Archives - November 2003

Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.

If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be enthusiasm.

Let us take things as we find them: let us not attempt to distort them into what they are not. We cannot make facts. All our wishing cannot change them. We must use them.

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.

A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history --- with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.

The important thing to recognize is that it takes a team, and the team ought to get credit for the wins and the losses. Successes have many fathers, failures have none.

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

Emotions are your worst enemy in the stock market.

Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Assumptions allow the best in life to pass you by.

Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person.

The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.

Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings.

In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

Most successful men have not achieved their distinction by having some new talent or opportunity presented to them. They have developed the opportunity that was at hand.

Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children.

We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.

Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.

There is only one admirable form of the imagination: the imagination that is so intense that it creates a new reality, that it makes things happen.

Outings are so much more fun when we can savor them through the children's eyes.

Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God and value it next to conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of, a blessing money can't buy.