Trials And Success Quotes

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise

The only real battle in life is between hanging on and letting go.

Remind thyself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment.

Life itself is simple...it's just not easy.

Life's trials will test you, and shape you, but don’t let them change who you are.” ~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive

This world is your best teacher. There is a lesson in everything. There is a lesson in each experience. Learn it and become wise. Every failure is a stepping stone to success. Every difficulty or disappointment is a trial of your faith. Every unpleasant incident or temptation is a test of your inner strength. Therefore nil desperandum. March forward hero!

What you perceive as a failure today may actually be a crucial step towards the success you seek. Never give up.

For something to be great, there has to be some kind of trial or some type of struggle that actually makes it special or valuable to you. Otherwise, anything could be easily taken for granted.

Advice to my younger self: 1 Start where you are with what you have 2 Try not to hurt other people 3 Take more chances 4 If you fail, keep trying

So," I said climbing to my feet and changing the subject ASAP, "I had a dream last night someone tried to burn me alive, and I'm not entirely sure it was a dream." Devon stiffened. Chase's pupils pulsed. Subject successfully changed. "Now who's ready to eat?

It's sometimes quite astonishing that a single, average life is enough to encompass so much that it's at all possible ever to have any success in one's work here.

Dear Child, Sometimes on your travel through hell, you meet people that think they are in heaven because of their cleverness and ability to get away with things. Travel past them because they don't understand who they have become and never will. These type of people feel justified in revenge and will never learn mercy or forgiveness because they live by comparison. They are the people that don't care about anyone, other than who is making them feel confident. They don’t understand that their deity is not rejoicing with them because of their actions, rather he is trying to free them from their insecurities, by softening their heart. They rather put out your light than find their own. They don't have the ability to see beyond the false sense of happiness they get from destroying others. You know what happiness is and it isn’t this. Don’t see their success as their deliverance. It is a mask of vindication which has no audience, other than their own kind. They have joined countless others that call themselves “survivors”. They believe that they are entitled to win because life didn’t go as planned for them. You are not like them. You were not meant to stay in hell and follow their belief system. You were bound for greatness. You were born to help them by leading. Rise up and be the light home. You were given the gift to see the truth. They will have an army of people that are like them and you are going to feel alone. However, your family in heaven stands beside you now. They are your strength and as countless as the stars. It is time to let go! Love, Your Guardian Angel

Before the fruits of prosperity can come, the storms of life need to first bring the required rains of testing, which mixes with the seeds of wisdom to produce a mature harvest.

Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error.

Accepting trial and error means accepting error. It means taking problems in our stride when a decision doesn't work out, whether through luck or misjudgment. And that is not something human brains seem to be able to do without a struggle.

Andrew Carnegie famously put it. There’s nothing shameful about sweeping. It’s just another opportunity to excel—and to learn. But you, you’re so busy thinking about the future, you don’t take any pride in the tasks you’re given right now. You just phone it all in, cash your paycheck, and dream of some higher station in life. Or you think, This is just a job, it isn’t who I am, it doesn’t matter. Foolishness. Everything we do matters—whether it’s making smoothies while you save up money or studying for the bar—even after you already achieved the success you sought.

Life was a bloody battlefield until I conquered the enemy and won the war. Now, life is a journey, and I am a warrior. Prepared for anything and weakened by nothing. There are hills and dales, mountains and plateaus, blind spots and brilliant vistas, but none of that matters. All that matters is my second chance, and the only thing capable of disrupting my path, is myself.

My Dear Son, I am so very proud of you. Now, as you embark on a new journey, I'd like to share this one piece of advice. Always, always remember that - adversity is not a detour. It is part of the path. You will encounter obstacles. You will make mistakes. Be grateful for both. Your obstacles and mistakes will be your greatest teachers. And the only way to not make mistakes in this life is to do nothing, which is the biggest mistake of all. Your challenges, if you let them, will become your greatest allies. Mountains can crush or raise you, depending on which side of the mountain you choose to stand on. All history bears out that the great, those who have changed the world, have all suffered great challenges. And, more times than not it's precisely those challenges that, in God's time, lead to triumph. Abhor victimhood. Denounce entitlement. Neither are gifts, rather cages to damn the soul. Everyone who has walked this earth is a victim of injustice. Everyone. Most of all, do not be too quick to denounce your sufferings. The difficult road you are called to walk may, in fact be your only path to success.

