Posts Tagged ‘modern proverbs’

tools

Posted: September 4, 2012 in tools
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To raise ingenious children, ask them to fix things; don’t give them tools.

A hammer is anything bigger than what you want to pound.

The fool’s tool is police rule.

The plough is better than the sword, unless you are being charged with a knife.

You shall know the tool, and the tool shall set you free.

The right tools, the fixer rules.

To love your neighbor is to become a Swiss Army knife.

Decadent makes no repairs.

A wise father gives his children his tools before he dies; a very wise father shows them how to use them.

As long as there is a tool, there is a weapon.

When a person decides to be a tool, don’t present yourself as in need of repair.

fame

Posted: August 27, 2012 in fame
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Those we love we make famous to ourselves.

Fame is exhausting; obscurity is completely so.

Better to be unknown for being good than famous for being worthless.

I make it my rule to never be more famous to others than I am to myself.

The famous wait for encores; the rest of us are just hoping for cheap seats.

To peak too early is to fall too long.

Obscurity is better than infamy — less prison time.

Everyone is the most famous version of themselves.

To sustain the game is the bane of fame.

I find that when I am very zealous, others are very jealous.

We are each the most famous person we know.

Guard your heart by giving small regard to insults, and to compliments.

 

court

Posted: August 25, 2012 in court
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Courts have powers; they make minutes long hours.

A ruling’s a breeze, when there’s someone to please.

Everyone lies in court, but not everyone gets up and admits it.

A criminal case — no place for race.

Injustice runs, justice crawls, the people wait.

A job, a deal and court snow — it really matters who you know.

Courts aren’t about justice; they’re about resolution.

A client is a person seeking a ruling, an attorney a person who knows the rules.

Outside the stately place decides the case.

An emotional judge, a broken track — there’s going to be a bad train wreck.

The rich always defeat the poor; they outlast them with money.

If you give me a judge, I owe you a ship.

patterns

Posted: August 24, 2012 in patterns
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A parent is a pattern; a child is a sentinel.

Observe the fads; they come in plaids.

Live redundantly; die abundantly.

Love drapes us in ribbons; hate wraps us in stripes.

Patterns are a death march; they drive us to a common grave.

From a distance, life looks like a mosaic; up close, it’s more prosaic.

It’s one thing after another with your father and your mother.

Act, eat, rest, play —  the rhythms of the everyday.

When heart and soul and mind align — sublime.

If your road is blocked by a pattern, run over it with a risk.

mystery

Posted: August 21, 2012 in mystery
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We wonder and thunder until we blunder.

Humility has the opportunity to retain a bit of mystery.

A theory — it’s an admission of a mystery.

Mystery is a category within science — and marriage.

What people understand the least they talk about the most.

Everyday we slap mystery in the face; we do it with a backhand of boredom.

What may never be understood may yet be loved.

A murder is never a mystery; one person always knows who did it.

The greatest unknown is in the closest thing.

We explain; divine eyes roll.

A proverb is a bluster, a saying a mere feather duster.

God hides; this give us a chance to seek.

weddings

Posted: August 17, 2012 in weddings
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Girls mastermind their weddings; men mind their wedding’s master.

Bridesmaid’s dresses are designed to ensure there are no ugly brides.

Wedding debt is no safe bet.

Wedlock, load — don’t shoot.

A flower girl is like a drunk; she may or may not make it down the aisle.

At the father-daughter dance laughter and tears sway together.

Loyalty solemnizes marriage.

A wedding dress; girl frosting.

The most beautiful thing at a wedding is a couple in the back who have been married for sixty years.

Waiting for the meal after the wedding is like waiting for the second coming; you know it will come but not the hour or the day.

A we-fell-in-love wedding is as weak as two people; an arranged marriage is as strong as two families.

We marry before the ceremony; we divorce before the paperwork.

A wedding is kindling, marriage blazing fire.

Olympics

Posted: August 5, 2012 in olympics
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Greatness lies in going home with no medals and living like an Olympic champion.

Even participating in the Olympics is winning.

To win for yourself is good; for your people better; to inspire the world — best.

Gold is cold, but taut is hot.

You can lose weight just watching the Olympics — and running.

Gold medalists all wait train.

A positive attitude bests a positive test.

Starting leads to finishing.

One competes for glory, another to feed a family — and glory.

To have failed others and still believe in yourself is to defend your own gold.

Winning is training, passion and gift.

Mettle may win a medal, but love smelts a heart of gold.

