Brook Famous Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Brook Famous. Here they are! All 40 of them:

If you’ve ever wondered why some writers who, in your humble opinion, don’t write as well as you do yet are rich and famous while you struggle onward, this is the reason. They are great directors.
Larry Brooks
there really isn't that much to elaborate on...
Michael Brooks
The psychologist Daniel Gilbert has a famous saying about this: “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they are finished.
David Brooks (How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen)
The country through which we had been travelling for days has an original beauty. Wide plains were diversified by stretches of hilly country with low passes. We often had to wade through swift running ice-cold brooks. It has long since we had seen a glacier, but as we were approaching the tasam at Barka, a chain of glaciers gleaming in the sunshine came into view. The landscape was dominated by the 25,000-foot peak of Gurla Mandhata; less striking, but far more famous, was the sacred Mount Kailash, 3,000 feet lower, which stands in majestic isolation apart from the Himalayan range.
Heinrich Harrer (Seven Years in Tibet)
Britain’s Royal Veterinary College, where Catherine worked, had come into being in 1792 to study the skeleton of a famous English racehorse named Eclipse, an undefeated champion popular for his thrilling speed. The file contained lively newspaper reports on Eclipse’s races
Geraldine Brooks (Horse)
Social networking technology allows us to spend our time engaged in a hypercompetitive struggle for attention, for victories in the currency of “likes.” People are given more occasions to be self-promoters, to embrace the characteristics of celebrity, to manage their own image, to Snapchat out their selfies in ways that they hope will impress and please the world. This technology creates a culture in which people turn into little brand managers, using Facebook, Twitter, text messages, and Instagram to create a falsely upbeat, slightly overexuberant, external self that can be famous first in a small sphere and then, with luck, in a large one. The manager of this self measures success by the flow of responses it gets. The social media maven spends his or her time creating a self-caricature, a much happier and more photogenic version of real life. People subtly start comparing themselves to other people’s highlight reels, and of course they feel inferior.
David Brooks (The Road to Character)
The men were famous once. Some of them still are. They were the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team and Brooks had brought them together, 24 summers before. He had picked them and provoked them and pushed them, sometimes irritating them and often infuriating them by his hardness and his aloofness, his scathing rebukes and his unrelenting mind games.
Wayne Coffey (The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team)
In his famous book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl writes, “Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life.” He quotes Nietzsche’s words, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.” But then Frankl made a crucial, helpful point: It’s fruitless to try to think in the abstract about what life in general means. The meaning of one’s life is only discernible within the specific circumstances of one’s own specific life. In the concentration camp, he writes, “We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and right conduct.
David Brooks (The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources Of Love, Character, And Achievement)
People feel ashamed of being depressed, they feel they should snap out of it, they feel weak and inadequate. Of course, these feelings are symptoms of the disease. Depression is a grave and life-threatening illness, much more common than we recognize. As far as the depressive being weak or inadequate, let me drop some names of famous depressives: Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sigmund Freud. Terry Bradshaw, Drew Carey, Billy Joel, T. Boone Pickens, J. K. Rowling, Brooke Shields, Mike Wallace. Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville, Mark Twain.
Richard O'Connor (Undoing Depression: What Therapy Doesn't Teach You and Medication Can't Give You)
She took the leap W. H. Auden described in his famous poem “Leap Before You Look”: The sense of danger must not disappear: The way is certainly both short and steep, However gradual it looks from here; Look if you like, but you will have to leap. Tough-minded men get mushy in their sleep And break the by-laws any fool can keep; It is not the convention but the fear That has a tendency to disappear…. The clothes that are considered right to wear Will not be either sensible or cheap, So long as we consent to live like sheep And never mention those who disappear…. A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear: Although I love you, you will have to leap; Our dream of safety has to disappear.
