Counting Favors Quotes

Friends don't count the cost of favors.

You two are too cute,” the counter girl said, setting two cups piled with whipped cream on the counter. She had a sort of lopsided, open smile that made me think she laughed a lot. “Seriously. How long have you been going out?” Sam let go of my hands to get his wallet and took out some bills. “Six years.” I wrinkled my nose to cover a laugh. Of course he would count the time that we’d been two entirely different species. Whoa.” Counter girl nodded appreciatively. “That’s pretty amazing for a couple your age." Sam handed me my hot chocolate and didn’t answer. But his yellow eyes gazed at me possessively—I wondered if he realized that the way he looked at me was far more intimate than copping a feel could ever be. I crouched to look at the almond bark on the bottom shelf in the counter. I wasn’t quite bold enough to look at either of them when I admitted, “Well, it was love at first sight.” The girl sighed. “That is just so romantic. Do me a favor, and don’t you two ever change. The world needs more love at first sight.

For his part, the Count had opted for the life of the purposefully unrushed. Not only was he disinclined to race toward some appointed hour - disdaining even to wear a watch - he took the greatest satisfaction when assuring a friend that a worldly matter could wait in favor of a leisurely lunch or stroll along the embankment. After all, did not wine improve with age? Was it not the passage of years that gave a piece of furniture its delightful patina? When all was said and done, the endeavors that most modern men saw as urgent (such as appointments with bankers and the catching of trains), probably could have waited, while those they deemed frivolous (such as cups of tea and friendly chats) had deserved their immediate attention.

Christianity is not a sprint but an endurance run. Therefore it is not how we start the race that counts, but how we complete it. How we finish is determined by the choices we make, and those are often formed by patterns we develop along the way.

How did you know?” “I…” Thomas swallowed hard, his attention fixed on the painting. “The truth?” “Please.” “You’ve got a dress with orchid blossoms embroidered on it. Ribbons in the deepest purple. You favor the color, but not nearly as much as I find myself favoring you.” He took a deep breath. “As to the stars? Those are what I prefer. More than medical practices and deductions. The universe is vast. A mathematical equation even I have no hope of solving. For there are no limits to the stars; their numbers are infinite. Which is precisely why I measure my love for you by them. An amount too boundless to count.

We have a soul at times. No one’s got it non-stop, for keeps. Day after day, year after year may pass without it. Sometimes it will settle for awhile only in childhood’s fears and raptures. Sometimes only in astonishment that we are old. It rarely lends a hand in uphill tasks, like moving furniture, or lifting luggage, or going miles in shoes that pinch. It usually steps out whenever meat needs chopping or forms have to be filled. For every thousand conversations it participates in one, if even that, since it prefers silence. Just when our body goes from ache to pain, it slips off-duty. It’s picky: it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds, our hustling for a dubious advantage and creaky machinations make it sick. Joy and sorrow aren’t two different feelings for it. It attends us only when the two are joined. We can count on it when we’re sure of nothing and curious about everything. Among the material objects it favors clocks with pendulums and mirrors, which keep on working even when no one is looking. It won’t say where it comes from or when it’s taking off again, though it’s clearly expecting such questions. We need it but apparently it needs us for some reason too.

Whether we are speaking of a flower or an oak tree, of an earthworm or a beautiful bird, of an ape or a person, we will do well, I believe, to recognize that life is an active process, not a passive one. Whether the stimulus arises from within or without, whether the environment is favorable or unfavorable, the behaviors of an organism can be counted on to be in the direction of maintaining, enhancing, and reproducing itself. This is the very nature of the process we call life. This tendency is operative at all times. Indeed, only the presence or absence of this total directional process enables us to tell whether a given organism is alive or dead. The actualizing tendency can, of course, be thwarted or warped, but it cannot be destroyed without destroying the organism. I remember that in my boyhood, the bin in which we stored our winter's supply of potatoes was in the basement, several feet below a small window. The conditions were unfavorable, but the potatoes would begin to sprout—pale white sprouts, so unlike the healthy green shoots they sent up when planted in the soil in the spring. But these sad, spindly sprouts would grow 2 or 3 feet in length as they reached toward the distant light of the window. The sprouts were, in their bizarre, futile growth, a sort of desperate expression of the directional tendency I have been describing. They would never become plants, never mature, never fulfill their real potential. But under the most adverse circumstances, they were striving to become. Life would not give up, even if it could not flourish. In dealing with clients whose lives have been terribly warped, in working with men and women on the back wards of state hospitals, I often think of those potato sprouts. So unfavorable have been the conditions in which these people have developed that their lives often seem abnormal, twisted, scarcely human. Yet, the directional tendency in them can be trusted. The clue to understanding their behavior is that they are striving, in the only ways that they perceive as available to them, to move toward growth, toward becoming. To healthy persons, the results may seem bizarre and futile, but they are life's desperate attempt to become itself. This potent constructive tendency is an underlying basis of the person-centered approach.

In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all of its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life may be empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves. Unlike your experiencing self—which is absorbed in the moment—your remembering self is attempting to recognize not only the peaks of joy and valleys of misery but also how the story works out as a whole. That is profoundly affected by how things ultimately turn out. Why would a football fan let a few flubbed minutes at the end of the game ruin three hours of bliss? Because a football game is a story. And in stories, endings matter. Yet we also recognize that the experiencing self should not be ignored. The peak and the ending are not the only things that count. In favoring the moment of intense joy over steady happiness, the remembering self is hardly always wise. “An inconsistency is built into the design of our minds,” Kahneman observes. “We have strong preferences about the duration of our experiences of pain and pleasure. We want pain to be brief and pleasure to last. But our memory … has evolved to represent the most intense moment of an episode of pain or pleasure (the peak) and the feelings when the episode was at its end. A memory that neglects duration will not serve our preference for long pleasure and short pains.” When our time is limited and we are uncertain about how best to serve our priorities, we are forced to deal with the fact that both the experiencing self and the remembering self matter. We do not want to endure long pain and short pleasure. Yet certain pleasures can make enduring suffering worthwhile. The peaks are important, and so is the ending.

To prove to [her friend, Swedish diplomat Count] Gyllenborg that she was not superficial, Catherine composed an essay about herself, "so that he would see whether I knew myself or not." The next day, she wrote and handed to Gyllenborg an essay titled 'Portrait of a Fifteen-Year-Old Philosopher.' He was impressed and returned it with a dozen pages of comments, mostly favorable. "I read his remarks again and again, many times [Catherine later recalled in her memoirs]. I impressed them on my consciousness and resolved to follow his advice. In addition, there was something else surprising: one day, while conversing with me, he allowed the following sentence to slip out: 'What a pity that you will marry! I wanted to find out what he meant, but he would not tell me.

As the saying goes, 'People do not stay in favor a thousand days; flowers do not stay in bloom a hundred days.' Nobody can count on being happy and prosperous a whole lifetime.

there’s the matter of picking the time. There’s such a thing as the favorable moment. Determination alone counts for nothing.

If you are reading this, be sure to count this on your blessings list.

Not like the me was some tough somebody, or somebody she had put together for show. But like, like somebody she favored and could count on. A secret somebody you didn't have to feel sorry for or have to fight for. -Felice

An idea is not necessarily good because it is old, or necessarily bad because it is new, but if an old idea works, then the weight of the evidence is all in its favor. Ideas are of themselves extraordinarily valuable, but an idea is just an idea. Almost any one can think up an idea. The thing that counts is developing it into a practical product.

Martha always kept count and always figured the score in Ollie's favor. Poor Martha, thought Ollie, forever counting and never satisfied.

Then in the long days on board ship, when the vessel, gliding on with security over the azure sea, required no care but the hand of the helmsman, thanks to the favorable winds that swelled her sails, Edmund, with chart in hand, became the instructor of Jacopo, as the poor Abbé Faria had been his tutor. He pointed out to him the bearings of the coast, explained to him the variations of the compass, and taught him to read in that vast book opened over our heads which they call heaven, and where God writes in azure with letters of diamonds.

I’ve no sympathy with people to whom things happen. It may be that their luck is bad, but is that to count in their favor?

I’ve no sympathy with people to whom things happen. It may be that their luck is bad, but is that to count in their favor? I

upon mine family’s honor.” “Five to four,” Eragon said to Orik as he returned to his seat. “And not in our favor.” Orik grunted. “I can count, Eragon.

Here I am counting my blessings, wins and successes, while the closest people to me are counting my trials, losses and curses. Same book, different page. It be your own family.

But she recognized the value in giving pleasure, rather than taking it. She understood that friendships were built on favors, piled up on either side. Favors remembered, but never counted.

One of my school friends said you can tell a man likes you when he starts doing you little favors,” Amaranthe said. “I wonder if she would have counted the application of poison to one’s weapons.

Soldiers and comrades in this adventure,” he said. “I hope that none of you in our present strait will think to show his wit by exactly calculating all the perils that encompass us, but that you will rather hasten to close with the enemy, without staying to count the odds, seeing in this your best chance of safety. In emergencies like ours calculation is out of place; the sooner the danger is faced the better.

Ultimately the destruction of the Earth is due in part, perhaps in large part, to a failure of the imagination or to its eclipse by systems of accounting that can’t count what matters. The revolt against this destruction is a revolt of the imagination, in favor of subtleties, of pleasures money can’t buy and corporations can’t command, of being producers rather than consumers of meaning, of the slow, the meandering, the digressive, the exploratory, the numinous, the uncertain.

There is much in our culture to affront the eye of the fervent terrorist postulant, things out there that do us no favors, to be sure. If, for example, it came to light that the dangerously thin, affectless, value-deficient, higher aspiration-free, amateur-porn chanteuse Paris Hilton was actually a covert agent from some secret Taliban madrassa whose mission was to portray the ultimate capitalist-whore puppet of a doomed society with nothing more on its mind than servitude to Mammon and celebrity at any cost, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

People will form impressions, assumptions, opinions, and judgments all within a few short seconds. To make a favorable first impression and make these seconds count, enhance your image by choosing clean, crisp, appropriate attire that reflects confidence and professionalism.

The outcome was clear to Dodd well before the votes were counted. He wrote to Roosevelt, “The election here is a farce.” Nothing indicated this more clearly than the vote within the camp at Dachau: 2,154 of 2,242 prisoners—96 percent—voted in favor of Hitler’s government. On

(About Cesare Borgia) What cruelties were not the result of his? Who could count all his crimes? Such was the man that Machiavel prefers to all the great geniuses of his time, and to the heroes of antiquity, and of which he finds the life and action make a good example for those that fortune favors.

