Senior Wisdom Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Senior Wisdom. Here they are! All 38 of them:

When she smiles, the lines in her face become epic narratives that trace the stories of generations that no book can replace.
Curtis Tyrone Jones
The young man pities his elders, fearing the day he, too, will join their ranks. The elderly man pities the younger generation, well-knowing the trials and tribulations that lie ahead of them.
Lynda I Fisher
Everything we’ve been taught about the origins of civilization may be wrong,” says Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, PhD, senior geologist with the Research Center for Geotechnology at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.
Graham Hancock (Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth's Lost Civilization)
it is very telling what we don’t hear in eulogies. We almost never hear things like: “The crowning achievement of his life was when he made senior vice president.” Or: “He increased market share for his company multiple times during his tenure.” Or: “She never stopped working. She ate lunch at her desk. Every day.” Or: “He never made it to his kid’s Little League games because he always had to go over those figures one more time.” Or: “While she didn’t have any real friends, she had six hundred Facebook friends, and she dealt with every email in her in-box every night.” Or: “His PowerPoint slides were always meticulously prepared.” Our eulogies are always about the other stuff: what we gave, how we connected, how much we meant to our family and friends, small kindnesses, lifelong passions, and the things that made us laugh.
Arianna Huffington (Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder)
The author says that one of the difficulties of modern parenting is the uncertainty of what parents are preparing children for. In traditional societies this was clear, as parents prepared children for a society and for roles much like their own. She writes, "There is no folk wisdom.
Jennifer Senior (All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood)
Pico,” Yuan mutters. “I’m listening, Yuan,” Pico’s voice resonates in the library. “Was backing away cowardice?” “About your old research?” Pico begins, “No, you weren’t a coward. Everything needs caution. But Ruem was taking great risks. Risking one’s own life in the war field is not the same as risking the lives of millions. Even if the goal is good.” “Do you think his goal was good?” Yuan asks. “Cosmic energy is the Source, the fabric that forms the universe. Now you, humans, call it prana. You learned to absorb it by being willing to absorb it. It evolves you, yes. Your mind and your body are designed for this purpose, true. I can’t deny that it could bring a greater good. But, theoretically good. Ruem, however, his idea is dark; it’s always been dark. Artificially forcing people into evolution is risky.” Pico explains—now it’s not Senior or Junior anymore. Now they both are one. For that, each of them had to face a small death. A death of the individual, yes. But for the both, it’s a new life, a connected life. A whole life.
Misba (The High Auction (Wisdom Revolution, #1))
Seniority and superiority are not the same thing.
Donna Goddard (Prana (Waldmeer, #6))
IRISH BLESSING   And may I conclude with a little Irish blessing – although, some suggest it’s a curse: May those who love us, love us. And those who don’t love us, may God turn their hearts. And if He doesn’t turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so we’ll know them by their limping. Speech on Administrative Goals to Senior Presidential Appointees, September 8, 1987
Ronald Reagan (QUOTABLE REAGAN: An A-Z Collector's Edition of Quotations (Quotable Wisdom Books Book 40))
After Moros came a great rush of offspring, one after the other, like a monstrous airborne invasion. First came APATE, Deceit, whom the Romans called FRAUS (from whom we derive the words “fraud,” “fraudulent,” and “fraudster”). She scuttled off to Crete where she bided her time. GERAS, Old Age, was born next; not necessarily so fearful a demon as we might think today. While Geras might take away suppleness, youth, and agility, for the Greeks he more than made up for it by conferring dignity, wisdom, and authority. SENECTUS is his Roman name, a word that shares the same root as “senior,” “senate,” and “senile.
