Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.
~ Margaret Thatcher
Winston Churchill: Bolshevism
My hatred of Bolshevism and Bolsheviks is not founded on their silly system of economics, or their absurd doctrine of an impossible equality. It arises from the bloody and devastating terrorism which they practice in every land into which they have broken, and by which alone their criminal regime can be maintained.
~ Winston Churchill (1920)
A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma
I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.
~ Winston Churchill in a radio broadcast, October 1939.
Abraham Maslow: “If the only tool you have is a hammer….”
“It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
~ Abraham Maslow
[Maslow could well have been observing US foreign policy when he made that observation.]
For The Fallen
For The Fallen
Written September 1914
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
~ Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)
In commemoration of ANZAC Day
Freedom is precarious…….
Freedom, the book [by Geoff Dyer] says, is precarious, it must be won every day and can only be found through constant renewal. It is never held but chased under the lengthening shadows of habit and fear.
Quote from He Left Nirvana Because He Had Cooler Things to Do. Like Going to Iraq. – The Daily Beast.
Jesse Livermore: They say you never go broke taking profits…
….I had been bullish from the very start of a bull market, and I had backed my opinion by buying stocks. An advance followed, as I had clearly foreseen. So far, all very well. But what else did I do? Why, I listened to the elder statesmen and curbed my youthful impetuousness. I made up my mind to be wise carefully, conservatively. Everybody knew that the way to do that was to take profits and buy back your stocks on reactions. And that is precisely what I did, or rather what I tried to do; for I often took profits and waited for a reaction that never came. And I saw my stock go kiting up ten points more and I sitting there with my four-point profit safe in my conservative pocket. They say you never go broke taking profits. No, you don’t. But neither do you grow rich taking a four-point profit in a bull market.
~ Jesse Livermore
You can’t trust people much……
Why capitalism works:
You can’t trust people much, but you can trust them to follow their own self-interest.
Self-interest: Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
It is not from the benevolence (kindness) of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
Commitment to excellence: Vince Lombardi
The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
~ Vince Lombardi