“
That humanity at large will ever be able to dispense with Artificial Paradises seems very unlikely. Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principal appetites of the soul.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception)
“
The principal function of racist ideas in American history has been the suppression of resistance to racial discrimination and its resulting racial disparities. The beneficiaries of slavery, segregation, and mass incarceration have produced racist ideas of Black people being best suited for or deserving of the confines of slavery, segregation, or the jail cell. Consumers of these racist ideas have been led to believe there is something wrong with Black people, and not the policies that have enslaved, oppressed, and confined so many Black people.
”
”
Ibram X. Kendi (Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America)
“
I seek not to instruct but only to lead, to point out and describe what I see. I claim no other right than that of speaking according to my best lights, principally before myself but in the same manner also before others, as one who has lived in all its seriousness the fate of a philosophical existence.
”
”
Edmund Husserl (The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology)
“
Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principal appetites of the soul.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception/Heaven and Hell)
“
Principal Brill, those costumes were made by my mother. My mother, who has stage four small-cell lung cancer. My mother, who will never watch her little boy celebrate another Halloween again. My mother, who will more than likely experience a year of 'lasts'. Last Christmas. Last birthday. Last Easter. And if God is willing, her last Mother's Day. My mother, who when asked by her nine-year-old son if he could be her cancer for Halloween, had no choice but to make him the best cancerous tumor-riden lung costume she could. So if you think it's so offensive, I suggest you drive them home yourself and tell my mother to her face. Do you need my address?
”
”
Colleen Hoover (Slammed (Slammed, #1))
“
As soon as the child is born, the mother who has just brought him into the world must console him, quiet his crying, and lighten the burden of the existence she has given him. And one of the principal duties of good parents in the childhood and early youth of their children is to comfort them, to encourage them to live,1 because sorrows and ills and passions are at that age much heavier than they are to those who through long experience, or simply because they have lived longer, are used to suffering. And in truth it is only fitting that the good father and the good mother, in trying to console their children, correct as best they can, and ease, the damage they have done by procreating them. Good God! Why then is man born? And why does he procreate? To console those he has given birth to for having been born?
”
”
Giacomo Leopardi (Zibaldone)
“
The difference between being an amazing technician and being a soloist or principal is mastering those interpretive flourishes to tell the best story. Otherwise you aren’t a ballerina—you’re just another dancer.
”
”
Misty Copeland (Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina)
“
The part of the tradition that I knew best was mostly written (or rewritten for children) in England and northern Europe. The principal characters were men. If the story was heroic, the hero was a white man; most dark-skinned people were inferior or evil. If there was a woman in the story, she was a passive object of desire and rescue (a beautiful blond princess); active women (dark, witches) usually caused destruction or tragedy. Anyway, the stories weren’t about the women. They were about men, what men did, and what was important to men.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1))
“
I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that corporations may be enriched. In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.
”
”
Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
“
E-mail response time is the single best predictor of whether employees are satisfied with their boss, according to research by Duncan Watts, a Columbia University sociologist who is now a principal researcher for Microsoft Research. The longer it takes for a boss to respond to their e-mails, the less satisfied people are with their leader.1
”
”
Daniel H. Pink (When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing)
“
The Stoics taught a life of restraint and control, the personal cultivation of learning, beauty, and reason. The Stoics asked the Romans to realize that much that is encountered in life is beyond the individual's control. Make the best of what can be humanly cultivated. It is a kind of Platonism shrunk to a pursuit of private feelings and thoughts: Do the best with what you can control and refine, and let the rest go.
"The world is rational, but it is only amenable to active intervention within the limits of the individual's capacity. Do not try to be an overachiever. Do not dream of social transformation. Private cultivation rather than social action makes for the good life. Although the slave Epictetus was one of the principal Stoic writers, the emperor Marcus Aurelius's upper-class background is more typical of its devotees.
"Stoicism is a narrow ethic, one suitable to the emotional and intellectual needs of aristocrat and slave alike, but less useful for the ambitious middle class.
”
”
Norman F. Cantor (Antiquity: The Civilization of the Ancient World)
“
The heart of man is his worst part before it be regenerate, and the best afterwards: it is the seat of principles, and fountain of actions. The eye of God is, and the eye of a Christian ought to be, principally fixed upon it. The greatest difficulty in conversion, is, to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion, is, to keep the heart with God.
”
”
John Flavel (Keeping The Heart (Vintage Puritan))
“
Game-free intimacy is or should be the most perfect form of human living.
Because there is so little opportunity for intimacy in daily life, and because some forms of intimacy (especially if intense) are psychologically impossible for most people, the bulk of time in serious social life is taken up with playing games. Hence games are both necessary and desirable, and the only problem at issue is whether the games played by an individual offer the best yield for him. In this connexion it should be remembered that the essential feature of a game is its culmination, or payoff. The principal function of the preliminary moves is to set up the situation for this payoff, but they are always designed to harvest the maximum permissible satisfaction at each step as a secondary product.
Games are passed on from generation to generation. The favoured game of any individual can be traced back to his parents and grandparents, and forward to his children.
Raising children is primarily a matter of teaching them what games to play. Different cultures and different social classes favour different types of games.
Many games are played most intensely by disturbed people, generally speaking, the more disturbed they are, the harder they play.
The attainment of autonomy is manifested by the release or recovery of three capacities: awareness, spontaneity and intimacy.
Parents, deliberately or unaware, teach their children from birth how to behave, think and perceive. Liberation from these influences is no easy matter, since they are deeply ingrained.
First, the weight of a whole tribal or family historical tradition has to be lifted. The same must be done with the demands of contemporary society at large, and finally advantages derived from one's immediate social circle have to be partly or wholly sacrificed. Following this, the individual must attain personal and social control, so that all the classes of behaviour become free choices subject only to his will. He is then ready for game-free relationships.
”
”
Eric Berne
“
release me—an eye gouge or a knee to the testicles—though the best I managed was to drive my elbow into a chair. “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Chip snarled. “Would you just fight like a man?” “I’ll pass,” I said. The Bashful Armadillo was working for me. “What is going on here?!” The principal’s voice was frightening enough to scare even Chip cold. Our fight stopped instantly. For the first time since emerging from the subterranean level, I had a chance to take in my surroundings.
”
”
Stuart Gibbs (Spy School)
“
Her partner now drew near, and said, "That gentleman would have put me out of patience, had he stayed with you half a minute longer. He has no business to withdraw the attention of my partner from me. We have entered into a contract of mutual agreeableness for the space of an evening, and all our agreeableness belongs solely to each other for that time. Nobody can fasten themselves on the notice of one, without injuring the rights of the other. I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage. Fidelity and complaisance are the principal duties of both; and those men who do not choose to dance or marry themselves, have no business with the partners or wives of their neighbours."
But they are such very different things!"
-- That you think they cannot be compared together."
To be sure not. People that marry can never part, but must go and keep house together. People that dance only stand opposite each other in a long room for half an hour."
And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing. Taken in that light certainly, their resemblance is not striking; but I think I could place them in such a view. You will allow, that in both, man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; that in both, it is an engagement between man and woman, formed for the advantage of each; and that when once entered into, they belong exclusively to each other till the moment of its dissolution; that it is their duty, each to endeavour to give the other no cause for wishing that he or she had bestowed themselves elsewhere, and their best interest to keep their own imaginations from wandering towards the perfections of their neighbours, or fancying that they should have been better off with anyone else. You will allow all this?"
Yes, to be sure, as you state it, all this sounds very well; but still they are so very different. I cannot look upon them at all in the same light, nor think the same duties belong to them."
In one respect, there certainly is a difference. In marriage, the man is supposed to provide for the support of the woman, the woman to make the home agreeable to the man; he is to purvey, and she is to smile. But in dancing, their duties are exactly changed; the agreeableness, the compliance are expected from him, while she furnishes the fan and the lavender water. That, I suppose, was the difference of duties which struck you, as rendering the conditions incapable of comparison."
No, indeed, I never thought of that."
Then I am quite at a loss. One thing, however, I must observe. This disposition on your side is rather alarming. You totally disallow any similarity in the obligations; and may I not thence infer that your notions of the duties of the dancing state are not so strict as your partner might wish? Have I not reason to fear that if the gentleman who spoke to you just now were to return, or if any other gentleman were to address you, there would be nothing to restrain you from conversing with him as long as you chose?"
Mr. Thorpe is such a very particular friend of my brother's, that if he talks to me, I must talk to him again; but there are hardly three young men in the room besides him that I have any acquaintance with."
And is that to be my only security? Alas, alas!"
Nay, I am sure you cannot have a better; for if I do not know anybody, it is impossible for me to talk to them; and, besides, I do not want to talk to anybody."
Now you have given me a security worth having; and I shall proceed with courage.
”
”
Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)
“
most people report dreaming principally in visual images. Freud, however, assumes that dreams start from a dream-thought that is best expressed in words and translate it into a picture-language which is intellectually inferior because it cannot convey logical connections; the analyst restores to the dream its verbal character.
”
”
Sigmund Freud (The Interpretation of Dreams (World's Classics))
“
Sometimes only in retrospect do we realize that we have wasted our best years looking for a lost, inappropriate first love, that our life-changing passion for a particular person was no more than the desire to finally kiss the crooked lower lip of an elementary school principal or the boy on whom we had an unrequited childhood crush.
”
”
Francine Prose (Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932)
“
in the book i'm reading (The Principal) the main chareter best friend has to go to a differnt school. I can picture them waiting at the bus stop together crying.
”
”
Jerry Spinelli
“
Who had the bigger boat, wore the better outfit, got the best table seemed all that mattered. There were decade-old feuds over casual cracks long forgotten by everyone but the principals. They circled each other still—waiting to identify a weakness—looking for somewhere and some way to strike. People jockeyed for position, cut each other’s throats over the most petty, nonsensical shit imaginable. This from the people who, it gradually began to dawn on me, actually ran the world.
”
”
Anthony Bourdain (Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook)
“
Tumi Jónsen has now started to tell the Icelandic sagas in a style that consists principally of casting doubt on the story being told, making no effort to describe things, skating past the main points, excusing the main characters for performing deeds that will live as long as the world endures, erasing their faces if possible - but wiping them clean, just in case. Therefore it never became a story, at best just a subject for a poem. The women carry on with their scrubbing. This was a long morning.
”
”
Halldór Laxness (Under the Glacier)
“
Hazel sometimes had a fantasy daydream at school where the teacher walked into the classroom and yelled,
ISN’T EVERYTHING HORRIBLE? DOESN’T THE PAIN OF THE WORLD OUTWEIGH THE JOY BY TRILLIONS? WOULD YOU LIKE TO PUSH ALL OF THE DESKS INTO THE CENTER OF THE ROOM AND BURN THEM IN A GIANT BONFIRE? THEN WE CAN RUN AROUND SCREAMING AND WEEPING AMIDST THE SMOKE IN A TRUTHFUL PARADE OF OUR HUMAN CONDITION. SINCE YOU ARE SMALL STATURED, CHILDREN, IT MIGHT HELP OTHERS TO FEEL THE FULL BRUNT OF YOUR AGITATION IF YOU WAVE STICKS AND SHRUBBERY OVER YOUR HEADS ALL THE WHILE. WE DON’T WANT TO KILL ANYTHING WE DON’T HAVE TO KILL; EVERYTHING LIVING THAT WE’VE EVER SEEN OR KNOWN WILL DIE WITHOUT OUR INTERVENTION, OURSELVES INCLUDED; THIS IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL LEAD BLANKET THAT EVEN OUR MOST PERVASIVE MOMENTS OF COMFORT CANNOT CRAWL OUT FROM UNDER AND ONE UNEXTINGUISHABLE SOURCE OF DESPAIR, SO WE WON’T BE PERFORMING ANY RITUALISTIC SACRIFICES; THAT’S NOT THE DIRECTION WE WILL GO IN JUST YET; HOWEVER, ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL LAWRENCE IS ON THE PROWL FOR A ROAD CARCASS WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO USE AS A REPRESENTATIVE PROP BECAUSE NOWHERE IN OUR AUTUMN-THEMED POSTER BOARD DéCOR IS MORBIDITY OR DECAY SYMBOLIZED. OUR SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS CANNOT AGREE ON HOW BEST TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE BOUNDLESSNESS OF HUMAN CRUELTY. IN OUR SOCIETY SOME OF YOU ARE FAR SAFER AND MORE ADVANTAGED THAN OTHERS; AT HOME SOME OF YOU ARE FAR MORE LOVED; SOME OF YOU WILL FIND THAT CONCEPTS LIKE FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE WILL BE THIN, FLICKERING HOLOGRAMS ON THE PERIPHERY OF YOUR LIVES. OH, LOOK, CHILDREN—I SEE MR. LAWRENCE IN THE DISTANCE DRAGGING A PORTION OF A HIGHWAY-SLAUGHTERED DEER. LET’S GO HELP HIM LUG IT INSIDE AND BE REMINDED THAT WE TOO INHABIT BODIES MADE OF MEAT-WRAPPED BONES; LET’S MEDITATE ON THIS CORPOREAL TERROR.
