Advising Friends Quotes

I always advise children who ask me for tips on being a writer to read as much as they possibly can. Jane Austen gave a young friend the same advice, so I'm in good company there.

A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably

Never surrender your hopes and dreams to the fateful limitations others have placed on their own lives. The vision of your true destiny does not reside within the blinkered outlook of the naysayers and the doom prophets. Judge not by their words, but accept advice based on the evidence of actual results. Do not be surprised should you find a complete absence of anything mystical or miraculous in the manifested reality of those who are so eager to advise you. Friends and family who suffer the lack of abundance, joy, love, fulfillment and prosperity in their own lives really have no business imposing their self-limiting beliefs on your reality experience.

I am excessively fond of a cottage; there is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself down at any time, and collect a few friends about me and be happy. I advise everybody who is going to build, to build a cottage.

In fact that is why the lives of most women are so vaguely unsatisfactory. They are always doing secondary and menial things (that do not require all their gifts and ability) for others and never anything for themselves. Society and husbands praise them for it (when they get too miserable or have nervous breakdowns) though always a little perplexedly and half-heartedly and just to be consoling. The poor wives are reminded that that is just why wives are so splendid -- because they are so unselfish and self-sacrificing and that is the wonderful thing about them! But inwardly women know that something is wrong. They sense that if you are always doing something for others, like a servant or nurse, and never anything for yourself, you cannot do others any good. You make them physically more comfortable. But you cannot affect them spiritually in any way at all. For to teach, encourage, cheer up, console, amuse, stimulate or advise a husband or children or friends, you have to be something yourself. [...]"If you would shut your door against the children for an hour a day and say; 'Mother is working on her five-act tragedy in blank verse!' you would be surprised how they would respect you. They would probably all become playwrights.

Washington once advised his adopted grandson that where there is no occasion for expressing an opinion, it is best to be silent. For there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.

As a general thing anyone who is not your friend will advise neutrality while anyone who is your friend will ask you to join him, weapon in hand.

All the great sadnesses, great temptations, and great mistakes are almost always the result of being alone in life, without a prudent friend to advise us when we are troubled by something more serious than our normal everyday problems.

Let me advise you, my dear young friend-- nay, let me warn you with all seriousness, that should you leave these rooms you will not by any chance go to sleep in any other part of the castle. It is old, and has many memories, and there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely.

a wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease.

I will never cease advising my friends and enemies to read poetry before anything.

What'd I miss?" he asks. "Oh, you know, Macy being Macy, and advising I jump into the water before I ... jump on you." His frown is instant. "That's some shitty advice.

Perhaps only when we've made our peace with our own selves can we really be the kind of friends who listen, advise, but don't judge, or not too harshly.

When you press the pause button on a machine, it stops. But when you press the pause button on human beings they start,” argues my friend and teacher Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN, which advises global businesses on ethics and leadership. “You start to reflect, you start to rethink your assumptions, you start to reimagine what is possible and, most importantly, you start to reconnect with

Now, the error which many parents commit in the treatment of the individual at this time(adolescense) is, insisting on the same unreasoning obedience as when all he had to do in the way of duty was, to obey the simple laws of "Come when you're called," and "Do as you're bid!" But a wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease.

Reyna put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Coach, we’ll get you to your wife, but let’s do it right. Tyson, how did you and Ella get out to this ship?’ ‘Rainbow!’ ‘You … took a rainbow?’ ‘He is my fish pony friend.’ ‘A hippocampus,’ Nico advised.

Good bye" is a good gift when you wave it at me because I refuse to follow a bad advice you gave. Wave it at me and I will show you the door.

I couldn't help noticing that the existential space in which a friend had earnestly advised me to 'confront [my] mortality' bore a striking resemblance to the mall.

Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.

I fake fake to have a fake life. Does that make me a real horse? Buy now for $777, wooden saddle sold separately. Real horseshoes not included. Imaginary ones – neither.

Oh, please, I never get sick. I’ve had my flu shot.” I roll my eyes and snort, which really isn’t advisable with a stuffed nose. “And have the immune system of a god,” he adds.

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint stock company in which the members agree for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It [That is, conformity.] loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested--'But these impulses may be from below, not from above.' I replied, 'They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil's child, I will live them from the devil.' No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent an well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.

No one knows, at sight a masterpiece. And give up verse, my boy, There's nothing in it. Likewise a friend of Bloughram's once advised me: Don't kick against the pricks, Accept opinion. The Nineties tried your game And died, there's nothing in it.

Never confess, my friend,” he advised drowsily, clasping Melik’s hand. “If you confess, they will keep you there forever.

Tessa!” Magnus said again, marveling. “Aren’t you unexpected. And uninvited.” Tessa sat and sipped her tea, looking perfectly composed. Since she was one of Magnus’s dearest and oldest friends, he felt it would be nice if she looked even slightly apologetic. She did not. “You told me once that you would not forgive me if I didn’t drop by whenever I found myself in the same city as you.” “I would have forgiven you,” Magnus said with conviction. “I would have thanked you.” Tessa glanced Alec’s way. Alec was blushing. The ends of Tessa’s lips curled up, but she was kind and hid her smile behind her teacup. “Call it even,” said Tessa. “You once walked in on me in an embarrassing situation with a gentleman in a mountain fortress, after all.” Her half-concealed smile flickered. She looked again at Alec, who had inherited his coloring from Shadowhunters long gone. Shadowhunters Tessa had loved. “You should let that go,” Magnus advised. Tessa was a warlock like Magnus, and like Magnus, she was used to overcoming the memory of what had been loved and lost. They were in the longtime habit of comforting each other. She took another sip of tea, her smile restored as if it had never been gone. “I certainly have let it go,” she replied. “Now.

Children make lousy clients. The lawyer becomes much more than a lawyer. With adults, you simply lay the pros and cons of each option on the table. You advise this way and that. You predict a little, but not much. Then you tell the adult it’s time for a decision and you leave the room for a bit. When you return, you are handed a decision and you run with it. Not so with kids. They don’t understand lawyerly advice. They want a hug and someone to make decisions. They’re scared and looking for friends.

One of the maxims which the devil, in a late visit upon earth, left to his disciples, is, when once you are got up, to kick the stool from under you. In plain English, when you have made your fortune by the good offices of a friend, you are advised to discard him as soon as you can.

My task is to explain to you as quickly as possible my essence, that is, what sort of man I am, what I believe in, and what I hope for, is that right? And therefore I declare that I accept God pure and simple. But this, however, needs to be noted: if God exists and if he indeed created the earth, then, as we know perfectly well, he created it in accordance with Euclidean geometry, and he created human reason with a conception of only three dimensions of space. At the same time there were and are even now geometers and philosophers, even some of the most outstanding among them, who doubt that the whole universe, or, even more broadly, the whole of being, was created purely in accordance with Euclidean geometry; they even dare to dream that two parallel lines, which according to Euclid cannot possibly meet on earth, may perhaps meet somewhere in infinity. I, my dear, have come to the conclusion that if I cannot understand even that, then it is not for me to understand about God. I humbly confess that I do not have any ability to resolve such questions, I have a Euclidean mind, an earthly mind, and therefore it is not for us to resolve things that are not of this world. And I advise you never to think about it, Alyosha my friend, and most especially about whether God exists or not. All such questions are completely unsuitable to a mind created with a concept of only three dimensions. And so, I accept God, not only willingly, but moreover I also accept his wisdom and his purpose, which are completely unknown to us; I believe in order, in the meaning of life, I believe in eternal harmony, in which we are all supposed to merge, I believe in the Word for whom the universe is yearning, and who himself was 'with God,' who himself is God, and so on and so forth, to infinity. Many words have been invented on the subject. It seems I'm already on a good path, eh? And now imagine that in the final outcome I do not accept this world of God's, created by God, that I do not accept and cannot agree to accept. With one reservation: I have a childlike conviction that the sufferings will be healed and smoothed over, that the whole offensive comedy of human contradictions will disappear like a pitiful mirage, a vile concoction of man's Euclidean mind, feeble and puny as an atom, and that ultimately, at the world's finale, in the moment of eternal harmony, there will occur and be revealed something so precious that it will suffice for all hearts, to allay all indignation, to redeem all human villainy, all bloodshed; it will suffice not only to make forgiveness possible, but also to justify everything that has happened with men--let this, let all of this come true and be revealed, but I do not accept it and do not want to accept it! Let the parallel lines even meet before my own eyes: I shall look and say, yes, they meet, and still I will not accept it.

