BILLION
How Much Is $1 Billion?
A man gave his wife one million dollars. He told her to go out and spend a thousand dollars a day. She did. Three years later she returned to tell him that the money was all gone. She wanted more.
He then gave her one billion dollars. He told her to go out and spend a thousand dollars a day. She didn’t come back for three thousand years.
Or suppose a business started in the year 1 A.D. with one billion dollars capital. Supposing further that the concern was so unsuccessful as to lose a thousand dollars a day. It would still be in business today, after having lost a thousand dollars daily for almost two thousand years, and could continue almost eight hundred years longer, or until the year 2699 A.D., until its original capital of one billion was exhausted.
Or if someone would give you one billion dollars in dollar bills on the condition that you count each one, do not do it! It will take you sixty years, 365 days a year, eight hours a day—and it may break your health before you are half through!
—Paul Lee Tan
BIRTHDAYS
Teacher: “What happened in 1809?”
Student: “Lincoln was born.”
Teacher: “Now, what happened in 1812?”
Student: “He had his third birthday.”
The secret to enjoying your life is to count your blessings not your birthdays.
A true friend is someone who always remembers your birthday, but forgets your age.
He who has the most birthdays lives the longest.
—Confucius
A wise man never forgets his wife’s birthday. He just forgets which one it is.
BITTERNESS
One day a visitor leaned on the old fence around a farm while he watched an old farmer plowing with a mule. After a while, the visitor said, “I don’t like to tell you how to run your business, but you could save yourself a lot of work by saying, ‘Gee’ and ‘Haw’ to that mule instead of tugging on those lines.”
The old farmer pulled a big handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. Then he said, “Reckon you’re right, but this animal kicked me five years ago and I ain’t spoke to him since.”
A grudge is harder on the one who holds it than the one it is held against.
—Pulpit Helps
Bitterness always inflicts a deeper wound on the person who harbors it than the person against whom it is directed. A man who had car trouble on a lonely road asked a farmer to tow him to the nearest garage. On the way his wife was protesting to her husband the fee the farmer charged. “It is scandalous,” she said, “to charge us ten dollars for towing this car only three miles.” To which her husband replied, “Never mind, dear. I’m having my revenge—I’ve got my brakes on.” Many a person has thought himself to be getting revenge, but all the time the major damage was being done to him.
BLAME
To err is human; to blame it on somebody else is even more human.
BLESSINGS
When I reached Bergen, Norway, I found that, due to some slight miscalculation, I had only just enough money for my ticket by boat to London and none to spare for food. In those days I had a healthy appetite, and the prospect of a two-day fast was not pleasant. I grew more and more ravenous as the voyage progressed. Finally, I could stand it no more and, as the other passengers were entering the ship’s dining room for the last meal, I asked a kindly looking old gentleman if he would bring me some bread when he had finished. He looked at me in astonishment, and said, “But why don’t you come in and eat?” I explained my plight, to which he replied pityingly, “But you don’t have to pay; meals are included in your ticket.”
—Eric Shipton, explorer
Reflect on your present blessings of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some.
—Charles Dickens
May there always be work for your hands to do.
May your purse always hold a coin or two.
May the sun always shine on your windowpane.
May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain.
May the hand of a friend always be near to you.
May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.
—An Irish blessing
Try claiming God’s blessings instead of merely longing for them.
—Henry Jacobsen
BLOOD OF CHRIST
In his book The Great Boer War, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle recounts the story of a small detachment of British troops who were surprised by an overwhelming enemy force. The British fell back under heavy fire. Their wounded lay in a perilous position where they faced certain death. One of them, a corporal in the Ceylon Mounted Infantry, later told that they all realized they had to come immediately under the protection of a Red Cross flag if they wanted to survive. All they had was a piece of white cloth but no red paint. So they used the blood from their wounds to make a large cross on that white cloth. Their attackers respected that grim flag as it was held aloft, and the wounded British were brought to safety. Similarly there is safety in the blood of Christ.
BOARDS
There’s a term for people who don’t have a good relationship with their boards. They are called “Unemployed.”
