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Teaching aids |
Thought for the day Derek Gillard March 1997, revised July 2005, March 2012 HERE ARE 237 Thoughts for the Day for use in classroom assemblies. They are listed randomly so that you can, if you wish, simply work through them in numerical order. They have been selected for use with pupils from age nine upwards, though some are clearly more suitable for older students. There are two indexes (further down this page): Subjects and Sources. If you have any comments, if you spot any errors, or if you know the source of any of the quotes marked 'source unknown', please let me know. I hope you find Thought for the day useful.
Suggestions for using Thought for the Day
Thought for the Day 1 Start as you mean to go on.
2 Improve your argument - don't raise your voice.
3 A lottery is a tax on fools.
4 It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.
5 Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.
6 Treat others as you would like them to treat you.
7 O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul.
8 Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
9 The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.
10 Nuclear waste fades your genes.
11 I wouldn't vote for him 'cause he's queer.
12 It's love, it's love that makes the world go round.
13 The people are the masters.
14 Work is love made visible.
15 The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel.
16 Home is the girl's prison and the woman's workhouse.
17 Empty vessels make most noise.
18 Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
19 It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds.
20 The truth will set you free.
21 Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
22 When he saw him, he went past on the other side.
23 Histories make men wise.
24 Audi partem alteram (Latin = hear the other side).
25 He who builds a lofty entrance invites thieves.
26 I'm not scared of death. I just don't want to be around when it happens.
27 It's the same the whole world over, it's the poor wot gets the blame;
28 A man reaps what he sows.
29 Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy.
30 Out of sight, out of mind.
31 There are only two families in the world - the haves and the have-nots.
32 The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears that this is true.
33 If you strike a child, take care that you strike it in anger, even at the risk of maiming it for life. A blow in cold blood neither can nor should be forgiven.
34 He who expects nothing shall never be disappointed.
35 Je me presse de rire de tout, de peur d'etre oblige d'en pleurer (French = I make myself laugh at everything, for fear of having to weep).
36 All men are created equal.
37 Miracles do not happen.
38 Faith, Sir, we are here today, and gone tomorrow.
39 There is no greater love than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends.
40 We must love one another or die.
41 Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.
42 Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (Latin = Knowledge itself is power).
43 Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own.
44 While there are slaughterhouses there will be battlefields.
45 Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
46 One religion is as true as another.
47 Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
48 To know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom.
49 Life is not a rehearsal.
50 The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty.
51 Expect the best; convert problems into opportunities.
52 I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
53 No great thing is created suddenly any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let is first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
54 Success is a journey, not a destination.
55 Honesty is the best policy; but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.
56 A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
57 Crime doesn't pay.
58 Pass no judgement, and you will not be judged.
59 Happiness comes from spiritual wealth not material wealth.
60 Everyone and everything around you is your teacher.
61 A good name is more to be desired than great riches.
62 Tis a disgrace. Hunting red deer is a central part of our way of life.
63 The only way to have a friend is to be one.
64 If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
65 If you don't know where you're going, you may end up somewhere else.
66 If you are facing in the right direction, all you need to do is keep on walking.
67 You are on the road to success if you realise that failure is only a detour.
68 A good reputation is more valuable than money.
69 Lost time is never found again.
70 This last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.
71 When God created man, she was only experimenting.
72 Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.
73 The love of money is the root of all evil things (often misquoted as "Money is the root of all evil").
74 All women look like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
75 The measure of man's real character is what he would do if he would never be found out.
76 Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
77 What is done is done.
78 A man can fail many times but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame others.
79 The pen is mightier than the sword.
80 God evidently does not intend us all to be rich or powerful or great, but he does intend us all to be friends.
81 Nothing would be done at all, if a man waited till he could do it so well that no-one could find fault with it.
82 The care of the old is a vocation as delicate and difficult as the care of the young.
83 No gift is more precious than good advice.
84 Life is a country that the old have seen, and lived in. Those who have to travel through it can only learn from them.
85 It is better to praise than to criticise.
86 The good which I want to do, I fail to do; but what I do is the wrong which is against my will.
87 An educational system isn't worth a great deal if it teaches children how to make a living but doesn't teach them how to live.
88 There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer.
89 The impossible is the untried.
90 There are two days you should not worry about - yesterday and tomorrow.
91 The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
92 We carry within us the wonders we seek without us.
93 Put your trust in God my boys, and keep your powder dry.
94 Silence is the virtue of fools.
95 Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
96 Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
97 A friend should bear his friend's infirmities.
98 Great heroes are humble.
99 Where there's a will there's a way.
100 If nothing is ventured, nothing is gained.
101 Worry is a rocking chair that gives you something to do, but never gets you anywhere.
102 Every ending is a new beginning.
103 It is a newspaper's duty to print the news and raise hell.
104 It is better to love than to be loved.
105 Ama et fac quod vis (Latin = Love and do what you will).
106 Endless dripping on a rainy day - that is what a nagging wife is like.
107 The strongest cages are the ones we make for ourselves.
108 You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
109 People will continue to commit atrocities as long as they believe in absurdities.
110 Wise men change their minds, fools never.
111 No-one has been barred on account of his race from fighting or dying for America - there are no 'white' or 'coloured' signs on the foxholes or graveyards of battle.
112 I find life an exciting business and most exciting when it is lived for others.
113 I do not agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
114 If you can't say something good, then don't say anything.
115 Opportunity makes a thief.
116 Most people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy trying to place the blame on someone else.
117 Never be ashamed to own that you have been in the wrong, 'tis but saying you are wiser today than you were yesterday.
