I once read this one in a book: “Never walk on ice wth your hands in your pockets.” I’d add any wet patch on the sidewalk that looks like it might possibly be ice…
“Women like to have sex almost as much as you do,” and a related piece of advice, “The question isn’t whether or not she does it; she does. The question is, will she do it with you?” It took me a few years after my father and uncle respectively told me these little tidbits to really believe them, and a bit longer to get any practical use out of them, but they were both right. In the same vein, “Treat whores like ladies and ladies like whores,” (typically pithy advice from my father, again) has been right more often than not. It’s a bit like the celebrity/ordinary person advice given earlier in the thread.
Something I’ll tell my kids or anyone else to whom I’m dispensing advice are my simplified touchstones of morality: “If it doesn’t hurt you and it doesn’t hurt someone else, it’s okay. If it hurts you or hurts someone else, it’s probably wrong.” The only time this doesn’t work is when there is no course of action that doesn’t result in harm. Then, it’s a judgement call about what causes less overall harm to you and others.
Well, that explains all the things folks have borrowed from me and never returned!
If people are asking for volenteers, wait till you find out what they want before you raise your hand. That stopped me from having to do kitchen duty quite often at camp, and from doing ductwork at Habitat.
Keep a tight asshole. I think that came from Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead although I’ll not swear to it. But frankly trying to comply often left me exhausted and focused on things other than what were in front of me, what was important.
So, I switched to Don’t sweat the little stuff… like keeping a tight asshole.
My father drilled two things into my head:
(1) Stimulants come with a down at least as equal to an up. This has helped me through quite a few “I hate myself and I want to die” days after doing some big pushes, and helped me moderate my usage.
(2) Sleep loss is accumulative.
If they would only TELL you what it is, that would make the getting over it part much more simple. Nonetheless, I will try to employ this line of thinking now. Damn HUB.
The best piece of advice I have ever received was from my older sister - Anything written can be proven.
It may be a punchline from a movie, but it has some sage advice in it: *Lord loves a workin’ man; don’t trust whitey; see a doctor and get rid of it. *
If you’ve got a job, you’ve got the means to a future.
Trust no-one in Authority, especially yourself.
Catch it small, no trouble at all.
These are all cliche, but they serve me well:
“Whom the gods destroy, they first make proud.”
From my parents:
“Be consistent.” - this was said in reference to raising kids, but it works well for life in general. If people know what to expect from you it seems very easy to generally get along with people.
Finally, from my 7th grade principal:
“If you take care of the effort, the results will take care of themselves.” It took me until college to realize just how sage this advice really is. It’s corollary is “It is amazing how lucky the well prepared appear to be.”
I read this phrase in a book somewhere, possibly Red Mars. The given translation was, “There is no other way.” It was written Shikata ga nai, IIRC.
One that stuck with me was from a deleted scene from The Twilight Zone:
“Any man can be a marksman if the target doesn’t shoot back.”
And a favorite of mine is something that Coco Chanel once said:
“Before you leave the house, remove one accessory.”
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Life is Sales - figure out what you are trying to get others to “buy” from you
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There is nothing you can’t do if you are willing to practice and learn from your mistakes
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The two most important things are self-esteem and intellectual curiosity - never choose a path that compromises either
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Know at least one thing well enough to be an “-ist” - an artist, a guitarist, a cook, a baseball player (okay they don’t end in “-ist” but you get the idea)
All stuff that has served me well when I finally grasped the underlying meaning…
From Miss Piggy: “Never eat more than you can lift.”
From the Hippie Across the Hall in my Dorm: “It’s in human nature to fuck up our lives.”
From Dear Old Mom: “Shut up, stop whining, fix your hair and stop dressing like a boy.” 
Two from my dad:
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Never let a gift inconvenience you.
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You can always solve a problem by spending money.
Better the ugliest truth than the prettiest lie.
Measure twice, cut once.
Decide which people’s opinions of you matter, then say “fuck ya” to the rest of the disapproving bastards.
Feed your senses.
Spend money on good sheets, mattresses, comforters and pillows–you spend a third of your life in bed, it should be a great place to pass the time.
Never sweat the petty stuff; always pet the sweaty stuff…
Get out of your ruts. A rut is just a grave with the sides torn out.
“Jump!”
To woman standing in front of a breaking plate glass window.
From a producer whose leadership skills I admired greatly: when I’d come to him with some horrible problem I was facing that had been caused by someone else’s carelessness, he’d say to me, “It’s not your fault, but it’s your problem.”
Keeping this in mind when we ran into huge project management messes kept me from quibbling over stupid stuff that wouldn’t get us any farther in the process. This advice took me from “It wasn’t my fault, why should I deal with it? How do I make people understand I didn’t do anything wrong?” to “It wasn’t my fault, but I’m as good a person as any to deal with it. What is the next step?”
This advice helped me roll up my sleeves and get things done without wasting energy and squandering camaraderie on blame and Not My Job issues.
My screensaver at work is “DWYSYWD”, for “Do what you say you will do.” Words to live by, and proof that just because something is simple, doesn’t mean it’s always easy.
Another favorite is something my sister has taught my pre-school-aged neices is one of “the rules”: “You get what you get, and you don’t have a fit.” Sample exchange:
3 year old: “She got the last orange popsicle! I got cherry! I want orange!”
Her mom: “What’s the rule?”
3 y.o. (in a long-suffering voice): “You get what you get, and you don’t have a fit.”
My Girl Scouts say it as: “you get what you get and you don’t get upset”
Absolutely invaluable. They all seem to instantly accept that rule and live by it. Parents or others working with children- learn this rhyme! It will save you much aggravation!