Whenever her mother had asked, Hazel always told her, School is great.
”
”
Alissa Nutting (Made for Love)
“
Among this bewildering multiplicity of ideals which shall we choose? The answer is that we shall choose none. For it is clear that each one of these contradictory ideals is the fruit of particular social circumstances. To some extent, of course, this is true of every thought and aspiration that has ever been formulated. Some thoughts and aspirations, however, are manifestly less dependent on particular social circumstances than others. And here a significant fact emerges: all the ideals of human behaviour formulated by those who have been most successful in freeing themselves from the prejudices of their time and place are singularly alike. Liberation from prevailing conventions of thought, feeling and behaviour is accomplished most effectively by the practice of disinterested virtues and through direct insight into the real nature of ultimate reality. (Such insight is a gift, inherent in the individual; but, though inherent, it cannot manifest itself completely except where certain conditions are fulfilled. The principal pre-condition of insight is, precisely, the practice of disinterested virtues.) To some extent critical intellect is also a liberating force. But the way in which intellect is used depends upon the will. Where the will is not disinterested, the intellect tends to be used (outside the non-human fields of technology, science or pure mathematics) merely as an instrument for the rationalization of passion and prejudice, the justification of self-interest. That is why so few even of die acutest philosophers have succeeded in liberating themselves completely from the narrow prison of their age and country. It is seldom indeed that they achieve as much freedom as the mystics and the founders of religion. The most nearly free men have always been those who combined virtue with insight.
Now, among these freest of human beings there has been, for the last eighty or ninety generations, substantial agreement in regard to the ideal individual. The enslaved have held up for admiration now this model of a man, now that; but at all times and in all places, the free have spoken with only one voice.
It is difficult to find a single word that will adequately describe the ideal man of the free philosophers, the mystics, the founders of religions. 'Non-attached* is perhaps the best. The ideal man is the non-attached man. Non-attached to his bodily sensations and lusts. Non-attached to his craving for power and possessions. Non-attached to the objects of these various desires. Non-attached to his anger and hatred; non-attached to his exclusive loves.
Non-attached to wealth, fame, social position. Non-attached even to science, art, speculation, philanthropy. Yes, non-attached even to these. For, like patriotism, in Nurse Cavel's phrase, 'they are not enough, Non-attachment to self and to what are called 'the things of this world' has always been associated in the teachings of the philosophers and the founders of religions with attachment to an ultimate reality greater and more significant than the self. Greater and more significant than even the best things that this world has to offer. Of the nature of this ultimate reality I shall speak in the last chapters of this book. All that I need do in this place is to point out that the ethic of non-attachment has always been correlated with cosmologies that affirm the existence of a spiritual reality underlying the phenomenal world and imparting to it whatever value or significance it possesses.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Ends and Means)
“
Many people today acquiesce in the widespread myth, devised in the late 19th century, of an epic battle between ‘scientists’ and ‘religionists’. Despite the unfortunate fact that some members of both parties perpetuate the myth by their actions today, this ‘conflict’ model has been rejected by every modern historian of science; it does not portray the historical situation. During the 16th and 17th centuries and during the Middle Ages, there was not a camp of ‘scientists’ struggling to break free of the repression of ‘religionists’; such separate camps simply did not exist as such. Popular tales of repression and conflict are at best oversimplified or exaggerated, and at worst folkloristic fabrications (see Chapter 3 on Galileo). Rather, the investigators of nature were themselves religious people, and many ecclesiastics were themselves investigators of nature.
”
”
Lawrence M. Principe (The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction)
“
They suspected that children learned best through undirected free play—and that a child’s psyche was sensitive and fragile. During the 1980s and 1990s, American parents and teachers had been bombarded by claims that children’s self-esteem needed to be protected from competition (and reality) in order for them to succeed. Despite a lack of evidence, the self-esteem movement took hold in the United States in a way that it did not in most of the world. So, it was understandable that PTA parents focused their energies on the nonacademic side of their children’s school. They dutifully sold cupcakes at the bake sales and helped coach the soccer teams. They doled out praise and trophies at a rate unmatched in other countries. They were their kids’ boosters, their number-one fans. These were the parents that Kim’s principal in Oklahoma praised as highly involved. And PTA parents certainly contributed to the school’s culture, budget, and sense of community. However, there was not much evidence that PTA parents helped their children become critical thinkers. In most of the countries where parents took the PISA survey, parents who participated in a PTA had teenagers who performed worse in reading. Korean parenting, by contrast, were coaches. Coach parents cared deeply about their children, too. Yet they spent less time attending school events and more time training their children at home: reading to them, quizzing them on their multiplication tables while they were cooking dinner, and pushing them to try harder. They saw education as one of their jobs.
”
”
Amanda Ripley (The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way)
“
3. Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy’s plans; [Perhaps the word “balk” falls short of expressing the full force of the Chinese word, which implies not an attitude of defense, whereby one might be content to foil the enemy’s stratagems one after another, but an active policy of counter-attack. Ho Shih puts this very clearly in his note: “When the enemy has made a plan of attack against us, we must anticipate him by delivering our own attack first.”] the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy’s forces; [Isolating him from his allies. We must not forget that Sun Tzu, in speaking of hostilities, always has in mind the numerous states or principalities into which the China of his day was split up.] the next in order is to attack the enemy’s army in the field; [When he is already at full strength.] and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities. 4. The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided.
”
”
Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
“
For quite a long time I have been examining myself concerning the pertinence of Birthdays, while the date and time is linear, What is the point of celebrating it every year over and over once more, and afterward I understand we invested the vast majority of our energy in attempting to substantiate ourselves the best on the boundaries, all set by others, be it kids, soul mate, guardians, companions, seniors and so forth, and in this journey we will generally fail to remember what initially we needed with ourselves. Birthday is one day which offers us a chance to make a huge stride towards the directions we at any point needed to set out for ourselves. It ought to be made consistently, as the principal right stride, towards your own objectives to provide guidance to every single further advance. I pray that you will actually assemble your entire existence today to take a step towards your own objectives, without blending your objectives in with the objectives of others. Enjoy more than ever and never later. Have an Extraordinary Birthday!!!
”
”
Manish Kejriwal
“
To be a man and live among men is miraculous, even if we know the vile deeds and crimes that people are capable of. Every day we build together an enormous beehive with our thoughts, discoveries, inventions, works, lives. Even that analogy is hardly accurate; it is too static, since our collective work is constantly changing and displaying itself in various colors, subject to time or history. Again, this is an insufficient description, because it ignores the most important thing: that this collective creation is given life by the most private, hidden fuel of all individual aspirations and decisions. The oddity of man's exceptional calling rests principally on his being a comical being, forever immature, so that a group of children with their easy mood swings from laughter to crying is the best illustration of his lack of dignity. A few years pass, and suddenly they are adults, taking control and supposedly prepared to make pronouncements on public matters and even to take upon themselves the duties of father and mother, although it would be good if they first had an entire life of their own to prepare for this.
”
”
Czesław Miłosz (Milosz's ABC's)
“
The importance of cultivating assumption of the best intentions in others cannot be over-estimated. Fostering this principal of, "goodness of intent,” and committing to seeing others and the world through this lens makes for a successful, happy field of vision. This enables us to put our focus and energy to positive, productive outcomes. It lends to a spirit of cooperation and encouragement which is highly effective and satisfying for most people most of the time. That being said, these "rose colored glasses," as vibrant and pleasing as they are, must not become an excuse to look the other way when something needs a different focus, or fixed. We must not let them become blinders which are obviously ineffective, often negative, and occasionally dangerous.
”
”
Connie Kerbs
“
Your mother can’t produce food out of thin air,” said Hermione. “No one can. Food is the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfigur--”
“Oh, speak English, can’t you?” Ron said, prising a fish bone out from between his teeth.
“It’s impossible to make good food out of nothing! You can Summon it if you know where it is, you can transform it, you can increase the quantity if you’ve already got some--”
“Well, don’t bother increasing this, it’s disgusting,” said Ron.
“Harry caught the fish and I did my best with it! I notice I’m always the one who ends up sorting out the food, because I’m a girl, I suppose!”
“No, it’s because you’re supposed to be the best at magic!” shot back Ron.
Hermione jumped up and bits of roast pike slid off her tin plate onto the floor.
“You can do the cooking tomorrow, Ron, you can find the ingredients and try and charm them into something worth eating, and I’ll sit here and pull faces and moan and you can see how you--”
“Shut up!” said Harry, leaping to his feet and holding up both hands. “Shut up now!”
Hermione looked outraged.
“How can you side with him, he hardly ever does the cook--”
“Hermione, be quiet, I can hear someone!
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
“
The oligarchs who ran the country – and the world – had no principals, no morals, and no Code of Honor. Their indentured servants, the politicians, pretended to have them, but their skills were, just like those of the prostitute who tells her john he just gave her the best orgasm, to appear to have a moral purpose just beyond their self-enrichment. That much was enough to get them through the next election.
”
”
Kenneth Eade (An Evil Trade (Paladine Political Thriller))
“
…and the mousesized mousecolored spinster trembling and aghast at her own temerity, staring across it at the childless bachelor in whom ended that long line of men who had had something in them of decency and pride even after they had begun to fail at the integrity and the pride had become mostly vanity and selfpity: from the expatriate who had to flee his native land with little else except his life yet who still refused to accept defeat, through the man who gambled his life and his good name twice and lost twice and declined to accept that either, and the one who with only a clever small quarterhorse for tool avenged his dispossessed father and grandfather and gained a principality, and the brilliant and gallant governor and the general who though he failed at leading in battle brave and gallant men at least risked his own life too in the failing, to the cultured dipsomaniac who sold the last of his patrimony not to buy drink but to give one of his descendants at least the best chance in life he could think of.
”
”
William Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury)
“
One writer, Gardiner Hubbard, described the American telegraph system as "peculiarly a business system; eighty per cent of the messages are on business matters… . the managers of the telegraph know that their business customers want the quickest and best service, and care more for dispatch than low tariffs. Thus the great difference between the telegraph systems of Europe and America is that [in Europe], the telegraph is used principally for social correspondence, here by businessmen for business purposes." The
”
”
Tom Standage (The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers)
“
It’s our bad luck to have teachers in this world, but since we’re stuck with them, the best we can do is hope to get a brand-new one instead of a mean old fart. New teachers don’t know the rules, so you can get away with things the old-timers would squash you for. That was my theory. So I was feeling pretty excited to start fifth grade, since I was getting a rookie teacher—a guy named Mr. Terupt. Right away, I put him to the test. If the bathroom pass is free, all you have to do is take it and go. This year, the bathrooms were right across the hall. It’s always been an easy way to get out of doing work. I can be really sneaky like that. I take the pass all the time and the teachers never notice. And like I said, Mr. Terupt was a rookie, so I knew he wasn’t going to catch me. Once you’re in the bathroom, it’s mess-around time. All the other teachers on our floor were women, so you didn’t have to worry about them barging in on you. Grab the bars to the stalls and swing. Try to touch your feet to the ceiling. Swing hard. If someone’s in the stall, it’s really funny to swing and kick his door in, especially if he’s a younger kid. If you scare him bad enough, he might pee on himself a little. That’s funny. Or if your buddy’s using the urinal, you can push him from behind and flush it at the same time. Then he might get a little wet. That’s pretty funny, too. Some kids like to plug the toilets with big wads of toilet paper, but I don’t suggest you try doing that. You can get in big trouble. My older brother told me his friend got caught and he had to scrub the toilets with a toothbrush. He said the principal made him brush his teeth with that toothbrush afterward, too. Mrs. Williams is pretty tough, but I don’t think she’d give out that kind of punishment. I don’t want to find out, either. When I came back into the classroom after my fourth or fifth trip, Mr. Terupt looked at me and said, “Boy, Peter, I’m gonna have to call you Mr. Peebody, or better yet, Peter the Pee-er. You do more peein’ than a dog walking by a mile of fire hydrants.
