Graeme −> Language −> Words and Wisdom −> Sayings −> SPAM sayings 

For several months, now (today is August 18, 2007), I have been receiving "spam" emails that try to sell me such things as Adobe Creative whatever -- I just ignore the "payload" and go right for the vehicle -- a series of pithy statements that presumably get the email past the spam filter.  Many of these sayings are very wise indeed.  Here they are, largely unedited:

A Bachelor of Arts is one who makes love to a lot of women, and yet has the art to remain a bachelor.
A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it or offer your own version in return.
A camel looks like a horse that was planned by committee.
A child is fed with milk and praise.
A Christian is nothing but a sinful man who has put himself to school for Christ for the honest purpose of becoming better.
A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes that he has got the biggest piece.
A conscience is like a baby. It has to go to sleep before you can.
A cruel story runs on wheels, and every hand oils the wheels as they run.
A fiction about soft or easy deaths is part of the mythology of most diseases that are not considered shameful or demeaning.
A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else.
A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.
A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart, who looks at her watch.
A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.
A liar is full of oaths.
A malignant sore throat is a danger, a malignant throat not sore is worse.
A man's as old as he's feeling. A woman as old as she looks.
A man's feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.
A page of history is worth a pound of logic.
A slave is a free man if he is content with his lot a free man is a slave if he seeks more than that.
A soft answer truth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. [Proverbs 15:1]
A wise man admits his weaknesses. I'd admit mine if I had any.
Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire.
Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.
Action is character.
Actions speak louder than words, but not nearly as often.
Advice is like castor oil, easy to give, but dreadful to take.
Alas after a certain age, every man is responsible for his own face.
All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.
All I know is I'm not a Marxist.
All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
An ambassador is an honest person sent to lie abroad for his country.
An epitaph is a belated advertisement for a line of goods that has been discontinued.
And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
And who is any of us, that without starvation he can go through the kingdoms of starvation?
And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. [John 8:32]
And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in masquerade.
Anger begins with folly, and ends with repentance.
Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding.
At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.
Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half if physical
Be more prompt to go to a friend in adversity than in prosperity.
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.
Beauty is worse than wine, it intoxicates both the holder and beholder.
Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all.
Before you beat a child, be sure yourself are not the cause of the offense.
Beggars should be entirely abolished! Truly, it is annoying to give to them and annoying not to give to them.
Better to ask a question than to remain ignorant.
Better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.
Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.
Bible study is like eating peanuts. The more you eat, the more you want to eat.
Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.
Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.
Brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes.
But curb thou the high spirit in thy breast, for gentle ways are best, and keep aloof from sharp contentions.
But their intervention makes our acts to serve ever less merely the immediate claims of our instincts.
By blood a king, in heart a clown.
By visualizing your goals, you can get your subconscious to work toward making these mental pictures come true.
Calamity is virtue's opportunity.
Character is not made in a crisis -- it is only exhibited.
Children play soldier. That makes sense. But why do soldiers play children?
Children's liberation is the next item on our civil rights shopping list.
Civilization -- a heap of rubble scavenged by scrawny English Lit. vultures.
Close scrutiny will show that most ''crisis situations'' are opportunities to either advance, or stay where you are.
Coalitions though successful have always found this, that their triumph has been brief.
Concentrate your strengths against your competitor's relative weaknesses.
Confidence is the bond of friendship.
Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.
Contentment consist not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire.
Contentment is, after all, simply refined indolence.
Courage is fear that has said its prayers.
Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
Crimes, like virtues, are their own rewards.
Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.
Death is a distant rumor to the young.
Death is the dropping of the flower that the fruit may swell.
Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity.
Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
Death twitches my ear. ''Live,'' he says, ''I am coming.''
Discipline is not a nasty word.
Do not let circumstances control you. You change your circumstances.
Do the next thing.
Doing things for others always pays dividends...
Don't fear change -- embrace it.
Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.
Education is the fire-proofer of emotions.
Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.
Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.
Equal opportunity is good, but special privilege is better.
Even the people we most admire often feel inadequate.
Every dogma has its day.
Everybody wants to do something to help, but nobody wants to be the first.
