Smart Stuff

The RAF do not have traditions, they only have habits.
(Petty officer on HMS Daedalus
writing to the “Times”, 1977)
When a thing is done again and again, it seems to proceed from a deliberate judgment of reason. Accordingly, custom has the force of law, abolishes law, and
is the interpreter of law.
Thomas Aquinas
Habit will reconcile us to […]

All I ask is a chance to prove that money can’t make me happy. Anon
Happiness is watching a snow-plough cover a police car.
J. Davidson
Happy is the man with a wife to tell him what to do and a secretary to do
it.Lord Mancroft
If money can’t buy happiness, I guess you’ll just have to rent it. Anon
Nobody […]

First woman: Whenever I’m down in the dumps, I get myself another hat.
Second woman: I always wondered where you found them. Unknown
Hats divide generally into three classes: offensive hats, defensive hats, and shrapnel.
Katherine Whitehorn

Taken Mostly from LEO ROSTEN’s “Giant Book of Laughter”
(Actual Headlines)
26-Year Friendship Ends at Altar
Babies Flood Hospitals!
Barbers Against Big Cuts
Beer Shortage Has Merchants Frothing
Farmers Threatened by Plague of Rabbis
City Officials Talk Rubbish
Dead Policeman on Force 23 Years
Egg-Laying Contest Won By Local Man
Escaped Leopard Believed Spotted
Father of Nine Fined $100 for Failing to Stop
Florist Asks Girls to […]

There is a certain state of health that does not allow us to understand
everything; and perhaps illness shuts us off from certain truths; but health
shuts us off just as effectively from others.
Andre Gide
Preserving the health by too severe a rule is a wearisome malady.
La Rochefoucauld
Gargling first thing in the morning is a good way […]

There’s a rumor going around in theological circles that the powers who arrange all these matters have done away with Hell now that Heaven has gone comprehensive.
Nicholas Armfelt
Hell has three gates: lust, anger, and greed.
Bhagavad Gita
Believing in Hell must distort every judgment on this life.
Cyril Connolly
Probably no invention came more easily to man than […]

It is easier to accept the message of the stars than the message of the salt desert. The stars speak of man’s insignificance in the long eternity of time; the desert speaks of his insignificance right now.
Edwin Way Teale

That which comes of a cat will catch mice.
English Proverb

Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields which have
their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes.
Victor Hugo

History is the sum total of the things that could have been avoided.
Konrad Adenauer
To remain ignorant of things that happened before you were born is to remain a child. What is a human life worth unless it is incorporated into the lives of one’s ancestors and set in an historical context?
Cicero
The more we know […]