Most Renowned Quotes

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Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities.
Ludwig von Mises
Discipline isn't a dirty word. Far from it. Discipline is the one thing that separates us from chaos and anarchy. Discipline implies timing. It's the precursor to good behavior, and it never comes from bad behavior. People who associate discipline with punishment are wrong: with discipline, punishment is unnecessary.
Buck Brannaman (The Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
Xie Lian dared say that even the most renowned of sculptors of Xianle back then would not be able to carve to this level of excellence. It was as if the sculptor’s mind was completely filled with this person, and his eyes only saw this person.
墨香铜臭 (天官赐福 [Tiān Guān Cì Fú])
In life, we don't know why things happen. I believe God is not responsible for the bad things that happen to you. Sometimes I think He's responsible for the good things, but sometimes it's something you shape up for yourself.
Buck Brannaman (The Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
They say nerves heal real slowly. Lots of things about us heal real slowly.
Buck Brannaman (The Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
A thousand years or more ago, When I was newly sewn, There lived four wizards of renown, Whose name are still well-known: Bold Gryffindor from wild moor, Fair Ravlenclaw from glen, Sweet Hufflepuff from valley broad, Shrewd Slytherin from fen. They share a wish, a hope, a dream, They hatched a daring plan, To educate young sorcerers, Thus Hogwarts school began. Now each of these four founders Formed their own house, for each Did value different virtues, In the ones they had to teach. By Gryffindor, the bravest were Prized far beyond the rest; For Ravenclaw, the cleverest Would always be the best; For Hufflepuff, hardworkers were Most worthy of admission; And power-hungry Slytherin Loved those of great ambition. While still alive they did divide Their favourates from the throng, Yet how to pick the worthy ones When they were dead and gone? 'Twas Gryffindor who found the way, He whipped me off his head The founders put some brains in me So I could choose instead! Now slip me snug around your ears, I've never yet been wrong, I'll have alook inside your mind And tell where you belong!
J.K. Rowling
The road may bend out of sight at times, but I know what lies ahead: the faraway horses.
Buck Brannaman (The Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
As a rider, you must slowly and methodically show your horse what is appropriate. You also have to discourage what's inappropriate, not by making the inappropriate impossible, but by making it difficult so that the horse himself chooses appropriate behavior. You can't choose it for him; you can only make it difficult for him to make the wrong choices. If, however, you make it impossible for him to make the wrong choices, you're making war.
Buck Brannaman (The Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
Timing is everything.
Buck Brannaman (The Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. I desperately wanted mercy for Jimmy Dill and would have done anything to create justice for him, but I couldn’t pretend that his struggle was disconnected from my own. The ways in which I have been hurt—and have hurt others—are different from the ways Jimmy Dill suffered and caused suffering. But our shared brokenness connected us. Paul Farmer, the renowned physician who has spent his life trying to cure the world’s sickest and poorest people, once quoted me something that the writer Thomas Merton said: We are bodies of broken bones. I guess I’d always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity. I thought of the guards strapping Jimmy Dill to the gurney that very hour. I thought of the people who would cheer his death and see it as some kind of victory. I realized they were broken people, too, even if they would never admit it. So many of us have become afraid and angry. We’ve become so fearful and vengeful that we’ve thrown away children, discarded the disabled, and sanctioned the imprisonment of the sick and the weak—not because they are a threat to public safety or beyond rehabilitation but because we think it makes us seem tough, less broken. I thought of the victims of violent crime and the survivors of murdered loved ones, and how we’ve pressured them to recycle their pain and anguish and give it back to the offenders we prosecute. I thought of the many ways we’ve legalized vengeful and cruel punishments, how we’ve allowed our victimization to justify the victimization of others. We’ve submitted to the harsh instinct to crush those among us whose brokenness is most visible. But simply punishing the broken—walking away from them or hiding them from sight—only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity.
Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption)
It is well known that geometry presupposes not only the concept of space but also the first fundamental notions for constructions in space as given in advance. It only gives nominal definitions for them, while the essential means of determining them appear in the form of axioms. The relationship of these presumptions is left in the dark; one sees neither whether and in how far their connection is necessary, nor a priori whether it is possible. From Euclid to Legendre, to name the most renowned of modern writers on geometry, this darkness has been lifted neither by the mathematicians nor the philosophers who have laboured upon it.
Bernhard Riemann
You see, I figured it's probably too much to hope that New Beijing's most renowned mechanic is having trouble with her port, so I figured there must be something wrong with mine." Screwing up his lips, he whapped the corner of is portscreen on the table, then check the screen again with a heavy sigh. "Nope, nothing. Maybe she's been ignoring my comms on purpose.
Marissa Meyer (Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles, #1))
You are merchants?’ ‘We are.’ ‘What name?’ said the officer. ‘Charls,’ said Damen, who was the only merchant he knew. ‘You are Charls the renowned Veretian cloth merchant?’ said the officer sceptically, as if this was a name well known to him. ‘No,’ said Laurent, as if this was the most foolish thing in the world. ‘I am Charls the renowned Veretian cloth merchant. This is my assistant. Lamen.’ In the silence, the officer tracked his gaze over Laurent, then over Damen. (...) ‘Well, Charls,’ he said, eventually. ‘It looks like you’ve got a broken axel.’ ‘I don’t suppose your men could aid us in our repairs?’ said Laurent. Damen stared at him. They were encircled by fifty mounted Akielon soldiers. Jokaste was inside that wagon. The officer said, ‘We’re patrolling for Damianos of Akielos.’ ‘Who’s Damianos of Akielos?’ said Laurent. His face was utterly open, his blue eyes unblinking, upturned to the officer on his horse. ‘He’s the King’s son,’ Damen heard himself saying, ‘Kastor’s brother.’ ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lamen. Prince Damianos is dead,’ said Laurent. ‘He is hardly the man to whom this officer is referring.’ Then, to the officer: ‘I apologise for my assistant. He doesn’t keep up with Akielon affairs.
C.S. Pacat (Kings Rising (Captive Prince, #3))
In his frenzied thoughts, he couldn’t help thinking of Cinder at the ball. How happy he’d been to see her descending the stairs into the ball room. How innocently amused he’d been at her rain-drenched hair and wrinkled dress, thinking it was a fitting look for the city’s most renowned mechanic. He’d thought she must be immune to society’s whims of fashion and decorum. So comfortable in her own skin that she could come to a royal ball as the emperor’s own guest with messy hair and oil stains on her gloves and keep her head high as she did so.
Marissa Meyer (Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles, #2))
The important thing is to make sure the last word you have with the horse is good for both of you.
Buck Brannaman (Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
As parents, we have a chance when our children are young to turn them into good citizens rather than wait for the government to raise them for us.
Buck Brannaman (Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
Dune Messiah is the most misunderstood of Frank Herbert's novels. The reasons for this are as fascinating and complex as the renowned author himself.
Brian Herbert
When working with a horse, particularly a troubled horse, you’ll notice that he will spend a good portion of his time avoiding contact, physical and mental.
Buck Brannaman (Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
Tis said that Chowmushih slept in a boat so that his dreams might mingle with those of the lotus. It was the same spirit which moved the Empress Komio, one of our most renowned Nara sovereigns, as she sang: "If I pluck thee, my hand will defile thee, O flower! Standing in the meadows as thou art, I offer thee to the Buddhas of the past, of the present, of the future.
Kakuzō Okakura (The Book of Tea)
There must have been some mistake. It took me a while to get a flight here, so I can see why you would have appointed a community lawyer to fill in.” “Community lawyer!” Damon’s face grew red with indignation. “I’m one of the most renowned lawyers among American Moroi.” “Renowned, community.” Abe shrugged and leaned back on his heals. “I don’t judge. No pun intended.” Mead, Richelle (2010-05-18). Spirit Bound: A Vampire Academy Novel (p. 475). Penguin Young Readers Group. Kindle Edition.
Richelle Mead (Spirit Bound (Vampire Academy, #5))
Roma’s eyes flared. “You’re saying Einstein was even more wrong?” Retina shook his head. “Einstein was acting within physical bounds. I’m talking invisible, not visible light. Can we factor in the speed of invisible light?” Roma shook his head. “What are you saying?” “We’re always limited by the scope of our senses, our perceptions and its scientific perfections. But in this parallel we call universe there are scopes beyond our perceptive realities or possible realities. Einstein was not wrong but was limited in scope. There is a realm beyond our visible spectrum where time is imperceptible because space is without measure. And in that realm, matter and energy are not intricately related. Matter has no form and is ill recognizable as essence or existence. Energy is all there is.” Roma held a frown. “Who’s been feeding you that Spiritualist crap?” “Dr. Ian Skript, the most renowned Spiritualist scientist I know.
Dew Platt (Roma&retina)
Keep a list before your mind of those who burned with anger and resentment about something, of even the most renowned for success, misfortune, evil deeds, or any special distinction. Then ask yourself, how did that work out? Smoke and dust, the stuff of simple myth trying to be legend …
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living: Featuring new translations of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius)
But thou shalt leave it all behind thee! It shall not cumber thy steps, as thou treadest along the forest-path; neither shalt thou freight the ship with it, if thou prefer to cross the sea. Leave this wreck and ruin here where it hath happened! Meddle no more with it! Begin all anew! Hast thou exhausted possibility in the failure of this one trial? Not so! The future is yet full of trial and success. There is happiness to be enjoyed! There is good to be done! Exchange this false life of thine for a true one. Be, if thy spirit summons thee to such a mission, the teacher and apostle of the red men. Or,—as is more thy nature,—be a scholar and a sage among the wisest and the most renowned of the cultivated world. Preach! Write! Act! Do any thing, save to lie down and die! Give up this name of Arthur Dimmesdale, and make thyself another, and a high one, such as thou canst wear without fear or shame. Why shouldst thou tarry so much as one other day in the torments that have so gnawed into thy life!—that have made thee feeble to will and to do!—that will leave thee powerless even to repent! Up, and away!
Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter)
Most of you who are reading this book feel a deep-down ancient bond, a connection between yourself and horses.
Buck Brannaman (Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
Alexander's mere name and the fame of his feats raised rulers and realms across virtually the whole world. And those who kept control of even the slightest slice of his huge heritage were reckoned most renowned.
Andrew Chugg (The Death of Alexander the Great: A Reconstruction of Cleitarchus)
Relieved beyond measure, Sebastian spread his long fingers over the shape of Evie’s thigh. “Riddance,” he managed to mutter, as the door closed behind Hammond. Evie was obviously torn between laughter and tears as she looked down at him. “You stubborn ass,” she said, her eyes wet. “We’ve just managed to drive off one of the most renowned doctors in London. Anyone else we find is going to want to bleed you as well. Who should I send for now? A white witch? A shaman? A Covent Garden fortune-teller?” Using the last of his strength, Sebastian managed to drag her hand up to his mouth. “You,” he whispered, holding her fingers to his lips. “Just you.
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Winter (Wallflowers, #3))
Once Buck gets a saddle on a young clinic horse he goes through all the same actions he had previously done with the horse unsaddled. This is to reinforce that the horse has nothing to fear after the saddle is cinched up.
Buck Brannaman (Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
If the horse hurts an owner, the animal gets the blame. The BLM also created a program in which prisoners are given the opportunity to work with captive wild horses. They gentle them and get them to the point where they are ridable. This is an excellent idea.
Buck Brannaman (Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
It is a mistake to think of the expatriate as someone who abdicates, who withdraws and humbles himself, resigned to his miseries, his outcast state. On a closer look, he turns out to be ambitious, aggressive in his disappointments, his very acrimony qualified by his belligerence. The more we are dispossessed, the more intense our appetites and illusions become. I even discern some relation between misfortune and megalomania. The man who has lost everything preserves as a last resort the hope of glory, or of literary scandal. He consents to abandon everything, except his name. [ . . . ] Let us say a man writes a novel which makes him, overnight, a celebrity. In it he recounts his sufferings. His compatriots in exile envy him: they too have suffered, perhaps more. And the man without a country becomes—or aspires to become—a novelist. The consequence: an accumulation of confusions, an inflation of horrors, of frissons that date. One cannot keep renewing Hell, whose very characteristic is monotony, or the face of exile either. Nothing in literature exasperates a reader so much as The Terrible; in life, it too is tainted with the obvious to rouse our interest. But our author persists; for the time being he buries his novel in a drawer and awaits his hour. The illusion of surprise, of a renown which eludes his grasp but on which he reckons, sustains him; he lives on unreality. Such, however, is the power of this illusion that if, for instance, he works in some factory, it is with the notion of being freed from it one day or another by a fame as sudden as it is inconceivable. * Equally tragic is the case of the poet. Walled up in his own language, he writes for his friends—for ten, for twenty persons at the most. His longing to be read is no less imperious than that of the impoverished novelist. At least he has the advantage over the latter of being able to get his verses published in the little émigré reviews which appear at the cost of almost indecent sacrifices and renunciations. Let us say such a man becomes—transforms himself—into an editor of such a review; to keep his publication alive he risks hunger, abstains from women, buries himself in a windowless room, imposes privations which confound and appall. Tuberculosis and masturbation, that is his fate. No matter how scanty the number of émigrés, they form groups, not to protect their interests but to get up subscriptions, to bleed each other white in order to publish their regrets, their cries, their echoless appeals. One cannot conceive of a more heart rending form of the gratuitous. That they are as good poets as they are bad prose writers is to be accounted for readily enough. Consider the literary production of any "minor" nation which has not been so childish as to make up a past for itself: the abundance of poetry is its most striking characteristic. Prose requires, for its development, a certain rigor, a differentiated social status, and a tradition: it is deliberate, constructed; poetry wells up: it is direct or else totally fabricated; the prerogative of cave men or aesthetes, it flourishes only on the near or far side of civilization, never at the center. Whereas prose demands a premeditated genius and a crystallized language, poetry is perfectly compatible with a barbarous genius and a formless language. To create a literature is to create a prose.
Emil M. Cioran (The Temptation to Exist)
In the space of eighteen months three of the most renowned cities of the Arab world - Tripoli, Beirut, and Saida - had been taken and sacked, their inhabitants massacred or deported, their emirs, qadis[judges], and experts on religious law killed or forced into exile, their mosques profaned.
Amin Maalouf (The Crusades Through Arab Eyes)
But Horace’s most renowned phrase, quoted extensively in the movie Dead Poets Society, appears in Ode 1.11. ‘Carpe diem’, says Horace in the last line: pluck the day, trusting as little as possible in the next. Life is short, in other words, and don’t you forget it. His two-word phrase is almost invariably translated as ‘seize the day’.
Natalie Haynes (The Ancient Guide to Modern Life)
Of all the children of Finwë he is justly most renowned: for his valour was as a fire and yet as steadfast as the hills of stone; wise he was and skilled in voice and hand; troth and justice he loved and bore good will to all, both Elves and Men, hating Morgoth only; he sought not his own, neither power nor glory, and death was his reward.
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lost Road and Other Writings (The History of Middle-Earth, #5))
The heroic and often tragic stories of American whalemen were renowned. They sailed the world’s oceans and brought back tales filled with bravery, perseverance, endurance, and survival. They mutinied, murdered, rioted, deserted, drank, sang, spun yarns, scrimshawed, and recorded their musings and observations in journals and letters. They survived boredom, backbreaking work, tempestuous seas, floggings, pirates, putrid food, and unimaginable cold. Enemies preyed on them in times of war, and competitors envied them in times of peace. Many whalemen died from violent encounters with whales and from terrible miscalculations about the unforgiving nature of nature itself. And through it all, whalemen, those “iron men in wooden boats” created a legacy of dramatic, poignant, and at times horrific stories that can still stir our emotions and animate the most primal part of our imaginations. “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme,” proclaimed Herman Melville, and the epic story of whaling is one of the mightiest themes in American history.
Eric Jay Dolin (Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America)
physicians, Drs. Bill Castelli, Bill Roberts and Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr., that in their long careers they had never seen a heart disease fatality among their patients who had blood cholesterol levels below 150 mg/dL. Dr. Castelli was the long-time director of the famous Framingham Heart Study of NIH; Dr. Esselstyn was a renowned surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic who did a remarkable study reversing heart disease (chapter five); Dr. Roberts has long been editor of the prestigious medical journal Cardiology. BLOOD CHOLESTEROL AND DIET
T. Colin Campbell (The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health)
Dune Messiah is the most misunderstood of Frank Herbert's novels. The reasons for this are as fascinating and complex as the renowned author himself. (Brian Herbert's Introduction)
Frank Herbert (Dune Messiah (Dune Chronicles, #2))
Since most of us are products of a culture and era where nobody likes to discuss death in case it encourages her to visit,
Sue Black (All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes)
This is one of the reasons science has made such dramatic progress. An undergraduate science major today knows more about science and math than did Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most renowned scientists who ever lived. Even in this introductory astronomy course, you will learn about objects and processes that no one a few generations ago even dreamed existed.
Andrew Fraknoi (Astronomy)
Most people either say that they agree with Bernard Shaw or that they do not understand him. I am the only person who understands him, and I do not agree with him. G. K. C.
George Bernard Shaw (George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren's Profession, ... and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion)
Without considering the repercussions, Alex let out a deep, resigned sigh. And received a needle in the backside for it. “Ouch!” Madame Fernaud may have been considered the most renowned dressmaker in all of England, but Alex knew better. Clearly, the Frenchwoman was waging a quiet war against her British enemies by poking the young maidens of London to death. This
Sarah MacLean (The Season)
Virgil certainly is held to be a great poet; in fact he is regarded as the best and the most renowned of all poets, and for that reason he is read by children at an early age-they take great draughts of his poetry into their unformed minds, so that they may not easily forget him, for, as Horace remarks, "New vessels will for long retain the taste of what is first poured into them.
Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
They also bring to mind what sometimes seems to be a rapt predilection of small but influential cults of intellectuals or esthetes for what is generally regarded as perverse dispirited or distastefully unintelligible. The award of a Nobel Prize in literature to Andre Gide who in his work fervently and openly insists that pederasty is the superior and preferable way of life for adolescent boys furnishes a memorable example of such judgments. Renowned critics and some professors in our best universities reverently acclaim as the superlative expression of genius James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake a 628page collection of erudite gibberish indistinguishable to most people from the familiar word salad produced by hebephrenic patients on the back wards of any state hospital.
Hervey M. Cleckley (The Mask of Sanity)
I’ve often told people who ask if there is a God: “Get around enough people with horses and see what happens. See how they survive in spite of all the things that they do, and you’ll become a believer!
Buck Brannaman (Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
The BLM also created a program in which prisoners are given the opportunity to work with captive wild horses. They gentle them and get them to the point where they are ridable. This is an excellent idea.