Everything starts with the customer.
Expect your every need to be met. Expect the answer to every problem, expect abundance on every level...
Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.
Faith makes a Christian. Life proves a Christian. Trial confirms a Christian. Death crowns a Christian.
Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.
Fear is met and destroyed with courage.
Fear is the denomination of the Old Testament belief is the denomination of the New.
Fear is what kills us.
Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.
Few people know how to be old.
For organizations and employees alike, the only real security is the ability to grow, change and adapt.
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night.
For what is the best choice, for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve.
Frankly, I don't want to see a rapid upturn. I want it to hold until some of these idiotic competitors go bust.
Genius is an African who dreams up snow.
Give me a one-handed economist! All my economics say, ''On the one hand… on the other.''
Give me beauty in the inward soul may the outward and the inward man be at one.
Goals help you channel your energy into action.
God gave burdens, also shoulders.
God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.
Good is not good, when better is expected.
Good things, when short, are twice as good.
Goodness speaks in a whisper, evil shouts
Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.
Grief is light that is capable of counsel.
Happiness is a by-product. You cannot pursue it by itself.
Hatreds are the cinders of affection.
He does not weep who does not see.
He that bringeth a present findeth the door open.
He was one of those men who possess almost every gift, except the gift of the power to use them.
He who bestows his goods upon the poor shall have as much again, and ten times more.
He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow.
He who is plenteously provided for from within, needs but little from without.
He who is upright in his way of life and free from sin.
He who spares the bad injures the good.
Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.
How awful to reflect that what people say of us is true!
Hugs can do great amounts of good -- especially for children.
Human history in essence is the history of ideas.
Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law.
I always thought I could play pro ball. I had confidence in my ability, You have to. If you don't who will?
I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best.
I am his Highness dog at Kew pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
I am not concerned that I am not known, I seek to be worthy to be known.
I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents.
I don't know who my grandfather was I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
I don't set trends. I just find out what they are and exploit them.
I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to earth.
I find myself fascinating.
I guess I don't so much mind being old, as I mind being fat and old.
I hate a man who always says ''yes'' to me. When I say ''no'' I like a man who also says ''no.''
I have always said and felt that true enjoyment can not be described.
I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.
I have read your book and much like it.
I have tamed men of iron in my day, shall I not easily crush these men of butter?
I keep both eyes on my man. The basket hasn't moved on me yet.
I know I have the ability to do so much more than just stand in front of the camera the rest of my life.
I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.
I praise loudly, I blame softly.
I prefer the errors of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.
I see journalists as the manual workers, the laborers of the word. Journalism can only be literature when it is passionate.
I think, therefore I am is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches.
I would rather have a nod from an American, than a snuff-box from an emperor.
Ideologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves.
Idleness is many gathered miseries in one name.
If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors.
If a fellow wants to be a nobody in the business world, let him neglect sending the mail man to somebody on his behalf.
If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?
If I'm going to Hell, I'm going there playing the piano.
If one age believes too much it is natural that another believes too little.
If we must fall, we should boldly meet the danger.
If you are possessed by an idea, you find it expressed everywhere, you even smell it.
If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.
If you could only love enough, you could be the most powerful person in the world.
If you expect nothing, you're apt to be surprised. You'll get it.
If you make every game a life and death proposition, you're going to have problems. For one thing, you'll be dead a lot.
If you wait until the wind and the weather are just right, you will never plant anything and never harvest anything.
If you would judge, understand.
If your sword's too short, add to its length by taking one step forward.
I'm not a self-made man. I cannot forget those who have sacrificed for me to get where I am today.
Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.
In America nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.
In my end is my beginning.
In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.
Inhabit ourselves that we may indeed do what we want to do.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Intellectual tasting of life will not supersede muscular activity.
Invest in yourself, in your education. There's nothing better.
It doesn't do any good to sit up and take notice if you keep on sitting.
It is a fact that you project what you are.
It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.
It is not by the gray of the hair that one knows the age of the heart.
It is the perpetual dread of fear, the fear of fear, that shapes the face of a brave man.
It is twice the pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
It is useless to close the gates against ideas they overlap them.
