins with certainties, he
will end with doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he will
end in certainties. Francis Bacon
Thought for Friday, November 24, 2006:
We either make ourselves happy or
miserable. The amount of work is the same.
Carlos Castenada (1925-1998)
Thought for Thursday, November 23, 2006:
Reflect that life, like every other
blessing, derives its value from its use alone.
Samuel Johnson
Thought for Wednesday, November 22, 2006:
For me, words are a form of action,
capable of influencing change.
Ingrid Bengis (1944- )
Thought for Tuesday, November 21, 2006:
To believe in something, and not to live
it, is dishonest.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Thought for Monday, November 20, 2006:
In small matters trust the mind, in the
large ones the heart.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Thought for Sunday, November 19, 2006:
The greatest want of the world is the
want of men—men who will not be bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls
are true and honest; men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men
whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole; men who will
stand for the right though the heavens fall.
E. B. White
Thought for Saturday, November 18, 2006:
Lexicographer's business is solely to
collect, arrange, and define the words that usage presents to his hands. He has
no right to proscribe words; he is to present them as they are.
Noah Webster (1758-1843)
Thought for Friday, November 17, 2006:
Be civil to all, sociable to many,
familiar with few, friend to one, enemy to none.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Thought for Thursday, November 16, 12006:
Kindness is more important than wisdom,
and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.
Theodore Rubin (1923- )
Thought for Wednesday, November 15, 2006:
The humorous story is American, the
comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends
for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic and the witty upon the
matter.
Mark Twain
Thought for Tuesday, November 14, 2006:
Man, biologically considered, and
whatever else he may be into the bargain, is the most formidable of all beasts
of prey, and indeed, the only one who preys systematically on his own species.
William James
Thought for Monday, November 13, 2006:
Power always thinks it has a great soul
and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's
service when it is violating all his laws.
John Adams (1735-1826)
Thought for Sunday, November 12, 2006:
Words are like money; there is nothing
so useless, unless when in actual use.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
Thought for Saturday, November 11, 2006:
I place economy among the first and most
important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to
be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with
perpetual debt.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Thought for Friday, November 10, 2006:
A society that presumes a norm of
violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football
field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the
people who would destroy it.
Lewis Lapam (1935- )
Thought for Thursday, November 9, 2006:
We love flattery, even though we are not
deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Thought for Wednesday, November 8, 2006:
People never lie so much as before an
election, during a war, or after a hunt.
Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898)
Thought for Tuesday, November 7, 2006:
For me, words are a form of action,
capable of influencing change.
Ingrid Bengis (1944- )
Thought for Monday, November 6, 2006:
One of the great mistakes is to judge
policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.
Milton Friedman (1912- )
Thought for Sunday, November 5, 2006:
When work is a pleasure, life is a joy!
When work is a duty, life is slavery.
Maxim Gorky (1868-1936)
Thought for Saturday, November 4, 2006:
A verb has a hard time enough of it in
this world when its all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But
that's just what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down
here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it way over
yonder like another stake, and between these two limits they just shovel in
German. (From an address to the Nineteenth Century Club in New York City in 1900
on "The Disappearance of Literature")
Mark Twain
Thought for Friday, November 3, 2006:
One of my greatest pleasures in writing
has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of
comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the saddening realization that such
people rarely read.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)
Thought for Thursday, November 2, 2006:
The trade of governing has always been
monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
Thought for Wednesday, November 1, 2006:
One of the oldest human needs is having
someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.
Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
Thought for Tuesday, October 31, 2006:
The greatest part of a writer's time is
spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make
one book.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Thought for Monday, October 30, 2006:
We in America do not have government by
the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Thought for Sunday, October 29, 2006:
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Thought for Saturday, October 28, 2006:
In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, in Australia you have to explain what a writer is.
Geoffrey Contterell
Thought for Friday, October 27, 2006:
If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
E. B. White, Writer (1899-1985)
Lessons in Life Articles Page Quotes:
The Thought for Sunday, May 27, 2007 Comes from A. S. Gregg:
You have a shilling. I have a
shilling. We swap. You have my shilling and I have yours. We are no better off.
But suppose you have an idea and I have an idea. We swap. Now you have two ideas
and I have two ideas. We have increased our stock of ideas 100 per cent.
The Thought for Saturday, May 26, 2007 Comes from Dale Carnegie:
The ideas I stand for are not
mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole
them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don't like their rules, whose
would you use?
