Random Sayings

Do feuds ever end?
Only when both sides shake hands,
and agree that there is no winner, no loser,
only people who have wearied of fighting
and desire to live in peace.
For many years, Northern Ireland was locked
in a murderous and seemingly unending feud.
The key to ending the feud was a shared commitment
that peace was more important than vengeance.
That is always the choice to be made.
The organizers of an April 10, 2009
joint Protestant-Catholic commemoration
of the Northern Ireland dead,
comprised of members of the once-outlawed Sinn Fein
as well as their once-avowed enemies,
referred to, "the terrible, random nature
of death in war and civil conflict."
Some lessons have been learned, many more remain.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Random chance seems to have operated in our favor ...
there was no deity involved.
- Spock character in the Star Trek television series

A son is a son till he takes him a wife,
a daughter is a daughter all of her life.
- Irish Traditional

We must respect the other fellow's religion,
but only in the sense and to the extent
that we respect his theory that
his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
- H. L. Mencken

A man cannot speak to his son, but as a father;
to his wife, but as a husband;
to his enemy, but upon terms:
whereas a friend may speak, as the case requires,
and not as it sorteth with the person.
- Francis Bacon

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it.
Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return.
Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?
- Epictetus

When you are alone you are not alone,
you are simply lonely -
and there is a tremendous difference
between loneliness and aloneness.
When you are lonely you are thinking of the other,
you are missing the other.
Loneliness is a negative state.
You are feeling that it would have been
better if the other were there -
your friend, your wife, your mother,
your beloved, your husband.
It would have been good if the other
were there, but the other is not.
Loneliness is absence of the other.
Aloneness is the presence of oneself.
Aloneness is very positive.
It is a presence, overflowing presence.
You are so full of presence
that you can fill the whole universe
with your presence and there is no need for anybody.
- Osho

By all means marry.
If you get a good wife, you'll be happy.
If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher
and that is a good thing for any man.
- Socrates

You shall not covet your neighbor's house;
you shall not covet your neighbor's wife,
nor his male servant, nor his female servant,
nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.
- Exodus 20:17

My advice to you is get married:
if you find a good wife you'll be happy;
if not, you'll become a philosopher.
- Socrates

A man likes his wife to be
just clever enough to appreciate his cleverness,
and just stupid enough to admire it.
- Israel Zangwill

No man is truly married until he understands
every word his wife is NOT saying.
- Anonymous

My wife and I tried two or three times in the last 40 years
to have breakfast together,
but it was so disagreeable we had to stop.
- Winston Churchill

I haven't reported my missing credit card to the police
because whoever stole it is spending less than my wife.
- Ilie Nastase

I have often wanted to drown my troubles,
but I can't get my wife to go swimming.
- Anonymous

Many a man owes his success to his first wife
and his second wife to his success.
- Jim Backus

Do real life people actually fall in love
with the idea of being in love?
Unfortunately, it is actually quite common.
Someone wants desperately to have
the husband or wife of their dreams.
They visualize the vine-covered cottage
with the white picket fence.
They choose the colors for the nursery.
They design all the aspects of their married life.
A real person stands no chance of measuring up to those fantasies.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When a father gives to his son, both laugh;
when a son gives to his father, both cry.
- William Shakespeare

Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him,
for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low,
could still be saved; the bitterest enemy
and also he who was your friend could again be your friend;
love that has grown cold can kindle
- Soren Kierkegaard

Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
- the movie National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)

Dear Father in heaven, I'm not a praying man,
but if you're up there and you can hear me ...
show me the way... show me the way.
- It's a Wonderful Life (1946 movie)

So your father, or your mother,
never thought you were good enough - SO WHAT?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

My father always used to say that when you die,
if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.
- Lee Iacocca

The most important thing a father
can do for his children
is to love their mother.
- Henry Ward Beecher

It doesn't matter who my father was.
It matters who I remember he was.
- Anne Sexton

My father and he had one of those English friendships
which begins by avoiding the intimacies
and eventually eliminates speech altogether.
- Jorge Luis Borges

My father considered a walk among the mountains
as the equivalent of churchgoing.
- Aldous Huxley

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant
I could hardly stand to have the old man around.
But when I got to be 21, I was astonished
at how much the old man had learned in seven years.
- Mark Twain

