As a member of the National Speakers Association, I was pleased to make a personal acquaintance with Charlie “Tremendous” Jones at one of our meetings. He was a large speaking presence. During his presentation he actually picked on me!
Charlie has written several quote books as he has come up with many of his own pithy sayings. This one about politics made me laugh: “Politics defined: poly is a Greek word meaning ‘many’ and tics are little bloodsuckers.”
Johann Von Goethe, a German writer (I studied him as I majored in German in college) described it thus: “In politics as on the sick bed people toss from one side to the other, thinking they will be more comfortable.”
Yes, I usually find a story about one of the Founders of our Nation to report about in our blog. But today I found a quote that I believe George Washington, because of his “Rules of Civility,” and Benjamin Franklin, because of his “Plan for Moral Perfection,” and even Thomas Jefferson, because of his love of literature, would adopt and accept as worthy of acceptation.
Tom and Martha were married on her father’s plantation in Virginia on New Years Day, 1772. He was 29 and she was a widow at 24. Tom described their marriage as “ten years of uncheckered happiness.” Martha died at the age of 33.
Abraham Lincoln has been considered by some to be the greatest President America has had to date. Yes, he was great, but he was a lawyer after all. I still think that George Washington was the greatest overall. But I still love stories about honest Abe. Including this one:
My wife has been asking me what I want to do now that I’m retired. The other night I woke up at about 2 or 2:30 with a thought on my mind. It seemed important to me at that time in my groggy condition. So what did I do? I got out of bed, went into my office, found a scrap of paper and a pencil and wrote down my thought.
I always think it’s interesting that George Washington solemnly stated that it would be unwise to have political parties. He thought we should all be Americans and want what’s best for America. Little did he know that Americans disagreed on that score more than on the weather.
One thing about Benjamin Franklin is that he finished much better than he had started out. If you’ve read his Autobiography, which I hope by now you have, you know that Ben left his family, his brother’s printing business, and his city of Boston, at the early age of 17. And that with only a few pennies to his name.
One of Franklin’s favorite sayings was: “All education is self-education.” Meaning you must develop personal learning habits in your personal and professional life. We should fill our minds with reading and then process what we have been reading and learning.
Wow. Who has ever used that word in normal conversation?