Wisdom for the Ages

Here are a few items I have amassed over the recent past which may provide some amusement and perhaps even some wisdom. I’m really counting on the grins. I promise to keep the editorial comment to a minimum.

"What do a Divorce in West Virginia, a Tornado in Kansas and a Hurricane in Florida have in common? Somebody's fixin' to lose them a house trailer."-unknown

How does this happen? 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

Since I live in a house full of dogs and cats, this one has a very special meaning. "I had a linguistics professor who said that it's man's ability to use language that makes him the dominant species on the planet. That may be. But I think there's one other thing that separates us from animals. We aren't afraid of vacuum cleaners."-Jeff Stilson

"The other day my daughter told me to "Grow up!", but she's the one with a safety pin in her navel."-Redfox

"Life is what happens when you make plans..."-Nathan Swanson

"A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain. "-Robert Anson Hienlein

As a long time recovering alcoholic, I find this oh so true. "You're now sober enough to realize "Drink Canada Dry" is a slogan and not a personal challenge."

"A truck carrying copies of Roget's Thesaurus overturned on the highway.. The local newspaper reported that the onlookers were "stunned, overwhelmed, astonished, bewildered, and dumbfounded."

"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience." -Thoreau, Walden

This one is dear to my heart because I plead guilty of doing so. It may go along with advancing age, who knows?

We now shift gears to probe some of the deeper thinkers:

"You cannot build character and courage by taking away a person's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."-Abraham Lincoln, 1861.

We need Mr. Lincoln here—today!—to refute our current leadership which is taking the exact opposite tack in directing the ship of state.

"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; [if] it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it."- Supreme Court Justice Learned Hand, 1944.

I left this out of the recent “Jefferson” list but I shall not repeat the error. "I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.."-Thomas Jefferson

I am not certain of who or when this was uttered by anyone from AP. It can’t have been recently. "The intrigue also has become an attractive nuisance for conspiracy buffs who offer explanations embellished by rumor, fantasy, misinformation and outright paranoia."-Associated Press

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men... We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home." -Edward R. Murrow

This will be the last one for today and it is certainly timely. Mr. Murrow nailed it. For those not old enough to remember his nightly news I shall describe him as what he was—a newsman. He was not an editorialist, a journalist, a writer, a pundit, a scribe, or a reporter—he was a newsman. Don’t bother to look for him today because they threw the mold away.

In His abiding love,

Cecil Moon