Jack Of All Trades Quotes

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Jack of all trades, master of none, though often better than a master of one.
Adam Savage
...each individual can only do one thing well. He can't do lots of things. If he tries, he will be jack of all trades, and master of none.
Socrates (The Republic)
In the modern workplace, you gotta be a jack-of-all-trades. Mastering your career is all about being adaptable, versatile, and always learning.
Shubham Shukla (Career's Quest: Proven Strategies for Mastering Success in Your Profession: Networking and Building Professional Relationships)
Jack of all trades, master of none
Geffray Mynshul
There are species that can run faster, climb higher, dig deeper, or hit harder, but humans are special because we can run, climb, dig, and hit. The phrase jack of all trades, master of none fits us perfectly. If life on earth were like the Olympic Games, the only event that humans would ever win is the decathlon. (Unless chess became an Olympic sport.)
Nathan H. Lents (Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes)
His tavern sign bore witness to his feats of arms. He had painted it himself, being a Jack-of-all-trades who did everything badly.
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
You can achieve anything, but not everything.
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.
William Shakespeare
Jack of all trades, master of none...He'd always thought knowing many things gave him strength. Now it made him feel vulnerable.
Rachel Caine (Ink and Bone (The Great Library, #1))
Jack of all trades or master of one? If you're a master of one, you'll soon be a master of none. Times are a changin. Be a jack of all trades. Or better, master of many!
Richie Norton
The man who employs either his labour or his stock in a grater variety of ways than his situation renders necessary, can never hurt his neighbour by underselling him. He may hurt himself, and he generally does so. Jack of all trades will never be rich, says the proverb. But the law ought always to trust people with the care of their own interest, as in their local situations they must generally be able to judge better of it than the legislator can do.
Adam Smith (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations)
If instead of saying, “I’m going to do this trade,” you say, “I’m going to watch myself do this trade,” all of a sudden you find that the process is a lot easier.
Jack D. Schwager (The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders (Wiley Trading Book 95))
I feel as though I should say something profound, or enact some rite, or trade something to make it official. I want to transfer some trinket which would allow me to say that she's my girl, some kind of currency that proves to people that she likes me back. Something that would permit me to think about her all the time without feeling guilty or helpless or hopelessly far away. I guess I'm just so excited, I want to cage this thing like a tiny red bird so if can't fly away, so it stays the same, so it's still there the next time. For keeps, like a coin in your pocket. Like a peach pit from Mad Jack Lionel's tree. Like scribbled words in a locked suitcase. A bright balloon to tie to your bedpost. And you want to hug it close, hold it, but not so tight it bursts.
Craig Silvey (Jasper Jones)
That is the nature of falsehoods. Like a small debt incurred, the interest builds, and when collection is due, the burden is much greater than the original lie was worth.
M.A. Nichols (The Jack of All Trades (The Finches, #1; Generations of Love, #8))
You don’t have to be the jack of all trades to be a successful entrepreneur. Know when to bring in the professionals.
Omar Kandil (Winning the Slow Race: Achieve More by Moving Smarter, Not Faster)
There are species that can run faster, climb higher, dig deeper, or hit harder, but humans are special because we can run, climb, dig, and hit. The phrase jack of all trades, master of none fits us perfectly.
Nathan H. Lents (Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes)
I discovered that you can’t train people how to trade by just imparting knowledge. The key to trading success is emotional discipline. Making money has nothing to do with intelligence. Think of all the bright people that choose careers on Wall Street. If intelligence were the key, there would be a lot more people making money trading.
Jack D. Schwager (The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders (Wiley Trading Book 95))
Success comes by strengthening your strengths more than improving on your weaknesses. If you can maximize the potential of your strength then you become a champion while if you work harder on your weaknesses you be come Jack of all trade.
Dr. Lucas D. Shallua
Let's be serious, I wasn't a jack of all trades. I was just a jack-off of none. A hubristic fool who lived in my mind, certain I was better than everyone. An irredeemable asshole that for some reason people tolerated and occasionally even liked.
Aaron Goldfarb (How to Fail: The Self-Hurt Guide)
you’ve clearly been charged with hiring a jack-of-all-trades. And Dr. Auden is that mythical creature you seek: fully qualified to teach British and American literature, women’s studies, composition, creative writing, intermediate parasailing, advanced sword swallowing, and subcategories and permutations of the above.
Julie Schumacher (Dear Committee Members)
You will be someone who is never late. You will be someone who takes care of his men, gets to know them, and puts their needs before yours. You will be someone who does not quit in the face of adversity. You will be someone who takes charge and leads when no one else will. You will be detail oriented, always vigilant. You will be aggressive in your actions but never lose your cool. You will have a sense of humor because sometimes that is all that can get you through the darkest hours. You will work hard and perform even when no one is watching. You will be creative and think outside the box, even if it gets you in trouble. You are a rebel, but not a mutineer. You are a jack of all trades and master of none.
Dan Crenshaw (Fortitude: Resilience in the Age of Outrage)
Automation won’t take your job, but the self-inflicted imprisonment of industrial isolation will.
Richie Norton
20. Lack of concentration of effort. The “jack-of-all-trades” seldom is good at any. Concentrate all of your efforts on one definite chief aim.
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
Depth gets context with breadth and vice versa.
Richie Norton
You can be extraordinary in anything but not in everything.
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
Adams has done a bit of everything, from radio to television to designing computer games. Not all of them worked out. “These are life’s little learning experiences,” he said. “You know what a learning experience is? A learning experience is one of those things that says, ‘You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.’ “At the end of all this being-determined-to-be-a-jack-of-all-trades, I think I’m better off just sitting down and putting a hundred thousand words in a cunning order.” Adams writes “slowly and painfully.” “People assume you sit in a room, looking pensive and writing great thoughts,” he said. “But you mostly sit in a room looking panic-stricken and hoping they haven’t put a guard on the door yet.
Douglas Adams (The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time)
As a writer, I've never limited myself to a specific genre or topic. A person is never just one thing. Like multi-faced dice, there are so many sides to a person; Funny, dramatic, romantic...the list goes on. When I write horror, I do it to my best. When I write comedy, I do that to my best. But, I'm a jack of all trades. It's fun to challenge yourself, breaking the limits of a genre.
