Guiding Words: Adages collected by
Robert A. Hall
These
are not by me. When I know the source, I have included it.
A
Merry Heart doeth good like a medicine. Proverbs 17:32
If
you aren’t 15 minutes early, you are late. Marine saying.
Blessed
be the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle. Psalm
144-1
This
is the law: Hard times make strong men. Strong men make good times. Good times
make weak men. Weak men make hard times.
Take
the high ground, or they will bury you in the valley.
Free
men bear arms.
Trust
everyone, but cut the cards. Poker According to Maverick.
Better
to keep the devil at the door than to have to turn him out of the house.
The race
is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. But that’s the way to
bet.
If
you have a job without aggravations, you don’t have a real job. Malcolm
Forbes. (Yes, I know that’s an improper use of “aggravate.”)
If you don't read the
newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are
misinformed. Mark Twain
When
all is said and done, a lot more is said than done.
No
need to resent yourself, when you can make others do it for you. Mary
Chestnut Civil War Diary.
Never
take more trouble in your heart than you can shake off at your toes. Black
nurse, Mary Chestnut Civil War Diary.
If there be trouble to Herward, and a lie of the blackest can clear,
Lie, while thy lips can move or a man is alive to hear. Rudyard Kipling
What
cannot be cured must be endured. Edward FitzGerald.
Pacificism
is a luxury paid for by warriors.
Facts
are chiels that winna ding. (Facts are fellows that won’t be knocked down.) Robert
Burns
Wish
in one hand, shit in the other. See which one fills up first. Marine saying.
Wherever
they burn books they will end up burning human beings. Heinrich Heine.
You’re
unique. Just like everyone else.
Your
worst enemy will not be someone who you have done an injury, but someone who
has injured you.
Courage
isn’t the absence of fear. Courage is being afraid and still doing what must be
done.
Only
the dead have seen the last of war. George Santayana.
There
are no bad shots at five feet.
You
can delegate authority, but not responsibility.
Hire
for attitude, train for skills.
Every
man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier. Samuel Johnson.
Freedom is not free, but
the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share. Captain J.E.
"Ned" Dolan, USMC (Ret.) Platoon Leader E/27, Korean War
To a
bureaucrat, process is everything. Outcomes are nothing. Thomas Sowell, PhD,
economist.
“We
know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.
Power is not a means; it is an end.” 1984
You wouldn’t worry
about what other people thought of you if you realized how seldom they do.
It’s easier to get
forgiveness than permission.
If you keep enough
balls in the air, no one notices the misses.
Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. William
Shakespeare
The only normal
families are those you don’t know well.
Foreign aid:
transferring wealth from poor people in rich nations to rich people in poor
nations.
I’ve seen a lot of
trouble in my life, and most of it never happened. Mark Twain.
Be kind, everyone you
meet is fighting a hard battle. (Often wrongly attributed to Plato.)
Once you do someone a
favor three times, it becomes your job.
If you have time to do
it over, why didn’t you have time to do it right?
If it is to be it is
up to me.
Use it up, wear it out.
Make it do, or do without.
This too shall pass.
No better friend, no
worse Enemy. Sulla (Adopted by then-MajGen Jim Mattis for the First
Marine Division in Iraq.)
As ye sow, so shall ye
reap. The Bible.
Put not your trust in princes. Psalm 146
Once is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.
Anger is a good
servant, but a bad master.
Never do an enemy a small
injury.
You either improve or
deteriorate.
Some days chicken,
some days feathers. (And some days chickenshit!) Marine saying
If any would not work, neither should he eat. 2
Thessalonians
Only Babies like
change. Carole Badger, Association Search Consultant.
No
good deed goes unpunished.
Anything
worth shooting is worth shooting twice.
The
perceived value of a service diminishes rapidly after the service has been
performed. This is known as the “Prostitutes Rule.” They always get paid in
advance.
I
have noticed most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. Abraham
Lincoln
The
secret of a happy marriage is several things left unsaid every day.
In
an awkward social situation, the hardest thing to do is usually the right thing
to do.
If
your cat had kittens in the oven, would you call them biscuits?
It
is good that war is so terrible, or we would grow too fond of it. Robert E.
Lee
People
who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don’t.
