Tender-Hearted Neelsie

A Few of His Words

• "Half of you (the South African Parliament) are a bunch of donkeys." Upon the demand that he retracts or be censured, he replied: "I stand corrected. Half of you are not a bunch of donkeys."
  
  
• God made the world like a knife. We have the choice to take it by the handle or the blade.
• Don't listen to a man who says we have to work together as a team. He means we have to work as he says.
• There are dogs that only have to growl. They have already proved that they can bite.
  
• Some parents warn their kids, but never get so far as to actually punish them. It would be better if they just gave their kids permission to do wrong.
  
  
• Avoid being a bad fighter - it is bad enough that you got into the fight in the first place. If you lose, then the at least you should be proud of the way that you have conducted yourself. If you win, then do it in such a way that you will not have the same trouble tomorrow.
• There are people who are so cautious that they are careful not to waste their fear.
• To tell untruths is like hiding in a house with no back door.
  
• We all take good care of our health after we had damaged it beyond repair.
  
  
• It takes a well-practiced thinker to keep his own opinion in check.
• It does not help to have your oxen die from the thirst while you debate over which road will get you to the waterhole first.
• You have the right to be a coward regarding your own stuff. You have no right to be a coward regarding someone else's - it is not yours to give up.
  
• Being right in an argument usually has a negative profit.
  
  
• Always look men in the eye: your father was also a man; but take your hat off for women, because your mother was a woman.
• Perform good work, even to those who do not care. The man who cares will see it and order something from you.
• It does not mean much to be important. The most important man at a burial is dead.
• Your eyes are open, unless you shut them. Your mouth is closed unless you open it. Nothing is ever said, unless you said it on purpose.
  


• For every happy tongue, there are many unhappy ears.
• Be careful if you mix friendship and business. You might ruin both.
• To test a man, determine how much it takes to make him lie.
  
  
• Yes is like credit, No is like cash.
• Be kind to your enemy. Even if he is wrong, he has the right to differ from you.
• It could be disastrous to speak your mind while you are deep in thought.
• People who do not like to work like to keep others from their work.
  
  
• Don’t come to someone with an argument. He might think you always look like that.
• Before you envy my shining shoes, take a moment to think about the bunions that they cover up.
• Plow the rocky soil yourself, and let your servant plow where the dirt is soft. This way you will retain them both.
• Many people better than you and me have been here before us. After they have died we have somehow managed to survive.
  
  
• One time I have decided to be straightforward and to tell everyone exactly what I thought. I quickly changed my mind when my neighbors started doing the same thing to me.
  
• On his gravestone: "Do not analyze my strengths and my weaknesses. God will do that much better.". (Liberal Translation).
  

More Information on C.J. Langenhoven

Mark Twain

Selected Quotes

• When in doubt, tell the truth.
  
  
• France has neither winter nor summer nor morals - apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.
• For the majority of us, the past is a regret, the future an experiment.
• In God We Trust. I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true.
• Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
  
  
• Travel has no longer any charm for me. I have seen all the foreign countries I want to except heaven and hell, and I have only a vague curiosity about one of those.
• We may not doubt that society in heaven consists mainly of undesirable persons.
• As a rule, we go about with masks, we go about looking honest, and we are able to conceal ourselves all through the day.
• The human race consists of the dangerously insane and such as are not.
  
  
• Humor is the good natured side of a truth.
• The man with a new idea is a Crank until the idea succeeds.
• The fact is the human race is not only slow about borrowing valuable ideas- it sometimes persists in not borrowing them at all.
• You can't depend on your judgement when your imagination is out of focus.
  
  
• The greatest of all inventors is called Accident.
• Grief can take care of itself, but to get full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
• Man is a figment of God's imagination.
• If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
  
  
• Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.
• Man is a Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute.
• Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: the one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.
• All of us contain Music and Truth, but most of us can't get it out.
  
  
• It was not best that we would all think alike; it is the difference of opinion that makes horse races.
• All good things arrive unto them that wait - and don't die in the meantime.
• Man is kind enough when he is not excited by religion.
• A scientist will never show any kindness for a theory which he did not start himself.
  
  
• The first time I ever saw St. Louis, I could have bought it for six million dollars, and it was the mistake of my life that I did not do it.
• What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
• Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
  
• A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be led by the nose.
  
  
• It is wiser to find out than suppose.
• Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
• I do not like work even when someone else does it.
  
• We write frankly and fearlessly but then we "modify" before we print.
  
  
• We ought never to do wrong when people are looking.
• The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

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