Paternal advice to my daughters...and eventual progeny.

1 People are more valuable than things.

2 Never tear down a fence until you know why it was put up.

3 Anger rarely helps solve a problem or strengthen a friendship.

4 You can never unsay unkind words.

5 Never confuse pets with people.

6 A business may claim “Satisfaction Guaranteed,” but they cannot make good on that claim. All they will do is refund your money, leaving you dissatisfied.

7 Never lend money to a family member—unless you’re willing to make a gift of it and forget it.

8 You will marry someone you date, so never date anyone who is not a good potential mate.

9 Never date a girl with an ugly mother—or who hates her father.

10 Never date a guy with an abusive father—or who is tied to his mother’s apron strings.

11 Not everyone means exactly the same thing when they say, “I love you.”

12 Love does not always give people what they want.

13 The specifics of spousal intimacy are appropriate for conversation only with your spouse.

14 Advice to young married couples:  When you fight, always fight naked.

15 Your feelings do not have to determine your behavior. Do what you know is right and trust your feelings to change.

16 Never call your wife by her mother’s name. Never call your husband by his father’s name.

17 Learn to say each of these: “I don’t know.” “I was wrong.” “I am sorry.”

18 Work on your job so as to make your boss look good.

19 Don’t take yourself too seriously. People laugh at you more if you cannot laugh at yourself.

20 People love to hear their own names—use them often.

21 If you think you’d be generous if you had more money, you’re wrong. You’d be just as stingy.

22 Even a broken watch tells the right time twice a day.

23 Would you rather win an argument or a friend?

24 Three most important habits for good health: (1) Get plenty of sleep every night. (2) Eat a wide variety of foods. (3) Find an activity you like to do for exercise and do it regularly with friends.

25 People you hate can never do anything right.

26 Even the person you think is the least intelligent can teach you something.

27 All your life, be a learner.

28 Read—magazines, the newspaper, and books. If there is nothing good on The Discovery Channel or The Learning Channel after the evening news is through, shut your TV off.

29 Eschew obfuscation.

30 Expand your vocabulary.

31 Get a good dictionary and use it often.

32 Constant profane/vulgar speech is a sign of ignorance. Improve your vocabulary.

33 All people are biased, just in different ways.

34 Work to outgrow your ethnocentricity.

35 Train yourself to listen.

36 Listen before you speak.

37 Listen more than you speak.

38 Don’t postpone eternal matters until later. Getting right with God will never be any easier than it is right this minute.

39 God’s mercy means he did not give you what you deserve.

40 God’s grace means he does offer you what you do not deserve.

41 Nothing you can do will make God love you more that he already does.

42 I fail myself often; God has never failed me—yet I’m slow to trust him and quick to trust myself. Go figure.

43 People who cry the loudest for others to receive justice for their sins, usually scream the quickest for mercy for their own transgressions.

44 People who emphasize the wrong behavior of others commonly stress their own good motivations.

45 Don’t confuse your desires with God’s will.

46 God commands us to love one another—not to like each other. Discover the difference.

47 Never simply believe someone who tells you what God’s will for your life is—insist on hearing directly from God.

48 Base your faith on the Bible, not on bumper stickers.

49 Practice forgiveness and you’ll get better at it.

50 “There are no absolute truths” is a self-refuting statement.

51 Although some truths are relative, many truths are absolute. Learn to recognize which are which.

52 Don’t be surprised to hear me claim that the only true religion is Christianity. Many questions have only one right answer.