”
”
Rob Buyea (Because of Mr. Terupt (Mr. Terupt, #1))
“
In agricultural communities, male leadership in the hunt ceased to be of much importance. As the discipline of the hunting band decayed, the political institutions of the earliest village settlements perhaps approximated the anarchism which has remained ever since the ideal of peaceful peasantries all round the earth. Probably religious functionaries, mediators between helpless mankind and the uncertain fertility of the earth, provided an important form of social leadership. The strong hunter and man of prowess, his occupation gone or relegated to the margins of social life, lost the umambiguous primacy which had once been his; while the comparatively tight personal subordination to a leader necessary to the success of a hunting party could be relaxed in proportion as grain fields became the center around which life revolved.
Among predominantly pastoral peoples, however, religious-political institutions took a quite different turn. To protect the flocks from animal predators required the same courage and social discipline which hunters had always needed. Among pastoralists, likewise, the principal economic activity- focused, as among the earliest hunters, on a parasitic relation to animals- continued to be the special preserve of menfolk. Hence a system of patrilineal families, united into kinship groups under the authority of a chieftain responsible for daily decisions as to where to seek pasture, best fitted the conditions of pastoral life. In addition, pastoralists were likely to accord importance to the practices and discipline of war. After all, violent seizure of someone else’s animals or pasture grounds was the easiest and speediest way to wealth and might be the only means of survival in a year of scant vegetation.
Such warlikeness was entirely alien to communities tilling the soil. Archeological remains from early Neolithic villages suggest remarkably peaceful societies. As long as cultivable land was plentiful, and as long as the labor of a single household could not produce a significant surplus, there can have been little incentive to war. Traditions of violence and hunting-party organization presumably withered in such societies, to be revived only when pastoral conquest superimposed upon peaceable villagers the elements of warlike organization from which civilized political institutions without exception descend.
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William H. McNeill
“
Isabelle and Amory were distinctly not innocent, nor were they particularly brazen. Moreover, amateur standing had very little value in the game they were playing, a game that would presumably be her principal study for years to come. She had begun as he had, with good looks and an excitable temperament, and the rest was the result of accessible popular novels and dressing-room conversation culled from a slightly older set. Isabelle had walked with an artificial gait at nine and a half, and when her eyes, wide and starry, proclaimed the ingenue most. Amory was proportionately less deceived. He waited for the mask to drop off, but at the same time he did not question her right to wear it. She, on her part, was not impressed by his studied air of blasé sophistication. She had lived in a larger city and had slightly an advantage in range. But she accepted his pose--it was one of the dozen little conventions of this kind of affair. He was aware that he was getting this particular favor now because she had been coached; he knew that he stood for merely the best game in sight, and that he would have to improve his opportunity before he lost his advantage. So they proceeded with an infinite guile that would have horrified her parents.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise)
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There was no way I wasn’t going. I was going to leave this stupid town and its stupid rocky soil where nothing grew and where children were buried; its stupid churches and hypocritical Holy Rollers; its stupid schools and the principal who, I thought, had kicked my best friend out of school; its poverty and its poverty of imagination; its low expectations; its girls who were expected to wear makeup and curl their hair and marry so young and produce an endless supply of babies; its stupid selective mourning, this stupid town that cared more about people who died than those who lived and struggled and couldn’t find their way.
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Monica Potts
“
Words pack power and these definitions are laden with values, often wildly idiosyncratic ones. Here’s an example, namely the ways I think about the word “competition”: (a) “competition”—your lab team races the Cambridge group to a discovery (exhilarating but embarrassing to admit to); (b) “competition”—playing pickup soccer (fine, as long as the best player shifts sides if the score becomes lopsided); (c) “competition”—your child’s teacher announces a prize for the best outlining-your-fingers Thanksgiving turkey drawing (silly and perhaps a red flag—if it keeps happening, maybe complain to the principal); (d) “competition”—whose deity is more worth killing for? (try to avoid).
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Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
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I think we're all just doing our best to survive the inevitable pain and suffering that walks alongside us through life. Long ago, it was wild animals and deadly poxes and harsh terrain. I learned about it playing The Oregon Trail on an old IBM in my computer class in the fourth grade. The nature of the trail has changed, but we keep trekking along. We trek through the death of a sibling, a child, a parent, a partner, a spouse; the failed marriage, the crippling debt, the necessary abortion, the paralyzing infertility, the permanent disability, the job you can't seem to land; the assault, the robbery, the break-in, the accident, the flood, the fire; the sickness, the anxiety, the depression, the loneliness, the betrayal, the disappointment, and the heartbreak.
There are these moments in life where you change instantly.
In one moment, you're the way you were, and in the next, you're someone else. Like becoming a parent: you're adding, of course, instead of subtracting, as it is when someone dies, and the tone of the occasion is obviously different, but the principal is the same. Birth is an inciting incident, a point of no return, that changes one's circumstances forever. The second that beautiful baby onto whom you have projected all your hopes and dreams comes out of your body, you will never again do anything for yourself. It changes you suddenly and entirely.
Birth and death are the same in that way.
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Stephanie Wittels Wachs (Everything is Horrible and Wonderful: A Tragicomic Memoir of Genius, Heroin, Love and Loss)
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I used to think optimists were naive and pessimists were smart. Pessimism seemed like an essential feature of a scientist: the basis of science is to challenge every result, to pick theories apart to see which one stands up. I thought cynicism was one of its founding principals. Maybe there is some truth in that. But science is inherently optimistic too. How else would we describe the willingness to try experiments over and over, often with slim odds of success? Scientific progress can be frustratingly slow: the best minds can dedicate their entire lives to a single question and come away with nothing. They do so with the hope that a breakthrough is around the corner. The odds drop to zero if they give up.
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Hannah Ritchie (Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet)
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Whoever becomes prince of a city or state, especially if the foundation of his power is feeble, and does not wish to establish there either a monarchy or a republic, will find the best means for holding that principality to organize the government entirely anew (he being himself a new prince there); that is, he should appoint new governors with new titles, new powers, and new men, and he should make the poor rich, as David did when he became king, “who heaped riches upon the needy, and dismissed the wealthy empty-handed.” Besides this, he should destroy the old cities and build new ones, and transfer the inhabitants from one place to another; in short, he should leave nothing unchanged in that province, so that there should be neither rank, nor grade, nor honor, nor wealth, that should not be recognized as coming from him.
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Niccolò Machiavelli (The Prince)
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Only from their authors themselves can we receive philoso phical thoughts ; therefore whoever feels himself drawn to philosophy must himself seek out its immortal teachers in the still sanctuary of their works. The principal chapters of any one of these true philosophers will afford a thousand times more insight into their doctrines than the heavy and distorted accounts of them that everyday men produce, who are still for the most part deeply en tangled in the fashionable philosophy of the time, or in the sentiments of their own minds. But it is astonish ing how decidedly the public seizes by preference on these expositions at second-hand. It seems really as if elective affinities were at work here, by virtue of which the common nature is drawn to its like, and therefore will rather hear what a great man has said from one of its own kind. Perhaps this rests on the same principle as that of mutual instruction, according to which children learn best from children.
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Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Representation)
“
[24] In a piece of embossed silverware, what is best: the silver or the workmanship? The substance of the hand is mere flesh, but what is important is the works that the hand produces. [25] Now, appropriate actions are of three kinds:* first, those relating to mere existence, secondly, those relating to existence of a particular kind, and thirdly, those that are themselves principal duties. And what are those? [26] Fulfilling one’s role as a citizen, marrying, having children, honouring God, taking care of one’s parents, and, in a word, having our desires and aversions, and our motives to act and or not to act, as each of them ought to be, in accordance with our nature. And what is our nature? [27] To be people who are free, noble-minded, and self-respecting. For what other animal blushes; what other animal has a sense of shame? [28] Pleasure should be subordinated to these duties as a servant, as an attendant,* so as to arouse our zeal, so as to ensure that we consistently act in accord with nature.
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Epictetus (Discourses, Fragments, Handbook)
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Tom Demarco, a principal of the Atlantic Systems Guild team of consultants ... and his colleague Timothy Lister devised a study called the Coding War Games. The purpose of the games was to identify the characteristics of the best and worst computer programmers; more than six hundred developers from ninety-two different companies participated. Each designed, coded, and tested a program, working in his normal office space during business hours. Each participant was also assigned a partner from the same company. The partners worked separately, however, without any communication, a feature of the games that turned out to be critical.
When the results came in, they revealed an enormous performance gap. The best outperformed the worst by a 10:1 ratio. The top programmers were also about 2.5 times better than the median. When DeMarco and Lister tried to figure out what accounted for this astonishing range, the factors that you'd think would matter — such as years of experience, salary, even the time spent completing the work — had little correlation to outcome. Programmers with 10 years' experience did no better than those with two years. The half who performed above the median earned less than 10 percent more than the half below — even though they were almost twice as good. The programmers who turned in "zero-defect" work took slightly less, not more, time to complete the exercise than those who made mistakes.
It was a mystery with one intriguing clue: programmers from the same companies performed at more or less the same level, even though they hadn't worked together. That's because top performers overwhelmingly worked for companies that gave their workers the most privacy, personal space, control over their physical environments, and freedom from interruption. Sixty-two percent of the best performers said that their workspace was acceptably private, compared to only 19 percent of the worst performers; 76 percent of the worst performers but only 38 percent of the top performers said that people often interrupted them needlessly.
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Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
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As expected, Nevada’s summer heat was oppressive; temperatures under the desert sun bubbled around the 130-degree mark, which made it even harder for Monroe and almost everyone except [Clark] Gable to put in a full day’s work. Though he had a chauffeured limousine at his disposal, he drove himself back and forth to work in his silver Mercedes-Benz SC. He always arrived punctually at eight-forty-five A.M., bringing along gallon Thermoses of booze-spiked lemonade and iced tea to fortify himself. For the better part of the morning, he would sit around studying that day’s script pages or gabbing with the crew while waiting for the other principals to arrive.
Though the delays were driving him mad, he tried not to show it. But one day while his writer-friend John Lee Mahin was visiting from Los Angeles, Gable told him, “It’s not professional, John, it’s stealing. It’s stealing the bank’s money and United Artists’ money. I don’t see how they’re going to get a picture out of this, but I’m stuck with it now, and I’m trying to do the best I can. It’s been hard on me.
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Warren G. Harris (Clark Gable: A Biography)
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It is love that believes the resurrection.”16 “Simon, son of John,” says Jesus, “do you love me?” There is a whole world in that question, a world of personal invitation and challenge, of the remaking of a human being after disloyalty and disaster, of the refashioning of epistemology itself, the question of how we know things, to correspond to the new ontology, the question of what reality consists of. The reality that is the resurrection cannot simply be “known” from within the old world of decay and denial, of tyrants and torture, of disobedience and death. But that’s the point. To repeat: the resurrection is not, as it were, a highly peculiar event within the present world (though it is that as well); it is, principally, the defining event of the new creation, the world that is being born with Jesus. If we are even to glimpse this new world, let alone enter it, we will need a different kind of knowing, a knowing that involves us in new ways, an epistemology that draws out from us not just the cool appraisal of detached quasi-scientific research but also that whole-person engagement and involvement for which the best shorthand is “love,” in the full Johannine sense of agapē.
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N.T. Wright (Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church)
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If we look honestly at the way many people manage their dogs today, we are faced with a staggering reflection of irresponsibility and lack of compassion. It is difficult to refer to a dog as “man’s best friend” when more than six million unwanted adult dogs and puppies are euthanized every year. We are not speaking here of the humane killing of animals done out of a sense of responsible stewardship but of the massive human negligence that leads to euthanasia. For those who doubt the serious implications of this situation, a trip to the local animal shelter can be a real eye-opener. We recall one client who dismissed our advice about spaying her female shepherd, explaining she felt it was important for her children to have the experience of seeing puppies born. When we asked her how she intended to care for and give homes to the puppies, she responded that she really had not thought about it at all and that she would probably leave them at the local humane society when it was time for them to be weaned. We then asked her what value such an experience would have if the principal lesson her children would learn is that puppies are cute little playthings who, when sufficiently used, may then be conveniently disposed of. Fortunately, our questioning convinced her of her faulty thinking, and she left with a new respect for the implications of bringing puppies into the world.
