Franklin...................

Back in 1977 I purchased a paperback copy of The Autobiography

of Benjamin Franklin.  This little book has followed me faithfully,

from move to move, ever since.  Franklin being one of my heroes, 

occasionally it gets picked up and thumbed through.  As James

O'Donnell Bennett says in the frontispiece quote, it is "An intimate

document, sinewy, naive and shrewd, direct from the hand of the

most versatile of the founders of America's greatness."  

Suspecting that most readers of this blog will be familiar with

Franklin's 13 virtues, it seemed a fair idea to post them again.

It should be noted that Franklin never claimed success in

mastering these.  As Captain Barbossa might say, think of them  

more as guidelines than strict rules.  Enjoy:

1. Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. Industry. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
11. Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Cunning..................

"The greatest cunning is to have none at all."
-Carl Sandburg

About science.............

     "What is science?  The word is usually used to mean one
of three things, or a mixture of them.  I do not think we need
to be precise - it is not always a good idea to be too precise. 
Science means, sometimes, a special method of finding things
out.  Sometimes it means the body of knowledge arising from
the things found out.  It may also mean the new things you
can do when you have found something out, or the actual
doing of new things."

-Richard P. Feynman, 
The Meaning Of It All:  Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist

Moderation..................

There is a mean in all things.  Even virtue itself has its stated limits, which, not being strictly observed, it ceases to be a virtue


-an unattributed quote from The Carcanet 

Opening paragraphs..........

     He was born in the upstairs room of a tiny gray stone weaver's cottage in Dunfermline, Scotland, to Margaret Carnegie, the daughter of Tom Morrison, the town's outspoken radical, and William Carnegie, a handloom weaver of fine damasks.  He would be called Andrew, following the Scottish custom of naming the firstborn son after the father's father.  Mag Carnegie, unable to afford a midwife, had called on her pregnant girlhood friend Ailie Fargee for assistance.  A few months later, when Ailie's time came, Mag was there to minister to the birth of Ailie's son, Richard.

-David Nasaw,  Andrew Carnegie

Less free..................

"Lives based on having are less free than lives based on
either doing or being."
-William James

Life is a whole.....

"......One of the great dangers we face in the modern world

is an inappropriate compartmentalization of our lives.

     "We can draw a distinction between the public and the

private, between what is professional and what is personal,

but I've come to believe that the most fundamental virtues

and principles in both domains are the same.  In addition,

I am convinced that it's dangerous to try to make exceptions

to those ways of living and treating others we've found to

be binding in one domain.  Life is a whole, and must be

approached as such."

-Tom Morris, If Aristotle Ran General Motors

Groupthink.....................

The Saint Consulting blog offers insights into the failures of "group
think"  The question:


Have you ever wondered how a group of very smart people could make a very bad decision?  Or how a group could reach a conclusion that isn’t wiser than the sum of its parts?  It could be the result of groupthink.


Part of the answer:


.....The first symptom is an overestimation of the group, characterized by an illusion of invulnerability and a belief in the inherent morality of the group.  The second symptom is closed-mindedness, which involves the stereotypes of out-groups and collective rationalization that causes group members to ignore the reconsideration of their thoughts and actions.  The third symptom is the pressure toward uniformity that is manifested in self-censorship, an illusion of unanimity, the presence of self-appointed mindguards, and direct pressure on dissenters.


Full post is here

Opening paragraphs....................

    Of all the towering figures of the twentieth century, both good and evil, Winston Churchill was the most valuable to humanity, and also the most likable.  It is a joy to write of his life, and to read about it.  None holds more lessons, especially for youth:  How to use a difficult childhood.  How to seize eagerly on all opportunities, physical, moral, and intellectual.  How to dare greatly, to reinforce success, and to put the inevitable failures behind you.  And how, while pursuing vaulting ambition with energy and relish, to cultivate also friendship, generosity, compassion, and decency.

-Paul Johnson,  Churchill

On obstacles and goals......

"A goal casually set and lightly taken is freely abandoned at 
the first obstacle."
-Zig Ziglar


"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you 
take your eyes off your goals."
-Sydney Smith

Simple and undeviating...........

      Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results.  This is but saying that nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing from nettles but nettles.  Men understand this in the natural world, and work with it; but few understand it in the mental and moral world, though its operation there is just as simple and undeviating, and they, therefore, do not cooperate with it.
-James Allen, As A Man Thinketh

Not everyone loved Emerson.............

Algernon Charles Swinburne by William Bell Scott

Faithful readers will understand this blogger's fascination with
Ralph Waldo Emerson.  It was with great interest that I read
this passage in Brand Blanshard's book Four Reasonable Men:

"It came to the notice of Swinburne that Emerson has said
something critical of him in an American paper.....The angry
poet sat down and wrote the philosopher a letter describing
him as a 'gap-toothed and hoary-headed ape, carried at
first into notice on the shoulder of Carlyle, and who now in
his dotage spits and chatters from a dirtier perch in his own 
finding and fouling:  coryphaeus or choragus of his Bulgarian
tribe of autocophagous baboons, who make the filth they
feed on'...."

Besides sending me to the dictionary to look up a few words,
this passage led me to the Oracle That Is Wikipedia to learn
more about Swinburne.  You can read it yourself here, or just
take comfort in this quote:


However, (T.S) Eliot disliked Swinburne's prose. About this 
he wrote "the tumultuous outcry of adjectives, the 
headstrong rush of undisciplined sentences, are the index to 
the impatience and perhaps laziness of a disorderly mind."


And we think what passes for our current political conversation
is too harsh and personal.  It has ever been thus.

coryphaeus.................

Today's word for the day is brought to us by Mr. Webster and
the Third Edition of his New World College Dictionary:


coryphaeus       n.      1.  The leader of the chorus in ancient
                                          Greek drama     2  a leader, as of a
                                          sect or movement

as in:

Al Gore is the coryphaeus of the global cooling deniers.

Now, if only the "facts" weren't so elusive...

from the Business Wisdom blog
Thanks Michael

Pretty good success ratio...............

Confucius say..............

5.  Tzu-chang asked about getting on with people.  The Master said, Be loyal and true to your every word, serious and careful in all you do; and you will get on well enough, even though you find yourself among barbarians.  But if you are disloyal and untrustworthy in your speech, frivolous and careless in your acts, even though you are among your own neighbours, how can you hope to get on well?  When standing, see these principles ranged before you; in your carriage, see them resting on the yoke.  Then you may be sure that you will get on.  Tzu-chang accordingly inscribed the maxim upon his sash.

-The Analects of Confucius, Book XV

This is very cool....................

Not only on the golf course.................

Good players have the power to think while they are
competing.  Most golfers are not thinking, even when they
believe they are.  They are only worrying.
     Worrying is a misuse of your mind on the golf course. 
Whatever your obstacle, worry will only make it more
difficult.  Further, it is impossible to make a good golf
swing if your muscles are too tense.
     Rather than worrying, be mindful of the shot at hand
and go ahead and play it as if you are going to hit the
best shot of your life.  You really might do it.

-Harvey Penick,  The Game for a Lifetime

Spending a few moments with Carlos....

Carlos Santana...............................................Samba pa ti

On tolerance.............

     The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects.  The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful.  And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.

-Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
on the peace and prosperity during the Age of the Antonines