Academy Inspiring Quotes

Things die. But they don't always stay dead. Believe me, I know.

You're better than this. Better than whatever it is you're going to do now.

Friends can make you feel that the world is smaller and less sneaky than it really is, because you know people who have similar experiences.

I keep thinking about a tale my nurse used to read to me about a bird whose wings are pinned to the ground. In the end, when he finally frees himself, he flies so high he becomes a star. My nurse said the story was about how we all have something that keeps us down.

Look no farther than your hand, Make a choice and take a stand.

If it took me showing some warmth to get warmth in return, I'd do it.

The job of feets is walking, but their hobby is dancing.

For under scrutiny you will find that even an open book can have a surprise scribbled in its margins.

Who we are now is all that really matters.

Sometimes in life confusion tends to arise and only dialogue of dance seems to make sense.

Check you out,' said Magnus. 'My famous boyfriend, inspiration to the masses.

Look what we've done so far. We're pretty good at the impossible.

Me? I didn’t believe in hopeless.

Hope implies that you think you have a chance at something.

If movements were a spark every dancer would desire to light up in flames.

Caution not spirit, let it roam wild; for in that natural state dance embraces divine frequency.

Dance as the narration of a magical story; that recites on lips, illuminates imaginations and embraces the most sacred depths of souls.

Dance is the timeless interpretation of life.

Show me a person who found love in his life and did not celebrate it with a dance.

If spirit is the seed, dance is the water of its evolution.

If you opened the dictionary and searched for the meaning of a Goddess, you would find the reflection of a dancing lady.

Don't breathe to survive; dance and feel alive.

Individuals often turn to poetry, not only to glean strength and perspective from the words of others, but to give birth to their own poetic voices and to hold history accountable for the catastrophes rearranging their lives.

Life is an affair of mystery; shared with companions of music, dance and poetry.

You can't force love, I realized. It's there or it isn't.

Dance to inspire, dance to freedom, life is about experiences so dance and let yourself become free.

Through synergy of intellect, artistry and grace came into existence the blessing of a dancer.

The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek - it must be rejected, altered and exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language - all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas. - Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture, 1993

You destroy my life then feed me inspirational philosophy.

DANCE – Defeat All Negativity (via) Creative Expression.

She who is a dancer can only sway the silk of her hair like the summer breeze.

I think sometimes it’s too hard to believe in yourself. You just do the things you’re not sure you can do. You just act, in spite of not being certain. I don’t believe I can change the world—it sounds stupid to even talk about it—but I’m going to try.

Dance is the ritual of immortality.

Warwick Castle, Oxford University, the Cotswold, and the countryside of England are my favorite places to visit when I’m in England. Whenever I visit, I feel as if I’ve come home. These places inspired my settings for my fantasy series, Bitter Frost Series, Wordwick Games, and The Alchemists Academy. I didn’t know the great author of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy was also inspired by Warwick, Oxford, and Cotswold. Imaginative minds must dream alike.

One step, two steps, three steps; like winds of time experience joy of centuries, when movements become revelations of the dance of destinies.

morois are born..but strigois are made..!

Family is a choice.

Life bends us, shapes us, molds us, makes us, and breaks us." ~Lucian Bane~

My Wife, I get to keep you forever. ~Lucian Bane~

While part of my mind puzzled that out, I watched my mother with fascination. I'd listened to her tell her stories. I'd seen and felt her fight. But really, truly, I'd never seen her in action in a real-life crisis. She showed every bit of that hard control she did around me, but here, I could see how necessary it was. A situation like this created panic. Even among the guardians, I could sense those who were so keyed up that they wanted to do something drastic. My mother was a voice of reason, a reminder that they had to stay focused and fully assess the situation. Her composure calmed everybody; her strong manner inspired them. This, I realized, was how a leader behaved.

Burdened no more is soul for whom life flows through dance and not breath.

Dance is that delicacy of life radiating every particle of our existence with happiness.