David Brooks (The Road to Character)
God famously doesn't afflict Job because of anything Job has done, but because he wants to prove a point to Satan. Twenty years later, I am sympathetic with my first assessment; to me, in spite of the soft radiant beauty of many of its passages, the Bible still has a mechanical quality, a refusal to brook complexity that feels brutal and violent. There has been a change, however. When I look at Revelation now, it still seems frightening and impenetrable, and it still suggests an inexorable, ridiculous order that is unknowable by us, in which our earthly concerns matter very little. However, it not longer reads to me like a chronicle of arbitrarily inflicted cruelty. It reads like a terrible abstract of how we violate ourselves and others and thus bring down endless suffering on earth. When I read And they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pain and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds, I think of myself and others I've known or know who blaspheme life itself by failing to have the courage to be honest and kind—and how then we rage around and lash out because we hurt. When I read the word fornication, I don't read it as a description of sex outside legal marriage: I read it as sex done in a state of psychic disintegration, with no awareness of one's self or one's partner, let alone any sense of honor or even real playfulness. I still don't know what to make of much of it, but I'm inclined to read it as a writer's primitive attempt to give form to his moral urgency, to create a structure that could contain and give ballast to the most desperate human confusion.
Mary Gaitskill (Somebody with a Little Hammer: Essays)
It’s okay if you can’t. No worries. Just an idea,” I say quickly, looking away so she won’t see how disappointed I am. “No—I mean, I want to, but—” Hana sucks in a breath. I hate this, hate how awkward we both are. “I kind of have this party”—she corrects herself quickly— “this thing I’m supposed to go to with Angelica Marston.” My stomach gets that hollowed-out feeling. It’s amazing how words can do that, just shred your insides apart. [...] A rush of hatred overwhelms me. Hatred for my life, for its narrowness and cramped spaces; hatred for Angelica Marston, with her secretive smile and rich parents; hatred for Hana, for being so stupid and careless and stubborn, first and foremost, and for leaving me behind before I was ready to be left; and underneath all those layers something else, too, some white-hot blade of unhappiness flashing in the very deepest part of me. I can’t name it, or even focus on it clearly, but somehow I understand that this—this other thing—makes me the angriest of all. [...] Despite everything, this gives me pause. In the days after the party at Roaring Brook Farms, snatches of music seemed to follow me everywhere: I heard it winging in and out of the wind, I heard it singing off the ocean and moaning through the walls of the house. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, my heart pounding, with the notes sounding in my ears. But every time I was awake and trying to remember the melodies consciously, hum a few notes or recall any of the chords, I couldn’t. Hana’s staring at me hopefully, waiting for my response. For a second I actually feel bad for her. I want to make her happy, like I always did, want to see her give a whoop and put her fist in the air and flash me one of her famous smiles. But then I remember she has Angelica Marston now, and something hardens in my throat, and knowing that I’m going to disappoint her gives me a kind of dull satisfaction.
Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
The Act of Rigorous Forgiving By DAVID BROOKS There’s something sad in Brian Williams’s need to puff up his Iraq adventures and something barbaric in the public response. The sad part is the reminder that no matter how high you go in life and no matter how many accolades you win, it’s never enough. The desire for even more admiration races ahead. Career success never really satisfies. Public love always leaves you hungry. Even very famous people can do self-destructive things in an attempt to seem just a little cooler. The barbaric part is the way we respond to scandal these
Anonymous
People who are humble about their own nature are moral realists. Moral realists are aware that we are all built from “crooked timber”— from Immanuel Kant’s famous line, “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.
David Brooks
I propose that a scientifically sound set of hygiene rules could explain why the Jewish God was a jealous, monotheistic God: He could brook no compromise with the filthy practices of rival gods. Famously faceless, abstract, and unsuperstitious, the Jewish God was science.
John Durant (The Paleo Manifesto: Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong Health)
Social media technology creates a culture in which people turn into little brand managers, using Facebook, twitter, text messages to create a falsely upbeat, slightly overexuberant, external self that can be famous first in a small sphere and then, with luck, in a large one.