Buck Brannaman (Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America's Most Renowned Horsemen)
It is indeed a mortifying reflection to those who are actuated by the love of fame, so justly denominated the last infirmity of noble minds, that the wisest legislator and most exalted genius that ever reformed or enlightened the world can never expect such tributes of praise as are lavished on the memory of pretended saints, whose whole conduct was probably to the last degree odious or contemptible, and whose industry was entirely directed to the pursuit of objects pernicious to mankind. It is only a conqueror, a personage no less entitled to our hatred, who can pretend to the attainment of equal renown and glory.
David Hume (The History of England 1)
Mahomet now proceeded to execute the great object of his religious aspirations, the purifying of the sacred edifice from the symbols of idolatry, with which it was crowded. All the idols in and about it, to the number of three hundred and sixty, were thrown down and de-stroyed. Among these, the most renowned was Hobal, an idol brought from Balka, in Syria, and fabled to have the power of granting rain. It was, of course, a great object of worship among the inhabitants of the thirsty desert. There were statues of Abraham and Ishmael also, represented with divining arrows in their hands ; "an outrage on their memories," said Mahomet, "being symbols of a diabolical art which they had never prac-ticed." In reverence of their memories, therefore, these statues were demolished. There were paintings, also, depicting angels in the guise of beautiful women. " The angels," said Mahomet, indignantly, " are no such beings. There are celestial houris provided in paradise for the solace of true believers ; but angels are ministering spirits of the Most High, and of too pure a nature to admit of sex." The paintings were accordingly obliterated. Even a dove, curiously carved of wood, he broke with his own hands, and cast upon the ground, as savoring of idolatry.
Washington Irving (Life of Mohammed)
You know," she said, pulling back from his neck. "I've always been wrong about something." "And that is?" "I thought there was nothing in the world more seductive than a troubadour singing his observations about his lady love. But I was wrong." She trailed her fingernail down his arm, raising chills in its wake. "The most incredible seduction is when a knight who is renowned for his strength speaks from his heart. Not as a knave out to woo a woman because he can, but as a man who wants only to give of himself." Her gaze seared him as she stared into his eyes and he saw her innermost sincerity. "I love you, Stryder. I always will." -Stryder and Rowena
Kinley MacGregor (A Dark Champion (Brotherhood of the Sword, #5))
Nihilism, a normal condition. It may be a sign of strength; spiritual vigour may have increased to such an extent that the goals toward which man has marched hitherto (the "convictions," articles of faith) are no longer suited to it (for a faith generally expresses the exigencies of the conditions of existence, a submission to the authority of an order of things which conduces to the prosperity, the growth and power of a living creature ...); on the other hand, a sign of insufficient strength, to fix a goal, a "wherefore," and a faith for itself. It reaches its maximum of relative strength, as a powerful destructive force, in the form of active Nihilism. Its opposite would be weary Nihilism, which no longer attacks: its most renowned form being Buddhism: as passive Nihilism, a sign of weakness: spiritual strength may be fatigued, exhausted, so that the goals and values which have prevailed hitherto are no longer suited to it and are no longer believed in—so that the synthesis of values and goals (upon which every strong culture stands) [Pg 22]decomposes, and the different values contend with one another: Disintegration, then everything which is relieving, which heals, becalms, or stupefies, steps into the foreground under the cover of various disguises, either religious, moral, political or æsthetic, etc.
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power)
Jim Rohn quote: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”4 Don’t believe me? Let me drop some science. Dr. David McClelland, renowned social psychologist, Harvard professor, and author, studied human motivation for more than thirty years. As discussed in chapter 3, he found that “95 percent of your success or failure in life is determined by the people with whom you habitually associate.” Ninety-five percent, my friend.
Rachel Rodgers (We Should All Be Millionaires: A Woman’s Guide to Earning More, Building Wealth, and Gaining Economic Power)
Conspiracy theories have long been used to maintain power: the Soviet leadership saw capitalist and counter-revolutionary conspiracies everywhere; the Nazis, Jewish ones. But those conspiracies were ultimately there to buttress an ideology, whether class warfare for Communists or race for Nazis. With today’s regimes, which struggle to formulate a single ideology – indeed, which can’t if they want to maintain power by sending different messages to different people – the idea that one lives in a world full of conspiracies becomes the world view itself. Conspiracy does not support the ideology; it replaces it. In Russia this is captured in the catchphrase of the country’s most important current affairs presenter: ‘A coincidence? I don’t think so!’ says Dmitry Kiselev as he twirls between tall tales that dip into history, literature, oil prices and colour revolutions, which all return to the theme of how the world has it in for Russia. And as a world view it grants those who subscribe to it certain pleasures: if all the world is a conspiracy, then your own failures are no longer all your fault. The fact that you achieved less than you hoped for, that your life is a mess – it’s all the fault of the conspiracy. More importantly, conspiracy is a way to maintain control. In a world where even the most authoritarian regimes struggle to impose censorship, one has to surround audiences with so much cynicism about anybody’s motives, persuade them that behind every seemingly benign motivation is a nefarious, if impossible-to-prove, plot, that they lose faith in the possibility of an alternative, a tactic a renowned Russian media analyst called Vasily Gatov calls ‘white jamming’. And the end effect of this endless pile-up of conspiracies is that you, the little guy, can never change anything. For if you are living in a world where shadowy forces control everything, then what possible chance do you have of turning it around? In this murk it becomes best to rely on a strong hand to guide you. ‘Trump is our last chance to save America,’ is the message of his media hounds. Only Putin can ‘raise Russia from its knees’. ‘The problem we are facing today is less oppression, more lack of identity, apathy, division, no trust,’ sighs Srdja. ‘There are more tools to change things than before, but there’s less will to do so.
Peter Pomerantsev (This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality)
{From Lindsey's address at the funeral of renowned scientist Luther Burbank. Burbank was one of the most beloved people in the early 20th century due to his countless contributions to humanity, but when, in an interview, he revealed that he was an atheist, the public quickly turned on him, sending him hundreds of death threats. Upset and grief stricken, the kind-hearted Burbank tried to respond to every letter amiably, a task that ultimately led to his death} . . . Luther Burbank had a philosophy that actually works for human betterment, that dares to challenge the superstition, hypocrisy, and sham, which so often have worked for cruelties, inquisitions, wars and massacres. Superstition that stood across the road of Progress, commanded, not by a god or gods, but the meanest devils that we know--Ignorance, Intolerance, Bigotry, Fanaticism, and Hate. The prejudiced beneficiaries of organized theology refused to see what Burbank, the gifted child of Nature, saw with a vision as crystal as theirs is dense and dark. And so they assailed him. One of the saddest spectacles of our times is the effort of hidebound theologians, still desperately trying to chain us to the past--in other forms that would still invoke the inquisitions, the fears, and the bigotries of the dark ages, and keep the world in chains. The chains of lies, hypocrisies, taboos, and the superstitions, fostered by the dying, but still the organized, relentless outworn theology of another age. They refuse to see that in their stupid lust for power they are endangering all that is good.
Benjamin Barr Lindsey
Is it possible nevertheless that our consumer culture does make good on its promises, or could do so? Might these, if fulfilled, lead to a more satisfying life? When I put the question to renowned psychologist Tim Krasser, professor emeritus of psychology at Knox College, his response was unequivocal. "Research consistently shows," he told me, "that the more people value materialistic aspirations as goals, the lower their happiness and life satisfaction and the fewer pleasant emotions they experience day to day. Depression, anxiety, and substance abuse also tend to be higher among people who value the aims encouraged by consumer society." He points to four central principles of what he calls ACC — American corporate capitalism: it "fosters and encourages a set of values based on self-interest, a strong desire for financial success, high levels of consumption, and interpersonal styles based on competition." There is a seesaw oscillation, Tim found, between materialistic concerns on the one hand and prosocial values like empathy, generosity, and cooperation on the other: the more the former are elevated, the lower the latter descend. For example, when people strongly endorse money, image, and status as prime concerns, they are less likely to engage in ecologically beneficial activities and the emptier and more insecure they will experience themselves to be. They will have also lower-quality interpersonal relationships. In turn, the more insecure people feel, the more they focus on material things. As materialism promises satisfaction but, instead, yields hollow dissatisfaction, it creates more craving. This massive and self-perpetuating addictive spiral is one of the mechanisms by which consumer society preserves itself by exploiting the very insecurities it generates. Disconnection in all its guises — alienation, loneliness, loss of meaning, and dislocation — is becoming our culture's most plentiful product. No wonder we are more addicted, chronically ill, and mentally disordered than ever before, enfeebled as we are by such malnourishment of mind, body and soul.
