Three from Mr. Franklin

I am for doing good to the poor, but…I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed…that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. 

—  Benjamin Franklin

When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. 

—  Benjamin Franklin

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech. 

— Benjamin Franklin

Hey Bartender!

The only wise thing about having a third martini is that you’re not yet having a fourth. - Eno Putain

Taverns are universal places, like churches, hallowed meeting places of all mankind. - Iris Murdoch

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading. - Henny Youngman

Make that a double!

The whole world is about three drinks behind. - Humphrey Bogart

When you stop drinking, you have to deal with this marvelous personality that started you drinking in the first place. - Jimmy Breslin

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me. - Winston Churchill

Prosperity

In prosperity let us particularly avoid pride, disdain and arrogance. - Cicero

Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. - Calvin Coolidge


Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man’s, I mean. - Mark Twain

The Devil made me do it

In the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, Lucifer could find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige. - C. S. Lewis

To admire Satan [in Paradise Lost] is to give one's vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking, of incessant autobiography. - C. S. Lewis

The devil is afraid of us when we pray and make sacrifices. He is also afraid when we are humble and good. He is especially afraid when we love Jesus very much. He runs away when we make the Sign of the Cross. - St. Anthony of Egypt

The Devil never runs upon a man to seize him with his claws until he sees him on the ground, already having fallen by his own will. - St. Thomas More

Food for thought

Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy. - Robert Heinlein

Curiosity

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. - Samuel Johnson

The important thing is to not stop questioning. - Albert Einstein

Tuesday quotes for yu'al

The more he talked of his honor the faster we counted our spoons. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. - Will Rogers

You are no bigger than the things that annoy you. - Jerry Bundsen

Monday Proverbs

All is not cream that comes from a cow. - Yiddish Proverb

Measure a thousands times and cut once. - Turkish Proverb

Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse. - Nigerian Proverb

Chinese Proverbs

It is difficult to forgive those who steal our time. - Chinese Proverb

A single tree cannot make a forest. A single beam cannot support a great house. - Chinese Proverb

Be slow to promise but quick to perform. - Chinese Proverb

Friday Proverbs

If all the fools wore white caps we should look like a flock of sheep. - Russian Proverb

Nobody will give a pauper bread, but everyone will him advice. - Armenian Proverb

Do no give advice unless you have the wisdom to go with it. - Irish Proverb

Defeating the purpose

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, “Where’s the self-help section?” She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose. - George Carlin

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill

There is no fact that cannot be vulgarized and presented in a ludicrous light. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Thoughts on priesthood

I know my own soul, how feeble and puny it is: I know the magnitude of this ministry, and the great difficulty of the work; for more stormy billows vex the soul of the priest than the gales which disturb the sea. - St. John Chrysostom

He made them, the vicars of his love. - St. Ambrose

We pay a heavy, very heavy price for the superhuman dignity of our calling. The ridiculous is always so near to the sublime. And the world, usually so indulgent to foibles, hates ours instinctively.  -  Georges Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest

Words, words, words

We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them. - Abigail Adams

Nothing is more unaccountable than the spell that often lurks in a spoken word. A thought may be present to the mind, and two minds conscious of the same thought, but as long as it remains unspoken their familiar talk flows quietly over the hidden idea. - Nathaniel Hawthorne


Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind. - Rudyard Kipling

Why the Church?

The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose. - C.S. Lewis

If the churches ever did reunite, it would have to be into something that was as sacramental and liturgical and authoritative as the Roman Catholic Church and as protesting against abuses and as much focused on the individual in his direct relationship with Christ as the Evangelicals, as charismatic as the Pentecostals, as missionary-minded as the old mainline denominations, as focused on holiness as the Methodists or the Quakers, as committed to the social aspects of the Gospel as the social activists, as Biblical as fundamentalists, and as mystical as the Eastern Orthodox. - Peter Kreeft

The difficulty explaining why I am Catholic is that there are 10,000 reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true. - G.K. Chesterton

Thoughts on government

The less government we have the better—the fewer laws and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal government is the influence of private character, the growth of the individual. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. - Thomas Jefferson

A government for the people must depend for its success on the intelligence, the morality, the justice, and the interest of the people themselves. - Grover Cleveland

Out of adversity

Genuine morality is preserved only in the school of adversity; a state of continuous prosperity may easily prove a quicksand of virtue. - Johann Schiller

Adversity makes men; good fortune makes monsters. - French Proverb

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials. - Chinese Proverb

To tell the truth

Most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use. - Mark Twain

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority. - Francis Bacon

Truth must be repeated again and again, because error is constantly being preached round about. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Regarding equality

We are all born equal—equally helpless and equally indebted to others for whatever our survival turns out to be worth. - Cullen Hightower

Some will always be above others. Destroy the inequality today, and it will appear again tomorrow. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity. - Irving Kristol

Come worship the Lord

I need to worship because without it I can forget that I have a big God beside me and live in fear. I need to worship because without it I can forget his calling and begin to live in a spirit of self-preoccupation. I need to worship because without it I lose a sense of wonder and gratitude and plod through life with blinders on. I need worship because my natural tendency is toward self-reliance and stubborn independence. - John Ortberg

Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else. - Charles Spurgeon

You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love. Let us run. - Augustine of Hippo

Take my advice

Advice is like castor oil, easy enough to give but dreadful uneasy to take. - Josh Billings

I’ve learned that you can’t expect your children to listen to your advice and ignore your example. -  51-year-old’s discovery

Do not be inaccessible. None is so perfect that he does not need at times the advice of others. He is an incorrigible ass who will never listen to anyone. Even the most surpassing intellect should find a place for friendly counsel. Sovereignty itself must learn to lean. There are some that are incorrigible simply because they are inaccessible: They fall to ruin because none dares to extricate them. The highest should have the door open for friendship; it may prove the gate of help. A friend must be free to advise, and even to upbraid, without feeling embarrassed. - Baltasar Gracián

Eye on the goal

The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense. - Thomas A. Edison

It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement. - Mabel Newcomber

Overcoming Adversity

It is not until we have passed through the furnace that we are made to know how much dross is in our composition. - Charles Caleb Colton

There is no excellency without difficulty. - Ovid

What was hard to bear is sweet to remember. - Portuguese Proverb

On Accomplishment

Have a time and place for everything, and do everything in its time and place, and you will not only accomplish more but have far more leisure than those who are always hurrying, as if vainly attempting to overtake time that had been lost. - Tyron Edwards 

He who considers too much will perform little. - Johann Schiller

Knowledge and courage take turns at greatness. - Baltasar Gracian

To infinity and beyond

Real generosity toward the future consists in giving all to what is present. - Albert Camus

Nobody can really guarantee the future. The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them and then make our plans with confidence. - Henry Ford II

People often overestimate what will happen in the next two years and underestimate what will happen in ten. - Bill Gates

The testimony of every scientist is that the frontiers that are opening out ahead of us now are far wider and more spectacular than any frontier of America in the past. Our horizons are not closed. We are going to write a greater development in America than has ever been conceived. - Eric Johnston

Work for your future as if you are going to live forever, for your afterlife as if you are going to die tomorrow. - Arabian proverb