David Brooks
astronomical fees, of course—any day now. Please don’t get sucked into that mess. In 1986, [Brooks] famously predicted that there were no silver bullets: that by 1996, no single technology or management technique would offer a tenfold increase in productivity, reliability, or simplicity. None did. Agile development isn’t a silver bullet, either. In fact, I don’t recommend adopting agile
Anonymous
I wrote in a bedroom crowded with ghosts," Brooke Hayward says. "My mother would disapprove, and my father would be horrified. The moral of my book is that you pay for everything. They were rich, accomplished, famous and beautiful. We were drowned in privilege, yet it ended in all this hideous tragedy." (interview from People magazine (May 23, 1977)
Brooke Hayward
Stein’s law,” named after the famous economist Herbert Stein from the 1970s: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.
Arthur C. Brooks (From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life)
Lisa Brooks PhD was one of just 175 people to receive a fellowship from the famous John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Lisa Brooks PhD received the award based on her prior accomplishments in history, geography and literature and her the future promise of her research.
Lisa Brooks PhD
The drive to achieve worldly success for positional reasons can easily become an obsessive passion. The problem is that this kind of success—like all addictive things—is ultimately Sisyphean and unsatisfying. No one is ever famous enough, rich enough, or powerful enough. “Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become, and the same is true of fame”—that’s philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, writing in 1851, more than a century and half before social media was invented and made the whole problem ten times worse.[28]
Arthur C. Brooks (From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life)
As the famous Garth Brooks song, “Unanswered Prayers,” illustrates, sometimes—later in life—you are thankful for the prayers God chooses not to answer.
Kayleigh McEnany (For Such a Time as This: My Faith Journey through the White House and Beyond)
Christensen died a few months after I arrived at Harvard, but his legacy looms large at HBS, in no small part because of his famous book, How Will You Measure Your Life?[51] Christensen analyzes a good life well lived in the same way he would assess a company, and the book is well worth reading in its entirety.
Arthur C. Brooks (From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life)
There is a famous Zen Buddhist story about a band of samurai who ride through the countryside causing destruction and terror. As they approach a monastery, all the monks scatter in fear, except for the abbot, a man who has completely mastered the fear of his own death. The samurai enter to find him sitting in the lotus position in perfect equanimity. Drawing his sword, the leader snarls, “Don’t you see that I am the sort of man who could run you through without batting an eye?” The master responds, “Don’t you see that I am a man who could be run through without batting an eye?” The true master, when his or her prestige is threatened by age or circumstance, can say, “Don’t you see that I am a person who could be utterly forgotten without batting an eye?
Arthur C. Brooks (From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life)
If Disney was a mouthpiece for an American way of life, the force of his voice depended on a curious obsession with death.”[6] Virtually every one of his most famous films focused on the subject, from Snow White to Pinocchio.
Arthur C. Brooks (From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life)
Unhappy is he who depends on success to be happy,” wrote Alex Dias Ribeiro, a former famous Formula 1 race car driver. “For such a person, the end of a successful career is the end of the line. His destiny is to die of bitterness or to search for more success in other careers and to go on living from success to success until he falls dead. In this case, there will not be life after success.”[12] Making
Arthur C. Brooks (From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life)
In his 1964 book, Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan famously said that “the medium is the message.
Arthur C. Brooks (From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life)
I know you are. Just hang in there a little longer, angel. I’ll be in the NFL, and you’ll be one of the country’s most famous singer-slash-songwriters.” “I hope so.” I just don’t know if you’ll be next to me. It isn’t about the fame for me. Not in the way it is for Cole anyway. He’d never say it out loud, but he wants his name known because he wants his mother and all the others who left him to realize how much they missed out on.
Hannah Gray (Love, Ally (Brooks University, #1))
Energy. In classical physics, energy means the ability to do work, which is defined as exerting a force over a distance. This definition, however, doesn't provide much of a picture, so in classical physics, energy is a rather abstract concept. In QFT, on the other hand, the energy of a quantum is represented by oscillations in its field. In fact, Planck's famous relationship between energy and frequency of oscillation (see Chap. 3) is a direct consequence of the equations of QFT. In our color analogy, we might say that the oscillations cause the color to "shimmer", and the faster the shimmer, the greater the energy of the field.