Both as a matter of temperament and policy, Washington was taciturn, once advising his adopted grandson, “It is best to be silent, for there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.

That is always a dangerous moment, he said, to make a big decision, when you are not sure of what you deserve. Evidently his friends shared his opinion, because all of them urged him, without hesitation, to take it. It is interesting how keen people are for you to do something they would never dream of doing themselves, how enthusiastically they drive you to your own destruction: even the kindest ones, the ones that are most loving, can rarely have your interests at heart, because usually they are advising you from within lives of greater security and greater confinement, where escape is not a reality but simply something they dream of sometimes. Perhaps, he said, we are all like animals in the zoo, and once we see that one of us has got out of the enclosure we shout at him to run like mad, even though it will only result in him becoming lost.

It is as your sister and friend that I tell you Dain is a splendid catch. I advise you to set your hooks and reel him in.” Jessica took a long swallow of her cognac. “This is not a trout, Genevieve. This is a great, hungry shark.” “Then use a harpoon.

In the cage is the lion. She paces with her memories. Her body is a record of her past. As she moves back and forth, one may see it all: the lean frame, the muscular legs, the paw enclosing long sharp claws, the astonishing speed of her response. She was born in this garden. She has never in her life stretched those legs. Never darted farther than twenty yards at a time. Only once did she use her claws. Only once did she feel them sink into flesh. And it was her keeper's flesh. Her keeper whom she loves, who feeds her, who would never dream of harming her, who protects her. Who in his mercy forgave her mad attack, saying this was in her nature, to be cruel at a whim, to try to kill what she loves. He had come into her cage as he usually did early in the morning to change her water, always at the same time of day, in the same manner, speaking softly to her, careful to make no sudden movement, keeping his distance, when suddenly she sank down, deep down into herself, the way wild animals do before they spring, and then she had risen on all her strong legs, and swiped him in one long, powerful, graceful movement across the arm. How lucky for her he survived the blow. The keeper and his friends shot her with a gun to make her sleep. Through her half-open lids she knew they made movements around her. They fed her with tubes. They observed her. They wrote comments in notebooks. And finally they rendered a judgment. She was normal. She was a normal wild beast, whose power is dangerous, whose anger can kill, they had said. Be more careful of her, they advised. Allow her less excitement. Perhaps let her exercise more. She understood none of this. She understood only the look of fear in her keeper's eyes. And now she paces. Paces as if she were angry, as if she were on the edge of frenzy. The spectators imagine she is going through the movements of the hunt, or that she is readying her body for survival. But she knows no life outside the garden. She has no notion of anger over what she could have been, or might be. No idea of rebellion. It is only her body that knows of these things, moving her, daily, hourly, back and forth, back and forth, before the bars of her cage.

but true love goes far deeper than that. It is an unexplainable connection of the heart, one that endures triumph and tragedy, pain and suffering, obstacles and loss. It is something that is either present or missing - there is no "almost", "in between", "most of the time." It is the unexplainable reason that some marriages entered into after one-week courtships can last a lifetime. Its absence is why "perfect" marriages fall apart. It can't be quantified or explained in science, religion, or philosophy. It can't be advised on by friends or marriage counselors who can't take their own advice. There are no rules, no how-to books, no guaranteed methods of success. It is not defined by vows or rings or promises of tomorrow. It is simply a miracle of God, that too few are blessed to experience.

I never advise friends to put money in anything,. said Danny. 'It's a no-win situation - if they make a profit they forget that it was you who recommended it, and if they make a loss they never stop reminding you. My only advise would be not to gamble what you can't afford, and never to risk an amount that might cause you to lose a night's sleep

Often, when people advise, ‘Just be yourself,’ it’s a way of saying, ‘Don’t grow and change.’ What’s more, friends offer this advice when just being yourself has left you miserable and lonely. What they are really telling you is to stick with what you know, to stay with what is comfortable. And what I am telling you is that the new and improved you is you. You are not changing who you are, you are becoming who you are.

Strike would have advised any friend to leave and not look back, but he had come to see her like a virus in his blood that he doubted he would ever eradicate; the best he could hope for was to control its symptoms.

Jerott’s eyes and Philippa’s met. ‘When I meet my friend,’ said Jerott Blyth carefully, ‘there is likely to be a detonation which will take the snow off Mont Blanc. I advise you to seek other auspices. Philippa, I think we should go down below.’ ‘To swim?’ said that unprepossessing child guilelessly. ‘I can stand on my head.’ ‘Oh, Christ,’ said Jerott morosely. ‘Why in hell did you come?’ The brown eyes within the damp, dun-coloured hair inspected him narrowly. ‘Because you need a woman,’ said Philippa finally. ‘And I’m the nearest thing to it that you’re likely to get. It was very short notice.

Tell the trafic jams to no open their roads to you. Tell the eyes that meet you on the road, that I’m no longer jealous. Tell the souls that share with you the details of your day, that I no longer wich to be them. Tell to the one I advised to take care of you, to forget my advice, and to neglect you as she wants. Tell your pillow to not be gentle with your head. Tell your tooth brush to not be gentle with your gums. Tell your hair brush to not care about your head skin. Tell your blanket to not give you warmth. Tell your winter clothes to not protect you from the cold. Tell the streets’ dogs to frighten you. Tell your car’s other seat that I no longer dream of sitting on it. Tell your country that I no longer dream of flying to it. Tell your friends, your coworkers, your best friend, your neighbours, the world, the universe, your ground, your sky, I broke your chains, and I no longer care about you. So leave on the story’s seat a dry flower, and leave my memory.

Trump’s friends and advisers had long observed that he had an amazing ability to disconnect from facts and remember experiences the way it suited him at the moment, a dangerous habit when being interviewed by federal prosecutors in a criminal investigation.

We must have several word-signs," said Syme seriously -- "words that we are likely to want, fine shades of meaning. My favourite word is 'coeval.' What's yours?" "Do stop playing the goat," said the Professor plaintively. "You don't know how serious this is." "'Lush,' too, " said Syme, shaking his head sagaciously, "we must have ' lush' -- word applied to grass, don't you know?" "Do you imagine," asked the Professor furiously, "that we are going to talk to Dr. Bull about grass?" "There are several ways in which the subject could be approached," said Syme reflectively, "and the word introduced without appearing forced. We might say, ' Dr. Bull, as a revolutionist, you remember that a tyrant once advised us to eat grass; and indeed many of us, looking on the fresh lush grass of summer--"' "Do you understand," said the other, "that this is a tragedy?" "Perfectly," replied Syme; "always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do? I wish this language of yours had a wider scope. I suppose we could not extend it from the fingers to the toes? That would involve pulling off our boots and socks during the conversation, which however unobtrusively performed -- " "Syme," said his friend with a stern simplicity, "go to bed!

The major factor that makes a great leader to fail emerge from the decision of people who surround him/her.

But a wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease.

All my friends are bums. We all gather round our camp-fire (in a can) and sing songs of togetherness as we cuddle, to preserve our warmth...

Dismantle your friend to see how he behaves. If he smiles with a beautiful grin, then take him back, he's worthy to be called a friend.

Perhaps it was the 'sir's' that turned the trick. At their first meeting it was Mr. Woodrow, or when they felt bold, Sandy. Now it was sir, advising Woodrow that these two junior police officers were not his colleagues, not his friends, but lower-class outsiders poking their noses into the exclusive club that had given him standing and protection these seventeen years.

I do not find that I grow any older. Being arrived at seventy, and considering that by traveling further in the same road I should probably be led to the grave, I stopped short, turned about, and walked back again; which having done these four years, you may now call me sixty-six. Advise those old friends of ours to follow my example; keep up your spirits, and that will keep up your bodies.