Many readers are familiar with the spirit and the letter of the definition of “prayer”, as given by Ambrose Bierce in his Devil’s Dictionary. It runs like this, and is extremely easy to comprehend: Prayer: A petition that the laws of nature be suspended in favor of the petitioner; himself confessedly unworthy. Everybody can see the joke that is lodged within this entry: The man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right. Half–buried in the contradiction is the distressing idea that nobody is in charge, or nobody with any moral authority. The call to prayer is self–cancelling. Those of us who don’t take part in it will justify our abstention on the grounds that we do not need, or care, to undergo the futile process of continuous reinforcement. Either our convictions are enough in themselves or they are not: At any rate they do require standing in a crowd and uttering constant and uniform incantations. This is ordered by one religion to take place five times a day, and by other monotheists for almost that number, while all of them set aside at least one whole day for the exclusive praise of the Lord, and Judaism seems to consist in its original constitution of a huge list of prohibitions that must be followed before all else. The tone of the prayers replicates the silliness of the mandate, in that god is enjoined or thanked to do what he was going to do anyway. Thus the Jewish male begins each day by thanking god for not making him into a woman (or a Gentile), while the Jewish woman contents herself with thanking the almighty for creating her “as she is.” Presumably the almighty is pleased to receive this tribute to his power and the approval of those he created. It’s just that, if he is truly almighty, the achievement would seem rather a slight one. Much the same applies to the idea that prayer, instead of making Christianity look foolish, makes it appear convincing. Now, it can be asserted with some confidence, first, that its deity is all–wise and all–powerful and, second, that its congregants stand in desperate need of that deity’s infinite wisdom and power. Just to give some elementary quotations, it is stated in the book of Philippians, 4:6, “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication and thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.” Deuteronomy 32:4 proclaims that “he is the rock, his work is perfect,” and Isaiah 64:8 tells us, “Now O Lord, thou art our father; we art clay and thou our potter; and we are all the work of thy hand.” Note, then, that Christianity insists on the absolute dependence of its flock, and then only on the offering of undiluted praise and thanks. A person using prayer time to ask for the world to be set to rights, or to beseech god to bestow a favor upon himself, would in effect be guilty of a profound blasphemy or, at the very least, a pathetic misunderstanding. It is not for the mere human to be presuming that he or she can advise the divine. And this, sad to say, opens religion to the additional charge of corruption. The leaders of the church know perfectly well that prayer is not intended to gratify the devout. So that, every time they accept a donation in return for some petition, they are accepting a gross negation of their faith: a faith that depends on the passive acceptance of the devout and not on their making demands for betterment. Eventually, and after a bitter and schismatic quarrel, practices like the notorious “sale of indulgences” were abandoned. But many a fine basilica or chantry would not be standing today if this awful violation had not turned such a spectacularly good profit. And today it is easy enough to see, at the revival meetings of Protestant fundamentalists, the counting of the checks and bills before the laying on of hands by the preacher has even been completed. Again, the spectacle is a shameless one.

I had never been so close to death before. For a long time, as I lay there trying to clear my mind, I couldn't think coherently at all, conscious only of a terrible, blind bitterness. Why had they singled me out? Didn't they understand? Had everything I'd gone through on their behalf been utterly in vain? Did it really count for nothing? What had happened to logic, meaning and sense? But I feel much calmer now. It helps to discipline oneself like this, writing it down to see it set out on paper, to try and weigh it and find some significance in it. Prof Bruwer: There are only two kinds of madness one should guard against, Ben. One is the belief that we can do everything. The other is the belief that we can do nothing. I wanted to help. Right. I meant it very sincerely. But I wanted to do it on my terms. And I am white, and they are black. I thought it was still possible to reach beyond our whiteness and blackness. I thought that to reach out and touch hands across the gulf would be sufficient in itself. But I grasped so little, really: as if good intentions from my side could solve it all. It was presumptuous of me. In an ordinary world, in a natural one, I might have succeeded. But not in this deranged, divided age. I can do all I can for Gordon or scores of others who have come to me; I can imagine myself in their shoes, I can project myself into their suffering. But I cannot, ever, live their lives for them. So what else could come of it but failure? Whether I like it or not, whether I feel like cursing my own condition or not -- and that would only serve to confirm my impotence -- I am white. This is the small, final, terrifying truth of my broken world. I am white. And because I am white I am born into a state of privilege. Even if I fight the system that has reduced us to this I remain white, and favored by the very circumstances I abhor. Even if I'm hated, and ostracized, and persecuted, and in the end destroyed, nothing can make me black. And so those who are cannot but remain suspicious of me. In their eyes my very efforts to identify myself with Gordon, whit all the Gordons, would be obscene. Every gesture I make, every act I commit in my efforts to help them makes it more difficult for them to define their real needs and discover for themselves their integrity and affirm their own dignity. How else could we hope to arrive beyond predator and prey, helper and helped, white and black, and find redemption? On the other hand: what can I do but what I have done? I cannot choose not to intervene: that would be a denial and a mockery not only of everything I believe in, but of the hope that compassion may survive among men. By not acting as I did I would deny the very possibility of that gulf to be bridged. If I act, I cannot but lose. But if I do not act, it is a different kind of defeat, equally decisive and maybe worse. Because then I will not even have a conscience left. The end seems ineluctable: failure, defeat, loss. The only choice I have left is whether I am prepared to salvage a little honour, a little decency, a little humanity -- or nothing. It seems as if a sacrifice is impossible to avoid, whatever way one looks at it. But at least one has the choice between a wholly futile sacrifice and one that might, in the long run, open up a possibility, however negligible or dubious, of something better, less sordid and more noble, for our children… They live on. We, the fathers, have lost.

Oh, M. de Villefort," cried a beautiful creature, daughter to the Comte de Salvieux, and the cherished friend of Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran, "do try and get up some famous trial while we are at Marseille. I never was in a law-court; I am told it is so very amusing!" "Amusing, certainly," replied the young man, "inasmuch as, instead of shedding tears as at the fictitious tale of woe produced at a theatre, you behold in a law-court a case of real and genuine distress - a drama of life. The prisoner whom you there see pale, agitated, and alarmed, instead of - as is the case when a curtain falls on a tragedy - going home to sup peacefully with his family, and then retiring to rest, that he may recommence his mimic woes on the morrow, - is removed from your sight merely to be reconducted to his prison and delivered up to the executioner. I leave you to judge how far your nerves are calculated to bear you through such a scene. Of this, however, be assured, that should any favorable opportunity present itself, I will not fail to offer you the choice of being present.

Counting polls required assembling—all in favor of the Federalist stand here, all in favor of the Republican over there—and in places where voting was done by ballot, casting a ballot generally meant tossing a ball into a box. The word “ballot” comes from the Italian ballota, meaning a little ball—and early Americans who used ballots cast pea or pebbles, or, not uncommonly, bullets.

It doesn’t matter if somebody is from Mexico or Syria or Sri Lanka, or if they’re walking away from the wreckage of a failed business or a successful niche that got stale. It doesn’t matter if every letter of the law was followed, if they were perfect angels—what counts is that they’re doing something. They are controlling what happens to them, not the other way around. They are making a big bet. One that takes real cojones.

Sure enough, all the sciences that study tribes, bands, and villages have approximated ancient groups usually maxed out around 150 people. This is the approximate upper limit to how many people you can trust and count on for favors, whom you can call up and have a conversation with. Once you go over 150 people, Dunbar says about 42 percent of the group’s time would have to be spent worrying about one another’s relationships.

As every close observer of the deadlocks arising from the political correctness knows, the separation of legal justice from moral Goodness –which should be relativized and historicized- ends up in an oppressive moralism brimming with resentment. Without any “organic” social substance grounding the standards of what Orwell approvingly called “common decency” (all such standards having been dismissed as subordinating individual freedoms to proto-Fascist social forms), the minimalist program of laws intended simply to prevent individuals from encroaching upon one another (annoying or “harassing” each other) turns into an explosion of legal and moral rules, an endless process (a “spurious infinity” in Hegel’s sense) of legalization and moralization, known as “the fight against all forms of discrimination.” If there are no shared mores in place to influence the law, only the basic fact of subjects “harassing other subjects, who-in the absence of mores- is to decide what counts as “harassment”? In France, there are associations of obese people demanding all the public campaigns against obesity and in favor of healthy eating be stopped, since they damage the self-esteem of obese persons. The militants of Veggie Pride condemn the speciesism” of meat-eaters (who discriminate against animals, privileging the human animal-for them, a particularly disgusting form of “fascism”) and demand that “vegeto-phobia” should be treated as a kind of xenophobia and proclaimed a crime. And we could extend the list to include those fighting for the right of incest marriage, consensual murder, cannibalism . . . The problem here is the obvious arbitrariness of the ever-new rule. Take child sexuality, for example: one could argue that its criminalization is an unwarranted discrimination, but one could also argue that children should be protected from sexual molestation by adults. And we could go on: the same people who advocate the legalization of soft drugs usually support the prohibition of smoking in public places; the same people who protest the patriarchal abuse of small children in our societies worry when someone condemns a member of certain minority cultures for doing exactly this (say, the Roma preventing their children from attending public schools), claiming that this is a case od meddling with other “ways of life”. It is thus for necessary structural reasons that the “fight against discrimination” is an endless process which interminably postpones its final point: namely a society freed from all moral prejudices which, as Michea puts it, “would be on this very account a society condemned to see crimes everywhere.

Remember: Between mountains lies the valley. You may have tumbled down from your former heights. You may have been thrown down. Or simply lost your way. But now you find yourself here. It is a low point. So? A long desert. A desolate valley. Either way, you’ll need to cross it. You’ll need patience and endurance and most of all love. You can’t let this period make you bitter. You have to make sure it makes you better. Because people are counting on you.

Ultimately the destruction of the Earth is due in part, perhaps in large part, to a failure of the imagination or to its eclipse by systems of accounting that can’t count what matters. The revolt against this destruction is a revolt of the imagination, in favor of subtleties, of pleasures money can’t buy and corporations can’t command, of being producers rather than consumers of meaning, of the slow, the meandering, the digressive, the exploratory, the numinous, the uncertain. I

White supremacy means that, more often than not, US structures and systems—and the authorities who govern them—were designed to protect White interests and to maintain White dominance in all areas of society. Thus, White Americans are more likely to trust the system because they have been able to count on the fact that it will work in their favor. Moreover, in the cases where the system does not work in their favor, they could assume that it was due to some factor other than their race.