Transcend the terrestrial; surpass the celestial, from nature’s hands when you receive the sublime pleasures of dance.

Every dancer knows that being technically perfect isn’t good enough. We need to know why we dance. For me, it’s to be connected. I’m inspired by my friends.

When a dancer performs, melody transforms into a carriage, expressions turn into fuel and spirit experiences a journey to a world where passion attains fulfillment.

Knightley Academy stood out against the moonlight in silhouette, a ramshackle collection of chimneys, turrets and gables. Both boys stopped to take in the sight of the manicured lawns and tangled woods, the soaring chapel and the ivy-covered brick of the headmaster's house. They were home. For this, Henry felt, was home. Not some foreign castle encircled by guard towers, but this cozy, bizarre assortment of buildings with its gossiping kitchen maids and eccentric professors and clever students.

And as if the professor could read Henry's mind, he said, "It's a curious thing, change. You never get used to it, and you're never sure where it comes from, but you better learn to expect it." "I don't recognize the quotation." Henry frowned, trying to place it. "That's because it isn't one. It is simply advice, and advice you'd be well advised to take, especially now.

Spirit is a child, the tune of dancing feet its lullaby.

Make dance the mission every moment seeks to accomplish.

Burdened no more is soul for whom life flows through dance like breath.

You go out into your world, and try and find the things that will be useful to you. Your weapons. Your tools. Your charms. You find a record, or a poem, or a picture of a girl that you pin to the wall and go, "Her. I'll try and be her. I'll try and be her - but here." You observe the way others walk, and talk, and you steal little bits of them - you collage yourself out of whatever you can get your hands on. You are like the robot Johnny 5 in Short Circuit, crying, "More input! More input for Johnny 5! as you rifle through books and watch films and sit in front of the television, trying to guess which of these things that you are watching - Alexis Carrington Colby walking down a marble staircase; Anne of Green Gables holding her shoddy suitcase; Cathy wailing on the moors; Courtney Love wailing in her petticoat; Dorothy Parker gunning people down; Grace Jones singing "Slave to the Rhythm" - you will need when you get out there. What will be useful. What will be, eventually, you? And you will be quite on your own when you do all this. There is no academy where you can learn to be yourself; there is no line manager slowly urging you toward the correct answer. You are midwife to yourself, and will give birth to yourself, over and over, in dark rooms, alone. And some versions of you will end in dismal failure - many prototypes won't even get out the front door, as you suddenly realize that no, you can't style-out an all-in-one gold bodysuit and a massive attitude problem in Wolverhampton. Others will achieve temporary success - hitting new land-speed records, and amazing all around you, and then suddenly, unexpectedly exploding, like the Bluebird on Coniston Water. But one day you'll find a version of you that will get you kissed, or befriended, or inspired, and you will make your notes accordingly, staying up all night to hone and improvise upon a tiny snatch of melody that worked. Until - slowly, slowly - you make a viable version of you, one you can hum every day. You'll find the tiny, right piece of grit you can pearl around, until nature kicks in, and your shell will just quietly fill with magic, even while you're busy doing other things. What your nature began, nature will take over, and start completing, until you stop having to think about who you'll be entirely - as you're too busy doing, now. And ten years will pass without you even noticing. And later, over a glass of wine - because you drink wine now, because you are grown - you will marvel over what you did. Marvel that, at the time, you kept so many secrets. Tried to keep the secret of yourself. Tried to metamorphose in the dark. The loud, drunken, fucking, eyeliner-smeared, laughing, cutting, panicking, unbearably present secret of yourself. When really you were about as secret as the moon. And as luminous, under all those clothes.

Acho ridículo pensar que existe apenas uma pessoa por aí para nós. E se a sua "alma gêmea" viver no Zimbábue? E se ela morrer jovem? Também acho ridículo "duas almas se tornarem uma". Precisamos nos agarrar a nós mesmos. Mas acredito em almas em sintonia, em almas que espelham uma a outra.

When he dances the Universe stops to feel his dance moves!

