Kathryn Petras - Dont Forget to Sing in the Lifeboats: Uncommon Wisdom for Uncommon Times

Uncommon Wisdom for Uncommon Times

by Kathryn & Ross Petras

with Illustrations by R. O. Blechman

Workman Publishing New York

Worried about your 401(k)? Your mortgage? Your job? Join the club! Thinking the future looks a little uncertain? Come on in! Feeling as if the pressure cooker of life is getting ready to cook your goose? Here, well make room for you...

Thats the point: Whatever issues were staring down, we are not alone. Indeed, throughout history people have lived in what felt like (and often were) uncommon times. What you hold in your hand is a collection of the insight and wit that helped many of those who came before usas well as a few of our living poets and scholars, singers and statesmenmake it to the other side of difficulty.

This uncommon wisdom includes quotes from people who have been there, done that, and lived to tell the tale. People who have graduated from the school of hard knocks, yet kept a sense of perspectiveand often a sense of humor. People who, like all of us, struggled to keep on keeping on... and usually did.

As the writer Sherry Hochman once said, Every day is a gifteven if it sucks. Or, as our title suggests, courtesy of Voltaire, Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.

Kathryn and Ross Petras
New York City

Life is a crisisso what!

Malcolm Bradbury
Writer

The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.

Victor Hugo
Writer

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And dont pray when it rains if you dont pray when the sun shines.

Leroy Satchel Paige
Baseball player

October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.

Mark Twain
Writer

He who loses wealth loses much. He who loses a friend loses more. But he that loses his courage

loses all.

Miguel de Cervantes
Writer

It even helps stupid people to try hard.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Philosopher

If you think you have it tough, read history books.

Bill Maher
Comedian

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

Victor Hugo
Writer

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.

J.P. Morgan
Financier

For every problem there is a solution which is simple, clean and wrong.

H.L. Mencken
Journalist

Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.

George Washington Carver
Scientist and Inventor

When ones expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have.

Stephen Hawking
Physicist

I know God will not give me anything I cant handle. I just wish that He didnt trust me so much.

Mother Teresa
Humanitarian

Work hard, keep your mouth shut, and answer your mail.

Thomas J. Pendergast
Political boss of Kansas City, giving advice to Harry S Truman when he was leaving to serve his first term in the Senate

Its the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet tender joy.

Fyodor Dostoevsky
Writer

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.

Mark Twain
Writer

Lifes a bitch. Youve got to go out and kick ass.

Maya Angelou
Writer

As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the one thing left to us in a bad time.

E.B. White
Writer

The first rule of holes: when youre in one, stop digging.

Molly Ivins
Writer

I consider myself blessed. I consider you blessed. Weve all been blessed with God-given talents. Mine just happens to be beating people up.

Sugar Ray Leonard
Boxer

Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine.

Thomas Aquinas
Philosopher

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essayist and Philosopher

Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house.

John Cheever
Writer

Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.

Ernestine Ulmer
Writer

People are like stained glass windows: They sparkle and shine when the suns out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light within.

Elizabeth Kbler-Ross
Doctor and Thanatologist

Q. How do you define friendship?

Investor Warren Buffett:

A. I remember asking that question of a woman who had survived Auschwitz. She said her test was, Would they hide me?

There is much to be said for failure. It is more interesting than success.

Max Beerbohm
Parodist and Caricaturist

Whatever tears one may shed, in the end one always blows ones nose.

Heinrich Heine
Writer

Life is tough, but its tougher when youre stupid.

John Wayne
Actor

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.

Ernest Hemingway
Writer

Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable.