A Quote by Ronald Reagan

Many a man has failed because he had his wishbone where his backbone should have been. — © Ronald Reagan
Many a man has failed because he had his wishbone where his backbone should have been.
We like them big ... but we'll settle for players with three kinds of bones - a funnybone, a wishbone and a backbone. The funnybone is to enjoy a laugh, even at one's own expense. The wishbone is to think by, set one's goals high and have dreams and ambitions. And the backbone - well, that's what a player needs to get up and go to work and make those dreams come true.
This was Barrington Erle, a politician of long standing, who was still looked upon by many as a young man, because he had always been known as a young man, and because he had never done anything to compromise his position in that respect. He had not married, or settled himself down in a house of his own, or become subject to the gout, or given up being careful about the fitting of his clothes.
The [Liberal] federal government's trouble is that they have a wishbone where they should have a backbone.
My son had a tumour on his neck. We went for surgery but it failed because the tumour was difficult to remove. Later, we went to New York for his surgery. I was scared as his first operation had failed. I went to church and met a pastor. He told me to go ahead, God would take care of everything. And the surgery was successful.
Emile Saint-Blague had been a lively, versatile painter in his youth, but he had abused his energy by painting too many pictures; so that in what might have been the ripe period of his art he had nothing left but ideas. A man who has nothing left but ideas may be of great service to his friends, but he is of no use at all to himself. Emile was certainly an inspiration to his friends.
The individual activity of one man with backbone will do more than a thousand men with a mere wishbone.
Most people have only half developed their single personalities. That a man should split his into four and more; and should develop each separately and perfectly, was so abnormal that many normals failed to understand it.
You see that in his foreign policy [Barack] Obama lacks a backbone - both a constitutional backbone and a personal backbone.
He [Benny Carter] is all that every jazz musician the world over wants to be. He's performed 20,000 nights. How many shoes have been shined? How much mascara put on? Rouge? How many of those impossible bowties have been tied? How many love songs have been sung? How many dances have been danced? How many have passed to the sound of his music? It's been said that a man should not be forced to live up to his art. Benny Carter is one of the rare instances when we wonder whether the great art that a man has created can live up to him.
Twice Flush had done his utmost to kill his enemy; twice he had failed. And why had he failed, he asked himself? Because he loved Miss Barrett. Looking up at her from under his eyebrows as she lay, severe and silent on the sofa, he knew that he must love her for ever. Things are not simple but complex. If he bit Mr. Browning he bit her too. Hatred is not hatred; hatred is also love.
Get a backbone, not a wishbone.
We need a backbone, not a wishbone.
Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress—probably had never even begun to see into himself
Obviously, my husband's very determined because he got himself back into that ring after being out of it for many years. And I'm the same: I've always been his backbone, and there's nothing that you can stop Bryan and I at. We're unstoppable.
The wishbone will never replace the backbone.
That, you know, is why the world exists at all. It remains outside the cosmic garbage can of nothingness, not because it is such a solemn necessity that nobody can get rid of it, but because it is the orange peel hung on God's chandelier, the wishbone in His kitchen closet. He likes it; therefore, it stays. The whole marvelous collection of stones, skins, feathers, and string exists because at least one lover has never quite taken His eye off it, because the Dominus vivificans has his delight with the sons of men.
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