It is well that there is no one without a fault for he would not have a friend in the world.
It is with our judgments as with our watches: no two go just alike, yet each believes his own.
It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.
It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.
It was a woman who drove me to drink, and I never had the courtesy to thank her for it.
It was Greek to me.
It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.
It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.
I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't.
I've not got a first in philosophy without being able to muddy things pretty satisfactory.
Joys divided are increased.
Just as there is nothing between the admirable omelet and the intolerable, so with autobiography.
Knowing is not enough we must apply. Willing is not enough we must do.
Knowing what you can not do is more important than knowing what you can do. In fact, that's good taste.
Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.
Laws, like houses, lean on one another.
Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.
Leadership is a serving relationship that has the effect of facilitating human development.
Let us all be happy, and live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with.
Let us go in the fog is rising.
Life at any time can become difficult: life at any time can become easy. It all depends upon how one adjusts oneself to life.
Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on us.
Life is a tough proposition and the first hundred years are the hardest.
Life is not so much a matter of position as of disposition
Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.
Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.
Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ''I'm with you kid. Let's go.''
Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.
Life's enchanted cup sparkles near the brim.
Like fragile ice anger passes away in time.
Literature is a toil and a snare, a curse that bites deep.
Lose not yourself in a far off time, seize the moment that is thine.
Love and pity and wish well to every soul in the world dwell in love, and then you dwell in God.
Love is like a fruit. It may look good, but you shouldn't bite in it until it's ripe.
Love is the delusion that one man or woman differs from another.
Luxury! more perilous to youth than storms or quicksand, poverty or chains.
Man dies of cold, not of darkness.
Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.
Mankind is made great or little by its own will.
May God defend me from my friends. I can defend myself from my enemies.
Memoirs are the backstairs of history.
Metaphors are much more tenacious than facts.
Military glory --the attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood.
Most people are willing to pay more to be amused than to be educated.
My advice to you concerning applause is this: enjoy it but never quite believe it.
My art and profession is to live.
My faith has no bed to sleep upon but omnipotence.
My family begins with me, your family ends with you.
Nature does not give to those who will not spend...
Never ask the Gods for life set free from grief, but ask for courage that endureth long.
Never let an inventor run a company. You can never get him to stop tinkering and bring something to market.
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Never underestimate your problem or your ability to deal with it.
No gain is so certain as that which proceeds from the economical use of what you already have.
No man is happy he is at best fortunate.
No man lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.
No one should part with their individuality and become that of another.
Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most readily develop.
Nobody can be as agreeable as an uninvited guest.
Not an inch of our territory not a stone of our fortress.
Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.
Nothing is sacred to a gamester.
Nothing mattered except states of mind, chiefly our own.
Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.
Now stiff on a pillar with a phallic air nelson stylites in Trafalgar square reminds the British what once they were.
Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.
Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults.
Of all God's gifts to the sighted man, color is holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.
One does not inhabit a country one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland --and no other.
One of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax.
Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.
Only those who want everything done for them are bored.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven.
Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.
People differ not only in their ability to do but also in their 'will to do'.
People may or may not say what they mean... but they always say something designed to get what they want.
People of Wealth and the so called upper class suffer the most from boredom.
People want riches they need fulfillment.
Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.
Pick battles big enough to matter, but small enough to win.
Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil --or else an absolute ignorance.
Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.
Push yourself again and again. Don't give an inch until the final buzzer sounds.
Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.
Remembrance of things past.
Resolve to make each day the very best and don't let anyone get in your way. If they do, step on them.
She fights and vanquishes in me, and I live and breathe in her, and I have life and being.
She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.
She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on with a pitch folk.
Show me a guy who is afraid to look bad, and I'll show you a guy you can beat every time.
Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity.
So dress and conduct yourself so that people who have been in your company will not recall what you had on.
So many signatures for such a small heart.
Some couples go over their budgets very carefully every month. Others just go over them.
Some fellows get credit for being conservative when they are only stupid.
Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can.
Somebody figured it out -- we have 35 million laws trying to enforce Ten Commandments.
Spend not on hopes.
Stop the habit of wishful thinking and start the habit of thoughtful wishes.