Limit not to only five, when the divine gifts the supreme sixth; the sense of dance

He didn't know that sometimes, the most awesome and complicated thing you can do is just stick around.

In the real world, you can make your own miracles

Power maintained by stifling the growth of the weak is not strength, but tyranny

Bravely ventured is half won.

Academy Award-winning song “Let It Go,” performed by Idina Menzel, inspired countless

Then they are stupid books. Good doesn’t win, not most of the time.” “But how can you find hope to get up every day without stories where it does?

One of these was Philo of Larisa, head of the Academy in Athens, founded by Plato three hundred years before. He inspired Cicero with a passion for philosophy, and in particular for the theories of Skepticism, which asserted that knowledge of the nature of things is in the nature of things unattainable. Such ideas were well judged to appeal to a student of rhetoric who had learned to argue all sides of a case.

Audience of angels descend in the ambiance reciting praises in your glory, when you wear your dance shoes, when you arrive at the stage and with every step you take beneath your feet heaven moves. That is the power of dance.

Philo of Larisa, head of the Academy in Athens....inspired Cicero with a passion for philosophy, and in particular for the theories of Skepticism, which asserted that knowledge of the nature of things is in the nature of things unattainable. Such ideas were well judged to appeal to a student of rhetoric who had learned to argue all sides of a case. In his early twenties Cicero wrote the first two volumes of a work on 'inventin'--that is to say, the technique of finding ideas and arguments for a speech; in it he noted that the most important thing was 'that we do not recklessly and presumptuously assume something to be true.' This resolute uncertainty was to be a permanent feature of his thought.

I firmly believe that life is made up of moments. Some are significant, and some are disposable. Some sit at the edge of your awareness and taunt you when you're trying to sleep, and others fade into the background noise of life. But every moment, no matter how small, has the potential to create or destroy you.

Whatever its origins, in the early part of the first millennium B.C. we find clearly stated both the methods and the discoveries of brahmavidya. With this introspective tool the inspired rishis (literally “seers”) of ancient India analyzed their awareness of human experience to see if there was anything in it that was absolute. Their findings can be summarized in three statements which Aldous Huxley, following Leibnitz, has called the Perennial Philosophy because they appear in every age and civilization: (1) there is an infinite, changeless reality beneath the world of change; (2) this same reality lies at the core of every human personality; (3) the purpose of life is to discover this reality experientially: that is, to realize God while here on earth. These principles and the interior experiments for realizing them were taught systematically in “forest academies” or ashrams – a tradition which continues unbroken after some three thousand years.

No. Clearly the title of the most drool inspiring hunk of handsome goes to Max Rigel even if he is a blackhearted fiend. But Darius isn’t a bad second,” Geraldine said, a faint blush lining her cheeks. Sofia started laughing and Darcy covered her mouth to hide her grin. Diego looked like he’d like to be absolutely anywhere else.  “What?” Caleb asked, his brows pinching with irritation as I snorted a laugh. “You’re ranking me third?” “No! Of course not!” Geraldine said loudly, seeming horrified. “Seth Capella would be third.” I fell back into my chair, clutching my stomach as my laughter grew out of control and Caleb tried his hardest not to look as disgusted as he clearly was.

smiling and patting my knee. "When you are a child, you focus on making memories. When you are an adult, you reflect on those memories and learn from your mistakes. Memories also exist to inspire you when you're down, as well as to remind you of all the good that was and can still be in your life. Childhood is a time for growth. You can't crucify yourself for

A recent event in our family showed us even more how fleeting physical perfection is. Our oldest son had a brain aneurism rupture two days before his high-school graduation. For nineteen days, my son, who planned to attend the Naval Academy, clung to life in a neuro-intensive care unit. Thankfully, he recovered. During his recovery, after waking from a coma, we asked him if there was anything he wanted us to bring him from home. “Just bring Grace,” he said.