M.A. Levi
The traditional Chinese kingdoms operated under centuries of constraints on commerce. The building of walls on their borders had been a way of limiting such trade and literally keeping the wealth of the nation intact and inside the walls. For such administrators, giving up trade goods was the same as paying tribute to their neighbors, and they sought to avoid it as much as they could. The Mongols directly attacked the Chinese cultural prejudice that ranked merchants as merely a step above robbers by officially elevating their status ahead of all religions and professions, second only to government officials. In a further degradation of Confucian scholars, the Mongols reduced them from the highest level of traditional Chinese society to the ninth level, just below prostitutes but above beggars.
Jack Weatherford (Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World)
While the methods of enforcing regulation varied between countries, the concept that they all shared in common was that women in the sex trade should shoulder the blame for the transmission of syphilis.
Hallie Rubenhold (The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper)
The truth is that you aren’t lacking a destiny or purpose. There is a very good reason for your insatiable curiosity: you’re someone who’s going to shake things up, create something novel, solve complex, multidimensional problems, make people’s lives better in your own unique way. Whatever your destinies are, you can’t step into them while stifling your multipotentiality. You must embrace it and use it.
Emilie Wapnick (How to Be Everything)
I am a jack-of-all-trades. I edit and teach and at times desire to be a clothing designer or an artist (one who doesn't draw or paint or sew) and I write everything but poetry and I am a mother and a social maniac and a misanthrope and a burgeoning self-help guru and a girl who wants to look pretty and a girl who wants to look sexy and a girl who wants to look girly and a woman in her middle forties who wishes not to look like anything at all, who wishes sometimes to vanish.
Heidi Julavits (The Folded Clock: A Diary)
On the American Oligarchy "How about the United States?" a man yelled from the audience. "And what about it?" Martin retorted. "The thirteen colonies threw off their rulers and formed the Republic so-called. The slaves were their own masters. There were no more masters of the sword. But you couldn't get along without masters of some sort, and there arose a new set of masters–not the great, virile noble men, but the shrewd and spidery traders and money-lenders. And they enslaved you all over again–but not frankly, as the true, noble men would do with weight of their own right arms, but secretly, by spidery machinations and by wheedling and cajoling and lies. They have purchased your slave judges, they have debauched your slave legislatures, and they have forced to worse horrors than chattel slavery your slave boys and girls. Two million of your children are toiling today in this trade-oligarchy of the United States. Ten millions of your slaves are not properly sheltered nor properly fed.
Jack London (Martin Eden)
I am that man, the sum of him, the all of him, the hairless biped who struggled upward from the slime and created love and law out of the anarchy of fecund life that screamed and squalled in the jungle. I am all that that man was and did become. I see myself, through the painful generations, snaring and killing the game and the fish, clearing the first fields from the forest, making rude tools of stone and bone, building houses of wood, thatching the roofs with leaves and straw, domesticating the wild grasses and meadow roots, fathering them to become the progenitors of rice and millet and wheat and barley and all manner of succulent edibles, learning to scratch the soil, to sow, to reap, to store, beating out the fibers of plants to spin into thread and to weave into cloth, devising systems of irrigation, working in metals, making markets and trade routes, building boats, and founding navigation—ay, and organizing village life, welding villages to villages till they became tribes, welding tribes together till they became nations, ever seeking the laws of things, ever making the laws of humans so that humans might live together in amity and by united effort beat down and destroy all manner of creeping, crawling, squalling things that might else destroy them.
Jack London (The Star Rover (Modern Library Classics))
The real Doctor Fitzpiers was a man of too many hobbies to show likelihood of rising to any great eminence in the profession he had chosen, or even to acquire any wide practice in the rural district he had marked out as his field of survey for the present.
Thomas Hardy (The Woodlanders)
As I write these lines I lift my eyes and look seaward.  I am on the beach of Waikiki on the island of Oahu.  Far, in the azure sky, the trade-wind clouds drift low over the blue-green turquoise of the deep sea.  Nearer, the sea is emerald and light olive-green.  Then comes the reef, where the water is all slaty purple flecked with red.  Still nearer are brighter greens and tans, lying in alternate stripes and showing where sandbeds lie between the living coral banks.  Through and over and out of these wonderful colours tumbles and thunders a magnificent surf.
Jack London (The Cruise of the Snark (Illustrated) (Annotated))
And romance is just the place for creating mythic figures doing mythic things. Like carving 'civilzation' out of the wilderness. Like showing us what a hero looks life, a real, American, sprung-from-the soil, lethal-weapon-with-leggings, bona fide hero. And for a guy who never marries, he has a lot of offspring. Shane. The Virginian. The Ringo Kid. The Man with No Name. Just think how many actors would have had no careers without Natty Bumppo. Gary Cooper. John Wayne. Alan Ladd. Tom Mix. Clint Eastwood. Silent. Laconic. More committed to their horse or buddy than to a lady. Professional. Deadly. In his Studies in Classic American Literature, D.H. Lawrence waxes prolix on Natty's most salient feature: he's a killer. And so are his offspring. This heros can talk, stiltedly to be sure, but he prefers silence. He appreciates female beauty but is way more committed to his canoe or his business partner (his business being death and war) or, most disturbingly, his long rifle, Killdeer. Dr. Freud, your three-o'clock is here. Like those later avatars, he is a wilderness god, part backwoods sage, part cold-blooded killer, part unwilling Prince Charming, part jack-of-all-trades, but all man. Here's how his creator describes him: 'a philosopher of the wilderness, simple-minded, faithful, utterly without fear, yet prudent.' A great character, no doubt, but hardly a person. A paragon. An archetype. A miracle. But a potentially real person--not so much.
Thomas C. Foster (Twenty-five Books That Shaped America: How White Whales, Green Lights, and Restless Spirits Forged Our National Identity)
Specialists will continue to lose not because of automation, but because of the imprisonment of industrial isolation. Leaders and innovators who stay relevant see the interconnectedness of a broad use of skillsets that specialists can’t see and use creativity to solve problems in times of complexity.
Richie Norton
This man is different. He can fix anything, do anything. He doesn’t work with knowledge, with science—the classified accumulation of facts. He knows nothing. It’s not in his head, a form of learning. He works by intuition—his power is in his hands, not his head. Jack-of-all-trades. His hands! Like a painter, an artist. In his hands—and he cuts across our lives like a knife-blade.
