P.t Quotes

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The noblest art is that of making others happy
P.T. Barnum
No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.
P.T. Barnum
No one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
H.L. Mencken
Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed.
P.T. Barnum
Comfort is the enemy of progress.
P.T. Barnum
Nothing makes you appreciate life more then when you wake up from a nightmare and realize it was just that. It's a good reality check.
P.T. Michelle (Brightest Kind of Darkness (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #1))
I don't care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right.
P.T. Barnum
The best kind of charity is to help those who are willing to help themselves.
P.T. Barnum
Be cautious and bold.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money)
P.T.S.D. doesn't make you weak. It makes you a survivor.
DaShanne Stokes
Who knew knights wore flannel shirts and Led Zeppelin tees?
P.T. Michelle (Brightest Kind of Darkness (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #1))
Oh dios mio, she makes me burn, she makes me need. She is etching herself into mi alma
P.T. Macias (Hot & Spicy (De La Cruz Saga, #1))
But not touching you would be the hardest thing I've ever had to do.
P.T. Michelle (Brightest Kind of Darkness (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #1))
Unless there is within us that which is above us, we shall soon yield to that which is about us.
P.T. Forsyth
Money is, in some respects, like fire. It is a very excellent servant, but a terrible master.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting : Or Golden Rules for Making Money (Illustrated))
Violence only begets violence when we allow it to. We always have a choice.
P.T. Denys (Violence Begets ... (Violence Begets ... #1))
No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else ~ P.T. Barnum
Jenny Bicks
The foundation of success in life is good health: that is the substratum fortune; it is also the basis of happiness. A person cannot accumulate a fortune very well when he is sick.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting: Golden Rules for Making Money)
The foundation of success in life is good health:
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money)
Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting: Golden Rules for Making Money)
Dr. Franklin says "it is the eyes of others and not our own eyes which ruin us. If all the world were blind except myself I should not care for fine clothes or furniture.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money)
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now. The old proverb is full of truth and meaning, "Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well." Many a man acquires a fortune by doing his business thoroughly, while his neighbor remains poor for life, because he only half does it. Ambition, energy, industry, perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business. Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting: Golden Rules for Making Money)
Advertising is to a genuine article what manure is to land, - it largely increases the product.
P.T. Barnum (The Humbugs of the World)
Young men starting in life should avoid running into debt.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting: Golden Rules for Making Money)
The safest plan, and the one most sure of success for the young man starting in life, is to select the vocation which is most congenial to his tastes.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting: Golden Rules for Making Money)
NO MUSE IS GOOD MUSE To be an Artist you need talent, as well as a wife who washes the socks and the children, and returns phone calls and library books and types. In other words, the reason there are so many more Men Geniuses than Women Geniuses is not Genius. It is because Hemingway never joined the P.T.A. And Arthur Rubinstein ignored Halloween. Do you think Portnoy's creator sits through children's theater matinees--on Saturdays? Or that Norman Mailer faced 'driver's ed' failure, chicken pox or chipped teeth? Fitzgerald's night was so tender because the fender his teen-ager dented happened when Papa was at a story conference. Since Picasso does the painting, Mrs. Picasso did the toilet training. And if Saul Bellow, National Book Award winner, invited thirty-three for Thanksgiving Day dinner, I'll bet he had help. I'm sure Henry Moore was never a Cub Scout leader, and Leonard Bernstein never instructed a tricycler On becoming a bicycler just before he conducted. Tell me again my anatomy is not necessarily my destiny, tell me my hang-up is a personal and not a universal quandary, and I'll tell you no muse is a good muse unless she also helps with the laundry.
Rochelle Distelheim
Promise?" "Cross my heart. Together, ‘til the wheels fall off.
P.T. Michelle (Brightest Kind of Darkness (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #1))
I will loose my camel, and trust it to God!" "No, no, not so," said the prophet, "tie thy camel, and trust it to God!
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money)
The first duty of every soul is to find not its freedom but its Master.
P.T. Forsyth
That'll boil her ice cream.
