Just do what you do best. When it is a question of God's almighty Spirit, never say, I can't. I have learnt that I am me, that I can do the things that, as one might put it, me can do, but I can ... Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education wit ... Ability without honor is useless. I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than ... Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imaginatio ... To sentence a man of true genius, to the drudgery of a school is to put a racehorse on a treadmill. Absence and death are the same -- only that in death there is no suffering. Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in ... The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity. A short absence is the safest. Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a ... Never find fault with the absent. Absence and a friendly neighbor washes away love. Failing to be there when a man wants her is a woman's greatest sin, except to be there when he doesn ... How like a winter hath my absence been. From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings ... Parting is such sweet sorrow. When delicate and feeling souls are separated, there is not a feature in the sky, not a movement of ... Greater things are believed of those who are absent. Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation. Renouncement: the heroism of mediocrity. With renunciation life begins. Abstainer. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up. Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature . Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain. Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water. Abstaining is favorable both to the head and the pocket. Always rise from the table with an appetite, and you will never sit down without one. The only way for a rich man to be healthy is by exercise and abstinence, to live as if he were poor. Self-denial is the shining sore on the leprous body of Christianity. Absurdity. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. My turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of view, that it breaks out in spit ... At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face. It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down. Why do we lau ... Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look b ... The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only. It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived for better or worse in life, and t ... In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or th ... The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it. People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization. In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their domini ... A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. [Luke 12:15] Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into. Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not ... You can never get enough of what you don't want. Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little. He who is plenteously provided for from within, needs but little from without. Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance. The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. In my hut this spring, there is nothing -- there is everything! Let nothing disturb thee; Let nothing dismay thee; All things pass; God never changes. Patience atta ... People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast ... A fly may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a hor ... The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt. It's not a slam at you when people are rude -- it's a slam at the people they've met before. I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike -- and I don't think there really ... There is but one step from the Academy to the Fad. If poetry is like an orgasm, an academic can be likened to someone who studies the passion-stains on ... A serious problem in America is the gap between academe and the mass media, which is our culture. Pr ... Art is not to be taught in Academies. It is what one looks at, not what one listens to, that makes t ... In universities and intellectual circles, academics can guarantee themselves popularity -- or, which ... To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive o ... The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the co ... Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them. Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My a ... Ah, when to the heart of man was it ever less than a treason to go with the drift of things to yield ... The strongest and most effective force in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of power is not vio ... We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad pe ... The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he ... Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestionin ... Accept everything about yourself -- I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the ... For the ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle (home life, and perhaps the trade unions or ... Happiness can exist only in acceptance. The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is alwa ... In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showi ... What I am looking for is a blessing not in disguise. There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion. Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture ... I bring to my life a certain amount of mess. If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood ru ... In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present. A wounded deer leaps the highest. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles. There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an ... Gray skies are just clouds passing over. Out of love and hatred, out of earnings and borrowings and leadings and losses; out of sickness and ... Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine A man is a god in ruins. To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows t ... He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatest of the soul; for th ... Failure is success if we learn from it. When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always get worse. And when they ... Every hardship; every joy; every temptation is a challenge of the spirit; that the human soul may pr ... Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard ... He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mys ... Suffering! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we ... I have often been downcast, but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, roma ... What is to give light must endure the burning. The proof of gold is fire... Even if you fall on your face, you're still moving forward. Forget the times of your distress, but never forget what they taught you. One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night. March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorn ... Nothing splendid was ever created in cold blood. Heat is required to forge anything. Every great acc ... The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them. We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds. Never bear more than one kind of trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds; all they have had, ... Some people bear three kinds of trouble -- the ones they've had, the ones they have, and the ones th ... Sometimes your medicine bottle has on it, Shake well before using. That is what God has to do with s ... Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains ... The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places. It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish. Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater bene ... In my room as a kid... I'd play a fighter and get knocked to the floor and come back to win. Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome advers ... Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this. The one who prosperity takes too much delight in will be the most shocked by reverses. As a rule, adversity reveals genius and prosperity hides it. Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it. A heart well prepared for adversity in bad times hopes, and in good times fears for a change in fort ... Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dor ... The harder you fall, the higher you bounce. Abuse a man unjustly, and you will make friends for him. Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them. There is in every woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire which lies dormant in the broad daylight of ... I used to hurt so badly that I'd ask God why, what have I done to deserve any of this? I feel now He ... Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. If the career you have chosen has some unexpected inconvenience, console yourself by reflecting that ... Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially ... Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to brea ... He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity Had there been no difficulties and no thorns in the way, then man would have been in his primitive s ... We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overc ... Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defe ... Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it ... As iron put into the fire loseth its rust and becometh clearly red-hot, so he that wholly turneth hi ... Adversities do not make a man frail. They show what sort of man he is. Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them? If you can keep your head about you when all about you are losing theirs, its just possible you have ... Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life's relationships, just as the co ... The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but wher ... Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem. Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer. There could be no honor in a sure success, but much might be wrested from a sure defeat. Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with. In terms of the game theory, we might say the universe is so constituted as to maximize play. The be ... It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of o ... Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the han ... God left the world unfinished for man to work his skill upon. He left the electricity still in the c ... Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when th ... You may live in an imperfect world but the frontiers are not closed and the doors are not all shut. Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity. Search for the seed of good in every adversity. Master that principle and you will own a precious sh ... There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed ... You never know what events are going to transpire to get you home. Only entropy comes easy. A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire. Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don't pr ... I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by refl ... They sicken at the calm that know the storm. Cushion the painful effects of hard blows by keeping the enthusiasm going strong, even if doing so r ... Part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, but in avoiding them. A masterly ret ... I would never have amounted to anything were it not for adversity. I was forced to come up the hard ... The racism, the sexism, I never let it be my problem, it's their problem. If I see a door comin' my ... That which causes us trials shall yield us triumph: and that which make our hearts ache shall fill u ... Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great. Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends. Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly. The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to w ... The seaman tells stories of winds, the ploughman of bulls; the soldier details his wounds, the sheph ... A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials. A stumble may prevent a fall. A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner. Not everything which is bad comes to hurt us. Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. Stumbling is not falling. Any port in a storm. Do you think that you shall enter the Garden of Bliss without such trials as came to those who passe ... All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensi ... Am I willing to give up what I have in order to be what I am not yet? Am I able to follow the spirit ... Every man has a rainy corner of his life whence comes foul weather which follows him. I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't make it through one door, I'll go through an ... If we study the lives of great men and women carefully and unemotionally we find that, invariably, g ... In a dark time, the eye begins to see. Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley. The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best o ... People are like stained -- glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the d ... To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need ... Adversity is a great teacher, but this teacher makes us pay dearly for its instruction; and often th ... When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it. A man is insensible to the relish of prosperity until he has tasted adversity. When it gets dark enough you can see the stars. Trouble shared is trouble halved. It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; t ... You'll never find a better sparring partner than adversity. There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome --to be got over. Tough times never last, but tough people do. Every burden is a blessing. The hardest struggle of all is to be something different from what the average man is. One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome advers ... The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in ... Adversity is, to me at least, a tonic and a bracer. It's a matter of ABC: When we encounter ADVERSITY, we react by thinking about it. Our thoughts rapid ... No untroubled day has ever dawned for me. The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to ... Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men. Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war. The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity. Things were bad but now they are OK. One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment. Through tattered clothes, small vices do appear. Robes and furred gowns hide all. Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel ... If you want to win anything -- a race, your self, your life -- you have to go a little berserk. For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity. The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps t ... Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the Shore of a dark Scottish lake. Life has meaning only in the struggle. Triumph or defeat is in the hands of the Gods. So let us cele ... We see many who are struggling against adversity who are happy, and more although abounding in wealt ... Many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are utterly mis ... Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my su ... Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, grow, grow. By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean. The stars are constantly shining, but often we do not see them until the dark hours. The sooner I fall behind, the more time I have to catch up. There will be no crown bearers in heaven who are not cross bearers on earth. There are times in everyone's life when something constructive is born out of adversity... when thin ... Nothing bad ever happens without equal or growth No one would ever have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in a storm. The difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is how you use them If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are? Your dips an falls do not confound me, half as much as your heights astound me. When I dig another out of trouble, the hole from which I lift him is the place where I bury my own. We need tough days to drive us to our knees. We all know that sponges grow in the ocean but I wander how much deeper the ocean would be if that w ... Two frogs fell into a bowl of cream. One didn't panic, he relaxed and drowned. The other kicked and ... Adversity is a fact of life. It can't be controlled. What we can control is how we react to it. If the going is real easy, beware, you may be headed down hill and don't know it. He who knows the darkness shall learn to live in the light. Breakdowns can create breakthroughs. Things fall apart so things can fall together. If your cup seems too bitter, if your burden seems to heavy, be sure that it is the wounded hand tha ... If your knees are knocking, kneel on them. If you're on thin ice, you might as well dance. In times of storm, the shallowness of the root structure is revealed. No man is more unhappy than the one who is never in adversity; the greatest affliction of life is ne ... I didn't know I'd have to be torn down before I could be built up. Frogs have it easy, they can eat what bugs them You have endured worse things; God will grant an end even to these. I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time. Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records. Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for it. Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train ma ... Humanity either makes, or breeds, or tolerates all its afflictions. The path of least resistance is the path of the loser. A reasonable amount o fleas is good for a dog -- keeps him from brooding over being a dog, maybe. If I traveled to the end of the rainbow as Dame Fortune did intend, Murphy would be there to tell me ... It is easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows by like a song. But the man worth while is the one ... Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to kno ... One likes people much better when they're battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than whe ... Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful. Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together. Advertising is the principal reason why the business person has come to inherit the earth. An advertising agency is 85 percent confusion and 15 percent commission. I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things. Advertising is the very essence of democracy. Watteau is no less an artist for having painted a fascia board while Sainsbury's is no less effectiv ... Telling lies does not work in advertising. In advertising, not to be different is virtual suicide. We read advertisements to discover and enlarge our desires. We are always ready -- even eager -- to ... If you are writing about baloney, don't try and make it Cornish hen, because that's the worst kind o ... I've learned any fool can write a bad ad, but it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good on ... Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read. It is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of fraudulent a ... Sanely applied advertising could remake the world. The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully va ... Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him ... The more facts you tell, the more you sell. An advertisement's chance for success invariably increas ... 'Be comfortable with who you are', reads the headline on the Hush Puppies poster. Are they mad? If ... We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising. I still believe that ... How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? French fries. That's the kind of ad I like, facts, facts, facts. No agency is better than its account executives. The headline is the most important element of an ad. It must offer a promise to the reader of a beli ... Several years before birth, advertise for a couple of parents belonging to long-lived families. The right name is an advertisement in itself. I have discovered the most exciting, the most arduous literary form of all, the most difficult to ma ... The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. B ... Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement. Society drives people crazy with lust and calls it advertising. Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get m ... If you don't believe in your product, of if you're not consistent and regular in the way you promote ... In order to sell a product or a service, a company must establish a relationship with the consumer. ... Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particula ... The art of advertisement, after the American manner, has introduced into all our life such a lavish ... Ideally, advertising aims at the goal of a programmed harmony among all human impulses and aspiratio ... Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century. The modern little red riding hood, reared on singing commercials, has no objections to being eaten b ... Good wine needs no bush, and perhaps products that people really want need no hard-sell or soft-sell ... What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it. Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise. Remove advertising, disable a person or firm from proclaiming its wares and their merits, and the wh ... One ad is worth more to a paper than forty editorials. Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the bett ... Advertising is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without ad ... However far your travels take you, you will never find the girl who smiles out at you from the trave ... Advertising is legalized lying. Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams -- Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, ... Advertising is the genie which is transforming America into a place of comfort, luxury and ease for ... It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted. Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties. Be smart, be intelligent and be informed. We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain. Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom s. Never sleep with a woman ... To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, ... He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with ... The worst men often give the best advice. Most of us ask for advice when we know the answer but we want a different one. Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom. Where no counsel is, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety. [Proverbs ... A fool think he needs no advice, but a wise man listens to others. [Proverbs 12:15] Consult. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on. Advice is like castor oil, easy to give, but dreadful to take. Most people when they come to you for advice, come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corr ... The best advisers, helpers and friends, always are not those who tell us how to act in special cases ... Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether. Let no man under value the price of a virtuous woman's counsel. Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least. In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice; because I will not have anybody's torm ... I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and do ... In those days he was wiser than he is now -- he used frequently to take my advice. Advice is like snow; the softer it falls the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the ... To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it. Never claim as a right what you can ask as a favor. We ask advice but we mean approbation. A word to the wise isn't necessary, it is the stupid ones who need all the advice. There is hardly a man on earth who will take advice unless he is certain that it is positively bad. I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved ... Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it. They that will not be counseled, cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you on the ... When in doubt, don't. When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies. When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice. To offer a man unsolicited advice is to presume that he doesn't know what to do or that he can't do ... Generally speaking, when a woman offers unsolicited advice or tries to help a man, she has no idea o ... Always be nice to bankers. Always be nice to pension fund managers. Always be nice to the media. ... The rich are always advising the poor, but the poor seldom return the compliment. We all admire the wisdom of people who come to us for advice. The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best book ... Whatever advice you give, be short. A good scare is worth more than good advice. Great effort is required to arrest decay and restore vigor. One must exercise proper deliberation, p ... No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may ... The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effront ... Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't. He who can take advice is sometimes superior to him who can give it. Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them. We may give advice, but not the sense to use it. Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice. The one thing people are the most liberal with, is their advice. We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it. Number one: Don't frisk me. Don't hurt me physically. Don't get anywhere near my neck. And don't cal ... Never give anyone the advice to buy or sell shares, because the most benevolent price of advice can ... It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a greater to accept it graciously. Be yourself is about the worst advice you can give to some people. Your friends praise your abilities to the skies, submit