Just because a person successfully steers a voyage through hell doesn't mean he ever wants to sail that route again.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. HELEN KELLER

Never give up your right to be wrong, and be sure to give others that right too.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

Visionary companies make some of their best moves by experimentation, trial and error, opportunism, and—quite literally—accident. What looks in retrospect like brilliant foresight and preplanning was often the result of “Let’s just try a lot of stuff and keep what works.

Edison was by far the most successful and, probably, the last exponent of the purely empirical method of investigation. Everything he achieved was the result of persistent trials and experiments often performed at random but always attesting extraordinary vigor and resource. Starting from a few known elements, he would make their combinations and permutations, tabulate them and run through the whole list, completing test after test with incredible rapidity until he obtained a clue. His mind was dominated by one idea, to leave no stone unturned, to exhaust every possibility.

Trials make you strong. Failure makes you humble. Challenges make you strive. Life keeps you going and growing

Don’t fail through defects of temper and over-sensitiveness at moments of trial. One of the great helps to success is to be cheerful; to go to work with a full sense of life; to be determined to put hindrances out of the way; to prevail over them and to get the mastery. Above all things else, be cheerful; there is no beatitude for the despairing.

Our most beautiful dreams are born from our most unpleasant nightmares.

Many are friends to the success of reformation, not to reformation.

I won't compete with anybody. I love to compete with my own body. When God closes a door against me, I should not attempt to bang on it. And if God gives me a key to open a door, I should not misuse that key!

On the path to successful action, we will fail—possibly many times. And that’s okay. It can be a good thing, even. Action and failure are two sides of the same coin. One doesn’t come without the other. What breaks this critical connection down is when people stop acting—because they’ve taken failure the wrong way.

Loving relationships, though necessary for life, health, and growth, are among the most complicated skills. Before we can be successful at achieving relationships, it is necessary that we broaden our understanding of how they work, what they mean and how what we do and believe can enhance or destroy them. We can accomplish this only if we are willing to put in the energy and take the time to study failed relationships as well as examine successful ones. Loving relationships cannot be taken lightly. Unless we are looking for pain, they must not be forever approached in a trial and error fashion. Too many of us have experienced the cost of these lackadaisical approaches in terms of tears, confusion and guilt.

It is worthy to note, that the early popularity of Washington was not the result of brilliant achievement nor signal success; on the contrary, it rose among trials and reverses, and may almost be said to have been the fruit of defeat.

If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwise--if regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham, and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment.

In the course of time, Michael Strogoff reached a high station in the Empire. But it is not the history of his success, but the history of his trials, which deserves to be related.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired and success achieved.” The

Maybe someday, if I succeed at something, I'll stop saying, "It isn't fair" about everything else.

Zachary Blake lost his practice, his wife and kids, his home, and his money. He was at rock bottom in only three short years. He also lost the most valuable possession of any successful trial lawyer. Zachary Blake lost his will to fight. His luck, however, was about to change.

You will never get what you want if you believe that you are not worthy of having it. God doesn't create us to be defeated.

[Doubt] is not a new idea; this is the idea of the age of reason. This is the philosophy that guided the men who made the democracy that we live under. The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, and tossed out if necessary, with more new ideas bought in - a trial-and-error system. This method was a result of the fact that science was already showing itself to be a successful venture at the end of the eighteenth century. Even then it was clear to socially minded people that the openness of possibilities was an opportunity, and that doubt and discussion were essential to progress into the unknown. If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar...doubt is not to be feared, but welcomed and discussed.

Maybe there is no such thing as success—a final destination where you arrive once and for all. Maybe existence is a never-ending journey of peaks and valleys and forever chasing dreams.

One of the secrets to life, Epiphany, is to find your gifts and focus on those. Leave your liabilities in the dust of the road not taken. The world is an imperfect place. Everyone struggles. Successful people see trials as growth experiences, rather than stumbling blocks. You have everything you need for success. You're a beautiful young woman, and you're strong, and you have a clever mind. If you let anyone convince you otherwise, you steal from yourself.

