PRISON
A socialite wanted to have a book written about her family. Much to her horror she discovered that one of her grandfathers had been electrocuted in the Sing Sing prison. Since she was ashamed of that and wanted that fact hidden, the following statement appeared in the book: “One of her grandfathers occupied a chair of applied electricity in one of America’s best known institutions. He was very much attached to his position and literally died in the harness.”
PROBLEMS
With me, a change of trouble is as good as a vacation.
—David Lloyd George
It’s really not so bad to have a few problems. The only people who don’t are in the cemetery.
“The hardest thing about milking cows,” observed a farmer, “is that they never stay milked.”
Yard by yard, life is hard. Inch by inch, life’s a cinch.
A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can recognize his potentialities.
—Charles de Gaulle
I think I see light at the end of the tunnel. I only hope it’s not a locomotive.
Life is like a grindstone. Whether it grinds you down or polishes you up depends on the stuff you’re made of.
No one can hold two watermelons in one hand.
—Afghanistan proverb
Wendell Wilkie said, “What a man needs to get ahead is a powerful enemy.” Edmund Burke said, “Our antagonist is our helper. He that wrestles with it strengthens our muscles and sharpens our skills.”
Apparently human nature must have something to push against and something to wrestle with. I suppose this is the hopeful thing about handicaps. We all have them in some form. Handicaps are the hard things we wrestle with and push against.
—J. Wallace Hamilton
Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem and turned it into an opportunity.
—Joseph Sugarman
A man and his wife were taking a bus trip through the mountains, and the bus broke down right in front of a backwoods grocery store. The woman there apparently had seldom been anywhere else.
The wife said, “I don’t believe she knows what’s going on in the world outside.”
Her husband replied, “Well, don’t tell her. I wouldn’t want the poor soul to know. Let her die in peace.”
I may not know all the answers, but I at least know where to get them.
—Henry Ford
In Greek mythology Gordius, a peasant, became king of Phrygia in Asia Minor. He used to tie the ox yoke to his chariot, both of which he dedicated to Zeus. If someone could untie the difficult knot, he would become ruler of all of Asia. No one could do it, but Alexander the Great cut the knot with his sword, an unusual solution. So the phrase “cut the Gordian knot” means solving a difficult problem in an unusual way.
Sam Moore, former president of Thomas Nelson Publishers, had a sign on his office door, “Bring me your solutions, not your problems.”
—Ted Engstrom
PROCRASTINATION
Always put off until tomorrow what you shouldn’t do at all.
—Farmer’s Almanac
Procrastination is the thief of time, but more so, it is the thief of souls.
The more you leave to chance, the less chance there is for you.
The things you’ll do tomorrow are the things you would have done today if you had thought about them yesterday.
One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow.
—Vincent T. Foss
In Guatemala, the Chequel Indians always answer the questions asked of them by saying “No.” Then they think about it for a while before answering “Yes.”
The best way to kill time is to get busy and work it to death.
Joe’s chronically late for everything. His ancestors came over on the Juneflower.
It takes more to plow a field than merely turning it over in your mind.
God promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.
The future is that time when you’ll wish that you’d done what you aren’t doing now.
In my second year at Biola Bible College I and several students went every Sunday morning to one of the missions on skid row.
After the service one Sunday morning, I was talking with a man about his soul. He knew the way of salvation. He knew practically every verse I showed him. In fact, he said he wanted to be saved, but he didn’t want to then. I pleaded with that man for an hour and a half to turn to Christ now that he had the opportunity, but he would not yield to Christ. He himself even told me of incidents in which men were suddenly taken by death. I told him he was preaching his own sermon, and that that could happen to him too. But he put it off, and in despair I left the man who continued to say, “Not now. Not now.” What a tragedy that many are the same way today. They intend to be saved, but “not now.”
—Roy B. Zuck
Colonel Rahl, the Hessian commander at Trenton, was playing cards when a courier brought a message stating that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware River. Rahl put the letter in his pocket and didn’t bother to read it until the game was finished. Then, realizing the seriousness of the situation, he hurriedly tried to rally his men to meet the coming attack, but his procrastination was his undoing. He and many of his men were killed, and the rest of the regiment was captured.
Tomorrow is the excuse of the lazy and the refuge of the incompetent.
—Nolbett Quayle
Learn right at the outset not to play with the spoon before you take the medicine. Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible.