Nothing
is impossible to the man who doesn’t have to do it himself.
Shallow
men believe in luck. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some
people couldn’t organize a two-car funeral. Or a bun fight in a bakery. Massachusetts
political saying.
We fight not for glory, nor for riches, nor for
honour, but only and alone for Freedom, which no good man lays down but with
his life. --Declaration of Arbroath, Scotland, 1320
Happiness
is a warm pistol.
The
further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak
it. George Orwell
You
wouldn’t care what people thought of you if you realized how seldom they do.
Virtue
is not hereditary. Thomas Paine.
It’s
better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
It’s
better to have something and not need it, than to need it and not have it.
If
you can’t take orders, you can’t give orders.
Calm
wins every time. Col. Andy Weddington, USMC (ret.)
The
more I learn, the less I know.
Molon
Labe
Some
people couldn’t get a clue in a field full of clues during clue mating season.
Inner
Peace begins with three words: Not my problem.
Two
heads are better than one only if they have different thoughts in them.
You
can vote your way into communism, but you have to shoot your way out.
If
you don’t fight to win, you don’t win.
Culture
eats strategy for lunch. Peter Drecker
Better
to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
If
you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans.
The
difference between fiction and real life is that fiction has to make sense. Tom
Clancy (and others).
It
takes two sides to make a peace, only one to make a war.
You
can’t choose what happens to you, but you can choose how you respond to it.
Well
begun is half done.
Prose
is words in their best order. Poetry is the best words in their best order. Samuel
Taylor Coleridge
Least
said, soonest mended. (I didn’t say I followed all of these!)
Better
to be ten minutes late in this world, than ten years early in the next. Adele
MacGregor-Blain, Balquhidder, Scotland.
Some
people are alive only because it’s illegal to kill them.
Whit’s
fur ye’ll no go by ye. Scottish saying from my friend Leslie Blain,
Balquhidder, Scotland
Betrayal
never comes from your enemies.
Freedom
only comes with responsibilities.
We’re
all Jock Tamson’s bairns. (All people are of the same family.) Scottish.
Many
hands make light work.
A
person who feels appreciated will do more than expected.
When
people say. “It’s not the money, it’s the principle,” it’s the money.
A
child who reads will be an adult who thinks.
For everyone to whom much is given, of him
shall much be required. Luke, 12:48
And
from the master:
Moderation
is for Monks. Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
If
you’re going down, go down fighting. Your status in hell is determined by the
number of side-boys you send ahead to announce your coming. Robert A.
Heinlein. Time Enough for Love.
A generation which ignores history has no
past—and no future. Robert
A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
All societies are based on rules to protect
pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence,
adornment, luxury or folly which can--and must--be dumped in emergency to
preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal
morality, no other basis is possible. Attempts to formulate a “perfect society”
on any foundation other than “women and children first!” is not only witless,
it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them
male) have tried endlessly--and no doubt will keep on trying. Robert A.
Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom.
Don’t ever count on having both at once. Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of
Lazarus Long
The two highest achievements of the human mind are
the twin concepts of “loyalty” and “duty.” Robert A.
Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
A human being should be able to change a diaper,
plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a
sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take
orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new
problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight
efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects! Robert A. Heinlein,
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Do not handicap your children by making their
lives easy. Robert
A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Those who refuse to support and defend a state
have no claim to protection by that state. Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks
of Lazarus Long
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny. Robert A. Heinlein,
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
The greatest productive force is human
selfishness. Robert
A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Natural laws have no pity. Robert A.
Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Throughout history, poverty is the normal
condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded--here and
there, now and then--are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently
despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking
people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes
happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject
poverty. This is known as “bad luck.” Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of
Lazarus Long
And
some adages generally quoted that are demonstrably false:
“Everything
works out of the best.” Or, “Everything happens for a reason.” Explain the
Holocaust and WWII.
“God
doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” Which would explain the suicide
rate being zero?
“Pain
is Weakness Leaving the Body.” I see this on tee shirts of fellow Marines and
other veterans. I want to say, “A guy with a sucking chest wound has a lot of
pain. And it’s oxygen and blood leaving his body, not weakness.”
“Violence
settles nothing.” Settled Hitler
“Love
conquers all.” Please! Look around.
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