Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Odd bits of wisdom

Old wives tales, Grandma-and-Grandpa-isms, scoldings, rules, funny sayings, "famous last sayings", cliches, and bits of "wisdom" from my childhood. Some are not fashionable now nor politically correct, so please "don't get bent out of shape". This is not necessarily a statement of my opinions, although we might be a better nation if we still adhered to some of these ideals.


God helps those who help themselves.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The churches should be responsible for helping people, not the government.

Be polite. Be sure to say "please" and "thank you" and "excuse me".

If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

Play fair.

If you can't be a good sport, then you won't play at all.

Always be a good sport even if the other person (or team) cheated to win.

You can be anything you want to be - even the President of the United States.

"I'd rather dig ditches than go on welfare."

Don't accept charity. It's better to starve first.

Don't ever be too proud to scrub toilets or dig ditches for a living.

Can you afford it?

Do you really need that?

Being poor is no excuse for being dirty.

Clean up your plate. There are starving children in China.

What's wrong with it? If it was good enough for me, it should be good enough for you.

If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you, too?

Pride is a sin.

Neither a borrower or a lender be.

What will the neighbors think?

You'll embarrass the family.

Don't do something to ruin our family's good name.

What will people think of you?

What goes around comes around.

The neighbors have eyes.

Walls have ears.

Never put in writing what you don't want someone else to read.

You'll get back twice what you give - good and bad.

People who don't take care of their children shouldn't be allowed to have them.

A good method of birth control is to hold an aspirin between your knees.

The country (meaning Canada under English rule) is run by a bunch of inbred idiots. (I warned you that there might be some politically incorrectness.)

If you get in trouble at school you'll get it twice at home.

A penny earned is a penny saved.

Waste not. Want not.

You have no idea how good you have it.

Yes, you have to go to church.

Quit sitting around feeling sorry for yourself.

No whining.

That's like closing the barn door after the horses got out.

That's like fixing the hole in the fence after the fox got all the chickens.

The nut doesn't fall very far from the tree.

You are not going to school/church looking like that.

Men should remove their hats inside or in the presence of a lady.

Be a gentleman.

A man that hits a woman isn't worth the powder it would take to blow him up.

They should have drowned him when he was a pup.

He should be shot.

You are a young lady. Act like it. (Being a lady was a good thing.)

You were taught better than that.

Stand up when a woman or older person enters the room.

Always offer the older person your seat.

Respect your elders.

Always hold the door for an older person.

It's just junk. It's made in Japan.

Get an education so that you can have a better life than we did.

Don't blame your mistakes on someone else.

If you make a mistake, own up to it. Lying just makes it worse.

Do your own school work. Don't let other people copy your school work; they won't learn anything that way.

Enjoy school while you can. You'll be working the rest of your life.

Real life isn't like what you see on TV.

Don't believe everything that your hear and only about half what you see.


Any more? Would love to see other sayings from the 1970's and especially from earlier times.

1 comment:

Amber said...

So I don't have any cool sayings from the 70's - but I am pretty sure my mom or dad has said most - if not all of those to me at one point or another. I think kids turned out better with things like that said to them. :) I hope I can raise my children to be more respectful!