Collected Quotations
“The bow too tensely strung is easily broken.”
Maxim 388, Syrus
“He bids fair to grow wise who has discovered he is not so.”
Maxim 598, Syrus
“Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.”
Maxim 914, Syrus
“There is no glory in outstripping donkeys.”
On The Spectator, Martial
“It was better, he thought, to fail in attempting exquisite things than to succeed in the department of the utterly
contemptible.”
Hill of Dreams, Machen
“Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That maybe it couldn’t, but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.”
It Couldn’t Be Done, Guest
“The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little while.”
Slogan of the US Air Force
“He wrapped himself in quotations – as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of emperors.”
Many Institutions, Kipling
“More men are killed of overwork than the importance of the work justifies.”
The Phantom Rickshaw, Kipling
"Try to suffer fools more gladly; they constitute the majority of mankind."
Statement made by Lord George Hamilton, British Secretary of State for India to Lord George Curzon.
“Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie.”
A Smuggler’s Song, Kipling
“The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.”
Plain Tales, Kipling
“It is not good for the Christian health
To hustle the Asian brown,
For the Christian riles
And the Asian smiles
And he weareth the Christian down.
And the end of the fight
Is a tombstone white
With the name of the late deceased
And the epitaph bear
A fool lies here
Who tried to hurry the East.”
Rudyard Kipling
“Our country right or wrong; when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.”
Letter to Theo Petrash, Schury
“One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action and filled with noble risks is worth whole years of those mean
observances of paltry decorum.”
Count Robert of Paris, Scott
“They that govern the most make the least noise.”
Table Talk, Seldon
“A great pilot can sail even when his canvas is rent.”
Eptistles, Seneca
“This is the law of the Yukon
That only the strong shall thrive;
That surely the weak will perish
And only the fit survive.”
Law of the Yukon, Service
“A promise made is a debt unpaid.”
Cremation of Sam McGee, Service
“The most powerful weapon of ignorance – the diffusion of printed matter.”
War and Peace, Tolstoi
“The temerity to believe in nothing.”
Fathers and Sons, Turgeniev
“God looks after fools, drunkards and the United States.”
Epigram, author unkown
“Heroism, the Caucasian mountaineers say, is endurance for one moment more.”
Letter, Kennan
“The identification of old age with growing old must be avoided. Growing old is an emotion which comes over us at
almost any age. I had it myself between the ages of 25 and 30.”
NY Mirror, E.M. Forster
“An early victim of any prolonged peace is military realism….The hard truths of the battlefield, indelibly imprinted on
the minds of the leaders who learn by experience, are too soon diluted by their successors, who know their subject
only in theory.”
History of World War I, S.L.A Marshall
“An egregious fault? Yes, he should have been a Saint.”
History of World War I, S.L.A. Marshall
“Americans, despite a conceit to the contrary, are not a volunteering people.”
History of World War I, S.L.A. Marshall
“Troops are never delivered fresh into battle.”
History of World War I, S.L.A. Marshall
“In a profession (the army) men of character have no future except under stormy circumstances.”
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Jules Roy
“Disaster is reduced by half when one refuses to submit to it.”
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Jules Roy
“What is a hero? A man who displays exceptional qualities in the face of exceptional dangers; tempered steel in
battle, gold in the face of corruption.”
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Jules Roy
“Modern war is too serious a business to be entrusted to soldiers.”
French minister quoted by S.L.A. Marshall
“The profession of arms will always reject sophistries and ambiguities because they are not of the same nature as its
vocation.”
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Jules Roy
“…the great melancholy community which is the army.”
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Jules Roy
“The naiveté of military leaders is frightening.”
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Jules Roy
“To be a leader of men one must turn one’s back on men.”
Introduction to Against the Grain (by J.K. Huysman), Havelock Ellis
“A man needs virginity but twice in his life. Once with his wife, and once in the prime of life with a young mistress
chosen with great care. When a man has learned the knowledge of patience, and compassion, and can painlessly
transmute girl into woman.”
Tai Pan, James Clavell
“A man should have a place of his own, however small. Privacy is very important to a clear head.”
Tai Pan, James Clavell
“We seem incapable of resisting…we are a race of headstrong altruists. We rush to a foreign land in a deluge of
embattled sympathy, we give away clothing, cigarettes, our rations…we do everything in our power to proclaim our
good intentions, our nobility of purpose, our loftiness of soul…and all because we think we’re too good for the rest of
the world…We can’t be bothered with the sordid details, the actualities of human motivation. We stubbornly,
sublimely refuse to see man as he is…we’re so damned certain about how he ought to be. We know how he ought to
be ----- he ought to be American.”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“Self righteousness. It’s the occupational disease of the soldier, and it’s the worst sin in the world…..because it
spawns arrogance, selfishness, indifference.”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“Read, think, disagree with everything, if you like --- but force your mind outward.”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“Experience is valuable only if one imbues it with meaning, draws from it purposeful conclusions.”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“It seems to be our history: we are indifferent, unprepared --- then all of a sudden we’re shocked, roaring with
righteous wrath, ready to rush off into battle with our pants down.”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“The essence of leadership is an unerring ability to winnow the essential from the trivial or extraneous.”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“No man knows what is in him, deeply and irrevocably his: we are all of us strange creatures under our skins --- poets
and seers, captains and pioneers. What man can say what is finally his destiny?”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“She was one of those who forever proclaimed that everything had been cleaner and nicer ‘back home’.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“The superiority of the person who permits himself to be loved.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Perhaps it was only his greater experience, or his feebler attachment, that made him irresistible in her eyes.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“A frightful surge of pity suddenly shook his sensitive Japanese soul, which had nothing to do with his cold and
calculating mind.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“How could one and the same girl possibly look so different at different times?
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Those who swim with the stream inevitably leave familiar shores behind them. Consequently there is no choice; it is
necessary either to swim or to walk aloof along the shore and watch the swimmers. Never is it possible both to swim
and to remain ashore.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Nothing is more democratic than a bomb.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“…miserable and useless --- that is to say, expensive.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“She rarely deceived herself about things because she had no imagination. Her life, consequently, was a little empty,
but her reasoning was all the more accurate.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“All these hard-working, life loving ants were Asians and therefore understood the trick of survival. They regarded
even the most miserable existence…as worth living and loving. This is one of the Asian secrets which Westerners
with their bathroom civilization and their luxurious dream worlds cannot understand.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“She was nineteen years old. How should she know that love is based upon giving, and that marriage consists at
least seventy percent of sick-nursing and common troubles, and is essentially a pilgrimage toward heights that the
average couple never reaches, if only because it cannot see these heights?”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“’People marry in order to be together all the time.’
‘Wherever did you pick up this ghastly idea?’
‘The majority of people hold that opinion, you know.’”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Love is by no means always the same, as many people think.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-rotholz
Political earthquakes have happened so frequently in our time that they really ought to surprise no one any longer.
Nevertheless, countless numbers of our contemporaries are always unprepared when the earth suddenly cracks and
swallows them up with kith and kin, bank accounts and stamp collections.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Envy is a pain of mind that successful men cause their neighbors.”