Reality has a way of bursting the bubble of illusion, and an affair is one of the biggest illusions that anyone can experience in life. It’s based almost entirely on emotions with almost no logic to support it. That fact becomes clear when children, employers, clergy, family, and friends all hear about the affair. Because they are not in the fog, they see the affair for what it really is: the cruelest, most devastating, and selfish act anyone can ever inflict on a spouse. With so many people seeing the situation logically and not emotionally, the unfaithful spouse has an opportunity to be advised and influenced by these people. Furthermore, the betrayed spouse gains support when he or she needs it the most.

Don't plant any Peace roses,” a friend and connoisseur of roses advised. “They're such a cliché.” But not only are they dazzling, the vanilla cream, peach, and rosy blush colors repeat the colors of the house.

The Venetians briefed shamelessly on both sides according to the set of tested maxims: “It is better to treat all enemy rulers as friends,” one seasoned politician advised, “and all friends as potential enemies.

In the past when I was younger my friends and relations had known what to do with me: some of them used to advise me to volunteer for the army, others to get a job in a pharmacy, and others in the telegraph department; now that I am over twenty-five, that grey hairs are beginning to show on my temples, and that I have been already in the army, and in a pharmacy, and in the telegraph department, it would seem that all earthly possibilities have been exhausted, and people have given up advising me, and merely sigh or shake their heads.

Henry O. Sturges, born in England, March 2nd, 1563. Landed at Roanoke, July 27th, 1587. Friend to the American Revolution, present at the Battles of Trenton and Yorktown, staunch supporter of the North in its hour of need, adviser to presidents, a decorated soldier who distinguished himself in the trenches of the Great War, and member of the Union Brotherhood—a collective of vampires dedicated to preserving the freedom of man and his dominion over the earth.

Bob,” she said, “offerings burned in the mortal world appear on this altar, right?” Bob frowned uncomfortably, like he wasn’t ready for a pop quiz. “Yes?” “So what happens if I burn something on the altar here?” “Uh…” “That’s all right,” Annabeth said. “You don’t know. Nobody knows, because it’s never been done.” There was a chance, she thought, just the slimmest chance that an offering burned on this altar might appear at Camp Half-Blood. Doubtful, but if it did work… “Annabeth?” Percy said again. “You’re planning something. You’ve got that I’m-planning-something look.” “I don’t have an I’m-planning-something look.” “Yeah, you totally do. Your eyebrows knit and your lips press together and—” “Do you have a pen?” she asked him. “You’re kidding, right?” He brought out Riptide. “Yes, but can you actually write with it?” “I—I don’t know,” he admitted. “Never tried.” He uncapped the pen. As usual, it sprang into a full-sized sword. Annabeth had watched him do this hundreds of times. Normally when he fought, Percy simply discarded the cap. It always appeared in his pocket later, as needed. When he touched the cap to the point of the sword, it would turn back into a ballpoint pen. “What if you touch the cap to the other end of the sword?” Annabeth said. “Like where you’d put the cap if you were actually going to write with the pen.” “Uh…” Percy looked doubtful, but he touched the cap to the hilt of the sword. Riptide shrank back into a ballpoint pen, but now the writing point was exposed. “May I?” Annabeth plucked it from his hand. She flattened the napkin against the altar and began to write. Riptide’s ink glowed Celestial bronze. “What are you doing?” Percy asked. “Sending a message,” Annabeth said. “I just hope Rachel gets it.” “Rachel?” Percy asked. “You mean our Rachel? Oracle of Delphi Rachel?” “That’s the one.” Annabeth suppressed a smile. Whenever she brought up Rachel’s name, Percy got nervous. At one point, Rachel had been interested in dating Percy. That was ancient history. Rachel and Annabeth were good friends now. But Annabeth didn’t mind making Percy a little uneasy. You had to keep your boyfriend on his toes. Annabeth finished her note and folded the napkin. On the outside, she wrote: Connor, Give this to Rachel. Not a prank. Don’t be a moron. Love, Annabeth She took a deep breath. She was asking Rachel Dare to do something ridiculously dangerous, but it was the only way she could think of to communicate with the Romans—the only way that might avoid bloodshed. “Now I just need to burn it,” she said. “Anybody got a match?” The point of Bob’s spear shot from his broom handle. It sparked against the altar and erupted in silvery fire. “Uh, thanks.” Annabeth lit the napkin and set it on the altar. She watched it crumble to ash and wondered if she was crazy. Could the smoke really make it out of Tartarus? “We should go now,” Bob advised. “Really, really go. Before we are killed.” Annabeth stared at the wall of blackness in front of them. Somewhere in there was a lady who dispensed a Death Mist that might hide them from monsters—a plan recommended by a Titan, one of their bitterest enemies. Another dose of weirdness to explode her brain. “Right,” she said. “I’m ready.” ANNABETH LITERALLY STUMBLED over the second Titan.

I have brought peace to this land, and security," he began. "And what of your soul, when you use the cleverness of argument to cloak such acts? Do you think that the peace of a thousand cancels out the unjust death of one single person? It may be desirable, it may win you praise from those who have happily survived you and prospered from your deeds, but you have committed ignoble acts, and have been too proud to own them. I have waited patiently here, hoping that you would come to me, for if you understood, then some of your acts would be mitigated. But instead you send me this manuscript, proud, magisterial, and demonstrating only that you have understood nothing at all." "I returned to public life on your advice, madam," he said stiffly. "Yes; I advised it. I said if learning must die it should do so with a friend by its bedside. Not an assassin.

A critical analysis of the present global constellation-one which offers no clear solution, no “practical” advice on what to do, and provides no light at the end of the tunnel, since one is well aware that this light might belong to a train crashing towards us-usually meets with reproach: “Do you mean we should do nothing? Just sit and wait?” One should gather the courage to answer: “YES, precisely that!” There are situations when the only true “practical” thing to do is to resist the temptation to engage immediately and to “wait and see” by means of a patient, critical analysis. Engagement seems to exert its pressure on us from all directions. In a well-known passage from his ‘Existentialism and Humanism’, Sartre deployed the dilemma of a young man in France in 1942, torn between the duty to help his lone, ill mother and the duty to enter the war and fight the Germans; Sartre’s point is, of course, that there is no a priori answer to this dilemma. The young man needs to make a decision grounded only in his own abyssal freedom and assume full responsibility for it. An obscene third way out of this dilemma would have been to advise the young man to tell his mother that he will join the Resistance, and to tell his Resistance friends that he will take care of his mother, while, in reality, withdrawing to a secluded place and studying. There is more than cheap cynicism in this advice. It brings to mind a well-known Soviet joke about Lenin. Under socialism; Lenin’s advice to young people, his answer to what they should do, was “Learn, learn, and learn.” This was evoked all the time and displayed on the school walls. The joke goes: Marx, Engels, and Lenin are asked whether they would prefer to have a wife or a mistress. As expected, Marx, rather conservative in private matters, answers, “A wife!” while Engels, more of a bon vivant, opts for a mistress. To everyone’s surprise, Lenin says, “I’d like to have both!” Why? Is there a hidden stripe of decadent jouisseur behind his austere revolutionary image? No-he explains: “So that I can tell my wife that I am going to my mistress and my mistress that I am going to my wife. . .” “And then, what do you do?” “I go to a solitary place to learn, learn, and learn!” Is this not exactly what Lenin did after the catastrophe in 1914? He withdrew to a lonely place in Switzerland, where he “learned, learned, and learned,” reading Hegel’s logic. And this is what we should do today when we find ourselves bombarded with mediatic images of violence. We need to “learn, learn, and learn” what causes this violence.

I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested--'But these impulses may be from below, not from above.' I replied, 'They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil's child, I will live them from the devil.

If I tell Dad he has a problem, he’ll think I hate him. How can I hurt him more? He just lost everything.” Wesley shook his head. “Not everything. He didn’t lose you,” he said. “At least not yet. If you don’t talk to him, he’ll just end up driving you away, and then he will be in far worse pain.

He urges his young disciple and friend Pythocles to “flee from every form of culture.” It was a natural consequence of his principles that he advised abstinence from public life, for in proportion as a man achieves power he increases the number of those who envy him and therefore wish to do him injury.

