Bon Mots/Definitions
Bon Mots
When you get to the end of your rope time a knot and hang on!
The only difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is the way you use them.
Have you ever noticed people who know where they are going — always seem to get there?
True contentment is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. — G.K.Chesterton
Perhaps there is nothing to figure out after all; perhaps we only need to wake up. — Thomas Merton
Voting is simply a way of determining which side is the stronger without putting it to the test of fighting. — H.L. Mencken
Only one link in the chain to destiny can be handled at a time. — Sir Winston Churchill
A good edge is good for nothing, if it has nothing to cut. — Thomas Fuller, M.D.
The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher. — Elbert Hubbard
Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending. — Longfellow.
Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at. — Goethe
Life is not any use at all unless we find a laugh here and there. — James Stephens
To be always ready, a man must be able to cut a knot, for not everything can be untied. — Henri Frederic Amiel
Space isn’t remote at all. It’s only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards. — Sir Fred Hoyle
High Society is for those who have stopped working and no longer have anything important to do. — Woodrow Wilson
Knowledge is of two kinds; we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. — Samuel Johnson
One unable to dance blames the unevenness of the floor. — Malaysian proverb
Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought. Dwight D. Morrow
Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love and to put its trust in life! — Joseph Conrad
Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it! — Publilius Syrus
He who knows nothing is nearer the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. — Thomas Jefferson
Learn to read your own mind, and everything else will come by itself. — Paul Valery
Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another. — Eustace Budgell
Speeches are like steer horns — a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between. — Source Unknown
Tis not knowing much, but what is useful, that makes a wise man. — Thomas Fuller, M.D.
A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends. — Baltasar Gracian
Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I can assure you it is much more serious than that. Bill Shankly
Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian. H.L. Mencken
You cannot write in the chimney with charcoal. — Russian Proverb
There are people who have an appetite for grief; pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
We must not let go of manifest truths because we cannot answer all the questions about them. — Jeremy Collier
The greatest problem about old age is the fear that it may go on too long. A.P. Taylor
Being an Old Maid is like death by drowning, a really delightful sensation after you cease to struggle. — Edna Ferber
Rather know nothing than half-know much. — Nietzsche
Fortune pays you sometimes for the intensity of her favors by the shortness of their duration. She soon tires of carrying anyone long on her shoulders. Baltasar Gracian
Speaking personally, I have found the happiness of parenthood greater than any other I have experienced. Bertrand Russell
Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle aged men. — Kin Hubbard
How few are our real wants and how easy is it to satisfy them! Our imaginary ones are boundless and insatiable. J.H. Hare and A.W. Hare.
Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. — Confucius
The farther we get away from the land, the greater our insecurity. — Henry Ford
Economy is half the battle of life; it is not so hard to earn money as to spend it well. — Spurgeon.
Every path has its puddle. — English Proverb
Everyone ought to do two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice. — William James
Nothing is ever gained by winning an argument and losing a customer. — Norton
Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. — Aldous Huxley
I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise. — Montesquieu
Bad news travels fast and far. — Plutarch
The difference between failure and success is doing a thing nearly right and doing it exactly right. Edward C. Simmons.
Every truth has two sides; it is well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either. Aesop
Blessed are they who have nothing to say, and who cannot be persuaded to say it. — James Russell Lowell
The learned fool writes his nonsense in better language than the unlearned, but still ’tis nonsense. — Ben Franklin
The secret of success is constancy to purpose. — Benjamin Disraeli
All things come to him who waits — provided he knows what he is waiting for. — Woodrow Wilson
The man who can keep a secret may be wise, but he is not half as wise as the man with no secrets to keep. — Edgar Watson Howe
The history of the world is the record of a man in quest of his bread and butter. H.W. Van Loon
Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will have the patience to do difficult things easily. Schiller
In every affair consider what precedes and follows, and the undertake it. — Epictetus
I always tell students that it is what you learn after you know it all that counts. — Harry Truman
To be president of the U.S. is to be lonely, very lonely, at times of great decisions. — Harry Truman
He who neglects to drink of the spring of experience is likely to die of thirst in the desert of ignorance. — Ling Po
Bread is the warmest, kindest of words. Write it always with a capital letter, like your own name. — Russian Cafe Sign
Time deals gently only with those who take it gently. — Anatole France
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. — Theodore Roosevelt.
I have imagination, and nothing that is real is alien to me. — George Santayana
Everyone’s allowed an occasional failure — except the skydiver, of course. — Unknown.
I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey. — Mark Twain
Few things are quite so embarrassing as watching your boss do something you just said couldn’t be done. — Unknown.
A luxury resort is a place with tropical plants outside and outstretched palms inside. — Unknown
A politician is a man who divides his time between running for office and running for cover. — Anonymous
Creative minds always have been know to survive any kind of bad training. — Anna Freud
Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. — Berthold Auerbach
In America any boy may become president, and I suppose that’s the risk he takes. — Adali E. Stevenson
“Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail,
There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’d treading on my tail. — Lewis Carroll
One starts an action simply because one must do something. — T.S. Eliot
Just about the time you think you can make both ends meet, somebody moves the ends. — Unknown
Don’t try to make children grow up like you, or they may do it. — Russell Baker
To dispose a soul to action, we must upset its equilibrium. — Eric Hoffer
I began at the top and I’ve been working my way down ever since. — Orson Welles
Many a man owes his success to his first wife — and he second wife to his success. — Jim Backus
Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear. — Shakespeare
A politician is a man who approaches every question with an open mouth. — Adlai E. Stevenson
We ride through life on the beast within us. Beat the animal, but you can’t make it think. — Luigi Pirandello
Despite inflation, a penny is still a fair price for the thoughts of many people. — Unknown
Knowledge is power. — Francis Bacon
He who is being carried does not realize how far the town is. — Nigerian proverb
When a man says it’s a silly childish game, it’s probably something his wife can beat him at. — Don Epperson
The town was so dull that when the tide went out, it refused to come back. — Fred Allen
I used to have all the answers; now I don’t even know what the questions are. — Eileen Mason
When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion. — Ethiopian proverb
The surest way for a pedestrian to live longer nowadays is to buy himself a car. O. A. Battista
Titles distinguish the mediocre, embarrass the superior, and are disgraced by the inferior. — George Bernard Shaw
Definitions
Baby: A new acorn on the family tree.
Cemetery: (n) A marble orchard not to be taken for granite.
Cussin: what genealogists do when they can’t find one.FLOOR: (n) The place for storing your priceless genealogy records.
Genealogists: Time unravelers.
Genealogist: One always in search of a good dead man!
Genealogy: People collecting people!
Genealogy: A hay stack full of needles. It’s the threads I need.
Genealogy: Looking for needles in haystacks.
Genealogy: Collecting dead relatives and sometimes a live cousin!
Genealogy: The marriage of a jigsaw puzzle to a dungeon & dragons game.
Genealogy: Tracing descent from someone who didn’t.
Genealogy: Tracing yourself back to better people.
Genealogy: Where you confuse the dead and irritate the living.
Documentation: the worst part of genealogy.
Documentation: the hardest part of genealogy.
Family history: a quilt work of lives.
Kinship: it`s all relative!
RELATIVES: people who come to dinner who aren’t friends.
Puritanism: the fear that someone somewhere is happy.
Research: What I’m doing, when I don’t know what I’m doing.