The General, Osander
“Men often wait until they are angry when they wish to make unpleasant revelations.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Women are simple-minded when they love. In their hunger for love they would risk their lives if there was the
slightest chance that such risks would warm a love grown cold.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Innumerable women of all nations marry men on the rebound and are even happy with them – because they expect
less and are therefore vouchsafed more than they expect.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“There is no denying that sorrows bind man and woman together; they are the basis of that incomprehensible and
continuous state known as love.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Every man is a restless wanderer on the face of the earth; it is the task of every woman to provide her man with peace
and consolation…every man seeks peace in a wife, and too many questions and too much craving to possess,
destroy that longing – for peace.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Love … is the insuperable desire to make another given party, chosen for one unreasonable reason or another, love
you more than they wanted to make you love them. And more than that make the prove it.”
Some Came Running, James Jones
“Oh Lord,
Lest I go my complacent way,
Help me to remember
That someone out there
Died for me today.
So long as there be war
I must ask and answer
Am I worth dying for?”
Quoted by General Abrams Memorial Day 1969
“Without women men are only a cruel joke.”
King Rat, James Clavell
“A squatting naked man relieving himself is the ugliest creature in the world – perhaps the most pathetic.”
King Rat, James Clavell
“It is easy to please a man. If you are a woman. And not ashamed of being a woman.”
King Rat, James Clavell
“To tempt is a woman’s way – to be desired is but a woman’s need.”
King Rat, James Clavell
“Better to wet one’s pants than to defecate in one’s own mind.” (On being scared and admitting it)
Decline of the West, David Cante
“Violence is the midwife of history.”
Decline of the West, David Cante
“The United States is the only nation in history which has gone from barbarism to decadence without ever having
passed through civilization.”
WRFM, New York, Quincy Howe
“He was only infantry and useless in the space age.”
The Honey Badger, Ruark
“Politicians. They demanded impossibilities – bricks without straw, battles without blood, diplomacy without deceit.
That they would never get them, made no matter, so long as there was a printed record of their noble intentions and
patient helots to carry the burden of their defaults. They played upon man’s most obstinate illusions. They offered a
guarantee of felicity for a temporary delegation of power. They were always afraid because the guarantee hung
around their necks like a stinking sea bird and they could never get rid of it unless they named themselves fools or
liars. For them, the soldier was always the serviceable scapegoat. They loaded all their historic sins on his back and
shoved him out into the desert to purge them in a primitive trial by combat. If he won, they brought him back with
garlands round his neck. If he lost they buried him in a footnote to more glorious chronicles.”
The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstram
“Offer a Westerner a clean woman for an honest price and he spat in your eye. Give him soft lights, sweet music, the
glamour of the mysterious East and he would pay double the price for the same merchandise. Haggle with him over
a copper tray and you were a cheating son of a camel. Clap your hands for coffee, throw in a paste scarab and a clay
horse baked in a backyard kiln and you were a noble fellow bred to the courtesies of the black tents. All Americans
wanted to be loved and respected; and when they die they wanted to be wrapped in the Stars and Stripes and buried
to the sound of tin trumpets. They never understood that if you were born in a mud hovel and nursed at dry breasts
and grew up as a donkey boy, kicked awake and cuffed to sleep, your only loyalty was to the one who offered the next
meal.”
The Tower of Babel, Morris West
“The one means that wins the easiest victory over reason: terror and force.”
Testimony at a trial of German Army Officers in Leipzig – 1930, Adoph Hitler
“The efficiency of the truly national leader consists primarily in preventing the division of the attention of a people, and
always in concentrating it on a single enemy.”
Adolph Hitler
“The great masses of the people … will more easily fall victim to a great lie than to a small one.”
Adolph Hitler (from, perhaps, Heinrich Himmler?)
“I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of
race or color. They are superior who have the best heart – the best brain – the superior … stands erect by bending
above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
Liberty, Robert Green Ingersol
“Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.”
Maxim 496, Francois Duc de la Rouchefoucald
“We hardly find any persons of good sense save those who agree with us.”
Maxim 347, Francois Duc de la Rouchefoucald
“It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man’s oration – nay, it is a very easy matter; but to
produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.
Of Hearing, Plutarch
“If all the world were just, there would be no reason for valour.”
Lives, Plutarch
“He has the luck to be unhampered by either character, or conviction, or social position, so that liberalism is the
easiest in the world for him.”
The League of Youth, Henrik Ibsen
“That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent
simpletons who failed at ditching and shoe-making and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poor house.”
Mark Twain, 1873
“Any twenty year old who isn’t a liberal has no heart; any 40 year old who isn’t a conservative has no brain.”
Winston Churchill
“Solved Problems have simple answers.”
Bits and Pieces, unknown
“The four oaths: never be late with respect for the way of the warrior. Be useful to the lord. Be respectful to your
parents. Get beyond love and grief - exist for the good of man.”
Ha Gakure, Yamamoto Isunenori
The Way of the Ichi School Strategy:
Do not think dishonestly
The way is in training
Become acquainted with every art
Know the ways of all professions
Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters
Develop intuitive judgement and understanding for everything
Perceive those things which cannot be seen
Pay attention even to trivialities
Do nothing which is of no use
A Book of Five Rings, Musashi
“The ability to plan with practicality and foresight is at the top of the list as most contributory to successful command.”
Logistics Magazine, General Bruce Clark
“Anticipate obstacles in your path – for every potential chance for success there are at least five potential chances for
error.”
Logistics Magazine, General Bruce Clark
“Murphy’s Laws
1. In any field of scientific endeavor, anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
2. Left to themselves things always go from bad to worse.
3. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will go wrong is the one that
will do the most damage.
4. Nature always sides with the hidden fault.
5. Mother nature is a bitch.”
“Weiler’s Law: nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself.”
“Chisolm’s Law: anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.”
“Finagles’s Law: once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.”
“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.”
Chinese Proverb
“The trouble with this world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”
Bertrand Russell
“A man who is angry on the right ground, against the right persons, in the right manner, at the right moment, and for
the right length of time, deserves great praise.”
Aristotle
Professional Criticism:
“I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.”
Plato
“Arrogance, pedantry and dogmatism are the occupational diseases of those who spend their lives directing the
intellects of the young”
Alma Mater, Henry Seidel Canby
“Self righteousness. It’s the occupational disease of the soldier, and it’s the worst sin in the world … because it
spawns arrogance, selfishness, indifference.”
Once an Eagle, Anton Myrer
“Not one West Pointer in 50 has a real sense of humor…they all think a joke is a long story that has a dog in it with a
man’s name.”
Once an Eagle, Anton Myrer
“Achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is
being praised by others, and that’s nice too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget
about success.”
Helen Hayes
“It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.”
Bits and Pieces, Unknown
“Three Simple Rules of Life:
1. Never be afraid of “they”
2. Never collect inanimate objects
3. Always laugh at yourself first”
Elsa Maxwell’s father
“Possible technology moves faster than anyone could predict, while the social implications make the general
adaptability of technology move slower than anyone predicts.”
Herbig’s Axiom
“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade, since it consists principally of dealing with men.”