Despite being a nonprofit, we have been able to build a team that rivals those of the most resource-rich tech companies. Hundreds of incredibly talented people have committed a major part of their careers to be part of the Khan Academy team, often taking considerable pay cuts to do so. Thousands of volunteers all over the world have now translated Khan Academy into over fifty languages. Inspirational leaders like Bill Gates, Reed Hastings, and Elon Musk have become some of our biggest supporters and advocates. This journey seems so serendipitous that it has become something of an inside joke among the Khan Academy team that perhaps benevolent aliens are helping us so that, through education, we can prepare humanity for first contact.

The legendary inscription above the Academy's door speaks loudly about Plato's attitude toward mathematics. In fact, most of the significant mathematical research of the fourth century BC was carried out by people associated in one way or another with the Academy. Yet Plato himself was not a mathematician of great technical dexterity, and his direct contributions to mathematical knowledge were probably minimal. Rather, he was an enthusiastic spectator, a motivating source of challenge, an intelligent critic, an an inspiring guide. The first century philosopher and historian Philodemus paints a clear picture: "At that time great progress was seen in mathematics, with Plato serving as the general architect setting out problems, and the mathematicians investigating them earnestly." To which the Neoplatonic philosopher and mathematician Proclus adds: "Plato...greatly advanced mathematics in general and geometry in particular because of his zeal for these studies. It is well known that his writings are thickly sprinkled with mathematical terms and that he everywhere tries to arouse admiration for mathematics among students of philosophy." In other words, Plato, whose mathematical knowledge was broadly up to date, could converse with the mathematicians as an equal and as a problem presenter, even though his personal mathematical achievements were not significant.

If you work hard, your dreams will become your reality.

Aristotle was privileged to study at Plato’s Academy, but some kid on the other side of the world was probably just as promising as young Aristotle and never got the mentorship. How can building deep relationships with master mentors be a smartcut if it hinges on our being lucky enough to know the master? Hip-hop icon Jay-Z gives us a clue in one of his lyrics, “We were kids without fathers . . . so we found our fathers on wax and on the streets and in history. We got to pick and choose the ancestors who would inspire the world we were going to make for ourselves.” In ancient Greece, few people had access to the best mentors. Jay-Z didn’t either, but he had books from which he could get an inkling about what those kinds of mentors were like. With every increase in communication, with every autobiography published, and every YouTube video of a superstar created, we increase our access to the great models in every category. This allows us to at least study the moves that make masters great—which is a start.

suggested to the entire workforce that they read Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” one of the most important things I ever read. Inspired in part by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, King’s letter is about seeking justice in a deeply flawed world. I have reread it several times since first encountering it in college. Because I knew that the FBI’s interaction with the civil rights movement, and Dr. King in particular, was a dark chapter in the Bureau’s history, I wanted to do something more. I ordered the creation of a curriculum at the FBI’s Quantico training academy. I wanted all agent and analyst trainees to learn the history of the FBI’s interaction with King, how the legitimate counterintelligence mission against Communist infiltration of our government had morphed into an unchecked, vicious campaign of harassment and extralegal attack on the civil rights leader and others. I wanted them to remember that well-meaning people lost their way. I wanted them to know that the FBI sent King a letter blackmailing him and suggesting he commit suicide. I wanted them to stare at that history, visit the inspiring King Memorial in Washington, D.C., with its long arcs of stone bearing King’s words, and reflect on the FBI’s values and our responsibility to always do better. The FBI Training Division created a curriculum that does just that. All FBI trainees study that painful history and complete the course by visiting the memorial. There, they choose one of Dr. King’s quotations from the wall—maybe “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” or “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”—and then write an essay about the intersection of that quotation and the FBI’s values. The course doesn’t tell the trainees what to think. It only tells them they must think, about history and institutional values. Last I checked, the course remains one of the highest-rated portions of their many weeks at Quantico.

You don't get the thing you dream of, you get the thing you work for.

My mother was a voice of reason, a reminder that they had to stay focused and fully assess the situation. Her composure calmed everybody; her strong manner inspired them. This, I realized, was how a leader behaved.

