Neverisms

human being.

Never let someone be your priority when all you’ll ever be is their option.

Never say something about somebody that you wouldn’t say directly to them.

Never make someone your everything;

’cause when they’re gone, you’ll have nothing.

Never try to joke with young people because

it’ll just confirm their suspicion that old people are crazy.RUSSELL BAKER, in a 1993 New York Times column

Baker was quoting from a list of “rules for old people” that a friend shared with him. It inspired him to create one of his own rules: “Never try to be pleasant to a young woman because everybody will think you’re a dirty old man.”

Never desire to appear clever

and make a show of your talents before men.JOHN STUART BLACKIE

Blackie, a Scottish university professor, was one of the most respected classical scholars of his time. Today, he is remembered less for his scholarly contributions than for “Lessons for a Young Man’s Life,” an 1892 article he wrote for London’s Young Man magazine, and which was later expanded into a small book. He also advised: “Never indulge the notion that you have any absolute right to choose the sphere or the circumstances in which you are to put forth your powers of social action.”

Never forget what a man has said to you when he was angry.HENRY WARD BEECHER, in Life Thoughts (1866)

You’ll find this thought presented in slightly different versions all over the Web and in a variety of quotation anthologies. This is the correct version, taken directly from the 1866 book.

Never fail to know that if you are doing all the talking,

you are boring somebody.HELEN GURLEY BROWN, in Having It All (1982)

Never say bad, cruel, crummy, unhappy, unpleasant,

critical things in a letter.HELEN GURLEY BROWN, in I’m Wild Again (2000)

Brown described this as a “cardinal rule” of social and business life. The longtime Cosmo editor added: “If they must be said, try to say them in person or at least by telephone. Put the good things in writing.”

Do not judge.

Never presume to judge another human being anyway.

That’s up to heaven.RITA MAE BROWN, in Starting from Scratch (1989)

Never idealize others.

They will never live up to your expectations.LEO BUSCAGLIA, in Loving Each Other:

The Challenge of Human Relationships (1984)

In the book, Buscaglia also offered this thought: “Don’t take yourself so seriously, but never fail to take the other person seriously.”

Never injure a friend, even in jest.MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

Never claim as a right what you can ask as a favor.JOHN CHURTON COLLINS

Never ask a bore a question.MASON COOLEY

Never say, “I know just how you feel!”

even if you are absolutely positive that you do.LISA J. COPEN

This appeared in Copen’s Beyond Casseroles: 505 Ways to Encourage a Chronically Ill Friend (2007). She also offered these helpful admonitions:

Never say, “You shouldn’t feel that way.”

Never say, “You need to get over this and move on.”

Never question if your friend is exaggerating her pain level.

Never—ever—tell her it’s all in her head.

Never have fools for friends; they are no use.BENJAMIN DISRAELI, from Lady Bellair

in Henrietta Temple: A Love Story (1837)

Never put a man in the wrong;

he will hold it against you forever.WILL DURANT, in The Pleasures of Philosophy (1953)

Never expect women to be sincere so long as

they are educated to think that their first aim in life is—to please.MARIE VON EBNER- ESCHENBACH

Never speak of yourself to others;

make them talk about themselves instead:

therein lies the whole art of pleasing.

Everyone knows it and everyone forgets it.EDMOND & JULES DE GONCOURT

The Goncourt brothers had one of literary history’s closest and most fascinating writing partnerships. Never spending a day apart from each other during their entire adult lives, they coauthored a half dozen books and plays that achieved modest success. They are best remembered for an intimate journal that chronicled—often in lurid and lecherous detail—the lives of Parisians in the last half of the nineteenth century.

Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends,

never lose a chance to make them.FRANCESCO GUICCIARDINI

Never appeal to a man’s “better nature.”

He may not have one.

Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, in Time Enough for Love (1973),

an entry from “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long”

Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.ERNEST HEMINGWAY, in A Moveable