The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and for deeds left undone.

Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the apples in a seed.

Life can be only understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.

How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on.

Your not knowing a man's purpose does not mean he is confused.

Yesterday is a dream, Tomorrow is a vision, Today is a bitch.

If you can start the day without caffeine... If you can get going without pep pills... If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains… If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles... If you can eat the same food everyday & be grateful for it... If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time... If you can overlook it when those you love take it out on you when, through no fault of yours, something goes wrong... If you can take criticism and blame without resentment... If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him... If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend... If you can face the world without lies and deceit... If you can conquer tension without medical help... If you can relax without liquor... If you can sleep without the aid of drugs... If you can say honestly that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion or politics... ...then, my friend, you are almost as good as your dog.

You must never mistake a clear view for a short distance.

One night I had a wondrous dream, One set of footprints there was seen, The footprints of my precious Lord, But mine were not along the shore. But then some stranger prints appeared, and I asked the Lord, "What have we here? Those prints are large and round and neat, But Lord, they are too big for feet." "My child," He said in somber tones, "For miles I carried you alone. I challenged you to walk in faith, But you refused and made me wait." "You disobeyed, you would not grow. The walk of faith you would not know. So I got tired, I got fed up, and there I dropped you on your butt." "Because in life there comes a time when you must fight and you must climb. When you must rise and take a stand, or leave your buttprints in the sand!"

A small trouble is like a pebble. Hold it too close to your eye, and it puts everything out of focus. Hold it at proper viewing distance, and it can be examined and classified. Throw it at your feet, and it can be seen in its true setting, just one more tiny bump on the pathway to eternity.

Saddam Hussein was sitting in his office wondering who to invade next when his telephone rang. "Hallo! Mr. Hussein," a heavily accented voice said. "This is Paddy down in County Cavan, Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you!" "Well, Paddy," Saddam replied, "This is indeed important news! Tell me, how big is your army?" "At this moment in time," said Paddy after a moment's calculation, "there is myself, my cousin Sean, my next door neighbor Gerry, and the entire dominoes team from the pub -- that makes 8!" Saddam sighed. "I must tell you Paddy that I have 1 million men in my army waiting to move on my command." "Begorra!", said Paddy, "I'll have to ring you back!" Sure enough, the next day Paddy rang back. "Right Mr. Hussein, the war is still on! We have managed to acquire some equipment!" "And what equipment would that be, Paddy?" Saddam asked. "Well, we have 2 combine harvesters, a bulldozer and Murphy's tractor from the farm." Once more Saddam sighed. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 16 thousand tanks, 14 thousand armored personnel carriers, and my army has increased to 1 and a half million since we last spoke." "Really?!" said Paddy "I'll have to ring you back!" Sure enough, Paddy rang again the next day. "Right Mr. Hussein, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne! We've modified Ted's ultralight with a couple of rifles in the cockpit and the bridge team has joined us as well!" Saddam was silent for a minute, then sighed. "I must tell you Paddy that I have 10 thousand bombers, 20 thousand MiG 19 attack planes, my military complex is surrounded by laser-guided surface-to-air missile sites, and since we last spoke, my army has increased to 2 million." "Faith and begorra!", said Paddy, "I'll have to ring you back." Sure enough, Paddy called again the next day. "Right Mr. Hussein, I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the war." "I'm sorry to hear that" said Saddam. "Why the sudden change of heart?" "Well," said Paddy "We've all had a chat, and there's no way we can feed 2 million prisoners."

Worry Hinders Our Faith According to our nation's Bureau of Standards, a dense fog covering seven city blocks to a depth of a hundred feet contains less than one glass of water. All of that fog, if it could be condensed into water, wouldn't quite fill a drinking glass. Compare this to the things we often worry about. Like fog our worries can thoroughly block our vision of the light of God's promises, but the fact is, they have little substance to them.

Appearances aren't always as they seem. You see something that indicates this or that, but to quote the old song, "It ain't necessarily so." Take the famed Parthenon in Athens, for example. I was there earlier this year and said to my host, "What a perfect building!" Well, it surely seems that way. How many structures around the world have been modeled after that exquisite architecture! But, the genius of the Parthenon is that it is not -- NOT -- perfect at all. It is the imperfection of the structure that makes it APPEAR perfect. Let me explain: There are eight massive pillars in front and back of the building and 17 down each side. Those pillars are not standing straight but instead lean to the center, so that if they were extended to the sky, they would meet! Further, the pillars are not straight-sided but rounded in the middle. That makes them APPEAR straight from a distance. The steps in front are not straight either but convex. Which makes them look -- you're right -- straight.

A man sat down in a restaurant and asked the waitress what the daily special was. She replied, "Boiled tongue." "Boiled tongue!" responded the horrified customer, "That's disgusting! There's no way that I'd ever eat anything that's been in a cows mouth. Ummm, just give me two eggs over easy, some link sausage, and a glass of milk instead!"

A little boy was asked what he was thankful for by his Sunday School teacher. It was Thanksgiving and the teacher was encouraging all the children to give personal expression to their feelings of gratitude. The little boy said that he was especially thankful for his glasses. The teacher asked him why he was thankful to have to wear glasses. Very quickly he answered, "Because they keep the boys from hitting me and the girls from kissing me." Perspective can make a huge difference, can't it? Saul began by seeing the Christians as his bitter enemies. But after his encounter with Jesus, his perspective changed. By the time Ananias came to him, Saul was praying. He humbly awaited word from Jesus on what he was to do.