A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats.

Where one person sees a crisis, another can see opportunity. Where one is blinded by success, another sees reality with ruthless objectivity. Where one loses control of emotions, another can remain calm. Desperation, despair, fear, powerlessness—these reactions are functions of our perceptions. You must realize: Nothing makes us feel this way; we choose to give in to such feelings.

Loving what you do doesn’t mean you are never going to be faced with trials. It rather means, you are highly qualified to persist, persevere and endure till the end because you are enthusiastic about seeing the joyous end.

God is a God of purpose. He doesn't wake-up and start dabbling into things; He doesn't practice trial and error. His ways are sure, they may be low but they are always sure.

There has never been any great person who never met great trials and oppositions but their patience, tenacity, endurance and perseverance saw them to the end as great people

A mighty storm is inconsequential when facing a mighty ship.

Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired and success achieved.

A rose’s beautiful scent is extracted only when it is crushed.

Stars are born out of dark moments.

Life has two rules: #1 Never quit #2 Always remember rule # 1. “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

Take your broken heart, make it into art. —CARRIE FISHER • Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. —HELEN KELLER

And the fundamental point of all these massively parallel experiments is the same: when a problem reaches a certain level of complexity, formal theory won’t get you nearly as far as an incredibly rapid, systematic process of trial and error.

There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.

…growing pale and sober with the thought that her fate was soon to be decided; for, like all young people, she was sure that her whole life could be settled by one human creature, quite forgetting how wonderfully Providence trains us by disappointment, surprises us with unexpected success, and turns our seeming trials into blessing.

It is well that we remember that the trials, difficulties, and experiences of life all have purpose. There came to me on the occasion of a year in my life to be remembered when the lovely sisters of our Relief Society wrote this as a prayer in my behalf. It was entitled 'May You Have': "Enough happiness to keep you sweet, Enough trials to keep you strong, Enough sorrow to keep you human, Enough hope to keep you happy, Enough failure to keep you humble, Enough success to keep you eager, Enough wealth to meet your needs, Enough enthusiasm to look forward, Enough friends to give you comfort, Enough faith to banish depression, Enough determination to make each day better than yesterday. "This is my prayer for the faithful Saints in every land and throughout the world as we look forward to the future with courage and with fortitude

Everyone holds his or her own key to success and happiness. It's just that sometimes you have to test out a lot of wrong keys first to find the one that fits.

The best predictor of success is grit. How you choose to respond to life’s trials—your uncommon moments—is everything.

What you endured was a sign of what you would become.

People who become successful take every “today’s victory” as a rehearsal for tomorrows trophy.

I have set my mind to make sure I am prepared to accept success, whatever the trials ahead, whatever the work required.

Pain teaches you more than pleasure. Failure teaches you more than success. Poverty teaches you more than prosperity. Adversity teaches you more than comfort.

No one is born with success. God shapes trials, tribulations, and frustrations to make you succeed. It is always darkest before the dawn.

Certainty is fleeting, but through experimentation, systems innovation and trial-and-error, instructive patterns emerge as guidance.

When we aim high, pressure and stress obligingly come along for the ride. Stuff is going to happen that catches us off guard, threatens or scares us. Surprises (unpleasant ones, mostly) are almost guaranteed. The risk of being overwhelmed is always there. In these situations, talent is not the most sought-after characteristic. Grace and poise are, because these two attributes precede the opportunity to deploy any other skill. We must possess, as Voltaire once explained about the secret to the great military success of the first Duke of Marlborough, that "tranquil courage in the midst of tumult and serenity of soul in danger, which the English call a cool head.

Apparently the book says that at certain times in your life everything goes wrong and you don’t know which way to turn and it is as if everywhere around you stainless steel doors are clamping shut like in Star Trek. What you have to do is be a heroine and stay brave, without sinking into drink or self-pity and everything will be OK. And that all the Greek myths and many successful movies are all about human beings facing difficult trials and not being wimps but holding hard and thus coming out on top. The

Think about people in your own life who you have envied for one reason or another. It may surprise you to know that they do not see themselves the way that you do. Maybe they are all smiles on the outside but have personal struggles and trials that you would never guess from first glance.