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Monks of New Skete (The Art of Raising a Puppy)
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Only when it comes to explaining psychic phenomena of a minimal degree of clarity are we driven to assume that archetypes must have a nonpsychic aspect. Grounds for such a conclusion are supplied by the phenomena of synchronicity, which are associated with the activity of unconscious operators and have hitherto been regarded, or repudiated, as 'telepathy' etc. Scepticism should, however, be levelled only at incorrect theories and not at facts which exist in their own right. No unbiased observer can deny them. Resistance to the recognition of such facts rests principally on the repugnance people feel for an allegedly supernatural faculty tacked on to the psyche, like 'clairvoyance'. The very diverse and confusing aspects of these phenomena are, so far as I can see at present, completely explicable on the assumption of psychically relative space-time continuum. As soon as the psychic content crosses the threshold of consciousness, the synchronistic marginal phenomena disappear, time and space resume their accustomed sway, and consciousness is once more isolated in its subjectivity. We have here one of those instances which can best be understood in terms of the physicist's idea of 'complementarity'. When an unconscious content passes over into consciousness its synchronistic manifestation ceases; conversely, synchronistic phenomena can be evoked by putting the subject into an unconscious state (trance).
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C.G. Jung (On the Nature of the Psyche)
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I heard the door at the far end of the hallway swing open. Then I heard familiar footsteps approaching. After going to three different schools for seven years, I knew it was Mark.
“Hi, Mark,” I said.
“Hey, pal. I thought I’d find you here,” Mark said.
I sighed wearily.
“Did you find her?” Mark asked tentatively.
“Yeah.”
“Did you tell her how you feel?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“What did she say?”
I turned around to face my best friend. Concern born of seven years’ worth of friendship was written on his open face. Whatever his faults, you could never accuse Mark of being unconcerned.
“I – ah – wrote her a letter,” I said slightly embarrassed.
“I see,” he said quietly. He pursed his lips. “Did she say anything?”
“I asked her not to read it until after commencement.”
“I see,” he said again. I could tell he was disappointed in me.
There was another one of those awkward silences. I felt oddly like a mischievous schoolboy who’d been sent to the principal’s office for some infraction of the rules. Mark just shook his head in disbelief and gave me a tut-tut look.
“You know,” he said quietly, “sometimes playing it safe can be the worst thing you can do.”
“Macht nichts,” I said bitterly.
“Like hell, macht nichts, pal. It makes a hell of a difference, if you ask me.” Mark shook his head sadly. “I really don’t want to be there when you find out for yourself what a stupid mistake it is that you made today.
”
”
Alex Diaz-Granados (Reunion: A Story: A Novella (The Reunion Duology Book 1))
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Those who practice the Dharma of the Mahayana in accordance with the Buddha's intention are known as bodhisattvas. If you practice the teachings of the Mahayana, you can reach the level of the great bodhisattvas Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri, in the best case, or become like the Buddha's two main disciples Shariputra and Maudgalyayana, who were gifted with insight and miraculous powers.
Even if you are unable to practice to the full in this life, you will at least be reborn among the principal disciples of the future Buddha, Maitreya. The buddhas being those who have totally conquered the enemies of ignorance and the other emotions, they are often referred to by the synonym 'Victorious Ones,' while bodhisattvas, in many texts including the Tibetan original of the root verses of these teachings, are called 'children of the Victorious Ones'.
Who, then, are the children of the buddhas? In the case of Buddha Shakyamuni, the child of his body was his physical son, Prince Rahula. The children of his speech were all those who heard him teach and attained the level of arhart - the great beings such as Shariputra, Maudgalayana, the sixteen arhats and others, who became the holders of his teachings.
Above all, the children of the buddha's mind are the great bodhisattvas like Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri, who carry out their noble intention to bring all beings to enlightenment.
For, just as a great monarch with a thousand children would choose the one with the most perfect qualities to be his heir, so, too, a buddha regards as his authentic heirs the bodhisattvas who have perfected the union of wisdom and compassion.
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Dilgo Khyentse (The Heart of Compassion: The Thirty-seven Verses on the Practice of a Bodhisattva)
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Many people today acquiesce in the widespread myth, devised in the late 19th century, of an epic battle between ‘scientists’ and ‘religionists’. Despite de unfortunate fact that some members of both parties perpetuate the myth by their actions today, this ‘conflict’ model has been rejected by every modern historian of science; it does not portray the historical situation. During the 16th and 17th centuries and during the Middle Ages, there was not a camp of ‘scientists’ struggling to break free of the repression of ‘religionists’; such separate camps simply did not exist as such. Popular tales of repression and conflict are at best oversimplified or exaggerated, and at worst folkloristic fabrications. Rather, the investigators of nature were themselves religious people, and many ecclesiastics were themselves investigators of nature. The connection between theological and scientific study rested in part upon the idea of the Two Books. Enunciated by St. Augustine and other early Christian writers, the concept states that God reveals Himself to human beings in two different ways – by inspiring the sacred writers to pen the Book of Scripture, and by creating the world, the Book of Nature. The world around us, no less than the Bible, is a divine message intended to be read; the perceptive reader can learn much about the Creator by studying the creation. This idea, deeply ingrained in orthodox Christianity, means that the study of the world can itself be a religious act. Robert Boyle, for example, considered his scientific inquiries to be a type of religious devotion (and thus particularly appropriate to do on Sundays) that heightens the natural philosopher’s knowledge and awareness of God through the contemplation of His creation. He described the natural philosopher as a ‘priest of nature’ whose duty it was to expound and interpret the messages written in the Book of Nature, and to gather together and give voice to all creation’s silent praise of its Creator.
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Lawrence M. Principe (Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction)
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proper legal structure. The best structure is that of the Mondragon companies, which do not allow workers to own a tradable share of equity. Instead, in addition to their wages they each have an internal capital account the value of which depends on the business’s performance and on the number of hours the member works. A new member has to pay a large entrance fee, most of which is credited to his internal account. He receives interest at the end of every fiscal year, but he cannot withdraw the annually accumulating principal from his account until retirement. Almost all profits are divided between these individual accounts and a collective account that helps ensure the company’s survival. No buying or selling of shares takes place in this scheme, so it’s difficult for the firm to lose its worker-controlled status. Not until 1982, however, did the internal-capital-accounts legal structure exist in the United States (and then only in Massachusetts); prior to that, worker cooperatives had to make convoluted use of other categories, which sometimes made them vulnerable to degeneration.113 In any case, the survival rates of contemporary cooperatives put the lie to traditional theories of cooperatives’ unsustainability, for they appear to have higher rates of survival than conventional firms. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the death rate for co-ops in France (due either to dissolution or to conversion into a capitalist firm) was 6.9 percent; the comparable rate for capitalist competitors was 10 percent. A study in 1989 found much higher failure rates for capitalist companies than cooperatives in North America.114 A study conducted by Quebec’s Ministry of Industry and Commerce in 1999 concluded that “Co-op startups are twice as likely to celebrate their 10th birthday as conventionally owned private businesses.”115 A later study by the same organization found that “More than 6 out of 10 cooperatives survive more than five years, as compared to almost 4 businesses out of 10 for the private sector in Québec and in Canada in general. More than 4 out of 10 cooperatives survive more than 10 years, compared to 2 businesses out of 10 for the private sector.”116
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Chris Wright (Worker Cooperatives and Revolution: History and Possibilities in the United States)
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The Delusion of Lasting Success promises that building an enduring company is not only achievable but a worthwhile objective. Yet companies that have outperformed the market for long periods of time are not just rare, they are statistical artifacts that are observable only in retrospect. Companies that achieved lasting success may be best understood as having strung together many short-term successes. Pursuing a dream of enduring greatness may divert attention from the pressing need to win immediate battles.
The Delusion of Absolute Performance diverts our attention from the fact that success and failure always take place in a competitive environment. It may be comforting to believe that our success is entirely up to us, but as the example of Kmart demonstrated, a company can improve in absolute terms and still fall further behind in relative terms. Success in business means doing things better than rivals, not just doing things well. Believing that performance is absolute can cause us to take our eye off rivals and to avoid decisions that, while risky, may be essential for survival given the particular context of our industry and its competitive dynamics.
The Delusion of the Wrong End of the Stick lets us confuse causes and effects, actions and outcomes. We may look at a handful of extraordinarily successful companies and imagine that doing what they did can lead to success — when it might in fact lead mainly to higher volatility and a lower overall chance of success. Unless we start with the full population of companies and examine what they all did — and how they all fared — we have an incomplete and indeed biased set of information.
The Delusion of Organizational Physics implies that the business world offers predictable results, that it conforms to precise laws. It fuels a belief that a given set of actions can work in all settings and ignores the need to adapt to different conditions: intensity of competition, rate of growth, size of competitors, market concentration, regulation, global dispersion of activities, and much more. Claiming that one approach can work everywhere, at all times, for all companies, has a simplistic appeal but doesn’t do justice to the complexities of business.
These points, taken together, expose the principal fiction at the heart of so many business books — that a company can choose to be great, that following a few key steps will predictably lead to greatness, that its success is entirely of its own making and not dependent on factors outside its control.
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Philip M. Rosenzweig (The Halo Effect: How Managers let Themselves be Deceived)
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Less is more. “A few extremely well-chosen objectives,” Grove wrote, “impart a clear message about what we say ‘yes’ to and what we say ‘no’ to.” A limit of three to five OKRs per cycle leads companies, teams, and individuals to choose what matters most. In general, each objective should be tied to five or fewer key results. (See chapter 4, “Superpower #1: Focus and Commit to Priorities.”) Set goals from the bottom up. To promote engagement, teams and individuals should be encouraged to create roughly half of their own OKRs, in consultation with managers. When all goals are set top-down, motivation is corroded. (See chapter 7, “Superpower #2: Align and Connect for Teamwork.”) No dictating. OKRs are a cooperative social contract to establish priorities and define how progress will be measured. Even after company objectives are closed to debate, their key results continue to be negotiated. Collective agreement is essential to maximum goal achievement. (See chapter 7, “Superpower #2: Align and Connect for Teamwork.”) Stay flexible. If the climate has changed and an objective no longer seems practical or relevant as written, key results can be modified or even discarded mid-cycle. (See chapter 10, “Superpower #3: Track for Accountability.”) Dare to fail. “Output will tend to be greater,” Grove wrote, “when everybody strives for a level of achievement beyond [their] immediate grasp. . . . Such goal-setting is extremely important if what you want is peak performance from yourself and your subordinates.” While certain operational objectives must be met in full, aspirational OKRs should be uncomfortable and possibly unattainable. “Stretched goals,” as Grove called them, push organizations to new heights. (See chapter 12, “Superpower #4: Stretch for Amazing.”) A tool, not a weapon. The OKR system, Grove wrote, “is meant to pace a person—to put a stopwatch in his own hand so he can gauge his own performance. It is not a legal document upon which to base a performance review.” To encourage risk taking and prevent sandbagging, OKRs and bonuses are best kept separate. (See chapter 15, “Continuous Performance Management: OKRs and CFRs.”) Be patient; be resolute. Every process requires trial and error. As Grove told his iOPEC students, Intel “stumbled a lot of times” after adopting OKRs: “We didn’t fully understand the principal purpose of it. And we are kind of doing better with it as time goes on.” An organization may need up to four or five quarterly cycles to fully embrace the system, and even more than that to build mature goal muscle.
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John Doerr (Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs)
“
The same lesson can be learned from one of the most widely read books in history: the Bible. What is the Bible “about”? Different people will of course answer that question differently. But we could all agree the Bible contains perhaps the most influential set of rules in human history: the Ten Commandments. They became the foundation of not only the Judeo-Christian tradition but of many societies at large. So surely most of us can recite the Ten Commandments front to back, back to front, and every way in between, right? All right then, go ahead and name the Ten Commandments. We’ll give you a minute to jog your memory . . . . . . . . . . . . Okay, here they are: 1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage. 2. You shall have no other gods before Me. 3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. 4. Remember the Sabbath day, to make it holy. 5. Honor your father and your mother. 6. You shall not murder. 7. You shall not commit adultery. 8. You shall not steal. 9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, nor your neighbor’s wife . . . nor any thing that is your neighbor’s. How did you do? Probably not so well. But don’t worry—most people don’t. A recent survey found that only 14 percent of U.S. adults could recall all Ten Commandments; only 71 percent could name even one commandment. (The three best-remembered commandments were numbers 6, 8, and 10—murder, stealing, and coveting—while number 2, forbidding false gods, was in last place.) Maybe, you’re thinking, this says less about biblical rules than how bad our memories are. But consider this: in the same survey, 25 percent of the respondents could name the seven principal ingredients of a Big Mac, while 35 percent could name all six kids from The Brady Bunch. If we have such a hard time recalling the most famous set of rules from perhaps the most famous book in history, what do we remember from the Bible? The stories. We remember that Eve fed Adam a forbidden apple and that one of their sons, Cain, murdered the other, Abel. We remember that Moses parted the Red Sea in order to lead the Israelites out of slavery. We remember that Abraham was instructed to sacrifice his own son on a mountain—and we even remember that King Solomon settled a maternity dispute by threatening to slice a baby in half. These are the stories we tell again and again and again, even those of us who aren’t remotely “religious.” Why? Because they stick with us; they move us; they persuade us to consider the constancy and frailties of the human experience in a way that mere rules cannot.