Philip K. Dick (The Variable Man)
The label “jack-of-all-trades but master of none” is normally meant to be derogatory, implying that the labelee lacks the focus to really dive into a subject and master it. But, when your online shopping application is on the fritz and you’re losing orders by the hundreds as each hour passes, it’s the jack-of-all-trades who not only knows how the application’s code works but can also do low-level UNIX debugging of your web server processes, analyze your RDBMS’s configuration for potential performance bottlenecks, and check your network’s router configuration for hard-to-find problems. And, more important, after finding the problem, the jack-of-all-trades can quickly make architecture and design decisions, implement code fixes, and deploy a new fixed system to production. In this scenario, the manufacturing scenario seems quaint at best and critically flawed at worst.
Chad Fowler (The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development (Pragmatic Life))
Of all the birds, they are the ones who mind their being armless most: witness how, when they walk, their heads jerk back and forth like rifle bolts. How they heave their shoulders into each stride as if they hoped that by some chance new bones there would come popping out with a boxing glove on the end of each. Little Elvises, the hairdo slicked with too much grease, they convene on my lawn to strategize for their class-action suit. Flight they would trade in a New York minute for a black muscle car and a fist on the shift at any stale green light. But here in my yard by the Jack-in-the-Box Dumpster they can only fossick in the grass for remnants of the world’s stale buns. And this despite all the crow poems that have been written because men like to see themselves as crows (the head-jerk performed in the rearview mirror, the dark brow commanding the rainy weather). So I think I know how they must feel: ripped off, shook down, taken to the cleaners. What they’d like to do now is smash a phone against a wall. But they can’t, so each one flies to a bare branch and screams.
Lucia Perillo
In 2015 the winter was unseasonably warm. I remember it well enough to feel a pang of sentiment toward those days. Children were playing in the sunshine, bathing suits donned long after swimwear should have been traded for jeans and sweaters. We were all so happy that Jack Frost had forgotten us that year. We didn't know any better, but it should have been our first hint that the world was going wrong. Five years later, when the crops were all burnt, and the sun wasn't drawn with a happy face on a child's illustration anymore, we would all have chance for regret. The
Wayne Lemmons (The Dark Roads)
Do you really believe that freedom of choice exists? India still has a caste system. Most of the Middle East treats women as inferiors and those who practice other religions as enemies. China regulates how many children couples can have, genocide abounds in South America and Africa, Malaysia has a booming underage sex trade, and the list goes on and on. All around the world the people in power abuse it and human rights are ignored. But what if we were incapable of hurting our fellow man? What if our core impulse was to help each other rather than control each other? The human race is destructive. This research could fix it. Purify it.
Jack Kilborn (Afraid (Afraid, #1))
Again, the publick shewed that they would bear their share in these things; the very Court, which was then gay and luxurious, put on a face of just concern for the publick danger. All the plays and interludes which, after the manner of the French Court, had been set up and began to increase among us, were forbid to act; the gaming tables, publick dancing rooms, and music houses, which multiplied and began to debauch the manners of the people, were shut up and suppressed; and the jack-puddings, merry-andrews, puppet-shows, rope-dancers, and such-like doings, which had bewitched the poor common people, shut up their shops, finding indeed no trade; for the minds of the people were agitated with other things, and a kind of sadness and horror at these things sat upon the countenances even of the common people. Death was before their eyes, and everybody began to think of their graves, not of mirth and diversions.
Daniel Defoe (A Journal of the Plague Year)
A beautiful example of a long-term intention was presented by A. T. Ariyaratane, a Buddhist elder, who is considered to be the Gandhi of Sri Lanka. For seventeen years there had been a terrible civil war in Sri Lanka. At one point, the Norwegians were able to broker peace, and once the peace treaty was in effect, Ariyaratane called the followers of his Sarvodaya movement together. Sarvodaya combines Buddhist principles of right livelihood, right action, right understanding, and compassion and has organized citizens in one-third of that nation’s villages to dig wells, build schools, meditate, and collaborate as a form of spiritual practice. Over 650,000 people came to the gathering to hear how he envisioned the future of Sri Lanka. At this gathering he proposed a five-hundred-year peace plan, saying, “The Buddha teaches we must understand causes and conditions. It’s taken us five hundred years to create the suffering that we are in now.” Ari described the effects of four hundred years of colonialism, of five hundred years of struggle between Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists, and of several centuries of economic disparity. He went on, “It will take us five hundred years to change these conditions.” Ariyaratane then offered solutions, proposing a plan to heal the country. The plan begins with five years of cease-fire and ten years of rebuilding roads and schools. Then it goes on for twenty-five years of programs to learn one another’s languages and cultures, and fifty years of work to right economic injustice, and to bring the islanders back together as a whole. And every hundred years there will be a grand council of elders to take stock on how the plan is going. This is a sacred intention, the long-term vision of an elder. In the same way, if we envision the fulfillment of wisdom and compassion in the United States, it becomes clear that the richest nation on earth must provide health care for its children; that the most productive nation on earth must find ways to combine trade with justice; that a creative society must find ways to grow and to protect the environment and plan sustainable development for generations ahead. A nation founded on democracy must bring enfranchisement to all citizens at home and then offer the same spirit of international cooperation and respect globally. We are all in this together.
Jack Kornfield (Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are)
It was the secret no one told you, the thing you had to learn for yourself: viz. that in the antiques trade there was really no such thing as a “correct” price. Objective value—list value—was meaningless. If a customer came in clueless with money in hand (as most of them did) it didn’t matter what the books said, what the experts said, what similar items at Christie’s had recently gone for. An object—any object—was worth whatever you could get somebody to pay for it. In consequence, I’d started going through the store, removing some tags (so the customer would have to come to me for the price) and changing others—not all, but some. The trick, as I discovered through trial and error, was to keep at least a quarter of the prices low and jack up the rest, sometimes by as much as four and five hundred percent. Years of abnormally low prices had built up a base of devoted customers; leaving a quarter of the prices low kept them devoted, and ensured that people hunting for a bargain could still find one, if they looked. Leaving a quarter of the prices low also meant that, by some perverse alchemy, the marked-up prices seemed legitimate in comparison: for whatever reason, some people were more apt to put out fifteen hundred bucks for a Meissen teapot if it was placed next to a plainer but comparable piece selling (correctly, but cheaply) for a few hundred.
Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
Now, who and what is this minstrel in reality? Where does he come from? In what respects does he differ from his predecessors? He has been described as a cross between the early medieval court-singer and the ancient mime of classical times. The mime had never ceased to flourish since the days of classical antiquity; when even the last traces of classical culture disappeared, the descendants of the old mimes still continued to travel about the Empire, entertaining the masses with their unpretentious, unsophisticated and unliterary art. The Germanic countries were flooded out with mimes in the early Middle Ages; but until the ninth century the poets and singers at the courts kept themselves strictly apart from them. Not until they lost their cultured audience, as a result of the Carolingian Renaissance and the clericalism of the following generation, and came up against the competition of the mimes in the lower classes, did they have, to a certain extent, to become mimes themselves in order to be able to compete with their rivals. Thus both singers and comedians now move in the same circles, intermingle and influence each other so much that they soon become indistinguishable from one another. The mime and the scop both become the minstrel. The most striking characteristic of the minstrel is his versatility. The place of the cultured, highly specialized heroic ballad poet is now taken by the Jack of all trades, who is no longer merely a poet and singer, but also a musician and dancer, dramatist and actor, clown and acrobat, juggler and bear-leader, in a word, the universal jester and maître de plaisir of the age. Specialization, distinction and solemn dignity are now finished with; the court poet has become everybody’s fool and his social degradation has such a revolutionary and shattering effect on himself that he never entirely recovers from the shock. From now on he is one of the déclassés, in the same class as tramps and prostitutes, runaway clerics and sent-down students, charlatans and beggars. He has been called the ‘journalist of the age’, but he really goes in for entertainment of every kind: the dancing song as well as the satirical song, the fairy story as well as the mime, the legend of saints as well as the heroic epic. In this context, however, the epic takes on quite new features: it acquires in places a more pointed character with a new straining after effect, which was absolutely foreign to the spirit of the old heroic ballad. The minstrel no longer strikes the gloomy, solemn, tragi-heroic note of the ‘Hildebrandslied’, for he wants to make even the epic sound entertaining; he tries to provide sensations, effective climaxes and lively epigrams. Compared with the monuments of the older heroic poetry, the ‘Chanson de Roland’ never fails to reveal this popular minstrel taste for the piquant.
Arnold Hauser (The Social History of Art, Volume 1: From Prehistoric Times to the Middle Ages)
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK WHAT TO DO FIRST 1. Find the MAP. It will be there. No Tour of Fantasyland is complete without one. It will be found in the front part of your brochure, quite near the page that says For Mom and Dad for having me and for Jeannie (or Jack or Debra or Donnie or …) for putting up with me so supportively and for my nine children for not interrupting me and for my Publisher for not discouraging me and for my Writers’ Circle for listening to me and for Barbie and Greta and Albert Einstein and Aunty May and so on. Ignore this, even if you are wondering if Albert Einstein is Albert Einstein or in fact the dog. This will be followed by a short piece of prose that says When the night of the wolf waxes strong in the morning, the wise man is wary of a false dawn. Ka’a Orto’o, Gnomic Utterances Ignore this too (or, if really puzzled, look up GNOMIC UTTERANCES in the Toughpick section). Find the Map. 2. Examine the Map. It will show most of a continent (and sometimes part of another) with a large number of BAYS, OFFSHORE ISLANDS, an INLAND SEA or so and a sprinkle of TOWNS. There will be scribbly snakes that are probably RIVERS, and names made of CAPITAL LETTERS in curved lines that are not quite upside down. By bending your neck sideways you will be able to see that they say things like “Ca’ea Purt’wydyn” and “Om Ce’falos.” These may be names of COUNTRIES, but since most of the Map is bare it is hard to tell. These empty inland parts will be sporadically peppered with little molehills, invitingly labeled “Megamort Hills,” “Death Mountains, ”Hurt Range” and such, with a whole line of molehills near the top called “Great Northern Barrier.” Above this will be various warnings of danger. The rest of the Map’s space will be sparingly devoted to little tiny feathers called “Wretched Wood” and “Forest of Doom,” except for one space that appears to be growing minute hairs. This will be tersely labeled “Marshes.” This is mostly it. No, wait. If you are lucky, the Map will carry an arrow or compass-heading somewhere in the bit labeled “Outer Ocean” and this will show you which way up to hold it. But you will look in vain for INNS, reststops, or VILLAGES, or even ROADS. No – wait another minute – on closer examination, you will find the empty interior crossed by a few bird tracks. If you peer at these you will see they are (somewhere) labeled “Old Trade Road – Disused” and “Imperial Way – Mostly Long Gone.” Some of these routes appear to lead (or have lead) to small edifices enticingly titled “Ruin,” “Tower of Sorcery,” or “Dark Citadel,” but there is no scale of miles and no way of telling how long you might take on the way to see these places. In short, the Map is useless, but you are advised to keep consulting it, because it is the only one you will get. And, be warned. If you take this Tour, you are going to have to visit every single place on this Map, whether it is marked or not. This is a Rule. 3. Find your STARTING POINT. Let us say it is the town of Gna’ash. You will find it down in one corner on the coast, as far away from anywhere as possible. 4. Having found Gna’ash, you must at once set about finding an INN, Tour COMPANIONS, a meal of STEW, a CHAMBER for the night, and then the necessary TAVERN BRAWL. (If you look all these things up in the Toughpick section, you will know what you are in for.) The following morning, you must locate the MARKET and attempt to acquire CLOTHING (which absolutely must include a CLOAK), a SADDLE ROLL, WAYBREAD, WATERBOTTLES, a DAGGER, a SWORD, a HORSE, and a MERCHANT to take you along in his CARAVAN. You must resign yourself to being cheated over most prices and you are advised to consult a local MAGICIAN about your Sword. 5. You set off. Now you are on your own. You should turn to the Toughpick section of this brochure and select your Tour on a pick-and-mix basis, remembering only that you will have to take in all of it.
Diana Wynne Jones
Do you really believe that freedom of choice exists? India still has a caste system. Most of the Middle East treats women as inferiors and those who practice other religions as enemies. China regulates how many children couples can have, genocide abounds in South America and Africa, Malaysia has a booming underage sex trade, and the list goes on and on. All around the world the people in power abuse it and human rights are ignored. But what if we were incapable of hurting our fellow man? What if our core impulse was to help each other rather than control each other?