When a double amputee runs in the Olympics we are all reminded to stop whining.

The greatest Olympian is the one who inspires the next generation the most.

The fastest man in the world is a moving target.

The Olympics are the world’s greatest sporting events, and a lot of showing off.

Life should be lived like an Olympic attempt– a sprint, a long jump, a hard landing and a cheer — no medal.

x-ray

Posted: July 23, 2012 in x-ray
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An x-ray of the U.S. Congress would reveal a compound fracture.

Before you shoot someone, x-ray them; you may not need to.

A cavity hates an x-ray like an addict hates the truth.

A good proverb is like a good x-ray, easy to read, harder to heed.

Seeing is before being.

Discernment is the mind’s x-ray machine.

As an x-ray opens a window on the body, so compassion opens a shutter on the soul.

When Röntgen saw the bones in his own hand, all the skeletons of the earth rose up to dance.

X-rays are best possessed by super-duper consciousness.

The x-ray is the friend of the lung; insight is the friend of the psyche.

Nobel prizes radiate from the discovery of noble rays.

Teeth love x-rays; souls love insights.

The wise gain x-ray vision through experience.

zoo

Posted: July 23, 2012 in zoo
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The good life is a grandparent, a grandchild and a zoo.

Zoos remind children that they are small, curious and delicious.

The lamb lies with the lion too, when both are living at the zoo.

The zoo is glue, for mothers needing social roux.

If you can’t afford the zoo, watch congress on TV.

Go to the zoo; take food, pack extra children.

Zoos hire acrobats and muscians because caged animals are so boring.

All in all the human crew is best studied at the zoo.

We love the wild beasts — through thick glass.

Too compare American family life to a zoo demeans the zoo.

See the zoo; tour the world.

The zoo’s best public face is conservation.

Display is ever the arch enemy of freedom.

Compassion is the great link between man and animal; see how the elephants in Thula Thula mourn the loss of Lawrence Anthony.

All zoos are not created equal.

The shopping mall is the human zoo where we all pay to be on exhibit.

Behind the scenes at the zoo, business and conservation snarl and snap at each other over the green rhino.

The animals of the earth are most endanged by humanity’s torid love affair with killing them.

youth

Posted: July 22, 2012 in youth
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Youth hopes much, believes most and fears least.

Youth believes; age achieves.

When you are young, believe that your dreams can come true; when you are old, make sure they do.

The chief disadvantage of being young is in being bossed around by people who know so much less than you do.

Runny noses, bossy adults and unrequited crushes — such things make one long to be old.

Retirement homes and junior high schools have this in common: The inmates quickly grow restless.

Young is young and old is old; together they make something bold.

All men brag that they look good; the difference between young men and old men is that old men actually believe it.

I don’t care what young men do, as long as they don’t do it on the Internet and scare my children.

It is the perogative of the old to give opportunity to the young.

First we study, and then we try; after we fail, then we star.

Wise leaders give opportunity to those who will one day replace them.

quality

Posted: July 21, 2012 in quality
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The best chef selects the third fruit.

Patience births quality; so does impatience.

Kin are platinum — or tin.

The quest for quality makes the tiniest detail into the biggest deal.

Conformance sells; good copying enriches.

Character cognizant springs from its opposite.

Excellence drives over the top of comfort; it crushes laziness.

Quantity is quality’s big-boned sister.

Pick your surgeon; like your sturgeon.

When quality is too expensive, try a cheap fix.

Quality is the best polity.

kind

Posted: July 20, 2012 in kind
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Kind to need is kind indeed.

Diagnose souls; administer kindness.

Kindness is contagious, gentleness courageous.

Spineless kindness nurtures blindness.

Kindness is a form of blindness.

Our losses may yet teach us some kindnesses.

Women sometimes make passes at kind men who wear glasses.

Forgiveness is the essence of kindness.

A just punishment may be a brutal kindness.

The soul most in need of kindness is within.

volunteer

Posted: July 16, 2012 in volunteer
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Voluntary is honorary.

To volunteer is to think of you not me.

Every shovelful helps fill the wheelbarrow, and every tweet helps shape public opinion.

To volunteer advice is like taking cuts in a line; better to wait until all can see that it is your turn.

Volunteer and get hired; slack and get fired.

A voluntary heart doeth good like a medicine.

Something comes of something.

When you volunteer you subtract from yourself to add to others.

Voting is volunteering.

Help who you help to help.

Voluntary works; forced stalls and backfires.

Required volunteerism isn’t.