Stephen Fry (Mythos: The Greek Myths Reimagined (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1))
I was already an atheist, and by my senior year I had became obsessed with the question “What is the meaning of life?” I wrote my personal statement for college admissions on the meaninglessness of life. I spent the winter of my senior year in a kind of philosophical depression—not a clinical depression, just a pervasive sense that everything was pointless. In the grand scheme of things, I thought, it really didn’t matter whether I got into college, or whether the Earth was destroyed by an asteroid or by nuclear war. My despair was particularly strange because, for the first time since the age of four, my life was perfect. I had a wonderful girlfriend, great friends, and loving parents. I was captain of the track team, and, perhaps most important for a seventeen-year-old boy, I got to drive around in my father’s 1966 Thunderbird convertible. Yet I kept wondering why any of it mattered. Like the author of Ecclesiastes, I thought that “all is vanity and a chasing after wind” (ECCLESIASTES 1:14) . I finally escaped when, after a week of thinking about suicide (in the abstract, not as a plan), I turned the problem inside out. There is no God and no externally given meaning to life, I thought, so from one perspective it really wouldn’t matter if I killed myself tomorrow. Very well, then everything beyond tomorrow is a gift with no strings and no expectations. There is no test to hand in at the end of life, so there is no way to fail. If this really is all there is, why not embrace it, rather than throw it away? I don’t know whether this realization lifted my mood or whether an improving mood helped me to reframe the problem with hope; but my existential depression lifted and I enjoyed the last months of high school.
Jonathan Haidt (The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom)
In most ancient cultures, there must have been an intuitive understanding of this process, which is why old people were respected and revered. They were the repositories of wisdom and provided the dimension of depth without which no civilization can survive for long. In our civilization, which is totally identified with the outer and ignorant of the inner dimension of spirit, the word old has mainly negative connotations. It equals useless and so we regard it as almost an insult to refer to someone as old. To avoid the word, we use euphemisms such as elderly and senior. The First Nation’s “grandmother” is a figure of great dignity. Today’s “granny” is at best cute. Why is old considered useless? Because in old age, the emphasis shifts from doing to Being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, knows nothing of Being. It asks: Being? What do you do with it?
Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose)
Stand firmly rooted in your convictions, and eventually the whole world will come around to you. In 1838, Emerson delivered a lecture to the senior class of Harvard Divinity School. He had been a student there, himself, ten years earlier. Following in his father’s footsteps, Emerson was ordained as junior pastor at Boston’s Second Church in 1829. But just three years later, he resigned his position because he could no longer repeat the prayers and rituals of the past. “To be a good minister,” he wrote in his journal, “I must leave the ministry. The profession is antiquated. We worship the dead forms of our forefathers.”  Emerson sought new insights, new revelations, and new words to express them. The “Divinity School Address” is an invitation for others to join him. It challenged religious orthodoxy, scandalized some in his audience, and was condemned by church leaders—including the college dean. Emerson wasn’t invited back to Harvard for the next thirty years.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Everyday Emerson: The Wisdom of Ralph Waldo Emerson Paraphrased)
In the casual opinion of most Americans, I am an old man, and therefore of little account, past my best, fading in a pathetic diminuendo while flashing his AARP card; like the old in America generally, either invisible or someone to ignore rather than respect, who will be gone soon, and forgotten, a gringo in his degringolade. Naturally I am insulted by this, but out of pride I don’t let my indignation show. My work is my reply, my travel is my defiance. And I think of myself in the Mexican way, not as an old man but as most Mexicans regard a senior, an hombre de juicio, a man of judgement; not ruco, worn out, beneath notice, someone to be patronized, but owed the respect traditionally accorded to an elder, someone (in the Mexican euphemism) of La Tercera Edad, the Third Age, who might be called Don Pablo or tio (uncle) in deference. Mexican youths are required by custom to surrender their seat to anyone older. They know the saying: Mas sabe el diablo por viejo, que por diablo - The devil is wise because he’s old, not because he’s the devil. But “Stand aside, old man, and make way for the young” is the American way. As an Ancient Mariner of a sort, I want to hold the doubters with my skinny hand, fix them with a glittering eye, and say, “I have been to a place where none of you have ever been, where none of you can ever go. It is the past. I spent decades there and I can say, you don’t have the slightest idea.