Rodney A. Brooks (Fields of Color: The theory that escaped Einstein)
In this chapter we will look at the entire edifice of QFT. We will see that it is based on three simple principles. We will also list some of its achievements, including some new insights and understandings not previously mentioned. THE FOUNDATION QFT is an axiomatic theory that rests on a few basic assumptions. Everything you have learned so far, from the force of gravity to the spectrum of hydrogen, follows almost inevitably from these three basic principles. (To my knowledge, Julian Schwinger is the only person who has presented QFT in this axiomatic way, at least in the amazing courses he taught at Harvard University in the 1950's.) 1. The field principle. The first pillar is the assumption that nature is made of fields. These fields are embedded in what physicists call flat or Euclidean three-dimensional space-the kind of space that you intuitively believe in. Each field consists of a set of physical properties at every point of space, with equations that describe how these particles or field intensities influence each other and change with time. In QFT there are no particles, no round balls, no sharp edges. You should remember, however, that the idea of fields that permeate space is not intuitive. It eluded Newton, who could not accept action-at-a-distance. It wasn't until 1845 that Faraday, inspired by patterns of iron filings, first conceived of fields. The use of colors is my attempt to make the field picture more palatable. 2. The quantum principle (discetization). The quantum principle is the second pillar, following from Planck's 1900 proposal that EM fields are made up of discrete pieces. In QFT, all physical properties are treated as having discrete values. Even field strengths, whose values are continues, are regarded as the limit of increasingly finer discrete values. The principle of discretization was discovered experimentally in 1922 by Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach. Their experiment (Fig. 7-1) showed that the angular momentum (or spin) of the electron in a given direction can have only two values: +1/2 or -1/2 (Fig. 7-1). The principle of discretization leads to another important difference between quantum and classical fields: the principle of superposition. Because the angular momentum along a certain axis can only have discrete values (Fig. 7-1), this means that atoms whose angular momentum has been determined along a different axis are in a superposition of states defined by the axis of the magnet. This same superposition principle applies to quantum fields: the field intensity at a point can be a superposition of values. And just as interaction of the atom with a magnet "selects" one of the values with corresponding probabilities, so "measurement" of field intensity at a point will select one of the possible values with corresponding probability (see "Field Collapse" in Chapter 8). It is discretization and superposition that lead to Hilbert space as the mathematical language of QFT. 3. The relativity principle. There is one more fundamental assumption-that the field equations must be the same for all uniformly-moving observers. This is known as the Principle of Relativity, famously enunciated by Einstein in 1905 (see Appendix A). Relativistic invariance is built into QFT as the third pillar. QFT is the only theory that combines the relativity and quantum principles.
Rodney A. Brooks (Fields of Color: The theory that escaped Einstein)
e=mc^2. I know. I promised there would be no equations and, except for a few footnotes, I've kept my promise. But I think you will forgive me for making an exception for the world's most famous equation-the only equation to have its biography written. And the thing is this: e = mc^2 pops right out of QFT. Einstein had to work hard to find it (it was published in a separate paper that followed his breakthrough paper on relativity theory in 1905), but in QFT it appears as an almost trivial consequence of the two previous results. Since both mass and energy are associated with oscillations in the field, it doesn't take an Einstein to see that there must be a relationship between the two. Any schoolboy can combine the two equations and find (big drum roll, please) e = mc^2. Not only does the equation tumble right out of QFT, its meaning is seen in the oscillations or "shimmer" of the fields. Frank Wilczek calls these oscillations "a marvelous bit of poetry" that create a "Music of the Grid" (Wilczek's term for space seen as a lattice of points): Rather than plucking a string, blowing through a reed, banging on a drumhead, or clanging a gong, we play the instrument that is empty space by plunking down different combinations of quarks, gluons, electrons, photons,...and let them settle until they reach equilibrium with the spontaneous activity of Grid...These vibrations represent particles of different mass m...The masses of particles sound the Music of the Grid. ----- Frank Wilczek
Rodney A. Brooks (Fields of Color: The theory that escaped Einstein)
The person who successfully struggles against weakness and sin may or may not become rich and famous, but that person will become mature. Maturity is not based on talent or any of the mental or physical gifts that help you ace an IQ test or run fast or move gracefully. It is not comparative. It is earned not by being better than other people at something, but by being better than you used to be. It is earned by being dependable in times of testing, straight in times of temptation. Maturity does not glitter. It is not built on the traits that make people celebrities. A mature person possesses a settled unity of purpose. The mature person has moved from fragmentation to centeredness, has achieved a state in which the restlessness is over, the confusion about the meaning and purpose of life is calmed. The mature person can make decisions without relying on the negative and positive reactions from admirers or detractors because the mature person has steady criteria to determine what is right. That person has said a multitude of noes for the sake of a few overwhelming yeses.