None of my ten friends, even today, ascribes moral evil to Hitler, although most of them think (after the fact) that he made fatal strategical mistakes which even they themselves might have made at the time. His worst mistake was his selection of advisers—a backhand tribute to the Leader's virtues of trustfulness and loyalty, to his very innocence of the knowledge of evil, fully familiar to those who have heard partisans of F. D. R. or Ike explain how things went wrong.

Fear is not to be overcome, or dreaded, or avoided, or expelled from our life; neither is it to be our dwelling, obsession or constant companion. But it should be respected, recognized, and humbly listened to for its singular solemn advice. Indeed, it's wise and cautionary warnings should always be heeded. Fear was designed to function as a familiar adviser, an overly critical, cautious, conservative friend - not our foe. When it is accepted, and appreciated for what it is, fear is a sage, a warning system, and one of our oldest, most experienced guides. When it holds itself at bay as necessary, it is like the security detail that waits at some serious attention in the back of the room, ever watchful, ever ready, benign, non-threatening - until circumstances require its sensitive, timely services.

There was a girl, and her uncle sold her, wrote Mr. Ibis in his perfect copperplate handwriting. That is the tale; the rest is detail. There are stories that are true, in which each individual’s tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it too deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function, day in, day out, immune to others’ pain and loss. If it were to touch us it would cripple us or make saints of us; but, for the most part, it does not touch us. We cannot allow it to. Tonight, as you eat, reflect if you can: there are children starving in the world, starving in numbers larger than the mind can easily hold, up in the big numbers where an error of a million here, a million there, can be forgiven. It may be uncomfortable for you to reflect upon this or it may not, but still, you will eat. There are accounts which, if we open our hearts to them, will cut us too deeply. Look—here is a good man, good by his own lights and the lights of his friends: he is faithful and true to his wife, he adores and lavishes attention on his little children, he cares about his country, he does his job punctiliously, as best he can. So, efficiently and good-naturedly, he exterminates Jews: he appreciates the music that plays in the background to pacify them; he advises the Jews not to forget their identification numbers as they go into the showers—many people, he tells them, forget their numbers, and take the wrong clothes, when they come out of the showers. This calms the Jews: there will be life, they assure themselves, after the showers. And they are wrong. Our man supervises the detail taking the bodies to the ovens; and if there is anything he feels bad about, it is that he still allows the gassing of vermin to affect him. Were he a truly good man, he knows, he would feel nothing but joy, as the earth is cleansed of its pests. Leave him; he cuts too deep. He is too close to us and it hurts.

NOBODY knows better than you what's right for you. NOBODY. Let me say what I really mean: NOBODY. Advice? Get some. Oracles? Consult them. Friends? Worship them. Actual gurus? Honour them. Final say? YOU. All you. No matter what. No matter how psychic that psychic is, or how rich the business consultant is, or how magical the healer, or bendy the yoga instructor. All that experts offer you is data for you to take into consideration. YOU are the centrifugal force that must filter, interpret, and give meaning to that data.

So, you see, my dear friend, looking now at that ridiculous letter from Home Office, I feel to tell the world that my life is not fake. Is just my life, the best version I have. And even if some people would advise me to not take it personally, I just can't take this advice. My life is the most personal thing to me ever. My love as well. And God knows how many travels we might need to do in approaching our happiness. Regardless the slaps we might get because we dare to love behind the borders. - Write Like A Girl Anthology

It is, as you can imagine, a genuine problem: I would never put up with less. It is a rather complicated problem, and my friends, or at least the well-meaning among them, advise me to solve it. But I cannot make up my mind to do so, I have gotten used to it. Sometimes, I wonder: what would I be without my problem? And of course I am unable to respond.

PayPal cofounder and Facebook board member Peter Thiel—really the only significant Silicon Valley voice to support Trump—was warned by another billionaire and longtime Trump friend that Trump would, in an explosion of flattery, offer Thiel his undying friendship. Everybody says you’re great, you and I are going to have an amazing working relationship, anything you want, call me and we’ll get it done! Thiel was advised not to take Trump’s offer too seriously. But Thiel, who gave a speech supporting Trump at the Republican Convention in Cleveland, reported back that, even having been forewarned, he absolutely was certain of Trump’s sincerity when he said they’d be friends for life—only never to basically hear from him again or have his calls returned.

Money: My Thesis Money can buy you comfort, but it can’t buy you peace. Money can buy you pleasure, but it can’t buy you happiness. Money can buy you food, but it can’t buy you contentment. Money can buy you delight, but it can’t buy you love. Money can buy you praise, but it can’t buy you honor. Money can buy you titles, but it can’t buy you respect. Money can buy you neighbors, but it can’t buy you friends. Money can buy you crowds, but it can’t buy you God. Money can buy you religion, but it can’t buy you faith. Money can buy you education, but it can’t buy you wisdom. Money can buy you medicine, but it can’t buy you health. Money can buy you time, but it can’t buy you life. Money can buy you a compass, but it can’t buy you purpose. Money can buy you luck, but it can’t buy you fate. Money can buy you advisers, but it can’t buy you certainty. Money can buy you today, but it can’t buy you tomorrow. Money can buy you fish, but it can’t buy you the ocean. Money can buy you land, but it can’t buy you the world. Money can buy you aeroplanes, but it can’t buy you the skies. Money can buy you telescopes, but it can’t buy you the stars.

The relationship between any two communities in the global economy is not unlike a marriage. As couples counselors advise, relationships falter when two partners are too interdependent. When any stress affecting one partner - the loss of a job, an illness, a bad-hair day - brings down the other, the couple suffers. A much healthier relationship is grounded in the relative strength of each partner, who each should have his or her own interests, hobbies, friends, and professional identity, so that when anything goes wrong, the couple can support one another from a position of strength. Our ability to love, like our ability to produce, must be grounded in our own security. And our economy, like our love, when it comes from a place of community, can grow without limit.

Getting out of a marriage is rough, though, and not just for the legal / financial complications or the massive lifestyle upheaval. (As my friend Deborah once advised me wisely: "Nobody ever died from splitting up furniture.") It's the emotional recoil that kills you, the shock of stepping off the track of a conventional lifestyle and losing all the embracing comforts that keep so many people on that track forever.

The language and the "people" of the unconscious are symbols, and the means of communications dreams. Thus an examination of Man and his Symbols is in effect an examination of man's relation to his own unconscious. And since in Jung's view the unconscious is the great guide, friend, and adviser of the conscious, this book is related in the most direct terms to the study of human beings and their spiritual problems.

Let me advise you, my dear young friend-nay, let me warn you with all seriousness, that should you leave these rooms you will not by any chance to sleep in any other part of the castle. It is old, and has many memories, and there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely. Be warned! Should sleep now or ever overcome you, or be like to do, then haste to your own chamber or to these rooms, for your rest will then be safe.

I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested: "But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied: "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil.

The man tut-tut-tuts. “Hardly. I am Tashu. Merely a historian. An eager student of the old ways. And, until recently, an adviser to Palpatine.” “My friend Luke told me some things about him.” Tashu’s grin broadens. Showing off his too-white teeth. “Yes, I imagine he did. Seen through the lens of a confused, naïve boy, most assuredly.” His fingers pluck at the air like a spider testing its webs. “I know I won’t break you physically.” “So why come here at all?

I believe, if you played your cards right, you could still marry her, Pongo.’ ‘Aren’t you overlooking the trifling fact that I happen to be engaged to Hermione?’ ‘Slide out of it.’ ‘Ha!’ ‘It is what your best friends would advise. You are a moody, introspective young man, all too prone to look on the dark side of things. I shall never forget you that day at the dog races. Sombre is the only word to describe your attitude as the cop’s fingers closed on your coat collar.