Joseph Conrad
“There are limits to genius, there are none to stupidity.”
Napoleon
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
Chinese Proverb
“America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair.”
Arnold Toynbee
“An optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds – a pessimist knows it.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
“Education: being able to listen to someone without losing either your temper or your confidence.”
Robert Frost
“Education is a progressive discovery of one’s own ignorance.”
Will Durant
“No friendship however fine can replace the fondness of a woman.”
Disraeli, Andres Mourois
“It is only petty men who seem normal.”
The Name of the Rose, Uberto Eco
“Hell is heaven seen from the other side.
The Name of the Rose, Uberto Eco
“The devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized with doubt.
The Name of the Rose, Uberto Eco
“When it comes to pledging life-long devotion, men have as many lives as cats.”
The Age of Voltaire, Will Durant
“To know the whole soul of man, one must know the whole history of man.”
The Decline of Pleasure, Walter Kerr
“I disapprove of what you say; but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Friends of Voltaire,Voltaire
“Seven Deadly Sins:
politics without principle
wealth without work
commerce without morality
pleasure without conscience
education without character
science without humanity
worship without sacrifice”
Mahatma Ghandi
“A philosopher sees the earth as a large planet, traveling through the heavens, covered with fools.”
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
“Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tired in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that
democracy is perfect of all-wise, indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all
those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Winston Churchill in the House of Commons, 11-8-1947
“We must allow the child from his earliest years perfect liberty in every respect – provided that … he does not interfere
with the liberty of others.”
Unknown
“Neglect of discipline is a greater evil than neglect of culture, for this least can be remedied later in life.
Essay, Emanuel Kant
“Reality is an illusion that occurs due to the lack of alcohol.”
Anonymous
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can
vote themselves largess from the public treasury.
From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury,
with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this
sequence:
from bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back again to bondage."
1801 collection of lectures, Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813). Scottish jurist and historian, professor of Universal
History at Edinburgh University.
“It is not death or pain which is a fearful thing, but the fear of pain or death.”
Epictetus , Stoic philosopher
"Our intelligence being by no other way communicable to one another by a particular word, he who falsifies that
betrays public society."
Essays by Montaigne
"In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have other tie upon one another, but by our word."
Essays by Montaigne
"Any, even unintentional, deviation from truth, does that much towards weakening the trustworthiness of human
assertion, which is not only the principle support of all present social wellbeing, but the insufficiency of which does
more than any other thing that can be named to keep back civilization, virtue, everything on which human happiness
on the largest scale depends."
Utilitarianism, Its Meaning by John Stuart Mill.
“There can be no cynic without the ideals. A cynic is nothing more than a disappointed, disillusioned idealist.”
Email from Sally Lou Linker Lightfoot
“The main misfortune, the root of all the evil to come was the loss of confidence in the value of one’s own opinion.
People imagined that it was out of date to follow their won moral sense, that they must all sing in chorus, and live by
other people’s notions, notions that were being crammed down everybody’s throat.”
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Lord Acton, Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 3 Apr 1887
“Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.”
Despatch, 1815. Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (1769-1852)
"It is like the person who loves corn and hates lima beans - he doesn't know how to deal with succotash.”
The Arrogance of Power, J. William Fulbright
"Great civilizations die from suicide rather than murder."
Arnold Toynbee
"The root of the problem with our popular culture is the degeneration of our elite culture, and the restoration of the
latter would soon have a powerful effect on the former."
Wilfred M. McClay, "Out of Mortal Threat, an Opportunity" (National Review Magazine, May 14, 2007
"Character is a mystery of unfathomable depths, that defies all determinisms. We can guess at, but we cannot really
know, a person's character until it is put to a real test...So only a challenge can reveal what is there, concealed in the
depths of character. Our character is elicited by life's challenges, and is shaped and reshaped by our responses to
them."
Wilfred M. McClay, "Out of Mortal Threat, an Opportunity" (National Review Magazine, May 14, 2007
"The challenges presented by Islamist terrorism are ones that confront us in the very places where we are confused
and irresolute, and force us to see that we have fallen into ways of thinking and living that we cannot and should not
sustain."
Wilfred M. McClay, "Out of Mortal Threat, an Opportunity" (National Review Magazine, May 14, 2007
“Everybody, I hope, would agree that a school is a place where teaching and learning go on, steadily and
systematically. That is its function. Its purpose is something else: to remove ignorance. A school can do several other
good things at the same time, but it has one purpose only: to remove ignorance. This distinction is important because
these definitions serve as a standard by which to judge what is done and what is proposed in the name of schooling.”
Jaques Barzun, What Is a School? and Trim the College! (Hudson Institute, American Academy for Liberal Education,
and Council for Basic Education)
“Political Science majors…think you can make something happen if you wish hard enough. Engineers knew
different.”
Tom Clancy, Patriot Games.
“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
Douglas Adams
"Much has been written about...political philosophy of...young activists - perhaps too much, as there is a limit to the
amount of philosophically interesting material to be found in the heads of a loose assortment of idealistic but ill-
educated teenagers."
Noel Malcolm, Bosnia, A Short History
"There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."
Frank Zappa
"There is nothing more uncommon than common sense."
Frank Lloyd Wright
"There's no fool like an old fool - you can't beat experience."
Jocob Braude
"There's only one me - and I'm stuck with him."
Robert L. Stanfield
"Economic opportunities exist...only where order exists, and where people are sufficiently educated to seize them."
George Will (article about Newark, New Jersey, June 2007)
Philo's Four Virtues: Wisdom, Self-control, Courage, Justice
"Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination." Immanuel Kant
"Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made." Immanuel Kant
"There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance." Johan Wolfgang Göthe
"A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis warned, during the debate on withdrawal from Iraq, that America
risked being seen as 'harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.' In Moscow and Tehran, on the one hand,
and Warsaw and Prague, on the other, they're drawing their own conclusions." Mark Steyn, 21 Sept 2009 essay
"Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the
second hand of a clock." Ben Hecht (1893 - 1964)
"Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same
half." Gore Vidal (1925 - )
"For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple — and wrong." H.L. Mencken
Maxim 388, Syrus
“He bids fair to grow wise who has discovered he is not so.”
Maxim 598, Syrus
“Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.”
Maxim 914, Syrus
“There is no glory in outstripping donkeys.”
On The Spectator, Martial
“It was better, he thought, to fail in attempting exquisite things than to succeed in the department of the utterly
contemptible.”
Hill of Dreams, Machen
“Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That maybe it couldn’t, but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.”
It Couldn’t Be Done, Guest
“The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little while.”
Slogan of the US Air Force
“He wrapped himself in quotations – as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of emperors.”
Many Institutions, Kipling
“More men are killed of overwork than the importance of the work justifies.”
The Phantom Rickshaw, Kipling
"Try to suffer fools more gladly; they constitute the majority of mankind."
Statement made by Lord George Hamilton, British Secretary of State for India to Lord George Curzon.
“Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie.”
A Smuggler’s Song, Kipling
“The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.”
Plain Tales, Kipling
“It is not good for the Christian health
To hustle the Asian brown,
For the Christian riles
And the Asian smiles
And he weareth the Christian down.