—Chuck Swindoll
BOASTING (Also see PRIDE)
The fellow who brags about how smart he is, wouldn’t if he were.
—Farmer’s Almanac
BODY
A third-grader was asked to write an essay on the subject of the human body. He submitted this masterpiece: “Your head is kind of round and hard, and your brains are in it and your hair is on it. Your face is in front of your head where you eat and make faces.… Your stummick is something that if you don’t eat often enough it hurts, and spinach don’t help none.… Your arms you got to have to throw a ball with and so you can reach the butter.
“Your fingers stick out of your hands so you can throw a curve and add up rithmatick. Your legs is what if you don’t have two of, you can’t run fast. Your feet are what you run on, and your toes are what always get stubbed. And that’s all there is of you, except what’s inside, and I never saw that.”
BOLDNESS
In the Westminster Abbey a monument to Lord Lawrence has inscribed on it his name, his date of death, and these words: “He feared man so little because he feared God so much.”
The pioneer evangelist Peter Cartwright spent seventy years serving the Lord and always preached the Word of God without fear or favor. One Sunday he was asked to speak at a Methodist church in the southern part of the United States. During the song just before the message, the pastor whispered to him that Andrew Jackson had just entered the sanctuary. He cautioned Cartwright to be very careful of what he said lest he offend their famous guest. The evangelist, however, knowing that “the fear of man bringeth a snare” (Prov. 29:25), was determined not to compromise the truth. He also knew that great leaders need the Lord as much as anyone, so he boldly proclaimed the Gospel. In fact, halfway through his sermon he said, “I understand that Andrew Jackson is present in the congregation today. If he does not repent of his sins and accept Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, he will be just as lost as anyone else who has never asked God for His forgiveness.” Instead of becoming angry, Jackson admired the preacher for his courage. He listened with keen interest to the message and felt such deep conviction that after the service Cartwright was able to lead him to the Lord. From that moment on, the two became the best of friends.
BOOKS
A good book is the precious life blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond.
—John Milton
If all the crowns of Europe were placed at my disposal on condition that I should abandon my books and studies, I should spurn the crowns away and stand by the books.
—François Fénelon
Books are immortal sons defying their sires.
—Plato
Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.
—E. P. Whipple
Books are the legacies that genius leaves to mankind, to be delivered down from generation to generation, as parents to those who are yet unborn.
—Addison
When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.
—Erasmus
G. K. Chesterton, the great Roman Catholic layman, was once asked by an interviewer what book he would like to have with him if he were marooned on a desert island. As Chesterton began to consider this, the reporter made suggestions: The Bible? A volume of Shakespeare? But Chesterton shook his head. “No. I would like to have a manual on boatbuilding.”
—Bruce Larson
I seldom notice bookends much
although of course I’ve seen them.
They are like ears: what really counts is
what one has between them.
Of the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books.
—Thomas Carlyle
BOREDOM
Discussing with a clergyman friend some of the more common human ailments, a British doctor said: “The most deadly of all human diseases is one we can’t reach with a knife or with medicine. That disease is boredom. There is more real wretchedness, more torment driving men to folly in boredom than in anything else.
“People will do almost anything to escape it—drink, drug themselves, sell their bodies and souls, fling themselves into crazy causes, and torture themselves and other people—anything to escape the misery of being bored.”
He then added, “Anyone who discovers a cure for that will do more to avert human tragedy than all of us doctors put together.”
—John D. Jess
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
—Ellen Parr
BOSSES
Billy Martin was a controversial New York Yankee manager. In his office was this sign: “Company rules: Rule 1. The boss is always right. Rule 2. If the boss is wrong, see Rule 1.”
BREVITY
Brevity is not only the soul of wit, but the soul of making oneself agreeable, and of getting on with people, and indeed of everything that makes life worth living.
—Samuel Butler
If you can’t be humorous or erudite, at least you can be brief.
BRIBES
The Great Wall of China is a gigantic structure which cost an immense amount of money and labor. When it was finished, it appeared impregnable. But the enemy breached it—not by breaking it down or going around it—they did it by bribing the gatekeepers.
—Harry Emerson Fosdick