Every human has a dream to get bigger in their life, Of course i am not a normal HUMAN, that's why I don't dream it, yes I am talking about the most prestigious The Academy awards :) preparing the speech for the future :) looking forward to get in reality soon

Thou art fearfully and wonderfully made.” The darkness in her eyes dimmed at his words, and a smile chased away the shadows. “That’s my favourite scripture and the inspiration for my key work–” “In your Ragged Soul exhibition at the end of your final year at the academy. Yes, I know.

Lance thought they could be Sirens, but I was wondering if they weren't something more like Incubuses. The Order was pretty rare but their entire way of rejuvenating magic was based off of sexual desire and they were masters at controlling and claiming lust from others. And Roxy Vega definitely inspired plenty of lust everywhere she went. She inspired so much lust in me that I found myself entirely unable to jerk off over anyone other than her, memories of her body, her mouth or even just her calling me fucking names filling my mind the second I wrapped my fist around my throbbing cock. I’d even tried watching porn to distract myself from her but I just ended up closing my goddamn eyes and thinking of her anyway, imaging how good it would feel to be filling her with my dick instead of fucking my hand all the damn time.

Lance thought they could be Sirens, but I was wondering if they weren't something more like Incubuses. The Order was pretty rare but their entire way of rejuvenating magic was based off of sexual desire and they were masters at controlling and claiming lust from others. And Roxy Vega definitely inspired plenty of lust everywhere she went. She inspired so much lust in me that I found myself entirely unable to jerk off over anyone other than her, memories of her body, her mouth or even just her calling me fucking names filling my mind the second I wrapped my fist around my throbbing cock. I’d even tried watching porn to distract myself from her but I just ended up closing my goddamn eyes and thinking of her anyway, imaging how good it would feel to be filling her with my dick instead of fucking my hand all the damn time. (DARIUS POV)

Which is where the next ambitious ALG project comes in: African Leadership Unleashed, or ALU. Led by Fred Swaniker, ALU is a plan to establish a network of 25 universities across the continent by the end of the decade—Africa’s Ivy League—each of which will have 10,000 students. The first ALU has already opened in Mauritius. The idea is to apply the exact same boutique model of the African Leadership Academy to tertiary education. Once the 25 colleges are built and running, it will mean that every four years 250,000 young Africans trained in business, government, ethics, social policy, medicine and the arts will be entering the workforce. Among them will be the new generation of Africa’s leaders. Says Swaniker, “Hundreds of thousands of university graduates on the continent today are not equipped with the skills to lead change. About 45 percent of university graduates in Africa today are unemployed. This is a tragedy. I want to change this by applying ALA’s model in a tertiary space to provide the critical skills and leadership experience necessary for success.” Swaniker announced the project in a powerful talk at TEDGlobal 2014 in Rio de Janeiro titled “The Leaders Who Ruined Africa, and the Generation Who Can Fix It.” The talk has been downloaded over 1 million times and is a powerful and inspiring manifesto for this, the African Century.

Anti-intellectualism remains strongly entrenched in many parts of the church, but it is grounded in fear, not in faith. Instead of seeing the benefits of a vital conversation between the academy and the average person in the pew about how a third-millennium man or woman might still follow a first-century Jewish sage, many Christians view scholarship as a threat to church doctrine. They believe that professors who make clever arguments against the virgin birth, for example, are careless vandals poking holes in the dike of faith. To shore up that dike, they believe they need to show “true faith” by accepting uncritically the tenets of their particular tradition without question. Such defiance is captured in a popular bumper sticker: “THE BIBLE SAYS IT, GOD WROTE IT, AND THAT SETTLES IT!” Ironically, biblical scholars are actually interested in the same “trinity” of ideas, but they put question marks where others put exclamation points. What does the Bible really say? What does it mean to say it is inspired by God? And why do we believe that God’s voice is exclusively in the past tense? Perhaps, as my denomination is fond of saying, God is still speaking.