P.T. Michelle (Brightest Kind of Darkness (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #1))
A deception arises, sometimes innocently but collaboratively, sometimes with cynical premeditation. Usually the victim is caught up in a powerful emotion - wonder, fear, greed, grief. Credulous acceptance of baloney can cost you money; that’s what P.T. Barnum meant when he said, “There’s a sucker born every minute’. But it can be much more dangerous than that, and when governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking, the results can be catastrophic, however sympathetic we may be to those who have bought the baloney.
Carl Sagan (The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark)
I was all put back together, but had never felt more torn apart.
P.T. Michelle (Brightest Kind of Darkness (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #1))
Young men starting in life should avoid running into debt. There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt. It is a slavish position to get ill, yet we find many a young man, hardly out of his "teens," running in debt. He meets a chum and says, "Look at this: I have got trusted for a new suit of clothes." He seems to look upon the clothes as so much given to him; well, it frequently is so, but, if he succeeds in paying and then gets trusted again, he is adopting a habit which will keep him in poverty through life. Debt robs a man of his self-respect, and makes him almost despise himself.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting: Golden Rules for Making Money)
She rages through my blood, is etched in my alma, and fused to my corazon.” quote Ricardo Emmanuel De La Cruz. Hot & Enchanting, De La Cruz Saga
P.T. Macias
For those special moments you never want to forget. When it comes to you, all I need is a pencil Ethan
P.T. Michelle (Lucid (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #2))
Remember the proverb of Solomon: "He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand; but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.
P.T. Barnum (Art of Money Getting Or, Golden Rules for Making Money)
Love Rocks The De La Cruz's World
P.T. Macias
Those who really desire to attain an independence, have only to set their minds upon it, and adopt the proper means, as they do in regard to any other object which they wish to accomplish, and the thing is easily done.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money)
Prayer is not mere wishing. It is asking – with a will. . . . It is energy. We turn to an active Giver; therefore we go into action.
P.T. Forsyth
Our pasts define us, but we don’t have to let them rule us.
P.T. Michelle (Mister Black (In the Shadows, #1))
But if the day ever does come, where all colors completely disappear…let me be your rainbow, Sebastian. I can show you where to look.
P.T. Michelle (Blackest Red (In the Shadows, #3))
Writing lives forever, while you may not.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting, or Golden Rules for Making Money)
I learned a long time ago coincidences don’t exist, random happenstance is bullshit, and people lie. A lot.
P.T. Michelle (Destiny (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #3))
The fat Sentry has some scrambled eggs.
P.T. Macias (Bulldog (Razer 8 #3))
Will he really give her that heart box of candy?” I’d asked the shiny ball. Digital words spelled out across the surface in reply, “Not sure, try again”. I immediately rubbed it again and got “Concentrate and ask once more”. One more vigorous scrub gave me, “Try again later”. So frustrating!
P.T. Michelle (Brightest Kind of Darkness (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #1))
It was difficult to find information because Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was called shell shock during W.W.II, and when Vietnam Vets were found to suffer from the same symptoms after exposure to traumatic war scenes, a study was embarked upon that ended with the new, more appropriate name in 1980. Thomas was diagnosed with P.T.S.D. shortly afterwards, before the term P.T.S.D. was common.
Sara Niles
You're mine to protect, from Fate and everything else." - Ethan, Brightest Kind of Darkness: Lucid
P.T. Michelle
We touch the last reality directly in prayer.
P.T. Forsyth
No matter what you've done, family forgives," he says softly. "It's like the ride every morning and evening, sunrise and sunset, and a rainbow after the rain stops and the sun shines.
P.T. Michelle (Mister Black (In the Shadows, #1))
It was not the sorrow of the world that broke the heart of Christ, but its wickedness. He was equal to its sorrow ... He began by being the world's healer. But what broke him was its sin.
P.T. Forsyth
I fuck…” he answers in a matter-of-fact tone, then slowly traces a finger along my jaw, “But always with pleasure as the ultimate payoff. In exchange, I promise you’ll come until you beg me to stop, and even then I just might not.
