“To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends…This is to have succeeded.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wisdom
9
Sep 09
Ralph Waldo Emmerson On The Social Ramifications Of Success
28
Aug 09
On The Psychology Of People Who Break From Societal And Cultural Norms
Most people… adopt “sensible” goals based on the needs of their body – to live a long and healthy life, to have sex, to be well fed and comfortable – or on the desires implanted by the social system – to be good, to work hard, to spend as much as possible, to live up to others’ expectations. But there are enough exceptions in every culture to show that goals are quite flexible. Individuals who depart from the norms – heroes, saints, sages, artists, and poets, as well as madmen and criminals – look for different things in life than most others do. The existence of people like these shows that consciousness can be ordered in terms of different goals and intentions. Each of us has this freedom to control our subjective reality.
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (excerpt from Flow, Chapter 2 – The Anatomy of Consciousness, page 28.)
11
Apr 09
Gall’s Law
“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system”.
- John Gall (Systemantics: How Systems Work And How They Really Fail, page 71)
29
Jan 09
Cicero On The Nature Of Truth, Knowledge, And Human Motives Behind Acceptance
…for there are not so many possessed of virtue as there are that desire to seem virtuous. These last are delighted with flattery, and when false statements are framed purposely to satisfy and please them, they take the falsehood as valid testimony to their merit.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero (Excerpt from “De Amicitia, Scipio’s Dream“)
29
Nov 08
Herbert Spencer On Ill-Informed Actions And Non-Consequences
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
– Herbert Spencer (1891)
23
Nov 08
Lao Tzu On Being Content, Simplicity, and Happiness
“Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”
- Lao Tzu