Despite public anxiety about extremists inspired by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, the number of violent plots by such individuals has remained very low. Since 9/11, an average of nine American Muslims per year have been involved in an average of six terrorism-related plots against targets in the United States. Most were disrupted, but the 20 plots that were carried out accounted for 50 fatalities over the past 13 and a half years. In contrast, right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities, according to a study by Perliger, a professor at the United States Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center. The toll has increased since the study was released in 2012.

O wayfarer! Yearn finds quench, not in meadows, seashores or altitude of mountain peaks; but when being and dance are one.

O wayfarer! Yearn finds quench, not in meadows, seashores or altitude of mountain peaks; but when being becomes dance.

After a crushing loss to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Trump tried to boost his team’s spirits. As they were driving back to New York, he told a teammate to pull over at a Montgomery Ward department store, where Donald bought golf clubs, tees, and dozens of balls, which they took to a bluff overlooking Chesapeake Bay. Trump grabbed a club and hit a few balls into the water, inspiring his teammates to join in. After all the balls were gone, Trump and his teammates got back into the car, leaving the golf clubs on the side of the road. Yet,

Sir Winston Churchill was born into the respected family of the Dukes of Marlborough. His mother Jeanette, was an attractive American-born British socialite and a member of the well known Spencer family. Winston had a military background, having graduated from Sandhurst, the British Royal Military Academy. Upon graduating he served in the Army between 1805 and 1900 and again between 1915 and 1916. As a British military officer, he saw action in India, the Anglo–Sudan War, and the Second South African Boer War. Leaving the army as a major in 1899, he became a war correspondent covering the Boer War in the Natal Colony, during which time he wrote books about his experiences. Churchill was captured and treated as a prisoner of war. Churchill had only been a prisoner for four weeks before he escaped, prying open some of the flooring he crawled out under the building and ran through some of the neighborhoods back alleys and streets. On the evening of December 12, 1899, he jumped over a wall to a neighboring property, made his way to railroad tracks and caught a freight train heading north to Lourenco Marques, the capital of Portuguese Mozambique, which is located on the Indian Ocean and freedom. For the following years, he held many political and cabinet positions including the First Lord of the Admiralty. During the First World War Churchill resumed his active army service, for a short period of time, as the commander of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. After the war he returned to his political career as a Conservative Member of Parliament, serving as the Chancellor of the Exchequer where in 1925, he returned the pound sterling to the gold standard. This move was considered a factor to the deflationary pressure on the British Pound Sterling, during the depression. During the 1930’s Churchill was one of the first to warn about the increasing, ruthless strength of Nazi Germany and campaigned for a speedy military rearmament. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty for a second time, and in May of 1940, Churchill became the Prime Minister after Neville Chamberlain’s resignation. An inspirational leader during the difficult days of 1940–1941, he led Britain until victory had been secured. In 1955 Churchill suffered a serious of strokes. Stepping down as Prime Minister he however remained a Member of Parliament until 1964. In 1965, upon his death at ninety years of age, Queen Elizabeth II granted him a state funeral, which was one of the largest gatherings of representatives and statesmen in history.

Iron is made stronger in the hottest part of the fire, Seth. You didn't break me, you forged me. - Zodiac Academy Book 2 Ruthless Fae

Clearly the title of the most drool inspiring hunk of handsome goes to Max Rigel even if he is a blackhearted fiend. But Darius isn’t a bad second,” Geraldine said,

The task of the teacher has come to an end and it is the right time for the student to outshine the master.