P.T. Michelle (Mister Black (In the Shadows, #1))
The best kind of charity is to help those who are willing to help themselves. Promiscuous almsgiving, without inquiring into the worthiness of the applicant, is bad in every sense. But to search out and quietly assist those who are struggling for themselves, is the kind that “scattereth and yet increaseth.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting, or Golden Rules for Making Money)
70,000 to 100,000 births; twins joined at the head occur only once in 2 to 2.5 million births. Siamese twins received their name because of the birthplace (Siam) of Chang and Eng (1811 - 1874) whom P.T. Barnum exhibited across America and Europe. Most cranio pagus Siamese twins die at birth or shortly afterward. So far as we know, not more than 50 attempts had previously been made to separate such twins. Of those, less than ten operations have resulted in two fully normal children. Aside from the skill of the operating surgeons, the success depends largely on how much and what kind of tissue the babies share. Occipital cranio pugus twins (such as the Binders) had never before been separated with both surviving.
Ben Carson (Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story)
settles back into place and traces his fingers up my hip. “I stay
P.T. Michelle (Mister Black (In the Shadows, #1))
(Part
P.T. Michelle (Mister Black (In the Shadows, #1))
define us, but we don’t have to let them rule us.
P.T. Michelle (Mister Black (In the Shadows, #1))
The greatest humbug of all is the man who believes—or pretends to believe—that everything and everybody are humbugs.
P.T. Barnum (The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages)
person is Mister Black.
P.T. Michelle (Mister Black (In the Shadows, #1))
Stepping close, Ethan grasped a lock of my hair. “You’re the only one who makes me smile like this, Nara.
P.T. Michelle (Brightest Kind of Darkness (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #1))
And this is for waiting until fucking now to walk into my life.
P.T. Michelle (Mister Black (In the Shadows, #1))
This is my heart. Mine to love. Mine to cherish. I love you. I’ll always love you. You make me better than I am.
P.T. Michelle (Destiny (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #3))
I dreamed a lot and none of it made sense; I seemed to be stuck in a comic book, the sort P.T.A. meetings pass resolutions against, and the baddies were way ahead no matter what I did.
Robert A. Heinlein (Have Space Suit-Will Travel)
Jobs. Musk is a sci-fi version of P. T. Barnum who has gotten extraordinarily rich by preying on people’s fear and self-hatred. Buy a Tesla. Forget about the mess you’ve made of the planet for a while.
Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future)
The only preaching which is up to date for every time is the preaching of this eternity, which is opened to us in the Bible alone – the eternal of holy love, grace and redemption, the eternal and immutable morality of saving grace for our indelible sin.
P.T. Forsyth (Positive Preaching and Modern Mind)
No growth is possible,’ he would say, ‘without conscious labour and voluntary suffering.’ By this he meant that we cannot attain something without payment, or sacrifice—not in the sense of morbid self-punishment, but rather in the necessity of giving something up in order to make space for something new. What we ‘give up’ can be something intangible like low self-worth, or even laziness, or some other character defect like vanity or pride.
P.T. Mistlberger (Three Dangerous Magi: Osho Gurdjieff Crowley: Osho, Gurdjieff, Crowley)
And in what business is there not humbug? “There’s cheating in all trades but ours,” is the prompt reply from the boot-maker with his brown paper soles, the grocer with his floury sugar and chicoried coffee, the butcher with his mysterious sausages and queer veal, the dry goods man with his “damaged goods wet at the great fire” and his “selling at a ruinous loss,” the stock-broker with his brazen assurance that your company is bankrupt and your stock not worth a cent (if he wants to buy it,) the horse jockey with his black arts and spavined brutes, the milkman with his tin aquaria, the land agent with his nice new maps and beautiful descriptions of distant scenery, the newspaper man with his “immense circulation,” the publisher with his “Great American Novel,” the city auctioneer with his “Pictures by the Old Masters”—all and every one protest each his own innocence, and warn you against the deceits of the rest. My inexperienced friend, take it for granted that they all tell the truth—about each other! and then transact your business to the best of your ability on your own judgment.
P.T. Barnum (The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages)
Yeah, you are kind of a dumbass.