The Roosevelts’ social activities compared favorably with those of Winston Churchill, except that while the Roosevelts associated mostly with politicians, high-ranking administrators, and wealthy swells, the Churchill’s world was composed of princes, dukes, counts, and other powerful men who’d make fortunes from the British Empire. Both lives contrasted markedly with the social scene in Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, where there were no royals, elected legislators, or wealthy swells, because the Communists had killed them all.

Stop! Stop!” Sophie shrieked with laughter as she ran down the stone steps that led to the garden behind Bridgerton House. After three children and seven years of marriage, Benedict could still make her smile, still make her laugh . . . and he still chased her around the house any chance he could get. “Where are the children?” she gasped, once he’d caught her at the base of the steps. “Francesca is watching them.” “And your mother?” He grinned. “I daresay Francesca is watching her, too.” “Anyone could stumble upon us out here,” she said, looking this way and that. His smile turned wicked. “Maybe,” he said, catching hold of her green-velvet skirt and reeling her in, “we should adjourn to the private terrace.” The words were oh-so-familiar, and it was only a second before she was transported back nine years to the masquerade ball. “The private terrace, you say?” she asked, amusement dancing in her eyes. “And how, pray tell, would you know of a private terrace?” His lips brushed against hers. “I have my ways,” he murmured. “And I,” she returned, smiling slyly, “have my secrets.” He drew back. “Oh? And will you share?” “We five,” she said with a nod, “are about to be six.” He looked at her face, then looked at her belly. “Are you sure?” “As sure as I was last time.” He took her hand and raised it to lips. “This one will be a girl.” “That’s what you said last time.” “I know, but—” “And the time before.” “All the more reason for the odds to favor me this time.” She shook her head. “I’m glad you’re not a gambler.” He smiled at that. “Let’s not tell anyone yet.” “I think a few people already suspect,” Sophie admitted. “I want to see how long it takes that Whistledown woman to figure it out,” Benedict said. “Are you serious?” “The blasted woman knew about Charles, and she knew about Alexander, and she knew about William.” Sophie smiled as she let him pull her into the shadows. “Do you realize that I have been mentioned in Whistledown two hundred and thirty-two times?” That stopped him cold. “You’ve been counting?” “Two hundred and thirty-three if you include the time after the masquerade.” “I can’t believe you’ve been counting.” She gave him a nonchalant shrug. “It’s exciting to be mentioned.” Benedict thought it was a bloody nuisance to be mentioned, but he wasn’t about to spoil her delight, so instead he just said, “At least she always writes nice things about you. If she didn’t, I might have to hunt her down and run her out of the country.” Sophie couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, please. I hardly think you could discover her identity when no one else in the ton has managed it.” He raised one arrogant brow. “That doesn’t sound like wifely devotion and confidence to me.” She pretended to examine her glove. “You needn’t expend the energy. She’s obviously very good at what she does.” “Well, she won’t know about Violet,” Benedict vowed. “At least not until it’s obvious to the world.” “Violet?” Sophie asked softly. “It’s time my mother had a grandchild named after her, don’t you think?” Sophie leaned against him, letting her cheek rest against the crisp linen of his shirt. “I think Violet is a lovely name,” she murmured, nestling deeper into the shelter of his arms. “I just hope it’s a girl. Because if it’s a boy, he’s never going to forgive us . . .

The lover's discourse is not lacking in calculations: I rationalize, I reason, sometimes I count, either to obtain certain satisfactions, to avoid certain injuries, or to represent inwardly to the other, in a wayward impulse, the wealth of ingenuity I lavish for nothing in his favor(to yield, to conceal, not to hurt, to divert, convince etc). But these calculations are merely impatiences: no thought of a final gain: Expenditure is open to infinity, strength drifts, without a goal(the loved object is not a goal: the loved object is object-as-thing, not an object-as-term

on their target about now. Six on one, overwhelming force, or so they thought. Puller was a first-rate, superbly trained close-quarters fighter. But he was not Superman. This was not a movie where he could Matrix his way to victory. It would be fearful men fighting, making mistakes but certainly landing some blows. Puller tipped the scales at well over two hundred pounds. The men he would be facing tonight collectively weighed about a thousand pounds. They had twelve fists and a dozen legs to his two and two. Six against one, hand-to-hand, no matter how good you were or how inept the six were, would likely result in defeat. Puller could take out three or four rather quickly. But the remaining two or three men would probably get in a lucky shot and possibly knock him down. And then it would be over. Bats and bars would rain down on him and then a gunshot would end it all. If one had a choice—and sometimes one did—a truly superb close-quarters fighter only fought when the conditions favored him. He didn’t have much time, because they would quickly determine that he was not in the room. Then they would do one of two things: leave and come back, or set a trap and wait for him. And a trap would involve a perimeter. At least he was counting on that, because a perimeter meant that the six men would have

Remember: Between mountains lies the valley. You may have tumbled down from your former heights. You may have been thrown down. Or simply lost your way. But now you find yourself here. It is a low point. So? A long desert. A desolate valley. Either way, you’ll need to cross it. You’ll need patience and endurance and most of all love. You can’t let this period make you bitter. You have to make sure it makes you better. Because people are counting on you. Don’t give up hope. Don’t give up on them. They know not what they do. You, on the other hand, do know. This desert, this wilderness was given to you to cross. It’s part of your journey. To struggle makes the destination glorious. And heroic.

Of all her putative fathers -- Max Schlepzig and masked extras on one side of the moving film, Franz Pökler and certainly other pairs of hands busy through trouser cloth, that Alpdrücken Night, on the other -- Bianca is closest, this last possible moment below decks here behind the ravening jackal, closest to you who came in blinding color, slouched alone in your seat, never threatened along any rookwise row or diagonal all night, you whose interdiction from her mother's water-white love is absolute, you, alone, saying sure I know them, omitting, chuckling count me in, unable, thinking probably some hooker... She favors you, most of all. You'll never get to see her. So somebody has to tell you.

In his attack on marginal productivity theory, Veblen observed that many people on the top rungs of the business world forgo leisure for unremitting work; yet they are not productive, because they strive after self-serving pecuniary goals that add nothing in serviceability to the community at large. Inversely, given favorable institutional conditions, scientists with the leisure to follow the play of their idle curiosity may - fortuitously - make contributions that are productive. With no eye to practicality, they do create, now and then at least, socially beneficial knowledge. Such ideal institutional conditions were not, however, something every academic man or woman could count on, as Veblen knew.

the grand jurors, local men and women pulled off farms and out of post offices and barbershops, for whom a day at the courthouse counted as genuine excitement—entertainment, even—no matter that a man’s life was at stake. The DA had a storyteller’s instinct for pacing and plot twists, the leisurely parceling out of key information. There was no judge here, only a bailiff, the prosecutor, a court reporter, and the twelve members of the grand jury, who had the solemn task of deciding whether or not to indict Rutherford McMillan for first-degree homicide. Because all grand jury proceedings are private, the honey-colored benches in the gallery were empty. The deck was stacked squarely in the state’s favor. Neither the defendant nor his counsel was allowed to weigh in on the state’s presentation of evidence.

No, Jesus is right by your side to encourage you and restore you to wholeness. You may say, “But I don’t deserve it!” That’s right. That’s what makes it His unmerited favor in your life. There is a beautiful psalm that says, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with His hand” (Psalm 37:23–24). When you fail, Jesus is there to uphold you. Unlike some of your so-called “friends,” He does not just take off. You can count on Him. He is a faithful, dependable and trustworthy friend. Even when you have failed Him, He is right there with you, ready to pick you up and restore you to wholeness. Amen! The Bible talks about a friend who “sticks closer than a brother.” That’s Jesus! Beloved, lean on His constant presence. Draw on His unfailing strength and support for you today.

A while back a young woman from another state came to live with some of her relatives in the Salt Lake City area for a few weeks. On her first Sunday she came to church dressed in a simple, nice blouse and knee-length skirt set off with a light, button-up sweater. She wore hose and dress shoes, and her hair was combed simply but with care. Her overall appearance created an impression of youthful grace. Unfortunately, she immediately felt out of place. It seemed like all the other young women her age or near her age were dressed in casual skirts, some rather distant from the knee; tight T-shirt-like tops that barely met the top of their skirts at the waist (some bare instead of barely); no socks or stockings; and clunky sneakers or flip-flops. One would have hoped that seeing the new girl, the other girls would have realized how inappropriate their manner of dress was for a chapel and for the Sabbath day and immediately changed for the better. Sad to say, however, they did not, and it was the visitor who, in order to fit in, adopted the fashion (if you can call it that) of her host ward. It is troubling to see this growing trend that is not limited to young women but extends to older women, to men, and to young men as well. . . . I was shocked to see what the people of this other congregation wore to church. There was not a suit or tie among the men. They appeared to have come from or to be on their way to the golf course. It was hard to spot a woman wearing a dress or anything other than very casual pants or even shorts. Had I not known that they were coming to the school for church meetings, I would have assumed that there was some kind of sporting event taking place. The dress of our ward members compared very favorably to this bad example, but I am beginning to think that we are no longer quite so different as more and more we seem to slide toward that lower standard. We used to use the phrase “Sunday best.” People understood that to mean the nicest clothes they had. The specific clothing would vary according to different cultures and economic circumstances, but it would be their best. It is an affront to God to come into His house, especially on His holy day, not groomed and dressed in the most careful and modest manner that our circumstances permit. Where a poor member from the hills of Peru must ford a river to get to church, the Lord surely will not be offended by the stain of muddy water on his white shirt. But how can God not be pained at the sight of one who, with all the clothes he needs and more and with easy access to the chapel, nevertheless appears in church in rumpled cargo pants and a T-shirt? Ironically, it has been my experience as I travel around the world that members of the Church with the least means somehow find a way to arrive at Sabbath meetings neatly dressed in clean, nice clothes, the best they have, while those who have more than enough are the ones who may appear in casual, even slovenly clothing. Some say dress and hair don’t matter—it’s what’s inside that counts. I believe that truly it is what’s inside a person that counts, but that’s what worries me. Casual dress at holy places and events is a message about what is inside a person. It may be pride or rebellion or something else, but at a minimum it says, “I don’t get it. I don’t understand the difference between the sacred and the profane.” In that condition they are easily drawn away from the Lord. They do not appreciate the value of what they have. I worry about them. Unless they can gain some understanding and capture some feeling for sacred things, they are at risk of eventually losing all that matters most. You are Saints of the great latter-day dispensation—look the part.

