The most popular sayings of 2022

Martha Hobson
·6 min read

For many years, my January pieces in Senior Living, the publication previously published monthly by The Oak Ridger, consisted of quotes. That column always seemed to be the most popular of the year. At least, they garnered the most emails, phone calls and people stopping me in the grocery store and restaurants to talk about them.

Martha Hobson
Martha Hobson

So here are my 2022 sayings to start your New Year.

Tolerance

Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself. - Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899)

If I am denied the right to vote, I am a prisoner. I am dehumanized. - The Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, Jr. (1985)

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. - William James (1842-1910)

It is terribly inhumane to block pathways out of poverty because you didn’t need those pathways. - Bernice King (1963)

Hate, in the long run, is about as nourishing as cyanide. - Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

Bernice King arrives during the 57th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday March in Selma, Ala., on Sunday March 6, 2022.
Bernice King arrives during the 57th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday March in Selma, Ala., on Sunday March 6, 2022.

We hang petty thieves and appoint the great one to public office. - Aesop (620-564 BCE)

Who knows why we were taught to fear the witches and not those who burn them alive? - Unknown

Accessibility is being able to get in the building. Diversity is getting invited to the table. Inclusion is having a voice at the table. Belonging is having your voice heard at the table. - Unknown

You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. - Anne Lamott (1954)

The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free. - Maya Angelou

Behavior

I am out with lanterns looking for myself. - Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness but because you deserve peace. - Jonathan Hale (1891-1966)

Until I’m carried out, I will carry on. - Madeleine Albright (1937-2011)

The best education you will ever get is traveling. Nothing teaches you more than exploring the world and accumulating experiences. - Unknown

And then there is the most dangerous risk of all - the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later. - Randy Komisar (Birthdate Unknown)

I travel because I’d rather look back at life saying, “I can’t believe I did that” instead of “If only I had.” - Unknown

Education isn’t anything you can finish. - Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)

Whenever a child learns critical thinking, a conspiracy theory dies. - (Unknown)

I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do. - Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986)

Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Jackson chose to bring the sometimes rickety confidence of a working woman’s psyche into a hearing room dominated by men who probably never figured out snack week, music lessons or dental cleanings. - Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (Jackson, 1970) (Marcus, 1958)

As Americans, we’ve always idolized youth, and we’re notoriously unprepared for thinking about aging. - Sarah Szanton, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing (Birthdate Unknown)

You’re supposed to climb the mountain, not carry it. - Holiday Mathis (Birthdate Unknown)

You can get excited about the future. The past won’t mind. - Unknown

You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to. - Unknown

Be careful how you talk to yourself because you are listening. - Unknown

The (broken) economy

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken ones. - Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)

Homeless people are not the problem. They are the result of the problem. - Unknown

Bob Levitt returned to his condemned unit to retrieve his cat he found hiding in a bedroom at the Kings Point community in unincorporated Palm Beach County, Fla., on September 29, 2022. A tornado spawned by Hurricane Ian has left residents of the community homeless after the county deemed the structures uninhabitable.
Bob Levitt returned to his condemned unit to retrieve his cat he found hiding in a bedroom at the Kings Point community in unincorporated Palm Beach County, Fla., on September 29, 2022. A tornado spawned by Hurricane Ian has left residents of the community homeless after the county deemed the structures uninhabitable.

If you’re saying eating healthy is cheap and your starting assumption is that everyone has a kitchen, you’ve already fundamentally misunderstood the reality of poverty. - Nathan Monk (Birthdate Unknown)

The fact that we even have a category called “the working poor” should tell you that something is wrong. - Unknown

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire (quote shown with a woman on a bicycle with three children - one an infant - a pile of wood and a metal bowl on her head). - George Monbiot (1963)

Guns and war

Child: “Mama, what’s a Canadian?” Mother: “It’s an unarmed North American with health insurance.” - Facebook

If guns aren’t the problem and people are the problem, why would you ever give the people guns? - Lonnie Phillips (Birthdate Unknown)

If more guns made us safer, we would be the safest country on the earth. - Pete Buttigieg (1982)

War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Unknown

After all, no one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers, and in war fathers bury their sons. - Herodotus (484-425 BCE)

War itself is, of course, a form of madness. It’s hardly a civilized pursuit. It’s amazing how we spend so much time inventing devices to kill each other and so little time working to achieve peace. - Walter Cronkite (1916-2009)

I would like to see every single soldier on every single side just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set (sic) down at the side of some shady lane, and say, nope, I ain’t a gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns. - Woody Guthrie (1912-1967)

All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal. - John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

Pop culture

Wi-Fi went down for five minutes. I had to talk to my family. They seem like nice people. - Unknown

Sometimes I just want someone to hug me and tell it me that it is going to be all right - tell me here’s a coffee and $8 million. - Unknown

Jane Goodall with the 2022 Barbie created in her honor as part of the Inspiring Women series.
Jane Goodall with the 2022 Barbie created in her honor as part of the Inspiring Women series.

It doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us. - Jane Goodall (1934)

If slaughter houses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian. - Paul McCartney (1942)

Answering the phone, “Sheriff’s Office, Fraud Division” surely has showed down the telemarketer calls. - Facebook

No person who can read is ever successful cleaning out an attic. - Ann Landers (1918-2002)

We are having a virtual wine and cheese get together with good friends tomorrow night. No food prep or vacuuming required. - Susan Thistlethwaite (1948)

Not only does my mind wander, sometimes it walks off completely. - Snoopy

You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy Prosecco, which is kinda the same thing. - Unknown

A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion but doesn’t. - Tom Waits (1949)

When I got married, I did not know I needed to buy the ears separately. - Unknown

Don’t let your ice cream melt while you are counting somebody else’s sprinkles. - Attributed to Akilah Hughes (1989)

Every time I feel dumb, I think about the time Kim Kardashian played poker with reflective sunglasses on. - Unknown

I want to start living a decluttered, minimalist lifestyle. So naturally I am at Target buying $300 worth of baskets and storage bins. - Facebook

And from me: I want to wish you and yours a Happy New Year. Do whatever it takes to try to stay well.

As physicist Neils Bohr supposedly said, “Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.”

Martha Moore Hobson was an early certified financial planner in the region. She wrote a column for Senior Living for some 25 years. Although retired, she still volunteers in the community.

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: The most popular sayings of 2022