And the end of the fight
Is a tombstone white
With the name of the late deceased
And the epitaph bear
A fool lies here
Who tried to hurry the East.”
Rudyard Kipling
“Our country right or wrong; when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.”
Letter to Theo Petrash, Schury
“One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action and filled with noble risks is worth whole years of those mean
observances of paltry decorum.”
Count Robert of Paris, Scott
“They that govern the most make the least noise.”
Table Talk, Seldon
“A great pilot can sail even when his canvas is rent.”
Eptistles, Seneca
“This is the law of the Yukon
That only the strong shall thrive;
That surely the weak will perish
And only the fit survive.”
Law of the Yukon, Service
“A promise made is a debt unpaid.”
Cremation of Sam McGee, Service
“The most powerful weapon of ignorance – the diffusion of printed matter.”
War and Peace, Tolstoi
“The temerity to believe in nothing.”
Fathers and Sons, Turgeniev
“God looks after fools, drunkards and the United States.”
Epigram, author unkown
“Heroism, the Caucasian mountaineers say, is endurance for one moment more.”
Letter, Kennan
“The identification of old age with growing old must be avoided. Growing old is an emotion which comes over us at
almost any age. I had it myself between the ages of 25 and 30.”
NY Mirror, E.M. Forster
“An early victim of any prolonged peace is military realism….The hard truths of the battlefield, indelibly imprinted on
the minds of the leaders who learn by experience, are too soon diluted by their successors, who know their subject
only in theory.”
History of World War I, S.L.A Marshall
“An egregious fault? Yes, he should have been a Saint.”
History of World War I, S.L.A. Marshall
“Americans, despite a conceit to the contrary, are not a volunteering people.”
History of World War I, S.L.A. Marshall
“Troops are never delivered fresh into battle.”
History of World War I, S.L.A. Marshall
“In a profession (the army) men of character have no future except under stormy circumstances.”
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Jules Roy
“Disaster is reduced by half when one refuses to submit to it.”
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Jules Roy
“What is a hero? A man who displays exceptional qualities in the face of exceptional dangers; tempered steel in
battle, gold in the face of corruption.”
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Jules Roy
“Modern war is too serious a business to be entrusted to soldiers.”
French minister quoted by S.L.A. Marshall
“The profession of arms will always reject sophistries and ambiguities because they are not of the same nature as its
vocation.”
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Jules Roy
“…the great melancholy community which is the army.”
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Jules Roy
“The naiveté of military leaders is frightening.”
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Jules Roy
“To be a leader of men one must turn one’s back on men.”
Introduction to Against the Grain (by J.K. Huysman), Havelock Ellis
“A man needs virginity but twice in his life. Once with his wife, and once in the prime of life with a young mistress
chosen with great care. When a man has learned the knowledge of patience, and compassion, and can painlessly
transmute girl into woman.”
Tai Pan, James Clavell
“A man should have a place of his own, however small. Privacy is very important to a clear head.”
Tai Pan, James Clavell
“We seem incapable of resisting…we are a race of headstrong altruists. We rush to a foreign land in a deluge of
embattled sympathy, we give away clothing, cigarettes, our rations…we do everything in our power to proclaim our
good intentions, our nobility of purpose, our loftiness of soul…and all because we think we’re too good for the rest of
the world…We can’t be bothered with the sordid details, the actualities of human motivation. We stubbornly,
sublimely refuse to see man as he is…we’re so damned certain about how he ought to be. We know how he ought to
be ----- he ought to be American.”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“Self righteousness. It’s the occupational disease of the soldier, and it’s the worst sin in the world…..because it
spawns arrogance, selfishness, indifference.”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“Read, think, disagree with everything, if you like --- but force your mind outward.”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“Experience is valuable only if one imbues it with meaning, draws from it purposeful conclusions.”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“It seems to be our history: we are indifferent, unprepared --- then all of a sudden we’re shocked, roaring with
righteous wrath, ready to rush off into battle with our pants down.”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“The essence of leadership is an unerring ability to winnow the essential from the trivial or extraneous.”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“No man knows what is in him, deeply and irrevocably his: we are all of us strange creatures under our skins --- poets
and seers, captains and pioneers. What man can say what is finally his destiny?”
Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer
“She was one of those who forever proclaimed that everything had been cleaner and nicer ‘back home’.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“The superiority of the person who permits himself to be loved.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Perhaps it was only his greater experience, or his feebler attachment, that made him irresistible in her eyes.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“A frightful surge of pity suddenly shook his sensitive Japanese soul, which had nothing to do with his cold and
calculating mind.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“How could one and the same girl possibly look so different at different times?
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Those who swim with the stream inevitably leave familiar shores behind them. Consequently there is no choice; it is
necessary either to swim or to walk aloof along the shore and watch the swimmers. Never is it possible both to swim
and to remain ashore.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Nothing is more democratic than a bomb.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“…miserable and useless --- that is to say, expensive.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“She rarely deceived herself about things because she had no imagination. Her life, consequently, was a little empty,
but her reasoning was all the more accurate.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“All these hard-working, life loving ants were Asians and therefore understood the trick of survival. They regarded
even the most miserable existence…as worth living and loving. This is one of the Asian secrets which Westerners
with their bathroom civilization and their luxurious dream worlds cannot understand.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“She was nineteen years old. How should she know that love is based upon giving, and that marriage consists at
least seventy percent of sick-nursing and common troubles, and is essentially a pilgrimage toward heights that the
average couple never reaches, if only because it cannot see these heights?”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“’People marry in order to be together all the time.’
‘Wherever did you pick up this ghastly idea?’
‘The majority of people hold that opinion, you know.’”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Love is by no means always the same, as many people think.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-rotholz
Political earthquakes have happened so frequently in our time that they really ought to surprise no one any longer.
Nevertheless, countless numbers of our contemporaries are always unprepared when the earth suddenly cracks and
swallows them up with kith and kin, bank accounts and stamp collections.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Envy is a pain of mind that successful men cause their neighbors.”
The General, Osander
“Men often wait until they are angry when they wish to make unpleasant revelations.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Women are simple-minded when they love. In their hunger for love they would risk their lives if there was the
slightest chance that such risks would warm a love grown cold.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Innumerable women of all nations marry men on the rebound and are even happy with them – because they expect
less and are therefore vouchsafed more than they expect.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“There is no denying that sorrows bind man and woman together; they are the basis of that incomprehensible and
continuous state known as love.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Every man is a restless wanderer on the face of the earth; it is the task of every woman to provide her man with peace
and consolation…every man seeks peace in a wife, and too many questions and too much craving to possess,
destroy that longing – for peace.”
The Time of The Dragons, Alice Ekert-Rotholz
“Love … is the insuperable desire to make another given party, chosen for one unreasonable reason or another, love
you more than they wanted to make you love them. And more than that make the prove it.”
Some Came Running, James Jones
“Oh Lord,
Lest I go my complacent way,
Help me to remember
That someone out there
Died for me today.
So long as there be war
I must ask and answer
Am I worth dying for?”
Quoted by General Abrams Memorial Day 1969
“Without women men are only a cruel joke.”