You might wonder how this hurts taxpayers, especially if you’re a liberal and you think these nonprofits fight for worthy causes. So here’s the kicker: that $11 billion meant for consumer relief? Not only did a lot of it go to Democratic-favored nonprofits instead, but it ended up being much less than $11 billion. That’s because the DOJ offered banks a huge discount whenever they “donated” that money to those nonprofits. Most of the settlements gave banks double or triple credit toward their fine for every dollar they donated to these nonprofits—for instance, a Bank of America $1.15 million “donation” to the National Urban League counted as $2.6 million toward meeting its settlement obligation, and every $1.5 million to La Raza counted as $3.5 million of consumer relief. This is so mind-boggling that it’s worth summing up: after the financial crisis, the Obama DOJ slammed big banks with massive fines so it could trumpet that it was sending tons of relief to consumers. Then it told banks they could pay less than half that much if they donated the money to Obama’s favorite nonprofits instead. And being fond of money, the banks took the DOJ up on the offer. Now that’s a great quid pro quo—the DOJ gets to look good, the banks get to keep most of their money, and the liberal nonprofits get lots of funding.

There are ages in which the rational man and the intuitive man stand side by side, the one in fear of intuition, the other with scorn for abstraction. The latter is just as irrational as the former is inartistic. They both desire to rule over life: the former, by knowing how to meet his principle needs by means of foresight, prudence, and regularity; the latter, by disregarding these needs and, as an "overjoyed hero," counting as real only that life which has been disguised as illusion and beauty. Whenever, as was perhaps the case in ancient Greece, the intuitive man handles his weapons more authoritatively and victoriously than his opponent, then, under favorable circumstances, a culture can take shape and art's mastery over life can be established. All the manifestations of such a life will be accompanied by this dissimulation, this disavowal of indigence, this glitter of metaphorical intuitions, and, in general, this immediacy of deception: neither the house, nor the gait, nor the clothes, nor the clay jugs give evidence of having been invented because of a pressing need. It seems as if they were all intended to express an exalted happiness, an Olympian cloudlessness, and, as it were, a playing with seriousness. The man who is guided by concepts and abstractions only succeeds by such means in warding off misfortune, without ever gaining any happiness for himself from these abstractions. And while he aims for the greatest possible freedom from pain, the intuitive man, standing in the midst of a culture, already reaps from his intuition a harvest of continually inflowing illumination, cheer, and redemption—in addition to obtaining a defense against misfortune. To be sure, he suffers more intensely, when he suffers; he even suffers more frequently, since he does not understand how to learn from experience and keeps falling over and over again into the same ditch. He is then just as irrational in sorrow as he is in happiness: he cries aloud and will not be consoled. How differently the stoical man who learns from experience and governs himself by concepts is affected by the same misfortunes! This man, who at other times seeks nothing but sincerity, truth, freedom from deception, and protection against ensnaring surprise attacks, now executes a masterpiece of deception: he executes his masterpiece of deception in misfortune, as the other type of man executes his in times of happiness. He wears no quivering and changeable human face, but, as it were, a mask with dignified, symmetrical features. He does not cry; he does not even alter his voice. When a real storm cloud thunders above him, he wraps himself in his cloak, and with slow steps he walks from beneath it.

Dopey, on my right - as usual, I'd ended up sitting on the hump in the middle of the backseat - muttered, "I don't know what you see in that headcase Meducci anyway." Doc said, "Oh, that's easy. Females of any species tend to select the male partner who is best able to provide for her and any offspring which might result from their coupling. Michael Meducci, being a good deal more intelligent than most of his classmates, amply fulfills that role, in addition to which he has what is considered, by Western standards of beauty, an outstanding physique - if what I've overheard Gina and Suze saying counts for anything. Since he is likely to pass on these favorable genetic components to his children, he is irresistible to breeding females everywhere - at least, discerning ones like Suze." There was silence in the car ... the kind of silence that usually followed one of Doc's speeches. Then Gina said reverently, "They really should move you up a grade, David." "Oh, they've offered," Doc replied, cheerfully, "but while my intellect might be evolved for a boy my age, my growth is somewhat retarded. I felt it was inadvisable to thrust myself into a population of males much larger than I, who might be threatened by my superior intelligence." "In other words," Sleepy translated for Gina's benefit, "we didn't want him getting his butt kicked by the bigger kids.

Statisticians say that stocks with healthy dividends slightly outperform the market averages, especially on a risk-adjusted basis. On average, high-yielding stocks have lower price/earnings ratios and skew toward relatively stable industries. Stripping out these factors, generous dividends alone don’t seem to help performance. So, if you need or like income, I’d say go for it. Invest in a company that pays high dividends. Just be sure that you are favoring stocks with low P/Es in stable industries. For good measure, look for earnings in excess of dividends, ample free cash flow, and stable proportions of debt and equity. Also look for companies in which the number of shares outstanding isn’t rising rapidly. To put a finer point on income stocks to skip, reverse those criteria. I wouldn’t buy a stock for its dividend if the payout wasn’t well covered by earnings and free cash flow. Real estate investment trusts, master limited partnerships, and royalty trusts often trade on their yield rather than their asset value. In some of those cases, analysts disagree about the economic meaning of depreciation and depletion—in particular, whether those items are akin to earnings or not. Without looking at the specific situation, I couldn’t judge whether the per share asset base was shrinking over time or whether generally accepted accounting principles accounting was too conservative. If I see a high-yielder with swiftly rising share counts and debt levels, I assume the worst.

I text her from the lobby and tell her I’m on my way up. Having a badge is a really convenient way to get past building security. Not that this place has much. She’s standing in the open doorway of her apartment when I get off the elevator, hand on her hip with her head cocked to the side in question. “I brought donuts,” I offer by way of explanation for showing up unannounced. “Did you need a favor or something?” she asks, taking the box from my hands and setting it on the tiny round dining table just inside the door of her apartment. Not a promising start, but she does allow me to follow her inside. “I just brought you a favor,” I comment then eye her. “Do you own any pants?” She’s wearing another pair of those godforsaken leggings. “What are you talking about? I’m wearing pants right now. And how does this count as a favor when I didn’t ask for it? It shouldn’t count towards my favor tally if I didn’t make the official request.” She pops open the donut box and peeks inside. “You’re like the worst genie ever.” “I know. But your favors are piling up. I gotta work them off. And those aren’t pants.” “Leggings are pants. They’re very popular.” “What the hell is even on them?” I step closer and eye her ass, focusing on the print. Purely for research purposes. “Are those black cats?” “They’re my seasonal leggings!” she retorts and selects a donut as I walk past her into the tiny aisle of a kitchen and pour myself a cup of coffee. “Oh. Did you want something to drink? Let me get that for you,” she says sarcastically before biting into a donut. I ignore her tone. “No, no. I’ve got it, thank you.” I take the mug and pass by her, taking a seat on her couch

On her second screen, there were the number of messages sent by other staffers that day, 1,192, and the number of those messages that she’d read, 239, and the number to which she’d responded, 88. There was the number of recent invitations to Circle company events, 41, and the number she’d responded to, 28. There was the number of overall visitors to the Circle’s sites that day, 3.2 billion, and the number of pageviews, 88.7 billion. There was the number of friends in Mae’s OuterCircle, 762, and outstanding requests by those wanting to be her friend, 27. There were the number of zingers she was following, 10,343, and the number following her, 18,198. There was the number of unread zings, 887. There was the number of zingers suggested to her, 12,862. There was the number of songs in her digital library, 6,877, number of artists represented, 921, and based on her tastes, the number of artists recommended to her: 3,408. There was the number of images in her library, 33,002, and number of images recommended to her, 100,038. There was the temperature inside the building, 70, and the temperature outside, 71. There was the number of staffers on campus that day, 10,981, and number of visitors to campus that day, 248. Mae had news alerts set for 45 names and subjects, and each time any one of them was mentioned by any of the news feeds she favored, she received a notice. That day there were 187. She could see how many people had viewed her profile that day, 210, and how much time on average they spent: 1.3 minutes. If she wanted, of course, she could go deeper, and see precisely what each person had viewed. Her health stats added a few dozen more numbers, each of them giving her a sense of great calm and control. She knew her heart rate and knew it was right. She knew her step count, almost 8,200 that day, and knew that she could get to 10,000 with ease.

Our acceptance with God is sure only through His beloved Son, and good works are but the result of the working of His sin-pardoning love. They are no credit to us, and we have nothing accorded to us for out good works by which we may claim a part in the salvation of our souls. Salvation is God’s free gift to the believer, given to him for Christ’s sake alone. The troubled soul may find peace through faith in Christ, and his peace will be in proportion to his faith and trust. He cannot present his good works as a plea for the salvation of his soul. But are good works of no real value? Is the sinner who commits sin every day with impunity, regarded of God with the same favor as the one who through faith in Christ tries to work in his integrity? The Scripture answers, ‘We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should work in them.’ In His divine arrangement, through His unmerited favor, the Lord has ordained that good works shall be rewarded. We are accepted through Christ’s merit alone, and the acts of mercy, the deeds of charity, which we perform, are the fruits of faith; and they become a blessing to us; for men are to be rewarded according to their works. It is the fragrance of the merit of Christ than makes our good works acceptable to God, and it is grave that enables us to do the works for which He rewards us. Our works in and of themselves have no merit. When we have done all that it is possible for us to do, we are to count ourselves as unprofitable servants. We deserve no thanks from God. We have only done what it was our duty to do, and our works could not have been performed in the strength of our own sinful nature. The Lord has bidden us to draw nigh to Him, and He will draw nigh to us; and drawing nigh to Him, we receive the grace by which to do those good works which will be rewarded at His hands.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “When seconds count the police are only minutes away.”  This is not a knock against the police.  Many officers are good friends of mine, and no police force can be everywhere—nor, in a free country, would we want them to be.  But calling the police almost never helps. Criminals, like predators in nature, do not attack when conditions favor the prey, when the sheepdog is alert beside the sheep.  Predators attack when the prey is vulnerable and unprotected.  In other words, when the cops can’t respond fast enough.  When an attack comes you probably won’t be standing in front of the police station.  You’ll be alone, or multi-tasking a busy life, or burdened (tactically speaking) with small children.  You could even be sound asleep.  Your attacker will choose that moment precisely because he thinks he can get away with it.  The mere thought of this is frightening.  And that’s a good thing.  Properly applied, a little bit of fear keeps us alert.  It is OK for children to live without fear.  Indeed, that is a top priority of every parent.  Adults, though, must see the world for what it is, both very good and very bad, and prepare for the worst so they can safely enjoy the best.     This book is about winning the legal battle, and leaves tactical training to others.  In no way does this imply, though, that your first priority shouldn’t be survival.  If you are in a fight for your life, for the life of your spouse or your children or your parents, you MUST win.  Period.  If you don’t win the physical fight, everything else becomes rather less pressing. The good news is that because we know how evil people target their prey we can use this knowledge against them.  Avoid looking weak and the bad guy will seek easier prey.  Stay alert and aware of your surroundings.  Project confidence.  Avoid places where you can get cornered, and make yourself look like more work than you’re worth.   Criminals are sometimes too stupid to know better, but that’s the exception.  They largely know the difference between easy and difficult victims. There’s more than enough easy prey for them.  If you look difficult they’ll move on.

