He declined to run for the presidency, saying, "I will not accept if nominated, and will not serve if elected." //

Though vilified in the South as a demon who perpetuated atrocities on civilians, historians give Sherman high marks as a military strategist and quick-witted tactician. He changed the nature of war and recognized it for what it was: "War is hell." //

• I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.
• If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.
• In our country ... one class of men makes war and leaves another to fight it out.
• War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

Inscribed on the wall of Mother Teresa's children's home in Calcutta.

Milhouse | March 1, 2023 at 10:45 pm
“Security from domestic violence, no less than from foreign aggression, is the most elementary and fundamental purpose of any government, and a government that cannot fulfill that purpose is one that cannot long command the loyalty of its citizens. History shows us – demonstrates that nothing – nothing prepares the way for tyranny more than the failure of public officials to keep the streets from bullies and marauders.

“Now, we Republicans see all this as more, much more, than the rest: of mere political differences or mere political mistakes. We see this as the result of a fundamentally and absolutely wrong view of man, his nature and his destiny. Those who seek to live your lives for you, to take your liberties in return for relieving you of yours, those who elevate the state and downgrade the citizen must see ultimately a world in which earthly power can be substituted for divine will, and this Nation was founded upon the rejection of that notion and upon the acceptance of God as the author of freedom.”

— Barry Goldwater

“The truth is, I do not hate anyone,” Kennedy avowed. “I look for grace, wherever I can find it, so I say this gently: the Biden administration sucks.” You measure it any way you want, he said; on any issue, Biden had been “spectacularly awful.”

“If you put President Biden in charge of the Sahara Desert, he would run out of sand,” Kennedy joked. “If the aliens landed in Washington, D.C., tomorrow and said ‘take me to your leader,’ it would be embarrassing.”

He then listed a variety of other truths.

“If you worked hard and earned it, you should get to keep most of it.”

“All life is precious — all life — and shame on those who celebrate actually celebrate abortion.”

“The Republican Party, I’m very proud of this, is the party of parents. because we understand that if you don’t love your children, your children won’t stop loving you your children will stop loving themselves.”

“We should have an election day, not an election month.”

“Illegal immigration is illegal, duh. Unless you peaked in high school, you know that. Why doesn’t President Biden?”

“If gun control laws worked, Chicago would be Mayberry. Instead, it is the world’s largest outdoor shooting range.”

“America was founded on the principle of free will and responsibility and I believe in that. Many in Washington do not.”

“Race should not be used to hurt a person or to help a person.You know why? Because the truth is also that souls have no color. To a bear, we all taste like chicken.”

“The Chinese Communist Party is a bunch of gangsters…I would not turn my back on President Xi if he were two days dead.”

“We must be armed if we want peace, because appeasing a tyrant is like trying to hand-feed a shark.”

Kennedy reminded the audience of those who had gone before us and given the last full measure of devotion in the defense of this nation.

“Arlington National Cemetery contains 400,000 reasons why you should stand your a** up for the national anthem,” Kennedy declared. “And those who disagree with me can stick that up their fact-checker.”

Kennedy wrapped up by saying our future could be better than our present or our past, but “no one was going to save us but ourselves.” He noted that most countries “die from suicide, not murder,” and that we had to be committed to fighting for America. “So join with me” and help fight for America, he said. “No one will ever say, Kennedy quit.”

We may not know what the next chapter will look like or how we’re going to make it, but we can be confident that ours is a God who does indeed bring us through the fire and the flood. There will be twists and turns along the way, but a way will most surely be made. The end has been determined: God will walk us all the way Home. //

As one of the characters so perfectly says near the end of the series, when they’ve made it through the seemingly impossible, “Dawn has conquered dark since the Maker spoke the world. The night is deep, but light runs deeper.”

Our hope is secure. The promise is sure. The weary world has reason to rejoice, for the story is in good hands. Dawn is already on the way.⁣

We’re going to be okay. We know how the story ends.

Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

Resolution Number 7.
Jonathan Edwards

I wrote this in my personal book of aphorisms on 2021-08-20:

There is nothing virtuous about sleep deprivation. It makes people stupid, sloppy, error-prone, unwise, and unthinkingly obedient. This is why schools and armies so encourage it. We’d all be better off if early-rising “policy makers” got a good night’s sleep or, better still, never woke up.

Living in the center of biblical tension

“It seems easier to go to a consistent extreme than to stay at the center of biblical tension.” -- Robertson McQuilkin

“I am afraid that there is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.”
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)

“The bitterness and hate ... would have long since been obliterated in this state, were it not for some unprincipled men who would keep alive the bitterness of the past, and inculcate a hatred between the races, in order that they may aggrandize themselves by office, and its emoluments, to control my people, the effect of which is to degrade them.”
Senator Hiram Revels (1827-1901)

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people”. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

– John Adams

“But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”

– John Adams

“…Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored.

– John Adams

DrunkDiogenes
6 hours ago
“In conversation with [a fool], one virtually feels that one is dealing not... with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A new book investigates the truth behind famous quotations that have been wrongly attributed, misremembered, garbled in translation—or are flat-out fake.