Jack Kilborn (Afraid (Afraid, #1))
14. ONE OR MORE OF THE SIX BASIC FEARS. These fears have been analyzed for you in a later chapter. They must be mastered before you can market your services effectively. 15. WRONG SELECTION OF A MATE IN MARRIAGE. This a most common cause of failure. The relationship of marriage brings people intimately into contact. Unless this relationship is harmonious, failure is likely to follow. Moreover, it will be a form of failure that is marked by misery and unhappiness, destroying all signs of AMBITION. 16. OVER-CAUTION. The person who takes no chances, generally has to take whatever is left when others are through choosing. Over-caution is as bad as un-der-caution. Both are extremes to be guarded against. Life itself is filled with the element of chance. 17. WRONG SELECTION OF ASSOCIATES IN BUSINESS. This is one of the most common causes of failure in business. In marketing personal services, one should use great care to select an employer who will be an inspiration, and who is, himself, intelligent and successful. We emulate those with whom we associate most closely. Pick an employer who is worth emulating. 18. SUPERSTITION AND PREJUDICE. Superstition is a form of fear. It is also a sign of ignorance. Men who succeed keep open minds and are afraid of nothing. 19. WRONG SELECTION OF A VOCATION. No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like. The most essential step in the marketing of personal services is that of selecting an occupation into which you can throw yourself wholeheartedly. 20. LACK OF CONCENTRATION OF EFFORT. The "jack-of-all-trades" seldom is good at any. Concentrate all of your efforts on one DEFINITE CHIEF AIM.
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich [Illustrated & Annotated])
I must go through life a jack of all trades, and wanting. Am I to be cursed with dilettantism till I die? [...] Am I, the most inveterate and consistent worshipper of the shrine of Beauty in all my life never to accomplish something beautiful?
John Phillips (Violet to Vita: The Letters of Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville-West, 1910-1921)
jack of all trades master of none but once you learn how to juggle you rarely drop the ball
Kristin Michelle Elizabeth (This Will Set Me Free)
The S curve is not just important as a model in its own right; it’s also the jack-of-all-trades of mathematics. If you zoom in on its midsection, it approximates a straight line. Many phenomena we think of as linear are in fact S curves, because nothing can grow without limit. Because of relativity, and contra Newton, acceleration does not increase linearly with force, but follows an S curve centered at zero. So does electric current as a function of voltage in the resistors found in electronic circuits, or in a light bulb (until the filament melts, which is itself another phase transition). If you zoom out from an S curve, it approximates a step function, with the output suddenly changing from zero to one at the threshold. So depending on the input voltages, the same curve represents the workings of a transistor in both digital computers and analog devices like amplifiers and radio tuners. The early part of an S curve is effectively an exponential, and near the saturation point it approximates exponential decay. When someone talks about exponential growth, ask yourself: How soon will it turn into an S curve? When will the population bomb peter out, Moore’s law lose steam, or the singularity fail to happen? Differentiate an S curve and you get a bell curve: slow, fast, slow becomes low, high, low. Add a succession of staggered upward and downward S curves, and you get something close to a sine wave. In fact, every function can be closely approximated by a sum of S curves: when the function goes up, you add an S curve; when it goes down, you subtract one. Children’s learning is not a steady improvement but an accumulation of S curves. So is technological change. Squint at the New York City skyline and you can see a sum of S curves unfolding across the horizon, each as sharp as a skyscraper’s corner. Most importantly for us, S curves lead to a new solution to the credit-assignment problem. If the universe is a symphony of phase transitions, let’s model it with one. That’s what the brain does: it tunes the system of phase transitions inside to the one outside. So let’s replace the perceptron’s step function with an S curve and see what happens.
Pedro Domingos (The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World)
When you’re undercover, you have to be a jack-of-all-trades. I’ve been everything from a cook to a chemical warfare specialist—though in the Army that’s not such a big difference.
Nelson DeMille (The General's Daughter)
All of this,” he said. “Marrying your ‘old menace’, choosing to bind yourself to me—someone far beneath you. All of this trouble only to visit and establish trade with our enemies? Why wouldn’t you choose a partner who could be your shield? A member of the guard, perhaps?” He’s being ridiculously logical, Adaira thought. She wondered how to reply to him. She wanted to tell him that she could see through him—he was holding to logic in order to keep his emotions at bay. But then she saw the glint of doubt in him. She saw the hurt in his eyes. He was hiding a wound. He had never felt claimed; he had never felt as if he belonged here. She vividly remembered him saying those words to her. “You’re right,” she said. “I could choose a member of the guard to bind myself to. I could choose anyone in the east who is eligible. Yet there’s a problem with such a choice, Jack.” He was quiet. She could sense the battle raging with him, to remain aloof and uninterested, or to ask her to explain. “What problem do you speak of, Adaira?” he eventually said. “None of them are the one that I want.
Rebecca Ross (A River Enchanted (Elements of Cadence, #1))
A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.
Anonymous
The best trades are the ones in which you have all three things going for you: fundamentals, technicals, and market tone.
Jack D. Schwager (Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders)
Dan Pink’s three elements of intrinsic motivation: autonomy (quashed by constant juggling of requests and priorities from multiple teams), mastery (“jack of all trades, master of none”), and purpose (too many domains of responsibility).
