In my youth, there was a day when my mother read to me the poem Father William by Lewis Carroll.
For those of you unfamiliar with this work, it revolves around a young boy questioning (some would say pestering) Father William. With each question, the young boy begins with "You are old..." while in reply, Father William begins with "In my youth..."
For reasons I'll never understand, instead of "old", my mind heard the young boy say "you are wise," and at the very early age of five, I decided I would endevour to be wise just like Father William.
Over the four decades that followed, I committed to memory every aphorism and nugget of folk wisdom worthy of saving. The idea of course was that by the time I was Father William's age, I too would be wise by way of my mental collection.
Now that I've surely passed Father William in years, I can't say with any certainty that my aphorisms alone are responsible for wisdom. I can say that on more than one occasion, they came to my rescue in a moment of speechlessness when I needed the perfect comeback!
My list is broken into two groups, Aphorisms and Folk Wisdom. Naturally, now that I've reached Father William's age, my older memory is less willing to cough up all that its saved over the years. So, I will continue to add to these lists as time goes on.
Aphorisms
- Youth is wasted on the young.
- There is never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.
- Time waits for no man.
- Violence is the last refuge of the ignorant. – Isaac Asimov
- Self-restraint is the highest form of discipline.
- The human mind has an amazing capacity for self-deception. – Isaac Asimov
- Passion is the hardest of all taskmasters.
- There are two great powers in the world, the sword and the mind, and in the long run, the sword is always beaten out by the mind. – Napoleon Bonaparte
- What is history but a fable agreed upon. - Napoleon Bonaparte
- Excuses only satisfy those who make them. - Mr. Donovan, High School History Teacher
- It takes a wise man to recognize the value of a small coin.
- The first man to raise a fist is the first man to run out of ideas.
- Until a man learns to delegate, he is doomed to mediocrity. – Bruce Williams
- There's only one human race - everything else is culture.
- Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
- Better than the act, better than the memory, the moment of anticipation. – Homer Simpson
- Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. – Mark Twain
- Your most valuable possession is your goat. Don't let anyone get it.
- If you drag'm in - you'll drag'm around. – Dori Sigurdson
- A man with nothing has nothing to lose.
- True faith is found at the edge of impossibility.
- The first step in getting back on your feet is getting up off your a$$.
- If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, then baffle them with your bull$hit.
- Don't pi$$ down my back and tell me it's rain.
- An honest man will never hesitate to put his intentions in writing.
- A fool and his money are soon parted.
- All men are equal. All men are brothers, but some of the men are more equal than others.
- Never put off 'till tomorrow what you can postpone 'till the day after.
Folk Wisdom & Sayings
- You can build a man a fire and warm him for a day, or you can set a man on fire and warm him for the rest of his life.
- If brains were black powder, he wouldn’t have enough to blow his own nose.
- Upon becoming tongue-twisted, say, "My tongue got in front of my eye-teeth and I couldn't see what I was saying."
- He’s so dumb, he couldn’t pour water out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel.
- Arguing with liberals is like playing chess with a pigeon — no matter how good you are at chess, the pigeon is just going to knock over the pieces, crap on the board, and strut around like it is victorious.
- Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
- Something with no discernible purpose is "as worthless as teats on a bore hog."
- He's as dumb as a rock.
- He's as dumb as a hoe handle.
- He’s busier than a one legged man in an a$$ kicking contest.
- I'm so hungry, I could eat the south end of a north bound skunk!
- There's more than one way to skin a cat besides putting its head in a boot-jack and yanking on its tail.
- I love cats - they taste just like chicken.
- So many cats...so few recipes!
- A cat will usually blink when hit in the head with a ballpean hammer.
- The closer you are to your destination upon departing, the higher the probability of arriving late.
- At the moment of epiphany say, "Ahh, I see said the blind man to the deaf mute."
- Unless you're the lead dog, the view never changes.
- If he had half a brain, it would die of loneliness.
- (First Person) "He didn't know if he was coming or going." (Second Person) "He must have been going, 'cuz he sure as hell would have known if he was coming."
- You gotta pi$$ with the dick you got.
- Something without value is not worth the powder to blow it to hell.
- Well slap my ass and call me Sally. (It always cracks me up to hear someone actually say this.)
- At seeing someone doing something impossible, say "You might as well be thowin' rocks at the moon."
- It's better to be pi$$ed off than pi$$ed on."