Oh, Shrek. Don't worry.
Things just seem bad because it's dark and rainy
and Fiona's father hired a sleazy hitman to whack you.
- the movie Shrek 2

The existence of an anthropomorphic
"Father-figure" deity is not impossible,
merely exceptionally improbable and illogical.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

My father always told me that
all businessmen were sons of bitches,
but I never believed it till now.
- John F. Kennedy

Life was a lot simpler when what we honored was father and mother
rather than all major credit cards.
- Robert Orben

Confused Memories of Childhood:
Hate to my father, cruel hate,
confused with love - a mix not great.
The man I love - the man I hate;
the man I want to emulate.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The child in me could not die as it should have died,
because according too legends it must find its father again.
The old legends knew, perhaps, that in absence
the father becomes glorified, deified, eroticized,
and this outrage against God the Father has to be atoned for.
The human father has to be confronted and recognized as human,
as man who created a child and then, by his absence,
left the child fatherless and then Godless.
- Anais Nin

Our grandchildren's grandchildren will shake their heads in shame
at some of the beliefs that we hold most dear today -
the question is, which ones?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Farewell My Friend
It was beautiful as long as it lasted
The journey of my life.
I have no regrets whatsoever
save the pain I'll leave behind.
Those dear hearts who love and care...
And the strings pulling at the heart and soul...
The strong arms that held me up
When my own strength let me down.
At every turning of my life
I came across good friends,
Friends who stood by me,
Even when the time raced me by.
Farewell, farewell my friends
I smile and bid you goodbye.
No, shed no tears for I need them not
All I need is your smile.
If you feel sad do think of me
for that's what I'll like
when you live in the hearts
of those you love, remember then
you never die.
- Gitanjali Ghei

Self-respect is often mistaken for arrogance
when in reality it is the opposite.
When we can recognize all our good qualities
as well as or faults with neutrality,
we can start to appreciate ourselves
as we would a dear friend
and experience the comfortable inner glow of respect.
To embrace the journey towards our full potential
we need to become our own loving teacher and coach.
Spurring ourselves on to become better human beings,
we develop true regard for ourselves,
and our life will become sacred.
- Osho

Freedom is never dear at any price.
It is the breath of life.
What would a man not pay for living?
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Those we love don't go away,
They walk beside us every day,
Unseen, unheard, but always near,
Still loved, still missed and very dear.
- Anonymous

Experience keeps a dear school,
but fools will learn in no other.
- Benjamin Franklin

As we work to create light for others,
we naturally light our own way.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson

Each of us dwells in a cathedral of our own BEing
that is created vast enough to encompass Unity with all creation.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

When the vast cathedral of our being
becomes a sanctuary for all creation,
we become the face of God.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is our choices ... that show what we truly are,
far more than our abilities.
- J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets)

Our opportunity is to Soar our Spirit.
To see Light and Joy in everything.
To spread our wings and fly boldly.
To give thanks for rainbows and butterflies -
our symbols of renewal and rebirth.
To offer daily Thanksgiving - for ourselves, our family,
our friends, our community, for the whole world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell

The best cure for our own self-inflicted suffering
is often service to others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Through our own recovered innocence
we discern the innocence of our neighbors.
- Henry David Thoreau

Treat the earth well.
It was not given to you by your parents,
it was loaned to you by your children.
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.
- Native American traditional

We can only be said to be truly alive in those moments
when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
- Thornton Wilder

Time, like life itself, has no inherent meaning.
We give our own meaning to time as to life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our Joy comes from living our own lives simply -
never from demanding that others live simply -
or from ever making any demands whatsoever upon others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our "Rainbows and Butterflies" are the small miracles of our life -
the little things that are so easy to overlook,
yet so awe inspiring when we take a moment
to notice and to pay attention.
Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh,
for the touch of a hand and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What we think, we become.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.
- The Buddha

We have only this moment,
sparkling like a star in our hand -
and melting like a snowflake.
- Marie B. Ray

Some people come into our lives and quickly go.
Some people stay for awhile,
and move our souls to dance.
They awaken us to a new understanding,
leave footprints on our hearts,
and we are never, ever the same.
- Flavia Weedn

"Hurry up" ranks right up there with "you need to"
as a destroyer of our humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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