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The six most important words: I admit that I was wrong.
The five most important words: You did a great job.
The four most important words: What do you think?
The three most important words: Could you please. . .
The two most important words: Thank you.
The most important word: We.
The least important word: I.

Anonymous

One of the photographers present at Winston Churchill's eightieth birthday expressed the hope that he might also photograph the great man on his hundredth birthday twenty years later.

"I don't see why not, young man," Churchill replied. "You look reasonably fit to me." In the summer of 1941, Sergeant James Allen Ward was awarded a Victoria Cross for climbing onto the wing of his Wellington bomber and - while flying 13,000 feet above the Zuider Zee - extinguished a fire in the starboard engine, secured only by a rope tied around his waist. Some time later, Winston Churchill summoned the shy New Zealander to 10 Downing Street to congratulate him on his swashbuckling exploits. When Ward, dumbfounded in the prime minister's presence, found himself unable to answer his questions, Churchill surveyed the man with apparent empathy.

"You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence," he began. "Yes, sir," Ward replied. "Then you can imagine," Churchill declared, "how humble and awkward I feel in yours."

Charles Foster Kane: "Look, Mr. Carter. Here is a three-column headline in the Chronicle. Why hasn't the Inquirer a three-column headline?"

Carter: "News wasn't big enough".

Charles Foster Kane: "Mr. Carter, if the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough".

Orson Welles

Throughout the ages, humanity has had a lot to say about just what "life is...", sometimes profound, sometimes absurd and often amusing, here is a selection of "life is..." metaphors from Seneca to Sandburg!

"Life is a game of cards. The cards are shuffled and the hands are dealt. You must play your cards well"
Eugene Hare

"Life is a play. It's not its length, but its performance that counts."
Seneca

"Life is a B-picture script."
Kirk Douglas

"Life is something like a trumpet. If you don't put anything in, you won't get anything out."
W.C. Handy

"Life is a daring adventure, or nothing."
Helen Keller

"A life is a simple letter in the alphabet. It can be meaningless. Or it can be part of a great meaning."
Jewish Seminary

"Life is an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep."
Carl Sandburg

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent".

Calvin Coolidge

Murphy’s 1st Law – Nothing is as easy as it looks

Murphy’s 2nd Law – Everything takes longer than you think

Murphy’s 3rd Law – Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong

Murphy’s 4th law – if there is a possibility of several things going wrong, at a minimum the one that causes the most damage will go wrong.

Murphy’s 5th Law – if it is impossible for something to go wrong, then it will definitely go wrong.

Murphy’s 6th Law – Left to themselves, things will go from bad to worse.

Murphy’s 7th Law – if things seem to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

Murphy

From Politics & The English Language

I. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech that you are used to seeing in print.

II. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

III. Always cut words out where possible.

IV. Never use the passive when you can use the active voice

V. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

VI. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

George Orwell

From Poor Richard’s Almanac:

A: An empty bag cannot stand upright.

B. Be always ashamed to catch thyself idle.

C. Cheese and salty meat should be sparingly eat.

D. The Doors of wisdom are never shut.

E. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

F. Full of courtesy, full of craft.

G. God helps them that help themselves.

H. Hunger never saw bad bread.

I. If you'd have a servant that you like, serve your self.

J. If Jack's in love, he's no judge of Jill's beauty.

K. Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee.

L. A Lie stands on one leg, the truth on two.

M. A Man without a wife is but half a man.

N. Nothing but money is sweeter than honey.

O. One today is worth two tomorrows.

P. Pay what you owe and you'll know what's your own.

Q. A Quarrelsome man has no good neighbours.

R. The Rotten apple spoils his companion.

S. Speak little, do much.

T. Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

U. Up, sluggard, and waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping enough.

V. Visits should be short, like a winter's day.

W. Well done is better than well said.

X. A good example is the best sermon.

Y. You may delay, but time will not.

Z. There are lazy minds as well as lazy bodies.

Benjamin Franklin

In school the teacher gives you the problem and then you set about using your analytical skills to solve it. Business is usually different in this way: you often have to FIND the problem yourself before you can even start thinking about a solution. In business, recognizing the problem is just as important as knowing a method to solve it!

Henry Ford II, CEO of Ford Motor Company

Somerset Maughan, the English Writer, once wrote a story about a verger at St Peter's Church in London. One day a young vicar discovered that the verger was illiterate and fired him.

Jobless, the man invested his meagre savings in a tiny tobacco shop, where he prospered, bought another, expanded and ended up with a chain of stores worth several hundred thousand pounds.

One day the man's banker commented, 'You've done well for an illiterate, but where would you be if you could read or write?'

'Well,' replied the man, 'I'd be a verger at St Peter's Church'.

Superior leaders get things done with very little motion. They impart instruction not through many words, but through a few deeds. They keep informed about everything but interfere hardly at all. They are catalysts, and though things would not get done as well if they weren't there, when they succeed they take no credit. And because they take no credit, credit never leaves them.

Lao-Tzu