Talk well of your friends and of your enemies say nothing.
The ability to concentrate and to use time well is everything.
The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.
The art of pleasing is the art of deception.
The avarice person is ever in want let your desired aim have a fixed limit.
The best throw of the dice is to throw them away.
The better I know men the more I admire dogs.
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.
The devil tempts all men, but idle men tempt the devil.
The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love Him and imitate Him.
The essence of this man [Richard M. Nixon] is loneliness.
The fewer the words, the better the prayer.
The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.
The gods sell to us all the goods which they give us.
The good is, like nature, an immense landscape in which man advances through centuries of exploration.
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal -- well-meaning but without understanding.
The greatest power that a person possesses is the power to choose.
The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
The laws and the stage, both are a form of exhibitionism.
The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything or nothing.
The mark of a great player is in his ability to come back. The great champions have all come back from defeat.
The more I see of men, the more I like dogs.
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.
The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.
The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.
The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable.
The public interest is best served by the free exchange of ideas.
The really idle man gets nowhere. The perpetually busy man does not get much further.
The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
The sharp thorn often produces delicate roses.
The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.
The supply of government exceeds demand.
The suspense is terrible, I hope it will last.
The test of one's behavior pattern relationship to society, relationship to one's work, relationship to sex.
The trick is growing up without growing old.
The upshot was, my paintings must burn that English artists might finally learn.
The voice of parents is the voice of gods, for to their children they are heaven's lieutenants.
The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.
The wealth of kings is in the affections of their subjects.
The world has the habit of making room for the man whose actions show that he knows where he is going.
There are no greater wretches in the world than many of those whom people in general take to be happy.
There are no second acts in American lives.
There can be economy only where there is efficiency.
There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
There is no gilding of setting sun or glamour of poetry to light up the ferocious and endless toil of the farmers wives.
There is no remedy for love than to love more.
There is nothing permanent except change.
There isn't any finer folks living than a Republican that votes the Democratic ticket.
There's a Bible on the shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire-poison and antidote.
There's no substitute for guts.
There's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It's a thing no married man knows anything about.
Those who can, do, those who can't teach and those who can do neither, administer.
Time takes away the grief of men.
'Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and have her nonsense respected.
To be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.
To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.
To have what we want is riches but to be able to do without is power.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.
Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.
Unless a capacity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior mind exists in torture.
Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.
Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.
We are the greatest power in the world. If we behave like it.
We cannot become what we need to be, remaining what we are.
We do not stop playing because we grow old we grow old because we stop playing.
We have taken beauty and exchanged it for stilted voices.
We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before the police.
We look upon the enemy of our souls as a conquered foe, so he is, but only to God, not to us.
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.
We never respect those who amuse us, however we may smile at their comic powers.
Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.
We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
What do I know of man's destiny? I could tell you more about radishes.
What ever crushes individuality is despotism, no matter what name it is called.
What I have crossed out I didn't like. What I haven't crossed out I'm dissatisfied with.
What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering.
What whiskey will not cure, there is no cure for.
What's good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa.
When a man is out of sight, it is not too long before he is out of mind.
When my journal appears, many statues must come down.
When people keep telling you that you can't do a thing, you kind of like to try it.
When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.
When you want to win a game, you have to teach. When you lose a game, you have to learn.
Whenever I have to choose between two evils, I always like to try the one I haven't tried before.
Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes.
Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game.
Who's not sat tense before his own heart's curtain.
Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it.
With me a change of trouble is as good as a vacation.
Without adventure civilization is in full decay.
Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.
You are wise, witty and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading this sort of stuff.
You can lease the peace of mind You bought a mask, I put it on. You never thought to ask me If I wear it when you're gone
You may call for peace as loudly as you wish, but where there is no brotherhood there can in the end be no peace.
You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk dancing.
You talk too much, you laugh too loud, that's the price of love.
You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
You will be the same person in five as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.
You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.
You will never win if you never begin.
You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.
Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.
your desires and true beliefs have a way of playing blind man's bluff. You must corner the inner facts.
Your idol is shattered in the dust to prove that God's dust is greater than your idol.