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Look for "Truer Words" each week in the Press .... sometimes relevant to what's going on in Harvard or in the country, sometimes humorous, sometimes inspirational.
  

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January 12, 2024

"A new year is a clean slate, a chance to suck in your breath, decide all is not lost, and give yourself another chance."

Sarah Overstreet (American columnist)


January 19, 2024

"A normal adolescent isn’t a normal adolescent if he acts normal."

Judith Viorst (b. 1931, American writer and journalist)


January 26, 2024

"A big blizzard proves there’s no global warming in the same way being out of milk proves there’s no such thing as cows."

Dana Gould (b.1964; American stand-up comic, actor, writer)


February 2, 2024

"The groundhog is like most other prophets; it delivers its prediction and then disappears."

Bill Vaughn (1915–1977, American columnist and author)


February 9, 2024

"Love doesn’t make the world go round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile."

Franklin P. Jones (1908–1980, American writer and humorist)


February 16, 2024

"I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one ‘race’ ... the human race ... and that we are all members of it."

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939; Canadian poet, novelist, and activist)


February 23, 2024

"Children seldom misquote you. They more often repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said."

Mae Maloo


March 1, 2024

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: When it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade."

Charles Dickens (1812–1870, English novelist and social critic)


March 8, 2024

"The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said."

Peter Drucker (1909–2025, Austrian American educator and author)


March 15, 2024

"May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live."

Irish blessing


March 22, 2024

"A budget tells us what we can’t afford, but it doesn’t keep us from buying it."

William Feather (1889–1981, American publisher and writer)


March 29, 2024

"Mix a little foolishness with your prudence. It’s good to be silly at the right moment."

Horace (65–8 BC, Roman poet and satirist)


April 5, 2024

"Someone struggled for your right to vote. Use it."

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906, American social reformer and activist)

 


April 12, 2024

"People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them."

Dave Barry (b. 1947, American author and humorist)


April 19, 2024

"Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost."

Martina Navratilova (b. 1956, Czechoslovakian-born American tennis star)


April 26, 2024

"To leave the world better than you found it, sometimes you have to pick up other people’s trash."

Bill Nye (b. 1955, American scientist, educator, and television host)


May 3, 2024

"If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month."

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919, 26th U.S. president)


May 10, 2024

"When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' it’s a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway."

Erma Bombeck (1927–1995, American humorist)


May 17, 2024

"Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened."

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015, British satirist and author)


May 24, 2024

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it."

Mark Twain (1835–1910, American writer and humorist)


May 31, 2024

"It isn’t so much what’s on the table that matters, as what’s on the chairs."

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911, English dramatist and poet)


June 7, 2024

"There is a good reason they call these ceremonies 'commencement exercises.' Graduation is not the end, it’s the beginning.

Orrin Hatch (1934–2022, American attorney and politician)


June 14, 2024

"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was high school."

Anonymous


June 21, 2024

"Summer afternoon, summer afternoon ... the two most beautiful words in the English language."

Henry James (1843–1916, American-British author)


June 28, 2024

"Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets."

Yogi Berra (1925–2015, American baseball star)


July 5, 2024

"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness."

Erma Bombeck (1927–1995, American humorist)


July 12, 2024

"Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something."

Regina Brett (b. 1956, American writer and inspirational speaker)


August 16, 2024

"The dangerous man is not the critic but the noisy, empty 'patriot' who encourages us to indulge in orgies of self-congratulation."

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984, English novelist and playwright)


August 23, 2024

"If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers."

Edgar W. Howe (1853–1937, American novelist and editor)


August 30, 2024

"You send your child to the schoolmaster, but ’tis the schoolboys who educate him."

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882, American poet, essayist, and philosopher)


September 6, 2024

"That old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books, and football in the air ..."

Wallace Stegner (1909-1993, American writer and environmentalist)


September 13, 2024

"Forget the stock market. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your back pocket."

Will Rogers (1879–1935, American actor and humorist)


September 20, 2024

"A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer."

Robert Frost (1874–1963, American poet)


September 27, 2024

"As you get older, three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can’t remember the other two."

Sir Norman Wisdom (1915–2010, British actor and musician)


October 4, 2024

"A bargain is something you don’t need at a price you can’t resist."

Franklin P. Jones (1908–1980, American writer and humorist)


October 11, 2024

"October is crisp days and cool nights, a time to curl up around the dancing flames and sink into a good book."

John Sinor (1930–1996, American author and columnist)


October 18, 2024

"Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it."

Robert Frost (1874–1963, American poet)


October 25, 2024

"All the blood is drained out of democracy ... it dies when only half the population votes."

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005, American author and journalist)


November 1, 2024

"A vote is like a rifle: Its usefulness depends upon the character of the user."

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919, 26th U.S. president)


November 8, 2024

"The election is over, and even though there are people who have different ideologies and beliefs, from now on we must all embrace each other."

Chen Shui-bian (b. 1950, Taiwanese politician and lawyer)


November 15, 2024

"And they who for their country die shall fill an honored grave, for glory lights the soldier’s tomb, and beauty weeps the brave."

Joseph Rodman Drake (1795–1820, American poet)


November 22, 2024

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–1963, 35th American president)


November 29, 2024

"Family is just accident. They don’t mean to get on your nerves. They don’t even mean to be your family, they just are."

Marsha Norman (b. 1947, American playwright and novelist)


December 6, 2024

"How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness, how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?"

Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Geisel (1904–1991, American children’s author and cartoonist)


December 13, 2024

"We’re deep into the holiday gift-giving season, as you can tell from the fact that everywhere you look you see jolly old St. Nick urging you to purchase things, to the point where you want to slug him right in his bowl full of jelly."

Dave Barry (b. 1947, American author and humorist)


December 20, 2024

"So the shortest day came, and the year died, and everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world, came people singing, dancing, to drive the dark away."

Susan Cooper (b. 1935, British author)

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