The Thought for Friday, May 25, 2007 Comes from B. C. Forbes:
If you were to visit a certain
rural section of Vermont, you would be shown two farms only a few miles apart,
and you would be told that a lad raised on one of the farms today occupies the
most responsible position in the whole world, the Presidency of the United
States. From the other farm, you would be told, there went forth another lad who
is today the head of one of the leading railroads in the United States . . .
Whenever I hear wild denunciations of this country and its institutions I cannot
but feel that . . . no other country on earth offers such advantages and
opportunities for children born in humble circumstances.
The Thought for Thursday, May 24, 2007 Comes from Benjamin Disraeli:
The great secret of success in
life is for a man to be ready when his opportunity comes.
The Thought for Wednesday, May 23, 2007 Comes from Winston Churchill:
An optimist sees an opportunity
in every calamity; a pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 22, 2007 Comes from Francis Bacon:
A wise man will make more
opportunities than he finds.
The Thought for Monday, May 21, 2007 Comes from Marcus Aurelius Antoninus:
No one wearies of benefits
received.
The Thought for Sunday, May 20, 2007 Comes from an Arabian Proverb:
Four things come not back—the
spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.
The Thought for Saturday, May 19, 2007 Comes from Calvin Coolidge:
Look well to the hearthstone
(home); therein all hope for America lies.
The Thought for Friday, May 18, 2007 Comes from David O. McKay:
The home is the basis of a
righteous life and no other instrumentality can take its place nor fulfill its
essential functions.
The Thought for Thursday, May 17, 2007 Comes from Joan Rivers:
I hate housework! You make the
bed, you do the dishes—and six months later you have to start all over again.
The Thought for Wednesday, May 16, 2007 Comes from Christian Bovee:
Hard workers are usually honest;
industry lifts them above temptation.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Comes from Thomas Carlyle:
Make yourself an honest man, and
then you may be sure there is one rascal less in the world.
The Thought for Monday, May 14, 2007 Comes from George Finlayson:
Omit a few of the most abstruse
sciences, and mankind's study of man occupies nearly the whole field of
literature. The burden of history is what man has been; of law, what he does; of
physiology, what he is; of ethics, what he ought to be; of revelation, what he
shall be.
The Thought for Sunday, May 13, 2007 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
A man is known by the books he
reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his
tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the motion of
his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is
solitary, but everything hath affinities infinite.
The Thought for Saturday, May 12, 2007 Comes from Sinclair Lewis:
There are two insults no human
will endure: the assertion that he has no sense of humor and the doubly
impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.
The Thought for Friday, May 11, 2007 Comes from William J. H. Boetcker:
Men must be honest with
themselves before they can be honest with others. A man who is not honest with
himself presents a hopeless case.
The Thought for Thursday, May 10, 2007 Comes from James A. Garfield:
I mean to make myself a man, and
if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else.
The Thought for Wednesday, May 9, 2007 Comes from Benjamin Franklin:
Mankind are very odd creatures:
One half censure what they practice, the other half practice what they censure,
the rest always say and do as they ought.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 8, 2007 Comes from James F. Bell:
Aside from the strictly moral
standpoint, honesty is—not only the best policy, but the only possible policy
from the standpoint of business relations. The fulfillment of the pledged word
is of equal necessity to the conduct of all business. If we expect and demand
virtue and honor in others, the flame of both must burn brightly within
ourselves and shed their light to illuminate the erstwhile dark corners of
distrust and dishonesty. The truthful answer rests for the most part within
ourselves, for like begets like. Honesty begets honesty; trust, trust; and so on
through the whole category of desirable practices that must govern and control
the world's affairs.
The Thought for Monday, May 7, 2007 Comes from Aristophanes:
No man is really honest; none of
us is above the influence of gain.
The Thought for Sunday, May 6, 2007 Comes from Edward Benson:
How desperately difficult it is
to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.
The Thought for Saturday, May 5, 2007 Comes from Bette Davis:
If you have never been hated by a
child, you have never been a parent.
The Thought for Friday, May 4, 2007 Comes from G. K. Chesterton:
Children feel the whiteness of
the lily with a graphic and passionate clearness that we cannot give them at
all. The only thing we can give them is information—the information that if you
break the lily in half it won't grow again.
The Thought for Thursday, May 3, 2007 Comes from Art Buck:
Too many innocent children are
victims of preventable diseases—like being born.