Gabor Maté (The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture)
The residue from radium extraction looked like seaside sand, and the company had offloaded this industrial waste by selling it to schools and playgrounds to use in their children’s sandboxes; kids’ shoes were reported to have turned white because of it, while one little boy complained to his mother of a burning sensation in his hands. Yet, in comments that made reassuring reading, von Sochocky pronounced the sand “most hygienic”10 for children to play in, “more beneficial than the mud of world-renowned curative baths.”11
Kate Moore (The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women)
[THE DAILY BREATH] When Jesus walked the Earth, He said again and again: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." For many years I misunderstood this message. The line: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near" brought fear because to me it meant: "Repent or else you go to hell." But this is not what it means. Read the words again: "Repent" which means ask God for forgiveness, "because the kingdom of Heaven is at hand" which means peace is close to you. Ask for forgiveness because when you do so in all honesty, you bring Heaven in your life. When you open your heart and ask for forgiveness in all truth, you find Heaven: the healing you need, the love you deserve, the peace you want: all of these wait for you on the other side of you having a heart-to-heart, truthful relationship with Jesus. God's love for you is unconditional, but communication is possible only in truth. Turn your eyes from your pain, and look unto Jesus. Literally, focus your eyes on Him. Walk through the terror barrier that prevents you from opening your heart, and tell Him everything. Ask for forgiveness for everything you think you've done wrong, ask for help with your weaknesses - not from your mind or from your emotions, but from your spirit - and hide nothing because what you keep hidden will torment you until you bring it out to light. Carl Jung, the renowned psychiatrist said, "The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely." Do not be afraid. Tell God everything you fear to acknowledge, because He cannot heal what you conceal, and he will heal everything you reveal.
Dragos Bratasanu
A lot of time and energy went into dismantling the dynamic between Arthur and Ben, identifying the leader of the pack. Understanding their motives would bring closure to the community, and the information could prevent a recurrence at another school. The country’s most renowned psychologists examined the evidence collected in the aftermath of the attack on Bradley—Ben’s and Arthur’s journals, their academic records, interviews with neighbors and friends of the family—and every single one arrived at the same conclusion: Arthur called it.
Jessica Knoll (Luckiest Girl Alive)
Although Liston was renowned for his success stories—such as the removal of a forty-five-pound scrotal tumor in four minutes; prior to the operation, the poor patient had been forced to carry his scrotum around in a wheelbarrow—he also developed a reputation for the flamboyancy of his surgical failures. For instance, his joy at amputating a patient’s leg at the thigh in less than three minutes was hindered greatly when he realized he had also inadvertently sawed off the patient’s testicles. And perhaps, most famously, another leg amputation performed in less than three minutes had the unfortunate result of killing three people: the patient (who survived the surgery but died of gangrene several days later); his young assistant (whose fingers he accidentally sawed off during surgery and who would also later succumb to gangrene); and “a distinguished surgical spectator” whose coattails Liston also slashed. The man, who found himself surrounded by geysers of blood, was so convinced that the knife had pierced his vitals that he immediately “dropped dead from fright.” It was later described as “the only operation in history with a 300 percent mortality [rate].
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz (Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine)
In October 1920, her former employer was featured in the local news. The residue from radium extraction looked like seaside sand, and the company had offloaded this industrial waste by selling it to schools and playgrounds to use in their children’s sandboxes; kids’ shoes were reported to have turned white because of it, while one little boy complained to his mother of a burning sensation in his hands. Yet, in comments that made reassuring reading, von Sochocky pronounced the sand “most hygienic”10 for children to play in, “more beneficial than the mud of world-renowned curative baths.”11
Kate Moore (The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women)
There is a significant hereditary contribution to ADD but I do not believe any genetic factor is decisive in the emergence of ADD traits in any child. Genes are codes for the synthesis of the proteins that give a particular cell its characteristic structure and function. They are, as it were, alive and dynamic architectural and mechanical plans. Whether the plan becomes realized depends on far more than the gene itself. It is determined, for the most part, by the environment. To put it differently, genes carry potentials inherent in the cells of a given organism. Which of multiple potentials become expressed biologically is a question of life circumstances. Were we to adopt the medical model — only temporarily, for the sake of argument — a genetic explanation by itself would still be unsuitable. Medical conditions for which genetic inheritance are fully or even mostly responsible, such as muscular dystrophy, are rare. “Few diseases are purely genetic,” says Michael Hayden, a geneticist at the University of British Columbia and a world-renowned researcher into Huntington’s disease. “The most we can say is that some diseases are strongly genetic.” Huntington’s is a fatal degeneration of the nervous system based on a single gene that, if inherited, will almost invariably cause the disease. But not always. Dr. Hayden mentions cases of persons with the gene who live into ripe old age without any signs of the disease itself. “Even in Huntington’s, there must be some protective factor in the environment,” Dr. Hayden says.
Gabor Maté (Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It)
When we spread our name by scattering it into many mouths we call that ‘increasing our renown’; we wish our name to be favourably received there and that it may gain from such an increase. That is what is most pardonable in such a design. But carried to excess this malady makes many seek to be on others’ lips, no matter how. Trogus Pompeius says of Herostratus, and Livy says of Manlius, that they were more desirous of a wide reputation than a good one.42 That is a common vice. We are more concerned that men should talk of us than of how they talk of us; and we are far more concerned that our name should run from mouth to mouth than under what circumstances it should do so.
Michel de Montaigne (The Complete Essays)
In 1902, Marcellin P. Berthelot, often called the founder of modern organic chemistry, was one of France's most celebrated scientists—if not the world's. He was permanent secretary of the French Academy, having succeeded the giant Louis Pasteur, the renowned microbiologist. Unlike Delage, an agnostic, Berthelot was an atheist—and militantly so.
Robert K. Wilcox (The Truth About the Shroud of Turin: Solving the Mystery)
When Simol was informed of the arrival of the Edgedancers, a concealed consternation and terror, as is common in such cases, fell upon him; although they were not the most demanding of orders, their graceful, limber movements hid a deadliness that was, by this time, quite renowned; also, they were the most articulate and refined of the Radiants.
Brandon Sanderson (Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2))
The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him, The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them, The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you, Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the going and coming of commerce and mails, are all for you. List close my scholars dear, Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you, Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in you, The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records reach is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same, If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they all be? The most renown'd poems would be ashes, orations and plays would be vacuums.
Walt Whitman (The Complete Poems)
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” It’s a catchy maxim. It’s simple. On first glance it makes sense. The phrase was coined by Michael Pollan, renowned professor, journalist, and best-selling author of In Defense of Food, who was instructing his readers on how to navigate the “incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy.
Rip Esselstyn (The Engine 2 Seven-Day Rescue Diet: Eat Plants, Lose Weight, Save Your Health)
The news that she had gone of course now spread rapidly, and by lunch time Riseholme had made up its mind what to do, and that was hermetically to close its lips for ever on the subject of Lucia. You might think what you pleased, for it was a free country, but silence was best. But this counsel of perfection was not easy to practice next day when the evening paper came. There, for all the world to read were two quite long paragraphs, in "Five o'clock Chit-Chat," over the renowned signature of Hermione, entirely about Lucia and 25 Brompton Square, and there for all the world to see was the reproduction of one of her most elegant photographs, in which she gazed dreamily outwards and a little upwards, with her fingers still pressed on the last chord of (probably) the Moonlight Sonata. . . . She had come up, so Hermione told countless readers, from her Elizabethan country seat at Riseholme (where she was a neighbour of Miss Olga Bracely) and was settling for the season in the beautiful little house in Brompton Square, which was the freehold property of her husband, and had just come to him on the death of his aunt. It was a veritable treasure house of exquisite furniture, with a charming music-room where Lucia had given Hermione a cup of tea from her marvellous Worcester tea service. . . . (At this point Daisy, whose hands were trembling with passion, exclaimed in a loud and injured voice, "The very day she arrived!") Mrs. Lucas (one of the Warwickshire Smythes by birth) was, as all the world knew, a most accomplished musician and Shakespearean scholar, and had made Riseholme a centre of culture and art. But nobody would suspect the blue stocking in the brilliant, beautiful and witty hostess whose presence would lend an added gaiety to the London season.
E.F. Benson (Lucia in London (The Mapp & Lucia Novels, #3))
Mom! Look. This one is my favorite," Devin said, pulling out a faded pink dress with a red plaid sash. The crinoline petticoat underneath was so old and stiff it made snapping sounds, like beads or fire embers. She dropped the dress over her head, over her clothes. It brushed the floor. "When I'm old enough for it to fit me, I'm going to wear it with purple shoes," she said. "A bold choice," Kate said as Devin dove back into the trunk. The attic in Kate's mother's house had always fascinated Devin with its promise of hidden treasures. When Kate's mother had been alive, she had let Devin eat Baby Ruth candy bars and drink grape soda and play in this old trunk full of dresses that generations of Morris women had worn to try entice rich men to marry them. Most of the clothes had belonged to Kate's grandmother Marilee, a renowned beauty who, like all the rest, had fallen in love with a poor man instead.
Sarah Addison Allen (Lost Lake (Lost Lake, #1))
Robert Surcouf was the most famous of France’s eighteenth-century privateers who, based on Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, grew rich on English plunder before retiring to his native St Malo. Renowned for his chivalry towards prisoners, in France he is perhaps best remembered for the reply he gave a captive officer who admonished him for fighting for money rather than, as the British did, for honour. ‘Each of us fights,’ admitted Surcouf, ‘for what he lacks most.
Colin Smith (England's Last War Against France: Fighting Vichy 1940-1942)
Woolf drew on her memories of her holidays in Cornwall for To the Lighthouse, which was conceived in part as an elegy on her parents. Her father was a vigorous walker and an Alpinist of some renown, a member of the Alpine Club and editor of the Alpine Journal from 1868 to 1872; he was the first person to climb the Schreckhorn in the Alps and he wrote on Alpine pleasures in The Playground of Europe (1871). By the time he married Julia Duckworth in 1878, however, a more sedentary Leslie Stephen was the established editor of the Cornhill Magazine, from which he later resigned to take up the editorship of the Dictionary of National Biography in 1882, the year of Woolf ’s birth. Stephen laboured on this monumental Victorian enterprise until 1990, editing single-handed the first twenty-six volumes and writing well over 300 biographical entries. He also published numerous volumes of criticism, the most important of which were on eighteenth-century thought and literature.