A game warden pulls his motorboat up along side a man sitting quietly with a pole in his hand. "Doing a little fishing, are we?" The man, painfully aware of his lack of a fishing license answered, "No sir. Just drowning worms."

There was a wonderful, elderly, Christian lady. She had very little money and lived in a rundown house, but she was always praising the Lord. Her only problem was with the old man who lived next door. He was always trying to prove to her that there was no God. One day, as the old man was walking by her house, he noticed the woman through an open window. She was kneeling down in prayer, so he crept over to the window to see if he could hear. She was praying, " Lord, you’ve always given me what I’ve needed." She prayed. "And now you know that I don’t have any money, and I’m completely out of groceries, and I won’t get another check for a week." She continued, "somehow, Lord, can you get me some groceries?" The man had heard all he needed. He crept away from the window and ran down to the grocery store. He bought milk, bread, and lunchmeat. He ran back to the woman’s house carrying the groceries. He set the bag down on by her door, rang the doorbell, and hid beside of the house. You can imagine how the woman reacted to seeing the bag of groceries. She threw her hands over head and began praising the Lord. "Thank you Jesus," she shouted. "I was without food and you provided the groceries." About that time the old man jumped out and said, "I’ve got you now. I told you there was no God," the old man said, "it wasn’t Jesus who gave you those groceries it was me." "Oh no," the woman said. "Jesus got me these groceries and made the devil pay for them."

It is said that an Eastern monarch once charged his counselors to invent him a sentence that would be true and appropriate in every sitatuation and circumstance. They presented him with these words, "And this too shall pass away."

"Fifty percent of all we taught you is wrong," announced the President of Harvard Medical School at commencement. "The trouble is, we don't know which fifty percent."

June 6, 1994, was the 50th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy, which began the historic World War II battle to liberate continental Europe from Nazi control. All the major television networks ran anniversary programs that included interviews with aging veterans. One of the programs paired two contrasting interviews back to back. The first interview was with a marine who had landed on Omaha Beach. He recalled horrors that sounded like scenes from Steven Spielberg's Academy Award-winning movie Saving Private Ryan. The aging veteran recalled looking around at the bloody casualties surrounding him and concluding, "We're going to lose!" The next interview was with a U.S. Army Air Corps reconnaissance pilot who had flown over the whole battle area. He viewed the carnage on the beaches and hills, but he also witnessed the successes of the marines, the penetration by the paratroopers, and the effectiveness of the aerial bombardment. He looked at everything that was happening and concluded, "We're going to win!"

Paula's orthotist uses a really threatening looking buzzsaw device to cut away casts. He says it used to scare young kids so that they screamed until he started calling it a 'tickle machine.' Now they laugh.

To smell the perfume is good, to drink it is poison.

The clash in perspectives (between generations, for example) can be illustrated thus: * * * There are three dots above--how many ways are there to connect them via a straight line? Two. One is an arrow pointing to the left and the other an arrow pointing to the right. We each see the same data, but we're looking past the data to a different orientation point, and so we see things very differently. Tom Trask and story of the Mormon missionaries.

Golden Buddha of Trimitr Temple Weighs approximately 5 1/2 tons, the 15-foot tall seated image is worth in the neighborhood of US$14 Million. The Golden Buddha was cast sometime in the 13th century and is an excellent example of the gracious Sukhothai style that is still very much in favor to this day. At some point, it was covered in plaster, most likely in an attempt to hide the valuable icon from thieves or looters. The disguise was so good that everyone apparently forgot about what was hidden beneath. King Rama III had the statue moved to Bangkok and installed in a temple near where the Oriental Hotel is today. That temple fell into disuse and was completely abandoned around 1931. The true nature of the Golden Buddha wasn't discovered until it was moved to its present location at Wat Traimit in 1955. When the image was being prepared for its move, some of the plaster was chipped off, revealing the gold underneath. Bits of the plaster can be seen in a case to the left of the statue.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

Commemoration of Charles Williams, Spiritual Writer, 1945 It may be possible for each of us to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden, of my neighbour's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you may talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and corruption such as you now meet if at all only in a nightmare. All day long we are in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities it is with awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal, Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit -- immortal horrors or ever lasting splendours.

The greatest thing is to be found at one’s post as a child of God, living each day as though it were our last, but planning as though our world might last a hundred years.

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have. – Emile Chartier

If you treat an individual as he is, he will stay that way, but if you treat him as if he were what he could be, he will become what he could be. -- Goethe

Whether these are the worst of times the best of times, they are the only times we have. -- Art Buchwald

(After a political defeat, his wife commented) "Winston, it may well be a blessing in disguise" "At the moment, it seems quite efficiently disguised." -- Winston Churchill

A few years ago I met an old professor at the University of Notre Dame. Looking back on his long life of teaching, he said with a funny twinkle in his eyes: ‘I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I slowly discovered that my interruptions were my work.’ This is the great conversion in life: to recognize and believe that the many unexpected events are not just disturbing interruptions of our projects, but the way in which God molds our hearts and prepares us for his return. -- Henri J. Nouwen, Out of Solitude, 1974

We realize that what we are accomplishing is a drop in the ocean. But if this drop were not in the ocean, it would be missed. -- Mother Teresa

Facts are friendly. -- J. Irwin Miller, retired chairman, Cummins Engine Co.

Some people have built-in filters that screen out the boos and amplify the hurrahs. Those are the people who never know when they’re in trouble.

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.

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<h2>Ozymandias</h2> I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read, Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed, And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads -- makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number.