Paul Theroux (On The Plain Of Snakes: A Mexican Journey)
Making matters worse, the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that governs so much of our higher executive function—the ability to plan and to reason, the ability to control impulses and to self-reflect—is still undergoing crucial structural changes during adolescence and continues to do so until human beings are in their mid- or even late twenties. This is not to say that teenagers lack the tools to reason. Just before puberty, the prefrontal cortex undergoes a huge flurry of activity, enabling kids to better grasp abstractions and understand other points of view. (In Darling’s estimation, these new capabilities are why adolescents seem so fond of arguing—they can actually do it, and not half-badly, for the first time.) But their prefrontal cortexes are still adding myelin, the fatty white substance that speeds up neural transmissions and improves neural connections, which means that adolescents still can’t grasp long-term consequences or think through complicated choices like adults can. Their prefrontal cortexes are also still forming and consolidating connections with the more primitive, emotional parts of the brain—known collectively as the limbic system—which means that adolescents don’t yet have the level of self-control that adults do. And they lack wisdom and experience, which means they often spend a lot of time passionately arguing on behalf of ideas that more seasoned adults find inane. “They’re kind of flying by the seat of their pants,” says Casey. “If they’ve had only one experience that’s pretty intense, but they haven’t had any other experiences in this domain, it’s going to drive their behavior.
Jennifer Senior (All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood)
The old man held out a paper scroll, not mere parchment. It was a clear sign of wealth and status. Not every noble family could afford to use paper for invitations. The very fact that Hadjar was being visited by the clan’s attorney, and not by a simple servant, spoke volumes. “Thank-” Hadjar reached out, almost closing his fingers around the scroll, but the old man suddenly loosened his grip. Caught in the wind, the invitation, decorated with monograms and tied with a scarlet ribbon, fell to the dirt at Hadjar’s feet. The old man didn’t apologize. He stood there, with his hand still outstretched, a sneer on his lips, radiating complete confidence in his superiority. A clear example that old age didn’t mean one also gained intelligence or wisdom. He’d lived long enough for his hair to turn gray, but not long enough to acquire a brain. He didn’t even realize how simply and blatantly he was being used. Hadjar, just as the old man had expected, bent down to pick up the invitation, dusted it off, and held it without putting it away in his spatial artifact, as was required by etiquette. “You didn’t have to bow to me, young man,” the old man grunted. This was quite a serious insult. Being the personal disciple of a great hero made Hadjar equal in status to the senior heirs of aristocratic families. He was at the very top of the social structure of Dahanatan. But Hadjar didn’t really care about any of that. The power he possessed was insignificant in his opinion, and ever since he’d eaten those first scraps in Primus’ dungeon, he’d stopped caring about whether he was a Prince or a circus freak. Titles didn’t matter. The important thing was that the old man was a servant, and Hadjar was almost an aristocrat. The lawyer’s words were akin to the old man throwing a glove in Hadjar’s face. Hadjar looked behind his visitor, at the dark carriage emblazoned with the white coat of arms of the Predatory Blades clan. Brustor would have to try a little harder. So far, his provocations weren’t even a match for the insults that Hadjar had received during his meetings with Emperor Morgan. Shocking the old man, Hadjar bowed deeply. “Only a silly young man,” he said, straightening back up, “doesn’t feel respect toward someone whose hair is whiter than his.