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Steven D. Levitt (Think Like a Freak)
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A payday loan is your remedy to an immediate have to have for money. A payday loans seems to be rather attractive. If you have a job, you can actually get a payday loan. Occasionally, consumers without having profession can get a payday loan. It is actually not straightforward to modify your spending budget without the need of a loan. You will find a lot of payday loan suppliers. Individuals also give payday loans. Typically, the rate of interest will be the most important aspect of any payday loan. You ought to usually be in a position to pay back the quantity borrowed. A payday loan can be fantastic after you possess a job or else it can be a disaster. You will have dollars deposited within your bank’s saving account around the exact same day.
High rates of interest on a loan is usually Pikavippikioski.fi particularly difficult to manage. Payday loans can be a superb quick option but not a long-term solution. You will obtain the money inside your savings or present account. There is an arrangement for direct deduction out of your income created into the account. This can be a approach that may be set to run automatically and also you do not have to accomplish something. It's essential to understand that a payday loan is known as a short-term loan only. You have to spend a larger price of interest on a payday loan. Many people without having a job would need to supply some other safety of repayment. If you have bad credit, a payday loan may be the only answer. You often require a very good credit rating to get a loan. Of all loans, a payday loan will be the most effective and least complicated way for you to get money swiftly.
Occasionally folks take out extra than one payday loan. If you usually do not spend the amount on time, the interest begins to add up seriously. It can be important that you just understand almost everything about a payday loan. What takes place when the time comes for trying to repay the loan? Some nations take into account a payday loan as terrible for the individual. The majority of people in no way look at a payday loan from every single angle. You can not acquire plenty of cash if you have pretty small revenue. The interest plus the principal on a payday loan can add up incredibly promptly. The perfect point to perform is pay the interest in addition to a small on the principal quantity each week. A payday loan is anything to assist you more than your immediate complications. You may have seen that banks take a while to agree a loan. In most cases, the interest is normally deducted just before the deposit is produced. The more rapidly you repay the principal amount the much better it is for you, as you have to pay much less as interest. It is best to never ever go in for any payday loan anytime you'll need money. Payday loan corporations are bobbing up all more than the nation. One can find nations exactly where it really is illegal; to charge such high interest rates. The concept behind a payday loan is always to tide you over your immediate issues. A payday loan really should by no means become the norm but it should be an exception. You could have to spend a price in exorbitant rates of interest if you usually do not pay up in time. A payday loan is beneficial for immediate payment of bills.
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Stain Peter
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with this line of reasoning. If it makes you feel better, you are free to go on calling Communism an ideology rather than a religion. It makes no difference. We can divide creeds into god-centred religions and godless ideologies that claim to be based on natural laws. But then, to be consistent, we would need to catalogue at least some Buddhist, Daoist and Stoic sects as ideologies rather than religions. Conversely, we should note that belief in gods persists within many modern ideologies, and that some of them, most notably liberalism, make little sense without this belief. It would be impossible to survey here the history of all the new modern creeds, especially because there are no clear boundaries between them. They are no less syncretic than monotheism and popular Buddhism. Just as a Buddhist could worship Hindu deities, and just as a monotheist could believe in the existence of Satan, so the typical American nowadays is simultaneously a nationalist (she believes in the existence of an American nation with a special role to play in history), a free-market capitalist (she believes that open competition and the pursuit of self-interest are the best ways to create a prosperous society), and a liberal humanist (she believes that humans have been endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights). Nationalism will be discussed in Chapter 18. Capitalism – the most successful of the modern religions – gets a whole chapter, Chapter 16, which expounds its principal beliefs and rituals. In the remaining pages of this chapter I will address the humanist religions. Theist religions focus on the worship of gods. Humanist religions worship humanity, or more correctly, Homo sapiens. Humanism is a belief that Homo sapiens has a unique and sacred nature, which is fundamentally different from the nature of all other animals and of all other phenomena. Humanists believe that the unique nature of Homo sapiens is the most important thing in the world, and it determines the meaning of everything that happens in the universe. The supreme good is the good of Homo sapiens. The rest of the world and all other beings exist solely for the benefit of this species. All humanists worship humanity, but they do not agree on its definition. Humanism has split into three rival sects that fight over the exact definition of ‘humanity’, just as rival Christian sects fought over the exact definition of God. Today, the most important humanist sect is liberal humanism, which believes that ‘humanity’ is a quality of individual humans, and that the liberty of individuals is therefore sacrosanct. According to liberals, the sacred nature of humanity resides within each and every individual Homo sapiens. The inner core of individual humans gives meaning to the world, and is the source for all ethical and political authority. If we encounter an ethical or political dilemma, we should look inside and listen to our inner voice – the voice of humanity. The chief commandments of liberal humanism are meant to protect the liberty of this inner voice against intrusion or harm. These commandments are collectively known as ‘human rights’. This, for example, is why liberals object to torture and the death penalty. In early modern Europe, murderers were thought to violate and destabilise the cosmic order. To bring the cosmos back to balance, it was necessary to torture and publicly execute the criminal, so that everyone could see the order re-established. Attending gruesome executions was a favourite pastime for Londoners and Parisians in the era of Shakespeare and Molière. In today’s Europe, murder is seen as a violation of the sacred nature of humanity. In order to restore order, present-day Europeans do not torture and execute criminals. Instead, they punish a murderer in what they see as the most ‘humane
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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Christians often fail to get in touch with the shocking message that can lie at the heart of evangelism: “I am here to change you, and I’m going to change you so that you become like me.” There are some obvious dangers here once we think about all this. If we approach people in this way, we are not treating them as people. We are not respecting them. We are treating them as part of our own program, like an objective and a statistic, and this is self-centered as well as disrespectful. An obnoxious smell of superiority is apparent. Further, we are judging people as fundamentally inadequate. *We* are okay, of course. Missionary work conducted in this spirit is a well-intentioned but self-centered power-play…
We can avoid this instrumentalizing of potential converts - a making of them into something like an instrument or tool that then does something for us - only by approaching them for their own sakes and hence not as potential converts at all. We must value our initial relationships with people for what they are and not in terms of what we want out of them. This means that we must want to become their friends. Moreover, it must be a friendship with no strings attached. We must seek out relationships because we are interested in and value other people for who they are, right where they are. Conversions would be nice, but they are not our main agenda. We hope and pray for the best for our new friends, but that is not our principal motivation for relating to them. In this way and only in this way do we avoid colonizing people as we convert them.
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Douglas A. Campbell (Paul: An Apostle's Journey)
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How to scale and enter the risen path was largely unknown. It all might begin in darkness, but it cast a shadow that, when viewed from the ground, was too bleak. Demolition was once a question not of “whether, but when,” until one photographer spent a year on the trail documenting what was there. 4 The scenes were “hallucinatory”—wildflowers, Queen Anne’s lace, irises, and grasses wafted next to hardwood ailanthus trees that bolted up from the soil on railroad tracks, on which rust had accumulated over the decades. 5 Steel played willing host to an exuberant, spontaneous garden that showed fealty to its unusual roots. Tulips shared the soilbed with a single pine tree outfitted with lights for the winter holidays, planted outside of a building window that opened onto the iron-bottomed greenway with views of the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty to the left and traffic, buildings, and Tenth Avenue to the right. 6 Wading through waist-high Queen Anne’s lace was like seeing “another world right in the middle of Manhattan.” 7 The scene was a kind of wildering, the German idea of ortsbewüstung, an ongoing sense of nature reclaiming its ground. 8 “You think of hidden things as small. That is how they stay hidden. But this hidden thing was huge. A huge space in New York City that had somehow escaped everybody’s notice,” said Joshua David, who cofounded a nonprofit organization with Robert Hammonds to save the railroad. 9 They called it the High Line. “It was beautiful refuse, which is kind of a scary thing because you find yourself looking forward and looking backwards at the same time,” architect Liz Diller told me in our conversation about the conversion of the tracks into a public space, done in a partnership with her architectural firm, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and James Corner, Principal of Field Operations, and Dutch planting designer Piet Oudolf. Other architectural plans proposed turning the High Line into a “Street in the Air” with biking, art galleries, and restaurants, but their team “saw that the ruinous state was really alive.” Joel Sternfeld, the “poet-keeper” of the walkway, put the High Line’s resonance best: “It’s more of a path than a park. And more of a Path than a path.” 10
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Sarah Lewis (The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery)
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In 1992, he took over as the Scientific Advisor to the Minister of Defence and secretary, Department of Research and Development, and continued till he was seventy. The country’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, was conferred on him in 1997. A year later, in 1998, he led the team that conducted India’s second nuclear tests in Pokhran. Five nuclear tests were conducted consecutively and India became a nuclear power. In 1999, he was appointed principal scientific advisor to the government of India with the rank of a Cabinet minister. By 2001, he was enjoying a teacher’s life at Anna University in Chennai. Meant to lecture a class of sixty, most of his lectures ended up in an overflowing hall with about 200 students instead. In 2002, he was elected the eleventh President of India.
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A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (The Righteous Life: The Very Best of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam)
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The sentimental story says that culture is a meritocracy in which the creative spark is king, and originality conquers all. The sentimental story says that audiences are open-minded and eager to discover challenging new ideas, whether in music, movies, or politics. The sentimental story says that because there is a formula for virality, the best ideas need no marketing—they distribute themselves, like little contagions of wonder. One of my chief goals was to explode the sentimental story. There are certain rules governing cultural markets, I found. But they rarely guarantee that the most sophisticated or morally pristine ideas become the most popular. Instead, the history of cultural sensations shows that sneakily familiar ideas have far more immediate appeal than novel ones and that the battle for cultural power is principally a battle over distribution and discovery, precisely because there is no formula for virality or easy popularity.
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Derek Thompson (Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular)
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The principals simply could not understand the leavening influence of the terrain, the jungle, the paddies, on their modern fire power, thus stripping away the greatest advantage the Americans had, nullifying all their hardware, making even the helicopters a limited weapon (and the cruelest of all ironies, coming up with a basic infantrymans's weapon, the Chinese-made AK-47, which worked better under extremely difficult conditions and jammed less frequently than the basic weapon carried by the Americans). Thus, with technology stripped away, were the Americans that impressive? Would they be braver, more willing to die than their enemies, who were leaner, less expectant of what life was going to give them, easily as well led, and above all Vietnamese?
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David Halberstam (The Best and the Brightest)
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Perhaps the greatest illusion was the idea that we cared more for what was going on than they did, that we would pay a higher price, that they would feel the threshold of pain before we did. It was of course an obvious lie; but the principals had, in their desire no to come to real decisions, painted themselves into a corner where lie followed lie.
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David Halberstam (The Best and the Brightest)
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Perhaps the greatest illusion was the idea that we cared more for what was going on than they did, that we would pay a higher price, that they would feel the threshold of pain before we did. It was of course an obvious lie; but the principals had, in their desire not to come to real decisions, painted themselves into a corner where lie followed lie.
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David Halberstam (The Best and the Brightest)
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The unique contribution of Bible exposition is its substantial enhancement of the listeners' comprehension of Scripture's intent. Those who listen to expository preaching have opportunity to submit to the Holy Spirit who first inspired the text as He now illumines that text to them. This is the best avenue for building up the saints. The New Testament puts heavy emphasis on using the mind as the principal avenue to Christian growth (for example, Rom. 12:2; 1 Pet. 1:13), so the preacher should do the same.