We couldn’t afford our own place in the beginning, and so like most of our friends we lived with her parents to start off our married life. I wouldn’t advise that to anyone who could help it. The night of the wedding we had a reception at her parents’ house, and I had a few drinks in me and I announced that I was going to return all the wedding gifts to her side of the family. If they didn’t want me I didn’t want their gifts. I wouldn’t advise that either. I still had that hair-trigger from the war. According

In the 1970s, when Norman Sunshine won an Emmy for the graphics and title design he had created for one of Alan Shayne’s television productions, “Alan and I agreed it was not a good idea for us to be seen together at an industry event,” he remembers. “Alan, after all, was one of the very few homosexuals who had such a powerful, high profile job, and who lived openly with a man. Homophobia had its adherents and some ruthless climber up the executive ladder would certainly love an opportunity to use it… 'Better to be seen with a woman,’ we were advised by a very trusted friend, ‘Makes everyone more comfortable.

But if you will not take this Counsel, and persist in thinking a Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these: 1. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor'd with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable. 2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman. 3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc'd may be attended with much Inconvenience. 4. Because thro' more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin'd to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes. 5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding2 only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement. 6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy. 7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy. 8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!! Thus much for my Paradox. But still I advise you to marry directly; being sincerely Your affectionate Friend.

She bit her tongue on the obvious, and said, “How do I go about being an enchantress?” Henry warmed to his subject. At thirty, he was an adviser. Maybe because he was a lawyer. “First,” he said dispassionately, “hold your tongue. Don’t argue with a man, especially when you know you can beat him. Smile a lot. Make him feel big. Tell him how wonderful he is, and wait on him.” She smiled brilliantly and said, “Hank, I agree with everything you’ve said. You are the most perspicacious individual I’ve met in years, you are six feet five, and may I light your cigarette? How’s that?” “Awful.” They were friends again. (Chapter 1)

A fox once fell into a trap, and after a struggle managed to get free, but with the loss of his brush. He was then so much ashamed of his appearance that he thought life was not worth living unless he could persuade the other Foxes to part with their tails also, and thus divert attention from his own loss. So he called a meeting of all the Foxes, and advised them to cut off their tails: “They’re ugly things anyhow,” he said, “and besides they’re heavy, and it’s tiresome to be always carrying them about with you.” But one of the other Foxes said, “My friend, if you hadn’t lost your own tail, you wouldn’t be so keen on getting us to cut off ours.

Aaron Copland, whom Bernstein had met when he was in his junior year at Harvard and who would become a lifelong friend and mentor, wrote him encouraging letters. “Don’t expect miracles,” Copland advised the young man, “and don’t get depressed if nothing happens for a while. That’s NY.” But on August 25, 1943, his twenty-fifth birthday, Bernstein got his first professional break when Artur Rodzinski, then the music director of the New York Philharmonic, chose him to become his conducting assistant. “I have gone through all the conductors I know of in my mind,” Rodzinski explained to his new assistant, “and I finally asked God whom I should take, and God said, ‘Take Bernstein.

Look at a person's friends, and you can tell a lot about how secure a person is. Insecure people only get close to people to whom they feel superior in terms of looks, age, education, position, or financial status. Insecure people feel that they must have some kind of edge on others so that others will look up to them as a superior rather than looking at them as an equal eyeball to eyeball. Some people will not get close to you unless they can advise you, boss you, or run your business. Some people will dislike you and will feel threatened by you if in their shallow opinion you look as good as they do, know as much as they do, or speak, sing, cook, or dress as well as they can.

I made the mistake of renting a cottage in a village near Chichester. Charles had advised against it but at the time I’d thought how nice it would be to get away now and then for the weekend. He was right. I couldn’t wait to get back. I soon discovered that every time I made one friend I made three enemies and that arguments about such issues as car parking, the church bells, dog waste and hanging flower baskets dominated daily life to such an extent that everyone was permanently at each other’s throats. That’s the truth of it. Emotions which are quickly lost in the noise and chaos of the city fester around the village square, driving people to psychosis and violence. It’s a gift to the whodunnit writer.

Finally, the cognomen, a personal surname, was particular to its holder or his branch of the family. It often had a jokey or down-to-earth ring: so, for example, “Cicero” is Latin for “chickpea” and it was supposed that some ancestor had had a wart of that shape on the end of his nose. When Marcus was about to launch his career as an advocate and politician, friends advised him to change his name to something less ridiculous. “No,” he replied firmly, “I am going to make my cognomen more famous than those of men like Scaurus and Catulus.” These were two leading Romans of the day, and the point of the remark was that “Catulus” was the Latin for “whelp” or “puppy,” and “Scaurus” meant “with large or projecting ankles.

There are accounts which, if we open our hearts to them, will cut us too deeply. Look—here is a good man, good by his own lights and the lights of his friends: he is faithful and true to his wife, he adores and lavishes attention on his little children, he cares about his country, he does his job punctiliously, as best he can. So, efficiently and good-naturedly, he exterminates Jews: he appreciates the music that plays in the background to pacify them; he advises the Jews not to forget their identification numbers as they go into the showers—many people, he tells them, forget their numbers, and take the wrong clothes, when they come out of the showers. This calms the Jews: there will be life, they assure themselves, after the showers. And they are wrong. Our man supervises the detail taking the bodies to the ovens; and if there is anything he feels bad about, it is that he still allows the gassing of vermin to affect him. Were he a truly good man, he knows, he would feel nothing but joy, as the earth is cleansed of its pests. Leave him; he cuts too deep. He is too close to us and it hurts.

THE BUTCHER AND THE DIETITIAN A good friend of mine recently forwarded me a YouTube video entitled The Butcher vs. the Dietitian, a two-minute cartoon that effectively and succinctly highlighted the major difference between a broker and a legal fiduciary. The video made the glaringly obvious point that when you walk into a butcher shop, you are always encouraged to buy meat. Ask a butcher what’s for dinner, and the answer is always “Meat!” But a dietitian, on the other hand, will advise you to eat what’s best for your health. She has no interest in selling you meat if fish is better for you. Brokers are butchers, while fiduciaries are dietitians. They have no “dog in the race” to sell you a specific product or fund. This simple distinction gives you a position of power! Insiders know the difference.

My friend Oscar is one of those princes without kingdom who wander around hoping you'll kiss them so they won't turn into frogs. He gets everything back to front and that's why I like him. People who think they get everything right do things wrong, and this, coming from a left-handed person, says it all. He looks at me and thinks I don't see him. he imagines I'll evaporate if he touches me and if he doesn't touch me, then he'll evaporate. He's got me on such a high pedestal he doesn't know how to get up there. He thinks my lips are door to paradise, but doesn't know they are poisoned. I am such a coward that I don't tell him so as not to lose him. I pretend I don't see him, and that I am, indeed, going to evaporate... My friend Oscar is one of those princes who would be well advised to stay away from fairy tales and the princesses who inhabit them. He doesn't know he's really Prince Charming who must kiss Sleeping Beauty in order to wake her from her eternal sleep, but that's because Oscar doesn't know that fairy tales are lies, although not all lies are fairy tales. Princes aren't charming, and sleeping beauties, however beautiful, never wake up from their sleep. He's the best friend I've ever had and if I ever come across Merlin, I'll thank him for having placed him in my path.

Tell the trafic jams to no open their roads to you. Tell the eyes that meet you on the road, that I’m no longer jealous. Tell the souls that share with you the details of your day, that I no longer wish to be them. Tell to the one I advised to take care of you, to forget my advice, and to neglect you as she wants. Tell your pillow to not be gentle with your head. Tell your tooth brush to not be gentle with your gums. Tell your hair brush to not care about your head skin. Tell your blanket to not give you warmth. Tell your winter clothes to not protect you from the cold. Tell the streets’ dogs to frighten you. Tell your car’s other seat that I no longer dream of sitting on it. Tell your country that I no longer dream of flying to it. Tell your friends, your coworkers, your best friend, your neighbours, the world, the universe, your ground, your sky, I broke your chains, and I no longer care about you. So leave on the story’s seat a dry flower, and leave my memory.