53 All religions cannot be equally true—some contradict others and are thus mutually exclusive.

54 Some people don’t like you, and they won’t like you no matter what you do. Accept it.

55 Never tell a mother her baby is ugly.

56 It’s easier to remember what you’ve said when you tell the truth.

57 Your reputation takes years to build, but only minutes to destroy.

58 Always stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves.

59 Every job has its share of things you’ll like and things you won’t like.

60 The three words you should use most often are “please” and “thank you.”

61 If your friends don’t like it when you burp publicly, they probably won’t like it any better when you fart.

62 If you hear a friend fishing for a compliment, don’t tell the truth.

63 Don’t act like your tastes (in music, food, fashion, etc.) are superior to the tastes of others.

64 You never reach an age when it’s okay to be disrespectful to your parents.

65 Never toy with something that has the potential to enslave you.

66 Knowledge is not wisdom. You need both.

67 Do more favors for your friends than they do for you.

68 Don’t keep a scorecard on favors done for your friends.

69 Most people are more attractive when they smile.

70 Every thought that comes into your mind does not have to come out of your mouth.

71 Never attribute to malice what could simply be stupidity.

72 If you dislike being alone with yourself, your friends may feel the same way about you.

73 Learn to live without some things you want.

74 Christmas trees are free a few days after Christmas.

75 Don’t try to reason people out of something that they were not reasoned into.

76 Your boss may not be as smart as you are, but he/she is still the boss.

77 No one likes being around a constant whiner.

78 If you must criticize a friend, do it in a way that draws him to you, not in a way that pushes him away from you.

79 Few things are as foundational as a mastery of your native language.

80 What you don’t know can hurt you.

81 What you know that ain’t so can hurt you even worse.

82 Upon their first conviction, child molesters should be executed by a slow, painful method.

83 There’s not much you can learn from the second kick of a mule.

84 One of the most difficult things to establish with certainty is cause-effect.

85 Sometimes a smile or a hug is “the right thing to say”—and says more than words.

86 There are two kinds of food in the world—Thai, and everything else.

87 There are three kinds of people in the world—those who can count and those who cannot.

88 If you want to improve your memory, use it. Memorize something.

89 Never be cruel to animals. Be nice to plants, too.

90 Don’t undercook meat or overcook vegetables.

91 Don’t trust a friend who praises you excessively.

92 Don’t make the mistake of believing your own PR (public relations).

93 Education is almost always more expensive than ignorance.

94 You need at least one friend who will give you a swift kick in the rear when you need it.

95 Don’t wish so much for tomorrow that you fail to live today to the fullest.

96 Be yourself. You cannot do a very good job of being anyone else anyway.

97 Be adventurous when it comes to eating foods new to you.

98 Your tastes in food change with time.

99 Take care of your teeth. Even imperfect natural teeth are much better than perfect false teeth.

100 Accept blame for your own failures and mistakes.

101 You cannot help people until they know they need help. Even then, they may not want it.

102 If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times—never exaggerate.

103 Your friends can hurt you worse than your enemies.

104 Strangers will often give you more useful criticism than friends.

105 If you’re depressed, help someone who cannot repay you.

106 Bathe and change your underwear every day.

107 Bigger is not necessarily better.

108 Older people are not necessarily wiser.

109 Even paranoids have real enemies.

110 People who never have the time to do it right always find the time to do it over.

111 Internals are more important than externals.

112 No thing can make you happy. Look for contentment inside yourself.

113 Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking things couldn’t get any worse.

114 Get a camera and take pictures—when you reach my age, your photos may be all the memories you have.

115 Get double prints and share them with friends and relatives. If your house burns down, ask them all to return a few pictures.

116 Get the camera close enough that you can see the faces on your photos.

117 Keep a journal—especially if you go on a trip.

118 If you’re unable to pay a bill on time, call your creditor and explain the reason.

119 Don’t wait until you’re in deep water before you learn how to swim.

120 No matter how close to someone you are, you cannot live his/her life for him/her.

121 Today’s luxury quickly becomes tomorrow’s necessity.

122 What has made our American system of government so successful is not that Americans have chosen good leaders; rather it is that the people are able to remove bad leaders from office.

123 Don’t be too quick to give people advice. If they take your advice and conclude it was right, they’ll never recall that you advised them. If they take your advice and conclude it was wrong, they’ll blame you.

124 No one ever had too many friends.

125 Physicians practice medicine—on their patients.

126 Ordinarily you don’t need to change the oil in your car’s engine every 3,000 miles (as recommended by the manufacturer)…every 5,000 miles is often enough and much easier to remember and recognize from the odometer.

127 No group of people—racial, national, or geographic—is inferior to any other group (with the possible exception of Parisians, who seem to be inferior to all others).

128 Firewood warms twice: once when you cut and haul it, then again when you burn it.

129 Auto mechanics, house painters, and laboratory chemists have this in common: they all wash their hands before using the toilet.

130 Never buy shoes too small—they won’t stretch to fit your feet.

131 It is almost impossible to find a friend who will give you a pedicure.

132 Leave a campsite cleaner than it was when you arrived.

133 If your parents didn’t have any children, chances are you won’t either.

134 All children should grow up occasionally experiencing what it is to want something and not get it.

135 All children should grow up experiencing what it is to want something and not get it unless they earn it for themselves.

136 If possible, have your children by the time you are 30 and before you are 40.

137 Not everyone should have children.

138 Tell your kids often how much you love them.

139 Show your kids often how much you love them.

140 Start training your children as soon as you think they know what you want them to do and not do. Don't wait "until they're older."

141 Don’t offer obedience to your kids as an option—make it a requirement.

142 You can train, discipline, and punish—including spanking—your children without abusing them.

143 To be effective, punishment must be swift, sure, and painful. This is true whether punishing felons or children.

144 Gamblers do not understand the laws of probability.

145 An extremely unlikely event remains an extremely unlikely event no matter how much time you give it.

146 Greed is an illness—often fatal.

147 Some character traits are like pregnancy—either you are or you aren’t—there’s no in-between.

148 If you wait until Mother’s Day to tell your mother you love her, there’s probably not much point in telling her.

149 Most people can forecast the past more accurately than they can forecast the future.

150 A perfect memory is not always an asset—many things are best forgotten.

151 When you are a guest in someone’s house, always leave soon enough that they’ll hope that you will come back some day.

152 There is no regaining lost virginity.

153 Time travels in one direction only.

154 The US has never been a “Christian country.”

155 Never under-inflate your car's tires. Over-inflate tires by 4-5 pounds per square inch.

156 Don’t mow your lawn too short.

157 The wattage rating of a light bulb does not tell you how much light it puts out, but how much electric power it consumes.

158 Consciously cultivate your values, don’t just let them develop.

159 You can gain insight into your value system by examining where you spend your money and how you spend your time.

160 Balance is an very important aspect of life.