No house is a home without a cat.

Courtesy costs nothing.

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.

William Shakespeare, King Lear

It's better to give than receive.

Arbeit macht frei.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

There's only one certainty in life.

Better the devil you know.

This be the Verse, Philip Larkin

This is one of my favourite poems ever. I'm going to send it to a pregnant friend.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

No wicked heart shall prosper.

The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it.

George Bernard Shaw

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

William Congreve

Christmas cards only exist to keep Royal Mail in business

This meaning was brought to you by corporate sponsorship.

Maybe this world is another planet's hell.

Aldous Huxley

Pessimism costs nothing.

Inside every pessimist is a disappointed realist.

This adage has been left blank for your own cynicism.

absinthe makes the heart grow fonder

You can't do right for doing wrong.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

You can do anything if you set your mind to it.

This is why we see so many people who can fly. Clearly.

Misery loves company

but company does not reciprocate

people will always let you down

No good deed goes unpunished

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing

Oscar Wilde.

The grass is ALWAYS greener.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

If you want something doing properly do it yourself.

If you've got a brain you really ought to use it.

Don't make promises you can't keep

and your word will be worth so much more

One always ought to achieve more.

I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.

Franklin D Roosevelt for Friday the 13th.

No man is an island.

John Donne forgot to add 'sadly' onto the end of that.

The Last Post

(a poem by Carol Ann Duffy reproduced for Armstice Day)

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud...
but you get up, amazed,watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home -
mothers, sweethearts, sisters,younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce- no- Decorum- no- Pro Patria mori.
You walk away.
You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too-
Harry, Tommy, WIlfred, Edward, Bert-
and light a cigarette.
There's coffee in the square,
warm French bread
and all those thousands dead
and shaking dried mud from their hair
and queuing up for home. Freshly alove,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening,healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.

You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammedwith love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.

Stir with a knife; stir up strife

Life is futile.

Everyone is stupid when drunk.

If something can go wrong it probably will.