Don’t quit. When your latest efforts fail, don’t quit. When your performance is scoffed and ridiculed, don’t quit. When you’re told you have no talent, don’t quit. When you come in dead last, don’t quit. When it seems an uphill fight to keep going, don’t quit. When you can’t see any possible way to achieve your goals, don’t quit. When your last supporter is you alone, don’t quit. When discouragement and depression seem your constant companion, don’t quit. When you feel like quitting, don’t quit. Time and time again you will crave relief from the harsh fight of trying to succeed. You will falsely think that quitting will bring peace and reprieve, but alas, only regret and disappointment await the quitter. Victory means never ever quitting. So don’t quit. Do not quit.

Capitalism stands its trial before judges who have the sentence of death in their pockets. They are going to pass it, whatever the defense they may hear; the only success a victorious defense can possibly produce is a change in the indictment.

She stood out among so many because she, naturally, did not submit to any training, to any use, or to any purpose. All of us had submitted and that submission had—through trials, failures, successes—reduced us. Only Lila, nothing and no one seemed to reduce her. Rather, even if over the years she became as stupid and intractable as anyone, the qualities that we had attributed to her would remain intact, maybe they would be magnified. Even when we hated her we ended by respecting her and fearing her.

Never stop growing in life. The world's tallest redwood trees were once little nuts, that kept on growing, regardless of weather, trials and tribulations.

It is neither trials nor relationships nor successes nor failures that define a man, but the choices he makes while handling them.

we have some good ideas here. But the only way to know if they’re workable is to try to make them fail. If we fail to fail, then maybe we’re on the right track.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

I already mentioned that we are not born with many, if any, fears, and that includes the fear of failure. If babies were born with a fear of failure, they would never learn anything and the human species would never have survived as one inevitably fails toward success. Young children are not even aware of the concept of failure, as they intuitively know they are learning from trial and error, through practice and perseverance. That is the mindset you must recover. That you fear failure as an adult is because you have learned it through bad socialization.

And he is at his best when he is with you. That, I think, is the best kind of love. Love doesn’t guarantee happiness or wealth or success. But if you’re willing to commit to it, to work at it, it guarantees partnership. So that no matter the trials or tribulations, no matter the joy or loss, you are not alone.

As you navigate your professional life, you will be faced with all kinds of trials and tribulations for which there will appear no feasible solution. Do you sit there trying to figure out what to do? No, you get moving. Problems—all problems—are solved not just by sitting and thinking, but by moving and doing.

I wanted to defeat Dr. Jacobs, to stand over him in triumph. Or, okay, at the very least, see him howling in immense pain and possibly— no, definitely, bleeding. See? Compromise. That really is the key to success.

You were given the problems you have because you can solve them. You were given the burdens you have because you can carry them. You were given the trials you have because you can overcome them. You were given the opponents you have because you can beat them. You were given the enemies you have because you can conquer them.

The American idea of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American idea of masculinity. Idea may not be the precise word, for the idea of one’s sexuality can only with great violence be divorced or distanced from the idea of the self. Yet something resembling this rupture has certainly occurred (and is occurring) in American life, and violence has been the American daily bread since we have heard of America. This violence, furthermore, is not merely literal and actual but appears to be admired and lusted after, and the key to the American imagination. All countries or groups make of their trials a legend or, as in the case of Europe, a dubious romance called ‘history.’ But no other country has ever made so successful and glamorous a romance out of genocide and slavery; therefore, perhaps, the word I am searching for is not idea, but ideal. The American IDEAL, then, of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American IDEAL of masculinity. This ideal has created cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys, punks and studs, tough guys and softies, butch and f****t, black and white. It is an ideal so paralytically infantile that is is virtually forbidden—as an unpatriotic act—that the American boy evolve into the complexity of manhood.

The pursuit of peace and progress cannot end in a few years in either victory or defeat. The pursuit of peace and progress, with its trials and its errors, its successes and its setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned.