118 You make more friends by becoming interested in other people than by trying to interest other people in yourself.
119 Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
120 Hail the small courtesies of life, for smooth do they make the road of it.
121 There is sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.
122 The ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator. Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed.
123 People are born gay, just as they are born black, Jewish, or, come to that, English.
124 To a brave heart nothing is impossible.
125 You will never be an inwardly religious and devout man unless you pass over in silence the shortcomings of your fellow man, and diligently examine your own weaknesses.
126 Do not be anxious about tomorrow; tomorrow will look after itself.
127 Money can buy the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine but not health; acquaintance but not friends; servants but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace and happiness.
128 The real measure of our wealth is how much we'd be worth if we lost all our money.
129 If a person gets his attitude to money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area of his life.
130 Shared laughter creates a bond of friendship.
131 Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps: for he is the only animal that is struck by the difference between what things are and what they might have been.
132 One who is always laughing is a fool, and one who never laughs is a knave.
133 A leader is one who knows where he wants to go, and gets up and goes.
134 A good leader takes a little more than his share of blame; a little less than his share of credit. Arnold H Glasgow 135 You cannot be lonely if you help the lonely.
136 To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less.
137 That best portion of a good man's life - His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
138 One kind word can warm three winter months.
139 All of us are parts of one body.
140 A mistake is proof that somebody tried.
141 A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
142 To give pleasure to a single heart by a single kind act is better than a thousand head-bowings in prayer.
143 Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it and conquering it.
144 To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage.
145 If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing badly.
146 Single-sex lessons can boost boys.
147 Health is better than wealth.
148 Health and cheerfulness mutually beget each other.
149 Compassion is the chief law of human existence.
150 By religion one means believing that life has some significance, some meaning.
151 God loves a cheerful giver.
152 Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
153 It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he is something.
154 Money is a good servant but a dangerous master.
155 If you make money your God, it will plague you like the devil.
156 What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
157 Peace is better than war because in peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons.
158 How blest are the peacemakers; God shall call them his sons.
159 Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.
160 Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions.
161 In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
162 What you are is God's gift to you. What you become is your gift to God.
163 It is never too late to give up your prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.
164 Remember God requires not success but faithfulness.
165 The only place where success comes before work is in a dictionary.
166 Pride comes before disaster, and arrogance before a fall.
167 You are only young once but you can stay immature indefinitely.
168 As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
169 An expert is someone who learns more and more about less and less until in the end he knows everything there is to know about nothing.
170 We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.
171 No love that in a family dwells, No carolling in frosty air, Nor all the steeple-shaking bells Can with this single truth compare: That God was man in Palestine And lives today in bread and wine.
172 We plough the fields and scatter The good seed on the land.
173 The rich are the scum of the earth in every country.
174 We spray the fields and scatter The poison on the land.
175 If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and offer him your left.
176 The West keeps its women naked.
177 If it continues to be viewed literally, the Bible, in my opinion, is doomed to be cast aside as both dated and irrelevant.
178 Blind faith can justify anything.
179 The beginning of philosophy is to know the condition of one's own mind.
180 It is arguable that we ought to put the State in order before there can really be such a thing as a State school.
181 If we worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope for advance.
182 Imagination is more important than information.
183 In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.
184 The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
185 The only tyrant I accept in this world is the 'still small voice' within.
186 Love your enemies.
187 Some students never let studying interfere with their education.
188 It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
189 Never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own experience or convictions.
190 To be good is noble. To teach others to be good is nobler, and no trouble.
191 Bishop says fraud is worse than fornication.
192 'There are three things that last for ever: faith, hope and love; but the greatest of them all is love.
193 Am I my brother's keeper?
194 Whate'er we leave to God God does, And blesses us; The work we choose should be our own, God lets alone.
195 Nothing is so beautiful as spring.
196 Christmas is really for the children.
197 If it Ain't Broke, Break It.
198 I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose.
199 When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
200 Money doesn't talk, it swears.
201 Hunger is the best sauce in the world.
202 Happiness is no laughing matter.
203 If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
204 There is properly no history; only biography.
205 We know of no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.
206 Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
207 An eye for an eye - soon the whole world will be blind.
208 There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
209 When seagulls follow a trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.
210 Religion to me has always been the wound, not the bandage.
211 A lifetime of happiness: no man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
212 We brought nothing into the world; for that matter we cannot take anything with us when we leave.
213 Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.
214 An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
215 There was never a good war, or a bad peace.
216 If you do not know what you want to achieve with your life, you may not achieve much.
217 If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well.
218 Initium est dimidium facti (Latin = The beginning is one half of the deed).
219 Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter.
220 An assault upon Jews is an assault upon difference, and a world that has no room for difference has no room for humanity itself.
221 I think it would be a good idea.
222 Of all religions, the Christian is undoubtedly that which should instil the greatest toleration, although so far the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
223 There is in every village a torch: the schoolmaster - and an extinguisher: the parson.
224 There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.
225 A single death is an incident of consequence and pathos, but the death of a million is a matter of statistics.
226 We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough to make us love one another.
227 There will be no lasting peace either in the heart of individuals or in social customs until death is outlawed.
228 All they teach 'em there is carin' and sharin' and bein' nice to each other. That's no use to anyone.
229 Hate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate it. A child who fears becomes an adult who hates.
230 Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kind of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty. 231 Don't rejoice in his defeat, you men.
232 We possess nothing certainly except the past.
233 The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.
234 A cult is a religion with no political power.
235 There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.
236 A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
237 Religion is the opiate of the people.
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