I didn’t know you’d become so friendly with the sexy Dragon Heir!” “Did you just call Darius Acrux sexy?” Sofia asked in surprise and I snorted a laugh as Geraldine blushed. “Well I have eyes!” she said defensively. “That’s not to say he’s the most attractive of the Heirs.” “Obviously,” Caleb said cockily. “No. Clearly the title of the most drool inspiring hunk of handsome goes to Max Rigel even if he is a blackhearted fiend. But Darius isn’t a bad second,” Geraldine said, a faint blush lining her cheeks. Sofia started laughing and Darcy covered her mouth to hide her grin. Diego looked like he’d like to be absolutely anywhere else.  “What?” Caleb asked, his brows pinching with irritation as I snorted a laugh. “You’re ranking me third?” “No! Of course not!” Geraldine said loudly, seeming horrified. “Seth Capella would be third.” I fell back into my chair, clutching my stomach as my laughter grew out of control and Caleb tried his hardest not to look as disgusted as he clearly was. Caleb seemed lost for words for a moment before obviously deciding he’d be better off not responding to Geraldine’s assessment of him.

It must have been about this time that I first heard Eugene Debs speak. He was facing an audience which packed the Academy of Music. On that same stage Henry Ward Beecher had stood and upheld the cause of the Democratic party in a tense campaign. I had been greatly interested in seeing Debs, for I had read and been told much about him-of his fearless leadership in the railroad strike of 1894, his term in jail as a consequence, and his fighting spirit. But I was disappointed that night-not by what he said, but by his manner. I thought him too much like a school-boy elocutionist. In after years, however, I attended several mass-meetings at which Debs was the main speaker, and he who had once been amateurish had become a real tribune of the people and a master of chastisement of the profit pharisees. No question about it an inspiring man because he was himself inspired. He was emotional, and used the logic of understanding born of long experience with workers. When one heard him voice a natural sympathy for the enslaved, one felt that here was a champion who would go to the stake rather than sacrifice his own beliefs.

History was second on my list of favorite subjects when I was studying at the Academy in Oxenfurt.” “What was first?” “Geography,” said the poet seriously. “The atlas was bigger and it was easier to hide a demijohn of vodka behind it.” Geralt laughed dryly and got up, removed Lunin and Tyrss’s Arcane Mysteries of Magic and Alchemy from the shelf and pulled a round-bellied vessel wrapped in straw from behind the bulky volume and into the light of day. “Oho.” The bard visibly cheered up. “Wisdom and inspiration, I see, are still to be found in libraries. Oooh! I like this! Plum, isn’t it? Yes, this is true alchemy. This is a philosopher’s stone and worth studying. Your health, brother. Ooooh, it’s strong as the plague!

Sundown Towns After Reconstruction and before the civil rights era, signs like the one in our story popped up on the outskirts of thousands of small towns across the country, warning “colored people” to keep moving. This created a huge problem for the Black traveler and inspired an annual publication guidebook from 1936 to 1966 for African American motorists, called The Negro Motorist Green Book, or just the Green Book, after its editor, Victor Hugo Green. It also inspired the title of the Academy Awards’ 2019 winner for Best Picture.

But for every student who fought back there were several more who lived in loneliness or fear. Said one student from the era, “I can remember my first day at RVA, scared, intimidated…being put into the ‘hatchery’ with twenty-four other girls in bunk beds, never accepted but trying to get attention. It was all a bad scene and never got better. No one tried to help me”. Yet it was not the emotional stress or lack of sufficient adult mentors that inspired the greatest vitriol from parents. What triggered the most urgent letters was the appearance of worldy rebellion…ven in the darkest hour, when perhaps one-fourth of the senior class was experimenting with drugs, the vast majority of the school’s students were not using drugs or having sex, let alone dancing or indulging in any of the cosmetic misdemeanors that were so offensive to some within the missionary community. p159