Matthew Skelton (Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow)
11. Lack of controlled sexual urge. Sex energy is the most powerful of all the stimuli which move people into action. Because it is the most powerful of the emotions, it must be controlled, through transmutation, and converted into other channels. 12. Uncontrolled desire for “something for nothing.” The gambling instinct drives millions of people to failure. Evidence of this may be found in a study of the Wall Street crash of ’29, during which millions of people tried to make money by gambling on stock margins. 13. Lack of a well defined power of decision. Men who succeed reach decisions promptly, and change them, if at all, very slowly. Men who fail reach decisions, if at all, very slowly, and change them frequently, and quickly. Indecision and procrastination are twin brothers. Where one is found, the other may usually be found also. Kill off this pair before they completely “hog-tie” you to the treadmill of failure. 14. One or more of the six basic fears. These fears have been analyzed for you in a later chapter. They must be mastered before you can market your services effectively. 15. Wrong selection of a mate in marriage. This is a most common cause of failure. The relationship of marriage brings people intimately into contact. Unless this relationship is harmonious, failure is likely to follow. Moreover, it will be a form of failure that is marked by misery and unhappiness, destroying all signs of ambition. 16. Over-caution. The person who takes no chances generally has to take whatever is left when others are through choosing. Over-caution is as bad as under-caution. Both are extremes to be guarded against. Life itself is filled with the element of chance. 17. Wrong selection of associates in business. This is one of the most common causes of failure in business. In marketing personal services, one should use great care to select an employer who will be an inspiration, and who is, himself, intelligent and successful. We emulate those with whom we associate most closely. Pick an employer who is worth emulating. 18. Superstition and prejudice. Superstition is a form of fear. It is also a sign of ignorance. Men who succeed keep open minds and are afraid of nothing. 19. Wrong selection of a vocation. No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like. The most essential step in the marketing of personal services is that of selecting an occupation into which you can throw yourself wholeheartedly. 20. Lack of concentration of effort. The jack-of-all-trades seldom is good at any. Concentrate all of your efforts on one definite chief aim.
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
Great entrepreneurs are the jack of all trades, master of some.
Arian Adeli Koodehi
A jack-of-all-trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.
David Epstein (Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World)
One decision about team composition that early-stage startups often wrestle with is whether to hire for attitude or skill. This is a delicate balance. If founders hire mostly for attitude, their team will be comprised of highly motivated, hardworking, jack-of-all-trade generalists who will shift readily between tasks as circumstances require. Hiring for cultural fit can yield similar results,
Tom Eisenmann (Why Startups Fail: A New Roadmap for Entrepreneurial Success)
All journalists stand on the shoulders of giants, whether they admit it or not. In many cases, my book was vastly enhanced by the superlative work of other journalists, writers, and financial historians, who have themselves explored some of the subjects and themes I have tried to knit together in one sweeping narrative. Peter Bernstein is a huge inspiration, and his books were of tremendous help for some of the earlier chapters, as was Colin Read’s The Efficient Market Hypothesists. Lewis Braham’s biography of Jack Bogle is essential reading for anyone interested in the tumultuous life of Vanguard’s founder. Ralph Lehman’s The Elusive Trade was exhaustively detailed on the genesis of ETFs, and Anthony Bianco’s The Big Lie vividly tells the story of WFIA/BGI in the Pattie Dunn era. I have also learned an enormous amount from working with or admiring from afar financial journalists like John Authers, Gillian Tett, James Mackintosh, Philip Coggan, and Jason Zweig, as well as industry experts such as Deborah Fuhr, Ben Johnson, Eric Balchunas, and David Nadig. They are all titans upon whose shoulders I nervously perch.
Robin Wigglesworth (Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever)
She knew she was seeing the result of Thomas’s rigorous training, but to create a perfect sculpture, the clay had to be right. Her monk had found her a Renaissance man, a jack-of-all-trades confident enough to teach himself whatever he needed to learn, or find someone to teach him by experience.
Joey W. Hill (The Vampire Queen's Servant (Vampire Queen, #1))
While it is possible to be competent with both hands in a given activity, ambidexterity works on the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-jack principle.
Shehan Karunatilaka (The Legend of Pradeep Mathew: A Novel)
depth of knowledge is important, but people who have depth without breadth do not become the sort of jack-of-all-trades that a founder needs to be.39
Noam Wasserman (The Founder's Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup)
years old or thereabouts, may she be spared. Still alive. She did a little singing way back and she sang with old Blind Blake many a time.” “She did?” I said. “She sang with him?” “She sure did,” said the gnarled old guy. “She sang with just about anybody passing through. You got to remember this old town lay right on the big road to Atlanta. That old county road out there used to come on down through here straight on south into Florida. It was the only route through Georgia north to south. Of course now you got the highway runs right by without stopping off, and you got airplanes and all. No importance to Margrave now, nobody coming on through anymore.” “So Blind Blake stopped off here?” I prompted him. “And your sister sang with him?” “Everybody used to stop off here,” he said. “North side of town was just pretty much a mess of bars and rooming houses to cater to the folks passing through. All these fancy gardens between here and the firehouse is where the bars and rooming houses used to be. All tore down now, or else all fell down. Been no passing trade at all for a real long time. But back then, it was a different kind of a town altogether. Streams of people in and out, the whole time. Workers, crop pickers, drummers, fighters, hoboes, truckers, musicians. All kinds of those guys used to stop off and play and my old sister would be right in there
Lee Child (Killing Floor (Jack Reacher, #1))
Your calling is not just one thing; it’s a few things. The trick is to not be a jack-of-all-trades but to become a master of some.
Jeff Goins (The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do)
A generalizing specialist is more than just a generalist. A generalist is a jack-of-all-trades but a master of none, whereas a generalizing specialist is a jack-of-all-trades and master of a few. Big difference.
Jan Jursa (UX Storytellers - Connecting the Dots)
I know something about everything and everything about something, a jack-of-all-trades and master of one.
Anonymous
People know that Jacks of All Trades are Masters of None, and people seek out masters. They trust specialists. Try to appeal to thousands, and you will appeal strongly to no one. Find a niche.
Harry Beckwith (You, Inc.: The Art of Selling Yourself)
They were also lucky to have two electricians. Well, one really. The other was mostly a jack-of-all-trades. Funny how in this new reality, all those fancy university degrees weren’t good for more than wiping your ass with. Soon, it would be the tradesmen who would rule the world.
Griffin Hayes (Primal Shift: Volume 2 (A Post Apocalyptic Thriller) (Primal Shift -Box set))
It’s like Jack Kennedy,” DeMarco said to Emma. “All the rumors about Joe Kennedy being a bootlegger and having ties to the mob and getting rich on insider trading never really hurt Jack. It sounds like the same thing with Stephanie. By the time she jumped onto the political stage, her old man was dead, his money had been laundered clean, she had nothing to do with his past life.
Mike Lawson (House Reckoning (Joe DeMarco #9))
I wanted to be an Author...Now I'm an Author, Marketing apprentice, Jack of all trades and master of none!