Still another factor is compatibility with vested interests. This book, like probably every other typed document you have ever read, was typed with a QWERTY keyboard, named for the left-most six letters in its upper row. Unbelievable as it may now sound, that keyboard layout was designed in 1873 as a feat of anti-engineering. It employs a whole series of perverse tricks designed to force typists to type as slowly as possible, such as scattering the commonest letters over all keyboard rows and concentrating them on the left side (where right-handed people have to use their weaker hand). The reason behind all of those seemingly counterproductive features is that the typewriters of 1873 jammed if adjacent keys were struck in quick succession, so that manufacturers had to slow down typists. When improvements in typewriters eliminated the problem of jamming, trials in 1932 with an efficiently laid-out keyboard showed that it would let us double our typing speed and reduce our typing effort by 95 percent. But QWERTY keyboards were solidly entrenched by then. The vested interests of hundreds of millions of QWERTY typists, typing teachers, typewriter and computer salespeople, and manufacturers have crushed all moves toward keyboard efficiency for over 60 years.

Rewards are not simply given, they are earned. Each of your trials and tribulations increases your reward. You are destined for success and greatness beyond measure. So smile to increase your endurance and laugh in the face of adversity.

Paul’s exhortation is in stark contrast to the “power of positive thinking” movement popularized by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, which, in my view, was not altogether biblical because it seemed to suggest that people could change the future just by willing positive outcomes. Like the “prosperity gospel,” which tells us we can all be rich if we just have enough faith, it tends to detract from our proper emphasis on Christ-centeredness. There is nothing wrong with pursuing success and material blessings, but as Christians we must try to remember that our true contentment is embodied in Jesus Christ, and we should organize our lives around this truth.

You will come across obstacles in life -- fair and unfair. And you will discover, time and time again, that what matters most is not what these obstacles are but how we see them, how we react to them, and whether we keep our composure. You will learn that this reaction determines how successful we will be in overcoming -- or possibly thriving because of -- them. Where one person sees a crisis, another can see opportunity. Where one is blinded by success, another sees reality with ruthless objectivity. Where one loses control of emotions, another can remain calm.

But thou shalt leave it all behind thee! It shall not cumber thy steps, as thou treadest along the forest-path; neither shalt thou freight the ship with it, if thou prefer to cross the sea. Leave this wreck and ruin here where it hath happened! Meddle no more with it! Begin all anew! Hast thou exhausted possibility in the failure of this one trial? Not so! The future is yet full of trial and success. There is happiness to be enjoyed! There is good to be done! Exchange this false life of thine for a true one. Be, if thy spirit summons thee to such a mission, the teacher and apostle of the red men. Or,—as is more thy nature,—be a scholar and a sage among the wisest and the most renowned of the cultivated world. Preach! Write! Act! Do any thing, save to lie down and die! Give up this name of Arthur Dimmesdale, and make thyself another, and a high one, such as thou canst wear without fear or shame. Why shouldst thou tarry so much as one other day in the torments that have so gnawed into thy life!—that have made thee feeble to will and to do!—that will leave thee powerless even to repent! Up, and away!

defense lawyers challenged the credibility of these experts, but were rarely successful. Judges were often overwhelmed by the science and had little or no time to educate themselves. If a proffered witness had some training and seemed to know what he was talking about, he was allowed to testify. Over time, judges adopted the rationale that since a witness had been qualified as an expert in other trials in other states, then certainly he must be a genuine authority. Appellate courts got into the act by affirming convictions without seriously questioning the science behind the forensics, and thus bolstering the reputations of the experts. As résumés grew thicker, the opinions grew to encompass even more theories of guilt.

To be successful, Soviet secret policemen thought that show trials needed a complex story line, a conspiracy involving many actors, and so Soviet advisers pushed their Eastern European colleagues to link the traitors of Prague, Budapest, Berlin, and Warsaw into one story. In order to do so, they needed a central figure, someone who had known some of the protagonists and who could plausibly, or semi-plausibly, be accused of recruiting all of them. Eventually they hit on a man who fit these requirements: a mildly eccentric Harvard graduate and American State Department official named Noel Field.

Where one person sees a crisis, another can see opportunity. Where one is blinded by success, another sees reality with ruthless objectivity. Where one loses control of emotions, another can remain calm. Desperation, despair, fear, powerlessness—these reactions are functions of our perceptions. You must realize: Nothing makes us feel this way; we choose to give in to such feelings. Or, like Rockefeller, choose not to. And it is precisely at this divergence—between how Rockefeller perceived his environment and how the rest of the world typically does—that his nearly incomprehensible success was born.

