Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
 —Socrates

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
 —Winston Churchill   …for you and me, too

The right quote can inspire people to change their ways.
 —Zig Ziglar

Lesser known aphorisms from others

We must believe in free will. We have no choice.
 —Isaac Bashevis Singer

Happiness is a function of accepting what is.
 —Werner Erhard, Paul in Philippians 4:10-13

Happiness is an inside job.
 —William Arthur Ward

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.
 —Hosea Ballou

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.
 —Albert Schweitzer

In times of joy, all of us wish we had a tail we could wag.
 —W.H. Auden

"She handled life like it was easy."
 —Ben Whittaker in "The Intern"

The best prayers have often more groans than words.
 —John Buchan, Paul in Romans 8:26

The virtue of paganism was strength; the virtue of Christianity is obedience.
 —Augustus Hare

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.
 —Henry Ford

The dead fish flow away with the current. The live ones continue to swim upstream.
 —Joe Fitzpatrick

No pressure, no diamonds.
 —Thomas Carlyle

Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.
 —Robert F. Kennedy

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
 —G. K. Chesterton

Never fear shadows. They simply mean there's a light shining somewhere nearby.
 —Ruth E. Renkel

I will love the light, for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.
 —Og Mandino

Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.
 —Charles Spurgeon

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow; it only saps today of its joy.
 —Leo Buscaglia

The smile that is worth the praises of earth is the smile that shines through tears.
 —Ella Wheeler Wilcox

If you're going through hell, keep going.
 —Winston Churchill

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.
 —Paulo Coelho

If something can't go on forever, it will stop.
 —Herbert Stein   …often called "Stein's Law"

We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others.
 —François de La Rochefoucauld

I write about the power of trying, because I want to be okay with failing. I write about generosity because I battle selfishness. I write about joy because I know sorrow. I write about faith because I almost lost mine, and I know what it is to be broken and in need of redemption. I write about gratitude because I am thankful—for all of it.
 —Kristin Armstrong

Let all your thinks be thanks.
 —W.H. Auden

If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.
 —Tecumseh

He who thanks but with the lips, thanks but in part; the full, the true thanksgiving comes from the heart.
 —John Augustus Shedd

What appears to be the end of the road may simply be a bend in the road.
 —Robert H. Schuller

You can’t go back and make a new start, but you can start right now and make a brand new ending.
 ―James R. Sherman in Rejection

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
 —Les Brown

I get up every day and don't let the old man in. (When Toby Keith asked what keeps him going at 88.)
 —Clint Eastwood    Here's the song Toby wrote that evening

When your dreams turn to dust…vacuum.
 —Wolfgang Riebe

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.
 —Joseph Addison

Only fools worship their tools.
 —Dee Hock

Love is never wasted, even if it’s not reciprocated.
 —Neal A. Maxwell

We may give without loving, but we cannot love without giving.
 —Bernard Meltzer

Down the road there is a day, as simple as it seems, when Love will bring you home to stay and give you back your dreams.
 —Michael Kelly Blanchard

Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer.
 —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

One ship drives east and other drives west by the same winds that blow. It's the set of the sails and not the gales that determines the way they go.
 —Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore.
 —Sir Francis Drake

The Seven Last Words of the church will be, "But we've always done it that way." (Sometimes "We've never done it that way before.")
 —Billy Graham and others; original source unknown

God speaks to me not through the thunder and the earthquake, nor through the ocean and the stars, but through the Son of Man, and speaks in a language adapted to my imperfect sight and hearing.
 —William Lyon Phelps

Whatever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.
 —Edmund Burke

Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.
 —Jim Elliot

Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you'd stay out and your dog would go in.
 —Mark Twain

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.
 —Edmund Burke

Of all acts of man, repentance is the most divine. The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.
 —Thomas Carlyle

It's much easier to repent of sins we've committed than to repent of those we intend to commit.
 —Josh Billings

God knows all our sins 'cause they're stored in His cloud.
 —Dolly in "Family Circus"

It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief.
 —Lionel Trilling

Faith is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking.
 —Buckminster Fuller

Belief is truth held in the mind; faith is a fire in the heart.
 —Joseph Fort Newton

My reason nourishes my faith and my faith my reason.
 —Norman Cousins

To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths atheism would deny.
 —Joseph Addison

I read the paper every day and the Bible every day; that way I know what both sides are up to.
 —Zig Ziglar

Let your religion be less a theory and more a love affair.
 —G. K. Chesterton

Each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus!
 —Neal A. Maxwell

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.
 —Mahatma Gandhi

We shine because we're shined upon, the mirrored glint of grace, a loan of light for a dark, dark night, like the moon's reflecting face.
 —Michael Kelly Blanchard

One of the most lasting pleasures you can experience is the feeling that comes over you when you genuinely forgive an enemy—whether he knows it or not.
 —Orlando Aloysius Battista

"I can forgive, but I cannot forget," is only another way of saying, "I will not forgive." Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note—torn in two and burned up, so it never can be shown against one.
 —Henry Ward Beecher

Life is an adventure in forgiveness.
—Norman Cousins

There's no point in burying a hatchet if you're going to put up a marker on the site.
 —Sydney J. Harris

