07/24/08

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time a tremendous whack. -Winston Churchill

07/23/08

A good listener helps us overhear ourselves. -Yahia Lababidi

07/22/08

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite. -Bertrand Russell

07/21/08

What are the facts? Again and again and again - what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" - what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts! -Robert A. Heinlein

07/16/08

You can be totally rational with a machine. But, if you work with people, sometimes logic has to take a back seat to understanding. -Akio Morita

07/15/08

Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago. -Horace Mann

07/14/08

Life is easier than you'd think; all that is necessary is to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable, and bear the intolerable. -Kathleen Norris

07/10/08

I will not allow yesterday's success to lull me into today's complacency, for this is the great foundation of failure. -Og Mandino

07/08/08

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. -Robert F. Kennedy

07/07/08

Whatever your grade or postion, if you know how and when to speak, and when to to remain silent, your chances of real success are proportionately increased. -Ralph C. Smedley

07/03/08

The world is a story we tell ourselves about the world. -Vikram Chandra

07/02/08

If you're a teacher and you're trying to teach to the career needs of every individual student or you're trying to teach to the presumed career needs of a conglomeration of young people, then you're not going to do well. If you're a teacher and you make the health of the community the standard of your work, then you're going to teach better. If you teach with the good health of your community in mind, you're going to try to make every one of your students the best possible member of the community. You're going to fail a lot, but you're going to change the way you teach and maybe you'll succeed some, too. If you suppose to yourself, "Well, when these kids graduate, that's probably the last I'm going to see of them," you're going to teach differently than you would teach if you assume that you're going to spend the rest of your life with these people. These kids are going to grow up. They're going to take their place in the community you live in. They're going to be your fellow citizens, your fellow members. -Wendell Berry

07/01/08

Language is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines. -Bill Bryson