-The Win Forever philosophy is not just about maximizing the potential of our players. It is about maximizing the potential of everyone in a program or organization. A big part of my job is creating an environment where this will happen.
-As head coach, I set the vision and the philosophy, but it is the coordinators and other coaches who are charged with implementing it on the ground with the players every day.
-I love to stoke little rivalries between the coaches of various position groups.
-I am constantly making suggestions, but they coach the message in their own ways, in their own voices.
-If I want them to coach to their full potential, I have to not only allow them to be authentically themselves but insist upon it.
-They would have to teach from inside themselves.
-Putting together a staff may be the most important part of any head coach's job, and I have always enjoyed it.
-One person at the top simply can't do everything that needs to be done.
-If a leader is clear and consistent about his philosophy's core values, it frees everyone up to do their best. It frees the top leadership to treat its middle managers in a whole new way.
-When everyone gets to contribute his maximum effort, it is transformative for the whole organization.
-You want to compete with people you can trust to lead and those are my coaches.
-Our efforts to win are based on our ability to control every aspect of our team environment, from energy to focus to camaraderie.
-There is so much more room for personal style and expression than many people realize. Whatever the context, not taking advantage of that may be a huge missed opportunity to involve people on a deeper, more competitive, and ultimately higher-performing level.
-How can an organization expect to maximize its overall potential if its people up and down the ladder don't have the chance to contribute in a way that taps into their ability as individuals?
-Rather than expecting loyalty from my coaches, I found that I got all the loyalty I could ask for by supporting them and advancing their careers.
-Our success depends on every one of us being willing to sacrifice parts of ourselves to the share effort. That only works when we trust one another completely, and once that level of trust is in place, it's worth a lot to keep it there.
Monday, May 20, 2019
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Win forever by Pete Carroll. Quotes III
-Do things better than they have ever been done before.
-Practice is one of the many places where we compete to be the best.
-How we practice defines who we are.
THE ENERGY, THE PASSION IN PRACTICE
-From the moment I got out of the car, I could hear it: whistles, kids, and coaches, all sounding somewhat unlike the practice I'd come from. Here, there was something very different: it was the energy. Despite the fact that both teams clearly had the same gear, the same facilities, and players of comparable ability, this practice and the one I had just come from were two utterly different experiences. From the moment I got out of the car, I sensed this was going to be a better practice.
As I got closer, I could hear coaches speaking in Spanish and English, but the language didn't matter. The players could interpret the passion, energy, and excitement.
These coaches were the source of the difference, and it just blew me away.
-How crucial the energy of the coaches was to create a great practice atmosphere.
-The passion and the excitement that coaches bring to the field will transfer directly to the players and will allow you to create a competitive practice environment.
-We worked to gain confidence and erase fear by practicing for every contingency.
-Every year, as you build your team, there always seems to be a critical moment when things either come together or go south.
-Standing in the middle of our team, I told them that if we remained as tight as we were at that moment, it didn't matter who came over the walls of this great coliseum to challenge us.
-A tradition in spring practice. Every year, on the first day or our monthlong spring practice, we would begin with a team meeting.
-We wanted to maximize our potential and do everything we did better than it had ever been done before. This meant everything, not just as football coaches and players but as human beings.
-Self-talk can be powerful and ultimately can create anticipated outcomes.
-As soon as he stopped doubting himself and began to envision positive outcomes, his natural gifts propelled him to great success.
-Part of teaching players to execute on the field is teaching them to execute off the field as well.
-Practice is one of the many places where we compete to be the best.
-How we practice defines who we are.
THE ENERGY, THE PASSION IN PRACTICE
-From the moment I got out of the car, I could hear it: whistles, kids, and coaches, all sounding somewhat unlike the practice I'd come from. Here, there was something very different: it was the energy. Despite the fact that both teams clearly had the same gear, the same facilities, and players of comparable ability, this practice and the one I had just come from were two utterly different experiences. From the moment I got out of the car, I sensed this was going to be a better practice.
As I got closer, I could hear coaches speaking in Spanish and English, but the language didn't matter. The players could interpret the passion, energy, and excitement.
These coaches were the source of the difference, and it just blew me away.
-How crucial the energy of the coaches was to create a great practice atmosphere.
-The passion and the excitement that coaches bring to the field will transfer directly to the players and will allow you to create a competitive practice environment.
-We worked to gain confidence and erase fear by practicing for every contingency.
-Every year, as you build your team, there always seems to be a critical moment when things either come together or go south.
-Standing in the middle of our team, I told them that if we remained as tight as we were at that moment, it didn't matter who came over the walls of this great coliseum to challenge us.
-A tradition in spring practice. Every year, on the first day or our monthlong spring practice, we would begin with a team meeting.
-We wanted to maximize our potential and do everything we did better than it had ever been done before. This meant everything, not just as football coaches and players but as human beings.
-Self-talk can be powerful and ultimately can create anticipated outcomes.
-As soon as he stopped doubting himself and began to envision positive outcomes, his natural gifts propelled him to great success.
-Part of teaching players to execute on the field is teaching them to execute off the field as well.
Monday, May 13, 2019
Win forever by Pete Carroll. Quotes II
-Contingency planning. Preparation and practice sessions should be designed so that the performer is trained for all potential outcomes and events.
-In all areas, he wanted to have a plan for everything.
-I had learned that they were winners not solely because of their win/loss records but also because of their strict attention to detail, confidence in themselves, and rock solid philosophies.
-Great leaders in sports seem to have a knack for creating defining moments.
-I talked from the inner depths of my being.
-A head coach should be able to hire his own coaching staff if he wants a cohesive unit and also have a strong hand in selecting players. Confidence and trust are vital to a successful organization, and leadership must be supported unconditionally, to the bitter end if necessary.
-If I were ever to find myself in an organization where competition didn't play a central role, then I should immediately recognize that I was in the wrong place.
-The essence of my message about competing has nothing to do with the opponent. My competitive approach is that it's all about us.
-My opponents are the people who offer me the opportunity to succeed.
-In our practices, we always end each day with our best offensive players competing against our best defensive players to create the most competitive situations.
-The beauty of it was that his mentality became a part of the 49ers culture.
-In all areas, he wanted to have a plan for everything.
-I had learned that they were winners not solely because of their win/loss records but also because of their strict attention to detail, confidence in themselves, and rock solid philosophies.
-Great leaders in sports seem to have a knack for creating defining moments.
-I talked from the inner depths of my being.
-A head coach should be able to hire his own coaching staff if he wants a cohesive unit and also have a strong hand in selecting players. Confidence and trust are vital to a successful organization, and leadership must be supported unconditionally, to the bitter end if necessary.
-If I were ever to find myself in an organization where competition didn't play a central role, then I should immediately recognize that I was in the wrong place.
-The essence of my message about competing has nothing to do with the opponent. My competitive approach is that it's all about us.
-My opponents are the people who offer me the opportunity to succeed.
-In our practices, we always end each day with our best offensive players competing against our best defensive players to create the most competitive situations.
-The beauty of it was that his mentality became a part of the 49ers culture.
Win forever by Pete Carroll. Quotes
-I embarked on a process of discovering who I was, not only as a football coach but, more important, as a person.
-One of the keys to success lies in knowing and believing in yourself.
-Something good is just about to happen.
-You are either competing to be the best you can be or you are not.
-Maslow is widely considered to have been the first psychologist to study happy, healthy people.
-The first step to doing great things was affirming the belief that great things are possible.
-The simple act of making thoughtful, affirmative statements about who we are and what we want to achieve can be an incredibly powerful tool for getting the best possible performance out of ourselves.
-In order to be successful, you must have a consistent philosophy.
-The realization that I would need to have a philosophy in order to really maximize my potential was one of the breakthrough moments in my personal education and professional career.
-The essence of the Inner Game is to acquire and maintain a quieted mind.
-When players know that they have mastered the rigors of training, whether on the football field or in the weight room or classroom, then their confidence leads to an unusual focus, free from distractions, doubt, or fear.
-I was freed up because I was not worried about the outcome. Let it happen.
-I went back to the principles of the Inner Game and decided to introduce the players to the concept of creating peak experiences or playing in the zone.
-It was everybody's job to get his mind right by game time. It was their job to first believe.
-That night after the game, like I've done on many occasions, I went back into the stadium. When the crowds are gone, and the only people around are the guys sweeping up, there's a special quiet in the air that speaks to me in a way that nothing else does.
-That's success. Those guys had shown that they had what it took to continue to win year after year, in an almost permanent state of winning.
-One of the keys to success lies in knowing and believing in yourself.
-Something good is just about to happen.
-You are either competing to be the best you can be or you are not.
-Maslow is widely considered to have been the first psychologist to study happy, healthy people.
-The first step to doing great things was affirming the belief that great things are possible.
-The simple act of making thoughtful, affirmative statements about who we are and what we want to achieve can be an incredibly powerful tool for getting the best possible performance out of ourselves.
-In order to be successful, you must have a consistent philosophy.
-The realization that I would need to have a philosophy in order to really maximize my potential was one of the breakthrough moments in my personal education and professional career.
-The essence of the Inner Game is to acquire and maintain a quieted mind.
-When players know that they have mastered the rigors of training, whether on the football field or in the weight room or classroom, then their confidence leads to an unusual focus, free from distractions, doubt, or fear.
-I was freed up because I was not worried about the outcome. Let it happen.
-I went back to the principles of the Inner Game and decided to introduce the players to the concept of creating peak experiences or playing in the zone.
-It was everybody's job to get his mind right by game time. It was their job to first believe.
-That night after the game, like I've done on many occasions, I went back into the stadium. When the crowds are gone, and the only people around are the guys sweeping up, there's a special quiet in the air that speaks to me in a way that nothing else does.
-That's success. Those guys had shown that they had what it took to continue to win year after year, in an almost permanent state of winning.
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes XIX
-It is a risk to present yourself to others as you really are. It takes courage. Most people hide behind masks. They are afraid that if people always see them the way they really are, they won't like them. Therefore they always wear a mask. But in my experience people admire the courage of those who don't hide, who make themselves vulnerable, who dare to risk openly revealing themselves, expressing their hopes and their desires.
-Life is tough. It is tough even for the lucky.
-Life doesn't imitate television.
-Real men don't run. They stay and fight.
-One of this school's principal aims is to challenge you now so you will develop the confidence and toughness to face life's future challenges.
-It is precisely at that point when you are under the pressure of conflicting simultaneous demands, or when you are knocked down, face in the dirt, that you discover who you are. In that moment of truth you have to decide whether you are going to cut and run or stay and fight. If you have the courage to stay and fight you will have to dig deep within you to find the strength to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and go on.
-Those who are really strong, who are really tough, don't deny the hurt, they don't pretend there's no pain. They face the hurt and pain and they struggle to get up and to go on.
