The story is told of a New York City school teacher who decided he needed to see a psychiatrist. Determined to get first-class help, he picked one with a fashionable Park Avenue address. When he entered the beautifully decorated reception room, he found no one in attendance. Then he saw two beautifully paneled doors labeled …
NOTHING BUT PASTE Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace” tells the sad story of a young woman named Mathilde who dreamed, as many do, of making it in high society. However, she was the wife of an ordinary French citizen. One day Mathilde’s husband obtained an invitation to attend an elegant ball. Thoroughly delighted, Mathilde borrowed …
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TECHNOLOGY MADE RIGHT The following is from Bucky Fuller who is called the “godfather” of the Whole Earth Catalog… Humanity is acquiring the right technology for all the wrong reasons – and only as driven by looming wars and the fear of being annihilated by the enemy. Humanity could acquire the technology for the purpose …
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THE DIAMOND The sannyasi had reached the outskirts of the village and settled down under a tree for the night when a villager came running up to him and said, “The stone! The stone! Give me the precious stone!” “What stone?” asked the sannyasi. “Last night the Lord Shiva appeared to me in a dream,” …
INSURANCE POLICY During the midst of the Great Depression of the 1930’s, a poverty-burdened older woman approached the front desk of an insurance office in Minneapolis. She wanted to know if she could stop making payments on the yellowed policy clutched in her farm-weathered fingers. The clerk gave it a perfunctory glance, then studied it …
ANTIQUE OR JUNK Grandpa says one way to get rich is to develop the ability to tell exactly when a piece of junk becomes an antique. From “The Way I Heer’d It” by Jim Reed, The Ozarks Mountaineer, May-June, 1985
BROKE MEN ARE WORTHLESS A good horse thoroughly broke is worth a goodly sum… but a good man thoroughly broke isn’t worth a cent.From “The Way I Heer’d It” by Jim Reed, The Ozarks Mountaineer, May-June, 1985
OLD FORTUNES Old folks are worth a fortune, with silver in their hair, gold in their teeth, stones in their kidneys, lead in their feet, and gas in their stomachs.
THE RICHES OF FATHERS A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.
UNHEALTHY TIMING From under a beach umbrella: “Just when I can afford to lie in the sun, they decide it’s hazardous to my health.”
By the time a man can afford to buy one of those exotic little sports cars, he’s too fat to get into it.
CONTINUAL PROSPERITY Everything in the world can be endured, except continual prosperity. — Goethe
FILTHY LUCRE Sandor Ferenczi, the Hungarian disciple of Sigmund Freud, once wrote an article with the title “On the Ontogenesis of the Interest in Money.” Anticipating some of the attitudes of the 1960s, the doctor compared coins with body waste: “It is nothing but odorless dehydrated filth that has been made to shine.” Peter Hay
LIVING BELOW YOUR MEANS Curly was a pig farmer. He was different. Curly never washed – either himself or his clothes. Some folk reckoned that when he went to bed, his trousers would stand in the corner. When you visited Curly, he was always glad to see you. His front door was always open–it was …
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BLESSINGS IN PROPER PERSPECTIVE A businessman had an angel come to visit him who promised to grant him one request. The man requested a copy of the stock-market quotes for one year in the future. As he was studying the future prices on the AMEX and the New York Stock Exchanges he boasted of his …
TWO ROADS TO WEALTH Choose your journey; there are two roads to wealth. One road requires an increase in your level of money and possessions. The other road simply requires a decrease in your level of material expectations. From Michael Hodgin
DOING WITHOUT Editor George W. Hunt wrote this in the winter on the hundredth anniversary of his father’s birth: “To our eyes, the world of 1895 looks like a world ‘without’ in every… imaginable way. Without? One can’t help but admire my father’s generation. They seemed to just do things without whining, without the need …
POWER OF RESTRAINT To have what we want is riches, but to be able to do without is power. — Donald Grant
WHEN ENOUGH IS ENOUGH A story is told about William Randolph Hearst, the late newspaper publisher. Hearst invested a fortune in collecting great works of art. One day he read about some valuable pieces of art and decided that he must add them to his collection. He sent his agent abroad to locate and purchase …
THE HUSK OR THE KEARNEL Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you good food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.” Henrik Ibsen