Adolescence and snow are the only problems that disappear if you ignore them long enough.

Sublime Philosophy! Thou art the patriarch's ladder, reaching heaven; And bright with beckoning angels--but alas! We see thee like the patriarch, but in dreams, By the first step,--dull slumbering on the earth.

The fewer words the better prayer.

I am two fools, I know, for loving and saying so.

Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566 Of course, it all depends upon what we are praying for. If we are whimpering, and sniveling, and begging to be spared the discipline of life that is sent to knock some smatterings of manhood into us, the answer to that prayer may never come at all. Thank God! Though, indeed, it is not easy to say that, with honesty. Still, it may never come at all, thank God. But if you have attained as far as Epictetus--pagan though you would call him--whose daily prayer was this: "O God, give me what Thou desirest for me, for I know that what Thou choosest for me is far better than I could choose"; if you are not bleating to get off, but asking to be given grace and strength to see this through with honour, "the very day" you pray that prayer, the answer always comes.

Brady's First Law of Problem Solving: When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question: How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.This minding of other people's business expresses itself in gossip, snooping and meddling, and also in feverish interest in communal, national and racial affairs. In running away from ourselves we either fall on our neighbor's shoulder or fly at his throat.

It seems as though women keep growing. Eventually they can have little or nothing in common with the men they chose long ago.

It's amazing how much of this is mental. Everybody's in good shape. Everybody knows how to ski. Everybody has good equipment. When it really boils down to it, it's who wants it the most, and who's the most confident on his skis.

My toughest fight was with my first wife.

We can help others in the world more by making the most of yourself than in any other way.

A good cigar is as great a comfort to a man as a good cry is to a woman.

Learning is not compulsory but neither is survival.

To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.

Love me or hate me, but spare me your indifference.

Loquacity storms the ear, but modesty takes the heart. -Thomas Fuller.

Natural abilities are like natural plants, they need pruning by study.

General wisdom is not a threat to the gospel, because everything good traces to God. God is merciful and kind; he bestows truth, as well as rain and sunshine, upon the just and the unjust. Christ is the "true light that enlightens every man". This bestowal should inspire feelings of joy, not resentment, in the heart of a Christian. Aristotle said many wise things about logic, Confucius many wise things about morals. When a Christian attacks general wisdom in the name of the gospel, the natural man will attack the gospel in the name of general wisdom.

It was prettily devised of Aesop: The fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot-wheel, and said, What a dust do I raise!

There are words which sever hearts more than sharp swords; there are words the point of which sting the heart through the course of a whole life.