-It is certainly a long-standing goal of this School to prepare a small group of young men who learn today courageously to face up to life's inevitable demands, setbacks, and injustices and who therefore will have developed the inner strength to be the world's leaders tomorrow.
-Nothing takes as much courage in life, as risking opening ourselves up to others.
-Only those who are strong will risk such vulnerability. Only the truly strong will dare to be tender.
-Every failure, every defeat, every bit of suffering that we experience makes us stronger. Stronger because we become more aware of the sufferings of others must bear.
-My beloved children, now and in the years ahead you will suffer and fail and know despair. My prayer for you is that when you experience such suffering you will dig deep and from your suffering build the spiritual muscle you will need to cope with life's many difficulties, and that in your own suffering you will grow to understand with compassion the suffering of others.
-Life is tough. It is tough even for the lucky.
-Life doesn't imitate television.
-Real men don't run. They stay and fight.
-One of this school's principal aims is to challenge you now so you will develop the confidence and toughness to face life's future challenges.
-It is precisely at that point when you are under the pressure of conflicting simultaneous demands, or when you are knocked down, face in the dirt, that you discover who you are. In that moment of truth you have to decide whether you are going to cut and run or stay and fight. If you have the courage to stay and fight you will have to dig deep within you to find the strength to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and go on.
-Those who are really strong, who are really tough, don't deny the hurt, they don't pretend there's no pain. They face the hurt and pain and they struggle to get up and to go on.
-It is certainly a long-standing goal of this School to prepare a small group of young men who learn today courageously to face up to life's inevitable demands, setbacks, and injustices and who therefore will have developed the inner strength to be the world's leaders tomorrow.
-Nothing takes as much courage in life, as risking opening ourselves up to others.
-Only those who are strong will risk such vulnerability. Only the truly strong will dare to be tender.
-Every failure, every defeat, every bit of suffering that we experience makes us stronger. Stronger because we become more aware of the sufferings of others must bear.
-My beloved children, now and in the years ahead you will suffer and fail and know despair. My prayer for you is that when you experience such suffering you will dig deep and from your suffering build the spiritual muscle you will need to cope with life's many difficulties, and that in your own suffering you will grow to understand with compassion the suffering of others.
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes XVIII
-Whatever power a leader has is overshadowed by the cares and responsibilities that go with leadership.
-If a leader has a vision, he cannot simply impose it.
-A leader must constantly, endlessly consult, listen, strive for consensus. Far from getting his own way, he must constantly seek the compromises that will bring people together. Far from getting his own way, a leader is constantly trying to understand the viewpoints of others and to persuade them to consider his own viewpoint.
-Leadership is about vision and courage.
-Leadership sometimes requires taking a lonely stand.
-A true leader has the inner strength to lose in a good cause rather than to win in a bad one.
-Leadership consists of just such tiny, quiet, and unspectacular acts.
-Leadership requires above all, character: the ability to cling to a vision, the patience and endurance to persuade others, a thick hide for criticism and unpopularity, a tolerance for anxiety, and a willingness to lose in a good cause, even a willingness to die for your fellow man in a righteous cause.
-At the heart of leadership is character.
-That's the reason we care most of all not how smart you are, not what a good athlete or musician or whatever you are, but what kind of person you are.
-Principle, not popularity, motivated Churchill to stand up to Hitler.
-Some adults who work with young people have a desperate need to be popular, to tell kids what they want to hear.
-Preemptive capitulation.
-Every age is an age of change in which people challenge the traditional values.
-The survival of civilization in every generation depends on a few institutions and individuals, depends on a small minority of people dedicated to working for the public good.
-These are the values we hold: honesty, simplicity, respect and concern for others, the acknowledgment of the Eternal in the midst of the transitory. Such values are never, in any generation, popular, but these are our values. The great schools stood unabashedly against the times and against the culture.
-The quality of life in each generation is determined by a very small number of people who dare to stand against the times, against the culture.
-This school was founded to create an elite of responsibility and obligation, not an elite of privilege.
-You are already different. You already live by values that relatively few young men your age share. In every generation the world is saved by a few people who stand for something: Socrates, Moses, Churchill, Rosa Parks, Mother Theresa.
-There is another way. It is the way of the few who want to do something great with their lives, who do not fear unpopularity, who dare to risk defeat and even death standing for what they believe in.
-Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.
-That's the perfect definition of courage: to risk trying something that's worth trying that you are not already good at.
-It is a risk to say no to something that's wrong. Your peers may scorn you, reject you, make you feel alone and out of it. On the other hand, some may admire the inner strength that enables you to stand alone. Some may even join you. It's a risk one that requires courage.
-If a leader has a vision, he cannot simply impose it.
-A leader must constantly, endlessly consult, listen, strive for consensus. Far from getting his own way, he must constantly seek the compromises that will bring people together. Far from getting his own way, a leader is constantly trying to understand the viewpoints of others and to persuade them to consider his own viewpoint.
-Leadership is about vision and courage.
-Leadership sometimes requires taking a lonely stand.
-A true leader has the inner strength to lose in a good cause rather than to win in a bad one.
-Leadership consists of just such tiny, quiet, and unspectacular acts.
-Leadership requires above all, character: the ability to cling to a vision, the patience and endurance to persuade others, a thick hide for criticism and unpopularity, a tolerance for anxiety, and a willingness to lose in a good cause, even a willingness to die for your fellow man in a righteous cause.
-At the heart of leadership is character.
-That's the reason we care most of all not how smart you are, not what a good athlete or musician or whatever you are, but what kind of person you are.
-Principle, not popularity, motivated Churchill to stand up to Hitler.
-Some adults who work with young people have a desperate need to be popular, to tell kids what they want to hear.
-Preemptive capitulation.
-Every age is an age of change in which people challenge the traditional values.
-The survival of civilization in every generation depends on a few institutions and individuals, depends on a small minority of people dedicated to working for the public good.
-These are the values we hold: honesty, simplicity, respect and concern for others, the acknowledgment of the Eternal in the midst of the transitory. Such values are never, in any generation, popular, but these are our values. The great schools stood unabashedly against the times and against the culture.
-The quality of life in each generation is determined by a very small number of people who dare to stand against the times, against the culture.
-This school was founded to create an elite of responsibility and obligation, not an elite of privilege.
-You are already different. You already live by values that relatively few young men your age share. In every generation the world is saved by a few people who stand for something: Socrates, Moses, Churchill, Rosa Parks, Mother Theresa.
-There is another way. It is the way of the few who want to do something great with their lives, who do not fear unpopularity, who dare to risk defeat and even death standing for what they believe in.
-Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.
-That's the perfect definition of courage: to risk trying something that's worth trying that you are not already good at.
-It is a risk to say no to something that's wrong. Your peers may scorn you, reject you, make you feel alone and out of it. On the other hand, some may admire the inner strength that enables you to stand alone. Some may even join you. It's a risk one that requires courage.
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes XVII
-At the heart of every successful and enduring marriage is friendship.
-It takes two people to make a friendship.
-Vulnerability is the indispensable foundation and basis, the sine qua non, of friendship. No vulnerability, no friendship,
-Three qualities you can bring to a relationship that will help you make and keep a friend:
1. Hopeful commitment.
2.Openness.
3. Loyalty.
-There is no marriage, there is no friendship, in which there are not bad times. For worse is for real.
-We have made a hopeful commitment to care about another person at some cost to ourselves.
-Openness to differences in the first instance. Some people want their friends to look like them, dress like them, act like them, and share the very same interests. Such people are essentially narcissistic.
-One of the greatest joys of real friendship is to come to appreciate differences in others.
-Be open to differences. Be open also to change. All real friendships change and grow.
-Friendship must be based not on controlling but on caring.
-Loyalty: genuine and abiding concern for a person through thick and thin.
-Being loyal to another person does not mean we have to agree with him. Quite the contrary. Loyalty usually requires us to express our disagreement. But loyalty also requires that we express our disagreement to his face, not behind his back, and often privately.
-Friendship is defined by who you handle the disagreements that inevitably arise.
-When the chips are down, when things are for worse rather than for better, when things are poorer than for richer, we discover who our friends really are. Fair weather friends are not friends at all. Real friends are loyal even when it's costly to be loyal.
-As we begin this new year together, my prayer for you is that you will find the courage to risk making friends, and that, through commitment, openness and loyalty, above all, loyalty, you will experience the joy that comes from making and keeping friends.
-It takes two people to make a friendship.
-Vulnerability is the indispensable foundation and basis, the sine qua non, of friendship. No vulnerability, no friendship,
-Three qualities you can bring to a relationship that will help you make and keep a friend:
1. Hopeful commitment.
2.Openness.
3. Loyalty.
-There is no marriage, there is no friendship, in which there are not bad times. For worse is for real.
-We have made a hopeful commitment to care about another person at some cost to ourselves.
-Openness to differences in the first instance. Some people want their friends to look like them, dress like them, act like them, and share the very same interests. Such people are essentially narcissistic.
-One of the greatest joys of real friendship is to come to appreciate differences in others.
-Be open to differences. Be open also to change. All real friendships change and grow.
-Friendship must be based not on controlling but on caring.
-Loyalty: genuine and abiding concern for a person through thick and thin.
-Being loyal to another person does not mean we have to agree with him. Quite the contrary. Loyalty usually requires us to express our disagreement. But loyalty also requires that we express our disagreement to his face, not behind his back, and often privately.
-Friendship is defined by who you handle the disagreements that inevitably arise.
-When the chips are down, when things are for worse rather than for better, when things are poorer than for richer, we discover who our friends really are. Fair weather friends are not friends at all. Real friends are loyal even when it's costly to be loyal.
-As we begin this new year together, my prayer for you is that you will find the courage to risk making friends, and that, through commitment, openness and loyalty, above all, loyalty, you will experience the joy that comes from making and keeping friends.
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes XVI
-Self-absorption does not bring happiness.
-There is a great tendency in all of us to withdraw into ourselves, or into safe little cliques of like-minded people, to live sheltered, claustrophobic, risk-free, boring little lives.
-The supreme irony is that while self-absorption brings unhappiness, happiness results from self-risk, inconvenient involvement, self-sacrifice, and costly love.
-Manners are unnatural.
-We acknowledge each other's existence by calling one another by name.
-To the lowest circumstances in which a human being can find himself, no one can take away from you your fundamental civility and no one can take away from you that even higher virtue: the option, the right, to be kind.
-Three simple phrases: I am wrong; I'm sorry; Thank you.
-The happy people are those who assume nothing and who live each day aware of their good fortune, giving thanks for all they do enjoy, however little that may be. Happy are those who count their blessings.
-Even when you don't think people are looking, they often are.