When you forgive, you in no way change the past, but you sure do change the future.
 —Bernard Meltzer

As long as you don't forgive, who and whatever it is will occupy rent-free space in your mind.
 —Isabelle Holland

Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another.
 —Jean Paul Richter

Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
 —Hannah Arendt

Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting.
 —William Arthur Ward

Hatred is a feeling which leads to the extinction of values.
 —Jose Ortega y Gasset

There's no room for road rage on the straight and narrow way.
  —Neal A. Maxwell

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
 —Mark Twain

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.
 —Josh Billings

Life lived without forgiveness becomes a prison.
 —William Arthur Ward

Without humility there can be no humanity.
 —John Buchan

Humility is to make a right estimate of one's self.
 —Charles Spurgeon

Christianity helps us face the music even when we don't like the tune.
 —Phillips Brooks

People who look down on others don't end up being looked up to.
 —Robert Half

If you wish to heal your sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness or anger of others.
 —Ana Castillo

Everyone you know has a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always be kind.
 —Brit Hume

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
 —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all he thinks he ought to destroy in others.
 —Etty Hillesum

It's our job to lift others up, not to size them up.
 —Neal A. Maxwell

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another's.
 —Jean Paul Richter

A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but it's miles ahead in results.
 —Ella Wheeler Wilcox

You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart.
 —W.H. Auden

You shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.
 —Maya Angelou

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
 —Sydney J. Harris

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.
 —Buckminster Fuller

Role modeling is in the eye of the beholder.
 —Gracie Bermudez in Baldo

We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain.
 —Tom Stoppard

Many receive advice; only the wise profit from it.
 —Harper Lee

You were born an original. Don't die a copy.
 ―John Mason Brown

There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.
 —Susan Cain

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
 —Alan Dundes

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
 —John Burroughs

Failure is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night.
 —Zig Ziglar

The search for someone to blame is always successful.
 —Robert Half

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.
 —A.H. Weiler

Babe Ruth was not afraid to strike out. And it was this fearlessness that contributed to his remarkable career.
 —Simon Sinek

I had only one superstition. I made sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run.
 —Babe Ruth

The only nice thing about being imperfect is the joy it brings to others.
 —Doug Larson

It took me a lifetime to perfect my imperfections.
 —Ziggy

Occasionally, I have to think like myself to remember where I put something.
 —Susan L. Taylor

Getting old is a fascinating thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.
 —Ralph Waldo Emerson

The class distinctions proper to a democratic society are not those of rank or money, still less…of race, but of age.
 —W.H. Auden

Death never takes the wise man by surprise; he is always ready to go.
 —Jean de La Fontaine

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
 —Richard Feynman

You believe that easily which you hope for earnestly.
 —Terence (died ~159 BC)

We choose truth over facts.
 —Joe Biden

An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.
 —Adlai Stevenson   …1950s fake news?

There is a demand in these days for men who can make wrong appear right.
 —Terence (died ~159 BC) …nothing changes!

Normal is an illusion. What is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly.
 —Morticia Addams

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.
 —John Ruskin

The cost of leadership is self-interest.
 —Simon Sinek  …(i.e. you must give up the latter to gain the former.)

The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
 —Ralph Nader

You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.
 —Sam Rayburn

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

We have not given science too big a place in our education, but we have made a perilous mistake in giving it too great a preponderance in method in every other branch of study.
 —Woodrow Wilson

I'm more worried about being a good person than being the best football player in the world.
 —Lionel Messi, Barça (Barcelona) soccer player   …me, too.

The noblest art is that of making others happy.
 —P. T. Barnum

Date night is important, even if it's going to Schlotzsky's.
 —Brad Paisley

Love the art in yourself and not yourself in the art.
 —Constantin Stanislavski

I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
 —Vincent Van Gogh

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.
 —G. K. Chesterton

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk.
 —Doug Larson

There's a difference between listening and waiting for your turn to speak.
 —Simon Sinek   ...or, worse, not waiting your turn (interrupting)

The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.
 —Rumi

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
 —Winston Churchill

Actions speak louder than words but not nearly as often.
 —Mark Twain

Any organization with "united" in its name…isn't.
 —Source Unknown

You're old if the labels in your clothes say "Made in USA."
 —Pluggers

A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.
 —Herb Caen

If you think you're always wrong about everything, look on the bright side. You're probably wrong about that.
 —Ziggy

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
 —Winston Churchill

A fanatic is one who sticks to his guns whether they're loaded or not.
 —Franklin P. Jones

How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else.
 —Buckminster Fuller

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.
 —Jean de La Fontaine

How do I know it's the wrong tree until I bark up it?
 —Frank and Ernest

The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
 —Paul Valéry

Sometimes it's the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.
 —Drake (the rapper)

Whoever said the journey is better than the destination must never have traveled over the holidays.
 —Frank and Ernest

If you give up on getting what you want, you get used to wanting what you get.
 —Ziggy

Among mortals, second thoughts are the wisest.
 —Euripides

Not admitting a mistake is a bigger mistake.
 —Robert Half

It is easier to stay out than to get out.
 —Mark Twain   …of jail, trouble, debt, and sand traps