I told Father Maximos that what he just said reminded me of Plato’s parable of the cave. Most human beings, Plato wrote, live in a dark cave. They are tied to a pole facing the wall. The light that comes from the opening of the cave creates shadows on the wall. These shadows are taken for reality by the people tied to the poles. A few brave souls manage to untie themselves and with great difficulty and effort crawl out and experience the sunlight. They become ecstatic with their discovery. These liberated few set as their life’s mission to return to the cave and tell their friends of the good news, that there is life and light outside the cave, that they don’t have to spend their lives in the dark. Yet, when they announce their discovery hardly anybody believes them. The overwhelming majority prefer to stay tied to their poles, taking the reflection of their shadows as the only real world. “Plato’s light outside the cave,” Father Maximos pointed out, “is in reality Christ, and those who see the light are the saints who have been witnesses to the light through the aeons. The cave dwellers who do not respond to the message are those whose hearts are shut and who therefore are nonreceptive to the good news. That is why the holy elders advise that before you speak to someone about God, you must pray for that person so that Grace may proceed ahead of you and prepare the ground. But even so, people whose heart is shut cannot experience the light, no matter what.” Father

a counselor interrupted his meeting with faculty down the hall. "Frank, they need you," he said. "You need to go out there." Frank walked the hallway to the nave of the church, contemplating what to say. And again he faced the dilemma of how to act at the microphone. Several of his friends, and staff, too, had warned him not to cry again. "God, you're going to be in the national media," they said. "You can't show that, it's a sign of weakness." He had gotten away with it once, but the media would crucify him if they discovered he was buckling. The trauma specialists disagreed. These kids had been raised in a western mentality, they argued: real men fend for themselves; tears are for weaklings; therapy is a joke. "Frank, you are the key," one counselor advised him. "You're an emotional person, you need to show those emotions. If you try to hold your emotions inside, you're going to set the image for other people." The boys, in particular, would be watching him. DeAngelis felt. They were already dangerously bottled up. "Frank, they need to know it's all right to show emotion," the counselor said. "Give them that permission."... "I walked on that stage and I saw those kids cheering and the tears started coming down." This time he decided to address the tears. "Guys, trust me, now is not the time to show your manliness," he told them. "Emotion is emotion, and keeping it inside doesn't mean you're strong." That was the last time Mr. D worried about crying in public. p117-18

There are stories that are true, in which each individual’s tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it too deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function, day in, day out, immune to others’ pain and loss. If it were to touch us it would cripple us or make saints of us; but, for the most part, it does not touch us. We cannot allow it to. Tonight, as you eat, reflect if you can: there are children starving in the world, starving in numbers larger than the mind can easily hold, up in the big numbers where an error of a million here, a million there, can be forgiven. It may be uncomfortable for you to reflect upon this or it may not, but still, you will eat. There are accounts which, if we open our hearts to them, will cut us too deeply. Look—here is a good man, good by his own lights and the lights of his friends: he is faithful and true to his wife, he adores and lavishes attention on his little children, he cares about his country, he does his job punctiliously, as best he can. So, efficiently and good-naturedly, he exterminates Jews: he appreciates the music that plays in the background to pacify them; he advises the Jews not to forget their identification numbers as they go into the showers—many people, he tells them, forget their numbers, and take the wrong clothes, when they come out of the showers. This calms the Jews: there will be life, they assure themselves, after the showers. And they are wrong. Our man supervises the detail taking the bodies to the ovens; and if there is anything he feels bad about, it is that he still allows the gassing of vermin to affect him. Were he a truly good man, he knows, he would feel nothing but joy, as the earth is cleansed of its pests. Leave him; he cuts too deep. He is too close to us and it hurts.

For what is it you and I are trying to do now? What I'm trying to do is to attempt to explain to you as quickly as possible the most important thing about me, that is to say, what sort of man I am, what I believe in what I hope for - that's it isn't it? And that's why I declare that I accept God plainly and simply. But there's this that has to be said: if God really exists and if he really has created the world, then, as we all know, he created it in accordance with the Euclidean geometry, and he created the human mind with the conception of only the three dimensions of space. And yet there have been and there still are mathematicians and philosophers, some of them indeed men of extraordinary genius, who doubt whether the whole universe, or, to put it more wildly, all existence was created only according to Euclidean geometry and they even dare to dream that two parallel lines which, according to Euclid can never meet on earth, may meet somewhere in infinity. I, my dear chap, have come to the conclusion that if I can't understand even that, then how can I be expected to understand about God? I humbly admit that I have no abilities for settling such questions. And I advise you too, Aloysha, my friend, never to think about it, and least of all about whether there is a God or not. All these problems which are entirely unsuitable to a mind created with the idea of only three dimensions. And so I accept God, and I accept him not only without reluctance, but what's more, I accept his divine wisdom and his purpose- which are completely beyond our comprehension.

QUOTES AND THOUGHTS FROM SEEMA & FRIENDS _________________________________________________ On work and career (some paraphrasing involved): _________________________________________________ “Bosses are always jerks. It’s a job requirement.” ———- “Don’t do dumb shit.” ———- Never ever lose sight of priorities. Food always comes first. ———- An itch started in her chest. Go away, she crossly ordered her conscience. It had a habit of popping its head out at the most inconvenient times. The itch became a tickle rising to her nose. Nope, not her conscience. She was going to sneeze. ———- It’s your God-given right as an employee to whine about bosses. _______________________________________________ On romance and families (some paraphrasing involved): _______________________________________________ “Smell is very important,” Gayathri agreed, tone grave. “One of the first things I notice about a man.” ———- “Men—no matter how awful they look—always believe they deserve the hottest girl on the planet.” “What are the rest of us supposed to do?” asked Seema, glumly. Gayathri shrugged. “Act like we are the hottest girl on the planet. Confidence goes a long way.” ———- Seema had never been able to tell where friendly conversation ended and the banter of romance started. Did the delight in his gaze when it landed on her mean something more than casual amiability? What about his hand cupping her cheek to check for fever? The arm he’d wrapped around her shoulders? Was she gonna have to wait until he initiated a lip lock to be certain? Could she plant one on him? What if he ran, screaming in horror? ———- “You just have to look the other way on some things,” Gayathri advised. “Pretence is the glue which holds families together.” ———-

There are stories that are true, in which each individual’s tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it too deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function, day in, day out, immune to others’ pain and loss. If it were to touch us it would cripple us or make saints of us; but, for the most part, it does not touch us. We cannot allow it to. Tonight, as you eat, reflect if you can: there are children starving in the world, starving in numbers larger than the mind can easily hold, up in the big numbers where an error of a million here, a million there, can be forgiven. It may be uncomfortable for you to reflect upon this or it may not, but still, you will eat. There are accounts which, if we open our hearts to them will cut us too deeply. Look – here is a good man, good by his own lights and the lights of his friends: he is faithful and true to his wife, he adores and lavishes attention on his little children, he cares about his country, he does his job punctiliously, as best he can. So, efficiently and good-naturedly, he exterminates Jews: he appreciates the music that plays in the background to pacify them; he advises the Jews not to forget their identification numbers as they go into the showers – many people, he tells them, forget their numbers, and take the wrong clothes, when they come out of the showers. This calms the Jews: there will be life, they assure themselves, after the showers. And they are wrong. Our man supervises the detail taking the bodies to the ovens; and if there is anything he feels bad about, it is that he still allows the gassing of vermin to affect him. Were he a truly good man, he knows, he would feel nothing but joy, as the earth is cleansed of its pests. Leave him; he cuts too deep. He is too close to us and it hurts.