-This boy had done the right thing over and over just because it was the right thing. He expected no reward and he was not aware that the whole time the manager was noticing everything he did.
-Honor and honesty are best.
-When you base your personal life or your career on honesty, you build on a rock that will anchor you through every storm.
-If you try to accomplish anything in life you will receive criticism.
-The people I have come to treasure most in my joy are those who love me enough to take me aside and say: 'That's not right' or 'That's not good enough' or 'I don't think you should say or do that'. I don't enjoy such criticism , and they don't enjoy giving it but I benefit from it.
-Could there be some truth in what they say?
-A moral person's duty is not just avoid sin, but also to avoid the occasions of sin.
-Don't blame others for not taking responsibility for your life. Take responsibility for your own life.
-People say if you like sixty percent of what you are doing in life you are lucky,.
-The goal of every life should be to grow in awareness.
-There are experiences in other fields that are not open to me because I live in too limited a world. We all do. For that reason we must be constantly, consciously seeking new experiences, risking changes in our routine.
-If you have high standards and values, you will at times have to be intolerant and judgmental in normal day to day life.
-If you have seen great works of art you will find it difficult to tolerate cheap, tawdry, and shallow art. If you have read the works of great authors, you will have a hard time tolerating junk. If you are men of integrity, you will have a hard time tolerating fellow workers who lie and cheat.
-Society needs your standards and values. Do not be intimidated into tolerating what is ugly, bad, and untrue. Eschew bad advice: Live life to the full, excessively, immoderately, with abandon. Take risks that will open you up to new experiences and thoughts; don't play it safe. And stand intolerantly for what is good and true and beautiful.
-There is a great tendency in all of us to withdraw into ourselves, or into safe little cliques of like-minded people, to live sheltered, claustrophobic, risk-free, boring little lives.
-The supreme irony is that while self-absorption brings unhappiness, happiness results from self-risk, inconvenient involvement, self-sacrifice, and costly love.
-Manners are unnatural.
-We acknowledge each other's existence by calling one another by name.
-To the lowest circumstances in which a human being can find himself, no one can take away from you your fundamental civility and no one can take away from you that even higher virtue: the option, the right, to be kind.
-Three simple phrases: I am wrong; I'm sorry; Thank you.
-The happy people are those who assume nothing and who live each day aware of their good fortune, giving thanks for all they do enjoy, however little that may be. Happy are those who count their blessings.
-Even when you don't think people are looking, they often are.
-This boy had done the right thing over and over just because it was the right thing. He expected no reward and he was not aware that the whole time the manager was noticing everything he did.
-Honor and honesty are best.
-When you base your personal life or your career on honesty, you build on a rock that will anchor you through every storm.
-If you try to accomplish anything in life you will receive criticism.
-The people I have come to treasure most in my joy are those who love me enough to take me aside and say: 'That's not right' or 'That's not good enough' or 'I don't think you should say or do that'. I don't enjoy such criticism , and they don't enjoy giving it but I benefit from it.
-Could there be some truth in what they say?
-A moral person's duty is not just avoid sin, but also to avoid the occasions of sin.
-Don't blame others for not taking responsibility for your life. Take responsibility for your own life.
-People say if you like sixty percent of what you are doing in life you are lucky,.
-The goal of every life should be to grow in awareness.
-There are experiences in other fields that are not open to me because I live in too limited a world. We all do. For that reason we must be constantly, consciously seeking new experiences, risking changes in our routine.
-If you have high standards and values, you will at times have to be intolerant and judgmental in normal day to day life.
-If you have seen great works of art you will find it difficult to tolerate cheap, tawdry, and shallow art. If you have read the works of great authors, you will have a hard time tolerating junk. If you are men of integrity, you will have a hard time tolerating fellow workers who lie and cheat.
-Society needs your standards and values. Do not be intimidated into tolerating what is ugly, bad, and untrue. Eschew bad advice: Live life to the full, excessively, immoderately, with abandon. Take risks that will open you up to new experiences and thoughts; don't play it safe. And stand intolerantly for what is good and true and beautiful.
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes XV
-A loser is someone who doesn't have significant long-range goals for his life, and overall sense of purpose that gives his life meaning.
-It is only when you have worthwhile long-range goals that you are able to resist destructive pleasures day by day.
-The winner has two qualities: he has well-thought-out goals and the courage to pursue those goals.
-The winner has anticipated the rejection and with a positive attitude he sets about constructively trying to figure out how he can make specific college serve the larger purposes and goals of his life.
-Billy McDonald. I am going to fight it with everything I have. Through the ensuing months, the frequent returns to the hospital, he never said: 'Why me?'
-Life's winners have three great qualities:
1. They each remember to count their blessings.
2. They do not see life in terms of its obstacles, but in terms of its possibilities.
3. They are courageous.
-I was the only person in the country that day to go from Boston to Portland on the train.
-The essence of education is to lead people out of themselves.
-We are just not dying to read the next novel in English, or to learn the subjunctive in Latin, or to master the glories of Algebra. These things are unnatural. But most of us know that it is good for you and so you come along cheerfully with some semblance of enthusiasm.
-My prayer for you, then, is that you will risk suspending disbelief, that you will risk opening yourselves to new insights, which will lead you out of your confined outlook on life to delight in the new and broader and richer perspectives that are as yet behind you.
-To Jesus, no one was unimportant. Jesus did not divide people into categories, most important to least important. There were no little people to him. No one was contemptible to Jesus. No one was unworthy of his time. No one was unimportant. This was the rabbi who taught that 'he who wold be greatest among you must be the servant of all'
-What did Jesus mean when he said 'to receive the Kingdom of God like a child?
1. To be open and receptive.
2. To be honest about our feelings.
3. To let things go.
-It is only when you have worthwhile long-range goals that you are able to resist destructive pleasures day by day.
-The winner has two qualities: he has well-thought-out goals and the courage to pursue those goals.
-The winner has anticipated the rejection and with a positive attitude he sets about constructively trying to figure out how he can make specific college serve the larger purposes and goals of his life.
-Billy McDonald. I am going to fight it with everything I have. Through the ensuing months, the frequent returns to the hospital, he never said: 'Why me?'
-Life's winners have three great qualities:
1. They each remember to count their blessings.
2. They do not see life in terms of its obstacles, but in terms of its possibilities.
3. They are courageous.
-I was the only person in the country that day to go from Boston to Portland on the train.
-The essence of education is to lead people out of themselves.
-We are just not dying to read the next novel in English, or to learn the subjunctive in Latin, or to master the glories of Algebra. These things are unnatural. But most of us know that it is good for you and so you come along cheerfully with some semblance of enthusiasm.
-My prayer for you, then, is that you will risk suspending disbelief, that you will risk opening yourselves to new insights, which will lead you out of your confined outlook on life to delight in the new and broader and richer perspectives that are as yet behind you.
-To Jesus, no one was unimportant. Jesus did not divide people into categories, most important to least important. There were no little people to him. No one was contemptible to Jesus. No one was unworthy of his time. No one was unimportant. This was the rabbi who taught that 'he who wold be greatest among you must be the servant of all'
-What did Jesus mean when he said 'to receive the Kingdom of God like a child?
1. To be open and receptive.
2. To be honest about our feelings.
3. To let things go.
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes XIV
-I pray that, in your own lives, you will dare to have high hopes, not only in your relationships with others, but in what you do with your lives. Cast fear aside. Let your hope be divinely irresponsible. No risk of pain, no chance of gain.
-I plead guilty. Show no mercy. I don't regret a word of what I said. I accept the accusation of being an idealist as a crown upon my head, as the ultimate compliment. I rejoice in the accusation with my whole being.
-The principal reason for this school's existence is to advocate, advance, and inculcate in students certain great personal qualities.
-We care most of all what kind of person a boy is, because we believe that personal qualities are far more important than academic success in fitting students for public service. Three of those qualities are: discernment, vision, and courage.
-Discernment begins with ourselves, with self-awareness.
-Discernment extends beyond ourselves so that we become aware of and sensitive to the pain, the loneliness, the hurt in the lives of those around us. We are not all wrapped up in ourselves.
-A few things endure; most things do not endure. We seek at this school to bring you into contact with things so enduring that they deserve the name immortal.
-Our efforts here will have failed if you do not know yourselves, if you are not strong enough to see and control your temptations, if you are insensitive to the feelings of those around you. Our efforts here will have failed you if you do not grow in your awareness of the beauty and order of the universe and of the great achievements of your fellow men and women.
-Vision is the quality that enables us to look beyond the immediate, beyond the present, to see our lives in a larger context, to postpone gratification in order to achieve long-rage goals.
-The vision of the future gives you something to strive for now in the present.
-Important, though, as such a vision is, it is nothing like as important as an overall vision for your whole life.
-Such a vision must entail not only finding meaning in your life but meaning also in your inevitable death.
-Most people never seek or achieve such a vision. MATTHEW ARNOLD. Rugby Chapel, November 1857.
What is the course of the life
Of mortal men on the earth?
Most men eddy about
Here and there, eat and drink,
Chatter and love and hate,
Gather and squander, are raised
Aloft, are hurl'd in the dust,
Striving blindly, achieving
Nothing; and then they die,
Perish; and no one asks
Who or what they have been...
-Winston Churchill, when asked what is the King of Virtues, instantly replied: Courage, because it is the guarantor of all the others.
-It takes courage to seek a great vision for our lives and much greater courage to make the sacrifices along the way to follow that vision. It is easy to sit around whining and complaining and blaming. It takes courage to lead, to aspire to greatness.
-In any given generation there are only a few men and women of discernment, vision, and courage. Only a few. Only a few. Jesus said to his tiny band of apparently insignificant ragtag followers who went on to turn the world upside down: 'You are the salt of the earth'. A few tiny grains who could transform the taste of the whole meal. A few individuals of discernment, vision, and courage who could transform a whole society in their generation. The reason for this school's existence in every generation is to produce just such individuals, just such committees of one, who will be in their generation the salt of the earth.
-I plead guilty. Show no mercy. I don't regret a word of what I said. I accept the accusation of being an idealist as a crown upon my head, as the ultimate compliment. I rejoice in the accusation with my whole being.
-The principal reason for this school's existence is to advocate, advance, and inculcate in students certain great personal qualities.
-We care most of all what kind of person a boy is, because we believe that personal qualities are far more important than academic success in fitting students for public service. Three of those qualities are: discernment, vision, and courage.
-Discernment begins with ourselves, with self-awareness.
-Discernment extends beyond ourselves so that we become aware of and sensitive to the pain, the loneliness, the hurt in the lives of those around us. We are not all wrapped up in ourselves.
-A few things endure; most things do not endure. We seek at this school to bring you into contact with things so enduring that they deserve the name immortal.
