Wit & Wisdom

“A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by a common hatred of its neighbors.”

Theologian William Ralph Inge, quoted in MSNBC.com

“Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

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William Faulkner, quoted in the Associated Press

“Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contemporaries.”

Erma Bombeck, quoted in The Arizona Republic

“A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people’s patience.”

John Updike, quoted in the Monterey County, Calif., Herald

“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage doesn’t need to be lived again.”

Maya Angelou, quoted inThe Miami Herald

“A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something.”

Playwright Wilson Mizner, quoted in the Palm Beach, Fla., Daily News

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”

Robert Louis Stevenson, quoted in the Newark, Ohio, Advocate