Father is giving his son some life advice.
“If you want to be a good man,” he said, his voice low and steady, “you need to be honest… and cautious in life.”
The boy looked at him, brows furrowed with the unfiltered curiosity only youth can afford. “Honest and cautious?” he repeated. “What does that mean?”
His father folded his hands, the lines of his knuckles like roads carved by time. “It means you must always do what you say. If you give someone your word, you carry it like a weight. No excuses. No forgetting. You fulfill it. That’s honesty.”
The boy nodded slowly, trying to absorb the gravity of it. “And cautious?” he asked after a pause.
The old man’s eyes twinkled—just a flicker—and a dry smile played at the corner of his lips.
“Cautious,” he said, “means never making promises in the first place.”
A boy was feeling very nervous about his first date, and so went to his father for advice.
“My son, there are three subjects that always work with women: food, family, and philosophy.”
The boy picks up his date, and they stare at each other for a long time. The boy’s nervousness builds, but he then remembers his father’s advice and asks the girl:
“Do you like potato pancakes?”
“No,” comes the answer, and the silence returns like a suffocating blanket.
“Do you have a brother?”
“No.”
After giving it some thought, the boy plays his last card:
“If you had a brother, would he like potato pancakes?”
Sunday School Teacher:
“Now Little Johnny, I want you to memorize today’s motto, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Little Johnny: “Yes mam, but I know it already. My father says he has always used that as his motto in his business.”
Teacher: “Oh, how noble of him! And what is his business?”
Little Johnny: “He’s a boxer.”