-Our efforts here will have failed if you do not know yourselves, if you are not strong enough to see and control your temptations, if you are insensitive to the feelings of those around you. Our efforts here will have failed you if you do not grow in your awareness of the beauty and order of the universe and of the great achievements of your fellow men and women.
-Vision is the quality that enables us to look beyond the immediate, beyond the present, to see our lives in a larger context, to postpone gratification in order to achieve long-rage goals.
-The vision of the future gives you something to strive for now in the present.
-Important, though, as such a vision is, it is nothing like as important as an overall vision for your whole life.
-Such a vision must entail not only finding meaning in your life but meaning also in your inevitable death.
-Most people never seek or achieve such a vision. MATTHEW ARNOLD. Rugby Chapel, November 1857.
What is the course of the life
Of mortal men on the earth?
Most men eddy about
Here and there, eat and drink,
Chatter and love and hate,
Gather and squander, are raised
Aloft, are hurl'd in the dust,
Striving blindly, achieving
Nothing; and then they die,
Perish; and no one asks
Who or what they have been...
-Winston Churchill, when asked what is the King of Virtues, instantly replied: Courage, because it is the guarantor of all the others.
-It takes courage to seek a great vision for our lives and much greater courage to make the sacrifices along the way to follow that vision. It is easy to sit around whining and complaining and blaming. It takes courage to lead, to aspire to greatness.
-In any given generation there are only a few men and women of discernment, vision, and courage. Only a few. Only a few. Jesus said to his tiny band of apparently insignificant ragtag followers who went on to turn the world upside down: 'You are the salt of the earth'. A few tiny grains who could transform the taste of the whole meal. A few individuals of discernment, vision, and courage who could transform a whole society in their generation. The reason for this school's existence in every generation is to produce just such individuals, just such committees of one, who will be in their generation the salt of the earth.
Monday, April 29, 2019
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes XIII
-Love is acting patient on the outside with others when your are burning on the inside with some concern of your own.
-Love is often an act: it is the curbing of your own natural desires, it is willed caring for another person when you'd really like to be caring about your own needs.
-A lot of people will advise you to be your real self. It's terrible advice. Your real self is egocentric and self-seeking. Don't be your real self.
-When you put on the act of love, the first thing you do is to put yourself in the other person's place.
-It is because I love your so much that I've told you that your essay is atrocious. (Love is intolerant. If you love a person, you are sometimes intolerant of things he does and says).
-To be a good loser, to handle disappointment with class.
-Real happiness in life only comes to those who are able to care about others at some cost to themselves.
-That confrontation was the most important thing that ever happened to me. Your forced me to break out of my lifelong pattern of behavior. You made me act kind and patient, and I found I actually liked being kind and patient. By forcing me to change my behavior, you actually changed who I was on the inside.
-The outward practice of love leads to an inward disposition to love.
-If you want to be happy, then, you must learn to love: to pay the price of caring for others, of putting them first, of inconveniencing yourself.
-If you are condemned to death, if you discover you're going to die, you are strangely liberated.
-The prospect of death brings perspective, conveys a divine irresponsibility: we suddenly see how small our wold is, and we suddenly realize the unimportance of all the things we considered so important.
-Only a few in every generation go beyond the conventional to the daring.
-There is much, much more to life than striving. Life is more than getting, more than accumulating.
-A faith that takes into account life's shortness and life's deepest and most ultimate questions is the only faith that can bring us real happiness.
-If you never take any risks, you will never love. If you never make yourself vulnerable to another person, you will never get hurt. If you never attempt anything great, if you have never set big goals or have high hopes, you will never be disappointed. But what a narrow and, frankly, cowardly way to live.
-Love is often an act: it is the curbing of your own natural desires, it is willed caring for another person when you'd really like to be caring about your own needs.
-A lot of people will advise you to be your real self. It's terrible advice. Your real self is egocentric and self-seeking. Don't be your real self.
-When you put on the act of love, the first thing you do is to put yourself in the other person's place.
-It is because I love your so much that I've told you that your essay is atrocious. (Love is intolerant. If you love a person, you are sometimes intolerant of things he does and says).
-To be a good loser, to handle disappointment with class.
-Real happiness in life only comes to those who are able to care about others at some cost to themselves.
-That confrontation was the most important thing that ever happened to me. Your forced me to break out of my lifelong pattern of behavior. You made me act kind and patient, and I found I actually liked being kind and patient. By forcing me to change my behavior, you actually changed who I was on the inside.
-The outward practice of love leads to an inward disposition to love.
-If you want to be happy, then, you must learn to love: to pay the price of caring for others, of putting them first, of inconveniencing yourself.
-If you are condemned to death, if you discover you're going to die, you are strangely liberated.
-The prospect of death brings perspective, conveys a divine irresponsibility: we suddenly see how small our wold is, and we suddenly realize the unimportance of all the things we considered so important.
-Only a few in every generation go beyond the conventional to the daring.
-There is much, much more to life than striving. Life is more than getting, more than accumulating.
-A faith that takes into account life's shortness and life's deepest and most ultimate questions is the only faith that can bring us real happiness.
-If you never take any risks, you will never love. If you never make yourself vulnerable to another person, you will never get hurt. If you never attempt anything great, if you have never set big goals or have high hopes, you will never be disappointed. But what a narrow and, frankly, cowardly way to live.
Sunday, April 28, 2019
Saturday, April 20, 2019
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes XII
-No age has believed no naively in inadequate faiths: the faith that promotion and success bring real happiness, the faith that pleasure brings real happiness, the faith that government money will solve the problems of society.
-Only the shepherds were aware that something significant had occurred. They were watching their flocks in the quiet of the night. They were listening. While the brightest and best, the important people, slept, it was the shepherds who heard the angel sing.
-Those who recognize their need, who are honest enough to see the emptiness and inadequacy of their lives, those who search for God in their need, always find him. The magi found the baby in the manger.
-The real beauty is beyond all its earthly imitations and representations, beyond all the earthly intimations and hints. It is at the top of Jacob's ladder. It is above the passing things of earth; it transcends time.
-God always nourishes those who stretch out their hands to him in longing hope. Such yearning always finds what it seeks.
-He who endures to the end shall be saved.
-God often sends in reinforcements to help just at the right moment.
-"He loved great things and thought little of himself". Balliol College at Oxford. Plaque in memory of one of the college tutors who died in an accident in Mount Blanc.
-How much grief we cause ourselves in life by assuming that everything will always go smoothly.
-Many people with very high I.Q's are tremendous failures in life.
-Hope comes from the gut. Hope gives you the motivation to endure the hard work, the pain, the exhaustion that are part of any worthwhile endeavor. That's why hope is a virtue.
-God always answers prayer.
-Our deepest prayers are often not articulated in words.
-God gives us occasional glimpses into the meaning of things, in small, quiet ways.
-Hope is not optimism. Hope is realistic.
-All of you are going to die, some sooner, some later. What will they say about you? My prayer is that they will say about you what they said about Sir Robert Shirley: that in the worst of times you did the best things, and in the most calamitous of times you hoped the best things.
-Only the shepherds were aware that something significant had occurred. They were watching their flocks in the quiet of the night. They were listening. While the brightest and best, the important people, slept, it was the shepherds who heard the angel sing.
-Those who recognize their need, who are honest enough to see the emptiness and inadequacy of their lives, those who search for God in their need, always find him. The magi found the baby in the manger.
-The real beauty is beyond all its earthly imitations and representations, beyond all the earthly intimations and hints. It is at the top of Jacob's ladder. It is above the passing things of earth; it transcends time.
-God always nourishes those who stretch out their hands to him in longing hope. Such yearning always finds what it seeks.
-He who endures to the end shall be saved.
-God often sends in reinforcements to help just at the right moment.
-"He loved great things and thought little of himself". Balliol College at Oxford. Plaque in memory of one of the college tutors who died in an accident in Mount Blanc.
-How much grief we cause ourselves in life by assuming that everything will always go smoothly.
-Many people with very high I.Q's are tremendous failures in life.
-Hope comes from the gut. Hope gives you the motivation to endure the hard work, the pain, the exhaustion that are part of any worthwhile endeavor. That's why hope is a virtue.
-God always answers prayer.
-Our deepest prayers are often not articulated in words.
-God gives us occasional glimpses into the meaning of things, in small, quiet ways.
-Hope is not optimism. Hope is realistic.
-All of you are going to die, some sooner, some later. What will they say about you? My prayer is that they will say about you what they said about Sir Robert Shirley: that in the worst of times you did the best things, and in the most calamitous of times you hoped the best things.
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes XI
-Much unhappiness in life seems to me to stem from the unwillingness of people to live with their decisions.
-If we really have made a wrong decision and are realistic about the opportunities a change might bring us, then we should correct our decision.
-Much of life's unhappiness is caused by our unwillingness to face up to the inevitable discouragements entailed in any one of the lives we might choose.
-When we face the fact that every life worth living has its discouragements, its own unfairness if you like, we have then taken a giant step towards happiness.
-In any life worth living, we will be hurting much of the time.
-As we mature, we acquire the faith, the perspective, that the discouragements, the injuries, cannot break us, cannot make us lose sight of the great things we are determined to achieve.
-Faith grows stronger and stronger every time we overcome discouragement and pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and go on.
-Each discouragement is a test, each discouragement overcome is a victory.
-"Blessed is the man who falls into divers kinds of trials, knowing that the testing of this faith will produce the spirit of endurance and endurance will enlarge and confirm this faith.
-We feel downhearted or empty, when we lose our sense of the meaning and purpose of our lives.
-"From time to time, almost every thoughtful and reflective person walks through life's valleys. Such experiences of depression and despair are natural to people who labor strenuously to achieve something important. The issue is not so much that you are depressed as what you are going to do about being depressed."J.S. Bezzant. Father Jarvis tutor at Cambridge University.
-Three tactics in dealing with depression:
1. Don't run.
2. Take one step at a time.
3. Find and keep the vision.
-Be honest with yourself. Don't run away. Don't pretend, don't wait for it to pass. Don't be passive.
-We have to quiet down and listen if we are to find the center of our lives.
-If the search for what is good and true and beautiful begins with emptiness, it continues to be a hard journey, a long and arduous search, through encounters not only with the Herods of this world, but even worse, with our own inward sense of despair, that terrible sense that the whole journey is not worth it.
-If we are somehow able to leave behind what is known and comfortable, and undertake the journey in search of life's meaning, we must realize that the journey will be arduous, filled with discouragement and despair, filled with the voices singing in our ears, saying that the search is folly. We must somehow sustain hope, as the wise men did, when in the depths we lose all sight of the star. And we must expect, like the wise men, that we shall never experience great joy until we have suffered many sorrows.
-They departed to their own country another way.