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John F. MacArthur Jr. (Preaching: How to Preach Biblically (MacArthur Pastor's Library))
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it is in every teacher’s and principal’s best interests as future retirees to make certain that traditionally underserved students are underserved no longer. Establishing a student-centered learning culture in every school is one promising means to successfully address this issue.
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Leslie S. Kaplan (Culture Re-Boot: Reinvigorating School Culture to Improve Student Outcomes)
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Establishing a student-centered learning culture means creating the conditions and ethos that best support every learner’s ability to master a high-challenge, standards-based curriculum. Through a variety of means—including developing high teacher expectations for each student, creating a safe and orderly learning environment, providing academic press along with meaningful academic and social supports, affording supportive peer norms, and fostering helpful and respectful relationships—teachers and principals can re-boot their school’s culture in ways that advance the likelihood of every child’s academic success.
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Leslie S. Kaplan (Culture Re-Boot: Reinvigorating School Culture to Improve Student Outcomes)
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Carry Grip Big Stick Combat is principally composed of three grips: 1) stick grip, in which the right hand grasps the end of the stick; 2) rifle grip, in which the right hand is at the base of the stick, palm down, while the left hand is near the middle of the stick, palm up; and 3) bat grip, in which both hands grip the weapon like a baseball bat, with the left hand over the right. Yet there is another grip, carry grip, that must be considered. Unless you need a cane in order to walk, you will typically carry the baseball bat, cane, or long stick in the middle, grasped by your right hand if you're right-handed. It is important to train to strike automatically and non-telegraphically from carry grip, especially if you are attacked by surprise. Cover and Hit You are holding the stick in carry grip, with the right hand at the balance point near the middle of the stick. An attacker swings with his right hand at your head. Bear in mind that his “punch” might be a beer bottle, a set of brass knuckles, or a knife, so it is best to crouch down to try to evade it completely. Raise up your left elbow, placing your left palm over your left ear. This is a multipurpose shield of your head. Swing the end of the weapon into the opponent's groin. Strike repeatedly into his groin and midsection as necessary. To follow up, grab the base of the stick with the left hand. You are now in rifle grip, only in reverse, with the right hand forward and the left at the pommel. If you slide the right hand down into bat grip you will be in the traditional right-over-left grip. Although these grips are the opposite of what I have taught in the book so far, I believe it is best not to shuffle the hands. I believe your first priority is not to lose your weapon! I refer to the right hand grip at the base of the weapon as “anchor grip,” because it is firm and permanently fixed. No matter how the left hand moves, the right always maintains a solid grip. I have rejected the grip shifting of other styles because I want to avoid at all costs losing the weapon, particularly under the stress of combat. Crotch Lift This technique is a natural follow-up to the preceding Cover and Hit. This can also be used as a follow-up to the low thrust, the very first technique in the book. The crotch lift can also be used in close-quarters grappling. Pass the stick between the opponent's legs, high up near his crotch. You may naturally find yourself in this position after a thrust to the groin. Reach around the opponent's back with your left hand and seize the end of the stick, palm up. Bend your knees and lift the opponent by straightening your legs and lifting with both arms. Arch your head and body to the right in order to dump him. If he falls with a leg still entangled, you can squeeze in on the weapon in a crushing technique.
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Darrin Cook (Big Stick Combat: Baseball Bat, Cane, & Long Stick for Fitness and Self-Defense)
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Is it really safe to invest in stocks? To answer that question, we would really first need to ask ourselves: what is safe after all? More so, what is safe in business? The answer would be “NOTHING”. Here it is – the stark reality: all businesses have their risks and as far as risks are concerned, the stock market is just another kind of business; that is it! All deep-rooted and unbeaten stock market will advise you on the affirmative. Yet the faint possibility remains that you, at the same time, will without doubt happen upon other stock market players who have done pathetically in the stock market. These traders, when their opinion is sought, will not leave a stone unturned in advising you to steer clear of the stock market. Mystified whose advice you should take? Fine, both are correct in their own points of view.
To cross the threshold into well-paid stock market share trading in the marketplace of any place in the human race, it is to a great extent compulsory that you are geared up with the inclusive fluency of the sod above and beyond in receipt of rationalized with the up to date market shifts so that you prefer no less than probable stocks. In essence then can day businesses bear out valuable? If you are in a job in a different place and are unable to have a look at the trade area under conversation well again, it is advisable that you should not make your mind up on daylight trading. You will in point of fact happen upon other forms of trade which do not necessitate your day and night inspection. You in all probability will chew over those as well.
Affecting the traders
It would also be a reasonable word of warning to say publicly that the stock market affects different types of traders differently. There are cases in point of a lot of investors who have become cleaned out. Putting on next to nothing information and gambling into the share market perceiving others producing immense wealth possibly will provide evidence of being hazardous for you. You could wind up bringing up the rear to your richly deserved wealth and habitual failures will very soon plead your case before you to make your way out from the stock market panorama. Stage-managing and putting on unconditional awareness previous to putting money in will certainly twirl the bazaar in your prop up.
Outline your objectives
You will of course call for to outline your objectives and endeavor to come across the varied working expenditure alternatives in the stock market. At the beginning decide on fragile investments with the intention that even though you put on or incur fatalities, you will in next to no time gain knowledge of the ins and outs of the deal. Just the once you are contented, you can settle on volume funds. You in all probability will decide on each and every one of the three dealing preferences, specifically day business, short-term trading and enduring investment. At one fell swoop given your institution of resource of profits is exclusively the stock market; you will be able to broaden the horizons of your venture ambitions to a larger extent, for instance conjecture in mutual funds, money futures, product futures, and supplementary endeavor goods. You can accordingly keep up equilibrium of your ventures and disappointments if a few will by a hair's breadth inconvenience you. Seeking singular venture alternatives will additionally comply to you eloquent which one goes well with you the most excellent and you can in that case put in funds in capacity in the unwritten prospect.
Make the best use of stock market
It often comes to our notice that the stock market if used fine provides us with an exceptionally excellent occasion to put together loads of wealth and in addition utilize the stock market as our principal foundation of revenue. There are also the risks yet the faint possibility remains that risks are everywhere, in every trade.
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sharetipsinfo
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in South Central unexpectedly when I was orphaned at age twelve. I’m originally from New Jersey—born in Newark, raised in a middle-class suburb called Summit. My mother passed suddenly when I was in third grade from a heart attack. My father did his best to raise me on his own for a couple of years, but when I was in seventh grade I got called into the principal’s office and they told me my dad had also died of a heart attack. The thing that tripped everyone out is that I didn’t cry when either of my parents died. I loved my mom and dad, of course, but even at that young age I was already in this super-isolated zone—I went into hard-core
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Ice-T (Split Decision: Life Stories)
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The sixth grade began to find out that April had a way of making life interesting. For instance, when she raised her hand in class, her answer wasn't always what the teacher wanted, but it was almost certain to be fascinating. And when it came to guts—whether it was hanging by your heels from the highest bar, or putting a stinkbug on the principal's desk—you could count on April to do it first and best.
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Zilpha Keatley Snyder
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Officer Hilliard shook his head, a smile playing on his lips. “Nope. Miss Day, here, left a note.” “A what?” Colton’s eyes widened as Officer Hilliard flashed us the note I’d left in the principal’s mailbox last night. “‘Dear Principal Wexler,’” Kyle read aloud. “‘Thank you so much for allowing us to TP your house. I’ve always wanted to be a part of a prank, and I had a wonderful time. If you need help cleaning up, please let me know.’” Colton groaned as Kyle laughed and kept reading. “‘I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t at least offer. You are the best. Sincerely, Sadie Day.’” When he finished, Kyle turned to me with a grin and said, “Nice penmanship.” I rolled my eyes. Yes, I’d included a smiley-face at the end, but only the one. That was progress, right? “You left a note?” Colton asked in disbelief, turning to me. “Yeah,” I said as he closed his eyes. “What? I wanted Principal Wexler to know how much fun we had. Was that wrong?” Officer Hilliard still had that amused look on his face.
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Cookie O'Gorman (The Good Girl's Guide to Being Bad)
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Soon after the English conquest, Jamaica’s Jews convinced the island’s new leaders that the best way to defend the colony and have it prosper was to invite the pirates of the Caribbean to move there. The Spanish would think twice about attacking Jamaica if its principal port was the home base of the feared buccaneers of the West Indies. In return for a safe harbor, these pirates, the Brethren of the Coast, became Jamaica’s defense force and piracy its principal industry.
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Edward Kritzler (Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom and Revenge)
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Phillipa placed one tray of appetizers after the other on the table---the jambon sec-wrapped chipotle figs with the cocoa-balsamic glaze; the crab cakes with the rémoulade dipping sauce; the varying star-shaped canapés, the bottoms buttery, toasted bread topped with different ingredients and garnished with chopped fresh herbs; the verrines filled with bœuf bourguignon and baby carrots; and the smoke salmon, beet carpaccio, and mascarpone bites served on homemade biscuits and sprinkled with capers.
Everybody dug in, oohing and aahing.
"I don't know which one I like best," exclaimed Marie, licking her lips. "They're all so delicious. I can't choose a favorite child."
Phillipa winked. "Just wait until you see and taste Sophie's plat principal," she said, turning on her heel. She returned with a large pressure cooker, placing it on the table. She lifted the lid, and everybody breathed in the aromas, noses sniffing with anticipation. "This is Sophie's version of pot-au-feu de la mer, but with grilled lobster, crab, abalone, mussels, and large shrimp, along with a variety of root and fresh vegetables, a ginger-lemongrass-infused sauce, and garnished with borage, or starflowers, a smattering of sea salt, a dash of crème fraîche, fresh herbs, and ground pepper.
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Samantha Verant (Sophie Valroux's Paris Stars (Sophie Valroux #2))
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Only with her - PART I
Dealing with estranged feelings and the heart’s missing heart beats,
Feels like a world that its horizon never meets,
It maybe what one experiences in the moment of continuous disbelief,
Because without her the mind finds no solace and the heart fails to play the symphonies of relief,
As the estrangement grows and the feeling deepens in those prolonged spells of darkness,
The night grows over the mind eclipsing its every thought with a slight crassness,
Where it feels abandoned by the heart, because it seems to beat only for those estranged feelings,
And ah the herculean effort for the mind to nurture the heart’s darling seedlings,
From where the heart grows reasons to keep throbbing, and every flexing of muscle seems to be a harbinger of new suffrage,
And it somehow always convinces the mind not to let her feelings be cast into scrappage,
The heart, the poor beating heart, suffers from this expensive essentialism,
To sustain her estranged feelings in its love chambers and in the mind’s thoughts, despite their widening chasm,
But the heart loves her unconditionally, and the mind too finally gives in to the heart’s will voluntarily,
And now the heart beats for her softly as the mind once again begins to think of her so lovingly,
Now both the mind and the heart deal with a different reality,
That of establishing her memories, her feelings as the principal deity,
But who shall hold her entirely? Because the heart loves her deeply and now the mind too loves her no less,
And in their strife; I, who owns them both, has to deal with a new kind of stress,
And I only care less, because in their desire to love her forever, the heart will beat endlessly and the mind will think of her ceaselessly,
While I collate the extract of their feelings about her, and I live everyday in her thoughts fearlessly,
And the mystery grows deeper, that who loves who, they love her, I love her too, and they know,
But without them I cannot love her, and without me they cannot exist, this is a reality we all know,
However, the desire to love someone so beautiful has made them my foe, and my willingness to keep living for her,
Has encouraged them to exploit my weakness, that to always live loving her,
As long as the heart beats, the mind doesn't mind, and as long as my mind only her thoughts creates, I too do not mind,
Living in a body, where my own heart only beats for her, my mind only thinks about her, while I am busy living for her with feelings well defined,
Continued in part II........