A few hundred million years later, some of these eukaryotes developed a novel adaptation: they stayed together after cell division to form multicellular organisms in which every cell had exactly the same genes. These are the three-boat septuplets in my example. Once again, competition is suppressed (because each cell can only reproduce if the organism reproduces, via its sperm or egg cells). A group of cells becomes an individual, able to divide labor among the cells (which specialize into limbs and organs). A powerful new kind of vehicle appears, and in a short span of time the world is covered with plants, animals, and fungi.37 It’s another major transition. Major transitions are rare. The biologists John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry count just eight clear examples over the last 4 billion years (the last of which is human societies).38 But these transitions are among the most important events in biological history, and they are examples of multilevel selection at work. It’s the same story over and over again: Whenever a way is found to suppress free riding so that individual units can cooperate, work as a team, and divide labor, selection at the lower level becomes less important, selection at the higher level becomes more powerful, and that higher-level selection favors the most cohesive superorganisms.39 (A superorganism is an organism made out of smaller organisms.) As these superorganisms proliferate, they begin to compete with each other, and to evolve for greater success in that competition. This competition among superorganisms is one form of group selection.40 There is variation among the groups, and the fittest groups pass on their traits to future generations of groups. Major transitions may be rare, but when they happen, the Earth often changes.41 Just look at what happened more than 100 million years ago when some wasps developed the trick of dividing labor between a queen (who lays all the eggs) and several kinds of workers who maintain the nest and bring back food to share. This trick was discovered by the early hymenoptera (members of the order that includes wasps, which gave rise to bees and ants) and it was discovered independently several dozen other times (by the ancestors of termites, naked mole rats, and some species of shrimp, aphids, beetles, and spiders).42 In each case, the free rider problem was surmounted and selfish genes began to craft relatively selfless group members who together constituted a supremely selfish group.

Navy Seals Stress Relief Tactics (As printed in O Online Magazine, Sept. 8, 2014) Prep for Battle: Instead of wasting energy by catastrophizing about stressful situations, SEALs spend hours in mental dress rehearsals before springing into action, says Lu Lastra, director of mentorship for Naval Special Warfare and a former SEAL command master chief.  He calls it mental loading and says you can practice it, too.  When your boss calls you into her office, take a few minutes first to run through a handful of likely scenarios and envision yourself navigating each one in the best possible way.  The extra prep can ease anxiety and give you the confidence to react calmly to whatever situation arises. Talk Yourself Up: Positive self-talk is quite possibly the most important skill these warriors learn during their 15-month training, says Lastra.  The most successful SEALs may not have the biggest biceps or the fastest mile, but they know how to turn their negative thoughts around.  Lastra recommends coming up with your own mantra to remind yourself that you’ve got the grit and talent to persevere during tough times. Embrace the Suck: “When the weather is foul and nothing is going right, that’s when I think, now we’re getting someplace!” says Lastra, who encourages recruits to power through the times when they’re freezing, exhausted or discouraged.  Why?  Lastra says, “The, suckiest moments are when most people give up; the resilient ones spot a golden opportunity to surpass their competitors.  It’s one thing to be an excellent athlete when the conditions are perfect,” he says.  “But when the circumstances aren’t so favorable, those who have stronger wills are more likely to rise to victory.” Take a Deep Breath: “Meditation and deep breathing help slow the cognitive process and open us up to our more intuitive thoughts,” says retired SEAL commander Mark Divine, who developed SEALFit, a demanding training program for civilians that incorporates yoga, mindfulness and breathing techniques.  He says some of his fellow SEALs became so tuned-in, they were able to sense the presence of nearby roadside bombs.  Who doesn’t want that kind of Jedi mind power?  A good place to start: Practice what the SEALs call 4 x 4 x 4 breathing.  Inhale deeply for four counts, then exhale for four counts and repeat the cycle for four minutes several times a day.  You’re guaranteed to feel calmer on any battleground. Learn to value yourself, which means to fight for your happiness. ---Ayn Rand

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments. Undignified as such a treatment may seem to some of my colleagues, I shall have to take account of this clash and explain a good many of the divergencies of philosophers by it. Of whatever temperament a professional philosopher is, he tries when philosophizing to sink the fact of his temperament. Temperament is no conventionally recognized reason, so he urges impersonal reasons only for his conclusions. Yet his temperament really gives him a stronger bias than any of his more strictly objective premises. It loads the evidence for him one way or the other, making for a more sentimental or a more hard-hearted view of the universe, just as this fact or that principle would. He trusts his temperament. Wanting a universe that suits it, he believes in any representation of the universe that does suit it. He feels men of opposite temper to be out of key with the world's character, and in his heart considers them incompetent and 'not in it,' in the philosophic business, even tho they may far excel him in dialectical ability....But the one thing that has COUNTED so far in philosophy is that a man should see things, see them straight in his own peculiar way, and be dissatisfied with any opposite way of seeing them. There is no reason to suppose that this strong temperamental vision is from now onward to count no longer in the history of man's beliefs. .... Rationalism usually considers itself more religious than empiricism, but there is much to say about this claim, so I merely mention it. It is a true claim when the individual rationalist is what is called a man of feeling, and when the individual empiricist prides himself on being hard-headed. In that case the rationalist will usually also be in favor of what is called free-will, and the empiricist will be a fatalist—I use the terms most popularly current. The rationalist finally will be of dogmatic temper in his affirmations, while the empiricist may be more sceptical and open to discussion. I will write these traits down in two columns. I think you will practically recognize the two types of mental make-up that I mean if I head the columns by the titles 'tender-minded' and 'tough-minded' respectively. THE TENDER-MINDED Rationalistic (going by 'principles'), Intellectualistic, Idealistic, Optimistic, Religious, Free-willist, Monistic, Dogmatical. THE TOUGH-MINDED Empiricist (going by 'facts'), Sensationalistic, Materialistic, Pessimistic, Irreligious, Fatalistic, Pluralistic, Sceptical.

But that is a lie! Here we have been breaking our backs for years at All-Union hard labor. Here in slow annual spirals we have been climbing up to an understanding of life—and from this height it can all be seen so clearly: It is not the result that counts! It is not the result—but the spirit! Not what—but how. Not what has been attained—but at what price. And so it is with us the prisoners—if it is the result which counts, then it is also true that one must survive at any price. And what that means is: One must become a stool pigeon, betray one’s comrades. And thereby get oneself set up comfortably. And perhaps even get time off sentence. In the light of the Infallible Teaching there is, evidently, nothing reprehensible in this. After all, if one does that, then the result will be in our favor, and the result is what counts. No one is going to argue. It is pleasant to win. But not at the price of losing one’s human countenance. If it is the result which counts—you must strain every nerve and sinew to avoid general work. You must bend down, be servile, act meanly—yet hang on to your position as a trusty. And by this means . . . survive. If it is the essence that counts, then the time has come to reconcile yourself to general work. To tatters. To torn skin on the hands. To a piece of bread which is smaller and worse. And perhaps . . . to death. But while you’re alive, you drag your way along proudly with an aching back. And that is when—when you have ceased to be afraid of threats and are not chasing after rewards—you become the most dangerous character in the owllike view of the bosses. Because . . . what hold do they have on you? You even begin to like carrying hand barrows with rubbish (yes, but not with stone!) and discussing with your work mate how the movies influence literature. You begin to like sitting down on the empty cement mixing trough and lighting up a smoke next to your bricklaying. And you are actually and simply proud if, when the foreman passes you, he squints at your courses, checks their alignment with the rest of the wall, and says: “Did you lay that? Good line.” You need that wall like you need a hole in the head, nor do you believe it is going to bring closer the happy future of the people, but, pitiful tattered slave that you are, you smile at this creation of your own hands. The Anarchist’s daughter, Galya Venediktova, worked as a nurse in the Medical Section, but when she saw that what went on there was not healing but only the business of getting fixed up in a good spot—out of stubbornness she left and went off to general work, taking up a spade and a sledge hammer. And she says that this saved her spiritually. For a good person even a crust is healthy food, and to an evil person even meat brings no benefit.

According to the book of Genesis, “God created man in his own image.” According to Aristotle, “men create the gods after their own image.” As should be clear by now, Aristotle seems to have been onto something, especially when it comes to the minds of gods. So, in theory, some of the more basic features of the human mind should be fairly standard equipment in gods, especially the gods of “primitive” religions. That seems to be the case, and one of these features deserves special consideration: the part of the human mind shaped by the evolutionary dynamic known as “reciprocal altruism.” In light of this dynamic, much about the origin of religion, and for that matter much about contemporary religion, makes a new kind of sense. Thanks to reciprocal altruism, people are “designed” to settle into mutually beneficial relationships with other people, people whom they can count on for things ranging from food to valuable gossip to social support, and who in turn can count on them. We enter these alliances almost without thinking about it, because our genetically based emotions draw us in. We feel gratitude for a favor received, along with a sense of obligation, which may lead us to return the favor. We feel growing trust of and affection for people who prove reliable reciprocators (aka “friends”), which keeps us entwined in beneficial relationships. This is what feelings like gratitude and trust are for—the reason they’re part of human nature. But of course, not everyone merits our trust. Some people accept our gifts of food and never reciprocate, or try to steal our mates, or exhibit disrespect in some other fashion. And if we let people thus take advantage of us day after day, the losses add up. In the environment of our evolution, these losses could have made the difference between surviving and not surviving, between prolifically procreating and barely procreating. So natural selection gave us emotions that lead us to punish the untrustworthy—people who violate our expectations of exchange, people who seem to lack the respect that a mutually beneficial relationship demands. They fill us with outrage, with moral indignation, and that outrage—working as “designed” —impels us to punish them in one way or another, whether by actually harming them or just by withholding future altruism. That will teach them! (Perhaps more important, it will also teach anyone else who is watching, and in the ancestral hunter-gatherer environment, pretty much everyone in your social universe was watching.) This is the social context in which the human mind evolved: a world full of neighbors who, to varying degrees, are watching you for signs of betrayal or disrespect or dishonesty—and who, should they see strong evidence of such things, will punish you. In such a social universe, when misfortune comes your way, when someone hits you or ridicules you or suddenly gives you the cold shoulder, there’s a good chance it’s because they feel you’ve violated the rules of exchange. Maybe you’ve failed to do them some favor they think they were due, or maybe you’ve shown them disrespect by doing something that annoys them. Surely it is no coincidence that this generic explanation of why misfortune might emanate from a human being is also the generic explanation of why misfortune emanates from gods. In hunter-gatherer religions—and lots of other religions—when bad things happen, the root cause is almost always that people in one sense or another fail to respect the gods. They either fail to give gods their due (fail, say, to make adequate sacrifices to ancestral spirits), or they do things that annoy gods (like, say, making a noise while cicadas are singing). And the way to make amends to the aggrieved gods is exactly the way you’d make amends to aggrieved people: either give them something (hence ritual sacrifice), or correct future behavior so that it doesn’t annoy them (quit making noises while cicadas are singing).