P.T. Dilloway (The Heart of Emma Earl (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #8))
Clothes are only trappings that when stripped away reveal the true beast in us all.
P.T. Michelle (Scarlett Red (In the Shadows, #2))
Money is in some respects like fire; it is a very excellent servant but a terrible master.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting, or Golden Rules for Making Money)
I want to touch you, Nara, but I can’t,” he said in a low, tortured tone. “I want to kiss you, but I can’t. All I can do it watch you from a distance and it’s killing me.
P.T. Michelle (Brightest Kind of Darkness (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #1))
S. P. T. to A. P. W. B. D. Dark
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
it is the eyes of others and not our own eyes which ruin us. If all the world were blind except myself I should not care for fine clothes or furniture.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money)
sword can dispatch demons back to Under. My feather can apparently plot points on a map. Woohoo, I’m so badass.
P.T. Michelle (Desire (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #4))
and I have never done anything the normal way. Why start now?
P.T. Michelle (Desire (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #4))
I’ll always try to keep you out of the darkness, yet it seems you’ll be the one shining your brilliance on me, lighting my path no matter what.
P.T. Michelle (Destiny (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #3))
I can say with great certainty and absolute honesty that I did not know what Love was until I knew what Love was not.
P.T. Berkey (SWEAR WORDS & LOVE NOTES)
We agreed that many a human life is sacrificed in sudden anger, because one or both the parties carry deadly weapons.
P.T. Barnum (The Life of P. T. Barnum)
She thrust herself into your life, pulling you into a tight hug before you even had a chance to say, “Welcome to my personal space.
P.T. Michelle (Brightest Kind of Darkness (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #1))
Books are made out of books.” — Cormac McCarthy Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From David Byrne, How Music Works Mike Monteiro, Design Is a Job Kio Stark, Don’t Go Back to School Ian Svenonius, Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock ‘n’ Roll Group Sidney Lumet, Making Movies P.T. Barnum, The Art of Money Getting
Austin Kleon (Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered (Austin Kleon))
La casa natale di Shakespeare, se non altro, sfuggì destino preparatogli dall'impresario P.T. Barnum, che negli anni Quaranta dell'Ottocento ebbe l'idea di spedirla negli Stati Uniti, montarla su ruote e mandarla in perpetua tournée per il Paese - prospettiva talmente allarmante che in Gran Bretagna ci si affrettò a raccogliere fondi per salvarla e trasformarla in museo e santuario.
Bill Bryson (Shakespeare: The World as Stage)
So it was a bit of shock, years later, when P.T. delivered a sermon, one of his few memorable ones, in which he told us all that the word "Word" was translated from the Greek word *Logos,* which didn't really mean "word" at all, but rather something closer to "plea" or even premise." It was a small betrayal for my little apostle's heart to find out that I had gotten my journal entry wrong. Worse still, I felt then, was the betrayal of language in translation. Why didn't English have a better word than "Word" if "Word" was not precise enough? I started to approach my Bible with suspicion. What else had I missed? Even though I felt ambushed, I did like the ambiguity that the revelation introduced into that verse. In the beginning there was an idea, a premise; there was a question.
Yaa Gyasi (Transcendent Kingdom)
The public very properly shun all whose integrity is doubted. No matter how polite and pleasant and accommodating a man may be, none of us dare to deal with him if we suspect "false weights and measures.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money)
The Mirage’s entertainment director asks Klara if she’ll let Raj saw her in half—“Easy-peasy; won’t hurt a bit”—but she refuses. He thinks she’s afraid of the trick when the truth is that she could give him an hour-long tutorial on P. T. Selbit and his misogynistic inventions: Destroying a Girl, Stretching a Lady, Crushing a Woman, all of them perfectly timed to capitalize on postwar bloodthirst and women’s suffrage.
Chloe Benjamin (The Immortalists)
Abraham helped build their cabin and split rails for a fence, but he soon left home for good. The log cabin near Decatur was, I learned, the one that went on tour after the assassination. It was dismantled by John Hanks, Lincoln's second cousin, and taken to Chicago and then to Boston. The last sighting of it, as least as far as we can ascertain, was at P.T. Barnum's museum in New York. It was apparently lost at sea while being shipped to England.
