In my idle senility I do a lot of reading. I thought I’d offer a brief compendium of quotations from people who are smarter than most of us. They obviously spent time pondering what is real. Most of us are preoccupied with our various appetites, than what makes the world go around.

Dr. Charles R. Swindoll. I do not know his history, but his book, “Man to Man” was published in 1996. He was listed as the president of the Dallas Theological Seminary;

“On Attitude: The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failure, than what people think, or say, or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company … a church … a home. The remarkable think is, we have a choice regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past … we cannot change the fact that people will react in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you … we are in charge of our attitudes.”

Albert Einstein (1879-1955). He was not an atheist, as many have supposed of most scientists.

“God does not make mistakes.”

“The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.”

“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them and do nothing.”

“Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”

“Evil does not exist Sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith or love, that exist such as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when a man does not have Gods love present in his heart. It’s like the cold that comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is no light.” Thanks Albert.

James Allen’s book “As A Man Thinketh, printed in 1903: “Man is a growth by law, and not a creation by artifice, and cause and effect are as absolute and undeviating in the hidden realm of thought as in the world of visible and material things. Man is made or unmade by himself; In the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace. By the right choice and true application of thought man ascends to the divine perfection.

In his recent book “The Universal Christ” (2019) Franciscan Priest Richard Rohr from New Mexico has a very meaningful line. “Remember, the only thing that separates you from God, is the thought that you are separate from God.”

From historian Charles A. Beard (1874-1948) “The world is not a mere bog,in which men and women trample themselves into the mire and die. Something magnificent is taking place here, among the cruelties and tragedies … The supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best of our curious heritage prevail.” Also from Beard —

“A man is a failure who goes through life earning nothing but money.”

From Ernest Holmes book “This Thing Called You” “The limitation of locomotion and travel in ox cart days was not imposed by divine fiat. It was imposed by ignorance.” And from Holmes book “The Science of Mind.” “All human misery is the result of ignorance; and nothing but knowledge can free us from this ignorance and its effect.”

And so it goes. May God bless America.

Richard Westlund is a Collins resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com