I'm going to throw some suggestions at you now in rapid succession, assuming you are a father of one or more boys. Here we go: If you speak disparagingly of the opposite sex, or if you refer to females as sex objects, those attitudes will translate directly into dating and marital relationships later on. Remember that your goal is to prepare a boy to lead a family when he's grown and to show him how to earn the respect of those he serves. Tell him it is great to laugh and have fun with his friends, but advise him not to be "goofy." Guys who are goofy are not respected, and people, especially girls and women, do not follow boys and men whom they disrespect. Also, tell your son that he is never to hit a girl under any circumstances. Remind him that she is not as strong as he is and that she is deserving of his respect. Not only should he not hurt her, but he should protect her if she is threatened. When he is strolling along with a girl on the street, he should walk on the outside, nearer the cars. That is symbolic of his responsibility to take care of her. When he is on a date, he should pay for her food and entertainment. Also (and this is simply my opinion), girls should not call boys on the telephone-at least not until a committed relationship has developed. Guys must be the initiators, planning the dates and asking for the girl's company. Teach your son to open doors for girls and to help them with their coats or their chairs in a restaurant. When a guy goes to her house to pick up his date, tell him to get out of the car and knock on the door. Never honk. Teach him to stand, in formal situations, when a woman leaves the room or a table or when she returns. This is a way of showing respect for her. If he treats her like a lady, she will treat him like a man. It's a great plan. Make a concerted effort to teach sexual abstinence to your teenagers, just as you teach them to abstain from drug and alcohol usage and other harmful behavior. Of course you can do it! Young people are fully capable of understanding that irresponsible sex is not in their best interest and that it leads to disease, unwanted pregnancy, rejection, etc. In many cases today, no one is sharing this truth with teenagers. Parents are embarrassed to talk about sex, and, it disturbs me to say, churches are often unwilling to address the issue. That creates a vacuum into which liberal sex counselors have intruded to say, "We know you're going to have sex anyway, so why not do it right?" What a damning message that is. It is why herpes and other sexually transmitted diseases are spreading exponentially through the population and why unwanted pregnancies stalk school campuses. Despite these terrible social consequences, very little support is provided even for young people who are desperately looking for a valid reason to say no. They're told that "safe sex" is fine if they just use the right equipment. You as a father must counterbalance those messages at home. Tell your sons that there is no safety-no place to hide-when one lives in contradiction to the laws of God! Remind them repeatedly and emphatically of the biblical teaching about sexual immorality-and why someone who violates those laws not only hurts himself, but also wounds the girl and cheats the man she will eventually marry. Tell them not to take anything that doesn't belong to them-especially the moral purity of a woman.

About his madmen Mr. Lecky was no more certain. He knew less than the little to be learned of the causes or even of the results of madness. Yet for practical purposes one can imagine all that is necessary. As long as maniacs walk like men, you must come close to them to penetrate so excellent a disguise. Once close, you have joined the true werewolf. Pick for your companion a manic-depressive, afflicted by any of the various degrees of mania - chronic, acute, delirious. Usually more man than wolf, he will be instructive. His disorder lies in the very process of his thinking, rather than in the content of his thought. He cannot wait a minute for the satisfaction of his fleeting desires or the fulfillment of his innumerable schemes. Nor can he, for two minutes, be certain of his intention or constant in any plan or agreement. Presently you may hear his failing made manifest in the crazy concatenation of his thinking aloud, which psychiatrists call "flight of ideas." Exhausted suddenly by this riotous expense of speech and spirit, he may subside in an apathy dangerous and morose, which you will be well advised not to disturb. Let the man you meet be, instead, a paretic. He has taken a secret departure from your world. He dwells amidst choicest, most dispendious superlatives. In his arm he has the strength to lift ten elephants. He is already two hundred years old. He is more than nine feet high; his chest is of iron, his right leg is silver, his incomparable head is one whole ruby. Husband of a thousand wives, he has begotten on them ten thousand children. Nothing is mean about him; his urine is white wine; his faeces are always soft gold. However, despite his splendor and his extraordinary attainments, he cannot successfully pronounce the words: electricity, Methodist Episcopal, organization, third cavalry brigade. Avoid them. Infuriated by your demonstration of any accomplishment not his, he may suddenly kill you. Now choose for your friend a paranoiac, and beware of the wolf! His back is to the wall, his implacable enemies are crowding on him. He gets no rest. He finds no starting hole to hide him. Ten times oftener than the Apostle, he has been, through the violence of the unswerving malice which pursues him, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Now that, face to face with him, you simulate innocence and come within his reach, what pity can you expect? You showed him none; he will certainly not show you any. Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, 0 Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all the perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen. Mr. Lecky's maniacs lay in wait to slash a man's head half off, to perform some erotic atrocity of disembowelment on a woman. Here, they fed thoughtlessly on human flesh; there, wishing to play with him, they plucked the mangled Tybalt from his shroud. The beastly cunning of their approach, the fantastic capriciousness of their intention could not be very well met or provided for. In his makeshift fort everywhere encircled by darkness, Mr. Lecky did not care to meditate further on the subject.

Time for an exercise, which I shall call 'Say It Out Loud With Miranda'. Please take a moment to sit back, breathe and intone: 'I am taking myself seriously as a woman.' Note your response. If you're reading this on the bus, or surreptitiously in the cinema, or in any other public scenario, then please note other people's responses. (If you are male, and teenaged, and reading this in a room with other teenage boys, then for your own safety I advise you not to participate.) The rest of you – what comes to mind when you say those words? Is it a fine lady scientist, a ballsy young anarchist with tights on her head or a feminist intellectual from the 1970s nose-down in Simone de Beauvoir? Or is it what I think my friend meant when she said 'woman' which is really 'aesthetic object'. Clothes-horse. Show pony. General beautiful piece of well-groomed stuff that's lovely to look at? I reckon, to my great dismay, that she did indeed mean the latter. And in saying that I don't take myself seriously in this regard her assessment of me is absolutely bang-on. If taking oneself seriously as a woman means committing to a like of grooming, pumicing, pruning and polishing one's exterior for the benefit of onlookers, then I may as well heave my unwieldy rucksack to the top of a bleak Scottish hill and make my home there under a stone, where I'll fashion shoes out of mud and clothes out of leaves.

Just being nice is not a winning strategy. Nice sends a message that the woman is willing to sacrifice pay to be liked by others. This is why a woman needs to combine niceness with insistence, a style that Mary sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, calls "relentlessly pleasant." This method requires smiling frequently, expressing appreciation and concern, invoking common interests, emphasizing larger goals, and approaching the negotiation as solving a problem as opposed to taking a critical stance. Most negotiations involve drawn-out, successive moves, so women need to stay focused... and smile. No wonder women don't negotiate as much as men. It's like trying to cross a minefield backward in high heels. So what should we do? Should we play by the rules that others created? Should we figure out a way to put on a friendly expression while not being too nice, displaying the right levels of loyalty and using "we" language? I understand the paradox of advising women to change the world by adhering to biased rules and expectations. I know it is not a perfect answer but a means to a desirable end. It is also true, as any good negotiator knows, that having a better understanding of the other side leads to a superior outcome. So at the very least, women can enter these negotiations with the knowledge that showing concern for the common good, even as they negotiate for themselves, will strengthen their position.

Truly, I advise you: depart from me, and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he has deceived you. The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends. One pays back a teacher badly if one remain merely a scholar. And why will you not pluck at my wreath? You venerate me; but what if your veneration should some day col- lapse? Take heed lest a statue crush you! You say, you believe in Zarathustra? But of what account is Zarathustra! you are my believers: but of what account are all believers! You had not yet sought yourselves: then did you find me. So do all believers; therefore all belief is of so little account. Now do I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me, will I return to you. Truly, with other eyes, my brothers, shall I then seek my lost ones; with another love shall I then love you. And once again shall you have become friends to me, and children of one hope: then will I be with you for the third time, to celebrate the great noontide with you. And it is the great noontide, when man is in the middle of his course between animal and overman, and celebrates his advance to the evening as his highest hope: for it is the advance to a new morning. At such time will the down-goer bless himself, that he should be an over-goer; and the sun of his knowledge will be at noontide. "Dead are all the Gods: now do we desire the overman to live." - Let this be our final will at the great noontide! - Thus spoke Zarathustra.