I don't want problems solved for me. I want the fishing rod, not the fish.
 —Yanni

The trouble with learning from experience is that you never graduate.
 —Doug Larson

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
 —Franklin P. Jones

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.
 —Winston Churchill

We learn from history that we do not learn from history.
 —Wilhelm Hegel

Enjoy the process of your search without succumbing to the pressure of the result.
 —Will Ferrell

I suppose I'd miss the good ol' days a whole lot more if they hadn't missed me first!!
 —Ziggy

There are two kinds of people: those who finish what they start and so on.
 —Robert Byrne

He has "CDO." He's OCD, but in his case they have to be in alphabetical order.
 —Wendy Cornett   …she's nailed me.

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word: excellence.
 —Pearl S. Buck   …ah, my OCD is OK!

Perfectionism doesn't make you feel perfect. It makes you feel inadequate.
 —Maria Shriver   …oops!

I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees.
 —G. K. Chesterton

I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the apostles, but a good deal about their acts.
 —Og Mandino

By the time you understand grownups, you're one of them.
 —Dennis the Menace

Adults are obsolete children.
 —Dr. Seuss

You know you must be doing something right if old people like you.
 —Dave Chappelle

It's much easier to ride the horse in the direction he's going.
 —Werner Erhard

You and I don't see things as they are. We see things as we are.
 —Henry Ward Beecher

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

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
 —Edmund Burke

Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.
 —Woodrow Wilson

The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.
 —Milton Freedman

I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy.
 —Oliver Wendell Holmes

If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.
 —Friedrich August von Hayek

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
 —Edmund Burke

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
 —Kahlil Gibran

After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it.
 —William S. Burroughs

Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.
 —W.H. Auden

Not all complaints about America are alike. Patriotic Americans see what hurts America. The Left sees what America hurts.
 —Greg Gutfield

Doing well is the result of doing good. That's what capitalism is all about.
 —Ralph Waldo Emerson

The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.
 —Sydney J. Harris

The best computer is a man, and it's the only one that can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
 —Wernher von Braun

California is a great place to live if you're an orange.
 —Fred Allen

The most important wedding vow is the first one. If the groom accepts that, marriage is easy. It's "Repeat after me."
 —Ed Kudlick in Dustin

I ran into Isosceles. He had a great idea for a new triangle!
 —Woody Allen

An unemployed court jester is nobody's fool.
 —Kevin Hart

I felt bad when the peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth, until I met a man who had no peanut butter.
 —Source unknown

In my own write (with thanks to John Lennon)

Fallen leaves are nature's weed block, but you have to get them off your lawn. Fallen tears and laments are your anger and depression blocks, but you have to get them off your chest.

We know hardship builds character (James 2), but we don't want our children to have any. God doesn't parent us that way.

Thinking well of others is more important than having them think well of you.

The Jewish people were looking for the Messiah to Make Israel Great Again, not to save them from their sins.

Forgiving is the remedy for the painful feelings you say are keeping you from forgiving.

You can't steer a boat that's standing still, nor can the Spirit guide a Christian who won't move.

The older I get, the less I worry about small details, especially those of the future. Lord, why didn't you teach me that sooner? ... Oh, wait; you tried, didn't you?

It's often seemed my life's purpose is to serve as a warning to others.

In leadership, a little dishonesty wipes out much integrity.

A bird in hand is worth two in the brush, but not vice versa.

The major divisions in Christianity weren't caused by lukewarm or nominal Christians, but by the devout, committed ones and their pride in their opinions, conclusions, interpretations of scripture, and in some cases, their desire to be followed.

You can't justify division by celebrating diversity. Division is the intolerance of diversity, not the love or even the acceptance of it.

I know I'm created in the image of God. So why do I keep trying to create Him in the image of me?

Being humble-arrogant is little better than being passive-aggressive.

Humble pie tastes awful, but it's very nourishing.

Not all Pharisees are in the Bible. They're in the church today, and Jesus doesn't like them either.

The morality of the West is fueled by radiation from leftover Christianity. Its half-life is one generation, and we're in the third.

The Seven Last Words of the church will be "Well, I don't think you have to…"

We're not asked to witness for Christ because he can't think of another way to make Christians. It's for us.

Atheists aren't without faith. They base their lives on the unprovable proposition that there's nothing in the universe but matter, energy, and their interactions. (I did.)

Religions are recipes for pleasing God(s) or being happy. Christianity isn't one of them.

I belong to no organized religion. I'm a Christian. (with thanks to Will Rogers)

When it comes to home improvement, I prefer carpentry to landscaping. It's more Christ like.

And I owe a great debt to Robert Merton Spink, the inventor of Bondo.

But I'll do my own yard work as long as I can, so I can empathize with and admire those I drive by who have to do it all day every day.

Yard work would be a lot simpler if we chose to like weeds.

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.
 —Eeyore (in Pooh's Little Instruction Book by Joan Powers)

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.
 —Ralph Waldo Emerson

A weed is but an unloved flower
 —Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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