One of his stories was about a Kingdom that was having a lot of crime so the King said, “Whoever comes up with a solution that works will be greatly rewarded.”
Many tried but their solutions did not work until this Old Man said he had the solution.
He asked to tear down all the jails and prisons. Then he had one jail for one person built.
Right away they had someone who committed a crime.
The Old Man said: “Put him in jail.”
Very soon another committed a crime and the officers came to ask the Old Man what to do with him to which the Old Man answered: “Kill the first one and put this one in jail!”
Once upon a time there was a golden songbird that lived in a beautiful garden. It spent all its days singing the loveliest songs to the honour of its maker and the delight of all the people who heard it.
But the keeper of the garden, who was a foolish and greedy man, coveted the little songster, and one day he made a cunning net in which he snared it. The little bird begged the man to release him and promised to tell him three great secrets if only he would let him go. Now the gardener really was a very greedy man and rubbing his hands together, he eagerly released the bird.
Then the songbird told him it’s three great secrets: Never believe all that you hear; Never regret what you have never lost, and never throw away that which you have in your keeping.
The gardener was furious when he heard this and said he had known these so-called’ secrets’ since he was a little child and shouted that the bird had tricked him. But the songbird quietly replied that if the man had really known these three secrets, or only the last of them, he would never have let him go.
Then the bird added:”I have a most precious jewel weighing over three ounces hidden inside me and whoever possesses that marvelous stone will have every wish granted.”
On hearing this, the keeper roared like a lion and cursed himself for setting the songster free. But the little bird only added fuel to his rage by explaining that since he weighed no more than half an ounce at most, as anyone with eyes could plainly see, how was it possible that a gem weighing more than three ounces could be hidden within it’s tiny body?
At that the man tore his hair and lunged at the bird in a towering rage, but the little songbird flew to a nearby branch and added sweetly:”Since you never had the jewel in your hands you are already regretting what you never lost, and believing what I told you, you threw it away by setting me free.”
Then the little songbird told the man to study well these three great secrets and so become as wise as the bird himself!
A group of students were asked to list what they thought were the present “Seven Wonders of the World.” Though there were some disagreements, the following received the most votes:
1. Egypt’s Great Pyramids 2. Taj Mahal 3. Grand Canyon 4. Panama Canal 5. Empire State Building 6. St. Peter’s Basilica 7. China’s Great Wall
While gathering the votes, the teacher noted that one quiet student hadn’t turned in her paper yet. So she asked the girl if she was having trouble with her list.
The girl replied, “Yes, a little. I couldn’t quite make up my mind because there were so many.”
The teacher said, “Well, tell us what you have, and maybe we can help.”
The girl hesitated, then read, “I think the ‘Seven Wonders of the World’ are:
1. to see 2. to hear 3. to touch 4. to taste 5. to feel 6. to laugh 7. and to love.”
The room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.
Just a gentle reminder – that the most precious things in life cannot be built by hand or bought by man.
“Each day comes bearing its own gifts — learn to untie the ribbons.”
A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Picking through the objects on display, he discovers a detailed, life-sized bronze sculpture of a rat. Strangely, he feels drawn to it. The sculpture is so interesting, realistic and compelling that he picks it up and asks the shop owner its price.
“Twelve dollars for the rat, sir,” says the shop owner, “and a thousand dollars more for the story of its frightening secret.”
“You can keep the story, old man,”the tourist replies with a sneer, “but I’ll take the rat.”
The transaction complete, the tourist leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm. As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall into step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain, more rats come out and follow him. By the time he’s walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and people begin to point and shout. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a trot as multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and abandoned cars. Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and when he sees the waterfront in the distance at the bottom of the hill, he panics and starts to run full tilt.
No matter how fast he runs, the huge swarm of rats–now not just thousands, but millions–stay just behind, squealing hideously as he nears the water. By the time he sees the water’s edge, a trail of rats twelve city blocks long is behind him. Rushing toward the water, he makes a mighty leap, jumping up onto a light post… grasping it with one arm as with the other he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay as far as he can heave it. Pulling his legs up and clinging tightly to the light post, he watches in both horror and amazement as the seething tide of rats surges over the breakwater into the Bay, where they drown in huge numbers and disappear into its cold depths… not to be seen again.
Shaken and mumbling to himself about the terrible experience he has just witnessed, he makes his way back to the antique shop where he bought the bronze rat, the seed of a new idea forming in his mind.
“Ah, so you’ve come back for the rest of the story,” says the owner.
“No,” the tourist says in a hope-filled voice, “I was wondering if you might also have a bronze Democrat?”
The Taylor’s were proud of their family tradition. Their ancestors had traveled to America with the Pilgrim Fathers on the Mayflower. They had included Congressmen, successful entrepreneurs, famous sports people and television stars.
They decided to research and write a family history, something for their children and grandchildren. They found a specialist genealogist and writer to help them. Only one problem arose – how to handle Great Uncle Jefferson Taylor who was executed in the electric chair.
The writer said she could handle the story tactfully. When the book appeared the section about Jefferson read:
Great Uncle Jefferson Taylor occupied a chair of applied electronics at an important government institution, he was attached to his position by the strongest of ties, and his death came as a great shock.
There was this ancient story teller…