In a now-famous experiment, he and his colleagues compared three groups of expert violinists at the elite Music Academy in West Berlin. The researchers asked the professors to divide the students into three groups: the “best violinists,” who had the potential for careers as international soloists; the “good violinists”; and a third group training to be violin teachers rather than performers. Then they interviewed the musicians and asked them to keep detailed diaries of their time. They found a striking difference among the groups. All three groups spent the same amount of time—over fifty hours a week— participating in music-related activities. All three had similar classroom requirements making demands on their time. But the two best groups spent most of their music-related time practicing in solitude: 24.3 hours a week, or 3.5 hours a day, for the best group, compared with only 9.3 hours a week, or 1.3 hours a day, for the worst group. The best violinists rated “practice alone” as the most important of all their music-related activities. Elite musicians—even those who perform in groups—describe practice sessions with their chamber group as “leisure” compared with solo practice, where the real work gets done. Ericsson and his cohorts found similar effects of solitude when they studied other kinds of expert performers. “Serious study alone” is the strongest predictor of skill for tournament-rated chess players, for example; grandmasters typically spend a whopping five thousand hours—almost five times as many hours as intermediatelevel players—studying the game by themselves during their first ten years of learning to play. College students who tend to study alone learn more over time than those who work in groups. Even elite athletes in team sports often spend unusual amounts of time in solitary practice. What’s so magical about solitude? In many fields, Ericsson told me, it’s only when you’re alone that you can engage in Deliberate Practice, which he has identified as the key to exceptional achievement. When you practice deliberately, you identify the tasks or knowledge that are just out of your reach, strive to upgrade your performance, monitor your progress, and revise accordingly. Practice sessions that fall short of this standard are not only less useful—they’re counterproductive. They reinforce existing cognitive mechanisms instead of improving them. Deliberate Practice is best conducted alone for several reasons. It takes intense concentration, and other people can be distracting. It requires deep motivation, often self-generated. But most important, it involves working on the task that’s most challenging to you personally. Only when you’re alone, Ericsson told me, can you “go directly to the part that’s challenging to you. If you want to improve what you’re doing, you have to be the one who generates the move. Imagine a group class—you’re the one generating the move only a small percentage of the time.” To see Deliberate Practice in action, we need look no further than the story of Stephen Wozniak. The Homebrew meeting was the catalyst that inspired him to build that first PC, but the knowledge base and work habits that made it possible came from another place entirely: Woz had deliberately practiced engineering ever since he was a little kid. (Ericsson says that it takes approximately ten thousand hours of Deliberate Practice to gain true expertise, so it helps to start young.)

Socrates identified the practice of philosophy with personal discussion and questioning, refusing to write anything. His followers elevated him to the founding figure of their mutually conflicting approaches to philosophy. Through his austere disciple Antisthenes, Socrates was regarded as the inspiration for the convention-rejecting Cynics; through his disciple Aristippus, he was claimed as the first hedonist. Through the tradition of Plato’s Academy he was hailed as the first sceptic; through the Stoics he was regarded as the first ethical philosopher. In the writings of his younger follower Xenophon he appears as a conventional moralizer. In the writings of Plato, Socrates appears in a variety of guises. Sometimes he is the questioner who undermines the pretensions of others to understanding; sometimes he puts forward positive claims about ethics and metaphysics; sometimes he merely introduces other philosophers who have things of their own to say.

We take time for granted. You don't realize how much more you could've done until you can't do it anymore.

Because I love you. I think I’ve always loved you, from that very first morning in the auditorium, when you stood up and inspired our whole class with your speech. You amazed me every day at the Academy, and now that we’ve reconnected—and you’re actually being nice to me for a change. Those feelings have only gotten stronger.

Focusing on expanding our skills, pursuing excellence in a vocation, cultivating enriching hobbies, sculpting our mind and body, creating a network of inspiring friends, seeking adventures, and devoting ourselves to rewarding goals – this is how we make our solitary journey meaningful, and therein cultivate self-love. And with sufficient self-love, we do not need a relationship to thrive, and, paradoxically, this is when we are at our most attractive and capable of cultivating a healthy relationship that is based on the following foundation of realism: A romantic partner can support us and enrich our journey, just as we can support and enrich theirs. However, to use a relationship to flee the burdens of our existence and to look to another person to provide us fulfillment, is to damage the relationship and cripple ourselves with infantile dependencies. The earthly salvation that we seek can only be found by cultivating and affirming our individual journey; it cannot be found in the arms of another.

Damn wet dream, with inspiration courtesy of last night's steamy read. These damn reverse harem books are ruining me, in the best way possible.