A rise often falls into the blind spot of vision, and so we tell the stories that I have in this book because we are hardwired not to be able to glimpse them. Like a type II error in statistics, a “false negative,” when we have the evidence but can’t see that an alternative hypothesis is correct, these rises are a perceptual miss. We tell the story of Muhammad Ali’s eighth-round win against George Foreman that night in Kinshasa, Zaire, even though we know how it ends, for while it happened, no one could see it. Ali upset most of the 60,000-person crowd who favored him as he spent the first seven rounds, 180 seconds long each, learning against the ropes while enduring brutal frontal attacks from Foreman, known to have bored a hole in his practice punching bag. No amount of screaming from his trainers could get Ali off the ropes, never mind the shouting of those sitting near the ring, from George Plimpton to Norman Mailer—counting how many right-hand leads Ali took, and remembering how Ali, being pummeled, still managed to whisper to Foreman in the seventh round, “Is that all you got, George?” 16 Yet no one but the fighters in the ring could sense it—there is a difference between being beaten and being strengthened, for as it happens, it is hard to perceive.

Prior to my first voyage at sea, my father advised me to always get to know the cooks. Sometimes I’d step in and wash pots and pans or help lift a heavy case of something. It worked on my first voyage and still did now. Many times I’d help carry boxes of food and store their contents in the pantry. So after dropping a few hints, the cooks did me a favor and put out a box containing milk, butter, cocoa, sugar and flour. This acquisition was for the rich chocolate brownies that Ann would make for me to bring back to the ship. They must have been the most delicious brownies since everyone, including the cooks, expected me to bring them some. When I got to the galley, I could see the box they had prepared for me sitting on a counter, but I was looking through a heavy wire mesh securing the area, and the only access door had one of the big brass government locks on it. For a fleeting moment, I thought that I would not be able to get the precious ingredients that were so near and yet inaccessible, but it didn’t take long for me to figure out that I could climb over the top where a section of the mesh was missing. It took some gymnastics, but I was young and agile enough to get in and out with the box, without leaving any evidence of the entry. When I think of some of the chances I took for the most ridiculous reasons, I’m surprised that I ever made it to graduation, but everyone counted on me to deliver the brownies and I wasn’t about to let them down. I later found out that the cooks purposely left the galley unlocked for me, but then someone on the security watch took it upon themselves to lock it. Who knows?

Some days I wonder if they have the slightest clue what’s going on in my life. Steve says maybe it’s because I live in my own little world and they aren’t invited, so it’s easy for them to just assume everything’s okay. There’s probably something to that. But there are days I wish I got half the attention from my folks that Steve gets from his. The good half, of course. I still show them my drawings sometimes, but the responses are all pretty much the same. “That’s great, T. Why don’t you put it on the fridge?” “Cool, man. Leave it on the table and I’ll take it to work.” “I love it. Do me a favor and take the trash out, will you?” It’s not that they don’t look. They always look—for three seconds, every time, as if they were counting in their heads—but I’m never sure they really see what I want them to. I guess it happens to everyone. You get pushed off to the side, or you just learn to blend in, stay out of the way, merge with the crowd. And you start to think that maybe you’re not the center of the universe anymore. Maybe you’re not as awesome or creative or talented or worthy of attention as you originally thought. But in your head, at least, you can still be all those things. You can be the hero at the center of it all. The man with the plan. The one who leads the way.

The study came up with four metrics that matter most: 1.​HAPPINESS: having feelings of pleasure or contentment in and about your life 2.​ACHIEVEMENT: achieving accomplishments that compare favorably against similar goals others have strived for 3.​SIGNIFICANCE: having a positive impact on people you care about 4.​LEGACY: establishing your values or accomplishments in ways that help others find future success They also came up with a simple way to interpret the feelings these four need to provide in your life: 1.​HAPPINESS = ENJOYING 2.​ACHIEVEMENT = WINNING 3.​SIGNIFICANCE = COUNTING (TO OTHERS) 4.​LEGACY = EXTENDING

I can't live without her, Micah. And I won't go through the hell I just went through over Carmen again. I won't." For a long, tense moment, nothing was said as the weight of reality sank in, and then Micah sighed in defeat. Tears bloomed and glistened in his eyes, and his jaw clinched in a hard line as he fought to hold his own emotions in check. This was good-bye, and Micah knew it. "I want you to pull the trigger, Micah. I want you to be the one to do it, because God knows, you won't miss." Micah's chin quivered, and his mouth worked hard as he blinked and looked away. He sniffed heavily before running his palms down his face to wipe away his tears. "Fuck," he bit out quietly between his teeth. "Don't ask me to do that. Please don't ask me to do that." He sniffed again and looked back at Malek, his eyes bloodshot with his efforts to restrain his grief. "Please, Micah. Please. Do this for me. This one last favor." Micah regarded him, clearly losing the battle to keep his composure. After a moment's hesitation, he bowed his head and clasped Malek's hand like the brothers-in-arms they were. "You can count on me. You need me, and I'm there. Just like old times.

Appearance Like it or not, appearance counts, especially in the workplace. Dressing appropriately and professionally is a minimum requirement when applying for a job. Do whatever you can do to make a favorable impression. Dressing appropriately is a way to say that you care about the interview, that it is important to you, and that you take it seriously. It also says you will make an effort to behave professionally once you are with the company. Keep in mind that you are owed nothing when you go on an interview. But behaving professionally by following appropriate business etiquette will nearly always gain you the courtesy of professional treatment in return. The following ideas will help you be prepared to make the best impression possible. In previous exercises, you have examined your self-image. Now, look at yourself and get feedback from others on your overall appearance. Not only must you look neat and well groomed for a job interview, but your overall image should be appropriate to the job, the company, and the industry you are hoping to enter. You can determine the appropriate image by observing the appearance and attitude of those currently in the area you are looking into. But even where casual attire is appropriate for those already in the workplace, clean, pressed clothes and a neat appearance will be appreciated. One young photographer I know of inquired about the style of dress at the newspaper he was interviewing with; informed that most people wore casual clothes, he chose to do the same. At the interview, the editor gently teased him about wearing jeans (she herself was in khaki pants and a sports shirt). “I guess your suit is at the cleaners,” she said, chuckling. But her point was made. Making the effort shows that you take the interview seriously. Second, you should carry yourself as though you are confident and self-assured. Use self-help techniques such as internal coaching to tell yourself you can do it. Focus on your past successes, and hold your body as if you were unstoppable. Breathe deeply, with an abundance of self-confidence. Your goal is to convey an image of being comfortable with yourself in order to make the other person feel comfortable with you.

Bertrand Russell:   The expression “free thought” is often used as if it meant merely opposition to the prevailing orthodoxy. But this is only a symptom of free thought, frequent, but invariable. “Free thought” means thinking freely—as freely, at least, as is possible for a human being. The person who is free in any respect is free from something; what is the free thinker free from? To be worthy of the name, he must be free of two things; the force of tradition, and the tyranny of his own passions. No one is completely free from either, but in the measure of a man’s emancipation he deserves to be called a free thinker. A man is not to be denied this title because he happens, on some point, to agree with the theologians of his country. An Arab who, starting from the first principles of human reason, is able to deduce that the Koran was not created, but existed eternally in heaven, may be counted as a free thinker, provided he is willing to listen to counter arguments and subject his ratiocination to critical scrutiny... What makes a free thinker is not his beliefs, but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought, he finds a balance of evidence in their favor, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem.[4]

Never count favors with your family! —KANE GARRETT

You’ve got a dress with orchid blossoms embroidered on it. Ribbons in the deepest purple. You favor the color, but not nearly as much as I find myself favoring you.” He took a deep breath. “As to the stars? Those are what I prefer. More than medical practices and deductions. The universe is vast. A mathematical equation even I have no hope of solving. For there are no limits to the stars; their numbers are infinite. Which is precisely why I measure my love for you by them. An amount too boundless to count.

Harry, Harry, just the man I was hoping to see!” he boomed genially, twiddling the ends of his walrus mustache and puffing out his enormous belly. “I was hoping to catch you before dinner! What do you say to a spot of supper tonight in my rooms instead? We’re having a little party, just a few rising stars, I’ve got McLaggen coming and Zabini, the charming Melinda Bobbin — I don’t know whether you know her? Her family owns a large chain of apothecaries — and, of course, I hope very much that Miss Granger will favor me by coming too.” Slughorn made Hermione a little bow as he finished speaking. It was as though Ron was not present; Slughorn did not so much as look at him. “I can’t come, Professor,” said Harry at once. “I’ve got a detention with Professor Snape.” “Oh dear!” said Slughorn, his face falling comically. “Dear, dear, I was counting on you, Harry! Well, now, I’ll just have to have a word with Severus and explain the situation. I’m sure I’ll be able to persuade him to postpone your detention. Yes, I’ll see you both later!” He bustled away out of the Hall. “He’s got no chance of persuading Snape,” said Harry, the moment Slughorn was out of earshot. “This detention’s already been postponed once; Snape did it for Dumbledore, but he won’t do it for anyone else.” “Oh, I wish you could come, I don’t want to go on my own!” said Hermione anxiously; Harry knew that she was thinking about McLaggen. “I doubt you’ll be alone, Ginny’ll probably be invited,” snapped Ron, who did not seem to have taken kindly to being ignored by Slughorn. After dinner they made their way back to Gryffindor Tower. The common room was very crowded, as most people had finished dinner by now, but they managed to find a free table and sat down; Ron, who had been in a bad mood ever since the encounter with Slughorn, folded his arms and frowned at the ceiling. Hermione reached out for a copy of the Evening Prophet, which somebody had left abandoned

Equal Status: While the two groups might be highly unequal in society at large, they must have relatively equal status in the context in which contact between them takes place. Working alongside each other as colleagues qualifies; working together as boss and subordinate does not. Common Goals: Members of both groups need to work together in pursuit of a shared goal. Pursuing the championship as teammates counts; participating in the same tournament as members of opposing teams does not. Intergroup Cooperation: Members of both groups need to have an incentive to work together cooperatively. Ideally, they need to work together to solve a problem, with each member of the group making a clear contribution. Support from Authorities and Customs: Authority figures need to favor and encourage better intergroup understanding. If a greater mutual understanding is against the law or risks angering your boss, it is far less likely to occur.

