I was told “You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts.”
Free advice is worth every penny.
OK, here’s one more. My dad used to say, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, then you clearly don’t understand the situation.”
I was babysitting a 4 year old girl who had made a huge mess in the bathroom from splashing around in the tub. Water had splashed all over and her slippers were soaking wet.
Me: “Now look what you’ve done, your slippers are all wet!”
Her: “So? They’ll dry.”
Me: “Yeah, you’re right.”
Even at 4, she knew not to sweat the small stuff.
Almost the last thing my mother said to me: “Don’t be scared.” I try to live that and I don’t always succeed. But I also realize there’s no reason to be going through life scared.
From my dad: Say what you mean and mean what you say.
From my mom: Always leave a place/person/thing better than you found it.
“You don’t get something for nothing”, and “Never sign anything without reading it.”
From my dad, trying to give me a bit of common sense since I was a rather naive kid.
Really like this
My Dad was a hard working manual labor guy with out a lot of education. He got through the 7th grade. I always thought I was pretty smart but often his simple common sense approach and his human insight taught me things that have lasted.
Don’t loan money you can’t afford to give away.
Only the guy who wants to cheat you will object to a contract.
I think what impressed me most was a comment he made about his alcoholic brother .
You know why Ray is the town drunk in that little town? Because everyone expects him to be.
I thought a long time about that before I realized what he was saying about expectations and social structure. I thought it was quite profound for an uneducated mill worker.
“Get out of the shoe business.”
OH, when my kids were growing up my son, in his teens got into some trouble. When his little sister got a few years older she remembered what happened and the discipline. We created a saying about it that we still use.
Sometimes you have to love someone enough to kick em in the ass.
I must first preface my offering with a mini-editorial: I rarely get wise things ‘said to me.’
Most of the wise stuff I had to glean, or discover for myself. My coterie is the type that keeps the good stuff and shares the crap advice. “Hey, hh, you need to invest with this Madoff guy…” Or, stuff that they hear that I have long since rejected "You get what you pay for (in reality, the truth is ‘you pay for what you get!’) If somebody has an aphorism, or a recommendation, it will work to my disadvantage. Usually.
Now, the wisest thing that was said to me, that I can remember right now, was when a friend of mine and I were walking around the mall, checking out the chickies. Some didn’t look too good, from a distance, but, they were the only ones around at that instant. So, I told friend “Let’s go stroll by, and check them out.” He said “No way! They look pretty scary!” I said “Well, up close, they may be better looking.” He said “They NEVER get better looking by getting closer.” 100% accurate.
Best wishes,
hh
The wisest thing anyone’s ever said to me was spoken by a dirty homeless guy with dreadlocks that I bought incense from once in college. No shit.
I’d see this guy around all the time, which wasn’t unusual since there are a lot of bums around here. But unlike most bums, this one was at least an entrepreneur - he didn’t just ask for handouts but tried to sell bundles of incense for a buck a piece. (I wouldn’t be surprised if it was stolen or otherwise ill-gotten but that’s besides the point) Anyway I would usually refuse him but one day I finally felt sorry for him and decided to shell out a buck for some incense. Even though I never ever give money to bums, I was able to justify it as a legitimate purchase since I did occasionally burn incense in those days. I hand him the buck and he hands me the incense, and I prepare to get the hell out of there while clutching the bare bundle in my hand.
But he stops me and says, “hold on a minute.” I look at him quizzically and see he is pulling a long plastic bag out of his backpack. He presents the bag and gestures for me to hand back the incense so he can bag it. He says:
“If you’re going to do something, might as well do it right or else what’s the point?”
I nodded in agreement and went home. Only for it to dawn on me how fucking profound that statement truly was. By the way, the incense was shit and probably the worst incense I’ve ever burned. But nonetheless it was one of the best dollars I ever spent.
Littlebro, is that you? My mom says the same thing, and my other brother’s English isn’t that good…
Ah no, no nieces on that side.
Just so you people know, I’m writing these all down. 
These are all fantastic.
Ah yes, I remember that one and very much agree.
I sadly can’t remember from who or where I head the following but:
“It takes two people to be in a bad relationship.”
That is he/she might be treating you badly but you’re letting them, too.
And then there’s the Spanish proverb:
“Take what you want, God said to man, and pay for it.”
My mom once told me, “Either you control the alcohol, or the alcohol will control you.”
Thinking back to another piece of advice that sergeant gave us one day, when the discussion of how Airmen First Class (paygrade E-3; two stripes on the sleeve) stacked up vs. Airmen (E-2; one stripe) or Airmen Basic (E-1; no stripes), and how Senior Airmen (E-4; three stripes) liked to boss the other airmen around:
“Rank amongst Airmen is like Virtue amongst Whores.”
Basically, until someone put on the fourth stripe and became a Staff Sergeant, all of the various Airmen were just that, Airmen, the lowly enlisted mooks of the Air Force who were by definition not in any position to give orders except in some exceedingly narrow circumstances.
He DID point out that the number of stripes at that level mattered in one area: If everybody has to suit up because of a poison gas attack, the guy with the fewest stripes gets to check to see if it’s safe:D (Don’t worry, the other guys will be waiting to put the dude’s mask back on and shoot his ass full of the toxin antidote if it turns out not to be safe to take the mask off. Because that, and distracting the hot chick’s homely friend are what Wingmen do.)
OK, here’s one from college, from my very brief period in the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets. I didn’t take it to heart at the time, but I did years later:
“Nobody except you can decide if you have a good day. Everything can go your way and you can still be grumpy about it, or people can give you crap and make you push and clean and polish and march all day and you can go to bed exhausted with a smile on your face. Every morning you should decide that you will have a good day, and every night you should decide that you did just that.”
And of course, the same thing, but with more brevity, from Firefly :D:
“We’re still flying.”
“That’s not much.”
“It’s enough.”
One I got from my Dad:
“When everything’s unloading on you and you feel you have to do something drastic…don’t. Stop. Breathe. Most of the time that huge awful dilemma will resolve itself.”
It’s not the best example, but it seems like every time I think I need to sell something off to keep the roof, lights on, and family fed, another 24 or 48 hours shows it wasn’t necessary.