The Thought for Wednesday, May 2, 2007 Comes from Josiah Holland:
Of all the advantages that come
to any young man, I believe it to be demonstrably true that poverty is the
greatest.
The Thought for Tuesday, May 1, 2007 Comes from Cullen Hightower:
Only the poor can know all the
disadvantages of poverty. Only the rich can know all the disadvantages of
wealth.
The Thought for Monday, April 30, 2007 Comes from Oliver Goldsmith:
To be poor, and seem to be poor,
is a certain way never to rise.
The Thought for Sunday, April 29, 2007 Comes from Deuteronomy 15:11:
For the poor shall never cease
out of the land; therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand
wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy need, in the land.
The Thought for Saturday, April 28, 2007 Comes from Robert Cowan:
When I was growing up, our town
was so poor our rainbows came in black and white.
The Thought for Friday, April 27, 2007 Comes from Theodore Roosevelt:
The best executive is the one who
has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint
enough to keep them from meddling with them while they do it.
The Thought for Thursday, April 26, 2007 Comes from B. C. Forbes:
Frank W. Woolworth once told me
that the turning point in his career did not come until he was thrown flat on
his back by illness. He was sure that his business would go to pieces during his
long, enforced absence. Instead, he discovered that that he had in his employ
men that could overcome difficulties when given power to exercise initiative.
After that Woolworth left many problems and difficulties to be solved by
subordinates and turned his attention to big things.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 25, 2007 Comes from Malcolm Forbes:
Executives who get there and stay
suggest solutions when they present the problems.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 24, 2007 Comes from Heywood Broun:
Men profess a total lack of
ability to wash baby's face simply because they believe there's no great fun in
the business, at either end of the sponge.
The Thought for Monday, April 23, 2007 Comes from Erma Bombeck:
Never lend your car to anyone to
whom you have given birth.
The Thought for Sunday, April 22, 2007 Comes from James Baldwin:
Children have never been very
good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
The Thought for Saturday, April 21, 2007 is Anonymous:
Teenagers are people who express
a burning desire to be different by dressing exactly alike.
The Thought for Friday, April 20, 2007 Comes from Edgar Watson Howe:
There is nothing so well know as
that we should not expect something from nothing—but we all do, all call it
Hope.
The Thought for Thursday, April 19, 2007 Comes from Robert Ingersoll:
Hope is the only universal liar
who never loses his reputation for veracity.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 18, 2007 Comes from Elbert Hubbard:
Parties who want milk should not
seat themselves on a stool in the middle of the field in hope that the cow will
back up to them.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 17, 2007 Comes from Thomas Carlyle:
Man is, properly speaking, based
upon hope; he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is
emphatically that place of hope.
The Thought for Monday, April 16, 2007 Comes from Howard W. Newton:
People don't give a hoot about
who made the original whatzit. They want to know who makes the best one.
The Thought for Sunday, April 15, 2007 Comes from Charles F. Kettering:
An inventor is an engineer who
doesn't take his education too seriously.
The Thought for Saturday, April 14, 2007 Comes from Brooks Atkinson:
It takes most men five years to
recover from a college education, and to learn that poetry is as vital to
thinking as knowledge.
The Thought for Friday, April 13, 2007 Comes from H. L. Mencken:
Strike an average between what a
woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks
of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.
The Thought for Thursday, April 12, 2007 Comes from Samuel Butler:
To live is like to love—all
reason is against it, and all healthy instinct is for it.
The Thought for Wednesday, April 11, 2007 Comes from Lord Byron:
Man's love is of man's life a
thing apart. 'Tis women's whole existence.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 10, 2007 Comes from Oliver Wendell Holmes:
A goose flies by a chart that the
Royal Geographical Society could not improve.
The Thought for Monday, April 9, 2007 Comes from Samuel Johnson:
Rain is good for vegetables, and
for the animals who eat those vegetables, and for the animals who eat those
animals.
The Thought for Sunday, April 8, 2007 Comes from Robert G. Ingersoll:
In nature there are neither
rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.
The Thought for Saturday, April 7, 2007 Comes from Thomas H. Huxley:
The chessboard is the world; the
pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call
laws of nature.
The Thought for Friday, April 6, 2007 Comes from B. C. Forbes:
The way to make a true friend is
to be one. Friendship implies loyalty, esteem, cordiality, sympathy, affection,
readiness to aid, to help, to stick, to fight for, if need be. The real friend
is he or she who can share all our sorrows and double our joys. Radiate
friendship and it will return sevenfold.
