People who fart in church...

...sit in their own pew.

My grandfather used to say that. We called him Granddaddy...a southern title, I expect. He was from North Carolina, and used to work for one of the big tobacco companies before moving west to take over an engineering firm. He was a very wise man. The church-fart quote was always my favorite, but my mom reminded me of another one today:

"People are always so busy trying to get their due, when really they should be praying they don't."

There are others. I always thought I'd compile a big list of granddaddyisms for the family....all of my aunts and uncles remember various pieces of two-penny wisdom that stuck with them over the years. The best ones were witty, like the two above. But actually the one that always provided me my own mantra was this one: "When people ask you to do something you don't want to do, just smile and nod, and then go right on doing whatever you want." That's just an awfully good piece of advice on managing people. There's always going to be someone out there trying to stop you from minding your own business, but there's no use getting into a conflict about it. Although you certainly don't need to let them interfere.

He also had a variant on the Boynton Hallmark card "Don't let the turkeys get you down." His was, "There are a lot of jackasses in the world; you've got to figure out who they are and just stay away from them."

A very wise man. And like I said, there are more of these. One day I'll finish making that list.