-Get every penny of this and take it to Mrs. Harriger. Tell her you are sorry. Tell her you will work for her every day in the garden for the remainder of the summer.
-I knew there would be no supper.
-At about 8:30 my father came up as always to hear my prayers. He sat as always at the foot of the bed. As always I rendered my prayers to God and my father. At the end there was a short silence, which I pathetic and pitiable, broke by saying: I am sorry, Daddy. I know he said and ran his fingers through my hair. And then he arose and returned down the stairs.
The power that two little words can have: I know, he said. What more any of us want if life than to be understood? Those two small words conveyed to me that he somehow understood how I could do something so terrible. That he understood that I was sorry. I was no longer alone. And the power of a tiny gesture, his fingers through my hair. Despite my crime, I was not only understood, I was loved.
Two small words and one small gesture and the whole universe was again set right. I lay back upon my pillow and slept the profound sleep of one who is at peace.
-People who don't care about you don't take the trouble to rebuke you. Most people avoid such confrontations. They simply don't give you the raise or the promotion, and you never find out why.
-I worked for Old Lady Harriger every day for the rest of the summer. The punishment was not reduced. The hours were not shortened. Not a penny of my money was returned. I was not let off easy. And for that I am glad because I felt by summer's end that I had paid for my sins. And that's a great feeling.
-Now that he is gone and I can't thank him, I thank God that my father loved me so much that he did not spare me the pain, the loneliness, the desolation, by which alone I could grow to become a better and stronger person.
-If we really have made a wrong decision and are realistic about the opportunities a change might bring us, then we should correct our decision.
-Much of life's unhappiness is caused by our unwillingness to face up to the inevitable discouragements entailed in any one of the lives we might choose.
-When we face the fact that every life worth living has its discouragements, its own unfairness if you like, we have then taken a giant step towards happiness.
-In any life worth living, we will be hurting much of the time.
-As we mature, we acquire the faith, the perspective, that the discouragements, the injuries, cannot break us, cannot make us lose sight of the great things we are determined to achieve.
-Faith grows stronger and stronger every time we overcome discouragement and pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and go on.
-Each discouragement is a test, each discouragement overcome is a victory.
-"Blessed is the man who falls into divers kinds of trials, knowing that the testing of this faith will produce the spirit of endurance and endurance will enlarge and confirm this faith.
-We feel downhearted or empty, when we lose our sense of the meaning and purpose of our lives.
-"From time to time, almost every thoughtful and reflective person walks through life's valleys. Such experiences of depression and despair are natural to people who labor strenuously to achieve something important. The issue is not so much that you are depressed as what you are going to do about being depressed."J.S. Bezzant. Father Jarvis tutor at Cambridge University.
-Three tactics in dealing with depression:
1. Don't run.
2. Take one step at a time.
3. Find and keep the vision.
-Be honest with yourself. Don't run away. Don't pretend, don't wait for it to pass. Don't be passive.
-We have to quiet down and listen if we are to find the center of our lives.
-If the search for what is good and true and beautiful begins with emptiness, it continues to be a hard journey, a long and arduous search, through encounters not only with the Herods of this world, but even worse, with our own inward sense of despair, that terrible sense that the whole journey is not worth it.
-If we are somehow able to leave behind what is known and comfortable, and undertake the journey in search of life's meaning, we must realize that the journey will be arduous, filled with discouragement and despair, filled with the voices singing in our ears, saying that the search is folly. We must somehow sustain hope, as the wise men did, when in the depths we lose all sight of the star. And we must expect, like the wise men, that we shall never experience great joy until we have suffered many sorrows.
-They departed to their own country another way.
-Get every penny of this and take it to Mrs. Harriger. Tell her you are sorry. Tell her you will work for her every day in the garden for the remainder of the summer.
-I knew there would be no supper.
-At about 8:30 my father came up as always to hear my prayers. He sat as always at the foot of the bed. As always I rendered my prayers to God and my father. At the end there was a short silence, which I pathetic and pitiable, broke by saying: I am sorry, Daddy. I know he said and ran his fingers through my hair. And then he arose and returned down the stairs.
The power that two little words can have: I know, he said. What more any of us want if life than to be understood? Those two small words conveyed to me that he somehow understood how I could do something so terrible. That he understood that I was sorry. I was no longer alone. And the power of a tiny gesture, his fingers through my hair. Despite my crime, I was not only understood, I was loved.
Two small words and one small gesture and the whole universe was again set right. I lay back upon my pillow and slept the profound sleep of one who is at peace.
-People who don't care about you don't take the trouble to rebuke you. Most people avoid such confrontations. They simply don't give you the raise or the promotion, and you never find out why.
-I worked for Old Lady Harriger every day for the rest of the summer. The punishment was not reduced. The hours were not shortened. Not a penny of my money was returned. I was not let off easy. And for that I am glad because I felt by summer's end that I had paid for my sins. And that's a great feeling.
-Now that he is gone and I can't thank him, I thank God that my father loved me so much that he did not spare me the pain, the loneliness, the desolation, by which alone I could grow to become a better and stronger person.
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes X
-It is always a losing battle to fight against things you cannot change.
-In my experience, it is foolish to expect things to go well.
-In the world, said Jesus, you shall have tribulation.
-The happy adolescent, the happy adult, is pessimistic: he expects that things will not turn out as he hopes.
-I urge you to hold onto high hopes, to aspire to great things. But I also urge you to be pessimists: to expect things to go badly, to go wrong; to expect that many of your hopes will not be realized. Much of the immense happiness I feel in my own life comes from being a hopeful pessimist. If you are a hopeful pessimist, you will again and again be surprised by joy when some of your hopes are, in fact, realized.
-Accept what you can't change. Expect the worst. Make and inventory of your worries.
-I am talking about prayer from the heart, prayer that is often beyond words, prayer that is offered with our whole being.
-There are people you care more about even than you care about yourself. This usually happens when you have children of your own.
-It is a tough world out there, and to live in that tough world a boy needs to gain the self-confidence that he can face up to burdensome responsibilities on his own. He needs to realize that he is tough enough to handle his own problems, to survive on his own.
-I say this not to demoralize you; I say it because it's a reality and we need to base our lives on reality.
-Life spares no one. Every one of us has weaknesses. Every one of us is vulnerable and has to deal with lack of drive and failure and disappointment.
-The trophies we long to win often turn to dust even as we clasp them in triumph.
-Socrates said the wisest man is the one who realizes how little he knows. I submit that the strongest and toughest and most self-sufficient man is the one who realizes how vulnerable and frail he is.
-The beginning of wisdom is the realization that, if you want to stand on your two feet, you must learn to kneel on your own two knees.
-In my experience, it is foolish to expect things to go well.
-In the world, said Jesus, you shall have tribulation.
-The happy adolescent, the happy adult, is pessimistic: he expects that things will not turn out as he hopes.
-I urge you to hold onto high hopes, to aspire to great things. But I also urge you to be pessimists: to expect things to go badly, to go wrong; to expect that many of your hopes will not be realized. Much of the immense happiness I feel in my own life comes from being a hopeful pessimist. If you are a hopeful pessimist, you will again and again be surprised by joy when some of your hopes are, in fact, realized.
-Accept what you can't change. Expect the worst. Make and inventory of your worries.
-I am talking about prayer from the heart, prayer that is often beyond words, prayer that is offered with our whole being.
-There are people you care more about even than you care about yourself. This usually happens when you have children of your own.
-It is a tough world out there, and to live in that tough world a boy needs to gain the self-confidence that he can face up to burdensome responsibilities on his own. He needs to realize that he is tough enough to handle his own problems, to survive on his own.
-I say this not to demoralize you; I say it because it's a reality and we need to base our lives on reality.
-Life spares no one. Every one of us has weaknesses. Every one of us is vulnerable and has to deal with lack of drive and failure and disappointment.
-The trophies we long to win often turn to dust even as we clasp them in triumph.
-Socrates said the wisest man is the one who realizes how little he knows. I submit that the strongest and toughest and most self-sufficient man is the one who realizes how vulnerable and frail he is.
-The beginning of wisdom is the realization that, if you want to stand on your two feet, you must learn to kneel on your own two knees.
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes IX
-What can you possible say to young people as they look to the future?
-At this point all David had was faith, his believe that the God who had delivered him from danger in the past would show him a way now in the present.
-What can I do? I am not brilliant or handsome or powerful. I don't have the necessary training.
-With quiet and abiding trust in God, David persisted in the face of this universal contempt.
-They dared to face the contempt heaped on them. They dared trust that the Living God could use their apparently insignificant lives to overcome the strutting and powerful giant. And it turned out that they were the realistic ones, and it was they who prevailed.
-The world is filled with people like the army of Saul and the Israelites in the wilderness who stand around wringing their hands in despair and assuring everyone that nothing can be done.
-Jesus of Nazareth commanded no army, held no public office, knew none of the influential people of his time, never even went to college or achieved success in business. He was put to death, silenced as a nuisance. His few followers scattered in fear and despair. And yet this single person has had a more powerful impact than anyone in all of history. He was armed only with a single weapon: love.
-I do not feel sorry for you, I do not despair about the future that you have to face. I do not wring my hands in dismay about what lies ahead for you. In all of history, there has never been a more thrilling time to be alive than this moment. Humanity faces the greatest crisis it has ever faced. Nothing less that the survival of the human race is at stake.
-In that moment of temptation remember David. Remember David's faith, ridiculed as naive and unrealistic by everyone from his brothers to the king. Remember Moses and Jesus. Remember the Davids of every generation: Rosa Parks and Desmond Tutu, the few in every generation who believed that the Living God could use even their pathetically tiny talents to challenge the giant evils of their time.
-I do not despair for you. I rather rejoice. Times of maximum danger provide maximum opportunity. If our time is the most dangerous time in all of the history, it is also the most sublime. Some of you who are sitting here this morning will find the faith and courage to place your lives in the service of the Living God confident that He can use what little you have in his great purpose. And like David, in his service you shall prevail.
-At this point all David had was faith, his believe that the God who had delivered him from danger in the past would show him a way now in the present.
-What can I do? I am not brilliant or handsome or powerful. I don't have the necessary training.
-With quiet and abiding trust in God, David persisted in the face of this universal contempt.
-They dared to face the contempt heaped on them. They dared trust that the Living God could use their apparently insignificant lives to overcome the strutting and powerful giant. And it turned out that they were the realistic ones, and it was they who prevailed.
-The world is filled with people like the army of Saul and the Israelites in the wilderness who stand around wringing their hands in despair and assuring everyone that nothing can be done.
-Jesus of Nazareth commanded no army, held no public office, knew none of the influential people of his time, never even went to college or achieved success in business. He was put to death, silenced as a nuisance. His few followers scattered in fear and despair. And yet this single person has had a more powerful impact than anyone in all of history. He was armed only with a single weapon: love.
