Five years ago I created a feature on MORE TO COME to capture some of my favorite sayings without having to write an entire post. I labeled it More to Consider. 

I’ve long been a fan of the pithy proverb—a quote or bit of advice that contains truth in 20 words or less. “Social media is an aphorism machine,” notes the New York Times in Your best advice of 2024. “Any bit of marginally useful wisdom has been reproduced in a paintbrush font and shared a million times on Instagram or TikTok.” 

This was news to me as I’m not on platforms like Instagram. My love for the short and to-the-point adage is much more old school, coming from my Grandmother Brown, who was known to say things such as,

“The graveyard is full of people who thought the world couldn’t get along without them.”

Mary Dixie Bearden Brown (among others).

I admit I might have heard that particular one when she thought I was getting too big for my britches. Grandmother, who passed away in January of 1981, was definitely not a social media influencer, although her life had a great impact on mine.

After posting these pithy proverbs on MTC and collecting them in summaries every six months, I decided to use 2024 to reprise some of my favorites from the first five years. * So, as one of those favorites instructs us . . .

“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

Mary Oliver

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BE USEFUL AS WELL AS ORNAMENTAL

Grandmother admonished me to get up off the couch and get to work with what became, in later life, one of my favorite bits of advice.

“Make yourself useful as well as ornamental.”

Mary Dixie Bearden Brown

Getting there may be difficult, but I find myself drawn to these calls to reach for your potential, as the effort is worth it.

“Our potential is one thing, what we do with it is quite another.”

Angela Duckworth, from “Grit”

“Difficulty is always a school, though learning is optional.”

Rebecca Solnit

“Hope is hearing the music of the future; belief is dancing to it.”

The Rev. Dr. Francis Wade

“On occasion we write a sentence that isn’t, in fact, correct, but it sings. And the question is: Would you rather be the ornithologist or the bird?”

Colum McCann

“The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is so we might listen more and talk less.”

Zeno

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LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Following the simple Biblical admonition to love your neighbor has never been easy, but our retreat into tribes and social media rabbit holes seems to have made it worse in recent decades. Several of my favorite adages speak to this challenge, from finding loveliness in the world around us, to watching what you say about others.

“To live with ugliness, we must hallow loveliness / the more, remembering that it often springs / from mud into light-filled air.”

Judith Farr from “What Lies Beyond”

“Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

Fannie Lou Hamer

“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.”

Mark Twain

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”

Susan B. Anthony

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FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY

It is clear that America is in a fight to save democracy. Some of my favorite aphorisms from the past five years speak to this time of trial.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

Desmund Tutu

“Power doesn’t corrupt, it reveals.”

Robert Caro

“To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.”

Octavia Butler

“A sense of history is an antidote to self-pity and self-importance.”

David McCullough

“The assault on 2024 is a crock-pot coup, simmering low and slow, under cover, breaking down the fibers of our electoral system, until one day democracy itself is cooked.“

Anand Giridharadas

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Upton Sinclair

“America has many problems. Reading too many books is not one of them.”

Ryan Holiday

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REMEMBER WHAT MATTERS

Two of my favorites from the first five years have at least a tangential relationship to sports, the first from an article about robo-umpires in baseball, and the second a classic quote from Buffalo Bills coach Marv Levy about what’s really important.

“The strike zone is a fretless bass. Historically, a certain discretion has been appreciated.”

Zach Helfand in a New Yorker article on robo-umpires

“No game is a must-win. World War II was a must-win.”

Marv Levy

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WHATEVER ELSE STRIKES MY FANCY

The final set of favorites cover a grab bag of topics and truth.

“The edge of things is a liminal space—a holy place or, as the Celts called it, ‘a thin place.’ Most of us have to be taught how to live there.”

Richard Rohr

“Expectations are resentments under construction.”

Anne Lamott

“Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.”

James Baldwin

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”

Groucho Marx

“The kindest person in the room is often the smartest.”

J.B. Pritzker

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

Mary Oliver

We can all do much worse than to follow the “instructions for life” by Mary Oliver.

More to come . . .

DJB

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* After the initial More to Consider post pulling together the first group highlighted, I brought out Volume 2: A plethora of pithy proverbs followed with Volume 3: A profusion of pithy proverbs and Volume 4: A plentitude of pithy proverbs. I finally turned to the Super Bowl system (minus the pretentious Roman numerals) with I love the pithy proverb — Volume 5, Volume 6, Volume 7, Volume 8, and Volume 9. For this 10th volume, I highlighted some personal favorites from the first nine editions. This post was originally titled “Best of five years of More to Consider” but then I decided to keep the numbered editions going.

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Photo of pithy proverbs from Pixabay