Jane Goldman (The Cambridge Introduction to Virginia Woolf)
Greetings, Antinous,’ I said to him. ‘I wish you’d take that arrow out of your neck.’ ‘It is the arrow of my love, Penelope of the divine form, fairest and most sagacious of all women,’ he replied. ‘Although it came from the renowned bow of Odysseus, in reality the cruel archer was Cupid himself. I wear it in remembrance of the great passion I bore for you, and carried to my grave.’ He goes on in this spurious way quite a lot, having had a good deal of practice at it while he was alive.
Margaret Atwood (The Penelopiad)
Little did Dickens know when he finished A Christmas Carol after just six weeks of feverish writing that this brief story would become one of his most famous works. Though the story was successful as soon as it was published on December 19, 1843, Dickens bolstered its renown further by choosing to perform it aloud when he began touring in 1853. His name became synonymous with Christmas in England to the extent that, after his death in 1870, some feared the holiday would become culturally obsolete
Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)
Ireland has in it a quality which caused it (in the most ascetic age of Christianity) to be called the “Land of Saints”; and which still might give it a claim to be called the Land of Virgins. An Irish Catholic priest once said to me, “There is in our people a fear of the passions which is older even than Christianity.” Everyone who has read Shaw’s play upon Ireland will remember the thing in the horror of the Irish girl at being kissed in the public streets. But anyone who knows Shaw’s work will recognize it in Shaw himself. There exists by accident an early and beardless portrait of him which really suggests in the severity and purity of its lines some of the early ascetic pictures of the beardless Christ. However he may shout profanities or seek to shatter the shrines, there is always something about him which suggests that in a sweeter and more solid civilisation he would have been a great saint. He would have been a saint of a sternly ascetic, perhaps of a sternly negative type. But he has this strange note of the saint in him: that he is literally unworldly.
George Bernard Shaw (George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren's Profession, ... and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion)
David Maxwell, like Darwin Smith and Colman Mockler, exemplified a key trait of Level 5 leaders: ambition first and foremost for the company and concern for its success rather than for one’s own riches and personal renown. Level 5 leaders want to see the company even more successful in the next generation, comfortable with the idea that most people won’t even know that the roots of that success trace back to their efforts. As one Level 5 leader said, “I want to look out from my porch at one of the great companies in the world someday and be able to say, ‘I used to work there.
Jim Collins (Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't)
In October 1920, her former employer was featured in the local news. The residue from radium extraction looked like seaside sand, and the company had offloaded this industrial waste by selling it to schools and playgrounds to use in their children’s sandboxes; kids’ shoes were reported to have turned white because of it, while one little boy complained to his mother of a burning sensation in his hands. Yet, in comments that made reassuring reading, von Sochocky pronounced the sand “most hygienic”10 for children to play in, “more beneficial than the mud of world-renowned curative baths.
Kate Moore (The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women)
The English public has commonly professed, with a kind of pride, that it cannot understand Mr. Bernard Shaw. There are many reasons for it which ought to be adequately considered in such a book as this. But the first and most obvious reason is the mere statement that George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856. At least one reason why Englishmen cannot understand Mr. Shaw is that Englishmen have never taken the trouble to understand Irishmen. They will sometimes be generous to Ireland; but never just to Ireland. They will speak to Ireland; they will speak for Ireland; but they will not hear Ireland speak.
George Bernard Shaw (George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren's Profession, ... and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion)
Two things," the wise man said, "fill me with awe: The starry heavens and the moral law." Nay, add another wonder to thy roll, -- The living marvel of the human soul! Born in the dust and cradled in the dark, It feels the fire of an immortal spark, And learns to read, with patient, searching eyes, The splendid secret of the unconscious skies. For God thought Light before He spoke the word; The darkness understood not, though it heard: But man looks up to where the planets swim, And thinks God's thoughts of glory after Him. What knows the star that guides the sailor's way, Or lights the lover's bower with liquid ray, Of toil and passion, danger and distress, Brave hope, true love, and utter faithfulness? But human hearts that suffer good and ill, And hold to virtue with a loyal will, Adorn the law that rules our mortal strife With star-surpassing victories of life. So take our thanks, dear reader of the skies, Devout astronomer, most humbly wise, For lessons brighter than the stars can give, And inward light that helps us all to live. The world has brought the laurel-leaves to crown The star-discoverer's name with high renown; Accept the flower of love we lay with these For influence sweeter than the Pleiades
Henry Van Dyke
Rommel, for instance, was renowned for his Fronter-führing, his sixth sense for the decisive point in battle. He had an acute ability to feel—even in the heat of the moment—the precise instance when going on the offensive would be most effective. It’s what allowed him to, repeatedly and often unbelievably, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Where others saw disaster or, at best, simply the normal noise and dust of a battle, Rommel sensed opportunities. “It is given to me,” he said, “to feel where the enemy is weak.” And on these feelings he would attack with every iota of his energy. Seizing control of the tempo and never giving it up. Great
Ryan Holiday (The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage)
More than four years had passed since Jacob last stepped into a government school. His formal education had come to an abrupt end when der Führer had risen to power as Reich Chancellor in 1933. It was then that Jacob’s father, the renowned Dr. Reuben Weisz, had been “relieved” of his duties at the university. Soon the family had lost their house, their savings, and most of the people they once thought were their friends. That’s when Avi had stepped in to help. He’d offered his elder brother the opportunity to manage the metalworking shop he owned in Siegen. And he had invited his brother’s family to live in the town house on Rubensstrasse at a reduced rent.
Joel C. Rosenberg (The Auschwitz Escape)
Yes, I see,’ said Frodo. ‘For one thing, I see that you’re behind the times and the news here. Much has happened since you left the South. Your day is over, and all other ruffians’. The Dark Tower has fallen, and there is a King in Gondor. And Isengard has been destroyed, and your precious master is a beggar in the wilderness. I passed him on the road. The King’s messengers will ride up the Greenway now not bullies from Isengard.’ The man stared at him and smiled. ‘A beggar in the wilderness!’ he mocked. ‘Oh, is he indeed? Swagger it, swagger it, my little cock-a-whoop. But that won’t stop us living in this fat little country where you have lazed long enough. And’ - he snapped his fingers in Frodo’s face - ‘King’s messengers! That for them! When I see one, I’ll take notice, perhaps.’ This was too much for Pippin. His thoughts went back to the Field of Cormallen, and here was a squint-eyed rascal calling the Ring-bearer ‘little cock-a-whoop’. He cast back his cloak, flashed out his sword, and the silver and sable of Gondor gleamed on him as he rode forward. ‘I am a messenger of the King,’ he said. ‘You are speaking to the King’s friend, and one of the most renowned in all the lands of the West. You are a ruffian and a fool. Down on your knees in the road and ask pardon, or I will set this troll’s bane in you!
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3))
In the most devilishly wicked learning environments, experience will reinforce the exact wrong lessons. Hogarth noted a famous New York City physician renowned for his skill as a diagnostician. The man’s particular specialty was typhoid fever, and he examined patients for it by feeling around their tongues with his hands. Again and again, his testing yielded a positive diagnosis before the patient displayed a single symptom. And over and over, his diagnosis turned out to be correct. As another physician later pointed out, “He was a more productive carrier, using only his hands, than Typhoid Mary.” Repetitive success, it turned out, taught him the worst possible lesson.
David Epstein (Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World)
Albert Einstein, considered the most influential person of the 20th century, was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read. His parents thought he was retarded. He spoke haltingly until age nine. He was advised by a teacher to drop out of grade school: “You’ll never amount to anything, Einstein.” Isaac Newton, the scientist who invented modern-day physics, did poorly in math. Patricia Polacco, a prolific children’s author and illustrator, didn’t learn to read until she was 14. Henry Ford, who developed the famous Model-T car and started Ford Motor Company, barely made it through high school. Lucille Ball, famous comedian and star of I Love Lucy, was once dismissed from drama school for being too quiet and shy. Pablo Picasso, one of the great artists of all time, was pulled out of school at age 10 because he was doing so poorly. A tutor hired by Pablo’s father gave up on Pablo. Ludwig van Beethoven was one of the world’s great composers. His music teacher once said of him, “As a composer, he is hopeless.” Wernher von Braun, the world-renowned mathematician, flunked ninth-grade algebra. Agatha Christie, the world’s best-known mystery writer and all-time bestselling author other than William Shakespeare of any genre, struggled to learn to read because of dyslexia. Winston Churchill, famous English prime minister, failed the sixth grade.
Sean Covey (The 6 Most Important Decisions You'll Ever Make: A Guide for Teens)
Of all the misapplications of the word “conservative” in recent memory, Nisbet wrote in the 1980s, the “most amusing, in an historical light, is surely the application of ‘conservative’ to…great increases in military expenditures.… For in America throughout the twentieth century, and including four substantial wars abroad, conservatives had been steadfastly the voices of non-inflationary military budgets, and of an emphasis on trade in the world instead of American nationalism. In the two World Wars, in Korea, and in Viet Nam, the leaders of American entry into war were such renowned liberal-progressives as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. In all four episodes conservatives, both in the national government and in the rank and file, were largely hostile to intervention; were isolationists indeed.