Annie Leibovitz (Pilgrimage)
You’re so bright, Trav, and so intuitive about people. And you have … the gift of tenderness. And sympathy. You could be almost anything.” “Of course!” I said, springing to my feet and beginning to pace back and forth through the lounge. “Why didn’t I think of that! Here I am, wasting the golden years on this lousy barge, getting all mixed up with lame-duck women when I could be out there seeking and striving. Who am I to keep from putting my shoulder to the wheel? Why am I not thinking about an estate and how to protect it? Gad, woman, I could be writing a million dollars a year in life insurance. I should be pulling a big oar in the flagship of life. Maybe it isn’t too late yet! Find the little woman, and go for the whole bit. Kiwanis, P.T.A., fund drives, cookouts, a clean desk, and vote the straight ticket, yessiree bob. Then when I become a senior citizen, I can look back upon …” I stopped when I heard the small sound she was making. She sat with her head bowed. I went over and put my fingertips under her chin. I tilted her head up and looked down into her streaming eyes. “Please, don’t,” she whispered. “You’re beginning to bring out the worst in me, woman.” “It was none of my business.” “I will not dispute you.” “But … who did this to you?” “I’ll never know you well enough to try to tell you, Lois.” She tried to smile. “I guess it can’t be any plainer than that.” “And I’m not a tragic figure, no matter how hard you try to make me into one. I’m delighted with myself, woman.” “And you wouldn’t say it that way if you were.” “Spare me the cute insights.
John D. MacDonald (The Deep Blue Good-By)
funeral wreath for the queen.” He sat in the clear space between the bank and the first line of trees and bent a pine bough into a circle, tying it with a piece of wet string from the castle. And because it looked cold and green, he picked spring beauties from the forest floor and wove them among the needles. He put it down in front of him. A cardinal flew down to the bank, cocked its brilliant head, and seemed to stare at the wreath. P. T. let out a growl which sounded more like a purr. Jess put his hand on the dog to quiet him. The bird hopped about a moment more, then flew leisurely away. “It’s a sign from the Spirits,” Jess said quietly. “We made a worthy offering.” He walked slowly, as part of a great procession, though only the puppy could be seen, slowly forward carrying the queen’s wreath to the sacred grove.
Katherine Paterson (Bridge to Terabithia)
Buddha was not interested in empty metaphysical speculations. He refused to answer such questions as (1) 'Does God exist?' and (2) 'Does the ātman exist?' We do not know and cannot define what the words God and ātman mean. Then what is the use of asking whether they exist or not?
P.T. Raju (The Philosophical Traditions of India (Routledge Library Editions: Buddhism))
The beast glanced down at his clawed, emaciated hand, then his red, hostile eyes jerked to me. “Do you think I’m real?” I clenched my teeth. “You’re not real.” He backhanded me, his boney knuckles cracking against my cheekbone. “Felt real as shit, didn’t it?” he mocked, evil laughter echoing.
P.T. Michelle (Brightest Kind of Darkness (Brightest Kind of Darkness, #1))
You reflect that he is worth twenty thousand dollars, and you incur no risk by endorsing his note; you like to accommodate him, and you lend your name without taking the precaution of getting security. Shortly after, he shows you the note with your endorsement canceled, and tells you, probably truly, "that he made the profit that he expected by the operation," you reflect that you have done a good action, and the thought makes you feel happy. By and by, the same thing occurs again and you do it again; you have already fixed the impression in your mind that it is perfectly safe to indorse his notes without security.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money)
A.K.A kirefu chake ni 'Also Known As'. K.K.K kirefu chake ni 'Kadhalika Kikijulikana Kama'. K.N.K kirefu chake ni 'Kadhalika Nikijulikana Kama'. K.A.K kirefu chake ni 'Kadhalika Akijulikana Kama'. Kadhalika, unaweza kusema P.K.K (Pia Kikijulikana Kama), P.N.K (Pia Nikijulikana Kama) au P.A.K (Pia Akijulikana Kama).Tujifunze kuupenda utamaduni wetu, ili vizazi vijavyo visisumbuke.
