Checking in.....................

 

.................................with Poor Richard:

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.

The way to be safe, is never to be secure.

Success has ruin'd many a man.

Observe all men; thyself most.

Half the truth is often a great lie.

Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

 A mob's a monster; heads enough, but no brains.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made of.\

If man could have half his wishes, he would double his troubles.

Checking in with Lord Acton.......

 

-The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class.

-The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.

-Before God, there is neither Greek nor barbarian, neither rich nor poor; and the slave is as good as his master, for by birth all men are free; they are citizens of that universal commonwealth which embraces all the world, brethren of one family, and children of God.

-Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. 

-By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.

-all quotes from John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834 –1902).  More here

Jim Rohn...................

 

-Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure.

-You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. You don’t have charge of the constellations, but you do have charge of whether you read, develop new skills and take new classes.

-Learn how to turn frustration into fascination. You will learn more being fascinated by life than you will by being frustrated by it.

-You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.

-The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.

-all quotes from Jim Rohn, more here

about that understanding...............

 

We did not live upon the same earth that they did and we flatter ourselves when we think we understand them.

-Jim Harrison and Rob Firchau

clarity....................

 

Clarity isn't about knowing what you want to do with your life, it's about knowing what you want to do this week. You don't need to have it all figured out. You just need to know your next step.

-James Clear, from this edition

listen.......................

 

It is better for the intellectual not to talk all the time.  To begin with, it would exhaust him, and, above all, it would keep him from thinking.

-Albert Camus

hardness.................

 

     The intellectual as a champion of the masses is a relatively recent phenomenon.  Education does not naturally waken in us a concern for the uneducated.  The distinction conferred by education is more easily maintained by a sharp separation from those below than be a continued excellence of achievement.  When Gandhi was asked by an American clergyman what it was that worried him the most, he replied: "The hardness of heart of the educated."

-Eric Hoffer, The Ordeal of Change

the submicroscopic............

 

The true life takes place when we’re alone, thinking, feeling, lost in memory, dreamily self-aware, the submicroscopic moments...

-Don DeLillo, from here

the temperament.....................

 

Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with the 130 IQ.  Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.

-Warren Buffett

however....................

 

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

-attributed to Winston Churchill

a virtue....................

 

Patience is a virtue no one has time for anymore.

-Ben Carlson

Art.............................

 

Art cannot be a monologue.

-Albert Camus

Norman Rockwelll      Connoisseur      Oil     1961-2

true companionship..............

 

But the man who learns, in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his own loneliness, and to prefer its reality to the illusion of merely natural companionship, comes to know the invisible companionship of God.

-Thomas Merton

Choices................

 

Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.

-Robert Louis Stevenson, An Apology for Idlers

Nietzsche says...................

 

.....................Ohne Musik wäre das Leben ein Irrthum.  (Without music, life would be a mistake).   Agreed:

Marshall Tucker Band:  Running Like the Wind

David Sanborn:  Pearls

Dire Straits:  Brothers in Arms

Kathy Troccoli/Beach Boys:  I Can Hear Music

Sven Zetterburg:  Let's Straighten It Out

Dave Mason:  Look At You Look At Me

John Klemmer:  Touch

This could go on forever.

On chilling the burn.............

 

When troubled, I read. I read obsessively about whatever is troubling me. It doesn’t solve the problem. It brings me distance. It chills the burn. It’s preferable to a bottle of scotch.

-Siri Hustvedt, Ghost Stories: A Memoir (Simon & Schuster, May 5, 2026), as quoted in this David Kanigan post

Knowledge is good.................

 

“Investing in yourself is the most important investment you’ll make in your life.” - Warren Buffett. Gaining more knowledge and skills is never a mistake.

-from this assortment of quotes from some smart people

Choices...................

 

We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.

-Omar N. Bradley, one of only a handful of 5-Star Generals in U. S. history, from a 1948 speech

compounding...............

 

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.

-C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

via

responsibility...........

 

We are responsible for our own ignorance or, with time and open hearted enlightenment, our own wisdom.

-Isabel Wilkerson

via