Thomas E. Woods Jr. (Real Dissent: A Libertarian Sets Fire to the Index Card of Allowable Opinion)
The boat driver reminded me that just because it was sunk didn’t mean someone couldn’t still steal it. After all, this is why there are “sea scrappers,” he said. Of course he was quite right, I admitted. I’d learned about these underworld characters when I was reporting in Indonesia. In that country, sea scrappers came mostly from the Madurese ethnic group and were renowned for their efficiency in stripping sunken ships of their valuable metals. They paddled their wooden boats out a couple miles from shore, equipped with crowbars, hammers, hatchets, and a diesel-powered air compressor tethered to what looked like a garden hose for breathing. Diving sometimes deeper than fifty feet, the men chopped away huge chunks of metal from the wreck, attaching them to cables for hoisting. In boom times, the metal and parts from a bigger ship, though rusty and barnacled, could sell for $1 million.
Ian Urbina (The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier)
I remember the very day, sometime during the first two weeks of my five-year amorous sojourn in Brutland, when I was made privy to one of the most arcane of their utterings. The time was ripe for that major epiphany, my initiation into the sacred knowledge—or should I say gnosis?—of that all-important, quintessentially Brutish slang term, the word that endless hours of scholastic education by renowned mentors, plus years of scrupulous scrutiny into scrofulous texts, had disappointingly failed to impart to me, leaving me with that deep sense of emptiness begotten by hemimathy; the time was finally ripe for me to be transported by the velvety feel of the unvoiced palato-alveolar fricative, the élan of the unpronounceable and masochistically hedonistic front open-rounded vowel, and, last but not least, the (admittedly short) ejaculatory quality of the voiced velar stop: all three of them combined together to form that miraculous lexical item, the word shag.
Spiros Doikas (No Sex Please, We're Brutish!: The exploits of a Greek student in Britain)
I knew that this was my chance to show both Henry and Neil that I was able to look after myself and climb well at high altitude. After all, talk is cheap when you are safely tucked up back in London. It was time to train hard and show my mettle again. Ama Dablam is one of the most spectacular peaks on earth. A mountain that was once described by Sir Edmund Hillary as being “unclimbable,” due to her imposing sheer faces that rise out among the many Himalayan summits. Like so many mountains, it is not until you rub noses with her that you realize that a route up is possible. It just needs a bit of balls and careful planning. Ama Dablam is considered by the world-renowned Jagged Globe expedition company to be their most difficult ascent. She is graded 5D, which reflects the technical nature of the route: “Very steep ice or rock. Suitable for competent mountaineers who have climbed consistently at these standards. Climbs of this grade are exceptionally strenuous and some weight loss is inevitable.” Ha. That’s the Himalayas for you.
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
Bored with Pisit today, I switch to our public radio channel, where the renowned and deeply reverend Phra Titapika is lecturing on Dependent Origination. Not everyone’s cup of chocolate, I agree (this is not the most popular show in Thailand), but the doctrine is at the heart of Buddhism. You see, dear reader (speaking frankly, without any intention to offend), you are a ramshackle collection of coincidences held together by a desperate and irrational clinging, there is no center at all, everything depends on everything else, your body depends on the environment, your thoughts depend on whatever junk floats in from the media, your emotions are largely from the reptilian end of your DNA, your intellect is a chemical computer that can’t add up a zillionth as fast as a pocket calculator, and even your best side is a superficial piece of social programming that will fall apart just as soon as your spouse leaves with the kids and the money in the joint account, or the economy starts to fail and you get the sack, or you get conscripted into some idiot’s war, or they give you the news about your brain tumor. To name this amorphous morass of self-pity, vanity, and despair self is not only the height of hubris, it is also proof (if any were needed) that we are above all a delusional species. (We are in a trance from birth to death.) Prick the balloon, and what do you get? Emptiness. It’s not only us-this radical doctrine applies to the whole of the sentient world. In a bumper sticker: The fear of letting go prevents you from letting go of the fear of letting go. Here’s the good Phra in fine fettle today: “Take a snail, for example. Consider what brooding overweening self-centered passion got it into that state. Can you see the rage of a snail? The frustration of a cockroach? The ego of an ant? If you can, then you are close to enlightenment.” Like I say, not everyone’s cup of miso. Come to think of it, I do believe I prefer Pisit, but the Phra does have a point: take two steps in the divine art of Buddhist meditation, and you will find yourself on a planet you no longer recognize. Those needs and fears you thought were the very bones of your being turn out to be no more than bugs in your software. (Even the certainty of death gets nuanced.) You’ll find no meaning there. So where?
John Burdett (Bangkok Tattoo (Sonchai Jitpleecheep, #2))
Recently, an internationally renowned writer for children commented about the Council [on Interracial Books for Children, Inc.] to me: “Of course, we should all be more tender and understanding toward the aged and we should work to shrive ourselves of racism and sexism, but when you impose guidelines like theirs on writing, you’re strangling the imagination. And that means that you’re limiting the ability of children to imagine. If all books for them were ‘cleansed’ according to these criteria, it would be the equivalent of giving them nothing to eat but white bread.” “To write according to such guidelines,” this story teller continued, “is to take the life out of what you do. Also the complexity, the ambivalence. And thereby the young reader gets no real sense of the wonders and terrors and unpredictabilities of living. Paradoxically, censors like the council clamor for ‘truth’ but are actually working to flatten children’s reading experiences into the most misleading, simplistic kinds of untruth.” ("Any Writer Who Follows Anyone Else's Guidelines Ought to Be in Advertising" (1977), from Beyond Fact: Nonfiction for Children and Young People, 1982)
Nat Hentoff
Once a renowned skirt-chaser, now an exceptionally devoted husband, St. Vincent knew as much about these matters as any man alive. When Cam had asked glumly if a decrease in physical urges was something that naturally occurred as a man approached his thirties, St. Vincent had choked on his drink. “Good God, no,” the viscount had said, coughing slightly as a swallow of brandy seared his throat. They had been in the manager’s office of the club, going over account books in the early hours of the morning. St. Vincent was a handsome man with wheat-colored hair and pale blue eyes. Some claimed he had the most perfect form and features of any man alive. The looks of a saint, the soul of a scoundrel. “If I may ask, what kind of women have you been taking to bed?” “What do you mean, what kind?” Cam had asked warily. “Beautiful or plain?” “Beautiful, I suppose.” “Well, there’s your problem,” St. Vincent said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Plain women are far more enjoyable. There’s no better aphrodisiac than gratitude.” “Yet you married a beautiful woman.” A slow smile had curved St. Vincent’s lips. “Wives are a different case altogether. They require a great deal of effort, but the rewards are substantial. I highly recommend wives. Especially one’s own.” Cam had stared at his employer with annoyance, reflecting that serious conversation with St. Vincent was often hampered by the viscount’s fondness for turning it into an exercise of wit. “If I understand you, my lord,” he said curtly, “your recommendation for a lack of desire is to start seducing unattractive women?” Picking up a silver pen holder, St. Vincent deftly fitted a nib into the end and made a project of dipping it precisely into an ink bottle. “Rohan, I’m doing my best to understand your problem. However, a lack of desire is something I’ve never experienced. I’d have to be on my deathbed before I stopped wanting—no, never mind, I was on my deathbed in the not-too-distant past, and even then I had the devil’s own itch for my wife.” “Congratulations,” Cam muttered, abandoning any hope of prying an earnest answer out of the man. “Let’s attend to the account books. There are more important matters to discuss than sexual habits.” St. Vincent scratched out a figure and set the pen back on its stand. “No, I insist on discussing sexual habits. It’s so much more entertaining than work.
Lisa Kleypas (Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways, #1))
It was a wise policy in that false prophet, Alexander, who though now forgotten, was once so famous, to lay the first scene of his impostures in Paphlagonia, where, as Lucian tells us, the people were extremely ignorant and stupid, and ready to swallow even the grossest delusion. People at a distance, who are weak enough to think the matter at all worth enquiry, have no opportunity of receiving better information. The stories come magnified to them by a hundred circumstances. Fools are industrious in propagating the imposture; while the wise and learned are contented, in general, to deride its absurdity, without informing themselves of the particular facts, by which it may be distinctly refuted. And thus the impostor above mentioned was enabled to proceed, from his ignorant Paphlagonians, to the enlisting of votaries, even among the Grecian philosophers, and men of the most eminent rank and distinction in Rome; nay, could engage the attention of that sage emperor Marcus Aurelius; so far as to make him trust the success of a military expedition to his delusive prophecies. 23 The advantages are so great, of starting an imposture among an ignorant people, that, even though the delusion should be too gross to impose on the generality of them (which, though seldom, is sometimes the case) it has a much better chance for succeeding in remote countries, than if the first scene had been laid in a city renowned for arts and knowledge. The most ignorant and barbarous of these barbarians carry the report abroad. None of their countrymen have a large correspondence, or sufficient credit and authority to contradict and beat down the delusion. Men’s inclination to the marvellous has full opportunity to display itself. And thus a story, which is universally exploded in the place where it was first started, shall pass for certain at a thousand miles distance. But had Alexander fixed his residence at Athens, the philosophers of that renowned mart of learning had immediately spread, throughout the whole Roman empire, their sense of the matter; which, being supported by so great authority, and displayed by all the force of reason and eloquence, had entirely opened the eyes of mankind. It is true; Lucian, passing by chance through Paphlagonia, had an opportunity of performing this good office. But, though much to be wished, it does not always happen, that every Alexander meets with a Lucian, ready to expose and detect his impostures.
