Over the last 50 years or so I have collected bits and pieces of wisdom, poetry, pithy sayings, clever quotations and some outright foolish utterances. These were committed to writing in a myriad of media including note books kept for various reasons, backs of envelops, scratch pads and emails to myself. They tended to accumulate in shoeboxes, long neglected manilla folders, as well as other nooks and crannies. I hesitate to even guess how many I’ve saved…let’s just say a lot. I’ve resolved that now in my 9th decade, I’m going to get things straightened out and squared away…which means, among other things getting rid of stuff I will no longer ever need or use and organizing in some meaningful fashion the things that remain important to me. I think they now call it decluttering.

Below you will find my first pass at a fully culled list of “Bits and Pieces”. I still haven’t figured out how to sequence them, but, I suspect it really doesn’t matter. It’s not a long list, and some, now that I’m reading them over for the nth time, may yet wind up on the cutting room floor. I also suspect that I’ve inadvertently culled some that I will want back, and may well appear in another version of this list. Yes, I know. Some of them sound a little trite, seen in the cool light of day. But at some point, they were meaningful to me. Hopefully, I have actually applied some of this wisdom to my life, and I guess, if I haven’t, it’s still not too late. If you have suggestions of your own, lemme know.

Bits and Pieces v1.0

“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is not a path and leave a trail.”

Ralph Waldo Emmerson

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I have.”

Thomas Jefferson

“A generalist is one who knows less and less about more and more until he knows nothing about everything, while a specialist knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.” Lesson…avoid the extremes.

Anon

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”

Linus Pauling

“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool rather than to open it and remove all doubt.” I could have put this to better use, I think.

Mark Twain

The secret to a happy, long term marriage is to often reply, “Yes, dear. Perhaps you’re right.”

Anon

“We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.”

H.L. Menken

“To question is the answer.”

Anon

“The years teach much the days never know.”

Ralph Waldo Emmerson

Out of the night that covers men
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unquenchable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have never winced or cried aloud
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed

Beyond the place of wrath and tears
Looms but the honor of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.

Invictus by William Ernest Henley…ok, I know it’s a little over the top, but it does rhyme pretty well and the idea is a good one.

“The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”

H.L. Menken

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubt.”

Bertrand Russell

“…The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is to good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard: you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.”

Bertrand Russell

“If we are going to proceed on the basis of opinion, I would rather it be my own.” I’ve put this to good use over the years.

Anon

“Leave the chances to the young ones and just live your life, counting the days, applying your heart unto wisdom, cherish what you love, take no meetings, go for long walks.”

Garrison Keeler

“If during a decade a man does not change his mind on some things and develop new points of view, it is a pretty good sign that his mind is petrified and need no longer be counted among the living.”

J. Frank Dobie

“The meglomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To these types belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.”

Bertrand Russell

New occasions teach new duties; Time
makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still, and onward, who
would keep abreast of Truth.

James Russell Lowell

“Men become civilized not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.”

“In every unbelievers heart there is an uneasy feeling that, after all, he may awake after death and find himself immortal. This is his punishment for his unbelief. This is agnostic hell.

H.L Menken

“The possession of arbitrary power has aways, the world over, tended irresistibly to destroy human sensibility and truth.”

Frederick Law Olmstead (1832-1903)

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points to how the strong will stumble, or where the doer of deeds could have done things better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who never knew victory or defeat.”

Teddy Roosevelt…I almost can hear the horses neighing and the roar of cannons in the background, and he may have used a few too many words, but the sentiment is right.

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children. To leave the world a better place, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Ralph Waldo Emmerson…I wouldn’t mind this being my epitaph. It’s a good place to stop.