-I do not feel sorry for you, I do not despair about the future that you have to face. I do not wring my hands in dismay about what lies ahead for you. In all of history, there has never been a more thrilling time to be alive than this moment. Humanity faces the greatest crisis it has ever faced. Nothing less that the survival of the human race is at stake.
-In that moment of temptation remember David. Remember David's faith, ridiculed as naive and unrealistic by everyone from his brothers to the king. Remember Moses and Jesus. Remember the Davids of every generation: Rosa Parks and Desmond Tutu, the few in every generation who believed that the Living God could use even their pathetically tiny talents to challenge the giant evils of their time.
-I do not despair for you. I rather rejoice. Times of maximum danger provide maximum opportunity. If our time is the most dangerous time in all of the history, it is also the most sublime. Some of you who are sitting here this morning will find the faith and courage to place your lives in the service of the Living God confident that He can use what little you have in his great purpose. And like David, in his service you shall prevail.
Friday, April 12, 2019
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes IX
-My unwillingness to suspend disbelief deprived me of the beauty of classical music. If you begin with the assumption that there is no meaning, you will find none.
-Thoughtful people down the ages have suspended disbelief and looked and listened for clues that life has meaning. We see such longing and seeking in the three wise men, the three privileged, affluent, well-educated Roxbury Latin graduates of the ancient world, who left all the luxury and security of their homes to follow a star that led them to the baby Jesus at Bethlehem.
-The search for meaning in life is often difficult, costly, and discouraging. And there will always be a nihilist to tell you that the journey is folly. And yet, somehow the three wise men persisted in their search, continued their arduous journey believing, in spite of all the hardships, in spite of the cynics who told them: 'This was all folly', that they would find something worth finding. And what did they find? A baby. Not at all what they expected, not at all what they thought they would find.
-I remind you of this story of the three wise men because its subject is man's deepest longing: the longing for meaning. You cannot even begin to search for life's meaning unless you hope and believe there is something to find. You cannot even begin to search for life's meaning unless you suspend disbelief.
-That is what we are all seeking, whether we know it or not: a deeper union, a deeper communion, with something beyond all the passing things of life: beyond grades, beyond college admission, beyond even a good job or a good wife.
-Death is the only certainty in life; each of our journeys leads to death.
-We must live with our bags always packed.
-You can never see or hear anything beautiful if you don't suspend disbelief, stop, look, and listen.
-Everything is cold, everything is dead. But when we come out here next summer, it will all be lush and green: the trees in full leaf, grapes ripening on the vines. You have to wait, but then Good brings back life from death. Winter can be long and dark, but in God's good time, it always gives way to spring.
-Those who managed to hold on owed their survival more to spiritual than to physical strength. They believed there was a reason to live despite of the apparent hopelessness of their lives and they held on.
-Your own life, like everybody else's, will have troubles, bleak periods when the landscape of death seems to destroy the hope that spring will ever come. Sometimes in life, you have just to hold on.
-Thoughtful people down the ages have suspended disbelief and looked and listened for clues that life has meaning. We see such longing and seeking in the three wise men, the three privileged, affluent, well-educated Roxbury Latin graduates of the ancient world, who left all the luxury and security of their homes to follow a star that led them to the baby Jesus at Bethlehem.
-The search for meaning in life is often difficult, costly, and discouraging. And there will always be a nihilist to tell you that the journey is folly. And yet, somehow the three wise men persisted in their search, continued their arduous journey believing, in spite of all the hardships, in spite of the cynics who told them: 'This was all folly', that they would find something worth finding. And what did they find? A baby. Not at all what they expected, not at all what they thought they would find.
-I remind you of this story of the three wise men because its subject is man's deepest longing: the longing for meaning. You cannot even begin to search for life's meaning unless you hope and believe there is something to find. You cannot even begin to search for life's meaning unless you suspend disbelief.
-That is what we are all seeking, whether we know it or not: a deeper union, a deeper communion, with something beyond all the passing things of life: beyond grades, beyond college admission, beyond even a good job or a good wife.
-Death is the only certainty in life; each of our journeys leads to death.
-We must live with our bags always packed.
-You can never see or hear anything beautiful if you don't suspend disbelief, stop, look, and listen.
-Everything is cold, everything is dead. But when we come out here next summer, it will all be lush and green: the trees in full leaf, grapes ripening on the vines. You have to wait, but then Good brings back life from death. Winter can be long and dark, but in God's good time, it always gives way to spring.
-Those who managed to hold on owed their survival more to spiritual than to physical strength. They believed there was a reason to live despite of the apparent hopelessness of their lives and they held on.
-Your own life, like everybody else's, will have troubles, bleak periods when the landscape of death seems to destroy the hope that spring will ever come. Sometimes in life, you have just to hold on.
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes VIII
-Every great school in every age has always regarded the awareness of death as the foundation stone of education.
-Are you preparing Henry for a political career?
-No, he said.
-Well, for a professional career?
-No, he replied.
-For a business career, then?
-No, he repeated.
-Well, in a word, Dr. Alington, what are you here at Eton preparing Henry for?
-I a word, madam? Death.
-When you finally face with courage the reality that nothing in this world endures, you instinctively reach out for what does endure and for what provides meaning, for the reality beyond what can be seen and heard and felt and smelled.
-Happiness comes not by focusing on yourself, your needs, your rights, your advancement, but on the needs of others.
-Roxbury Latin boys have always been different. 'Your school may be small and it doesn't recruit athletes, but you have the toughest kids'. You are different. You are, many of you, rebels against the spirit of your age. The best people in every generation always have been. They are a minority, but they change the world and they have the happiest, most fulfilling, and most exciting lives. Roxbury Latin boys have always dared to be different, to go against the pack.
-Others first, others second, myself last.
-They were closest friends, but there was no hugging, no kissing, no tears as there would be today. Hugging, kissing, crying were regarded as inappropriate.
-Nihilism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
-Are you preparing Henry for a political career?
-No, he said.
-Well, for a professional career?
-No, he replied.
-For a business career, then?
-No, he repeated.
-Well, in a word, Dr. Alington, what are you here at Eton preparing Henry for?
-I a word, madam? Death.
-When you finally face with courage the reality that nothing in this world endures, you instinctively reach out for what does endure and for what provides meaning, for the reality beyond what can be seen and heard and felt and smelled.
-Happiness comes not by focusing on yourself, your needs, your rights, your advancement, but on the needs of others.
-Roxbury Latin boys have always been different. 'Your school may be small and it doesn't recruit athletes, but you have the toughest kids'. You are different. You are, many of you, rebels against the spirit of your age. The best people in every generation always have been. They are a minority, but they change the world and they have the happiest, most fulfilling, and most exciting lives. Roxbury Latin boys have always dared to be different, to go against the pack.
-Others first, others second, myself last.
-They were closest friends, but there was no hugging, no kissing, no tears as there would be today. Hugging, kissing, crying were regarded as inappropriate.
-Nihilism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes VII
-If parents are paying a lot of money and boys are working hard, then everything should work out and there should not be any problems: hard work should be rewarded with good grades and success in extracurriculars; everything should go well. Life is not fair.
-Getting cut was among the most valuable experiences I had as a boy. It prepared me well for the reality of life. For life brings many disappointments and defeats.
-A high school should prepare its students for life.
-Cope with the disappointments of school life, you learn how to deal wit the setbacks that follow in later life.
-It is an obscenity to confuse disappointment with tragedy.
-Every disappointment, every setback you will have in life is an opportunity for growth.
-Every time you make a choice in life, you necessarily rule out other choices you might have made. Every time you make one choice, you give up other choices. Every choice involves pain. That's the way life is.
-There is a great tendency to focus on our problems. Count your blessings.
-I was closed to many of life's possibilities, not open to understanding things more deeply, convinced there was nothing there.
-The very hairs on your head are numbered.
-The path to the abundant life, my dear children, is not simple or easy or exact. We work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
-Their son's rejection by their number one choice college was not really a tragedy.
-A school that prepares students for life has, I believe, a twofold mission: first, to remind students of the stark reality that life is short and ends in death; and second, to help students gain some insight into the meaning and purpose of their short and fleeting earthly lives.
-Only those who have the courage to see life in the perspective of death, only those who understand that life is short, can be truly happy.
-Getting cut was among the most valuable experiences I had as a boy. It prepared me well for the reality of life. For life brings many disappointments and defeats.
-A high school should prepare its students for life.
-Cope with the disappointments of school life, you learn how to deal wit the setbacks that follow in later life.
-It is an obscenity to confuse disappointment with tragedy.
-Every disappointment, every setback you will have in life is an opportunity for growth.
-Every time you make a choice in life, you necessarily rule out other choices you might have made. Every time you make one choice, you give up other choices. Every choice involves pain. That's the way life is.
-There is a great tendency to focus on our problems. Count your blessings.
-I was closed to many of life's possibilities, not open to understanding things more deeply, convinced there was nothing there.
-The very hairs on your head are numbered.
-The path to the abundant life, my dear children, is not simple or easy or exact. We work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
-Their son's rejection by their number one choice college was not really a tragedy.
-A school that prepares students for life has, I believe, a twofold mission: first, to remind students of the stark reality that life is short and ends in death; and second, to help students gain some insight into the meaning and purpose of their short and fleeting earthly lives.
-Only those who have the courage to see life in the perspective of death, only those who understand that life is short, can be truly happy.
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes VI
-That's the way it is, is the reality that there is no free lunch in life, the reality that you cannot have your cake and eat it too, the reality that you have responsibility for your own life and not built-in right to have someone take care of you if you mess up.
-We are living in a time when most talk is about rights and very little about responsibility, when most talk is about getting what we deserve and very little about our duty to others.
-That is the theme of our age, rights without consequences, the willingness to stand up for something as long as it doesn't cost us anything.
-The basic problem this boy had, of course, was his parents, who by their unwillingness to have the boy face the consequences of his actions all his life, had bred a son who really believed he could do whatever he wanted without any bad consequences.
-In addition to the right to live without consequences and the right to live without guilt, it is also more and more frequently asserted nowadays that it is our right to have a good and happy outcome whenever we work hard to achieve something.
-There is not right in life to a good outcome.
-The secret to happiness in life: courage, sacrifice, and gratitude.
-If you want to be happy, you must begin not with rights but with responsibilities: with the courage to face reality, the courage to attempt great things at the risk of losing, the courage to lose bravely, the courage to suffer with patience, the courage to tell the truth.
If you want to be happy, you will find happiness arises not so much from getting your way and asserting your rights as it does from sacrificing your rights, sacrificing your time and treasure for the sake of others.
If you want to be happy, you will find happiness not from dwelling on all you do not have in life and feeling bitter about it. You will find happiness by dwelling on all that is good and true and beautiful in your life and being thankful for it.
