• From Robert Service The Cremation of Sam McGee

"A promise made is a debt unpaid"

• Never be intimidated:

"Always remember …..Goliath was a 40 point favorite over David." Shug Jordan / football coach Auburn

• View from age 76 years:

William Holden's character says in the movie Network "It's all suddenly closer to the end than to the begining and death is suddenly a perceptible thing to me with definable features "

• Will Rogers

"Everything is funny as long as it happens to somebody else"

• Coach Paull "Bear" Bryant carried this prayer in his wallet

This is the beginnig of a new day. God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste or use it for good. What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, Leaving something in its place I have traded for it. I want it to be a gain not a loss – good, not evil. I shall not forget the price I paid for it.

• Your Purpose in Life

It has been said that every person is a "dream of God" who has been sent into the world to do some special task

• Advice from Dr. Seuss

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind"

• Beaten but not defeated

"Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise…" Micah 7:8 John Dryden’s poem: Johnnie Armstrong Last Goodnight: Fight on, my merry men all, I’m a little wounded, but I am not slain; I will lay me down for to bleed a while, Then I’ll rise and fight with you again. Invictus William Ernest Henley Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.

• The search for meaning

"The human heart has a hole only God can fill" Unknown Augustine: " "God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you"

• President Eisenhower

He once said that after an angry outburst his mother quoted Proverbs 16:32 to him: "He who is slow to anger is better then the mighty and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city." Seneca once said: "he is most powerful who has power over himself." Good advice for all of us

• Aging

John Mortimer, the creator of "Rumpole" died in January at age 85. He wrote about the indignities of dying: "Dying is a matter of slap-stick and pratfalls. The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous."

• Royal Law

James 2:8 talks about the "royal law." He says: "If you really keep the royal law found in scripture, "love your neigbor as yourself," you are doing right."

• Life Travels in Circles

This weekend the Seattle paper had an article about a local Indian tribe and it's new casino. A 76 year old member of the tribal council who was complaining about an issue was quoted as saying "Life travels in circles. It will come back to them." I think she is both wise and right.

• St Teresa of Avila

Outspoken and courageous Catholic religious of the 1500's who believed intelligent women were more easily directed spiritually: "God preserve us from stupid nuns!"

• Love Spouse:

Churchill once wrote his wife Clementine: "Thank you for being rash enough to marry me. Foolish enough to stay with me and for loving me in a way I thought I would never be loved." On another occassion he was asked about would he would like to be in a second life. He said: "If I could not be who I am, I would most like to be Mrs. Churchill's second husband." The late Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana said about his wife Maureen "What we did, we did together. In short, I am what I am because of her." When the legislature erected a statue of him he agreed only if she was cast along side him and her name go first.

• Feeling Guilty

In his book "Let's Face It" Kirk Douglas talks about the pain of having a son commit suicide. He says the doctors told them to apply the "three C's" test: They didn't cause it, they couldn't cure it and they couldn't control it. Excellent advice

• Children

Henny Youngman used to say: "I've got two wonderful children" and then he would pause and add: "two out of five ain't bad."

• Shakespeare:

"Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt."

• Proverb

"Man works from Sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done

• National Catholic Reporter:

"When someone tells you to ask yourself, 'What would Jesus do?' remember that one valid answer is 'Freak out and knock over tables'

• David Rockefeller:

"A family advisor once said the two most expensive things a Rockefeller can do are run for public office and get divorced. Nelson, did both."

• Random Thoughts:

someone once said "Jesus wears the disguise of common, ordinary humanity." Flannery O'Connor once said of riding the subways of New York: "You see few people you wish you knew and thousands you are glad you don't know." The title of David Craig's song "You don't miss your water til the well runs dry" is a profound observation.

• Homer Hickam in "The Coalwood Way" says:

"Words are as much an art as definition"and, in referring to his mother's use of "inspired vexations so I could rise above my petty ones…"

• Friends & enemies:

When Warren Harding discovered the friends he had appointed had been guilty of government theft and fraud he said to a friend “My God, this is a hell of a job.. I have no trouble with my enemies. But, my damn friends…They’re the ones that keep me walking the floor at nights”

• War vs Peace

France's Clemenceau once observed: "Ii is much easier to make war than peace."

