Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal.  The winner is he who gives himself to his work, body and soul.  Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton
Z is also for zigzag, and if you zigzag it won’t matter how much zeal you have, your success will be much longer coming, and quite [...]

Yesterday is very much a part of who we are.  We can learn so much from the experiences of all our yesterdays, but it does not do to dwell on those experiences too much.  Take what is useful from them and place the rest at the back of our memories.  Often too much time can [...]

X appeared to be a difficult letter to get to grips with,  I toyed with other ‘x’ words but kept getting drawn back to xenophobia, an acute dislike of foreigners.
Not necessarily of other cultures, however.  We seem to be very tolerant of the cultures we like to embrace, whilst at the same time disliking [...]

Many people mistakenly feel that the only definition of ‘wealthy’ is having lots of possessions.  They believe that in order to be wealthy one must have lots of money and ‘things’.
To be truly wealthy you do not need money or possessions.  You can consider yourself a very wealthy person if you possess wisdom, peace of [...]

Do you believe that truth can do more harm than good? Oscar Wilde once said, ‘the truth is rarely pure and never simple’.  And Denis Diderot, ‘We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter’.  Truth will out, as Shakespeare said.
Honesty is the [...]

Being united brings about a better way of working.  Helping others helps yourself too.  As Helen Keller said, ‘Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much’.  And indeed much more can be achieved if we work in unity.
‘And suddenly, like light in darkness, the real truth broke in upon me; the [...]

Last year I went to a choral concert held by a group raising money for a local charity.  I wrote about it in a previous post, If You Don’t Have A Go You’ll Never Know.
The charity they were raising money for is About With Friends, a group who give support to people with learning disabilities.
At [...]

Other words we could use in place of sagacious are: wise, sage, discerning, clever, intelligent, judicious, acute, sharp, keen, perspicacious.
Wisdom is not learned easily.
As Confucius said:
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
It takes time and [...]

In our family we have a tradition, at 8pm every Christmas Day we toast absent friends.  This not only gives us the opportunity to keep those who have gone before us a part of what we do and very much in our minds during our celebrations, but also brings to mind those people who are [...]

In the quiet of the predawn hours The Hush
slips in to blanket the slumbering earth
upon life’s gentle breeze, it quietly blows in
its veil of serenity, imperceptibly dispersed
The Hush unfolds over the hilly terrain
climbing, spilling over the majestic mountaintops
guided by the loving arms of the branches of nature
The Hush settles over me, awakening my heart
Tranquil waves [...]