Wednesday, August 15, 2018
The year was 1792.....................
The situation in which Talleyrand now found himself was even more difficult than that in which he had been placed at the beginning of the year. Pitt was as anxious to avoid war as he had ever been; Talleyrand was as sincere in his repudiation of all forms of propaganda and in his assurances as to the pacific intentions of the French Government. But already the 'war on kings' had been declared in the Assembly; already the missionary spirit was abroad in the streets of Paris and finding noisy utterance in the press; already the first soldiers of the revolutionary crusade had crossed the border into the Low Countries; and already the English people were irritated, indignant, and alarmed. Wise and moderate individuals were still struggling for peace, but ignorant and passionate mobs were sweeping all obstacles before them as they surged irresistibly forward to their own destruction in war.
-Duff Cooper, Talleyrand
On self-sabotage........................
“We tend to see the troublemaker as something outside ourselves. If we reflect deeply, however, we discover that the real troublemaker is within us: our true enemies are our own destructive tendencies.”
-The Dalai Lama, as quoted here
All of which reminds me of this classic post from Michael Wade:
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Nine traits................................
..............................................found in self-actualizing people.
Maslow was pretty smart, studying well-adjusted and mentally healthy people. To give you a taste, here are three of the nine traits:
1. Self actualizing people know how to enjoy the journey, not just the destination. They are flexible, they can change; they adapt. Self actualizing people embrace uncertainty and ambiguity. They do not cling to the familiar.
3. While inherently unconventional, self actualizing people do not seek to shock or disturb. They are neither conformers nor rebels. They resist enculturation. They are free thinkers, able to think outside the box, self-starters. They take responsibility for their own destinies.
7. Self actualizing people are full of gratitude, full of wonder. They are at once realists and optimists.
Fifty years ago............................
Hugh Montenegro...............The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
On bringing order..................
With pen and paper, you have a chance to bring order to that development, that creativity, that intelligence that comes with a human being. To neglect that ordering process is to give reign to worry, anxiety, stress; each and every one an electrical impulse which is out of control. For goodness sake, write. Or risk simply Mondays as a human doing.
-Nicholas Bate, as copied from here
Monday, August 13, 2018
Better................................
"I have something that I call my Golden Rule. It goes something like this: 'Do unto others twenty-five percent better than you expect them to do unto you.' … The twenty-five percent is for error."
-Linus Pauling
Fifty years ago.........................
At the book store..........................Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice
"And why does it make you sad to see how everything hangs by such thin and whimsical threads? Because you're a dreamer, an incredible dreamer, with a tiny spark hidden somewhere inside you which cannot die, which even you cannot kill or quench and which tortures you horribly because all the odds are against its continual burning. In the midst of the foulest decay and putrid savagery, this spark speaks to you of beauty, of human warmth and kindness, of goodness, of greatness, of heroism, of martyrdom, and it speaks to you of love."
2.300 years later.....................
...................................................foundations still matter:
ὥσπερ γὰρ οἰκίας, οἶμαι, καὶ πλοίου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν τοιούτων τὰ κάτωθεν ἰσχυρότατ᾽ εἶναι δεῖ, οὕτω καὶ τῶν πράξεων τὰς ἀρχὰς καὶ τὰς ὑποθέσεις ἀληθεῖς καὶ δικαίας εἶναι προσήκει
"For a house, I take it, or a ship or anything of that sort must have its chief strength in its substructure; and so too in affairs of state the principles and the foundations must be truth and justice."
-Demosthenes
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Chronicles of Defunction............
Alas, they had the Big Idea. Too, they were exemplars of temperance — workaholic instead, and probably incorruptible, in that sterile, short-sleeve, Puritan way. This is of the essence of liberalism and progress. It is a matter of stolid conviction, in opposition to all human experience. Everything is done consciously, nothing by instinct. Statistics are gratuitously gathered, and constantly reviewed. Everything must be managed, to the end of eliminating anything that smacks of a living tradition, spontaneity, or morale.
The (ancient) Greeks, who knew a thing or two about tyranny, felt that no decision should be made until it had become unavoidable, by when it would have been discussed, in a leisurely and therefore thorough way, sometimes drunk and sometimes sober. If the same conclusion is reached by both methods — by the coffee method and by the whisky method, as it were — then, and only then, should we dare proceed.
- David Warren, as culled from this post
dearer....................................
"In the modern world, if communities are unhappy, it is because the choose to be so. Or, to speak more precisely, because they have ignorances, habits, beliefs, and passions, which are dearer to them than happiness or even life. I find many men in our dangerous age who seem to be in love with misery and death, and who grow angry when hopes are suggested to them. They think that hope is irrational and that, in sitting down to lazy despair, they are merely facing facts. I cannot agree with these men. To preserve hope in our world makes calls upon our intelligence and our energy. In those who despair it is very frequently, the energy that is lacking."
-Bertrand Russell, excerpted from his essay Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday
This is sooooo true...........................
"In many cases, saving a little money on taxes will bring people much more joy than earning a lot of money on their investments."
This is even more true:
"I’m a huge proponent of deferring or avoiding taxes whenever possible but you never want to make an investment decision based purely on the tax benefits."
-both quotes from here
Interesting excerpts found while...............
.........................wandering through the Intertunnel thicket:
Legislation often backfires because the majority of congressmen are lawyers who try to fix most things through imposing procedures and regulations rather than altering incentives. These lawyer-legislators prefer to force the sinner to repent rather than making virtue more attractive. Perhaps they ignore incentives, since in their careers, they have experienced only two: bill more hours and get reelected.
The SEC believes that “sunlight is the best disinfectant”–disclosure is the cure for everything from insider trading to cancer. Had they hired a few gardeners to complement their staff of brilliant lawyers, they might have learned that sunshine also makes weeds grow. As the SEC required more disclosure about CEO pay, pay increased relentlessly because more disclosure made it easier for everyone to know what everyone else was making–and to leapfrog to the next higher level.
source is here
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