• Never stop learning new things:

It was said of Thomas Jefferson that "he grew old learning new things."

• Biblical Wisdom about acceptance:

“But by the grace of God, I am what I am…” 1 Corinthians 15:10

• Courage

"Keep calm and don't be afraid. Do not lose heart" Isaiah 7:4

• War:

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead" Ernest Hemingway

• Short Course in Public Relations:

The six most important words are: "I admit that I was wrong." The five most important words are: "You did a great job!" The four most important words are: "What do you think?" The three most important words are: "Could you please…" The two most important words are "Thank you." The least important word is: "I"

• Know thyself

"We have met the enemy and it is us" Walt Kelly comic strip Pogo Earth Day 1971

• Woody Allen says that the brain is his second favorite organ.

Our Daily Bread:

RBC Ministries publishes a paper back daily mediation book with some inspiring thoughts. In one mediation, it makes reference to the movie Gladiator and quotes from the movie General Maximus Mewriduius talk to inspire his men before a battle in which he tells them "What we do in life echoes in eternity" There is great truth in that statement

• Retirement: When the fire goes out –

John Davidson, the poet, once said "The fires are out and I must hammer the cold iron." His days of greatness were gone. And Fielden Hughes in his book Down the Corridors, talks about the time for school teachers to retire. He says when they lose their own sense of wonder and cease to be excited all they have left is a dreary stock in trade to offer. The time to retire he says is "When the fire goes out."

• The role of thePlaintiff Trial Lawyer:

Republicans have sought to cast presidential candidate, John Edwards, as a money-chasing trial lawyer. Edwards response is an excellent summary of the role of a plaintiff trial lawyer: "I spent most of my adult life representing kids and families against very powerful opponents, usually big insurance companies,And my job was to give them a fair shake, to give them a fair chance."

• Wisdom of a Capuchin monk:

Padre Pio (1887 – 1968) was a Capuchin Franciscan monk, stigmatist and mystic. The Church beatified him in 1999 in recognizing his holiness and spiritual wisdom. In 1914 he wrote a letter in which he said "the instinctive movement of our hearts is a movement towards God, which is nothing more then loving one's own true good…The idea is not a product of my own mind, but is found in holy scripture where we read: 'He who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him."

• Quote

"If I arrive at the pearly gates and St. Peter said what have I done to deserve entry, I'd ask, 'Did you see my Lena Horne story?'" The late Ed Bradley, Emmy awarfd winning "60 minutes" reporter who died November 9th

• The Civil Jury System:

"Whenever our civilization wants a library to be catalogued, or a solar system to be discovered, or any other trifle of this kind, it uses its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects tweleve ordinary men standing around. Jesus did exactly this." G.K. Chesterton

• First Fig

"My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night; But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends – It gives a lovely light" (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

• Life Challenges:

When bad things do happen to us, it’s our attitude about what happened that determines how we react. Dr. Bernie’s Segal’s mother used to say to him every time he complained that something bad had happened : “God has redirected your life. Good things will come from this”My New Mexico friend Carl Bettinger shared this quote with me by Stanford Meisner "The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between the notes. Silence is the absence of sound, it is not the absence of meaning"

• The Wisdom of Dorothy Day

"The safety of the rich lies in almsgiving. We must give until we become blessed…Christ came to make the rich poor and the poor holy…Yes, charity begins at home, but we are also our brother's keeper" (Dorothy Day died November 29, 1980)

• Quotes to Ponder

"Calmness can lay great events to rest" Ecclesiastes 10:4 "When sorrows come, they come not as single spies, but in battalions" Hamlet IV:5

• What is Love?

An unknown poet has answered the question, what is love? this way: Love is: silence – when words would hurt, patience – when another's curt, deafness- when another's angry, gentleness – when another's sad, promptness – when a need is seen, courage – when life is mean

• Retirement:

Ben Hecht, the playwrite had an actor in the move The Scoundrel, say "When the eagle grows weary of flying, he dreams of returning to the chicken coop”