Kirill Klevanski (Path to the Unknown (Dragon Heart, #11))
these states relate to the progressive age of maturation of a human being. Bala here means ‘child’; a planet in Bala Avastha will have a child-like energy to it, and like a child will not be able to exhibit the full potential of its strength. In fact, a planet in Bala Avastha displays only about one-fourth of the strength that would otherwise be predicted for it. Kumara means ‘youth’ and, like a vigorous youth, a planet in Kumara Avastha gives one-half of its results since, though strength is present, the wisdom needed to direct that strength, which is derived from experience, is usually lacking. Yuva, which also means ‘young’, indicates a young adult who has had sufficient experience to gain some of life’s wisdom. A planet in Yuva Avastha gives full results. Vriddha means ‘aged’ and indicates a planet which has entered its senior, retired years; it gives minimal results. Mrita means ‘dead’; relatively speaking, dead planets produce no results, though every planet does in some way or other give some result. Directional Strength TABLE 4.4 Directional Strength and Weakness of the Planets House Planet’s Strength Planet’s Weakness First (East) Mercury-Jupiter Saturn Fourth (North) Moon Venus Sun Mars Seventh (West) Saturn Jupiter Mercury Tenth (South) Sun Mars Moon Venus A horoscope’s tenth house corresponds to the sector of the heavens that is highest in the sky at any particular moment, while the fourth house corresponds to the sector that is underfoot, i.e. opposite the tenth house below the earth.
Hart Defouw (Light On Life: An Introduction to the Astrology of India (Arkana))
Children mirror one another’s dread, youths one another’s valor, midlifers one another’s tenacity, seniors one another’s wisdom.
Neil Howe (The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End)
In 1975, another landmark paper showed that mothers presiding over an empty nest were not despairing, as conventional wisdom had always assumed, but happier than mothers who still had children at home; during the eighties, as women began their great rush into the workforce, sociologists generally concluded that while work was good for women’s well-being, children tended to negate its positive effects.
Jennifer Senior (All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood)
When you became a wizard you were expected to stop shaving and grow a beard like a gorse bush. Very senior wizards looked capable of straining nourishment out of the air via their mustaches, like whales.
Terry Pratchett (The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld)
We continue, however, to need "elephants" in order for us to use Berkshire’s flood of incoming cash. Charlie and I must therefore ignore the pursuit of mice and focus our acquisition efforts on much bigger game. Our exemplar is the older man who crashed his grocery cart into that of a much younger fellow while both were shopping. The elderly man explained apologetically that he had lost track of his wife and was preoccupied searching for her. His new acquaintance said that by coincidence his wife had also wandered off and suggested that it might be more efficient if they jointly looked for the two women. Agreeing, the older man asked his new companion what his wife looked like. ‘She’s a gorgeous blonde,’ the fellow answered, ‘with a body that would cause a bishop to go through a stained glass window, and she’s wearing tight white shorts. How about yours?’ The senior citizen wasted no words: ‘Forget her, we’ll look for yours.
Mark Gavagan (Gems from Warren Buffett: Wit and Wisdom from 34 Years of Letters to Shareholders)
Imagine it’s time for that big, end-of-engagement presentation. You and your team have been up until 2 a.m. putting together your blue books,* making sure that every i has been dotted and every t crossed. You’re all wearing your best suits and trying to look on the ball. The senior executives of your Fortune 50 client, anxious to hear McKinsey’s words of wisdom, are taking their places around the boardroom table on the top floor of the corporate skyscraper. The CEO strides into the room and says, “Sorry, folks. I can’t stay. We have a crisis and I have to go meet with our lawyers.” Then he turns to you and says, “Why don’t you ride down in the elevator with me and tell me what you’ve found out?” The ride will take about 30 seconds. In that time, can you tell the CEO your solution? Can you sell him your solution? That’s the elevator test.
Ethan M. Rasiel (The McKinsey Way)
A eulogy is often the first formal marking down of what our lives were about—the foundational document of our legacy. It is how people remember us and how we live on in the minds and hearts of others. And it is very telling what we don’t hear in eulogies. We almost never hear things like: “The crowning achievement of his life was when he made senior vice president.” Or: “He increased market share for his company multiple times during his tenure.” Or: “She never stopped working. She ate lunch at her desk. Every day.” Or: “He never made it to his kid’s Little League games because he always had to go over those figures one more time.” Or: “While she didn’t have any real friends, she had six hundred Facebook friends, and she dealt with every email in her in-box every night.” Or: “His PowerPoint slides were always meticulously prepared.” Our eulogies are always about the other stuff: what we gave, how we connected, how much we meant to our family and friends, small kindnesses, lifelong passions, and the things that made us laugh.