Spain laid the foundations of this great wealth and evil in the Americas, then quickly became distracted and forgot about it. After introducing the plants, the technology, and the slaves into Santo Domingo, the Spanish dropped the sugar business in favor of hunting for gold and silver. They moved on to Mexico and South America in search of the precious metals,

As the Professor left, Marek said, “I pray God look with favor upon your journey and deliver you safe back.” That was what he always said to departing friends. It had been a favorite phrase of the Count Geoffrey de la Tour, six hundred years before.

Not like 'me' was some tough somebody, or somebody she had put together for show. But like somebody she favored and could count on. A secret somebody you didn't have to feel sorry for or have to fight for.

The key to this matrix is the symmetry or asymmetry of the performance. Investors who lack skill simply earn the return of the market and the dictates of their style. Without skill, aggressive investors move a lot in both directions, and defensive investors move little in either direction. These investors contribute nothing beyond their choice of style. Each does well when his or her style is in favor but poorly when it isn’t. On the other hand, the performance of investors who add value is asymmetrical. The percentage of the market’s gain they capture is higher than the percentage of loss they suffer. Aggressive investors with skill do well in bull markets but don’t give it all back in corresponding bear markets, while defensive investors with skill lose relatively little in bear markets but participate reasonably in bull markets. Everything in investing is a two-edged sword and operates symmetrically, with the exception of superior skill. Only skill can be counted on to add more in propitious environments than it costs in hostile ones. This is the investment asymmetry we seek. Superior skill is the prerequisite for it. Here’s how I describe Oaktree’s performance aspirations: In good years in the market, it’s good enough to be average. Everyone makes money in the good years, and I have yet to hear anyone explain convincingly why it’s important to beat the market when the market does well. No, in the good years average is good enough. There is a time, however, when we consider it essential to beat the market, and that’s in the bad years. Our clients don’t expect to bear the full brunt of market losses when they occur, and neither do we. Thus, it’s our goal to do as well as the market when it does well and better than the market when it does poorly. At first blush that may sound like a modest goal, but it’s really quite ambitious. In order to stay up with the market when it does well, a portfolio has to incorporate good measures of beta and correlation with the market. But if we’re aided by beta and correlation on the way up, shouldn’t they be expected to hurt us on the way down? If we’re consistently able to decline less when the market declines and also participate fully when the market rises, this can be attributable to only one thing: alpha, or skill. That’s an example of value-added investing, and if demonstrated over a period of decades, it has to come from investment skill. Asymmetry—better performance on the upside than on the downside relative to what your style alone would produce—should be every investor’s goal.

But for some reason, during our run, the Academy had a less than favorable view of shows with a live audience. Multicamera comedy somehow got considered a genre that was less-than. Shows like Modern Family were shot like little movies, and I think we were never going to be taken terribly seriously because the culture changed. That’s OK. Bill Prady always used to say, “The audience isn’t counting how many cameras you use. They’re responding to the characters and if they’re laughing.

Iola isn’t a medium or a mentally ill soothsayer. That child enjoys the goddess’s favor. Don’t pull silly faces, if you please. As I said, your view on religion is known to me, it’s never particularly bothered me and, no doubt, it won’t bother me in the future. I’m not a fanatic. You’ve a right to believe that we’re governed by Nature and the Force hidden within her. You can think that the gods, including my Melitele, are merely a personification of this power invented for simpletons so they can understand it better, accept its existence. According to you, that power is blind. But for me, Geralt, faith allows you to expect what my goddess personifies from nature: order, law, goodness. And hope.” “I know.” “If you know that, then why your reservations about the trance? What are you afraid of? That I’ll make you bow your head to a statue and sing canticles? Geralt, we’ll simply sit together for a while—you, me and Iola—and see if the girl’s talents will let her see into the vortex of power surrounding you. Maybe we’ll discover something worth knowing. And maybe we won’t discover anything. Maybe the power and fate surrounding you won’t choose to reveal themselves to us, will remain hidden and incomprehensible. I don’t know. But why shouldn’t we try?” “Because there’s no point. I’m not surrounded by any vortex or fate. And if I were, why the hell would I delve into it?” “Geralt, you’re sick.” “Injured, you mean.” “I know what I mean. There’s something not quite right with you. I can sense that. After all, I have known you ever since you were a youngster. When I met you, you came up to my waist. And now I feel that you’re spinning around in some damned whirlpool, tangled up in a slowly tightening noose. I want to know what’s happening. But I can’t do it myself. I have to count on Iola’s gifts.” “You want to delve too deeply. Why the metaphysics? I’ll confide in you, if you like. I’ll fill your evenings with tales of ever more astounding events from the past few years. Get a keg of beer so my throat doesn’t dry up and we can start today. But I fear I’ll bore you because you won’t find any nooses or vortexes there. Just a witcher’s ordinary tales.” “I’ll willingly listen to them. But a trance, I repeat, would do no harm.” “Don’t you think”—he smiled—“that my lack of faith makes such a trance pointless?” “No, I don’t. And do you know why?” “No.” Nenneke leaned over and looked him in the eyes with a strange smile on her pale lips. “Because it would be the first proof I’ve ever heard of that a lack of faith has any kind of power at all.

There was much to be seen, though it was a small place, for the ends of the earth's iniquity had gathered in Ogalalla. We wandered through the various gambling houses, drinking moderately, meeting an occasional acquaintance from Texas, and in the course of our rounds landed in the Dew-Drop-In dance hall. Here might be seen the frailty of women in every grade and condition. From girls in their teens, launching out on a life of shame, to the adventuress who had once had youth and beauty in her favor, but was now discarded and ready for the final dose of opium and the coroner's verdict,—all were there in tinsel and paint, practicing a careless exposure of their charms. In a town which has no night, the hours pass rapidly; and before we were aware, midnight was upon us. Returning to the gambling house where we had left Priest, we found him over a hundred dollars winner, and, calling his attention to the hour, persuaded him to cash in and join us. We felt positively rich, as he counted out to each partner his share of the winnings! Straw was missing to receive his, but we knew he could be found on the morrow, and after a round of drinks, we forded the river.

The invention of reliable and recognizable timepieces—clocks and bell towers—liberated workers from the bondage of piecework, which entails regimentation to count the pieces and favors quantity over quality, slavery over free labor.

We all owe each other something. That’s how life works. But friends don’t count favors and expect payment in return, not like some people do.

Instead, they count on three keys to success—keys that all influencers adhere to and that you can use to your own benefit: 1. Focus and measure. Influencers are crystal clear about the result they are trying to achieve and are zealous about measuring it. 2. Find vital behaviors. Influencers focus on high-leverage behaviors that drive results. More specifically, they focus on the two or three vital actions that produce the greatest amount of change. 3. Engage all six sources of influence. Finally, influencers break from the pack by overdetermining change. Where most of us apply a favorite influence tool or two to our important challenges, influencers identify all of the varied forces that are shaping the behavior they want to change and then get them working for rather than against them. And now for the really good news. According to our research, by getting six different sources of influence to work in their favor, influencers increase their odds of success tenfold.

Everything that happens in Las Vegas is a zero-sum game. If the house wins a hand of blackjack, you lose. And the odds are stacked heavily in favor of the house. If you play blackjack long enough—at least without counting cards—it is a mathematical certainty that you will go broke.

Would it surprise you to learn that I’ve already settled my affections on a specific lady?” Stanley blinked. “I have yet to witness you paying any of the ladies who’ve visited Ravenwood any special attention.” “That’s because this lady has never been to Ravenwood. Truth be told, I’ve not actually been formally introduced to her.” Stanley abandoned his toast. “That seems a bit curious, sir.” “Indeed, but you see, the reason I have yet to be properly introduced to her is because she’s a delicate sort, possessed of fragile and tender sensibilities.” Stanley’s brows drew together. “You believe a lady with tender sensibilities is an appropriate choice for you to settle your affections on, sir?” “She’s perfect for me—lovely, charming, demure. Why, I can’t think of another lady I’d want to settle my affections on. But even given her delicate nature, she’s a lady in very high demand. Gentlemen flock around her, but because of her tender sensibilities, she seems reluctant to enter into a relationship with any of them, in fact, more often than not, she’s given them the cut direct.” Bram blotted his lips with a linen napkin. “That right there is why I’ve been biding my time, waiting for just the right moment to become introduced to her. I don’t want to scare her off and lose any chance I might have of securing her interest.” “I think you’re forgetting a very important fact, sir. You’re Mr. Bram Haverstein, a gentleman in possession of a very fine fortune, your own castle, a summer house on Long Island, more carriages than I care to count, a steamboat, and you’re apparently possessed of a face that all the ladies find swoon-worthy. On top of that, I’ve heard more than one young lady whispering about that fine dark hair you have on your head.” Stanley grinned. “Apparently, it’s a huge mark in your favor.” Bram rolled his eyes. “I don’t believe I’ve ever caused a lady to swoon before, and honestly, my hair is a very nondescript shade of brown. I hardly think it’s unusual enough to have the ladies whispering about it.” “You’re missing the point. You’re a catch, Mr. Haverstein, and that means this lady of yours, be she in high demand or not, will be more than receptive to accepting your attention.” “I’ve never gotten the impression this particular lady is impressed by things such as fortunes and handsome faces, let alone nondescript brown hair.” “Every lady is appreciative of a handsome face, sir, and throw in a fortune and a castle to go with that face, and you can’t lose.” Stanley’s brow furrowed. “Although, you might not want to tell her straight off that Ravenwood is haunted. That might not be a mark in your favor, unless she enjoys ghosts and creatures of the night, but if she’s truly a delicate sort . . . hmm . . . best keep that under wraps until she’s fully committed to you.” “Ravenwood is not haunted, Stanley.” Stanley

The count is not done until the battle is done. You may return the favor, and if you do there is nothing to be thanked for. If not, thank me then.