This is Pyrrhia, where there are seven dragon tribes. There were seven queens. Then came a great war, a prophecy, a volcano … and after the War of SandWing Succession was over, a shift in the balance of power. Not everyone approves of the new SandWing queen. In fact, the only topic more controversial is the new queen of the NightWings. Can they hold on to their thrones? Should they? In the dungeon of the SandWing stronghold, two prisoners await … what? A trial? Imminent execution? They’re not exactly sure. They are NightWings, but they cannot go back to their tribe. They are in exile; they are too dangerous to be allowed to return. And yet: too complicated to be killed. (They hope.) So they wait, and scheme (well, one of them schemes. The other one is catching up on sleeping and eating). And they wonder what will happen to them. All they want is access to the most dangerous weapon of all: a chance to tell their own story. They are prisoners. But perhaps that is about to change.

Embrace Reality and Deal with It 1.1 Be a hyperrealist. a. Dreams + Reality + Determination = A Successful Life. 1.2 Truth—or, more precisely, an accurate understanding of reality—is the essential foundation for any good outcome. 1.3 Be radically open-minded and radically transparent. a. Radical open-mindedness and radical transparency are invaluable for rapid learning and effective change. b. Don’t let fears of what others think of you stand in your way. c. Embracing radical truth and radical transparency will bring more meaningful work and more meaningful relationships. 1.4 Look to nature to learn how reality works. a. Don’t get hung up on your views of how things “should” be because you will miss out on learning how they really are. b. To be “good,” something must operate consistently with the laws of reality and contribute to the evolution of the whole; that is what is most rewarded. c. Evolution is the single greatest force in the universe; it is the only thing that is permanent and it drives everything. d. Evolve or die. 1.5 Evolving is life’s greatest accomplishment and its greatest reward. a. The individual’s incentives must be aligned with the group’s goals. b. Reality is optimizing for the whole—not for you. c. Adaptation through rapid trial and error is invaluable. d. Realize that you are simultaneously everything and nothing—and decide what you want to be. e. What you will be will depend on the perspective you have. 1.6 Understand nature’s practical lessons. a. Maximize your evolution. b. Remember “no pain, no gain.” c. It is a fundamental law of nature that in order to gain strength one has to push one’s limits, which is painful. 1.7 Pain + Reflection = Progress. a. Go to the pain rather than avoid it. b. Embrace tough love. 1.8 Weigh second- and third-order consequences. 1.9 Own your outcomes. 1.10 Look at the machine from the higher level. a. Think of yourself as a machine operating within a machine and know that you have the ability to alter your machines to produce better outcomes. b. By comparing your outcomes with your goals, you can determine how to modify

When we aim high, pressure and stress obligingly come along for the ride. Stuff is going to happen that catches us off guard, threatens or scares us. Surprises (unpleasant ones, mostly) are almost guaranteed. The risk of being overwhelmed is always there. In these situations, talent is not the most sought-after characteristic. Grace and poise are, because these two attributes precede the opportunity to deploy any other skill. We must possess, as Voltaire once explained about the secret to the great military success of the first Duke of Marlborough, that “tranquil courage in the midst of tumult and serenity of soul in danger, which the English call a cool head.” Regardless of how much actual danger we’re in, stress puts us at the potential whim of our baser—fearful—instinctual reactions.