Christopher Hitchens (The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever)
This canvas of human prehistory is distinctively modern. The renowned theorist of culture W. J. T. Mitchell once remarked that dinosaurs are the quintessential modernist animal, since in Shakespeare’s time no one knew such creatures had ever existed. In a similar way, until quite recently most Christians assumed anything worth knowing about early humans could be found in the Book of Genesis. Up until the early years of the nineteenth century, ‘men of letters’ – scientists included – still largely assumed that the universe did not even exist prior to late October, 4004 BC, and that all humans spoke the same language (Hebrew) until the dispersal of humanity, after the fall of the Tower of Babel sixteen centuries later.1 At that time there was as yet no ‘prehistory’. There was only history, even if some of that history was wildly wrong. The term ‘prehistory’ only came into common use after the discoveries at Brixham Cave in Devon in 1858, when stone axes, which could only have been fashioned by humans, were found alongside remains of cave bear, woolly rhinoceros and other extinct species, all together under a sealed casing of rock. This, and subsequent archaeological findings, sparked a complete rethinking of existing evidence. Suddenly, ‘the bottom dropped out of human history.
David Graeber (The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity)
It is the custom in Germany for students to pass from one university to another during the course of their studies—a custom, incidentally, which no other country has. But it would be false to assume that this variety in instruction is a safeguard afainst uniformity of outlook, for although the professors of the various universities fight among themselves, they are all, fundamentally and at heart, in complete agreement. I came to realise this clearly through my contacts with the economists. This must have been about 1929. At that time we published a paper on certain aspects of the economic problem. Immediately a whole company of national economists of all sorts, and from a variety of universities, joined forces and signed a circular in which they unaminously condemned our economic proposals. I made one attempt to have a serious discussion with one of the most renowned of them, and one who was regarded by his colleagues as a revolutionary in economic thought Zwiedineck. The results were disastrous! At the time the State had floated a loan of two million seven hundred thousand marks for the construction of a road. I told Zwiedineck that I regarded this way of financing a project as foolish in the extreme. The life of the road in question would be some fifteen years ; but the amortisation of the capital involved would continue for eighty years. What the Government was really doing was to evade an immediate financial obligation by transferring the charges to the men of the next generation and, indeed, of the generation after. I insisted that nothing could be more unsound, and that what the Government should really do was to take radical steps to reduce the rate of interest and thus to render capital more fluid. I next argued that the gold standard, the fixing of rates of exchange and so forth were shibboleths which I had never regarded and never would regard as weighty and immutable principles of economy. Money, to me, was simply a token of exchange for work done, and its value depended absolutely on the value of the work accomplished. Where money did not represent services rendered, I insisted, it had no value at all. Zwiedineck was horrified and very excited. Such ideas, he declared, would upset the accepted economic principles of the entire world, and the putting of them into practice would cause a breakdown of the world's political economy. When, later, after our assumption of power, I put my theories into practice, the economists were not in the least discountenanced, but calmly set to work to prove by scientific argument that my theories were, indeed, sound economy !
Adolf Hitler (Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-1944)
Early in a career that began in 1912 when he was 19 years old, Romain de Tirtoff, the Russian-born artists who called himself Erté after the french pronunciation of his initials, was regarded as a 'miraculous magician,' whose spectacular fashions transformed the ordinary into the outstanding, whose period costumes made the present vanish mystically into the past, and whose décors converted bare stages into sparkling wonderlands of fun and fancy. When his career ended with his death in 1990, Erté was considered as 'one of the twentieth-century's single most important influences on fashion,' 'a mirror of fashion for 75 years,' and the unchallenged 'prince of the music hall,' who had been accorded the most significant international honors in the field of design and whose work was represented in major museums and private collections throughout the world. It is not surprising that Erté's imaginative designs for fashion, theater, opera, ballet, music hall, film and commerce achieved such renown, for they are as crisp and innovative in their color and design as they are elegant and extravagant in character, and redolent of the romance of the pre- and post-Great War era, the period when Erté's hand became mature, fully developed and representative of its time. Art historians and scholars define Ertés unique style as transitional Art Deco, because it bridges the visual gab between fin-de-siècle schools of Symbolism, with its ethereal quality, Art Nouveau, with its high ornament, and the mid-1920s movement of Art Deco, with its inspirational sources and concise execution.
Jean Tibbetts (Erte)
suppose, that all the historians who treat of England, should agree, that, on the first of January 1600, Queen Elizabeth died; that both before and after her death she was seen by her physicians and the whole court, as is usual with persons of her rank; that her successor was acknowledged and proclaimed by the parliament; and that, after being interred a month, she again appeared, resumed the throne, and governed England for three years: I must confess that I should be surprised at the concurrence of so many odd circumstances, but should not have the least inclination to believe so miraculous an event. I should not doubt of her pretended death, and of those other public circumstances that followed it: I should only assert it to have been pretended, and that it neither was, nor possibly could be real. You would in vain object to me the difficulty, and almost impossibility of deceiving the world in an affair of such consequence; the wisdom and solid judgment of that renowned queen; with the little or no advantage which she could reap from so poor an artifice: All this might astonish me; but I would still reply, that the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence, than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature. 38 But should this miracle be ascribed to any new system of religion; men, in all ages, have been so much imposed on by ridiculous stories of that kind, that this very circumstance would be a full proof of a cheat, and sufficient, with all men of sense, not only to make them reject the fact, but even reject it without farther examination. Though the Being to whom the miracle is ascribed, be, in this case, Almighty, it does not, upon that account, become a whit more probable; since it is impossible for us to know the attributes or actions of such a Being, otherwise than from the experience which we have of his productions, in the usual course of nature. This still reduces us to past observation, and obliges us to compare the instances of the violation of truth in the testimony of men, with those of the violation of the laws of nature by miracles, in order to judge which of them is most likely and probable. As the violations of truth are more common in the testimony concerning religious miracles, than in that concerning any other matter of fact; this must diminish very much the authority of the former testimony, and make us form a general resolution, never to lend any attention to it, with whatever specious pretence it may be covered. 39 Lord Bacon seems to have embraced the same principles of reasoning. “We ought,” says he, “to make a collection or particular history of all monsters and prodigious births or productions, and in a word of every thing new, rare, and extraordinary in nature. But this must be done with the most severe scrutiny, lest we depart from truth. Above all, every relation must be considered as suspicious, which depends in any degree upon religion, as the prodigies of Livy: And no less so, everything that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors, who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable.
Christopher Hitchens (The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever)
In a widely viewed documentary titled Singularity or Bust, Hugo de Garis, a renowned researcher in the field of AI and author of The Artilect War, speaks of this phenomenon. He says: In a sense, we are the problem. We’re creating artificial brains that will get smarter and smarter every year. And you can imagine, say twenty years from now, as that gap closes, millions will be asking questions like ‘Is that a good thing? Is that dangerous?’ I imagine a great debate starting to rage and, though you can’t be certain talking about the future, the scenario I see as the most probable is the worst. This time, we’re not talking about the survival of a country. This time, it’s the survival of us as a species. I see humanity splitting into two major philosophical groups, ideological groups. One group I call the cosmists, who will want to build these godlike, massively intelligent machines that will be immortal. For this group, this will be almost like a religion and that’s potentially very frightening. Now, the other group’s main motive will be fear. I call them the terrans. If you look at the Terminator movies, the essence of that movie is machines versus humans. This sounds like science fiction today but, at least for most of the techies, this idea is getting taken more and more seriously, because we’re getting closer and closer. If there’s a major war, with this kind of weaponry, it’ll be in the billions killed and that’s incredibly depressing. I’m glad I’m alive now. I’ll probably die peacefully in my bed. But I calculate that my grandkids will be caught up in this and I won’t. Thank God, I won’t see it. Each person is going to have to choose. It’s a binary decision, you build them or you don’t build them.
