Research

I was introduced to one of those comprehensive email pass-alongs that included a list of “pithy sayings” by my grandson who read me the whole list while he held me (his audience) captive. We were riding in the car, and I couldn't very easily jump out.

It wasn't the torture that you might think. There were some good aphorisms, and most of them were funny. Of course everything is funny when you are overtired.

Given my propensity for distrusting any statement when it is associated with the word “research,” one of the witticisms caught my attention.

It went like this: “ To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many
is research.”

Since none of the dictums in the list gave due credit, I will simply have to conduct some research and perhaps analyze or organize them if I want to use them. Right? I can do that.

This first group is strategies for dealing with yourself or others when intelligence might be an issue.
-Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
-Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
-If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong.
-Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
-Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.
While I am organizing, here are some clever sayings for the social/political category:
-War does not determine who is right—only who is left.
-Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
-The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
-Evening news is where they begin with 'Good evening', and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.
-Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

Here is a category called “The Workplace”
-I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted pay checks.
-A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

Irony is one of the best kinds of humor:
-How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
-To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.
-Some people hear voices. Some see invisible people. Others have no imagination whatsoever.
-A bus is a vehicle that runs twice as fast when you are after it as when you are in it.
-Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion
stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?