If we analyse the classes of life, we readily find that there are three cardinal classes which are radically distinct in function. A short analysis will disclose to us that, though minerals have various activities, they are not "living." The plants have a very definite and well known function-the transformation of solar energy into organic chemical energy. They are a class of life which appropriates one kind of energy, converts it into another kind and stores it up; in that sense they are a kind of storage battery for the solar energy; and so I define THE PLANTS AS THE CHEMISTRY-BINDING class of life. The animals use the highly dynamic products of the chemistry-binding class-the plants-as food, and those products-the results of plant-transformation-undergo in animals a further transformation into yet higher forms; and the animals are correspondingly a more dynamic class of life; their energy is kinetic; they have a remarkable freedom and power which the plants do not possess-I mean the freedom and faculty to move about in space; and so I define ANIMALS AS THE SPACE-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE. And now what shall we say of human beings? What is to be our definition of Man? Like the animals, human beings do indeed possess the space-binding capacity but, over and above that, human beings possess a most remarkable capacity which is entirely peculiar to them-I mean the capacity to summarise, digest and appropriate the labors and experiences of the past; I mean the capacity to use the fruits of past labors and experiences as intellectual or spiritual capital for developments in the present; I mean the capacity to employ as instruments of increasing power the accumulated achievements of the all-precious lives of the past generations spent in trial and error, trial and success; I mean the capacity of human beings to conduct their lives in the ever increasing light of inherited wisdom; I mean the capacity in virtue of which man is at once the heritor of the by-gone ages and the trustee of posterity. And because humanity is just this magnificent natural agency by which the past lives in the present and the present for the future, I define HUMANITY, in the universal tongue of mathematics and mechanics, to be the TIME-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE.

When older people ask me, “How have you been so successful after age 65?” I tell them, “Anyone who’s reached 65 years of age has had a world of experience behind him. He’s had his ups and downs and all the trials and tribulations of life. He certainly ought to be able to gather something out of that, something he can put together at the end of his 65 years so he can get a new start.” The way I see it, a man’s life is written by the way he lives it. It’s using any talent God has given him, even if his talent is cooking food or running a good motel. You can reach higher, think bigger, grow stronger and live deeper in this country of ours than anywhere else on Earth. The rules here give everybody a chance to win. If my story is different, it’s because my life really began at age 65 when most folks have already called it a day. I’d been modestly successful before I hit 65. After that I made millions. When they’re about 60 or 65, a lot of people feel that life is all over for them. Too many of them just sit and wait until they die or they become a burden to other people. The truth is they can make a brand new life for themselves if they just don’t give up and hunker down. I want to tell people, “You’re only as old as you feel or as you think, and no matter what your age there’s plenty of work to be done.” I don’t want to sound like I’m clearing my throat and giving advice about how a man can be successful. I’m not all puffed up. My main trade secret is I’m not afraid of hard, back-cracking work. After all, I was raised on a farm where hard work is the way of life.

But perhaps the newest and most exciting instrument in the neurologist’s tool kit is optogenetics, which was once considered science fiction. Like a magic wand, it allows you to activate certain pathways controlling behavior by shining a light beam on the brain. Incredibly, a light-sensitive gene that causes a cell to fire can be inserted, with surgical precision, directly into a neuron. Then, by turning on a light beam, the neuron is activated. More importantly, this allows scientists to excite these pathways, so that you can turn on and off certain behaviors by flicking a switch. Although this technology is only a decade old, optogenetics has already proven successful in controlling certain animal behaviors. By turning on a light switch, it is possible to make fruit flies suddenly fly off, worms stop wiggling, and mice run around madly in circles. Monkey trials are now beginning, and even human trials are in discussion. There is great hope that this technology will have a direct application in treating disorders like Parkinson’s and depression.

The most notorious story is the Trovan antibiotic study conducted by Pfizer in Kano, Nigeria, during a meningitis epidemic. An experimental new antibiotic was compared, in a randomised trial, with a low dose of a competing antibiotic that was known to be effective. Eleven children died, roughly the same number from each group. Crucially, the participants were apparently not informed about the experimental nature of the treatments, and moreover, they were not informed that a treatment known to be effective was available, immediately, from Médecins sans Frontières next door at the very same facility. Pfizer argued in court – successfully – that there was no international norm requiring it to get informed consent for a trial involving experimental drugs in Africa, so the cases relating to the trial should be heard in Nigeria only. That’s a chilling thing to hear a company claim about experimental drug trials, and it was knocked back in 2006 when the Nigerian Ministry of Health released its report on the trial. This stated that Pfizer had violated Nigerian law, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Declaration of Helsinki.