The wealthy core volunteer the poor for war.

It is easier to find a man who will volunteer to kill other men than to find a man who will volunteer to be a foster parent.

Volunteers have many friends; the selfish rot by themselves in a corner.

faces

Posted: July 8, 2012 in faces
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A happy visage is an open shutter on a cheerful heart.

Every compliment is a facelift.

Faces hint at hearts, but fools blunder ahead without looking.

Tete a tete may temper hate, but an email is sure to promote it.

Every face is a mirror in which the wise see themselves.

The eye is the light of the face.

Always dive face first into deep friendships.

Take human facia prima facie.

The happiest moments of life exist within the circle of children’s faces.

The best memories of a good life are of loved faces.

Faces tell stories.

The face we marry, have children with and remain loyal to into old age is the face within the face of love’s true face.

The world is a galaxy of faces.

fix

Posted: July 2, 2012 in fix
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What we can’t fix, we can love.

A quick fix is usually a trick.

You can fix your fife but not your wife.

Fixing inside fixes outside.

A fix in time may save thine.

A quick fix is the road to a quick disaster.

Old school fixes what new school nixes.

Love fixes up what indifference has let down.

Many can’t fix what one has spoiled.

Patience is the slow cure.

The skilled lay hands on what the ignorant have given up on.

To fix or not to fix — that is the discretion.

The end of what can’t be fixed is the end.

worth

Posted: May 25, 2012 in worth
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Birth is worth.

The molten bold in souls is gold.

Knowledge wears a beautiful patina.

The wise place an extreme value on not knowing.

Human worth is beyond gender, wealth, appearance, and club member.

Aloneness can’t do any ciphers, subtract our worth, diminish girth.

Anchor decisions sticker worth but the wise reprice their own stuff.

Good lies in the direction of valuing what we haven’t.

Love forges a good; hate forges a hood.

What they did to you doesn’t define you.

Wisdom stops asking “why” and turn its faces to the good found in the present.

Other’s opinions don’t price us.

Within the you of the you of the very definitive and superlative you resides your you.

adventure

Posted: May 16, 2012 in adventure
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The greatest adventure is in what lies behind what lies ahead.

The thrilling unknown lies just below the bone.

The next adventure is just one risk away.

Fools hide at home; the wise charge into the hippodrome.

The good are always traveling into the dangerous terrain of the other.

Adventure lies on the other side of obedience.

The ultimate adventure begins when we sit still, fold our hands and close our eyes.

The wildest ride begins where control ends.

Faith leaves home with bright eyes.

The thrilling hunt almost beats the heart-pounding find.

One cannot even begin to understand home until one leaves it.

When I am no longer ruled by what you think, I go over the falls and plummet into freedom.

Fear hides; love jumps into plain sight.

It is a fool’s errand to play it safe too much.

 

past

Posted: May 16, 2012 in past
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Past good, the future better, the present best.

The past is premium grade rocket fuel.

The damaging past that we can’t forget, we disarm by forgiving.

The present is made out of our past memories and our future hopes.

We dig up the past in order to try to understand the present.

The past is like an old house; it’s always under reconstruction.

The past is always spoken of in the imperfect tense.

The past is remembered best by our ears, eyes and noses.

The past is a like a symphony orchestra that refuses to stop playing.

What happened in the past is now my choice.

When I cry over some else’s past I begin to recover from mine.

The past refuses to pass passively.

Was is, until we change it.

transition

Posted: May 2, 2012 in transition
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We know we have crossed over into maturity when we stop fighting with the people crossing with us.

Progress — it’s finding your people.

A gap in time is a road sign.

The good life has some pool rules: “No running, children; no diving, fools.”

A wise life is like an expensive wine — it’s waits.

The wise know their limits; the mature know when to move beyond them.

Maturity exists in knowing who to choose — and who to run like hell from.

No sea crossings are a match; no lives come from the same batch.

Lonely spaces lie between our origins and our destinations.

Finding our mate is the end; losing our mate is the beginning.

 

human

Posted: April 28, 2012 in human
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We become more human when we love.

Demons are just tired humans.

Wisdom is gentle with human.

Human is tender — with gender.

War is the hatred of humans.

To be human is to be both strong and weak — in the same leap.

It is human to be embarrassed and not hide it.

We need no excuse for being human.

The wise sit with their emotions; fools chase them away.

The baby loved is the bloom of humanity.

When men and women see each other as human, feminism will have done its job.

The toilet reminds us; we are not gods.

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