David Brooks (The Road to Character)
You see, whether or not we want to admit it, political contempt and division are what economists call a demand-driven phenomenon. Famous people purvey it, but ordinary citizens are the ones creating a market for it.
Arthur C. Brooks (Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt)
In his farewell address, George Washington famously warned against “the baneful effects” of political enmity.41
Arthur C. Brooks (Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt)
Meals are occasions to share with family and friends. The ingredients are often simple, but the art lies in orchestrating the sun-warmed flavors. Courses follow in artful and traditional succession, but the showpiece of the meal is tender, juicy meat; this often means lamb or goat grilled or roasted on a spit for hours. Souvlaki--melting pieces of chicken or pork tenderloin on skewers, marinated in lemon, olive oil, and a blend of seasonings--are grilled to mouthwatering perfection. Meze, the Greek version of smorgasbord, is a feast of Mediterranean delicacies. The cooks of the Greek Isles excel at classic Greek fare, such as spanakopita--delicate phyllo dough brushed with butter and filled with layers of feta cheese, spinach, and herbs. Cheeses made from goat’s milk, including the famous feta, are nearly ubiquitous. The fruits of the sun--olive oil and lemon--are characteristic flavors, reworked in myriad wonderful combinations. The fresh, simple cuisine celebrates the waters, olive groves, and citrus trees, as well as the herbs that grow wild all over the islands--marjoram, thyme, and rosemary--scenting the warm air with their sensuous aromas. Not surprisingly, of course, seafood holds pride of place. Sardines, octopus, and squid, marinated in olive oil and lemon juice, are always popular. Tiny, toothsome fried fish are piled high on painted ceramic dishes and served up at the local tavernas and in homes everywhere. Sea urchins are considered special delicacies. Every island has its own specialties, from sardines to pistachios to sesame cakes. Lésvos is well-known for its sardines and ouzo. Zakinthos is famous for its nougat. The Cycladic island of Astypalaia was called the “paradise of the gods” by the ancient Greeks because of the quality of its honey. On weekends, Athenians flock to the nearby islands of Aegina, Angistri, and Evia by the ferryful to sample the daily catch in local restaurants scattered among coastal villages. The array of culinary treats is matched by a similar breadth of local wins. Tended by generation after generation of the same families, vineyards carpet the hillsides of many islands. Grapevines have been cultivated in the Greek Isles for some four thousand years. Wines from Rhodes and Crete were already renowned in antiquity, and traders shipped them throughout the Greek Isles and beyond. The light reds and gently sweet whites complement the diverse, multiflavored Greek seafood, grilled meats, and fresh, ripe fruits and vegetables. Sitting at a seaside tavern enjoying music and conversation over a midday meze and glass of retsina, all the cares in the world seem to evaporate in the sparkling sunshine reflected off the brightly hued boats and glistening blue waters.
