George Horace Lorimer Quotes

It is good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things money can't buy.

You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction.

If there's anything worse than knowing too little, it's knowing too much. Education will broaden a narrow mind, but there's no known cure for a big head. The best you can hope is that it will swell up and bust.

Colleges don't make fools, they only develop them.

Every fellow is really two men -- what he is and what he might be; and you're never absolutely sure which you're going to bury till he's dead.

As the Christian's sorrows multiply, his patience grows, until, with sweet, unruffled quiet, he can confront the ills of life, and, though inwardly wincing, can calmly pursue his way to the restful grave, while his old, harsh voice is softly cadenced into sweetest melody, like the faint notes of an angel's whispered song. As patience deepens, charity and sympathy increase.

Never threaten, because a threat is a promise to pay that it isn't always convenient to meet, but if you don't make it good it hurts your credit. Save a threat till you're ready to act, and then you won't need it.

Because a fellow has failed once or twice or a dozen times, you don't want to set him down as a failure till he's dead or loses his courage.

Doing the same thing in the same way year after year is like eating a quail a day for thirty days. Along toward the middle of the month a fellow begins to long for a broiled crow or a slice of cold dog.

Never ask a man what he knows, but what he can do.

When a fortune comes without calling, it's apt to leave without asking.

When you make a mistake, don't make a second one -- keeping it to yourself. Own up. The time to sort out rotten eggs is at the nest. The deeper you hide them in the case the longer they stay in circulation, and the worse impression they make when they finally come to the breakfast table.

What you know is a club for yourself, and what you don't know is a meat-ax for the other fellow.

After forty years of close acquaintance with it, I've found that work is kind to its friends and harsh to its enemies. It pays the fellow who dislikes it his exact wages, and they're generally pretty small; but it gives the man who shines up to it all the money he wants and throws in a heap of fun and satisfaction for good measure.

Believe me, it is no time for words when the wounds are fresh and bleeding; no time for homilies when the lightning's shaft has smitten, and the man lies stunned and stricken. Then let the comforter be silent; let him sustain by his presence, not by his preaching; by his sympathetic silence, not by his speech.

Were we all one body, we should lose the tremendous stimulation that comes from the present arrangement, and I fear that our uniformity would become the uniformity of death and the tomb.

Let patriotism have its high days and freedom its monuments, and let the triumphs of navigators and generals be annually observed; but surely, beyond all these, a season that stands for as much to the race as Easter does may well be remembered each year with songs and flowers and with every mark of gratitude and of loftiest jubilation.

Appearances are deceitful, I know, but so long as they are, there's nothing like having them deceive for us instead of against us.

Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible.

I ain't one of those who believe that a half knowledge of a subject is useless, but it has been my experience that when a fellow has that half knowledge he finds it's the other half which would really come in handy.

In all your dealings, remember that today is your opportunity; tomorrow some other fellow's.

Consider carefully before you say a hard word to a man, but never let a chance to say a good one go by. Praise judiciously bestowed is money invested.

There is one excuse for every mistake a man can make, but only one. When a fellow makes the same mistake twice he's got to throw up both hands and own up to carelessness or cussedness.

You've got to preach short sermons to catch sinners.

A business man's conversation should be regulated by fewer and simpler rules than any other function of the human animal. They are: Have something to say. Say it. Stop talking.

The aim of the college, for the individual student, is to eliminate the need in his life for the college; the task is to help him become a self-educating man.

It isn't what a man's got in the bank, but what he's got in his head, that makes him a great merchant.

Say less than the other fellow and listen more than you talk; for when a man's listening he isn't telling on himself and he's flattering the fellow who is.

The easiest way in the world to make enemies is to hire friends.

The world is full of bright men who know all the right things to say and who say them in the wrong place.

I remember reading once that some fellows use language to conceal thought; but it's been my experience that a good many more use it instead of thought.

The great secret of good management is to be more alert to prevent a man's going wrong than eager to punish him for it.

When the tongue lies, the eyes tell the truth.

It's all right when you are calling on a girl or talking with friends after dinner to run a conversation like a Sunday-school excursion, with stops to pick flowers; but in the office your sentences should be the shortest distance possible between periods.

A tactful man can pull the stinger from a bee without getting stung.

Beginning before you know what you want to say and keeping on after you have said it lands a merchant in a lawsuit or the poorhouse, and the first is a shortcut to the second.

Naturally, when a young fellow steps up into a big position, it breeds jealousy among those whom he's left behind and uneasiness among those to whom he's pulled himself up. Between them he's likely to be subjected to a lot of petty annoyances. But he's in the fix of a dog with fleas who's chasing a rabbit -- if he stops to snap at the tickling on his tail, he's going to lose his game dinner.

Give fools the first and women the last word.

There are two unpardonable sins in this world -- success and failure.

You'll find that education's about the only thing lying around loose in this world, and that it's about the only thing a fellow can have as much of as he's willing to haul away. Everything else is screwed down tight and the screw-driver lost.

A lesson learned at the muzzle has the virtue of never being forgotten.

It's been my experience that every man has in him the possibility of doing well some one thing, no matter how humble, and that there's some one, in some place, who wants that special thing done. The difference between a fellow who succeeds and one who fails is that the first gets out and chases after the man who needs him, and the second sits around waiting to be hunted up.

Those who succeed can't forgive a fellow for being a failure, and those who fail can't forgive him for being a success.

Procrastination is the longest word in the language, but there's only one letter between its ends when they occupy their proper places in the alphabet.

Having money and buying things with money is a good thing. But also do not forget to check occasionally to lose if you do not buy anything with money or not

When a fellow's got what he set out for in this world, he should go off into the woods for a few weeks now and then to make sure that he's still a man, and not a plug-hat and a frock-coat and a wad of bills.

Books are all right, but dead men's brains are no good unless you mix a live one's with them.

When an office begins to look like a family tree, you'll find worms tucked away snug and cheerful in most of the apples.

A fellow and his business should be bosom friends in the office and sworn enemies out of it.

True love is not only blind, but too gallant to ask a lady's age.