Dr. Jim Surrell, Journal columnist

As we are now into our always busy holiday season, and will soon enter into another year, I believe it is timely to reflect on some of the wisdom we find in a few of my favorite quotes that are noted below.

These quotes have certainly withstood the test of time. Let me suggest that a good New Year’s Resolution for all of us will be to give some thought to the timeless wisdom found in some of the following quotations.

As we bring 2019 to a close, I wish you all a most Blessed Christmas and a most happy and successful new year.

Calvin Coolidge — “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent.”

Abraham Lincoln — “You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

Henry Ford — “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.”

Henry Van Dyke — “Use what talents you possess. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.”

Mother Teresa — “Kind words are short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”

Blaise Pascal — “Kind words do not cost much. They never blister the tongue or lips. They make other people good natured. They also produce their own image on men’s souls, and a beautiful image it is.”

Theodore Rubin — “Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.”

Harry Truman — “In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves… self-discipline with all of them came first.”

Spanish Proverb — “Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you.”

Leo Burnett — “When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get them, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.”

Eleanor Roosevelt — “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Pablo Picasso — “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

Thomas Jefferson — “I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”

Thomas Edison — “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Henry David Thoreau — “It is not enough to be busy. The question is; what are we busy about?”

Lucille Ball — “One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”

Dr. Joyce Brothers — “The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Jim Surrell is the author of “The ABC’s For Success In All We Do” and the “SOS (Stop Only Sugar) Diet” books. Requests for health topics for this column are encouraged. Contact Dr. Surrell by email at sosdietdoc@gmail.com.