-We are living in a time when most talk is about rights and very little about responsibility, when most talk is about getting what we deserve and very little about our duty to others.
-That is the theme of our age, rights without consequences, the willingness to stand up for something as long as it doesn't cost us anything.
-The basic problem this boy had, of course, was his parents, who by their unwillingness to have the boy face the consequences of his actions all his life, had bred a son who really believed he could do whatever he wanted without any bad consequences.
-In addition to the right to live without consequences and the right to live without guilt, it is also more and more frequently asserted nowadays that it is our right to have a good and happy outcome whenever we work hard to achieve something.
-There is not right in life to a good outcome.
-The secret to happiness in life: courage, sacrifice, and gratitude.
-If you want to be happy, you must begin not with rights but with responsibilities: with the courage to face reality, the courage to attempt great things at the risk of losing, the courage to lose bravely, the courage to suffer with patience, the courage to tell the truth.
If you want to be happy, you will find happiness arises not so much from getting your way and asserting your rights as it does from sacrificing your rights, sacrificing your time and treasure for the sake of others.
If you want to be happy, you will find happiness not from dwelling on all you do not have in life and feeling bitter about it. You will find happiness by dwelling on all that is good and true and beautiful in your life and being thankful for it.
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes V
-Approach day by day life affirming the possibility of happiness in all its events.
-If happiness requires a worthy long-term vision and an affirmative attitude that happiness is a possibility in life's day to day events, it also, I believe, requires a third and final ingredient. Happiness almost always has something to do with others.
-The happiest person I know is a monk. His life is, in a way, a living heaven. What is your secret? I asked him. His reply? Every day, in every encounter with every person, he said, I tell myself, I could die at any moment. This person I am speaking to now may be the last person I ever speak to. I need to love him, to care about him, more than any other person I've ever met.
-It's too late.
For you it is not too late. I pray that you will not just go along, that you will not confuse short-range objectives with a lifetime vision. Be tough enough to contemplate the prospect of your own death, your own temporariness, and ask yourself: Who do I want to be? Seek the great vision. What do I want to accomplish before I die? Each one of our lives is passing away. Grasp each moment as if it were your last: approach each moment thinking of it in terms of its possibilities. Finally, remember that you can be happy only if you are able to break out of your shell, to burst the prison of self-envelopment. Happiness comes most of all from caring more about others than you care about yourself.
-If you want to be happy, you begin by accepting reality, and the reality is that you don't deserve anything in life. Life doesn't owe you a damned thing; and you don't always get what you want.
-Face reality, expect trouble, and work constructively to deal with whatever life dishes out to you. Then, instead of being a victim, you will be the captain of your own destiny in thepursuit of happiness: expecting obstacles and roadblocks along the way, willing to seek the help of God and man, looking always ahead, with hope and cheerfulness, for new opportunities.
-If happiness requires a worthy long-term vision and an affirmative attitude that happiness is a possibility in life's day to day events, it also, I believe, requires a third and final ingredient. Happiness almost always has something to do with others.
-The happiest person I know is a monk. His life is, in a way, a living heaven. What is your secret? I asked him. His reply? Every day, in every encounter with every person, he said, I tell myself, I could die at any moment. This person I am speaking to now may be the last person I ever speak to. I need to love him, to care about him, more than any other person I've ever met.
-It's too late.
For you it is not too late. I pray that you will not just go along, that you will not confuse short-range objectives with a lifetime vision. Be tough enough to contemplate the prospect of your own death, your own temporariness, and ask yourself: Who do I want to be? Seek the great vision. What do I want to accomplish before I die? Each one of our lives is passing away. Grasp each moment as if it were your last: approach each moment thinking of it in terms of its possibilities. Finally, remember that you can be happy only if you are able to break out of your shell, to burst the prison of self-envelopment. Happiness comes most of all from caring more about others than you care about yourself.
-If you want to be happy, you begin by accepting reality, and the reality is that you don't deserve anything in life. Life doesn't owe you a damned thing; and you don't always get what you want.
-Face reality, expect trouble, and work constructively to deal with whatever life dishes out to you. Then, instead of being a victim, you will be the captain of your own destiny in thepursuit of happiness: expecting obstacles and roadblocks along the way, willing to seek the help of God and man, looking always ahead, with hope and cheerfulness, for new opportunities.
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes IV
-But I was wrong. If anything I am less happy because I now realize that in the future when I get something I think I want, like a good job, that will not make me happy either.
-There is nothing wrong with wanting to get into a good college. But, far more, I hope you know why you want to do that in terms of a much larger vision for your life. Getting into college is a good short-term goal, but it is not an ultimate vision for life.
-Any worthy long-term vision must take life's most basic realities into account. Nothing more certain, about our lives than our own deaths. How desperately we try to avoid considering death!
-I never thought about dying. We we are all going to die. If you want a great vision for your life, you need to begin by dealing with that single most certain reality.
-Happiness in life comes from a worthy vision of all of life, in all its reality including the inevitability of our own death. Try to imagine yourself at your own funeral. What is it that you want people to say about you? That's the question you have to answer if you want to find a long-range vision for your life. What do you want people to say about you when you are dead?
-Who we want to be?
-It has been said that the saddest words in any language are: it's too late. For many people my age, it is almost too late. They find themselves trapped. You have the greatest treasure of all on your side: time.
-Your vision of who you want to be will become deeper and richer and wiser as you mature. But the very fact that right now you step aside from the day to day concerns and pressures and ask the ultimate questions will prevent you from just going along in life. The very fact that you try now to find a vision that will encompass all the years you will be here on earth will help prevent you from drifting through life, mistaking short-term goals for long-term visions.
-There is nothing wrong with wanting to get into a good college. But, far more, I hope you know why you want to do that in terms of a much larger vision for your life. Getting into college is a good short-term goal, but it is not an ultimate vision for life.
-Any worthy long-term vision must take life's most basic realities into account. Nothing more certain, about our lives than our own deaths. How desperately we try to avoid considering death!
-I never thought about dying. We we are all going to die. If you want a great vision for your life, you need to begin by dealing with that single most certain reality.
-Happiness in life comes from a worthy vision of all of life, in all its reality including the inevitability of our own death. Try to imagine yourself at your own funeral. What is it that you want people to say about you? That's the question you have to answer if you want to find a long-range vision for your life. What do you want people to say about you when you are dead?
-Who we want to be?
-It has been said that the saddest words in any language are: it's too late. For many people my age, it is almost too late. They find themselves trapped. You have the greatest treasure of all on your side: time.
-Your vision of who you want to be will become deeper and richer and wiser as you mature. But the very fact that right now you step aside from the day to day concerns and pressures and ask the ultimate questions will prevent you from just going along in life. The very fact that you try now to find a vision that will encompass all the years you will be here on earth will help prevent you from drifting through life, mistaking short-term goals for long-term visions.
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes III
-If you want to be healed, restored, reinvigorated, you must stop and wait upon the Lord, stop and take stock.
-There is something in our matures that makes us resist thinking, resist helping ourselves. There is a fear of stopping, a fear of taking stock, of thinking about ourselves. We need to overcome that inner rebelliousness to take control, to take charge of our own lives. We need to stop. The Quakes call this centering down, quieting ourselves, waiting upon the Lord.
-We stop in life in order to look and listen for clues about the meaning and purpose of our lives. We find meaning only if we are looking and listening for it.
-You never see unless you stop and look diligently.
-If you stop and assiduously look for the meaning of your life, your goals and objectives, a star will always appear and guide you, perhaps not where you think you want to go, but to a truth greater than you can imagine.
-St. Luke tells us in his Gospel that when the angels sang their song that night, only the shepherds heard it. The shepherds were the lowest class of society. They were out in their fields, in the silence of the night, watching their sheep, listening.
-The foolish among you will say, because I don't see it, it isn't there. Because I don't hear it, it isn't there. The wise among you will realize that to see and hear you have to stop and be quiet. You have to center down. You have to shut up. You have to wait. Then you will see and then you will hear.
-Having myself lived in a glass house, however, I cannot throw stones.
-All of life should be an awakening of awareness.
-The reality beyond sensual, that reality that cannot be seen or touched or heard or smelled. to our awareness of that Reality that, though impenetrable to us, really exists.
-It's been my experience, that's it's often the nuts who ask the ultimate questions.
-If any of your boys want to become doctors, send them to me. I will tell them why they should not. I no longer enjoy what I do. Why do you keep doing it, then? I asked him. Because I like the things I can buy with the money I make. And he talked about his cars, his stereos, and the other adult toys he buys to give him moments of pleasure amid a life he hates, moments of escape from the pain.
-There is something in our matures that makes us resist thinking, resist helping ourselves. There is a fear of stopping, a fear of taking stock, of thinking about ourselves. We need to overcome that inner rebelliousness to take control, to take charge of our own lives. We need to stop. The Quakes call this centering down, quieting ourselves, waiting upon the Lord.
-We stop in life in order to look and listen for clues about the meaning and purpose of our lives. We find meaning only if we are looking and listening for it.
-You never see unless you stop and look diligently.
-If you stop and assiduously look for the meaning of your life, your goals and objectives, a star will always appear and guide you, perhaps not where you think you want to go, but to a truth greater than you can imagine.
-St. Luke tells us in his Gospel that when the angels sang their song that night, only the shepherds heard it. The shepherds were the lowest class of society. They were out in their fields, in the silence of the night, watching their sheep, listening.
-The foolish among you will say, because I don't see it, it isn't there. Because I don't hear it, it isn't there. The wise among you will realize that to see and hear you have to stop and be quiet. You have to center down. You have to shut up. You have to wait. Then you will see and then you will hear.
-Having myself lived in a glass house, however, I cannot throw stones.
-All of life should be an awakening of awareness.
-The reality beyond sensual, that reality that cannot be seen or touched or heard or smelled. to our awareness of that Reality that, though impenetrable to us, really exists.
-It's been my experience, that's it's often the nuts who ask the ultimate questions.
-If any of your boys want to become doctors, send them to me. I will tell them why they should not. I no longer enjoy what I do. Why do you keep doing it, then? I asked him. Because I like the things I can buy with the money I make. And he talked about his cars, his stereos, and the other adult toys he buys to give him moments of pleasure amid a life he hates, moments of escape from the pain.
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes II
-All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
-Knowledge and wisdom are not the same.
-I see so many people just going through the motions: get into a good school so you can get into a good college so you can get a good job so you can get a better job so you can get rich and die. I want more than knowledge; I want wisdom. I don't want to exist; I want to live.
-Remember to be modest.
-Greed does not bring happiness. If you want to be happy, you have to go beyond self-interest.
-Choose to live. Born originals. How comes it to pass that we die copies? Given the opportunity to live, how comes it to pass that so many choose only to exist?