Miriam Davison (BLUSHES, BLUNDERS, AND BAGPIPES: Hilarious and heartwarming)
Back trouble was the curse of the builder and
Derek Smith (Jack of All Trades (Jack of All Trades #1))
wasn’t that the way with every builder? No one had all the skills. You come in as a carpenter and they want more and more of you. Plastering, plumbing, roofing. So you say yes to get the work.
Derek Smith (Jack of All Trades (Jack of All Trades #1))
Social workers are bastards,
Derek Smith (Jack of All Trades (Jack of All Trades #1))
he himself would have fought back. Not easy when you’re naked,
Derek Smith (Jack of All Trades (Jack of All Trades #1))
England being England, weather is changeable.
Derek Smith (Jack of All Trades (Jack of All Trades #1))
Beautiful, they extolled, that much bandied word, that should be restricted to descriptions of children, flowers and birds of paradise.
Derek Smith (Jack of All Trades (Jack of All Trades #1))
filth was one of the things that turned you off sex. Smell and stains.
Derek Smith (Jack of All Trades (Jack of All Trades #1))
Twenty-two guys chasing a ball and a whole crowd screaming their heads off. It was an absurd ritual,
Derek Smith (Jack of All Trades (Jack of All Trades #1))
When he demanded gold, the Indians brought him copper, and when he demanded silver, they brought him silvery mica, which they mined in the North Carolina mountains, in sheets up to three feet wide and three feet long. De Soto found little precious metal, but an abundance of pearls, especially in the mortuary temples. In one town alone his expedition found 25,000 pounds of pearls. The mortuary temples of the people of Cutifachiqui astounded the Spaniards, who had already seen the cathedrals of Spain, the mosques and fountains of the Arabs, the palace of Montezuma in Mexico, and the gold ransom of Atahualpa in Peru. Outside the massive doors into the temple that housed the pearls, twelve wooden giants stood guard. The huge figures held over their heads massive clubs covered with strips of copper and studded with what appeared to the Spaniards to be diamonds, but may have been mica chips. The Indians had decorated the roof of one temple with pearls and feathers so that it looked to the Spaniards like a building from a fairy tale. Along the sides of the roof, pearls had been suspended from threads so thin that the pearls seemed to be floating in the air around the temple. Inside the temples the Spaniards saw rows of chests, each filled with pearls of uniform size. The Spaniards could not carry all the pearls, but they selected out the best ones for themselves. Ironically, even though De Soto’s expedition was the first into the area, his men also found in the temple some European trade goods—glass, cheap beads, and a rosary—indicating
Jack Weatherford (Native Roots: How the Indians Enriched America)
You texted Garcia for help?" Jack gritted out. "Garcia? Not me?" "He has a gun." "So do I." "He's steady and reliable," I said. "He doesn't disappear for eight months. He doesn't go on business trips that require burner phones and secret codes. He doesn't refuse to tell me what he does for a living. I texted HELP and I knew he'd come. I wasn't sure about you." "You don't think I would have come if you'd texted me for help?" Indignation laced Jack's tone. "For all I knew, you were being tossed out a window in Rio, tortured by the Italian Mafia in Tuscany, or you were in the North Sea trapped in a Russian submarine." "The Italian Mafia are based in Sicily," he corrected me. "Tuscany doesn't have the port access they need for the drug trade." I folded my arms and sighed. "You missed the point entirely.
Sara Desai ('Til Heist Do Us Part (Simi Chopra #2))
Creeping Charlie was the real rock star, though, according to Dad. It thrived in the shade on the edge of forests and sometimes on rocky soil, and the world saw it as a greedy invader. They didn't know, Dad said, that creeping Charlie was a jack-of-all-trades. It kept soil from sliding, sure, but also its dry leaves could be made into a tea that was great for colds and coughs. Eaten fresh or boiled, the leaves were a delicious source of vitamin C. But that was just the start. Creeping Charlie, and most ground ivy, was magic. It had strong antibacterial properties, rid the body of excess mucus, was an astringent and diuretic, could be turned into a balm that sped up healing, and treated everything from tuberculosis to tumors to tinnitus.
Jess Lourey (Litani)
Months before his Davos debut, Xi had struck a different tone in a speech to Chinese tech titans and Communist Party leaders in Beijing for a conference on “cyber security and informatization.” To an audience that included Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, Alibaba CEO Jack Ma, high-profile People’s Liberation Army (PLA) researchers, and most of China’s political elite, Xi exhorted China to focus on “gaining breakthroughs in core technology as quickly as possible.” Above all, “core technology” meant semiconductors. Xi didn’t call for a trade war, but his vision didn’t sound like trade peace, either. “We must promote strong alliances and attack strategic passes in a coordinated manner. We must assault the fortifications of core technology research and development…. We must not only call forth the assault, we must also sound the call for assembly, which means that we must concentrate the most powerful forces to act together, compose shock brigades and special forces to storm the passes.” Donald Trump, it turned out, wasn’t the only world leader who mixed martial metaphors with economic policy. The chip industry faced an organized assault by the world’s second-largest economy and the one-party state that ruled it.