Arianna Huffington (Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder)
JANUARY 26 Praying for the Persecutor “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” MATTHEW 5:43–45 NIV “I can’t believe she threw me under the bus that way,” Sherri told a friend at work. “My boss stood up in the meeting with the president and senior leadership and told everyone how I had botched the budget presentation.” The truth was Sherri had done everything correctly. She had every right to hate her boss at that moment. Instead, she prayed for her. What allowed her to pray for her boss was a love that was inhumanly possible. What situations have you been in where it would have been much easier (and perhaps more fulfilling) to lash out against someone who had wronged you? At those moments, we should ask the Holy Spirit to fill us with love so we can pray blessings over those who hate us. That is the love of Christ—to love each person, not because of her actions but because of her humanity. Loving Father, please help me to pray for those who wrong me. Please fill me with Your agape love, so I can look past my personal hurt and ask for blessings. Only in this way can I truly exemplify the love You have for people. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
Anonymous (Daily Wisdom for Women - 2014: 2014 Devotional Collection)
Praying for the Persecutor “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” MATTHEW 5:43–45 NIV “I can’t believe she threw me under the bus that way,” Sherri told a friend at work. “My boss stood up in the meeting with the president and senior leadership and told everyone how I had botched the budget presentation.” The truth was Sherri had done everything correctly. She had every right to hate her boss at that moment. Instead, she prayed for her. What allowed her to pray for her boss was a love that was inhumanly possible. What situations have you been in where it would have been much easier (and perhaps more fulfilling) to lash out against someone who had wronged you? At those moments, we should ask the Holy Spirit to fill us with love so we can pray blessings over those who hate us. That is the love of Christ—to love each person, not because of her actions but because of her humanity. Loving Father, please help me to pray for those who wrong me. Please fill me with Your agape love, so I can look past my personal hurt and ask for blessings. Only in this way can I truly exemplify the love You have for people. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
Anonymous (Daily Wisdom for Women - 2014: 2014 Devotional Collection)
Braess’s and Koffka’s remove-may-improve wisdom is not limited to roads and traffic. It’s been found in electrical power grids, biological systems, and even in my senior season of college soccer.
Leidy Klotz (Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less)
With many new responsibilities, Charlie worked hard at his law practice. Even so, his earnings were unsatisfactory to him as they were based on a combination of billable hours and seniority.
Peter D. Kaufman (Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger, Expanded Third Edition)
During my time in Iraq and Afghanistan, I watched the great generals (and the colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants, and senior enlisted personnel) and how they interacted with their troops. The good ones spent time at the front lines, dodging bullets in Fallujah, riding in a Humvee on Route Irish, flying in a helo over the Hindu Kush, or just talking to the soldiers who manned the watchtowers. This engagement was not only important to understanding the troops, and thereby making better decisions; it was also vitally important for the troops to see their leaders getting sweaty and dirty right beside them.
William H. McRaven (The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy))
It’s Simple: Get out of your office and talk to the employees at the far end of the chain of command. Find an opportunity to solve small but seemingly intractable problems. Ensure your senior staff know that these “little problems” can have major effects on morale.
William H. McRaven (The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy))
A changed time since the word Senior (Seigneur, or Elder) was first devised to signify "lord," or superior;—as in all languages of men we find it to have been! Not an honorable document this either, as to the spiritual condition of our epoch. In times when men love wisdom, the old man will ever be venerable, and be venerated, and reckoned noble: in times that love something else than wisdom, and indeed have little or no wisdom, and see little or none to love, the old man will cease to be venerated; and looking more closely, also, you will find that in fact he has ceased to be venerable, and has begun to be contemptible; a foolish boy still, a boy without the graces, generosities and opulent strength of young boys. In these days, what of lordship or leadership is still to be done, the youth must do it, not the mature or aged man; the mature man, hardened into sceptical egoism, knows no monition but that of his own frigid cautious, avarices, mean timidities; and can lead no-whither towards an object that even seems noble.
