Thought for the day...

It is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a thousand times than to believe a fact that one has never heard before. Also, if the lie that is heard so often is big enough, the tendency to believe it is even stronger.



Here’s a little brain twister:

You’re lost in a forest which is inhabited by Red men and Green men only. The Red men always tell the truth; the Green men always lie. You come to a fork in the road; you have to get to a town called “Umgowa,” but you don’t know whether to take the right or left road. There is a man standing at the fork, but it is too dark to see if he’s Red or Green. The problem is this: Can you ask just one question of this man, which calls for a “yes” or “no” answer, and find out which is the correct road to take? This is not so easy as It may seem on first reading it.

Remember that you do not know whether the man is Red or Green; therefore you have no way of telling if he’ll tell truth or not. Even if two questions were allowed you’d in trouble. You couldn’t ask, “Are you a Red man?” You’d get a “yes” from either one. A Red man would tell the truth and say “yes”; a Green man would have to lie and also say “yes.”

However, there is a way of asking just one question, and finding out which road to take toward Umgowa.

Get a piece of paper, and go to work. You see, I think I know the capacity of your brain power better than you do—I know you can solve this if you try hard enough. Use elimination—write out different ways of stating questions, and see if they apply. If you don’t write them, you’ll forget which you’ve tried, and you’ll go around in circles.

 

Instead of fretting over setbacks, why not use your brain like the man who owned a clothing store. There was a competitor on each side of him. The store on his left put up a large sign which read, “Closing out sale.” Then the one on his right put up a big sign that read, “Big fire sale.” So our man in the middle thought for a minute and went in back to make up his own sign. He hung it right over his door and it read, “Main entrance.”

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

What cannot be cured must be endured.

If a man does only what is required of him, he is a slave. The moment he does more, he is a free man.

Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. You will be certain to find something you have never seen before. Alexander Graham Bell

 

He who asks a question if a fool for 5 minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.

Think. Have ideas. Lots of them. Quantity, sooner or later, will breed quality.

Curiosity is the handmaiden of interest. Lack of one automatically kills the other.

There is one universal cure-all for boredom and that is to search for knowledge. Interest and curiosity are the two batteries in your flashlight; without them you cannot search for knowledge.

An active mind cannot become bored.


I had six honest serving men,
They taught me all I know;
Their names were Where and What and When
And Why and How and Who.

 

The art of retirement is not to retire from something but to retire to something.

When you lose interest, you begin to grow old instead of older.

When you are ready to give up, you’ll find that once you pass the lowest ebb of that “I give up” feeling, the light dawns, and another step in the right direction has been made.

Why get angry because you can’t make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself entirely as you wish to be.

Realize that it is by the way you talk that others mainly judge your personality.

The thing most frequently opened by mistake is the human mouth.

Quite often criticism only manages to throw a bad light on the critic.

 

Talk about the other person to that other person and he’ll love you for it.

A truth that’s told with bad intent, beats all the lies you can invent.

There is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

This I learned from my first school coach. He liked to say, “Stand up. Speak up. And then shut up.” Another of his tidbits that is very wise is, “When you try to please everybody, you usually please nobody.”

You are on the road to success when you realize that failure is merely a detour.

Make up your mind that the real sign of success is not a straight unmarked line to achievement, but the manner in which you overcome failures.

 

Into each life some rain must fall, but don’t put on the raincoat while the sun is shinning.

If you have something to do, don’t let indecision plague you. Do it the best way you know how at that moment. Why worry about whether you’ll make a mistake or not? Sure, you may make a mistake—then again you may not! And can you think of a better way to learn than from your own mistakes? In most cases, you’ll feel better after the thing is done, whether goofed or not.

Progress comes from daring to begin.

He has half the deed done who has made a beginning.

Much of the good work of the world has been that of dull people who have done their best.

Success is a prize to be won. Action is the road to it. Chance is what may lurk in the shadows at the roadside.

 

To do a common thing uncommonly well brings success. So you see, no matter what you do, if you learn to do it uncommonly well, you’ll have an outstanding ability.

If you’ve tried and failed repeatedly, either try something else or try to find out what you’re doing wrong. In any case, try again.

Why depend on the predictions of others? Make your own!

A poor man can be happy, but no happy man is poor.

People of mediocre ability often achieve success because they don’t know enough to quit.

The way you think is the way you live. Your mind is the ruler of your life.

 

The more you know, the more luck you will have. Chinese proverb

To look is one thing.
To see what you look at is another.
To understand what you see is a third.
To learn from what you understand is still something else.
But to act on what you learn is all that really matters.

If a situation cannot be altered, don’t waste energy being dissatisfied or mad.

Have you ever noticed… Anybody going slower than you is an idiot and anyone going faster than you is a maniac. George Carlin

The second day of a diet is always easier than the first. By the second day you’re off it. Jackie Gleason

If it weren’t for electricity, we’d all be watching television by candlelight. George Gobel

 

I read of a reverend who stood to speak at the funeral of his friend. He referred to the dates on her tombstone from the beginning…to the end. He noted that first came the date of her birth and spoke of the following date with tears, but he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time she spent alive on Earth, and now only those who loved her know what the little line is worth. For it matters not, how much we own: the cars, the house, the cash. What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash. So think about this long and hard. Are these things you’d like to change? For you never know how much time is left. You could be at “dash mid-range.”

If we could just slow down enough to consider what’s true and real and always try to understand the way other people feel. And be less quick to anger, and show appreciation more and love the people in our lives like we’ve never loved before. If we treat each other with respect, and more often wear a smile, remembering that this special dash might only last a little while. So, when your eulogy is being read with your life’s actions to rehash…would you be pleased with the things they say about how you spent your dash?