FREEDOM
A man’s worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.
—Aldous Huxley
We are in bondage to the law in order that we may be free.
—Cicero
Freedom is not the right to do as a person pleases, but the liberty to do as he ought.
Freedom standing by itself inevitably degenerates into license. License, which is unbridled freedom, quickly becomes the enemy of freedom.
—Richard John Neuhaus
The first duty of every soul is to find not its freedom but its master.
—P. T. Forsyth
Giuseppe Garibaldi, the great Italian leader of the nineteenth century, in a fiery speech urged some thousands of Italy’s young men to fight for the freedom of their homeland. One timid young fellow asked him, asking, “If I fight, Sir, what will be my reward?” Swift as a lightning flash came the uncompromising answer: “Wounds, scars, bruises, and perhaps death. But remember that through your bruises Italy will be free.”
FRIENDLINESS
People who like people are people that people like.
There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who come into a room with the air of “Here I am!” And those who enter a room with the air of “Oh! There you are!”
One of the surest ways to discover how many friends you have is to rent a cottage at the beach.
FRIENDS – ENEMIES
The best way to form a friendship is to become interested in other people, not by trying to interest people in you.
Don’t walk in front of me.
I may not follow.
Don’t walk behind me.
I may not lead.
Walk beside me
And just be my friend.
He who is a judge between two friends loses one of them.
A friend is a person who goes around saying nice things about you behind your back.
Choose friends with care; you become what they are.
—Teen Esteem
A few years back Pepper Rogers, head football coach at UCLA, was going through a terrible season. He was very upset about it, and he didn’t think his wife was encouraging him enough. He said, “My dog is my best friend. I told my wife that a man needs at least two friends. She told me to go buy another dog.”
It’s smart to pick your friends—but not to pieces.
—Teen Esteem
John and Dave were hiking when they spotted a mountain lion staring at them. John froze in his tracks but Dave sat down on a log, tore off his hiking boots, pulled a pair of running shorts from his backpack and hurriedly began to put them on.
“For crying out loud, you can’t outrun a mountain lion!” John hissed.
“I don’t have to,” shrugged Dave. “I just have to outrun you.”
You can always tell a real friend; when you’ve made a fool of yourself, he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job.
—Lawrence J. Peter
The difference between a friend and an acquaintance is that a friend helps; an acquaintance merely advises.
—“Calgary Bob” Edwards
Socrates once asked a simple old man what he was most thankful for. The man replied, “That being such as I am, I have had the best friends I have had.”
There is no possession more valuable than a good and faithful friend.
—Socrates
Friendship doubles joys and halves griefs.
—Francis Bacon
There are three faithful friends—an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.
—Benjamin Franklin
If you want to be well liked by others, don’t set out to make yourself liked. You will only be thinking of yourself that way. Instead, develop a sincere and genuine interest in other people, and being liked will follow naturally.
—Bits & Pieces
The only way to have a friend is to be sure you are one.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Treat your friends like family and your family like friends.
To be rich in friends is to be poor in nothing.
—Lilian Whiting
A friend is someone whom we can always count on to count on us.
—Francis Perier
A real friend is one who attacks us in the front.
There are two kinds of people: those who brighten the room when they enter and those who brighten the room when they leave.
One enemy is too many and a hundred friends are too few.
—Icelandic proverb
A friend is a present you give yourself.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you.
—Dale Carnegie
Make every person like himself a little better and I promise that he will like you very much indeed.
—Philip Chesterfield
The bumps of life need the shock absorber of friendship.
Friendship ain’t just claspin’ hands,
and saying “How’ de do,”
Friendship grips a feller’s heart,
And warms him thro’ and thru!
A friend is one who knows you and still loves you.
Ten Commandments of Friendship
1. Speak to people—there is nothing as nice as a cheerful word of greeting.
2. Smile at people—it takes seventy-two muscles to frown but only fourteen to smile!
3. Call people by name—the sweetest music to anyone’s ear is the sound of their own name.
4. Be friendly and helpful—if you would have friends, be friendly.
5. Be cordial—speak and act as if everything you do were a real pleasure.
6. Be genuinely interested in people—you can like everyone if you try.
7. Be generous with praise, cautious with criticism.
8. Be considerate of the feelings of others—it will be appreciated.
9. Be thoughtful of the opinions of others.
10. Be alert to give service—what counts most in life is what we do for others!
A small boy defined a friend as “Someone who knows all about you and likes you just the same.”
An English publication offered a prize for the best definition of a friend, and among the thousands of answers received were the following:
“One who multiplies joys, and divides grief.”
“One who understands our silence.”
“A volume of sympathy bound in cloth.”
“A watch which beats true for all time and never runs down.”
But here is the definition that won the prize:
“A friend—the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out.”
Oh, how good it feels, the hand of an old friend.
—Henry Longfellow
Fame is the scentless sunflower with gaudy crowns of gold. But friendship is the breathing rose with sweet in every fold.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
I think that God will never send,
A gift so precious as a friend.
A friend who always understands,
And fills each need as it demands.
Whose loyalty will stand the test,
When skies are bright or overcast.
Who sees the faults that merit blame,
But keeps on loving just the same.
Who does far more than creeds could do,
To make us good, to make us true.
Earth’s gifts a sweet contentment lend,
But only God can give a friend!
—Rosalie Carter
To get the full value of joy, you must have somebody to divide it with.
—Mark Twain
Some people make enemies instead of friends because it is less trouble.
—E. C. McKenzie
Be slow in choosing a friend, slow in changing.
—Benjamin Franklin
An old friend is better than two new ones.
—Russian proverb
Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation: for it is better to be alone than in bad company.
—George Washington
If you really want to know who your friends are, just make a mistake.
—The Bible Friend
So long as we love we serve; no man is useless while he is a friend.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
FRUSTRATION
Frustration is trying to find your glasses without your glasses.
FUTURE
The problem with the present is that the future is not what it used to be.
The most effective way to ensure the value of the future is to confront the present courageously and constructively.
—Rollo May
Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of young men, and I will tell you what is to be the character of your next generation.
—Edmund Burke
Near the Rock of Gibraltar are two pillar-like rocks called the Pillars of Hercules because it is in Greek mythology that Hercules placed them there. Carved on one of the pillars are the words “Ne Plus Ultra” (“Nothing More Beyond”). These words conveyed the view many had then, that nothing existed beyond Gibraltar, except the vast expanse of the ocean. But later Columbus sailed through the pillars and discovered the new world. Then someone crossed out the word “Ne.” “Plus Ultra” means “More Beyond.”
The future is much like the present except that it’s a little longer.
My interest is in the future because I’m going to spend the rest of my life there.
—Charles F. Kettering
He who will not look forward must look behind.
—Gaelic proverb
The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.
—Dean Acheson
I plan for the future,
I yearn for the past.
And meantime the present
Is leaving me fast.
If you would plant for a year, plant rice; if for twenty years, plant trees; if for a hundred years, grow men.
—Chinese proverb
There is no sharp distinction between the past, the present, and the future.
—T. S. Eliot
The future is that time when you’ll wish you’d done what you aren’t doing now.