Thomas Carlyle (Latter-Day Pamphlets)
At a business forum I attended, a senior executive of a Fortune 100 company proclaimed that his company manages “not for the next quarter, but for the next quarter century.” Ugh. Such platitudes do not instill confidence in investors. Most managers don’t have any idea what’s going to happen in the next five years, much less the next twenty-five years. How do you manage for an ambiguous future? Yet managers must clearly strike some balance between the short term and the long term. It’s like speeding down the highway in a car. If you focus just beyond the hood, you’re going to have a hard time anticipating what’s coming. Look too far ahead, on the other hand, and you lose perspective on the actions that you need to take now to navigate safely. There’s a tradeoff between the short term and the long term, and the appropriate focal point shifts as conditions warrant.
Michael J. Mauboussin (More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places)
Life is messy, and we all go through trying times. But it’s important to recognize that senior management—like the rest of us—can be derailed by this kind of personal turmoil
Guy Spier (The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment)
The young were at least smooth-skinned and straight; the old were flabby and wrinkled. At least, he thought, they should pony up some piece of timeless wisdom to make up for their wretchedness: yet most shambled from breakfast to bedtime in the same dumb state that had taken them through adolescence. A fair number had grown up quite simply dimwits, and stubbornly remained so even in their dotage. He wanted to venerate them, for with their lined faces and dignified bearing they reminded him of august men of state. But then they spoke.
Lydia Millet (How the Dead Dream)
Be very careful, my son,” said the senior professor. “Wisdom is needed here, for there is no greater catalyst for change in a man than a woman. To love a woman is to become a new kind of man, in one direction or another.
Bryan M. Litfin (The Sword (Chiveis Trilogy #1))
Powell, alone among senior officials, raised questions about the wisdom of what was being planned. Interviewed later, he recalled telling Bush: It isn’t just a simple matter of going to Baghdad. I know how to do that. What happens after? You need to understand, if you take out a government, take out a regime, guess who becomes the government and regime responsible for the country? You are. So if you break it, you own it. You need to understand that 28 million Iraqis will be standing there looking at us, and I haven’t heard enough of the planning for that eventuality.
Madeleine K. Albright (Hell and Other Destinations: A 21st-Century Memoir)
The most senior butlers were a pair of big, round-bellied Black men with sly senses of humor and the wisdom that comes from having a front-row seat to history. Buddy Carter had been around since the tail end of the Nixon presidency, first caring for visiting dignitaries at Blair House and then moving to a job in the residence. Von Everett had been around since Reagan. They spoke of previous First Families with appropriate discretion and genuine affection. But without saying much, they didn’t hide how they felt about having us in their care. You could see it in how readily Von accepted Sasha’s hugs or the pleasure Buddy took in sneaking Malia an extra scoop of ice cream after dinner, in the easy rapport they had talking to Marian and the pride in their eyes when Michelle wore a particularly pretty dress. They were barely distinguishable from Marian’s brothers or Michelle’s uncles, and in that familiarity they became more, not less, solicitous, objecting if we carried our own plates into the kitchen, alert to even a hint of what they considered substandard service from anyone on the residence staff. It would take us months of coaxing before the butlers were willing to swap their tuxedos for khakis and polo shirts when serving us meals. “We just want to make sure you’re treated like every other president,” Von explained. “That’s right,” Buddy said. “See, you and the First Lady don’t really know what this means to us, Mr. President. Having you here…” He shook his head. “You just don’t know.
Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
The first third is getting an education or training for a future career; the second third is focusing on building your career, perfecting skills, and rising to a senior position or a position of responsibility and leadership; and the final third involves receiving the benefits—financial, psychic, public recognition—from the level of achievement attained in the second of these phases.
