First my own sayings. Then some favorite lines from some of the greats. I know better than to follow those acts!

The only populations who inflict torture on members for “ratting” are prison inmates and schoolchildren.

What is taste, but susceptibility?

Any generation’s so-called generational values are nothing more than a watered-down version of their parents’, slowly getting cooked up into a half-baked version of their offspring’s.

To be called “spry.” Does one take it as a compliment?

Have you ever noticed, in those situations when you really need to take a deep breath and let it out, how, after you’ve taken the deep breath and let it out, the thing that was bothering you is still there?

Today’s romance-minded gal must kiss a lot of frogs before she finds her crazy coot.

My youngest daughter has come up with three magical words with which she expresses so much to me:  “No offense, but…”

Studies likely would show that most cans of frozen grapefruit juice concentrate are bought by people who thought they’d picked up orange juice.

I have no truck with Ford.

A nation that became great because its people sought to make it great—that’s something that has probably never happened in the history of the world. We’ll never have an America like our forefathers had until having a great America is a matter of secondary importance to us, as it was to them.

Service journalism might be service, but it’s not journalism.

Lord, let me not be a sermon illustration.

My hair is learning to speak Japanese. Yes, it’s saying Sayonara.

Advancing age indeed brings its share of “good” things: the emergence of your good leg, good eye, and good arm being just some of these.

Learned from my (then) 12-year-old daughter Sabrina, some years ago: “When you drink water, you sometimes might be drinking dinosaur spit.”

Plucked from passing trays:

“Journalism is the first draft of history.” – Philip Graham (a former co-owner of the Washington Post)

“Truth carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation: loving confrontation but confrontation nevertheless. If our reflex action is always accommodation regardless of the centrality of truth, there is something wrong.” –  Francis Schaffer

“Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.”  – Montaigne

“It is by affliction that the heart of man is purified, and that the thoughts are fixed on a better state. Prosperity has power to intoxicate the imagination, to fix the mind upon the present scene, to produce confidence and elation, and to make him who enjoys affluence and honors forget the hand by which they were bestowed. It is seldom that we are otherwise than by affliction awakened to a sense of our imbecility, or taught to know how little all our acquisitions can conduce to safety or quiet, and how justly we may inscribe to the superintendence of a higher power those blessings which in the wantonness of success we considered as the attainments of our policy and courage.” –Samuel Johnson

“Love of truth, which Locke considered essential, is a very different thing from love of some particular doctrine which is proclaimed as the truth.” – Bertrand Russell

“I know God won’t give me more than I can handle. Sometimes I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”  - Bill  Miller

“Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.” – Benedict Spinoza

“A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.” – Samuel Adams

“Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.”  – Eric Hoffer

“Maybe we can’t judge people, but we can be fruit inspectors.” — Minister Marshall Keeble

Another Keeble remark. I found this one on preacherspen.org, maintained by minister Chris Gallagher:

“You know, I like some of these newfangled inventions. The puncture-proof tire is the one I like especially well. If you’re driving along with the ordinary tires, and a nail goes through them — whisssss…. you lose all the air. But, a puncture-proof tire is different, if a nail goes through it, some stuff inside runs around and stops up the hole and the air stays. You know, the heart of a Christian is like this puncture-proof tire. An ordinary heart may be filled with love, but when someone does something to puncture that heart, all the love runs out and hatred- -and hard feelings take its place. But, a puncture-proof heart is different; it is filled with the spirit of Christ, and someone through his words or actions punctures that heart, immediately the hole is stopped up tight and love stays in. “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21)

And one more Keeble-ism: “God’s not in the dry cleaning business! It is wet wash only!”

“The psychological principle is this: anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.” – Robert Benchley, “How to Get Things Done”

“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”  — Patrick Henry

“When the mind’s eye rests on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and comprehends them, and functions intelligently; but when it turns to the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions, its vision is confused and its beliefs shifting, and it seems to lack intelligence… And is there anything more closely connected with wisdom than truth?”  — Plato

“Every yes or no question can be answered with yes, no, or an unsmiling Shetland pony.” —Kurt Vonnegut

“We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.” — Thomas Jefferson

“America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” —James Madison

“It does not take a majority to prevail … but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” — Samuel Adams

“Self expression is becoming the New Entertainment.” – Arianna Huffington

“One of the important things I learned from my parents is that the answers you get depend on the questions you ask. The wording of the question, as well as tone of voice, facial expressions and body language of the questioner, have a profound effect on the answer.”  - Jim Davis, blogger on dailycaller.com

“The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. What would it matter if I found “objective truth”? – Soren Kierkegaard

“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.” — Herbert Spencer

“Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.”  — Benjamin Disraeli