We live in disagreeable times, but that is no reason to be disagreeable.
From The Fears That Bind, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
Two men on the bench by the hardware store spent most of the afternoon agreeing with each other about how bad everything has gotten, and by four o'clock they were snapping at each other over who had said it first. I used to think a sour mood was honest reporting, that a man who smiled through a hard year had not been paying attention. Then I watched the older one shoo a sparrow off the armrest, hard, for no reason I could see. We live in disagreeable times, but that is no reason to be disagreeable. The sparrow came back twice. Switch says that proves something about sparrows, not about men, and he may be right.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- Fight for every inch and you'll rarely move a foot.
- Rarely does all good sense dwell on one side of a fence.
- A cornered animal does not heed wise counsel.
- A hungry tiger is patient only when waiting for the best moment to attack.
- People fight hardest to defend their right not to say what they are fighting about.
- Louder isn't righter.