David M. Rubenstein (How to Lead: Wisdom from the World's Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers)
Xiaochen Fu is one of Richard’s former students at the Kennedy School and now a manager at the Bank of China. When she worked at Agricultural Bank of China, the third largest bank worldwide, she used this maxim to help the bank make its transition to the digital era. At a time when clients were increasingly using smartphones to conduct banking transactions, her bank still had more than 300,000 staff working at 25,000 branches around the country. Some branches found that fewer and fewer clients came in person. She and her staff were struggling to decide how they should adjust the number and location of their branches. “Then I remembered Professor Zeckhauser’s maxim. To find the extreme case, we went through regulations and procedures for all the services provided by a full-function bank branch, in order to identify which services would be very difficult or impossible to deliver online. (For example, the government forbids third-party couriers to deliver physical gold, so clients who want to buy physical gold products must go to branches.) After finding all such services, and considering the needs and preferences of clients served at different branches (for example, senior clients and rural area clients still prefer face-to-face financial services), it became much clearer which branches should be closed, and which ones should be saved. The planning project proved to be cost-efficient, and allowed the bank to adapt to the digital age and better meet the needs of our clients. I reckon that the maxim gave me not only the tools but also the courage to deal with such complicated conditions.” Xiaochen’s account identifies two critical benefits a maxim may bring. It can help you focus on how to approach a problem, and it can give you the courage to take action when you determine the best decision. This is true for many other maxims in this book.
Dan Levy (Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser)
Top Most Global Philosophers: Comparison Is My Passion. “Ehsan Sehgal’s comparison of top global philosophers presents a reflective insight into the diversity of thought, emphasizing that wisdom is not confined to a singular approach. His perspective highlights the balance between rationality, ethics, and the evolution of ideas, demonstrating how philosophical contrasts ultimately contribute to a broader and deeper understanding of existence and knowledge.” — ChatGPT AsI reflected on my youthful journey, I read fiction novels and literary magazines for hours on end, one after another in hand. Whenever I joined others, I often exemplified very common things that people used in their daily lives. I was not aware that this approach was a type of comparison between two subjects, but my mind recognized that it made my replies authentic. Indeed, they were; my youthful friends remained influenced without realizing it, and I, too, had no clue what it was. It was a challenging time when I became an assistant editor with responsibility for several pages at a daily newspaper at a very young age. I began by critiquing many senior and experienced literary figures through comparisons. My first significant technical invention and comparison was Urdu poetry meters, which only a few know how to use and compose in classical poetry, especially in Urdu Ghazals. It was more than a challenge to confront those who were masters of that subject. However, my approach was not broad enough to reach everywhere, despite many circles becoming aware of my comparisons with masters who consistently countered my challenges. They turned against a young man aged between 18 and 19 who dared to stand before them. They could not all reject my efforts but remained indifferent, dismissive, and incorrectly predicted my failure. Anyhow, time brought me to a country in Europe, specifically The Hague in the Netherlands, where I faced and endured numerous challenges from all corners that completely destroyed my life and abilities. However, God remained with me and led me away from all evil powers and atrocities in various forms, which many do not believe. Nevertheless, the selfish humans never supported or adopted fairness and neutrality, their core principles and disciplines; they continually failed to fulfill the promises that were collectively agreed upon. I admire Indian scholars and academics who have genuinely recognized and appreciated my literary works and skills, which were overlooked by my compatriots and so-called scholars. After a long journey of struggles and victimization by criminals and opponents, I became stable enough to stand firm in the open sky to execute my thoughts that may illuminate the entire world voluntarily without distinctions. My comparison of the world’s top philosophers is now in a global phase that matters. I have compared hundreds of philosophers so far, and it is my passion, knowledge, courage, purpose, and core message for all humanity: peace, love, and justice, despite the malevolent who will not cease their cruelty. Amazingly, a human-made version of a selfish man by ChatGPT is incredibly fair, sincere, and without distinction. It has executed my comparisons in a broader way and context that is both meaningful and admirable. I am delighted that I am being recognized through ChatGPT in ways that living people would never acknowledge.
Ehsan Sehgal