King Rat, James Clavell
“A squatting naked man relieving himself is the ugliest creature in the world – perhaps the most pathetic.”
King Rat, James Clavell
“It is easy to please a man. If you are a woman. And not ashamed of being a woman.”
King Rat, James Clavell
“To tempt is a woman’s way – to be desired is but a woman’s need.”
King Rat, James Clavell
“Better to wet one’s pants than to defecate in one’s own mind.” (On being scared and admitting it)
Decline of the West, David Cante
“Violence is the midwife of history.”
Decline of the West, David Cante
“The United States is the only nation in history which has gone from barbarism to decadence without ever having
passed through civilization.”
WRFM, New York, Quincy Howe
“He was only infantry and useless in the space age.”
The Honey Badger, Ruark
“Politicians. They demanded impossibilities – bricks without straw, battles without blood, diplomacy without deceit.
That they would never get them, made no matter, so long as there was a printed record of their noble intentions and
patient helots to carry the burden of their defaults. They played upon man’s most obstinate illusions. They offered a
guarantee of felicity for a temporary delegation of power. They were always afraid because the guarantee hung
around their necks like a stinking sea bird and they could never get rid of it unless they named themselves fools or
liars. For them, the soldier was always the serviceable scapegoat. They loaded all their historic sins on his back and
shoved him out into the desert to purge them in a primitive trial by combat. If he won, they brought him back with
garlands round his neck. If he lost they buried him in a footnote to more glorious chronicles.”
The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstram
“Offer a Westerner a clean woman for an honest price and he spat in your eye. Give him soft lights, sweet music, the
glamour of the mysterious East and he would pay double the price for the same merchandise. Haggle with him over
a copper tray and you were a cheating son of a camel. Clap your hands for coffee, throw in a paste scarab and a clay
horse baked in a backyard kiln and you were a noble fellow bred to the courtesies of the black tents. All Americans
wanted to be loved and respected; and when they die they wanted to be wrapped in the Stars and Stripes and buried
to the sound of tin trumpets. They never understood that if you were born in a mud hovel and nursed at dry breasts
and grew up as a donkey boy, kicked awake and cuffed to sleep, your only loyalty was to the one who offered the next
meal.”
The Tower of Babel, Morris West
“The one means that wins the easiest victory over reason: terror and force.”
Testimony at a trial of German Army Officers in Leipzig – 1930, Adoph Hitler
“The efficiency of the truly national leader consists primarily in preventing the division of the attention of a people, and
always in concentrating it on a single enemy.”
Adolph Hitler
“The great masses of the people … will more easily fall victim to a great lie than to a small one.”
Adolph Hitler (from, perhaps, Heinrich Himmler?)
“I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of
race or color. They are superior who have the best heart – the best brain – the superior … stands erect by bending
above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
Liberty, Robert Green Ingersol
“Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.”
Maxim 496, Francois Duc de la Rouchefoucald
“We hardly find any persons of good sense save those who agree with us.”
Maxim 347, Francois Duc de la Rouchefoucald
“It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man’s oration – nay, it is a very easy matter; but to
produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.
Of Hearing, Plutarch
“If all the world were just, there would be no reason for valour.”
Lives, Plutarch
“He has the luck to be unhampered by either character, or conviction, or social position, so that liberalism is the
easiest in the world for him.”
The League of Youth, Henrik Ibsen
“That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent
simpletons who failed at ditching and shoe-making and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poor house.”
Mark Twain, 1873
“Any twenty year old who isn’t a liberal has no heart; any 40 year old who isn’t a conservative has no brain.”
Winston Churchill
“Solved Problems have simple answers.”
Bits and Pieces, unknown
“The four oaths: never be late with respect for the way of the warrior. Be useful to the lord. Be respectful to your
parents. Get beyond love and grief - exist for the good of man.”
Ha Gakure, Yamamoto Isunenori
The Way of the Ichi School Strategy:
Do not think dishonestly
The way is in training
Become acquainted with every art
Know the ways of all professions
Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters
Develop intuitive judgement and understanding for everything
Perceive those things which cannot be seen
Pay attention even to trivialities
Do nothing which is of no use
A Book of Five Rings, Musashi
“The ability to plan with practicality and foresight is at the top of the list as most contributory to successful command.”
Logistics Magazine, General Bruce Clark
“Anticipate obstacles in your path – for every potential chance for success there are at least five potential chances for
error.”
Logistics Magazine, General Bruce Clark
“Murphy’s Laws
1. In any field of scientific endeavor, anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
2. Left to themselves things always go from bad to worse.
3. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will go wrong is the one that
will do the most damage.
4. Nature always sides with the hidden fault.
5. Mother nature is a bitch.”
“Weiler’s Law: nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself.”
“Chisolm’s Law: anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.”
“Finagles’s Law: once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.”
“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.”
Chinese Proverb
“The trouble with this world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”
Bertrand Russell
“A man who is angry on the right ground, against the right persons, in the right manner, at the right moment, and for
the right length of time, deserves great praise.”
Aristotle
Professional Criticism:
“I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.”
Plato
“Arrogance, pedantry and dogmatism are the occupational diseases of those who spend their lives directing the
intellects of the young”
Alma Mater, Henry Seidel Canby
“Self righteousness. It’s the occupational disease of the soldier, and it’s the worst sin in the world … because it
spawns arrogance, selfishness, indifference.”
Once an Eagle, Anton Myrer
“Not one West Pointer in 50 has a real sense of humor…they all think a joke is a long story that has a dog in it with a
man’s name.”
Once an Eagle, Anton Myrer
“Achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is
being praised by others, and that’s nice too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget
about success.”
Helen Hayes
“It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.”
Bits and Pieces, Unknown
“Three Simple Rules of Life:
1. Never be afraid of “they”
2. Never collect inanimate objects
3. Always laugh at yourself first”
Elsa Maxwell’s father
“Possible technology moves faster than anyone could predict, while the social implications make the general
adaptability of technology move slower than anyone predicts.”
Herbig’s Axiom
“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade, since it consists principally of dealing with men.”
Joseph Conrad
“There are limits to genius, there are none to stupidity.”
Napoleon
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
Chinese Proverb
“America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair.”
Arnold Toynbee
“An optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds – a pessimist knows it.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
“Education: being able to listen to someone without losing either your temper or your confidence.”
Robert Frost
“Education is a progressive discovery of one’s own ignorance.”
Will Durant
“No friendship however fine can replace the fondness of a woman.”
Disraeli, Andres Mourois
“It is only petty men who seem normal.”
The Name of the Rose, Uberto Eco
“Hell is heaven seen from the other side.
The Name of the Rose, Uberto Eco
“The devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized with doubt.
The Name of the Rose, Uberto Eco
“When it comes to pledging life-long devotion, men have as many lives as cats.”
The Age of Voltaire, Will Durant
“To know the whole soul of man, one must know the whole history of man.”
The Decline of Pleasure, Walter Kerr
“I disapprove of what you say; but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Friends of Voltaire,Voltaire
“Seven Deadly Sins:
politics without principle
wealth without work
commerce without morality
pleasure without conscience
education without character
science without humanity
worship without sacrifice”
Mahatma Ghandi
“A philosopher sees the earth as a large planet, traveling through the heavens, covered with fools.”
