A Quotation for Today

You do not need to be told that in times of stress it is difficult to keep things in focus. In times when failure is either present or looming over everyone we know, it is difficult to focus on success.

And yet, we should keep reminding ourselves that success is built gradually, out of character, judgment, and hard work. No one is born successful. No one is entitled to it.

Today is Valentine's Day and I wish everyone a healthy and happy one. Surely, there is much to be said for setting aside one day to celebrate love. It is frankly silly to think otherwise.

And yet, those of us who come from the Rodney King school of human relationships know that success is not a function of true love, but of just getting along. Theodore Roosevelt expressed it well: "The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people."

Let us emphasize this point. While true love is reserved for one person, success involves a myriad of social connections. Conducting a full social life is so complex that it often taxes the soul.

Often enough, just getting along with people feels like a compromise of your best, most loving self. Worse yet, it often does not even feel natural; it feels like hard work. It is easy enough to remember to send flowers on Valentine's Day. But it is far more difficult to engage in the day-to-day labor that is required to manage many different relationships with varying degrees of intimacy.

Sometimes true love feels like a reprieve from the work of just getting along. And yet, knowing how to get along with the one you love is the best way to ensure that you will continue to be with that person.

A Quotation for Today

Today, not just one, but two quotations about a timely topic: hope. Both are attempting to warn people of the dangers of investing too much energy in hoping for things to happen... as opposed to doing something that might make them happen. However good it is to have a positive vision of the future, if that is all you have, you do not have very much. If you want to make that vision a reality you need to make a plan and to take action.

So, in no special order, a word from Aristotle on how hope is so attractive, and ultimately, so deceptive, to young people. "Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope." The philosopher does not say why young people are so quick to grab on to hope; perhaps it relates to an optimistic nature that has not yet been tested by reality. Or perhaps, it refers to a naive willingness to blind oneself to the lessons of reality. Aristotle wants young people to understand that when you allow yourself to be drawn to the siren song of hope you become easy prey.

After all, the art of seduction involves exploiting people's hopes. You hope that he or she loves you so you act as though that were a fact. It is a good way to suffer deception and betrayal. Not for lack of hope or even faith, but for lack of judgment.

Add that a comment by Benjamin Franklin: "He that lives upon hope will die fasting." There is nothing wrong with sustaining some hope for the future. But if that is your sole source of sustenance, you are not merely going to be deceived, you are going to starve.

So, a few less-than-optimistic thoughts about hope. By thinkers whose claim to wisdom is unimpeachable.

A Quotation for Today

When I was writing my February 5th post about ideological conformity I had a quotation in the back of my mind. It did not make the final cut, and perhaps that means that it is worth its own post.

The quote is from Aristotle: "It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it."

When faced with a new thought, an educated mind will show it full consideration and respect. The same would apply to thoughts that contradict deeply held beliefs.

An educated mind does not dismiss certain thoughts as heresy or blasphemy. It does not launch ad hominem attacks on the person who has presented the thoughts.

But what does it mean to entertain a thought? I would guess that it means the same thing as to entertain a person.

You invite a thought over for drinks, you engage it in conversation, you listen attentively to its argument, and then you decide whether you want it to stay for dinner or even to sleep over.

Before you decide to disagree, you show the thought the proper hospitality.

If you do not, then you have an arrogant and grandiose confidence in your own mind. For Aristotle this would have classed you among the uneducated.

Without respect for differing opinions you cannot have a "free trade in ideas."

As its author, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes defined this concept: "But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe ... that the ultimate good desired is best reached by the free trade in ideas... that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market...."

If we have decided to oppose protectionist trade policies, we should also oppose protectionism when it concerns the free trade in ideas. If you need to protect your ideas from competition, they are probably not worth their keep.

Quotation of the Day

Today is a national holiday, Super Bowl Sunday, and I want to keep with the festive spirit. Thus, I offer a line by a world-renowned humorist, Groucho Marx: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies."

A Quotation for Today

From the inimitable Oscar Wilde an assessment of one of the more curious aspects of American culture: "In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefit of their inexperience."

A Quotation for Today

Today's quotation is from Jon Markman, proprietor of an investment advisory service called: Markman Capital Insight. These lines open an advisory email Markman sent out to subscribers this morning. It makes a point that others have made before, but, Markman makes it elegantly, even alluding to Adam Smith: "Election of new US leadership was supposed to be all about change. And so far that has proved ironically accurate as investors this week turned the wealth of nations into pocket change."

A Quotation for Today

Here is Descartes offering a vote of confidence in the pertinence of philosophical thought: "One cannot conceive of anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another."

A Quotation for Today

If, perchance, you have been wondering how to improve your self-esteem, here's some advice from none other than George Washington: "Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your reputation for 'tis better to be alone than to be in bad company."

A Quotation for Today

Most of us could use some good cheer, so here is an uplifting thought from Mark Twain: "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."

A Quotation for Today

For today a few wise words from Confucius. Read into them what you will: "Before I was enlightened I chopped wood and carried water; after I was enlightened I chopped wood and carried water."

A Quotation for Today

Among the glories of Western civilization stands the Victorian gentleman. Surely, the gentleman, a quasi-aristocrat whose good manners came from culture not from genes, did not originate in Victorian England. Moliere made fun of the French version in the seventeenth century, and Confucius, around 500 B.C. extolled the studied civic virtue of this social creature.

But, who better to define the essence of the Victorian gentleman than Oscar Wilde: "A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally."

A Quotation for Today

Benjamin Franklin was a master of the adage. Today's quotation is a perfectly concise expression of the different behaviors that are appropriate to the different kinds of relationship we have. Call it a lesson in ethical behavior, one that also makes clear the importance of how to be close to some, closer to others, and closest to few.

Franklin's advice: "Be civil to all, sociable to many, familiar with few, friend to one, enemy to none."

Compare it to the words of another prominent ethicist, George Washington, who said: "Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence."

A Quotation for Today

Famed twentieth century journalist and political commentator took a measured stand against the tyranny of groupthink: "When we all think alike no one is thinking very much."

A Quotation for Today

This quotation from Winston Churchill, a cognitive therapist manque: "The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

A Quotation for Today

From Aristotle, a goal to keep in mind: "Anybody can become angry-- that is easy. But to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way-- that is not within everyone's power and is not easy."

A Quotation for Today

A lot of people today will easily relate to the situation faced by Marshal Ferdinand Foch at the beginning of World War I. We would all do well to emulate his exemplary solution.

Foch: "My left is giving way; my right is falling back; consequently I am ordering a general offensive, a decisive attack at the center."