The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New
York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat." - Albert Einstein ///

Possibly apocryphal, like m good quotes

The Flight from Truth: The Reign of Deceit in the Age of Information Hardcover – January 21, 1992
by Jean Francois Revel

A distinguished French philosopher argues that the greatest threat to modern democracy is the dissemination of false information, myths that endanger the viability of freedom and the democratic way of life. //

“Human beings experience all sorts of needs for intellectual activity other than the need to know. The average human being seeks the truth only after having exhausted all other possibilities.’’ //

“For the philosophers of the enlightenment it naturally followed that once the obstacles have been overcome and we are in possession of the truth, we will mold our conduct and the governance of society accordingly.’’ //

“However, the main thesis of this book is exactly the contrary. It is based on the cultural contradiction that separates accessibility to knowledge from the irrationality of human behavior.’’ //

“I do not believe there is an automatic link leading from true knowledge to sound action. I believe this link can be established only through persistent, willful effort, intellectual rigor, mental discipline — in short, that the link is anything but natural.’’ //

“I also think that the hour has struck and that this effort must now be made for the survival of mankind.’’ //

“Knowledge only plays a part when it is not blocked by some sterile prejudice. Error, based on dogmatic ‘principles’ and unworkable ‘solutions’ is generally preferred to effective action based on knowledge and solid information. . . . To understand what is needed to late — at least for taking effective action — is almost the same as not to understand.’’ //

“The history of philosophy can be divided into two different periods. During the first, philosophers sought the truth; during the second, they fought against it. This second period, of which Descartes was the precursor of genius and of which Heidegger has been the most putrid manifestation, entered its heyday with Hegel. Between Descartes and Hegel there were several heirs of the truth seeking epoch, the most pathetically sincere of whom was Kant and the most subtle Hume, who vainly sought a middle way in order to stave off the ineluctable triumph of imposture.’’

Over two decades ago, Warren Buffett lectured at the University of Florida's school of business and gave students life lessons on happiness, careers, finances, and relationships.

Buffett urged students to do the things they know will enjoy throughout their lives and gave good counsel about making business connections with likable people. "I only work with people I like," Buffett told students. "If I could make $100 million with a guy who causes my stomach to churn, I'd say no."

I urge you to work in jobs you love. You're out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don't like because you think it'll look good on your résumé.

Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the "chain of command." Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere.

Musk adds, "If, in order to get something done between departments, an individual contributor has to talk to their manager, who talks to a director, who talks to a VP, who talks to another VP, who talks to a director, who talks to a manager, who talks to someone doing the actual work, then super dumb things will happen. It must be OK for people to talk directly and just make the right thing happen." //

Set your people free

In a knowledge economy, top-down hierarchical management styles that direct traffic one-way -- up the chain -- will collapse, especially since knowledge workers typically know more than their managers about their own areas of specialization.

The right approach here is to give smart people the keys to solving problems on their own. You'll find that in high-performing organizations that empower their knowledge workers, information is shared openly across fewer reporting levels, and people are able to use it to make the right decisions quickly.

The starting point is to empower workers by giving them autonomy to make decisions in the moment. Workers need the right data, insights, and technology to make high-quality decisions. Putting this trust and power in the hands of workers is seen as critical to agility and success.

It starts with leadership

Arming workers with the power of making decisions and acting with the data they have requires big changes in both process and culture, and senior leaders must drive this change from the top by providing their full support and leading by example.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

John Adams

When your enterprise grows big enough to require management that is not involved in the daily operations of the enterprise, you lose information about what’s happening at the “production line” and decisions are made according to what little information percolates up through the system. The same thing happens when someone new buys a business and then attempts to learn the ropes from the top down. In both cases, the growing business loses basic functions and becomes blind.

In attempts to gain more information, the management applies measurements and metrics which attempt to simplify things down to some key variables and averages easily understood by managers, not by people making or using the product. The product of your enterprise is then made to cater to these metrics – not to actual customer demands or needs. This is seen by the management as rationalizing the business, cutting out the fat, etc. while the customers see loss of features and loss of responsiveness from the company.

“the system has a severely censored and distorted view of reality from biased and filtering sensory organs which displaces understanding of the actual real-world which pales and tends to disappear. This displacement creates a type of sensory deprivation and a kind of hallucinogenic effect on those inside the systems, causing them to lose common sense. In addition to negatively affecting those inside the system, the system attracts to it people who are optimized for the pathological environment”
-John Gall, Systemantics, 1978

Two of her most famous quotes remain sourceless and bereft, despite the best efforts of The Jewish Press writer Harvey Rachlin. //

We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us

On the Palestinians & Violence
“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us”

“We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown and when strawberries bloom in Israel.”

“A leader who doesn't hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.”

“It was not as if there was a Palestinian people in Palestine and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.”

“We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs - We have no place to go.”

“I guess we have no choice. Either we do everything that is possible, and may seem to others as impossible, and just give up. Or we do everything that is really impossible and we remain alive. There’s one more basic thing that I think that people outside of Israel must realize, and if they understand and accept that, maybe other things will fall into place.