Enock Maregesi
The history of money-getting, which is commerce, is a history of civilization, and wherever trade has flourished most, there, too, have art and science produced the noblest fruits. In fact, as a general thing, money-getters are the benefactors of our race. To them, in a great measure, are we indebted for our institutions of learning and of art, our academies, colleges, and churches.
P.T. Barnum (The Art of Money Getting, or Golden Rules for Making Money)
Man is a machine. All his deeds, actions, words, thoughts, feelings, convictions, and habits are the result of external influences. Out of himself a man cannot produce a single thought, a single action. Everything he says, does, thinks, feels—all this happens. Man is born, lives, dies, builds houses, writes books, not as he wants to, but as it happens. Everything happens. Man does not love, hate, desire—all this happens.3
P.T. Mistlberger (Three Dangerous Magi: Osho Gurdjieff Crowley: Osho, Gurdjieff, Crowley)
The old world was passing. P. T. Barnum died; grave-robbers attempted to steal his corpse. William Tecumseh Sherman died, too. Atlanta cheered. Reports from abroad asserted, erroneously, that Jack the Ripper had returned. Closer at hand, a gory killing in New York suggested he might have migrated to America. In Chicago the former warden of the Illinois State Penitentiary at Joliet, Major R. W. McClaughry, began readying the city for the surge in crime that everyone expected the fair to produce,
Erik Larson (The Devil in the White City)
Waste of what?” “Of you! It seems degrading. Forgive me for saying that. I’ve seen those African movies. The lion makes a kill and then clever animals come in and grab something and run. You’re so bright, Trav, and so intuitive about people. And you have … the gift of tenderness. And sympathy. You could be almost anything.” “Of course!” I said, springing to my feet and beginning to pace back and forth through the lounge. “Why didn’t I think of that! Here I am, wasting the golden years on this lousy barge, getting all mixed up with lame-duck women when I could be out there seeking and striving. Who am I to keep from putting my shoulder to the wheel? Why am I not thinking about an estate and how to protect it? Gad, woman, I could be writing a million dollars a year in life insurance. I should be pulling a big oar in the flagship of life. Maybe it isn’t too late yet! Find the little woman, and go for the whole bit. Kiwanis, P.T.A., fund drives, cookouts, a clean desk, and vote the straight ticket, yessiree bob. Then when I become a senior citizen, I can look back upon …
John D. MacDonald (The Deep Blue Good-By)
NO MUSE IS GOOD MUSE -by Rochelle Distelheim To be an Artist you need talent, as well as a wife who washes the socks and the children, and returns phone calls and library books and types. In other words, the reason there are so many more Men Geniuses than Women Geniuses is not Genius. It is because Hemingway never joined the P.T.A. And Arthur Rubinstein ignored Halloween. Do you think Portnoy's creator sits through children's theater matinees--on Saturdays? Or that Norman Mailer faced 'driver's ed' failure, chicken pox or chipped teeth? Fitzgerald's night was so tender because the fender his teen-ager dented happened when Papa was at a story conference. Since Picasso does the painting, Mrs. Picasso did the toilet training. And if Saul Bellow, National Book Award winner, invited thirty-three for Thanksgiving Day dinner, I'll bet he had help. I'm sure Henry Moore was never a Cub Scout leader, and Leonard Bernstein never instructed a tricycler On becoming a bicycler just before he conducted. Tell me again my anatomy is not necessarily my destiny, tell me my hang-up is a personal and not a universal quandary, and I'll tell you no muse is a good muse unless she also helps with the laundry. -Rochelle Distelheim ===============================
Rochelle Distelheim (Sadie in Love)
No profession, trade, or calling, is overcrowded in the upper story. Wherever you find the most honest and intelligent merchant or banker, or the best lawyer, the best doctor, the best clergyman, the best shoemaker, carpenter, or anything else, that man is most sought for, and has always enough to do. As a nation, Americans are too superficial—they are striving to get rich quickly, and do not generally do their business as substantially and thoroughly as they should, but whoever excels all others in his own line, if his habits are good and his integrity undoubted, cannot fail to secure abundant patronage and the wealth that naturally follows. Let your motto then always be "Excelsior," for by living up to it there is no such word as fail
P.T. Barnum (Art of Getting Money in the 21st Century)
