Persons & Their Merit

Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person. - Charles Caleb Colton


Seems backwards from the way it should be, doesn't it?


(Other posts on Life)

Coming to Your Lifetime.............

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. - Albert Einstein

Be sure and include a person of imagination on your team if you are to have future attractions.

(Other posts on Imagination)

Selling a Good Idea

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman. - David M. Ogilvy


Seldom do these qualities exist within the same person. That is why you should choose your people to compliment you, not mirror you.


(Other posts on Persuasion)

Final Post in Series: Change

There is only one you... Don't you dare change just because you're outnumbered! - Charles Swindoll


I've been trying to find an example of where change required for progress would not require change in people as well. My father told of those who opposed bathrooms in the house (indoor plumbing) when outhouses were the norm because it was not civilized to do that sort of thing in the house.


(Other posts on Change)

Change Has Its Enemies

Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator and change has its enemies. - Robert F. Kennedy

You (and the world) will never make any progress if you wait for unanimous approval.


(Other posts on Change)

Change for Progress

The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress. - Charles Kettering


The problem lies in how to get people to see a change as progress (not all change is progress).


(Other posts on Change)

Capacity for Change

Man has a limited biological capacity for change. When this capacity is overwelmed, the capacity is in future shock. - Alvin Toffler


For my purposes here I would paraphrase; Most men have a limited mental capacity for change.


(Other posts on Change)

Don't Get the New Idea Vaccine

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it. - P. B. Medawar


A mind may be inclined to do so but perhaps the difference between an innovator and not is just that.


(Other posts on Ideas)

Shine on Brightly

An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly. - Edwin P. Whipple


Hopefully the epigram will cause reason to shine more brightly.


(Other posts on Reason)

Purpose and Aggression

My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose. - Bette Davis


Strive to recognize the difference between purpose and aggression.


(Other posts on Success)

My Dreams

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

- William Butler Yeats

We all enter marriage poor.

(Other posts on Marriage)

Which Comes First: Data or Theory?

I never guess. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle


If you have an already observed result then he is right. You can theorize a result before you have data (or the result) though. 


(Other posts on Information)

Swindle or Solution

A proposal that requires you to ignore both the past and the future is a swindle, not a solution. - John Hayward


Or history and prediction based on faith rather than fact.


(Other posts on Honesty)

Trade Etiquette

In order to protect rights or trade, we need a way to do so, and etiquette provides us with such a means. Etiquette is a form of communication which, like language, requires both parties to understand and abide by certain conventions. You could not have morality or trade without language. And all social interactions also require additional commonly-understood protocols. - Gus Van Horn


You have every reason to expect being treated respectfully, honestly and morally even from those who have differing opinions. 


(Other posts on Respect)

Step Toward Freedom

Free people do not accept restrictions from which their government is exempt. This is one of the differences between leaders and rulers. - John Hayward


Interesting thought - putting government workers and Congressmen on Social Security as a step toward greater freedom.


(Other posts on Government)