Mo Gawdat (Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World)
Fine art galleries are the excellent setups for exhibiting art, generally aesthetic art such as paints, sculptures, and digital photography. Basically, art galleries showcase a range of art designs featuring contemporary and traditional fine art, glass fine art, art prints, and animation fine art. Fine art galleries are dedicated to the advertising of arising artists. These galleries supply a system for them to present their jobs together with the works of across the country and internationally popular artists. The UNITED STATE has a wealth of famous art galleries. Lots of villages in the U.S. show off an art gallery. The High Museum of Fine art, Alleged Gallery, Henry Art Gallery, National Gallery of Art Gallery, Washington Gallery of Modern Art, Agora Gallery, Rosalux Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, The Alaska House Gallery, and Anchorage Gallery of History and Art are some of the renowned fine art galleries in the United States. Today, there are on the internet fine art galleries showing initial artwork. Several famous fine art galleries show regional pieces of art such as African fine art, American art, Indian fine art, and European art, in addition to individual fine art, modern-day and modern fine art, and digital photography. These galleries collect, show, and keep the masterpieces for the coming generations. Many famous art galleries try to entertain and educate their local, nationwide, and international audiences. Some renowned fine art galleries focus on specific areas such as pictures. A great variety of well-known fine art galleries are had and run by government. The majority of famous fine art galleries supply an opportunity for site visitors to buy outstanding art work. Additionally, they organize many art-related tasks such as songs shows and verse readings for kids and grownups. Art galleries organize seminars and workshops conducted by prominent artists. Committed to quality in both art and solution, most well-known fine art galleries provide you a rich, exceptional experience. If you wish to read additional information, please visit this site
Famous Art Galleries
Blackbeard the pirate was actually Edward Teach sometimes known as Edward Thatch, who lived from 1680 until his death on November 22, 1718. Blackbeard was a notorious English pirate who sailed around the eastern coast of North America. Although little is known about his childhood he may have worked as an apprentice on an English ship, during the second phase in a series of wars between the French and the English from 1754 and ended in 1778 as part of the American Revolutionary War. The war had different names depending on where it was fought. In the American colonies the war was known as the French and Indian War. During the time it was fought during the reign of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, it was called Queen Anne's War and in Europe it was known as the War of the Spanish Succession. During the earlier period of hostilities between France and England, some English ships were granted permission to raid French colonies and French ships and were considered privateers. Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716 operated from the Bahamian island of New Providence. Captain Hornigold placed Teach in command of a sloop that he had captured and during this time he was given the name Blackbeard. Horngold and Blackbeard sailing out of New Providence engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition of other captured ships. Blackbeard captured a French slave ship known as La Concorde and renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge. He renamed it “Queen Anne's Revenge” referring to Anne, Queen of England and Scotland returning to the throne of Great Britain. He equipped his new acquisition with 40 guns, and a crew of over 300 men. Becoming a world renowned pirate, most people feared him. In a failed attempt to run a blockade in place and refusing the governors pardon, he ran “Queen Anne's Revenge” aground on a sandbar near Beaufort, North Carolina and settled in North Carolina where he then accepted a royal pardon. The wreck of “Queen Anne's Revenge” was found in 1996 by private salvagers, Intersal Inc., a salvage company based in Palm Bay, Florida Not knowing when enough, he returned to plundering at sea. Alexander Spotswood, the Governor of Virginia formed a garrison of soldiers and sailors to protect the colony and if possible capture Blackbeard. On November 22, 1718 following a ferocious battle, Blackbeard and several of his crew were killed by a small force of sailors led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard. After his death, Blackbeard became a martyr and an inspiration for a number of fictitious books.
Hank Bracker
In 2009, Kahneman and Klein took the unusual step of coauthoring a paper in which they laid out their views and sought common ground. And they found it. Whether or not experience inevitably led to expertise, they agreed, depended entirely on the domain in question. Narrow experience made for better chess and poker players and firefighters, but not for better predictors of financial or political trends, or of how employees or patients would perform. The domains Klein studied, in which instinctive pattern recognition worked powerfully, are what psychologist Robin Hogarth termed “kind” learning environments. Patterns repeat over and over, and feedback is extremely accurate and usually very rapid. In golf or chess, a ball or piece is moved according to rules and within defined boundaries, a consequence is quickly apparent, and similar challenges occur repeatedly. Drive a golf ball, and it either goes too far or not far enough; it slices, hooks, or flies straight. The player observes what happened, attempts to correct the error, tries again, and repeats for years. That is the very definition of deliberate practice, the type identified with both the ten-thousand-hours rule and the rush to early specialization in technical training. The learning environment is kind because a learner improves simply by engaging in the activity and trying to do better. Kahneman was focused on the flip side of kind learning environments; Hogarth called them “wicked.” In wicked domains, the rules of the game are often unclear or incomplete, there may or may not be repetitive patterns and they may not be obvious, and feedback is often delayed, inaccurate, or both. In the most devilishly wicked learning environments, experience will reinforce the exact wrong lessons. Hogarth noted a famous New York City physician renowned for his skill as a diagnostician. The man’s particular specialty was typhoid fever, and he examined patients for it by feeling around their tongues with his hands. Again and again, his testing yielded a positive diagnosis before the patient displayed a single symptom. And over and over, his diagnosis turned out to be correct. As another physician later pointed out, “He was a more productive carrier, using only his hands, than Typhoid Mary.” Repetitive success, it turned out, taught him the worst possible lesson. Few learning environments are that wicked, but it doesn’t take much to throw experienced pros off course. Expert firefighters, when faced with a new situation, like a fire in a skyscraper, can find themselves suddenly deprived of the intuition formed in years of house fires, and prone to poor decisions. With a change of the status quo, chess masters too can find that the skill they took years to build is suddenly obsolete.
David Epstein (Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World)
One assumption that is already being shattered is the idea that only routine, semi-skilled jobs like taxi driving, food delivery, or household chores are susceptible. Even traditional professions like medicine and law are proving to be susceptible to platform models. We’ve already mentioned Medicast, which applies an Uber-like model to finding a doctor. Several platform companies are providing online venues where legal services are available with comparable ease, speed, and convenience. Axiom Law has built a $200 million platform business by using a combination of data-mining software and freelance law talent to provide legal guidance and services to business clients; InCloudCounsel claims it can process basic legal documents such as licensing forms and nondisclosure agreements at a savings of up to 80 percent compared with a traditional law firm.11 In the decades to come, it seems likely that the platform model will be applied—or at least tested—in virtually every market for labor and professional services. How will this trend impact the service industries—not to mention the working lives of hundreds of millions of people? One likely result will be an even greater stratification of wealth, power, and prestige among service providers. Routine and standardized tasks will move to online platforms, where an army of relatively low-paid, self-employed professionals will be available to handle them. Meanwhile, the world’s great law firms, medical centers, consulting partnerships, and accounting practices will not vanish, but their relative size and importance will shrink as much of the work they used to do migrates to platforms that can provide comparable services at a fraction of the cost and with far greater convenience. A surviving handful of world-class experts will increasingly focus on a tiny subset of the most highly specialized and challenging assignments, which they can tackle from anywhere in the world using online tools. Thus, at the very highest level of professional expertise, winner-take-all markets are likely to emerge, with (say) two dozen internationally renowned attorneys competing for the splashiest and most lucrative cases anywhere on the globe.
Geoffrey G. Parker (Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy―and How to Make Them Work for You)
it’s claimed that they can tell us most things about life. This trend isn’t just found in popular science books. At universities, economists analyse ever greater parts of existence as if it were a market. From suicide (the value of a life can be calculated like the value of a company, and now it’s time to shut the doors) to faked orgasms (he doesn’t have to study how her eyes roll back, her mouth opens, her neck reddens and her back arches – he can calculate whether she really means it). The question is what Keynes would think about an American economist like David Galenson. Galenson has developed a statistical method to calculate which works of art are meaningful. If you ask him what the most renowned work of the last century is, he’ll say ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’. He has calculated it. Things put into numbers immediately become certainties. Five naked female prostitutes on Carrer d’Avinyó in Barcelona. Threatening, square, disconnected bodies, two with faces like African masks. The large oil painting that Picasso completed in 1907 is, according to Galenson, the most important artwork of the twentieth century, because it appears most often as an illustration in books. That’s the measure he uses. The same type of economic analysis that explains the price of leeks or green fuel is supposed to be able to explain our experience of art.
Katrine Marçal (Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner? A Story About Women and Economics)
Shortly before the battle of Fredericksburg, Jackson learned that he had become a father, receiving a letter informing him of the birth of his daughter, Julia Laura Jackson, on November 23. Also before the battle, renowned cavalry chief J.E.B. Stuart gave Jackson a new outfit to replace the battle worn coat Jackson had been using throughout the war. However, Jackson ultimately refused to wear it for the next few months, his shyness once again surfacing. Ultimately, he took his last picture in it for a portrait on April 26, 1863, less than a week before the Battle of Chancellorsville.
Charles River Editors (The Stonewall Brigade: The History of the Most Famous Confederate Combat Unit of the Civil War)
From almost the moment the Civil War ended, Gettysburg has been widely viewed as one of the decisive turning points of the Civil War. As renowned Civil War historian described Gettysburg, “It might be less of a victory than Mr. Lincoln had hoped for, but it was nevertheless a victory—and, because of that, it was no longer possible for the Confederacy to win the war. The North might still lose it, to be sure, if the soldiers or the people should lose heart, but outright defeat was no longer in the cards.
Charles River Editors (The Stonewall Brigade: The History of the Most Famous Confederate Combat Unit of the Civil War)
The world’s most renowned debating society had been established in 1823. It was called the Oxford Union and stayed the focal point of contentious debates unparalleled in their content and influence. The famous 1933 motion, ‘This House will under no circumstances fight for King and Country’ had been passed by 275 votes to 153 in the Oxford Union and had ignited national indignation in the media. Winston Churchill had condemned the ‘ever shameful motion’ as an ‘abject, squalid, shameless avowal’. Many believed that the vote had played a significant role in reinforcing Hitler’s decision to invade Europe. Members of the Oxford Union couldn’t care less what Churchill and the media thought. Divergence and forthrightness remained central to the Union’s founding philosophy.
Ashwin Sanghi (Chanakya's Chant)
He ignored her apology. “Jayne? For once, could you drive like you didn’t just knock over a bank?” Jayne laughed. “Sorry, boss. Old habits die hard.” Kiara arched a brow. “She was a bank robber?” Jayne signaled her next turn. “I prefer the term ‘wealth redistributor.’ After all, a woman has needs, and I have more than most.” Kiara was aghast and impressed, and a little scared. “You really robbed banks?” Jayne winked at her in the rearview mirror. “My father was Egarious Toole. He had me on the job with him from the time I was four, and he taught me well.” Definitely impressed, Kiara grinned. Egarious Toole was one of the most renowned thieves ever born. But unlike most of his ilk, he was also known as the Gentleman Bandit because he was always so polite to those he robbed.
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Night (The League, #1))