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Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
“
Only with her - PART I
Dealing with estranged feelings and the heart’s missing heart beats,
Feels like a world that its horizon never meets,
It maybe what one experiences in the moment of continuous disbelief,
Because without her the mind finds no solace and the heart fails to play the symphonies of relief,
As the estrangement grows and the feeling deepens in those prolonged spells of darkness,
The night grows over the mind eclipsing its every thought with a slight crassness,
Where it feels abandoned by the heart, because it seems to beat only for those estranged feelings,
And ah the herculean effort for the mind to nurture the heart’s darling seedlings,
From where the heart grows reasons to keep throbbing, and every flexing of muscle seems to be a harbinger of new emotional outage,
And it somehow always convinces the mind not to let her feelings be cast into scrappage,
The heart, the poor beating heart, suffers from this expensive essentialism,
To sustain her estranged feelings in its love chambers and in the mind’s thoughts, despite their widening chasm,
But the heart loves her unconditionally, and the mind too finally gives in to the heart’s will voluntarily,
And now the heart beats for her softly as the mind once again begins to think of her so lovingly,
Now both the mind and the heart deal with a different reality,
That of establishing her memories, her feelings as the principal deity,
But who shall hold her entirely? Because the heart loves her deeply and now the mind too loves her no less,
And in their strife; I, who owns them both, has to deal with a new kind of stress,
And I only care less, because in their desire to love her forever, the heart will beat endlessly and the mind will think of her ceaselessly,
While I collate the extract of their feelings about her, and I live everyday in her thoughts fearlessly,
And the mystery grows deeper, that who loves who, they love her, I love her too, and they know,
But without them I cannot love her, and without me they cannot exist, this is a reality we all know,
However, the desire to love someone so beautiful has made them my foe, and my willingness to keep living for her,
Has encouraged them to exploit my weakness, that to always live loving her,
As long as the heart beats, the mind doesn't mind, and as long as my mind only her thoughts creates, I too do not mind,
Living in a body, where my own heart only beats for her, my mind only thinks about her, while I am busy living for her with feelings well defined,
CONTINUED IN PART II.........
”
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Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
“
In normal circumstances, as Edward Said recommended in his seminal Culture and Imperialism, painful dialogue with the past should enable a given society to digest both the most evil and the most glorious moments of its nation's history. But this could not work in a case where a moral self-image is considered to be the principal asset in the battle for public opinion, and thus the best means of surviving in a hostile environment. The way out for the Jewish society in the newly founded state was to erase in the collective memory the unpleasant chapters of the past, and leave intact the gratifying ones. It was a conscious mechanism put in place and motion in order to solve the impossible tension arising from the two contradictory messages of the past.
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Noam Chomsky (Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians)
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Taft drove to the heart of the matter. “The principal purpose of the foreign policy of the United States is to maintain the liberty of our people. Its purpose is not to reform the entire world or spread sweetness and light and economic prosperity to peoples who have lived and worked out their own salvation for centuries according to the best of their ability.
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H.W. Brands (The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War)
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Chris Argyris, professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, wrote a lovely article in 1977,191 in which he looked at the performance of Harvard Business School graduates ten years after graduation. By and large, they got stuck in middle management, when they had all hoped to become CEOs and captains of industry. What happened? Argyris found that when they inevitably hit a roadblock, their ability to learn collapsed: What’s more, those members of the organization that many assume to be the best at learning are, in fact, not very good at it. I am talking about the well-educated, high-powered, high-commitment professionals who occupy key leadership positions in the modern corporation.… Put simply, because many professionals are almost always successful at what they do, they rarely experience failure. And because they have rarely failed, they have never learned how to learn from failure.… [T]hey become defensive, screen out criticism, and put the “blame” on anyone and everyone but themselves. In short, their ability to learn shuts down precisely at the moment they need it the most.192 [italics mine] A year or two after Wave, Jeff Huber was running our Ads engineering team. He had a policy that any notable bug or mistake would be discussed at his team meeting in a “What did we learn?” session. He wanted to make sure that bad news was shared as openly as good news, so that he and his leaders were never blind to what was really happening and to reinforce the importance of learning from mistakes. In one session, a mortified engineer confessed, “Jeff, I screwed up a line of code and it cost us a million dollars in revenue.” After leading the team through the postmortem and fixes, Jeff concluded, “Did we get more than a million dollars in learning out of this?” “Yes.” “Then get back to work.”193 And it works in other settings too. A Bay Area public school, the Bullis Charter School in Los Altos, takes this approach to middle school math. If a child misses a question on a math test, they can try the question again for half credit. As their principal, Wanny Hersey, told me, “These are smart kids, but in life they are going to hit walls once in a while. It’s vital they master geometry, algebra one, and algebra two, but it’s just as important that they respond to failure by trying again instead of giving up.” In the 2012–2013 academic year, Bullis was the third-highest-ranked middle school in California.194
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Laszlo Bock (Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead)
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He might be better considered as an exponent of Tartar financial, military, and political methods, who used the shifting alliances of khans and princes to replace the Tartar yoke with a Muscovite one. In his struggle with the Golden Horde, whose hegemony he definitively rejected after 1480, his closest ally was the Khan of the Crimea, who helped him to attack the autonomy of his fellow Christian principalities to a degree that the Tartars had never attempted. From the Muscovite point of view, which later enjoyed a monopoly, ‘Ivan the Great’ was the restorer of ‘Russian’ hegemony. From the viewpoint of the Novgorodians or the Pskovians he was the Antichrist, the destroyer of Russia’s best traditions. When he came to write his will, he described himself, as his father had done, as ‘the much-sinning slave of God’.
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Norman Davies
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The custom of prefixing or appending to historical narratives an estimate of the character and personality of the principal agent is of doubtful advantage at the best of times—it either imparts a specious unity to the action or permits apology or condemnation on moral and emotional grounds.
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Ronald Syme (The Roman Revolution)
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Alapana In manodharma sangita, the principal vehicle of exploring a raga’s identity is the alapana, which in Sanskrit means ‘to speak, address, convey, communicate’. In the context of classical music, alapana is the opening of a raga that brings forth all of its facets without the use of other elements, like sahitya or tala. The focus of this exercise is entirely on the exploration of the raga. How does one explore a raga? We have already discussed what a raga is and the various factors that go into the making of its identity. A musician should have internalized the different facets of a raga before attempting to present an alapana in that raga. The resources needed for internalizing a raga lie, of course, in the numerous compositions that have been created by vaggeyakaras in the raga. In order to present the raga in an alapana, the musician needs clarity regarding the essential svaras, phrases and movements. A similar internalization exists in the mind of the musically attuned listener. In this commonality of cognition between the musician and listener is the raga’s identity. It is this internalized rendering of a raga that best reflects what is referred to as the musician’s manodharma. So closely integrated is the singer’s manodharma with the raga’s identity in an alapana that the alapana becomes synonymous with the raga.
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T.M. Krishna (A Southern Music: Exploring the Karnatik Tradition)
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outdoors in winter in most parts of the country, as long as they have adequate shelter from wind, rain, and snow. A shed open on one side is an ideal shelter for all seasons. Horses grow a long winter coat and store a layer of fat beneath their skin, both of which provide excellent insulation. However, when a horse is kept in a heated stable, he does not adapt and is more likely to suffer from chilling and pneumonia when taken outside. Horse blankets can be used to prevent chilling. For a horse in winter with a dry coat, or one who is used to being inside, the blanket is beneficial when the wind-chill temperature drops below 20°F (-6.6°C). For a horse in summer with a wet coat, wind-chill discomfort becomes a factor at temperatures below 60°F (15.5°C). Use common sense. If your horse has adapted to outside conditions, he probably does not need a blanket. However, for old horses, who are unable to regulate their body temperature well, or show horses without their natural haircoat, a blanket is a thing of comfort. Digestible energy is the principal dietary concern in cold weather. Protein, vitamin, and mineral needs increase slightly. In winter, it is important to feed a ration that helps the horse create internal heat. High-quality hay is best for this, and is a better choice than grain. This is because roughage is digested by bacterial fermentation in the cecum and colon, which produces a great deal of heat.
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Thomas Gore (Horse Owner's Veterinary Handbook)
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The challenge for the principal, then, is to devise incentives to ensure that she (the agent) will act in the best interest of her principal. This
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Janine Wedel (Unaccountable: How the Establishment Corrupted Our Finances, Freedom and Politics and Created an Outsider Class)
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There was a time when I had no money,
I was old enough, so I couldn’t ask my mummy,
I had to do something to fill my tummy.
I was confused and began to wonder
Should I start a business or become a plumber?
Then I saw a few children cross the road,
Running a school is better than cleaning commodes.
Now I am an admin of a kid’s school,
And I am looking for an administration tool.
I got a few software solutions such as Fedena and Archivist,
I heard they’re the best according to many educationists.
Then I finally chose Archivist Online,
It’s economical and comes with benefits of longtime.
Now I entertain over 200 students,
And my administration network is enjoying the new improvements.
I am proud to be the principal of a successful school,
Running a school isn’t that bad after all.
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Joina
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The heavenly principalities and powers cannot touch you. But the earthly humans over which we rule can.” Though they had no authority to touch Yahweh’s anointed, they might do so through their human vessels. Jesus trembled with the weight of responsibility that now overwhelmed him. But the pain was lessened when he heard the familiar sound of his favorite angel echo in his mind. Jesus, be strong and courageous. “Jesus, be strong and courageous.” It wasn’t in his mind, it was being spoken to him from behind. “Sound familiar?” Jesus turned. He looked up into the smiling face of Uriel the smallest of three angels now standing before him. Uriel finished his thought, “The words you spoke to Joshua at the threshold of the Promised Land. Funny how it all comes full circle.” Gabriel, the second angel, and Uriel’s constant bickering companion, responded, “Uriel, I think your humor is once again in incredibly poor taste considering his suffering. Where is your compassion?” “Nonsense,” said Uriel. “Jesus has done it. Victory is a cause for celebration, not sadness. He made it forty days without food, which is more than I can say for you, chubby.” Uriel patted Gabriel’s stomach. Gabriel moved away annoyed at the jab. Sure, he was heavier than the lightweight Uriel, but he certainly didn’t see himself as “chubby.” Mikael, the largest and best groomed of the three, was the guardian prince of Israel, and tended to be protective of his ward. He offered a wineskin to Jesus, who took it and gulped with gratitude. After a moment of silence, Jesus wiped his beard of the wine and said, “You need a better sense of humor, Gabriel.” Gabriel pouted with frustration at being ganged up on. Uriel, his perpetual nemesis was one thing. But being teased by the Master was quite another. Jesus said, “And Uriel, you had better deliver on that bread you promised.” Uriel smiled again and held out a loaf of Mary’s best bread. “Baked two hours ago by your mother.” Jesus grabbed it. Mikael said, “Remember, do not eat too quickly. It is bad for your digestion after fasting.” “Thank you for your ministering spirits,” said Jesus, and took a big hungry bite out of the loaf. Uriel muttered, “Your mother should open a bakery. Can I have a bite?” Mikael was not so lighthearted. He knew that the challenge had been declared. The road to war had begun.
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Brian Godawa (Jesus Triumphant (Chronicles of the Nephilim, #8))
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My elementary school principal, Prince Apple, had no principles. I know, because he offered to give me candy once, in exchange for sexual services. As you can imagine I said, “No!” Come on, man, you know I only accept cash.
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Jarod Kintz (This is the best book I've ever written, and it still sucks (This isn't really my best book))
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When he had ate his fill, and proceeded from the urgent first cup and necessary second to the voluntary third which might be toyed with at leisure, without any particular outcry seeming to suggest he should be on his guard, he leant back, spread the city’s news before him, and, by glances between the items, took a longer survey of the room. Session of the Common Council. Vinegars, Malts, and Spirituous Liquors, Available on Best Terms. Had he been on familiar ground, he would have been able to tell at a glance what particular group of citizens in the great empire of coffee this house aspired to serve: whether it was the place for poetry or gluttony, philosophy or marine insurance, the Indies trade or the meat-porters’ burial club. Ships Landing. Ships Departed. Long Island Estate of Mr De Kyper, with Standing Timber, to be Sold at Auction. But the prints on the yellowed walls were a mixture. Some maps, some satires, some ballads, some bawdy, alongside the inevitable picture of the King: pop-eyed George reigning over a lukewarm graphical gruel, neither one thing nor t’other. Albany Letter, Relating to the Behaviour of the Mohawks. Sermon, Upon the Dedication of the Monument to the Late Revd. Vesey. Leases to be Let: Bouwerij, Out Ward, Environs of Rutgers’ Farm. And the company? River Cargos Landed. Escaped Negro Wench: Reward Offered. – All he could glean was an impression generally businesslike, perhaps intersown with law. Dramatic Rendition of the Classics, to be Performed by the Celebrated Mrs Tomlinson. Poem, ‘Hail Liberty, Sweet Succor of a Briton’s Breast’, Offered by ‘Urbanus’ on the Occasion of His Majesty’s Birthday. Over there there were maps on the table, and a contract a-signing; and a ring of men in merchants’ buff-and-grey quizzing one in advocate’s black-and-bands. But some of the clients had the wind-scoured countenance of mariners, and some were boys joshing one another. Proceedings of the Court of Judicature of the Province of New-York. Poor Law Assessment. Carriage Rates. Principal Goods at Mart, Prices Current. Here he pulled out a printed paper of his own from an inner pocket, and made comparison of certain figures, running his left and right forefingers down the columns together. Telescopes and Spy-Glasses Ground. Regimental Orders. Dinner of the Hungarian Club. Perhaps there were simply too few temples here to coffee, for them to specialise as he was used.
