Robert J. Burdette

“ A great deal more than ever I did, even in the days that were ripples of dimples on the sunlit eddies of a river of laughter. How could life be best lived without it—God’s exclusive gift to his human children? Laughter is a good servant. But don’t overwork him or he will sulk, and maybe strike for shorter hours. Don’t smile so much all day that the corners of your mouth droop with weariness when you come home [17] at night. “Always leave them with a laugh” is the axiom of a commercial traveler who has no home. Laughter is cheery, good-natured, willing, but wearies easily. ”

“ A man can hardly be so bad that he will not have some friends who believe in him and who stick to him. But the trouble with a bad man is, that his friends are so much like himself he would be much better off without any.
[11] It is pleasant to have people love you who do not know you. But oh, the immeasurable love of a friend who has found you out, who knows you through and through, and still loves you. Well, that’s the way God loves us.
It has been a good world to me. I have always had more friends than I could count and more good fortune than I could measure. ”

“ The child is fearless, knowing nothing. So he grasps the flaming candle. The old man is cautious, knowing too much. He knows that ice burns like fire. And another thing to be remembered about this book of life which every one of us is writing, each for himself. ”

“ The Shadowless Land, “where we shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; [22] where God shall dwell with men, and they shall be His people, and He shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
The shadows are deeping around the pond and the stream is singing itself to sleep. But there is yet a little grist in the hopper, and while the water serves I will keep on grinding. ”

“ But the two hearts, one old as the ashes of last year’s camp fires, the other young and fragrant as the roses of this June morning, have knitted themselves together with a love that will outlive Time. ”

“ WHO, with tottering baby steps, is coming in to the entrance of the Stage of Life, just as her Grandfather, with footsteps equally uncertain, is slowly passing out at its Exit. The baby, doubtless wondering much that the World should be so immeasurably large. He certainly, marvelling, as he looks back, that a Stage so small and circumscribed could hold so many people. ”

“ The world is just as funny as ever. But the fun has changed with the point of view. Don’t you understand, son? It’s the old story of the frogs and the boys. Humor is a matter of personal taste, to a great extent. What sends your neighbor into convulsions of mirth may disgust you to the very soul. ”

“ IS THERE such a thing as a “philosophy of life?” Life is the philosophy of everything; the study of all things; the testing of all things.
The lucky man is he who despises luck. The unlucky one is the fellow who worships it. ”

“ The heart always has ruled the world, and it always will. Love is the best teacher in the universe, because it is the most patient. The race of mankind is wise and strong, as it is today, only because ten thousand years of our stupidity, our obstinacy and our ingratitude haven’t wearied God. ”

“ One of the meanest things about sowing wild oats is that the profligate scatters about half the seed on some good man’s wheat field. And more than half the wild oats turn out to be rye.
Whenever you begin to complain that you are not appreciated, you are plainly off your job. When a dog is chasing a rabbit he doesn’t care whether you call him pet names or throw stones at him.
Very few men are vain, I think. But all men love comfort as their chief joy. There isn’t one man in a thousand who would exchange his good digestion for a handsome face. ”

“ You do not see the storm gathering above your home, with black destruction in its whirling wings. You cannot see the tiny tongue of flame catching at the corner of the room in which you sleep. You do not hear the robber stealthily unfastening the fancied security of lock and bolt. You know absolutely nothing of the score of evils that may be threatening your peace and safety. ”

“ She looks at her Grandfather with the Wonder-Wisdom in the baby eyes, but she does not know what he is thinking, nor how much he knows. And he, looking at the Little One with the meditative inquiry of Old Age, knows just as little what she is thinking, just as little how much she knows. ”

“ Twice I have seen men murdered at the gaming table—and each murder was followed by a hanging. Hard to write funny poker stories with those grisly phantoms of blood and strangling leering up into your face from the white sheet under your pen. Eh? And when there was nothing else to write about on a dull day, the drunkard was always an unfailing figure for comedy. What could be funnier than a drunken man? Well, now I can no more appreciate the drunken man, even on the comic stage, than the wife whose face he bruised with his clenched fist could appreciate the antics of her drunken husband. ”

“ But this Heaven of ours—no man, no circumstance can ever shake my faith in that. As the sun sinks lower and the skies grow darker in the deepening twilight, the star of Faith shines more brightly and Hope sings more clearly and sweetly. Every evening, when the sun goes down, I can see that land of Eternal Morning. ”

“ When I hear a man trying to do all the talking for the crowd, I remember that a drum makes more noise than a cask of sugar, because it is empty.
A man is a fool to worry about his “past,” if he has one. A man or woman with a “past” isn’t half so badly off as the sinner who yet has “something coming to him.”
[10]
I don’t believe in rejecting and despising a man because of his faults. Make them useful to him. For example, a conceited man is like a tire, which is of no earthly account until it is inflated. ”

“ A few giants, mostly windmills; millions of midgets and mosquitoes, troublesome but not fatal; occasionally a mean man, so ashamed of himself that he lied about it; now and then a liar; once in a while a hold-up man, with a subscription paper; and all along the way a horde of beggars. But in the main good people; kind-hearted, generous people, honest people. Lots of houses build close “by the side of the road.” The world is full of friendly people for friendly men. And I’m fond of people. ”

“ Working people do not evolve “problems.” They are invented by the learned idlers, gossiping about the market place like Paul’s Athenians, “who spend their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.”
I have lived a busy life. I entered the newspaper grind early, and I have never been out of the old mill. ”

“ Ten years in the ministry have made the sorrows of thousands of people my own. What a rollick there used to be in a good poker story, told in rattling phrase. I have seen too many homes broken up and too many lives wrecked by the gamblers to appreciate the humor of the cards. ”

“ No, religion does not give—it does not promise a man immunity from misfortunes. Neither does an accident policy promise or protect the holder from a railway smash-up or an automobile accident. But it is a beautifully comforting thing to the insured while he’s in the hospital.
What you wish you were, that’s your ideal. What people say you are, that’s your reputation. What you know you are, that’s your character. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, you may fool some other people part of the time, but you can’t fool yourself a little bit of the time. ”

“ Whenever I have done right, it has always seemed to me that somebody or something helped me. But when I have gone wrong, I have sinned through no one’s fault but my own. No man ever made me do wrong. The man who has the headache next morning is the fellow who transgressed the night before. ”

“ It grows “funnier” as you grow older. But it doesn’t know it, because it is apt to be “funniest” when it thinks it is wisest. Laughter grows more serious as it contemplates the funny old world. The tragedies of the years temper the jests. Yes; I understand. I read [19] a paragraph about myself in a critical editorial the other day, saying that “ten years of the ministry had taken much of the ginger out of old Bob’s fun.” It was written by a young man, of course. ”

“ He is a poor hand at “day’s work” and tires at a continuous job. He is a thoroughbred, and must be humored and well groomed. You can’t work him like a plow-horse. He shines most brightly at “piece work.” ”

“ Burdette because it faces the sunset. “Afternoon land” is very pleasant in spite of broken health and increasing weakness. Every evening I sit in the sun-room and watch the sun creep down the western wall of the sky, sinking to its rest beyond the farther rim of the blue Pacific. ”