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
“Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tired in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that
democracy is perfect of all-wise, indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all
those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Winston Churchill in the House of Commons, 11-8-1947
“We must allow the child from his earliest years perfect liberty in every respect – provided that … he does not interfere
with the liberty of others.”
Unknown
“Neglect of discipline is a greater evil than neglect of culture, for this least can be remedied later in life.
Essay, Emanuel Kant
“Reality is an illusion that occurs due to the lack of alcohol.”
Anonymous
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can
vote themselves largess from the public treasury.
From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury,
with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this
sequence:
from bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back again to bondage."
1801 collection of lectures, Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813). Scottish jurist and historian, professor of Universal
History at Edinburgh University.
“It is not death or pain which is a fearful thing, but the fear of pain or death.”
Epictetus , Stoic philosopher
"Our intelligence being by no other way communicable to one another by a particular word, he who falsifies that
betrays public society."
Essays by Montaigne
"In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have other tie upon one another, but by our word."
Essays by Montaigne
"Any, even unintentional, deviation from truth, does that much towards weakening the trustworthiness of human
assertion, which is not only the principle support of all present social wellbeing, but the insufficiency of which does
more than any other thing that can be named to keep back civilization, virtue, everything on which human happiness
on the largest scale depends."
Utilitarianism, Its Meaning by John Stuart Mill.
“There can be no cynic without the ideals. A cynic is nothing more than a disappointed, disillusioned idealist.”
Email from Sally Lou Linker Lightfoot
“The main misfortune, the root of all the evil to come was the loss of confidence in the value of one’s own opinion.
People imagined that it was out of date to follow their won moral sense, that they must all sing in chorus, and live by
other people’s notions, notions that were being crammed down everybody’s throat.”
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Lord Acton, Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 3 Apr 1887
“Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.”
Despatch, 1815. Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (1769-1852)
"It is like the person who loves corn and hates lima beans - he doesn't know how to deal with succotash.”
The Arrogance of Power, J. William Fulbright
"Great civilizations die from suicide rather than murder."
Arnold Toynbee
"The root of the problem with our popular culture is the degeneration of our elite culture, and the restoration of the
latter would soon have a powerful effect on the former."
Wilfred M. McClay, "Out of Mortal Threat, an Opportunity" (National Review Magazine, May 14, 2007
"Character is a mystery of unfathomable depths, that defies all determinisms. We can guess at, but we cannot really
know, a person's character until it is put to a real test...So only a challenge can reveal what is there, concealed in the
depths of character. Our character is elicited by life's challenges, and is shaped and reshaped by our responses to
them."
Wilfred M. McClay, "Out of Mortal Threat, an Opportunity" (National Review Magazine, May 14, 2007
"The challenges presented by Islamist terrorism are ones that confront us in the very places where we are confused
and irresolute, and force us to see that we have fallen into ways of thinking and living that we cannot and should not
sustain."
Wilfred M. McClay, "Out of Mortal Threat, an Opportunity" (National Review Magazine, May 14, 2007
“Everybody, I hope, would agree that a school is a place where teaching and learning go on, steadily and
systematically. That is its function. Its purpose is something else: to remove ignorance. A school can do several other
good things at the same time, but it has one purpose only: to remove ignorance. This distinction is important because
these definitions serve as a standard by which to judge what is done and what is proposed in the name of schooling.”
Jaques Barzun, What Is a School? and Trim the College! (Hudson Institute, American Academy for Liberal Education,
and Council for Basic Education)
“Political Science majors…think you can make something happen if you wish hard enough. Engineers knew
different.”
Tom Clancy, Patriot Games.
“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
Douglas Adams
"Much has been written about...political philosophy of...young activists - perhaps too much, as there is a limit to the
amount of philosophically interesting material to be found in the heads of a loose assortment of idealistic but ill-
educated teenagers."
Noel Malcolm, Bosnia, A Short History
"There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."
Frank Zappa
"There is nothing more uncommon than common sense."
Frank Lloyd Wright
"There's no fool like an old fool - you can't beat experience."
Jocob Braude
"There's only one me - and I'm stuck with him."
Robert L. Stanfield
"Economic opportunities exist...only where order exists, and where people are sufficiently educated to seize them."
George Will (article about Newark, New Jersey, June 2007)
Philo's Four Virtues: Wisdom, Self-control, Courage, Justice
"Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination." Immanuel Kant
"Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made." Immanuel Kant
"There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance." Johan Wolfgang Göthe
"A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis warned, during the debate on withdrawal from Iraq, that America
risked being seen as 'harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.' In Moscow and Tehran, on the one hand,
and Warsaw and Prague, on the other, they're drawing their own conclusions." Mark Steyn, 21 Sept 2009 essay
"Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the
second hand of a clock." Ben Hecht (1893 - 1964)
"Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same
half." Gore Vidal (1925 - )
"For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple — and wrong." H.L. Mencken
Brief Personal Thoughts - that is, my own
1. There is perhaps no greater folly than refusing to discuss
history merely because we don’t like the way it happened.
2. Between self-confidence and arrogance lies respect; one
crosses the line when respect for others is overcome by the
arrogance of excessive love of self.
3. If there is a meaning of life it is helping each other.
4. We have brought hypocrisy to such a state of perfection it
now has its own language: it is called political correctness.
5. The threat to democracy is not greed; democracy is
designed to balance greed. The threat to democracy is stupidity
and ignorance.
6. We must discriminate; the challenge is to do it without being
judgmental.
7. People who do not think are to be pitied, not reviled.
8. Love is not overlooking faults, it is accepting them, warts and
all. It is caring for another more than self.
9. Let me present my views in a way that is inoffensive; be able
to accept and consider the views of others, without taking offense;
and have the wisdom to be able to do so effectively.
10. I do not denigrate knowledge; I applaud it. But availability is
not possession and information is not knowledge; information is
merely the basis from which knowledge is formed.
11. Respect........................................................................................
12. Arrogance is ego out of control.
13. To love another, one must suppress one’s own ego.
14. The phenomenon precedes the word. Words are only
created to define what has been perceived, and imperfectly at that.
15. Pride comes before the fall; arrogance precipitates it.
16. Life sucks and then you die; but there is much worthwhile
that goes on in the process.
17. If cleanliness is next to godliness, what is slovenliness?
18. Self-confidence – self-esteem – conceit – arrogance; a
road to perdition that is so easily followed, with neither urging nor
assistance.
19. The seeds of unhappiness are sewn through selfishness.
20. I could handle self-interest better if only it were not so
dominated by ignorance.
21. Hypocrisy is a convenient substitute for compromise. We
have found hypocrisy much easier, and we are far better at it than
we are at compromise.
22. I am a prisoner of my committed obligations; yet other than
that I would be a hermit, and even more of a curmudgeon than I
already am.
23. Were it not for spell check, I would be lost. But cut me a bit
of slack; the English language is truly impossible. There is no
rhyme or reason to the way we spell things.
