(this is likely based on the Dave Barry observation,
“You should not confuse your career with your life”)
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.
(and this is almost certainly an adaptation
of a line from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1935 novel Tender Is the Night:
“In any case you mustn’t confuse a single failure with a final defeat”)
Never permit failure to become a habit.WILLIAM F. BOOK, in How to Succeed in College (1927)
Here’s a rule I recommend:
Never practice two vices at once.TALLULAH BANKHEAD
In his 1954 play The Matchmaker, Thornton Wilder has the character Malachi Stack deliver another well-known thought on the subject of vices:
I discovered an important rule that I’m going to pass on to you:
Never support two weaknesses at a time.
It’s your combination sinners—
your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards—
who dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute.
Never be grandiloquent when you want to drive home a searching truth.HENRY WARD BEECHER, in an 1870 speech at the Yale Divinity School
Beecher urged preachers to avoid “a literary style” of oratory that used “words and phrases peculiar to literature alone, and not to common life.” He introduced the advice by saying, “Involved sentences, crooked, circuitous, and parenthetical, no matter how musically they may be balanced, are prejudicial to a facile understanding of the truth.” Grandiloquence, a word rarely used today, means “pompous or bombastic speech.”
Never let money control you.RITA MAE BROWN, in Writing from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writer’s Manual (1988)
Brown added: “I’d rather see someone spend every red cent and relish his/her life than scrimp, obsess, and pinch the pennies. There’s something repugnant about a person who centers his life around money.”
Never speak of the past any more than you can help.GELETT BURGESS, quoted in a 1973 issue of Forbes magazine
Never despair. But if you do, work on in despair.EDMUND BURKE, piggybacking on “Never despair,” a saying from the Roman poet known as Horace (first century B.C.)
Never negotiate in a hurry.AARON BURR
This was one of Burr’s favorite sayings—and one he offered to many clients in his role as a lawyer. Dr. Phil McGraw provided an updated version in Relationship Rescue (2000):
Never be in a hurry when making decisions,
the consequences of which will be around for a long time.
Read only useful books;
and never quit a subject till you are thoroughly master of it.LORD CHESTERFIELD (Philip Dormer Stanhope)
Chesterfield offered this advice to his son in a 1748 letter. In a 1759 letter, he continued the theme: “In short, let it be your maxim through life, to know all you can know, yourself; and never to trust implicitly to the information of others.”
Never go back to a place where you have been happy.
Until you do it remains alive for you. If you go back it will be destroyed.AGATHA CHRISTIE, from her 1977 autobiography
Never . . . esteem men on account of their riches, or their station.
Respect goodness, find it where you may.WILLIAM COBBETT, in Advice to Young Men (1829)
Never let your persistence and passion turn into stubbornness and ignorance.ANTHONY J. D’ANGELO, in The College Blue Book (1995)
When D’Angelo was a college senior at Pennsylvania’s West Chester University, he tried to condense everything he had learned over his college experience into several hundred recommendations that might benefit other students. After graduation, he founded his own personal empowerment company, spoke on the college lecture circuit, and became a contributing editor to Chicken Soup for the College Soul (1999). The tips in his original Blue Book borrowed heavily from the self-help and inspirational literature, and they ranged from the serious to the silly:
Never stop learning; knowledge doubles every fourteen months.
Never rent an apartment with electric heat unless you live in the south.
Never play Twister naked unless you have a can of non-stick cooking spray.
Never drink alcohol when you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired.
Booze will only exacerbate these emotions.
Never harbor grudges; they sour your stomach and do no harm to anyone else.ROBERTSON DAVIES, from a character in Murther & Walking Spirits (1991)
Never get bored or cynical.WALT DISNEY
Never wave at a video camera.ESQUIRE MAGAZINE EDITORS, in The Rules: A Man’s Guide to Life (2005)
For many years, Esquire has run a feature on rules men can use to guide their lives. In 2005, the editors compiled the best rules and published them in an attractive coffee-table book. Of the 697 entries, many were expressed neveristically. Other rules can be found in later chapters of this book, but here are a few more that fit under the advice rubric:
Never select a tattoo just because it’s on sale.
Never be the one to start—or finish—a stadium “wave.”
If you’re younger than 80,
you should never utter the phrase “the whole kit and kaboodle.”
Never give a party if you will be the most interesting person there.MICKEY FRIEDMAN
Never argue with the inevitable.PATRICIA FRIPP
Fripp, a popular corporate speaker, was likely inspired by a famous observation from the American poet James Russell Lowelclass="underline" “There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.”
Never feel compelled to finish everything on your plate.DR. SANJAY GUPTA, in a February 2001
issue of Men’s Journal
Gupta wrote this in an article titled “The Completely Doable Guide to Living to 100.” The advice runs counter to a lesson many received as children (“clean your plate”), but most experts agree that eating less is an important key to living longer. Regarding the amount of food to eat, Gupta provided this helpful rule of thumb: “Never take a portion that is bigger than the size of your palm.” A few years earlier, Dr. Wayne Dyer said similarly:
Never eat by anyone else’s timetable.
Rid yourself of thoughts like, “It’s supper time, I guess I should eat.”
Consult your body. Is it hungry?
Never bear more than one trouble at a time.
Some people bear three kinds—