Chris Miller (Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology)
Types of Forex Strategy Traders Figuring out how to exchange isn't simple particularly with regards to the unfamiliar trade market. You will presumably need to learn it through a Forex exchanging framework. A few people believe that dealers are jack of all methodologies of exchanging yet that is not how things work. The way to fruitful exchanging is to turn into the expert of a couple of exchanging techniques. These couple of exchanging methodologies can take you far. Forex procedure dealer frameworks are broadly utilized by various individuals since they give you structure, a bunch of rules and an arrangement to follow as well. There are sure techniques that are at present utilized in the Forex market and they can even cause you to pick what Forex system broker would be best for you to make due in this market. Indicator Driving Trading Systems These exchanging bargains are planned by the individuals who look at that as a specific set up is working at the present time, yet utilizing this framework calls for wary managing. That is on the grounds that it simply works for the current second. This Forex exchanging framework can't give you uphold for quite a while. The framework utilizes pointers for producing an exchanging signal against the value activity. The pointers consistently slack and subsequently, they will in general give late just as false signals. They are not forward-thinking regardless. Something to be thankful for about this exchanging bargain is that it takes a gander at the graphs and numerous beginner merchants think that it’s valuable and enticing. They think of it as' not difficult to utilize and comprehend. Harmonic trading system The Harmonic trading system framework perceives value designs with the Fibonacci augmentations just as following data and afterward it figures the defining moments in the business sectors. It is an intricate type of exchanging which will call for significant practice. On the off chance that you ace it by training, at that point you will discover it among outstanding amongst other exchanging frameworks as it can offer more significant yields against the danger. You can utilize it for exchanging any sort of market. Technical Trading Systems These are perhaps the most ordinarily utilized exchanging bargains that are basic among Forex merchants. They incorporate climbing triangles, banner examples, shoulder examples, heads and various different examples to allow you to exchange the business sectors. These exchanging frameworks are truly useful and you utilize monetary information from earlier years to anticipate the market patterns and take an action. The Forex technique broker or the Forex exchanging frameworks empower you to ensure that you don't lose while you exchange from the solace of your own home. In any case, be certain that Forex exchanging frameworks are not lucrative aides. You actually need to utilize your own insight in exchanging and assemble loads of exchanging data request to put your cash in the perfect spot. Exchanging isn't some tea. On the off chance that you think by utilizing the exchanging gives you can guarantee making enormous amounts of cash, at that point you are incorrect. You should utilize your experience and viable information to guarantee that the Forex procedure broker you use demonstrates to control you in productive exchanging.
Mark Smith
A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one".
Viktor Vicsek
jack-of-all-trades,
Karen M. McManus (One of Us Is Lying (One of Us is Lying, #1))
There are about 8 billion people in this world at least 1 million would love to meet you, you just haven’t found each other yet.
Jack of All Trades
They sought not merely to conquer the world but to institute a global order based on free trade, a single international law, and a universal alphabet with which to write all languages.
Jack Weatherford (Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World)
Lack of concentration of effort. The “jack-of-all-trades” seldom is good at any. Concentrate all of your efforts on one definite chief aim.
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
Where great minds of science failed, Parisian foodie and confectioner Nicolas Appert prevailed. Appert was a “jack of all trades,” according to the Can Manufacturers Institute. He had traversed the gustatory universe as a candy maker, vintner, chef, brewer, pickle maker, and more. His exceptionally wide-ranging culinary wanderings gave him an advantage over scientists who focused on the science of preservation. “Having spent my days in the pantries, the breweries, store-houses, and cellars of Champagne, as well as in the shops, manufactories, and warehouses of confectioners, distillers, and grocers,” he wrote in the aptly titled Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances for Several Years, “I have been able to avail myself, in my process, of a number of advantages, which the greater number of those persons have not possessed, who have devoted themselves to the art of preserving provisions.
David Epstein (Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World)
He’s part of the gig economy of the criminal underworld, you could say. A real jack of all trades.
Antti Tuomainen (The Moose Paradox (The Rabbit Factor series Book 2))
You’re lucky. I wish I were so smart.” Maybe then I could graduate early and help my parents that much sooner. “Except I can’t even decide on a major.” “Why not? She blinks. “It’s hard to explain. I’m . . .” She glances away and then back. “I’m a polymath.” “A what now?” “It’s a person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning. Someone whose expertise spans a significant number of subject areas. The term itself is a derivative of poly, meaning many, and manthanein, a Greek verb meaning to learn.” I stare at her. “Reese, this is amazing.” She won’t meet my eyes. Instead, she picks up the pillow and holds it in her lap, fidgeting with the fabric at the corner. “You can literally do anything.” “But don’t you see?” Her eyes meet mine, flashing in frustration. “It’s impossible to pick only one thing. Our current global economy is hyperspecialized, while I’m a student of all things but a master of none. My parents are brilliant artists. Scarlett is a brilliant chef. I am more of a jack-of-all-trades. I can’t find any one specific thing I want to learn or excel at above all others.” “Huh. I still can’t see this as a disadvantage. You’re so smart that the sky is the limit.” “But the whole point of college and picking a career is to find that limit. Isn’t it?” “I don’t know.” I never thought about it that way. “I think it’s more than that. It’s about doing something you enjoy, something you feel passionate about.
Mary Frame (Ridorkulous (Dorky Duet #1))
Jack, I'm going to tell you a story. A runner took a book to a famous dealer and said: 'I've got something rare here.' 'Yes,' replied the dealer, 'but customers who want it are rarer.' Then my book is worth nothing? Nothing whatsoever. It's a volume of old sermons, which in the trade are pretty well unsaleable. Your book is a first edition all right, and probably there never was a second, for obvious reasons.
Bernard Farmer (Death of a Bookseller)
Jack-of-all-trades, master of none. "You think you'll ever try living with your dad again?" "Please. I'm not into self-inflicted pain." The sea does not like to be restrained. If you are the son of Poseidon, you would not fear water. Jump, Percy Jackson. Deception upon deception.
Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson 5 Books Collection and The Demigod Files)
Misery is easy. There’s always a reason to wallow, for no life is perfect. It takes work to smile and laugh and be happy despite the world telling you to surrender. Happiness isn’t about circumstances, and it doesn’t happen by chance.
M.A. Nichols (The Jack of All Trades (The Finches, #1; Generations of Love, #8))
Happiness isn’t about circumstances, and it doesn’t happen by chance.
M.A. Nichols (The Jack of All Trades (The Finches, #1; Generations of Love, #8))
James here singles out for disapproval “a pessimistic principle like Schopenhauer’s incurably vicious Will-substance, or Hartmann’s wicked jack-of-all-trades, the Unconscious.” The trouble with determinism, fatalism, pessimism, the unconscious, and materialism is that in our better hours we feel such limited and limiting forces to be “so incommensurate with our most intimate powers as to deny them all relevancy in human affairs.” Each explains away the objects of our thought or translates them “into terms of no emotional pertinency, [leaving] the mind with little to care or act for.”4 James pins his argument to daily life. “It is far too little recognized how entirely the intellect is built up of practical interests,” he writes. “Cognition is incomplete until discharged in act.”5
Robert D. Richardson Jr. (William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism)
Truth was a fickle thing. Though called immutable, one’s perspective colored it. Altering it. Twisting it. Even if one believed themselves impartial or a defender of it, so much of what was deemed “true” was merely the world as one perceived it.
M.A. Nichols (The Jack of All Trades (The Finches, #1; Generations of Love, #8))