The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
"For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.” ― Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod
A soldier's life revolves around his mail. Like many others, I've been able to follow my kid's progress from the day he was born until now he is able to walk and talk a little, and although I have never seen him I know him very well. - Bill Mauldin
That's from a wonderful book called Up Front. It's one of the best narrations and illustrations that came out of World War II from the ordinary soldier's point of view. I highly recommend it to everybody. If you need an introduction, here's one I wrote for a Veteran's Day event: http://jayeltee.blogspot.com/2019/11/up-front-and-bill-mauldin.html
Three quotes from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince, a slim book that, to my great regret, I had taken far too long to re-read: "One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets oneself be tamed..." (That was a quote that came back to me in force when we had to put our first cat down after a long fight with cancer.) "'What makes the desert beautiful,' said the little prince, 'is that somewhere it hides a well..." (I think of this quote every time I meet a stranger who at first doesn't impress me... it's entirely possible that a well is hidden there.) "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." I'd forgotten how powerful this little book was. I think it was Rod Steiger who bought them by the case, and handed them out to everyone he met. He said that the reaction people had to the book told him everything he needed to know about them. I first read this book in German, in my high school German class. My teacher that year was Miss Tunyogi, an astonishingly attractive young woman (especially to a sixteen-year-old boy) with a soul that was simplicity itself. She died in an auto accident a year later. I would have liked to know her better.
Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top. - Edward Abbey
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. Winston Churchill
...it is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done. - Terry Pratchett
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, of a house guest.
"Go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something." ~Kurt Vonnegut, from Man Without a Country
"The truth comes all at once or it does not come at all." - Rachael Pollack, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom
I must disagree. The truth almost never comes out all at once. It trickles out by degrees, but almost never completely. I just finished Watergate: A New History by Garrett M. Graff, and learned a lot of things that were never covered in previous books on the subject. And it left me with the impression that there is still a lot of truth that has yet to come to light. Graff had access to a wealth of documents and information that has only recently come into public awareness, including the identity of "Deep Throat" and his motivations for blowing the whistle. I do agree that the whole truth very rarely comes out in any situation. But enough of it comes out to allow you to make more sense of the history behind it than you could before. To know the whole truth about Watergate, for example, would require you to know the innermost thoughts of Nixon, Felt, Mitchell, Liddy, Hunt, and the rest of them, and since they are dead now, that would never happen. I would say, though, that enough has been exposed to allow me to get a handle on it.
Fair points. I suppose I should clarify that my quote was from a book about tarot and the author was writing about "capital T" Truth, the spiritual or philosophical kind. I suppose a better word would have been "insight" or "understanding." But even in that context, maybe it isn't completely true. Sure, every account I've ever read of someone achieving enlightenment (however you define it) has stressed its instantaneous nature, but does that mean that understanding can't come by degrees? Maybe that flash of inspiration just lends a feeling of authenticity that doesn't come when you understand something slowly, piece by piece. I can say that my own more secular epiphanies have definitely felt weightier than things I worked out logically. Regardless, still a good quote.
I would say it does come by degrees, but that flash of insight, is when the mind fits all those degrees into a meaningful picture for itself.
I think you're talking about that "aha" moment, which seems to be instantaneous. But that moment is usually the result of a lot of information gathering and sifting, before you have enough to form a conclusion; it's the realization that there's suddenly a pattern to it that seems to be the truth behind it all. But sometimes, it's not the truth at all. And subsequent events will expose that, fact and it's up to the person to discard what was thought to be the "truth" and to keep digging and evaluating. As H. L. Mencken said, "There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible, and wrong"... another favorite quote of mine.
This one has quickly become a new favorite of mine: "Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul." —Meg Rosoff
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. ~ Winston Churchill
'God does not play dice' - Albert Einstein His response to the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics. He was proved wrong - roll 'em cowboy!
"Boys; being shot by accident feels just like being shot on purpose." At 16 and 17 my brother and I were bad about hanging around seedy bars. You know; the kind with a big hole rotted out in the floor that folks threw their empties' in. A pearl of wisdom from an old rancher who looked ancient to us.