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Francis Spufford (Golden Hill)
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While those of us in schools may wish to blame others for imposing constraints, many of our constraints are self imposed. Are we able to escape from these and respond to what we believe is best for our students? One
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David Loader (The Inner Principal: Reflections on Educational Leadership)
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What if I should drop the ring?" Cyril asked on the way to the church.
Surely one of the functions of the best man - the principal function, in fact - was the calm the nerves of the bridegroom.
"Then you crawl around on the floor until you recover it," Percy said. "It will not happen."
"I have never done this before," Cyril added.
"Neither have I," Percy told him.
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Mary Balogh (Only a Kiss (The Survivors' Club, #6))
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Tuesday Today my parents took me to the “Drool and Gruel” diner to celebrate my A+ on my Scare exam. “Son, you never stop surprising us,” Dad said. “We talked to your teacher and she said that your reenactment of the Zombie Apocalypse was the best thing she had ever seen. You scared every villager in that town.” “Thanks Dad,” I said as I buried my sorrow in a Drool Shake. “Honey, tell him the surprise,” Mom said. “What surprise?” “Well, son, Ms. Bones was so impressed with your work that she spoke to the Principal. And the Principal agreed to sponsor you for an extra week of camp as a reward. Isn’t that amazing?!!” I threw up my Drool shake. “Look how excited he is, honey. He can’t even keep his Drool shake down,” Mom said. Life is so unfair.
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Herobrine Books (School Daze (Diary of a Minecraft Zombie, #5))
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We learn best when we're on edge. Focused on the moment, ready for anything...
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R.J. Francis (The Orphan's Secret (Principality, #1))
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Sean had never stared into as many blank-eyed faces before. Throughout the high school civics talk, he felt as if he were speaking to the kids in a foreign language, one they had no intention of learning. Scrambling for a way to reach his audience, he ad-libbed, tossing out anecdotes about his own years at Coral Beach High. He confessed that as a teenager his decision to run for student government had been little more than a wily excuse to approach the best-looking girls. But what ultimately hooked his interest in student government was the startling discovery that the kids at school, all so different—jocks, nerds, preppies, and brains—could unite behind a common cause.
During his senior year, when he’d been president of the student council, Coral Beach High raised seven thousand dollars to aid Florida’s hurricane victims. Wouldn’t that be something to feel good about? Sean asked his teenage audience.
The response he received was as rousing as a herd of cows chewing their cud. Except this group was blowing big pink bubbles with their gum.
The question and answer period, too, turned out to be a joke. The teens’ main preoccupation: his salary and whether he got driven around town in a chauffeured limo. When they learned he was willing to work for peanuts and that he drove an eight-year-old convertible, he might as well have stamped a big fat L on his forehead. He was weak-kneed with relief when at last the principal mounted the auditorium steps and thanked Sean for his electrifying speech.
While Sean was politically seasoned enough to put the morning’s snafus behind him, and not worry overmuch that the apathetic bunch he’d just talked to represented America’s future voters, it was the high school principal’s long-winded enthusiasm, telling Sean how much of an inspiration he was for these kids, that truly set Sean’s teeth on edge. And made him even later for the final meeting of the day, the coral reef advisory panel.
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Laura Moore (Night Swimming: A Novel)
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Things had been different when Garveyism and Ethiopianism rather than afro-centrism and occultism set the tone. To contain modernity, to appreciate its colonial constitution and to criticise its reliance on racialised governmental codes all required finding an autonomous space outside it. A desire to exist elsewhere supplied the governing impulse. It was captured in compelling forms in the period's best songs of longing and flight, like Bunny Wailer's anthem ‘Dreamland’ 5. However, there is no longer any uncontaminated, pastoral or romantic location to which opposition and dissent might fly, and so, a new culture of consolation has been fashioned in which being against this tainted modernity has come to mean being before it. Comparable investments in the restorative power of the pseudo-archaic occur elsewhere. They help to make Harry Potter's world attractive and are routine features of much ‘new age’ thinking. They govern the quest for a repudiation of modernity that is shared by the various versions of Islam which have largely eclipsed Ethiopianism as the principal spiritual resource and wellspring of critique among young black Europeans. Their desire to find an exit from consumerism's triumphant phantasmagoria reveals them to be bereft, adrift without the guidance they would have absorbed, more indirectly than formally, from the national liberation movements of the cold war period and the struggles for both civil and human rights with which they were connected. Instead, an America-centred, consumer-oriented culture of blackness has become prominent. In this post-colonial setting, it conditions the dreams of many young Britons, irrespective of their ancestral origins or physical appearance. This brash and celebratory imperial formation is barely embarrassed by the geo-political fault-line that re-divides the world, opposing the overdeveloped north to the suffering south. That barrier provides the defining element in a new topography of global power which is making heavy demands upon the overwhelmingly national character of civil society and ideal of national citizenship. It is clear that the versions of black politics that belonged to the west/rest polarity will not adapt easily to this new configuration.
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Paul Gilroy (There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack (Routledge Classics))
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All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it — and they do enjoy it as much as man and other circumstances will allow. He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most; God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us. If
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Samuel Butler (Complete Works of Samuel Butler)
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oan Hilliard could feel the smile on her face as she stepped from
her car. Not the best wheels, but they were hers, a token of four
years spent working in a brokerage firm. Joan had always wanted to
be a teacher, but she had finished college at the wrong time. To her
great disappointment, she couldn’t land a teaching position. She had
still wanted her own classroom but decided that any job was better
than nothing. The brokerage firm paid well, and she felt better for the
experience. She had learned about herself, how to work with other
adults, and what life at work was all about. Above all, she felt more
confident. She had learned to cope in a demanding and stressful adult
environment. That experience ought to help in a classroom of kids.
She was delighted to get a teaching assignment at Pico School.
It looked like a friendly place from the outside. The surrounding
neighborhood was in decline, but Pico boasted green lawns, welltrimmed shrubbery, and large, lattice-paned windows. Built in the
1950s, it had the architectural charm that Joan remembered from
the schools of her childhood. As she walked through the arched
entryway, she noticed the vaguely familiar smells of new wax and
summer mustiness. As she turned down the corridor leading to the
principal’s office, she ran into a tall, broad-shouldered man with
hands on hips, scrutinizing the newly polished sheen on the floor.
This had to be the custodian, admiring his work before hundreds of
students’feet turned it into a mosaic of scuff marks.
As she moved closer, he looked up and smiled as if he had
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Lee G. Bolman (Reframing the Path to School Leadership: A Guide for Teachers and Principals)
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Rothschild houses had capital in excess of £35 million on the eve of the First World War, all of it family money; it was the job of the partners to manage this huge portfolio. A large part of it they held in the form of European government bonds, the most secure form of investment and also the kind of security the Rothschilds knew best, since they had long been the principal underwriters for new bond issues on the London market. They, more than anyone, stood to lose in the event of a European war, not least because such a war would almost certainly divide the three houses, pitting Paris and perhaps also London against Vienna. Yet the outbreak of war caught them almost entirely by surprise.
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Niall Ferguson (The Abyss: World War I and the End of the First Age of Globalization-A Selection from The War of the World (Tracks))
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Music has no interior beacon that guarantees permanent meaning. Unlike truth, which is transcultural, absolute, and unchangeable, music can shift in meaning from place to place and time to time. Of all the art forms, music is inherently the most flexible. The music of Bach, as deeply fixed within the churchly contexts of his time and ours, can still shift meanings while remaining great music in its own right. For Lutherans it is church music, par excellence. For the young convert from Satanism, it was evil. In its original form, the tune “Austria” was the imperial national anthem, “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser,” composed by Haydn. He then used it as the principal theme for the slow movement in his Emperor Quartet. In this guise it reflects the essentially secular contexts for which it was written and is perfectly at home in the concert hall. It is also the tune for “Deutschland über Alles,” the German national anthem. And for Jewish people, it is associated with the unspeakable horrors of the holocaust. And finally, it is the tune to which the hymn “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken” is sung in virtually all American churches. To American Christians this tune’s primary meaning is “sacred.” To them, it carries virtually none of its first two meanings, unless one or the other was impressed first into their memories. There is no way to explain this phenomenon other than that music, as music, is completely relative.
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Harold M. Best (Music Through the Eyes of Faith)
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The Four Global Options Now that you grasp the BIG picture, which includes your life values, your career values, your T-Bar, and current market conditions, it’s time to consider the four global options. I call these global options because, in reality, these are the only four job or career options you have. Option #1: Same job–same industry. Choosing Option #1 means you enjoy both and, most likely, need only conduct a job transition campaign to seek out a new company or organization. For example, a fifth grade teacher who is teaching in a public school may seek the same job (teacher) in the same industry (public school system); this teacher only needs to look at a new school in the same school district or to apply for a teacher’s position in a new school district. Option #2: New job–same industry. Option #2 means you enjoy the industry but need to identify a new job within that industry. Using the fifth grade teacher as an example again, she might seek a new job as an assistant principal or librarian. Or maybe she wants to earn more money than she would make as a teacher, so she becomes a sales professional and sells textbooks to educational institutions. The job transition campaign will take place within education, but she will identify and pursue a new, more inspiring, and more rewarding job within that industry. Option #3: Same job–new industry. If you select Option #3, it means you enjoy your job or vocation, but you need to identify a new industry or environment to perform that job in. The fifth grade teacher might get a job teaching for a private school (new industry or venue) or a private learning center, or she might even start her own tutoring business. In this case, the job transition campaign will focus on teaching but in a new, more appealing industry or venue. Option #4: New job–new industry. This option means you are ready for a wholesale change. Oftentimes this option is the option of choice if there’s a career or job you’ve always dreamt about. Or possibly you have a nice severance package or the financial means to return to school and prepare for an entirely new career. Possibly the fifth grade teacher always had a passion for antiques. In this case, she might pursue a job as a manager or even an owner of an antique store. Perhaps she’ll make the decision to stay home and be a full-time mom. The job transition campaign will focus on an entirely new job or activity in an entirely new industry or venue.
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Jay A. Block (101 Best Ways to Land a Job in Troubled Times)
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In a market where multiple offers are raising prices, Teri Toombs, Principal Broker at Living Room Realty, says she discourages people from overpaying for homes. But some can’t resist. Some people don’t want to continue renting. And they don’t care what that costs. An in-house poll led by Toombs’ colleague Alyssa Isenstein Krueger, Living Room found more than a few first-time buyers with cash to throw around. The Living Room agents that responded said that of 148 first-time buyers served in 2014, 42 percent came to the table with funds from friends and relatives to help grab whatever edge they could leverage. The sums ranged from up to $470,000. It’s not scientific, but it suggests a hard new reality in the market. For those without cash? Those that can’t overpay? “It’s torture. And I try my best to prepare them for what they’re in for and I see them starting to glaze over like, ‘Why is this lady saying all this? Why can’t we just start looking at houses? Why is she bringing us down like this?’” said Toombs. “With determination and being really diligent about it, they can get into a house. But they have to realize that they’re going to be moving into emerging neighborhoods.
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Anonymous
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Mr. Parker’s mouth dropped open like a toddler had crawled under his desk and whacked him in the giblets. I tried not to giggle as he slowly closed his mouth and stood up from behind his desk. I expected him to start shouting obscenities about the stupidity of pre-marital sex, but he walked around and closed the door behind me. I could practically hear the phone call he would make to my mother in my head.
“Connor, I hope I don’t need to give you a lecture about how dangerous it is for someone of your age to engage in such activities?”
“No, sir. Trust me when I say, it was an accident and won’t be happening again for as long as I live my life as a single person. Such activities are best left to those with more experience and have joined their lives in holy matrimony.” I fought hard to keep my face sincere and deadpan. I didn’t know what the hell was going on with me, but I liked it. Not only had I come up with the most unbelievable lie in the universe, I sounded heartily sorry for it too.
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Sean Hayden (My Soul to Keep (Rise of the Fallen, #1))