Anna, did you just indirectly admit to liking me?” She drew in a swift breath and saw from his expression that while he was teasing, he was also… fishing. “Of course I like you. I like you entirely too well, and it is badly done of you to make me admit it.” “Well, let’s go from bad to worse, then, and you can tell me precisely why you like me.” “You are serious?” “I am. If you want, I will return the favor, though we have only several hours, and my list might take much longer than that.” He is flirting with me, Anna thought, incredulous. In his high-handed, serious way, the Earl of Westhaven had just paid her a flirtatious compliment. A lightness spread out from her middle, something of warmth and humor and guilty pleasure in it. “All right.” Anna nodded briskly. “I like that you are shy and honorable in the ways that count. I like that you are kind to Morgan, and to your animals, and old Nanny Fran. You are as patient with His Grace as a human can be, and you adore your brother. You are fierce, too, though, and can be decisive when needs must. You are also, I think, a romantic, and this is no mean feat for a man who spends half his days with commercial documents. Mostly, I like that you are good; you look after those who depend on you, you have gratitude for your blessings, and you don’t think enough of yourself.” Beside her, the earl was again silent. “Shall I go on?” Anna asked, feeling a sudden awkwardness. “You could not possibly pay me any greater series of compliments than you just have,” he said. “The man you describe is a paragon, a fellow I’d very much like to meet.” “See?” Anna nudged him with her shoulder. “You do not think enough of yourself. But I can also tell you the parts of you that irritate me—if that will make you feel better?” “I irritate you?” The earl’s eyebrows rose. “This should be interesting. You gave me the good news first, fortifying me for more burdensome truths, so let fly.” “You are proud,” Anna began, her tone thoughtful. “You don’t think your papa can manage anything correctly, and you won’t ask your brothers nor mother nor sisters even, for help with things directly affecting them. I wonder, in fact, if you have anybody you would call a friend.” “Ouch. A very definite ouch, Anna. Go on.” “You have forgotten how to play,” Anna said, “how to frolic, though I cannot fault you for a lack of appreciation for what’s around you. You appreciate; you just don’t seem to… indulge yourself.” “I see. And in what should I indulge myself?” “That is for you to determine,” she replied. “Marzipan has gone over well, I think, and sweets in general. You have indulged your love of music by having Val underfoot. As to what else brings you pleasure, you would be the best judge of that.” The earl turned down a shady lane lined with towering oaks and an understory of rhododendrons in vigorous bloom. “It was you,” he said. “Before Val moved in, I thought it was a neighbor playing the piano late in the evenings, but it was you. Were you playing for me?” Anna glanced off to the park beyond the trees and nodded.

Research by the Income Center for Tradeshows found that people are twice as likely to remember you if you shake hands. According to the American Management Association, it takes only one-fortieth of a second to create a human bond. Whether you shake someone’s hand, squeeze their arm, or touch their shoulder, make these moments count to be remembered favorably.

Republicans accept as a well-documented fact of life that an overwhelming majority of the media is slanted against them.4 They take critical media coverage for granted. The Obama administration does not. So much so that harsh criticism by a news outlet is viewed as intolerable dissent. Moreover, this broadside from the president of the United States was not buttressed by facts. Pew Research Center found that from September 8 through October 16 of the 2008 campaign—the heat of the election cycle—40 percent of Fox News stories on then-Senator Obama were negative as were 40 percent of the network’s stories on Senator John McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent. You can’t get more fair and balanced than that. If you wanted to see bias against a candidate, CNN and MSNBC were better examples. Pew found that 61 percent of CNN’s stories on John McCain were negative, compared to only 39 percent of their Obama stories. The disparity was even greater at MSNBC where a mere 14 percent of Obama stories were negative, compared to a whopping 73 percent of McCain stories (and only 10 percent of MSNBC’s coverage of McCain was rated as positive). Overall, according to an October 2007 study of media coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (funded by Pew) in collaboration with Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy, the press gave much more favorable coverage to Democratic candidates, noting, for example, that 46.7 percent of stories about Barack Obama had a positive tone, while only 12.4 percent of stories about John McCain did.5 Obama should have been counting his blessings, not complaining about the one news television outlet that wouldn’t fall in line. He had received, by some measures, the most laudatory press coverage of any senatorial or presidential candidate in recent history.6

sweeping aside the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church in a resounding victory Saturday for the gay rights movement and placing the country at the vanguard of social change. With the final ballots counted, the vote was 62 percent in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage, and 38 percent opposed. The turnout was large — more than 60 percent of the 3.2 million people eligible cast ballots, and only one district voted the measure down. Government officials, advocates, and even those who had argued against the change said the outcome was a solid endorsement of the constitutional amendment. Cheers broke out among the crowd of supporters who had gathered in the courtyard of Dublin Castle when Returning Officer Riona Ni Fhlanghaile announced around 7 p.m. that the ballot had passed 1,201,607 votes to 734,300.

Another point in favor of a synchronized yearly Sabbath cycle is the Feast of Firstfruits.” Glancing at Zane, he said, “Or Pentecost, as you would call it in English. Pentecost is basically a little Jubilee every year. The count begins and ends on the first day of the week, and it does so without interrupting the weekly Sabbath cycle.

Galatians 5 Freedom in Christ So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law. 2 Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. 4 For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace. 5 But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. 6 For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love. 7 You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? 8 It certainly isn’t God, for he is the one who called you to freedom. 9 This false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough! 10 I am trusting the Lord to keep you from believing false teachings. God will judge that person, whoever he is, who has been confusing you.

The problem with the social media is that it favors the counts versus the real contributions. 98 % of the online community are lurkers.

Rather than employ Aristotelian logic—that is, the binary, yes/no, black versus white type of thinking—the Count favored multivalued, pluralistic thought that was modulated by—but not ruled by—subjective feeling. Basically, Korzybski was saying, Hey, be cool: “Don’t get mad—get Null-A!

I WAS JUST SITTING DOWN TO DINNER THAT NIGHT WHEN MY cell phone began to chime. It was leftover night, which was not a bad thing at our house, since it allowed me to sample two or three of Rita’s tasty concoctions at one sitting, and I stared at the phone for several seconds and thought very hard about the last piece of Rita’s Tropical Chicken sitting there on the platter before I finally picked up my phone and answered. “It’s me,” Deborah said. “I need a favor.” “Of course you do,” I said, looking at Cody as he pulled a large helping of Thai noodles out of the serving dish. “But does it have to be right now?” Debs made a sound somewhere between a hiss and a grunt. “Ow. Yeah, it does. Can you pick up Nicholas from day care?” she said. Her son, Nicholas, was enrolled at a Montessori day-care center in the Gables, although I was reasonably sure he was too young to count beads. I had wondered whether I should be doing the same for Lily Anne, but Rita had pooh-poohed the idea. She said it was a waste of money until a child was two or three years old. For Deborah, though, nothing was too good for her little boy, so she cheerfully shelled out the hefty fee for the school. And she had never been late to pick him up, no matter how pressing her workload—but here it was, almost seven o’clock, and Nicholas was still waiting for Mommy. Clearly something unusual was afoot, and her voice sounded strained—not angry and tense as it had been earlier, but not quite right, either. “Um, sure, I guess I can get him,” I said. “What’s up with you?” She made the hiss-grunt sound again and said, “Uhnk. Damn it,” in a kind of hoarse mutter, before going on in a more normal voice, “I’m in the hospital.” “What?” I said. “Why, what’s wrong?” I had an alarming vision of her as I had seen her in her last visit to the hospital, an ER trip that had lasted for several days as she lay near death from a knife wound. “It’s no big deal,” she said, and there was strain in her voice, as well as fatigue. “It’s just a broken arm. I just … I’m going to be here for a while and I can’t get Nicholas in time.

O that pearl of great price! have you found it? Is the Savior supreme in your love? O consider it well, ere you answer, As you hope for a welcome above. Have you given up all for this treasure? Have you counted past gains as but loss? Has your trust in yourself and your merits Come to naught before Christ and His cross? Have you come to the living Redeemer, Him that bore all your sins on the tree? Has He graciously pardoned and cleansed you In the blood shed for you and for me? At His feet as one dead, have you fallen, And been quickened anew by His voice, Till, entranced by His riches of goodness, In His presence you live and rejoice? Has the Savior, the righteous, the holy, Cast the beams of His all searching light Into all of your heart’s deep recesses, And transformed into day their dark night? O then answer these questions so pressing, Before God, ere time’s favor shall cease, Is the pearl of great price yours forever? Have you Jesus, and in Him your peace?

Why is my vagina such a big concern these days? Am I walking around counting up your coochie mileage? No. So do me a favor and give mines a break. Damn,” she spat and slid passed her.

No one has broken her yet. Indeed, the score is well in her favor on that count.

On all counts I’ve let these people down. I came among them a stranger and a physician. I have met with nothing worse than suspicion and much that’s been better than kindness. Eggs that could be ill spared pressed on me in return for some fancied favor. Little gestures of goodwill even from people who are Choake’s people. Confidence and trust. In return I have helped to break up the life of one of their number. If I went now I should go for good, a cheat and a failure.

by asking for help, you’re creating an opportunity for them to express their values and feel valued. By asking for a five-minute favor, you impose a relatively small burden—and if you ask a matcher, you can count on having an opportunity to reciprocate.

God is saying when you stay full of joy, when you learn to offer up the sacrifice of praise, God will turn things in your favor. He will reverse negative situations. He will return, or restore, what’s been stolen. But notice that restoration doesn’t come from complaining, being negative, or being sour. Restoration takes place when you have the voice of gladness, the voice of joy. That means you get up in the morning with a song in your heart. You go out each day with a smile on your face. Things may not always go your way, but you don’t become discouraged. You shake it off and count it all joy. When you live that way, you might as well get ready. God will be reversing and restoring. He will reverse finances that have been down. He will reverse a struggling business. He will reverse a legal situation in your favor. He will reverse a health issue to heal you. Not only that, God will restore what should have been yours. He will restore the years you lost because somebody did you wrong. He will restore a relationship that’s on the rocks. Restoration will occur because you have the voice of joy, the voice of gladness, and you keep offering up that sacrifice of praise. Learn to count it all joy. Don’t be determined to never have problems. Be determined to stay full of joy in the midst of your problems. Arrange your mind in the right direction. And no matter what comes your way, don’t lose your joy. Learn to offer up that sacrifice of praise. If you keep the voice of gladness, the voice of joy, you cannot stay down and defeated. God has promised He will reverse and restore. Not only that, but because you have joy, you will find the strength to outlast every attack, to overcome every obstacle, to defeat every enemy. You will become everything God created you to be, and you will have everything God intended for you to have.