24. There are four basic food groups: bourbon, beer, chocolate
and other; we can survive deprived of all but bourbon.
25. I admire skill and talent; I abhor conceit and arrogance. As
a result I have a dichotomous conflict.
26. This thing we call intelligence is comprised of several
different components: memory, common sense, ability to reason,
motivation; but not in equal proportion.
27. Thinking is a curse; it exposes one to far too much reality.
28. Our arrogance is directly proportional to our ignorance of
the past.
29. Philosophy entails thinking with an open mind across a
broad range of disciplines; propaganda entails narrow focus of
information intended to convince, and discourage thinking.
Propaganda trumps thinking almost every time.
30. Maturity: to be knowledgeable enough about events to
question the hype, and cynical enough about motivation to
question the hypocrisy.
31. It is interesting to observe people as they age - especially
ourselves.
32. We seem to have become a culture of perpetually television
ob-sexed teenagers.
33. Cultures change only slowly, while appetites grow with
explosive speed; there is little we can do to control either.
34. Immaturity is a curse which knowledge and experience permit
us to leave behind; pity so many do not.
35. A touch of greed is a positive motivational force. Obsessive
greed is destructive.
36. The most serious obstruction to cooperation in a democracy;
after selfishly motivated control of power; is over simplistic,
emotional ignorance.
37. It is clear we value mouth over mind. In the mind there are
ever doubts and uncertainty - from the mouth, none - and it is the
mouth to which we pay our attention.
38. We have, it seems, begun to equate arrogance, egocentricity,
charisma and smooth talking with character and leadership - pity.
39. The scourges of mankind are ignorance and arrogance - but
the worst of all is arrogant ignorance.
41. Frankly I mistrust a person with such towering ego he thinks
he deserves to be president - or even worse, king, emperor or
dictator.
42. To "like" someone I must respect and trust them; this narrows
the pool.
43, I remember what they used to say (and maybe still do) about
the river Platte: one mile wide and an inch deep. It seems to me
something like that might be applied to television news: a couple
of sound bites wide, and a millimeter or so deep.
1. There is perhaps no greater folly than refusing to discuss
history merely because we don’t like the way it happened.
2. Between self-confidence and arrogance lies respect; one
crosses the line when respect for others is overcome by the
arrogance of excessive love of self.
3. If there is a meaning of life it is helping each other.
4. We have brought hypocrisy to such a state of perfection it
now has its own language: it is called political correctness.
5. The threat to democracy is not greed; democracy is
designed to balance greed. The threat to democracy is stupidity
and ignorance.
6. We must discriminate; the challenge is to do it without being
judgmental.
7. People who do not think are to be pitied, not reviled.
8. Love is not overlooking faults, it is accepting them, warts and
all. It is caring for another more than self.
9. Let me present my views in a way that is inoffensive; be able
to accept and consider the views of others, without taking offense;
and have the wisdom to be able to do so effectively.
10. I do not denigrate knowledge; I applaud it. But availability is
not possession and information is not knowledge; information is
merely the basis from which knowledge is formed.
11. Respect........................................................................................
12. Arrogance is ego out of control.
13. To love another, one must suppress one’s own ego.
14. The phenomenon precedes the word. Words are only
created to define what has been perceived, and imperfectly at that.
15. Pride comes before the fall; arrogance precipitates it.
16. Life sucks and then you die; but there is much worthwhile
that goes on in the process.
17. If cleanliness is next to godliness, what is slovenliness?
18. Self-confidence – self-esteem – conceit – arrogance; a
road to perdition that is so easily followed, with neither urging nor
assistance.
19. The seeds of unhappiness are sewn through selfishness.
20. I could handle self-interest better if only it were not so
dominated by ignorance.
21. Hypocrisy is a convenient substitute for compromise. We
have found hypocrisy much easier, and we are far better at it than
we are at compromise.
22. I am a prisoner of my committed obligations; yet other than
that I would be a hermit, and even more of a curmudgeon than I
already am.
23. Were it not for spell check, I would be lost. But cut me a bit
of slack; the English language is truly impossible. There is no
rhyme or reason to the way we spell things.
24. There are four basic food groups: bourbon, beer, chocolate
and other; we can survive deprived of all but bourbon.
25. I admire skill and talent; I abhor conceit and arrogance. As
a result I have a dichotomous conflict.
26. This thing we call intelligence is comprised of several
different components: memory, common sense, ability to reason,
motivation; but not in equal proportion.
27. Thinking is a curse; it exposes one to far too much reality.
28. Our arrogance is directly proportional to our ignorance of
the past.
29. Philosophy entails thinking with an open mind across a
broad range of disciplines; propaganda entails narrow focus of
information intended to convince, and discourage thinking.
Propaganda trumps thinking almost every time.
30. Maturity: to be knowledgeable enough about events to
question the hype, and cynical enough about motivation to
question the hypocrisy.
31. It is interesting to observe people as they age - especially
ourselves.
32. We seem to have become a culture of perpetually television
ob-sexed teenagers.
33. Cultures change only slowly, while appetites grow with
explosive speed; there is little we can do to control either.
34. Immaturity is a curse which knowledge and experience permit
us to leave behind; pity so many do not.
35. A touch of greed is a positive motivational force. Obsessive
greed is destructive.
36. The most serious obstruction to cooperation in a democracy;
after selfishly motivated control of power; is over simplistic,
emotional ignorance.
37. It is clear we value mouth over mind. In the mind there are
ever doubts and uncertainty - from the mouth, none - and it is the
mouth to which we pay our attention.
38. We have, it seems, begun to equate arrogance, egocentricity,
charisma and smooth talking with character and leadership - pity.
39. The scourges of mankind are ignorance and arrogance - but
the worst of all is arrogant ignorance.
41. Frankly I mistrust a person with such towering ego he thinks
he deserves to be president - or even worse, king, emperor or
dictator.
42. To "like" someone I must respect and trust them; this narrows
the pool.
43, I remember what they used to say (and maybe still do) about
the river Platte: one mile wide and an inch deep. It seems to me
something like that might be applied to television news: a couple
of sound bites wide, and a millimeter or so deep.
11. Respect:
Why are we so quick to sense lack of respect from
others, and so slow in offering it to them?
To be a leader of men, one must be respected;
but it is most difficult to gain respect when one
does not first respect those he would lead.
Respect. A small word, a colossal concept. Give
and thou shalt receive.
If we believe that each has that for which he or
she can be regarded as special, and we learn to
recognize it, we should then respect them for it.
To acknowledge special-ness is not a difficult
thing; to recognize it in individuals is infinitely
more difficult; to render the respect that it
deserves is most difficult of all - and then only if it
is deserved.
Mutual respect between two individuals is a thing
of greatest value, and exquisite beauty.
To be respected, one must first respect. Without
that, there may be obedience, admiration, envy,
appreciation, even awe; but not respect.
To be respected is one of the greatest gifts one
can receive; to respect is one of the greatest gifts
one can bestow.
The road to respect is through empathy. To
respect, one need first understand. To
understand, one must see things through others’
eyes.
What wondrous things could we achieve, could
we only ensure mutual respect.
Each individual is different, and sees life through
different eyes. To survive requires compromise.
