Quotation 1

"You are too young to understand it," she said, "but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of--oh, of your father." Ch.5, pg.60

Mrs. Maudie is talking to Scout who takes it literally. Scout is shocked that Mrs. Maudie would accuse Atticus of such a thing. Mrs. Maudie then explains to her that she was speaking in general and explains her words more thoroughly. She tells Scout that even Atticus at his worse would be better than other men at their best. 

Looking at the quote, I can relate it to so many things that I have seen in life. I can relate it easily to having a bad event on an amazing day to a good event on a bad day. That one bad mess up or let down is not going to overthrow all the other good things that have already happened. It might let you down for a little while, but eventually you're going to recover and keep pushing on. Same thing goes for having that one incredible moment throughout your rough day. You can only cling on to something for so long. After it's gone, there is no going back. In that case, all the bad events of the day will overthrow the one good. In the text, Mrs. Maudie is referring to someone's personality or actions. She is basically saying that a great person with high respect at their absolute worst condition, could still be better than an awful person at their very best condition. I think that these are "words of wisdom" because they teach me that when I am my very best, one mistake will never tear me down, and that if I am my very worst, one accomplishment wont bring me to the top. It encourages me to be to my full potential so that I have room to mess up occasionally. 

(The pictures show dirty hands and the Bible. Even if the person with dirty hands touched the Bible once, there hands would still be dirty.)