Let's start 2010 on a helpful note by gifting top newsmakers as they go into the new year with inspirational thoughts from greater minds than mine:

• For President Obama: "If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" — Will Rogers

• For Gov. Linda Lingle: "Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.' " — Charlie Brown

• For Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona: "I deserve respect for the things I did not do." — Dan Quayle

• For Sen. Daniel Inouye: "Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the National Debt." — Herbert Hoover

• For Sen. Daniel Akaka: "I have tried to know absolutely nothing about a great many things, and I have succeeded fairly well." — Robert Benchley

• For our crooning Mayor Mufi Hannemann: "Listen Edith, I know you're singing, you know you're singing, but the neighbors may think I'm torturing you." — Archie Bunker

• For U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie: "Never trust a man with short legs. His brain's too near his bottom." — Noel Coward

• For U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono: "Who says nothing is impossible? I've been doing nothing for years." — Anonymous

• For former U.S. Rep. Ed Case: "I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it." — Jonathan Winters

• For Senate President Colleen Hanabusa: "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" — Mark Twain

• For Councilman Charles Djou: "He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." — Abraham Lincoln

• For outgoing Democratic chairman Brian Schatz: "Is it weird in here, or is it just me?" — Steven Wright

• For GOP chairman Jonah Ka'auwai: "There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist." — Mark Twain

• For embattled state economic chief Ted Liu: "I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous — everyone hasn't met me yet." — Rodney Dangerfield.

• For University of Hawai'i President M.R.C. Greenwood: "Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously." — G.K. Chesterton

• For school board chairman Garrett Toguchi: "A committee can make a decision that is dumber than any of its members." — David Coblitz

• For teachers union chief Wil Okabe and UH faculty rep J.N. Musto: "Reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it." — Jane Wagner