—George Horace Lorimer
“Tomorrow,” he promised his conscience;
“tomorrow I mean to believe;
Tomorrow I’ll think as I ought to;
tomorrow my Savior receive;
Tomorrow I’ll conquer the habits that
hold one from heaven away.”
But ever his conscience repeated one
word, and only one: “Today.”
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow—thus
day after day it went on;
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow—till
youth like a vision was gone:
Till age and his passions had written
the message of fate on his brow;
And forth from the shadows came Death,
with the pitiless syllable, “Now!”
When the ship Stephen Whitney struck on an Irish cliff and clung there for a few moments, all the passengers who leaped instantly onto the rock were saved. Those who lingered were swept off by the returning wave and engulfed forever.
If you should wake one dreadful day,
Before His throne and hear Him say,
“I am the Way you did not take,
Although I died once for your sake;
I am the Truth you did not heed;
You were so sure you had no need;
I am the Light you would not see
Now darkness for eternity!”
You cannot say, “I did not know:”
He plainly wrote and told you so.
And if you would not read His Word,
That Word still stands, “Thus saith the Lord!”
—Martha Snell Nicholson
Suppose you are in the army and you are out on the battlefield raiding the enemy and on the way back to your trench you get hit. Bill Smith stops long enough to pick you up and carry you back to the trenches, and while doing so he gets two bullets in the back. You are both taken to the hospital and later you both are won back from the very verge of death. Two months later the doctor comes along helping a poor fellow who limps badly and moves with evident difficulty. They stop at your bedside and the doctor says, “I want to introduce you to Mr. Smith, the man who risked his life to save you.” And you fold your arms and say, “I don’t know whether I want to make his acquaintance today or not. I’ll think it over.” No, you wouldn’t say that. You would grip him by the hand and try to tell him something of the gratitude you felt.
PRODIGAL SON
They were talking about the Prodigal Son in the class at Sunday school when the teacher asked, “Was anyone sorry when the Prodigal Son returned?”
After a bit of soul-searching, one little boy said, “The fatted calf.”
PROGRESS
Three words on the grave of a guide who died while climbing the Alps: “He died climbing.”
David Livingstone’s motto was, “Anywhere, provided it is forward.”
All man has learned in the last decades is how to go faster, work less, spend more, and die quicker.
—Construction Digest
“I’m glad you’re making progress,” the psychiatrist said to a patient of his. “Progress? You call that progress? Six months ago I was Napoleon, now I’m nobody.”
PROMISES
The promises of God are certain but they do not all mature in days.
—A. J. Gordon
J. Hudson Taylor started a bank account for the China Inland Mission in Brighton, England. On the application where he was asked to designate his assets, he wrote, “Ten pounds and the promises of God.”
Every promise is built upon four pillars: God’s justice and holiness, which will not suffer Him to deceive; He grace or goodness, which will not suffer Him to forget; His truth, which will not suffer Him to change; and His power, which makes Him able to accomplish.
—H. G. Salter
A pastor visited an old man who was held fast to his chair by rheumatism, but he had his Bible open in front of him. The minister noticed the word “Proved” was written continually in the margin. The dear man had taken God’s Word and written his own experience in the margin. Beside each promise as he found it come true in his own life, he had written “Proved.”
If asked when you can deliver something, ask for time to think. Build in a margin of safety. Name a date. Then deliver it earlier than you promised.
The world is divided into two classes of people: the few people who make good on their promises (even if they don’t promise as much) and the many who don’t. Get in column A and stay there. You’ll be very valuable wherever you are.
—Bits & Pieces
PROOFS
Adelina Patti, the great singer, instructed her home post office to forward her mail to a post office in a small French village. There she planned to pick it up.
“Any mail for Adelina Patti?” she inquired of the postmaster to whom she was a stranger.
“Yes,” said the postmaster, “but have you anything to identify yourself with?”
She presented a visiting card which the postmaster said was insufficient evidence.
“What can I do?” she mused. Then a brilliant idea came to her. She began to sing! In a few moments the post office was filled with people listening in wonderment to her rapturous voice. As she concluded her song she asked the postmaster, “Are you satisfied now that I am Adelina Patti?”
“Abundantly satisfied!” said he apologetically. “Only Adelina Patti could sing as you have sung,” he said as he gave her her bundle of mail.
PROPHECY
It is difficult to prophesy, particularly with regard to the future.
—Chinese proverb