To compromise, one must open the mind, and
learn to respect the views of others - however alien
they might seem.
One can respect what one does not love, but love
can not long endure without respect.
Though a precious gift, giving of respect is never
trivial; it must first be earned.
Our society, our culture, is like a magnificent
edifice, each module with its own importance to
the efficacy of the whole: freedoms, rights,
responsibilities, representation. Respect is the
mortar that holds the structure together; without it
there is naught but rubble.
Mutual respect is the glue of a successful
relationship, any successful relationship.
How can one love what one can not respect?
Why are we so quick to sense lack of respect from
others, and so slow in offering it to them?
To be a leader of men, one must be respected;
but it is most difficult to gain respect when one
does not first respect those he would lead.
Respect. A small word, a colossal concept. Give
and thou shalt receive.
If we believe that each has that for which he or
she can be regarded as special, and we learn to
recognize it, we should then respect them for it.
To acknowledge special-ness is not a difficult
thing; to recognize it in individuals is infinitely
more difficult; to render the respect that it
deserves is most difficult of all - and then only if it
is deserved.
Mutual respect between two individuals is a thing
of greatest value, and exquisite beauty.
To be respected, one must first respect. Without
that, there may be obedience, admiration, envy,
appreciation, even awe; but not respect.
To be respected is one of the greatest gifts one
can receive; to respect is one of the greatest gifts
one can bestow.
The road to respect is through empathy. To
respect, one need first understand. To
understand, one must see things through others’
eyes.
What wondrous things could we achieve, could
we only ensure mutual respect.
Each individual is different, and sees life through
different eyes. To survive requires compromise.
To compromise, one must open the mind, and
learn to respect the views of others - however alien
they might seem.
One can respect what one does not love, but love
can not long endure without respect.
Though a precious gift, giving of respect is never
trivial; it must first be earned.
Our society, our culture, is like a magnificent
edifice, each module with its own importance to
the efficacy of the whole: freedoms, rights,
responsibilities, representation. Respect is the
mortar that holds the structure together; without it
there is naught but rubble.
Mutual respect is the glue of a successful
relationship, any successful relationship.
How can one love what one can not respect?
"No friendship, however fine, can replace the
fondness of a woman."
Disraeli by Andres Mourois
"Without Women men are only a cruel joke."
King Rat by James Clavell
"The endearing elegance of female
friendship."
Rasselas by Samuel Johnson
I believe at a certain stage of life, that stage
where we begin thinking back, it is inevitable
that our minds will rediscover friendships.
But the most important, the most endearing,
will be those with women, for a man's
friendships with women are most deeply
etched in our memories.
I was gratified to learn that it wasn't just me:
where we begin thinking back, it is inevitable
that our minds will rediscover friendships.
But the most important, the most endearing,
will be those with women, for a man's
friendships with women are most deeply
etched in our memories.
I was gratified to learn that it wasn't just me:
Edmund Burke
"No passion so effectually robs the mind of
all its powers of acting and reasoning as
fear.
Custom reconciles us to everything.
The greater the power, the more
dangerous the abuse.
Evil prevails when good men remain silent.
Among a people generally corrupt, liberty
cannot long exist.
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
The arrogance of age must submit to be
taught by youth.
A state without the means of some change
is without the means of its conservation.
The Grand Instructor: Time."
"No passion so effectually robs the mind of
all its powers of acting and reasoning as
fear.
Custom reconciles us to everything.
The greater the power, the more
dangerous the abuse.
Evil prevails when good men remain silent.
Among a people generally corrupt, liberty
cannot long exist.
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
The arrogance of age must submit to be
taught by youth.
A state without the means of some change
is without the means of its conservation.
The Grand Instructor: Time."
Samuel Johnson
"That is the happiest conversation where
there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm
quiet interchange of sentiments."
Letter to James MacPherson, 1775
"There is nothing which has yet been
contrived by man, by which so much
happiness is produced as by a good tavern
or inn."
On the Scots, 1776
"It is better that some should be unhappy
than that none should be happy, which would
be the case in a general state of equality."
Samuel Johnson, Vol iii
"Sir, the insolence of wealth will creep out."
Letter to Boswell, 1778
"Sir, are you so grossly ignorant of human
nature, as not to know that a man may be
very sincere in good principles, without
having good practice?"
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and
useless, and knowledge without integrity is
dangerous and dreadful."
Rasselas, 1759
"That is the happiest conversation where
there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm
quiet interchange of sentiments."
Letter to James MacPherson, 1775
"There is nothing which has yet been
contrived by man, by which so much
happiness is produced as by a good tavern
or inn."
On the Scots, 1776
"It is better that some should be unhappy
than that none should be happy, which would
be the case in a general state of equality."
Samuel Johnson, Vol iii
"Sir, the insolence of wealth will creep out."
Letter to Boswell, 1778
"Sir, are you so grossly ignorant of human
nature, as not to know that a man may be
very sincere in good principles, without
having good practice?"
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and
useless, and knowledge without integrity is
dangerous and dreadful."
Rasselas, 1759
Compromise - and Principles
Ludwig Erhard (1897 - 1977): "A compromise is the art of dividing a
cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest
piece."
Henry Clay (1777 - 1852): "All legislation, all government, all
society is founded upon the principle of mutual concession,
politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these everything is based...Let
him who elevates himself above humanity , above its weaknesses,
its infirmities, its wants, its necessities, say, if he pleases, I will
never compromise; but let no one who is not above the frailties of
our common nature disdain compromise."
Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982): "The spread of evil is the symptom of a
vacuum ; wherever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral
failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no
compromise on basic principles."
Charles Sumner (1811 - 1874): "From the beginning of our history
the country has been afflicted with compromise. It is by
compromise that human rights have been abandoned. I insist that
this shall cease. The country needs repose after all its trials; it
deserves repose. And repose can only be found in everlasting
principles."
Ludwig Erhard (1897 - 1977): "A compromise is the art of dividing a
cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest
piece."
Henry Clay (1777 - 1852): "All legislation, all government, all
society is founded upon the principle of mutual concession,
politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these everything is based...Let
him who elevates himself above humanity , above its weaknesses,
its infirmities, its wants, its necessities, say, if he pleases, I will
never compromise; but let no one who is not above the frailties of
our common nature disdain compromise."
Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982): "The spread of evil is the symptom of a
vacuum ; wherever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral
failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no
compromise on basic principles."
Charles Sumner (1811 - 1874): "From the beginning of our history
the country has been afflicted with compromise. It is by
compromise that human rights have been abandoned. I insist that
this shall cease. The country needs repose after all its trials; it
deserves repose. And repose can only be found in everlasting
principles."
"People not very well grounded in the
principles of public morality find a set of
maxims in office ready made for them...The
convenience of the business of the day is to
furnish the principle for doing it."
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present
Discontents
principles of public morality find a set of
maxims in office ready made for them...The
convenience of the business of the day is to
furnish the principle for doing it."
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present
Discontents
The underlining of the word principles is not intended to be
judgmental - but suggestive of the need for serious deliberation.
judgmental - but suggestive of the need for serious deliberation.