Science is another important field of human effort. Science is the pursuit of pure truth, and the systematizing of it. In such an employment as that, one might reasonably hope to find all things done in honesty and sincerity. Not at all, my ardent and inquiring friends, there is a scientific humbug just as large as any other. We have all heard of the Moon Hoax. Do none of you remember the Hydrarchos Sillimannii, that awful Alabama snake? It was only a little while ago that a grave account appeared in a newspaper of a whole new business of compressing ice. Perpetual motion has been the dream of scientific visionaries, and a pretended but cheating realization of it has been exhibited by scamp after scamp. I understand that one is at this moment being invented over in Jersey City. I have purchased more than one “perpetual motion” myself. Many persons will remember Mr. Paine—“The Great Shot-at” as he was called, from his story that people were constantly trying to kill him—and his water-gas. There have been other water gases too, which were each going to show us how to set the North River on fire, but something or other has always broken down just at the wrong moment. Nobody seems to reflect, when these water gases come up, that if water could really be made to burn, the right conditions would surely have happened at some one of the thousands of city fires, and that the very stuff with which our stout firemen were extinguishing the flames, would have itself caught and exterminated the whole brave wet crowd!
P.T. Barnum (The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages)
In Jainism we find only one system of metaphysics, but in Buddhism many. And when Buddhism disappeared, it was not due to any violent religious conflicts within the Indian religious tradition, but in part to the invasion of Islam, and in part to the gradual development of its own doctrines towards the Upaniṣadic ones, and to the ease with which the developed doctrines could be assimilated and adopted by the philosophies based upon the Upaniṣads. Buddhism never attempted to formulate its own codes of social conduct, allowed the castes to continue as such, and, confining itself to the monasteries, sought only to teach spiritual doctrines and discipline. To be sure, it did not allow caste distinctions within monasteries, and like Jainism, established nunneries for women ascetics.
P.T. Raju (The Philosophical Traditions of India (Routledge Library Editions: Buddhism))
Politics and government are certainly among the most important of practical human interests. Now it was a diplomatist—that is, a practical manager of one kind of government matters—who invented that wonderful phrase—a whole world full of humbug in half-a-dozen words—that “Language was given to us to conceal our thoughts.” It was another diplomatist, who said “An ambassador is a gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.” But need I explain to my own beloved countrymen that there is humbug in politics? Does anybody go into a political campaign without it? are no exaggerations of our candidate’s merits to be allowed? no depreciations of the other candidate? Shall we no longer prove that the success of the party opposed to us will overwhelm the land in ruin? Let me see. Leaving out the two elections of General Washington, eighteen times that very fact has been proved by the party that was beaten, and immediately we have not been ruined, notwithstanding that the dreadful fatal fellows on the other side got their hands on the offices and their fingers into the treasury.
P.T. Barnum (The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages)
There had been "fun ones." Like the afternoon that Gorwing had come roaring and snapping into his place, just as urgently as he had tonight, demanding to know if G-Note had a copy of Trials and Triumphs, My Forty Years in the Show Business, by P. T. Barnum; and G-Note had! And they had tumbled it, with a lot of other old books, into two boxes, and had driven out to the end of Carrio Lane, where Gorwing knew there was somebody who needed the book - not who, not why, just that there was somebody who needed it - and he and G-Note had stood at opposite sides of the lane, each with a box of books, and had bellowed at each other, "You got the P. T. Barnum book over there?" and "I don't know if I have the P. T. Barnum book here; have you got the P. T. Barnum book there?" and "What is the name of the P. T. Barnum book?" and "Trials and Triumphs, My Forty Years in the Show Business," and so on, until, sure enough, a window popped open and a lady called down, "Do one of you men really have Barnum's biography there?" and, when they said they had, she said it was a miracle; and she came down and gave them fifteen dollars for it.
Theodore Sturgeon (Beyond)