The enemy within ~ Abraham Lincoln

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher….”

Viktor Frankl: The power to choose your response

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist Viktor Frankl spent three years in Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and later Dachau concentration camps (1942 – 1945). His mother and his brother Walter died at Auschwitz. His wife was moved to Bergen-Belsen, where she died. The only other survivor among his immediate family was his sister, Stella, who had emigrated to Australia. He published Man’s Search for Meaning in 1946.

Frankl concludes that the meaning of life is in every moment of living. Life never ceases to have meaning, even in suffering and death. He observed that a prisoner’s psychological reactions are not simply the result of his treatment, but from how he chooses to respond. The hold that a prisoner has on his inner self requires having hope in the future; if he loses that hope, he is doomed.

Margaret Thatcher: Interventions

The habit of ubiquitous interventionism, combining pinprick strikes by precision weapons with pious invocations of high principle, would lead us into endless difficulties. Interventions must be limited in number and overwhelming in their impact.

Epictetus: Commitment

In every act observe the things which come first and those which follow…. If you do not, at first you will approach it with alacrity…. but afterward you will be ashamed. A man wishes to conquer the Olympic games…. But observe the things which come first and the things which follow…. You must do everything according to the rule: eat according to strict orders, abstain from delicacies, exercise yourself at appointed times, in heat and cold, you must not drink cold water, nor wine as you choose…. And sometimes you will strain the hand, put the ankle out of joint, swallow much dust, sometimes be flogged, and after all this be defeated. When you have considered all this, if you still choose, go to the contest. If you do not (consider) you will behave like children, who at one time play as wrestlers, another time as flute players…. but with your whole soul you will be nothing at all.

~ Epictetus: Enchiridion (A.D. 55 – A.D. 135)

Epictetus

Imaginary portrait of Epictetus. Engraved frontispiece of Edward Ivie’s Latin translation (or versification) of Epictetus’ Enchiridon, printed in Oxford in 1751. Original title of the book: “Epicteti Enchiridion Latinis versibus adumbratum. Per Eduardum Ivie A. M. Ædis Christi Alumn. […] Oxoniæ, Theatro Sheldoniano, MDCCXV. […]” The subscription is an epigramm from the Anthologia Palatina (VII 676) and reads: Δοῦλος Ἐπίκτητος γενόμην, καὶ σῶμ’ ἀνάπηρος, καὶ πενίην Ἶρος, καὶ φίλος ἀθανάτοις. “I was Epictetus the slave, and not sound in all my limbs, and poor as Irus, and beloved by the gods.” (Irus is the beggar in the Odyssey.) Source: Wikipedia

Eric Hoffer: Discover what your enemy fears most

….Discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.

Eric Hoffer spent more than 10 years as a young man, homeless on Skid Row, before becoming a migrant worker, following the harvests in California. He later prospected for gold and worked as a longshoreman which he only quit at the age of 69. From these unlikely beginnings, Hoffer evolved into an acclaimed moral and social philosopher. He wrote 10 books, including the The True Believer (1951) and The Ordeal of Change (1963), and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom before his death in 1983.