My friends, I have been asked to show you my heart. I am glad to have a chance to do so. I want the white people to understand my people. Some of you think an Indian is like a wild animal. This is a great mistake. I will tell you all about our people, and then you can judge whether an Indian is a man or not. I believe much trouble would be saved if we opened our hearts more. I will tell you in my way how the Indian sees things. The white man has more words to tell you how they look to him, but it does not require many words to speak the truth. What I have to say will come straight from my heart, and I will speak with a straight tongue. The Great Spirit is looking at me, and will hear me. My name is In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat [Thunder Traveling over Mountains]. I am chief of the Wal-lamwat- kin band of the Chute-pa-lu, or Nez Perce. I was born in eastern Oregon, thirty-eight winters ago. My father was chief before me. When a young man, he was called Joseph by Mr. Spaulding, a missionary. He died a few years ago. He left a good name on earth. He advised me well for my people. Our fathers gave us many laws, which they had learned from their fathers. These laws were good. They told us to treat all men as they treated us, that we should never be the first to break a bargain, that it was a disgrace to tell a lie, that we should speak only the truth, that it was a shame for one man to take from another his wife or his property without paying for it. We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and that He never forgets; that hereafter

I told him he must carry it thus. It was evident the sagacious little creature, having lost its mother, had adopted him for a father. I succeeded, at last, in quietly releasing him, and took the little orphan, which was no bigger than a cat, in my arms, pitying its helplessness. The mother appeared as tall as Fritz. I was reluctant to add another mouth to the number we had to feed; but Fritz earnestly begged to keep it, offering to divide his share of cocoa-nut milk with it till we had our cows. I consented, on condition that he took care of it, and taught it to be obedient to him. Turk, in the mean time, was feasting on the remains of the unfortunate mother. Fritz would have driven him off, but I saw we had not food sufficient to satisfy this voracious animal, and we might ourselves be in danger from his appetite. We left him, therefore, with his prey, the little orphan sitting on the shoulder of his protector, while I carried the canes. Turk soon overtook us, and was received very coldly; we reproached him with his cruelty, but he was quite unconcerned, and continued to walk after Fritz. The little monkey seemed uneasy at the sight of him, and crept into Fritz's bosom, much to his inconvenience. But a thought struck him; he tied the monkey with a cord to Turk's back, leading the dog by another cord, as he was very rebellious at first; but our threats and caresses at last induced him to submit to his burden. We proceeded slowly, and I could not help anticipating the mirth of my little ones, when they saw us approach like a pair of show-men. I advised Fritz not to correct the dogs for attacking and killing unknown animals. Heaven bestows the dog on man, as well as the horse, for a friend and protector. Fritz thought we were very fortunate, then, in having two such faithful dogs; he only regretted that our horses had died on the passage, and only left us the ass. "Let us not disdain the ass," said I; "I wish we had him here; he is of a very fine breed, and would be as useful as a horse to us." In such conversations, we arrived at the banks of our river before we were aware. Flora barked to announce our approach, and Turk answered so loudly, that the terrified little monkey leaped from his back to the shoulder of its protector, and would not come down. Turk ran off to meet his companion, and our dear family soon appeared on the opposite shore, shouting with joy at our happy return. We crossed at the same place as we had done in the morning, and embraced each other. Then began such a noise of exclamations. "A monkey! a real, live monkey! Ah! how delightful! How glad we are! How did you catch him?

Situation awareness means possessing an explorer mentality A general never knows anything with certainty, never sees his enemy clearly, and never knows positively where he is. When armies are face to face, the least accident in the ground, the smallest wood, may conceal part of the enemy army. The most experienced eye cannot be sure whether it sees the whole of the enemy’s army or only three-fourths. It is by the mind’s eye, by the integration of all reasoning, by a kind of inspiration that the general sees, knows, and judges. ~Napoleon 5   In order to effectively gather the appropriate information as it’s unfolding we must possess the explorer mentality.  We must be able to recognize patterns of behavior. Then we must recognize that which is outside that normal pattern. Then, you take the initiative so we maintain control. Every call, every incident we respond to possesses novelty. Car stops, domestic violence calls, robberies, suspicious persons etc.  These individual types of incidents show similar patterns in many ways. For example, a car stopped normally pulls over to the side of the road when signaled to do so.  The officer when ready, approaches the operator, a conversation ensues, paperwork exchanges, and the pulled over car drives away. A domestic violence call has its own normal patterns; police arrive, separate involved parties, take statements and arrest aggressor and advise the victim of abuse prevention rights. We could go on like this for all the types of calls we handle as each type of incident on its own merits, does possess very similar patterns. Yet they always, and I mean always possess something different be it the location, the time of day, the person you are dealing with. Even if it’s the same person, location, time and day, the person you’re dealing who may now be in a different emotional state and his/her motives and intent may be very different. This breaks that normal expected pattern.  Hence, there is a need to always be open-minded, alert and aware, exploring for the signs and signals of positive or negative change in conditions. In his Small Wars journal article “Thinking and Acting like an Early Explorer” Brigadier General Huba Wass de Czege (US Army Ret.) describes the explorer mentality:   While tactical and strategic thinking are fundamentally different, both kinds of thinking must take place in the explorer’s brain, but in separate compartments. To appreciate this, think of the metaphor of an early American explorer trying to cross a large expanse of unknown terrain long before the days of the modern conveniences. The explorer knows that somewhere to the west lies an ocean he wants to reach. He has only a sketch-map of a narrow corridor drawn by a previously unsuccessful explorer. He also knows that highly variable weather and frequent geologic activity can block mountain passes, flood rivers, and dry up desert water sources. He also knows that some native tribes are hostile to all strangers, some are friendly and others are fickle, but that warring and peace-making among them makes estimating their whereabouts and attitudes difficult.6

The phone rang. It was a familiar voice. It was Alan Greenspan. Paul O'Neill had tried to stay in touch with people who had served under Gerald Ford, and he'd been reasonably conscientious about it. Alan Greenspan was the exception. In his case, the effort was constant and purposeful. When Greenspan was the chairman of Ford's Council of Economic Advisers, and O'Neill was number two at OMB, they had become a kind of team. Never social so much. They never talked about families or outside interests. It was all about ideas: Medicare financing or block grants - a concept that O'Neill basically invented to balance federal power and local autonomy - or what was really happening in the economy. It became clear that they thought well together. President Ford used to have them talk about various issues while he listened. After a while, each knew how the other's mind worked, the way married couples do. In the past fifteen years, they'd made a point of meeting every few months. It could be in New York, or Washington, or Pittsburgh. They talked about everything, just as always. Greenspan, O'Neill told a friend, "doesn't have many people who don't want something from him, who will talk straight to him. So that's what we do together - straight talk." O'Neill felt some straight talk coming in. "Paul, I'll be blunt. We really need you down here," Greenspan said. "There is a real chance to make lasting changes. We could be a team at the key moment, to do the things we've always talked about." The jocular tone was gone. This was a serious discussion. They digressed into some things they'd "always talked about," especially reforming Medicare and Social Security. For Paul and Alan, the possibility of such bold reinventions bordered on fantasy, but fantasy made real. "We have an extraordinary opportunity," Alan said. Paul noticed that he seemed oddly anxious. "Paul, your presence will be an enormous asset in the creation of sensible policy." Sensible policy. This was akin to prayer from Greenspan. O'Neill, not expecting such conviction from his old friend, said little. After a while, he just thanked Alan. He said he always respected his counsel. He said he was thinking hard about it, and he'd call as soon as he decided what to do. The receiver returned to its cradle. He thought about Greenspan. They were young men together in the capital. Alan stayed, became the most noteworthy Federal Reserve Bank chairman in modern history and, arguably the most powerful public official of the past two decades. O'Neill left, led a corporate army, made a fortune, and learned lessons - about how to think and act, about the importance of outcomes - that you can't ever learn in a government. But, he supposed, he'd missed some things. There were always trade-offs. Talking to Alan reminded him of that. Alan and his wife, Andrea Mitchell, White House correspondent for NBC news, lived a fine life. They weren't wealthy like Paul and Nancy. But Alan led a life of highest purpose, a life guided by inquiry. Paul O'Neill picked up the telephone receiver, punched the keypad. "It's me," he said, always his opening. He started going into the details of his trip to New York from Washington, but he's not much of a phone talker - Nancy knew that - and the small talk trailed off. "I think I'm going to have to do this." She was quiet. "You know what I think," she said. She knew him too well, maybe. How bullheaded he can be, once he decides what's right. How he had loved these last few years as a sovereign, his own man. How badly he was suited to politics, as it was being played. And then there was that other problem: she'd almost always been right about what was best for him. "Whatever, Paul. I'm behind you. If you don't do this, I guess you'll always regret it." But it was clearly about what he wanted, what he needed. Paul thanked her. Though somehow a thank-you didn't seem appropriate. And then he realized she was crying.