Ten Commandments to Live By

These are great ideas we inherited from Lenore Bushman Carpenter.  You ought to print them off and keep them handy.

The Ten Commandments of How to Get Along with People


From Lenore’s collection

1. Keep skid chains on your tongue: always say less than you think. Cultivate a low, pervasive voice. How you say it often counts more than what you say.

2. Make promises sparingly and keep them faithfully, no matter what it costs you.

3. Never let an opportunity pass to say a kind and encouraging thing to or about somebody. Praise good work done, regardless of who did it. If criticism is needed, criticize helpfully, never spitefully.

4. Be interested in others: interested in their pursuits, their welfare, their homes and families. Make merry with those that rejoice; with those who weep, mourn. Let everyone you meet however humble, feel that you regard him as one of importance.

5. Be cheerful. Keep the corners of your mouth turned up. Hide your pains, worries and disappointments under a smile. Laugh at good stories and learn to tell them.

6. Preserve an open mind on all debatable questions. Discuss, but not argue. It is a mark of superior minds to disagree and yet be friendly.

7. Let your virtues, if you have any, speak for themselves, and refuse to talk of another’s vices. Discourage gossip. Make it a rule to say nothing of another unless it is good.

8. Be careful of another’s feelings. Wit and humor at the other fellow’s expense are rarely worth the effort, and may hurt where least expected.

9. Pay no attention to ill-natured remarks about you. Simply live that nobody will believe them. Disordered nerves and a bad digestion are common result of back biting.

10. Don’t be too anxious about your dues. Do your work, be patient and keep your disposition sweet, forget self, and you will be rewarded.