With so much knowledge written down and disseminated and so many ardent workers and eager patrons conspiring to produce the new, it was inevitable that technique and style should gradually turn from successful trial and error to foolproof recipe. The close study of antique remains, especially in architecture, turned these sources of inspiration into models to copy. The result was frigidity—or at best cool elegance. It is a cultural generality that going back to the past is most fruitful at the beginning, when the Idea and not the technique is the point of interest. As knowledge grows more exact, originality grows less; perfection increases as inspiration decreases. In painting, this downward curve of artistic intensity is called by the sug- gestive name of Mannerism. It is applicable at more than one moment in the history of the arts. The Mannerist is not to be despised, even though his high competence is secondhand, learned from others instead of worked out for himself. His art need not lack individual character, and to some connoisseurs it gives the pleasure of virtuosity, the exercise of power on demand, but for the critic it poses an enigma: why should the pleasure be greater when the power is in the making rather than on tap? There may be no answer, but a useful corollary is that perfection is not a necessary characteristic of the greatest art.

Leaning back in his chair, Ian listened to Larimore’s irate summation of the wild and fruitless chase he’d been sent on for two days by Lady Thornton and her butler: “And after all that,” Larimore flung out in high dudgeon, “I returned to the house on Promenade Street to demand the butler allow me past the stoop, only to have the man-“ “Slam the door in your face?” Ian suggested dispassionately. “No, my lord, he invited me in,” Larimore bit out. “He invited me to search the house to my complete satisfaction. She’s left London,” Larimore finished, avoiding his employer’s narrowed gaze. “She’ll go to Havenhurst,” Ian said decisively, and he gave Larimore directions to find the small estate. When Larimore left, Ian picked up a contract he needed to read and approve; but before he’d read two lines Jordan stalked into his study unannounced, carrying a newspaper and wearing an expression Ian hadn’t seen before. “Have you seen the paper today?” Ian ignored the paper and studied his friend’s angry face instead. “No, why?” “Read it,” Jordan said, slapping it down on the desk. “Elizabeth allowed herself to be questioned by a reporter from the Times. Read that.” He jabbed his finger at a few lines near the bottom of the article about Elizabeth by one Mr. Thomas Tyson. “That was your wife’s response when Tyson asked her how she felt when she saw you on trial before your peers.” Frowning at Jordan’s tone, Ian read Elizabeth’s reply: My husband was not tried before his peers. He was merely tried before the Lords of the British Realm. Ian Thornton has no peers. Ian tore his gaze from the article, refusing to react to the incredible sweetness of her response, but Jordan would not let it go. “My compliments to you, Ian,” he said angrily. “You serve your wife with a divorce petition, and she responds by giving you what constitutes a public apology!” He turned and stalked out of the room, leaving Ian behind to stare with clenched jaw at the article. One month later Elizabeth had still not been found. Ian continued trying to purge her from his mind and tear her from his heart, but with decreasing success. He knew he was losing ground in the battle, just as he had been slowly losing it from the moment he’d looked up and seen her walking into the House of Lords.

March 10 MORNING “In my prosperity I said I shall never be moved.” — Psalm 30:6 “MOAB is settled on his lees, he hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel.” Give a man wealth; let his ships bring home continually rich freights; let the winds and waves appear to be his servants to bear his vessels across the bosom of the mighty deep; let his lands yield abundantly: let the weather be propitious to his crops; let uninterrupted success attend him; let him stand among men as a successful merchant; let him enjoy continued health; allow him with braced nerve and brilliant eye to march through the world, and live happily; give him the buoyant spirit; let him have the song perpetually on his lips; let his eye be ever sparkling with joy — and the natural consequence of such an easy state to any man, let him be the best Christian who ever breathed, will be presumption; even David said, “I shall never be moved;” and we are not better than David, nor half so good. Brother, beware of the smooth places of the way; if you are treading them, or if the way be rough, thank God for it. If God should always rock us in the cradle of prosperity; if we were always dandled on the knees of fortune; if we had not some stain on the alabaster pillar; if there were not a few clouds in the sky; if we had not some bitter drops in the wine of this life, we should become intoxicated with pleasure, we should dream “we stand;” and stand we should, but it would be upon a pinnacle; like the man asleep upon the mast, each moment we should be in jeopardy. We bless God, then, for our afflictions; we thank Him for our changes; we extol His name for losses of property; for we feel that had He not chastened us thus, we might have become too secure. Continued worldly prosperity is a fiery trial. “Afflictions, though they seem severe, In mercy oft are sent.