The Thought for Thursday, April 5, 2007 Comes from Charles M. Schwab:
Three men were laying brick. The
first was asked: "What are you doing?" He answered: "Laying some brick." The
second man was asked: "What are you working for?" He answered: "Five dollars a
day." The third man was asked: "What are you doing?" He answered: "I am helping
to build a great cathedral." Which man are you?
The Thought for Wednesday, April 4, 2007 Comes from George S. Merriam:
The sense of humor is the oil of
life's engine. Without it, the machinery creaks and groans. No lot is so hard,
no aspect of things is so grim, but it relaxes before a hearty laugh.
The Thought for Tuesday, April 3, 2007 Comes from George Bernard Shaw:
Life does not cease to by funny
when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
The Thought for Monday, April 2, 2007 Comes from Garrison Keillor:
Humor, a good sense of it, is to
Americans what manhood is to Spaniards, and we will go to great lengths to prove
it. Experiments with laboratory rats have shown that, if one psychologist in the
room laughs at something a rat does, all of the other psychologists will laugh
equally. Nobody wants to be left holding the joke.
The Thought for Sunday, April 1, 2007 Comes from Ambrose Bierce:
Loquacity: A disorder which
renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk.
The Thought for Saturday, March 31, 2007 Comes from Edward Hurley:
Most business problems require
common sense rather than legal reference. They require good judgment and honesty
of purpose rather than reference to the courts.
The Thought for Friday, March 30, 2007 Comes from Robert G. Ingersoll:
It is a thousand times better to
have commonsense without education than to have education without commonsense.
The Thought for Thursday, March 29, 2007 Comes from Edgar Watson Howe:
Common sense is compelled to make
its way without the enthusiasm of anyone; all admit it grudgingly.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 28, 2007 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Society is always taken by
surprise at any new example of common sense.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 27, 2007 Comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Common sense is genius dressed in
working clothes.
The Thought for Monday, March 26, 2007 Comes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
Commonsense in an uncommon degree
is what the world calls wisdom.
The Thought for Sunday, March 25, 2007 Comes from Calvin Coolidge:
The most important thing for a
young man is to establish a credit—a reputation, character.
The Thought for Saturday, March 24, 2007 Comes from Oscar Wilde:
I hope you have not been leading
a double life, pretending to be wicked, and being really good all the time. That
would be hypocrisy.
The Thought for Friday, March 23, 2007 Comes from Francois de La Rochefoucauld:
You are never so easily fooled as
when trying to fool someone else.
The Thought for Thursday, March 22, 2007 Comes from Francois de La Rochefoucauld:
It is more shameful to distrust
your friends than it is to be deceived by them.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 21, 2007 Comes from Ralph W. Sockman:
A man has no more character than
he can command in a time of crisis.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 20, 2007 Comes from Herbert Spencer:
Not education, but character is
man's greatest need—and man's greatest safeguard.
The Thought for Monday, March 19, 2007 Comes from Andrew Carnegie:
There is no way of making a
business successful that can vie with the policy of promoting those who render
exceptional service.
The Thought for Sunday, March 18, 2007 Comes from James G. Daly:
All of the things now enjoyed by
civilization have been created by some man and sold by another man before
anybody really enjoyed the benefits of them.
The Thought for Saturday, March 17, 2007 Comes from C. A. Dystra:
Men cannot for long live
hopefully unless they are embarked upon some great unifying enterprise—one for
which they may pledge their lives, their fortunes and their honor.
The Thought for Friday, March 16, 2007 Comes from F. D. Van Amburgh:
Things that I felt absolutely
sure of but a few years ago, I do not believe now; and this thought makes me see
more clearly how foolish it would be to expect all men to agree with me.
The Thought for Thursday, March 15, 2007 Comes from Doris Day:
The really frightening thing
about middle age is that you know you'll grow out of it.
The Thought for Wednesday, March 14, 2007 Comes from Norman Douglas:
You can tell the ideals of a
nation by its advertisements.
The Thought for Tuesday, March 13, 2007 Comes from Quesnel:
Zeal is very blind, or badly
regulated, when it encroaches upon the rights of others.
The Thought for Monday, March 12, 2007 Comes from Thomas Carlyle:
Blessed is he