Many years ago there was a cartoon in Ripley’s famous Believe It or Not series depicting an ordinary iron bar worth, at the time, about five dollars. The cartoon went on to point out that the iron bar made into horseshoes would be worth twice as much, or ten dollars. Made into sewing needles it would be worth $3,285. If it was made into balance springs for watches it would be worth a quarter of a million dollars, fifty thousand times its original value! Of course, this analogy for a bar of iron is outdated, but the cartoon’s message still holds true. Skills are just like a tangible raw material; they’re worth only what you do with them.
Hard work without skill is admirable, but skill without hard work is abominable.
You can’t rest on your laurels, when you aren’t improving, someone else is; and when you come up against that person, you will lose.
You have to know what you can’t do as well as what you can do; when you discover that you have a skill, next learn its limits.
The more skills people have, the easier they make things look.
One of the best examples of the effectiveness and efficiency of co-operation is the traffic light. When we all co-operate at the intersection by adhering to the signals, chaos is avoided. When we don’t, people die.
To get what you want, help others get what they want.
If everybody swept their own sidewalk, the whole town would be clean.
A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.
If you live in the bayou, make friends with the alligators.
A lot more gets done when it doesn’t matter who gets the credit.
It’s always better to be a welcome addition than an unwelcome interruption.
There’s little to be gained by hogging tasks that others enjoy.
You haven’t used all your strength until you ask for help.
The best help you can give is to help other people help themselves.
By helping a person up a hill you get to the top yourself.
Co-operation can be spelled with two letters: we.