Davis Warren Quotes

He’d ventured from the White House only to say goodbye to a former friend—Warren Davis of South Carolina, elected twice to Congress, once as an ally, a Jacksonian Democrat, the other as a Nullifier. His enemy, the former vice president John C. Calhoun, had concocted the Nullifier Party, its members actually believing that states could choose what federal laws they wanted to obey. The devil’s work was how he’d described such foolishness. There’d be no country if the Nullifiers had their way—which, he supposed, was their entire intent. Thankfully, the Constitution spoke of a unified government, not a loose league where everyone could do as they pleased. People, not states, were paramount.

little more than a warren of tired shacks that paint alone keeps from tumbling into the water.

We are always free to choose, but never free from choice. We lack the greatest freedom of all: freedom from desire, otherwise known as gratitude.

Our political, economic, and cultural institutions were devised by men who, like Aristotle, believed that every man could be a philosopher and assumed that every man wanted to be one. The feudal order was built on the opposite assumption. The medievals assumed that most men didn’t want to be philosophers: they were content to be men.

The pursuit of happiness was at the center of the medieval worldview. They understood (as every Christian does) that we cannot be happy without God—that God is our happiness. “Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in thee,” as Saint Augustine said. There’s no better word for the condition of modern man: restless. He is oppressed by his own false freedom, tortured by his inflamed appetites, and humiliated by his own ignorance. The things that might make him truly happy—gratitude and simplicity, peace and quiet—are kept forever out of his reach.

We cannot remake the world as twelfth-century France, but what we can do is recognize that a happy society would look much more like twelfth-century France than twenty-first-century America.

Unfolding according to the contemplative logic of their lyrical orbits, Astral Weeks’s songs unhooked themselves from pop’s dependence on verse/chorus structure, coasting on idling rhythms, raging and subsiding with the ebb and flow of Morrison’s soulful scat. The soundworld – a loose-limbed acoustic tapestry of guitar, double bass, flute, vibraphone and dampened percussion – was unmistakably attributable to the calibre of the musicians convened for the session: Richard Davis, whose formidable bass talents had shadowed Eric Dolphy on the mercurial Blue Note classic Out to Lunch; guitarist Jay Berliner had previous form with Charles Mingus; Connie Kay was drummer with The Modern Jazz Quartet; percussionist/vibesman Warren Smith’s sessionography included Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Nat King Cole, Sam Rivers and American folk mystics Pearls Before Swine. Morrison reputedly barely exchanged a word with the personnel, retreating to a sealed sound booth to record his parts and leaving it to their seasoned expertise to fill out the space. It is a music quite literally snatched out of the air.

In the spring of 2015, Warren started the Appalachian Trail in Georgia. At age sixty-five, he was a walking contradiction. His white beard clashed with his youthful eyes, his soft, round stomach opposed his rectangular rack-solid calves, and his welcoming smile conflicted with his focused gaze. A finish in Maine would mark his eighteenth thru hike of the 2,189 mile footpath. The circumference of the earth is 24,903 miles; Warren had recorded over 36,000 miles between Springer Mountain and Katahdin.

Financial strength and capital structure. The most basic possible definition of a good business is this: It generates more cash than it consumes. Good managers keep finding ways of putting that cash to productive use. In the long run, companies that meet this definition are virtually certain to grow in value, no matter what the stock market does. Start by reading the statement of cash flows in the company’s annual report. See whether cash from operations has grown steadily throughout the past 10 years. Then you can go further. Warren Buffett has popularized the concept of owner earnings, or net income plus amortization and depreciation, minus normal capital expenditures. As portfolio manager Christopher Davis of Davis Selected Advisors puts it, “If you owned 100% of this business, how much cash would you have in your pocket at the end of the year?” Because it adjusts for accounting entries like amortization and depreciation that do not affect the company’s cash balances, owner earnings can be a better measure than reported net income. To fine-tune the definition of owner earnings, you should also subtract from reported net income: any costs of granting stock options, which divert earnings away from existing shareholders into the hands of new inside owners any “unusual,” “nonrecurring,” or “extraordinary” charges any “income” from the company’s pension fund. If owner earnings per share have grown at a steady average of at least 6% or 7% over the past 10 years, the company is a stable generator of cash, and its prospects for growth are good.

You may have noticed by now that a lot of what I'm most proud of in my career are technical achievements, things an average game player might not notice - under the hood stuff. I fully realize that while playing a game, no one really cares about that kind of thing. But it was my job to care about those details, because ultimately, making video games is about supplying people with an experience. A challenging but ultimately satisfying experience.

When things are good, it's best to be prepared for the eventuality that it may not last. If things stay good - well, great, that's a welcome surprise. But it will always help you to appreciate what you have if you at least acknowledge the possibility that it could all vanish in an instant.

Let's talk about color resolution for a second. Come on, you know you want to.