Laura Brooks (Greek Isles (Timeless Places))
Ancient Ways The Greek Isles are divided into several major chains lying in the Aegean, the Mediterranean, and the Ionian seas. The Cyclades chain alone includes more than two hundred islands clustered in the southern Aegean. In the southeastern Aegean, between Crete and Asia Minor, there are 163 islands known as the Dodecanese chain. Only 26 of these are inhabited; the largest of them is Rhodes, where the world-famous Colossus once stood. The Ionian chain of western Greece (named for the eponymous sea) includes the large island of Corfu. Cyprus lies in the eastern Mediterranean, south of Turkey. Today, Cyprus stands politically divided, with Turkish rule in the north, and a government in the south that remains independent from Greece. However, the island has always been linked culturally and linguistically to Greece, and it shares traditions and ways of life with the smaller islands scattered to its south and west. In the Greek Isles, history blends myth and fact. Historians glean information about the early days of the Greek Isles from the countless ancient stories and legends set there. According to Homer, battleships sailed from the harbors of Kos and Rhodes during the Trojan War. A well-known legend holds that the Argonauts sought refuge from a storm on the island of Anafi in the southeastern Cyclades. The lovely island of Lésvos is mentioned throughout the Homeric epics and in many ancient Greek tales. Tradition has it that the god Helios witnessed the island of Rhodes rising mystically from the sea, and chose it for his home. The ill-fated Daedalus and his son, Icarus, attempted to soar through the skies over the magical island of Crete, where the great god Zeus was born in a mountaintop cave. Villagers still recount how Aphrodite emerged from the sea on a breathtaking stretch of beach near the village of Paphos on Cyprus. Visitors must actually lay eyes on a Greek island to gain a full appreciation for these ancient stories. Just setting foot on one of these islands makes you feel as if you’ve stepped into one of the timeless tales from ancient Greek mythology.
Laura Brooks (Greek Isles (Timeless Places))
In 1982, economists at the Brookings Institute estimated that about 62 per cent of the value of a typical American firm stemmed from its physical assets—everything from tables and chairs to factories and inventories. Everything else consisted of more intangible “knowledge assets.” By 1992, the balance had completely reversed. They calculated that only 38 per cent of the average firm’s value came from its physical assets. With the shift towards more knowledge-intensive production processes, it is natural that firms should start to worry much more about employee loyalty. It is relatively easy to stop employees from making off with company property—just post guards at the gate. But when employees leave, they generally take with them all the knowledge and experience they have acquired, and there is no way to stop them. So the best way for a firm to retain control of its assets is to build a strong organizational culture, one that will inspire loyalty and allegiance from its employees. From this perspective, it is entirely predictable that the firms that depend most heavily on the knowledge of their workers will also be the firms that put the most effort into employee retention. Software companies in particular are famous for their efforts to create a corporate culture that will secure employee allegiance.
Joseph Heath (The Efficient Society: Why Canada Is As Close To Utopia As It Gets)
As George Eliot observed in the famous last sentence of Middlemarch: “The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
David Brooks (The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life)
Only a stock that many traders were selling short could be cornered; a stock that was in the throes of a real bear raid was ideal. In the latter situation, the would-be cornerer would attempt to buy up the investment houses’ floating supply of the stock and enough of the privately held shares to freeze out the bears; if the attempt succeeded, when he called for the short sellers to make good the stock they had borrowed, they could buy it from no one but him. And they would have to buy it at any price he chose to ask, their only alternatives—at least theoretically—being to go into bankruptcy or to jail for failure to meet their obligations. In the old days of titanic financial death struggles, when Adam Smith’s ghost still smiled on Wall Street, corners were fairly common and were often extremely sanguinary, with hundreds of innocent bystanders, as well as the embattled principals, getting their financial heads lopped off. The most famous cornerer in history was that celebrated old pirate, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who engineered no less than three successful corners during the eighteen-sixties. Probably his classic job was in the stock of the Harlem Railway. By dint of secretly buying up all its available shares while simultaneously circulating a series of untruthful rumors of imminent bankruptcy to lure the short sellers in, he achieved an airtight trap. Finally, with the air of a man doing them a favor by saving them from jail, he offered the cornered shorts at $179 a share the stock he had bought up at a small fraction of that figure.
John Brooks (Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street)
the goal can’t be satisfied; the success addict is never “successful enough.” The high only lasts a day or two, and then it’s on to the next success hit. “Unhappy is he who depends on success to be happy,” wrote Alex Dias Ribeiro, a former famous Formula 1 race car driver. “For such a person, the end of a successful career is the end of the line. His destiny is to die of bitterness or to search for more success in other careers and to go on living from success to success until he falls dead. In this case, there will not be life after success.”[
Arthur C. Brooks (From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life)