-The only life worth living is the hard life. The hard life is the better way. Whatever else the harder way is, it is not dull. It is, I would submit, much more exciting, much more rewarding, and, dare we say it, much more fun.
-It may well be that the most valuable experiences we have in adolescence are not our triumphs or our successes or our popularity, but rather our disappointments and defeats and rejections. We grow more through our sufferings than through our successes.
-How to react to life's realities?
1. Sit down and make a list of all the things I have to do, all the obligations, all the worries.
2. To do something, anything, to get my mind off my own problems.
3. Cut problems up in smaller pieces.
4. Count your blessings.
5. Ask for help.
6. Seek of Divine help in prayer.
-If a school is preparing young people for life, and it is, it would be cruelly wrong to give young people the impression that life is devoid of pain, to give adolescents the impression that in life you don't have to get along with people you don't like or perform tasks that are difficult or unpleasant.
-A mature attitude toward life begins with the premise that life does not accommodate itself to us; we must accommodate ourselves to life. And life often presents us with difficulties.
-We have to adjust ourselves to life's inconveniences, to life's disappointments. We don't get everything we want. We can waste a lot of energy blaming people, complaining or lamenting. But people who have a mature attitude expect that they will have to come to grips with the disappointments life doles out.
-We are not victims. Just because life does not fulfill your every hope does not mean that you have to adopt the attitude of a victim.
-Lowering of expectation alone as an attitude can be nothing more than craven pessimism, disillusioned cynicism. It must always be accompanied by idealism.
-Knowledge and wisdom are not the same.
-I see so many people just going through the motions: get into a good school so you can get into a good college so you can get a good job so you can get a better job so you can get rich and die. I want more than knowledge; I want wisdom. I don't want to exist; I want to live.
-Remember to be modest.
-Greed does not bring happiness. If you want to be happy, you have to go beyond self-interest.
-Choose to live. Born originals. How comes it to pass that we die copies? Given the opportunity to live, how comes it to pass that so many choose only to exist?
-The only life worth living is the hard life. The hard life is the better way. Whatever else the harder way is, it is not dull. It is, I would submit, much more exciting, much more rewarding, and, dare we say it, much more fun.
-It may well be that the most valuable experiences we have in adolescence are not our triumphs or our successes or our popularity, but rather our disappointments and defeats and rejections. We grow more through our sufferings than through our successes.
-How to react to life's realities?
1. Sit down and make a list of all the things I have to do, all the obligations, all the worries.
2. To do something, anything, to get my mind off my own problems.
3. Cut problems up in smaller pieces.
4. Count your blessings.
5. Ask for help.
6. Seek of Divine help in prayer.
-If a school is preparing young people for life, and it is, it would be cruelly wrong to give young people the impression that life is devoid of pain, to give adolescents the impression that in life you don't have to get along with people you don't like or perform tasks that are difficult or unpleasant.
-A mature attitude toward life begins with the premise that life does not accommodate itself to us; we must accommodate ourselves to life. And life often presents us with difficulties.
-We have to adjust ourselves to life's inconveniences, to life's disappointments. We don't get everything we want. We can waste a lot of energy blaming people, complaining or lamenting. But people who have a mature attitude expect that they will have to come to grips with the disappointments life doles out.
-We are not victims. Just because life does not fulfill your every hope does not mean that you have to adopt the attitude of a victim.
-Lowering of expectation alone as an attitude can be nothing more than craven pessimism, disillusioned cynicism. It must always be accompanied by idealism.
Monday, March 25, 2019
With love and prayers by F. Jarvis. Quotes
-People say you can call yourself fortunate if you are happy with two-thirds or more of your life. I love ninety-nine percent of mine
-At the start of each term Dr. Jarvis addresses the boys as would a father, a pastor, or a mentor, and while he loves them, he is not their pal: he is the Head, and the boys seem to like it that way.
-Roxbury Latin has chosen to remain small, while at the same time its resources have been so wisely husbanded for so long that it is able to provide the very best education to all who meet its requirements, without regard to ability to pay.
-What we must look for here is first, religious and moral principles; secondly, gentlemanly conduct; and thirdly, intellectual ability. Dr. Thomas Arnold.
-It is not what the story says but what the story means.
-Times of maximum danger provide maximum opportunity.
-Happiness in life is not the absence of pressure and stress. Happiness in life is finding a way to deal with the inevitable pressure and stress of life.
-Don't you get tired of working with teenage boys year after year? I never do, because no boy is like any other. You have to win kids one by one. You have to find the key to each individual boy, and that is utterly engrossing and endlessly intriguing. We have only two weapons we can bring to the battle of winning kids over: love and prayer.
-Those of us who believe that life has meaning and purpose, who believe that honesty, simplicity, respect, and concern for others are eternal and life, enhancing values, cannot in good conscience remain silent.
-Education outside the moral context was dangerous.
-There has never been a more important time than now for headmasters and teachers to speak up about the meaning of life and about values to live by. That is what I have tried to do.
-Teenagers love biography, they are fascinated by the concrete reality of life experiences.
-Why am I doing this? Why have I chosen this life? Why am I working so hard?
-At the start of each term Dr. Jarvis addresses the boys as would a father, a pastor, or a mentor, and while he loves them, he is not their pal: he is the Head, and the boys seem to like it that way.
-Roxbury Latin has chosen to remain small, while at the same time its resources have been so wisely husbanded for so long that it is able to provide the very best education to all who meet its requirements, without regard to ability to pay.
-What we must look for here is first, religious and moral principles; secondly, gentlemanly conduct; and thirdly, intellectual ability. Dr. Thomas Arnold.
-It is not what the story says but what the story means.
-Times of maximum danger provide maximum opportunity.
-Happiness in life is not the absence of pressure and stress. Happiness in life is finding a way to deal with the inevitable pressure and stress of life.
-Don't you get tired of working with teenage boys year after year? I never do, because no boy is like any other. You have to win kids one by one. You have to find the key to each individual boy, and that is utterly engrossing and endlessly intriguing. We have only two weapons we can bring to the battle of winning kids over: love and prayer.
-Those of us who believe that life has meaning and purpose, who believe that honesty, simplicity, respect, and concern for others are eternal and life, enhancing values, cannot in good conscience remain silent.
-Education outside the moral context was dangerous.
-There has never been a more important time than now for headmasters and teachers to speak up about the meaning of life and about values to live by. That is what I have tried to do.
-Teenagers love biography, they are fascinated by the concrete reality of life experiences.
-Why am I doing this? Why have I chosen this life? Why am I working so hard?
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes XV
-The husband puts his wife first; the wife puts her husband first.
-Parents are neither weak nor harsh but rather affectionately assertive.
-Parents do not allow rivals on the home to undermine their authority or undo their lessons of right and wrong.
-They give their children a sense of family history and continuity.
-Count on inviting three times as many people as you hope will show up.
-Parents understand that they must lead their children to see the invisible.
-Mom and Dad want their children to be active, and they know that all active people make mistakes.
-Parents are neither weak nor harsh but rather affectionately assertive.
-Parents do not allow rivals on the home to undermine their authority or undo their lessons of right and wrong.
-They give their children a sense of family history and continuity.
-Count on inviting three times as many people as you hope will show up.
-Parents understand that they must lead their children to see the invisible.
-Mom and Dad want their children to be active, and they know that all active people make mistakes.
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes XIV
-The way a man treats his siblings is the same way he will treat his wife.
-You can tell a lot about people's quality by:
1. The kind of friends they choose.
2. The heroes they admire.
3. The vigor and joy that they put into their work.
4. How they treat their parents and siblings.
-Everybody is a package deal, a mixture of good qualities and personal shortcomings.
-The whole world is divided into two types of people. On on side are the vast majority: normal, decent people who seek goodness, truth, and beauty in life. On the other side are the minority: those who single-mindedly chase after power above all else.
-Our moral principles are our compass in life, and they simplify life's choices. To people without principles, life is always complicated.
-Fear in the face of adversity is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it's a sign of intelligence, for only fools are never afraid. Courage consists of doing our duty in spite of our fears.
-Money is just an instrument for the welfare of our loved ones and those in need. And that's all it is.
-Real friendship is based on mutual respect.
-When you are thinking seriously of marrying someone, pay close attention to how that person treats his or her own family.
-People's greatest need is to feel appreciated.
-Confident , considerate people are never afraid to apologize.
-Good manners are the way we show respect for other people's rights and dignity. Since courtesy shows good judgment and self-control, it wins people's respect.
-Don't interrupt people.
-When you converse with anyone, make eye contact.
-Be always punctual.
-When you are invited to someone's home, try to arrive on the dot, no more than five minutes late.
-When you want to praise someone, make it sincere and brief. If you overdo praise, it sounds phony.
-The best predictor of future success is past success.
-There's not tyranny worse than an inability to control oneself.
-The real happiness comes from doing good, not feeling good.
-Make your children wait for something they want.
-Show them who to recognize materialism when they see it, and shun it.
-Teach them courtesy and class.
-Explain but don't argue.
-Teach them indifference to be different.
-Keep your priorities straight.
-Your children may forget most of the details of what you teach them, but they will remember what was important to you.
-You can tell a lot about people's quality by:
1. The kind of friends they choose.
2. The heroes they admire.
3. The vigor and joy that they put into their work.
4. How they treat their parents and siblings.
-Everybody is a package deal, a mixture of good qualities and personal shortcomings.
-The whole world is divided into two types of people. On on side are the vast majority: normal, decent people who seek goodness, truth, and beauty in life. On the other side are the minority: those who single-mindedly chase after power above all else.
-Our moral principles are our compass in life, and they simplify life's choices. To people without principles, life is always complicated.
-Fear in the face of adversity is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it's a sign of intelligence, for only fools are never afraid. Courage consists of doing our duty in spite of our fears.
-Money is just an instrument for the welfare of our loved ones and those in need. And that's all it is.
-Real friendship is based on mutual respect.
-When you are thinking seriously of marrying someone, pay close attention to how that person treats his or her own family.
-People's greatest need is to feel appreciated.
-Confident , considerate people are never afraid to apologize.
-Good manners are the way we show respect for other people's rights and dignity. Since courtesy shows good judgment and self-control, it wins people's respect.
-Don't interrupt people.
-When you converse with anyone, make eye contact.
-Be always punctual.
-When you are invited to someone's home, try to arrive on the dot, no more than five minutes late.
-When you want to praise someone, make it sincere and brief. If you overdo praise, it sounds phony.
-The best predictor of future success is past success.
-There's not tyranny worse than an inability to control oneself.
-The real happiness comes from doing good, not feeling good.
-Make your children wait for something they want.
-Show them who to recognize materialism when they see it, and shun it.
-Teach them courtesy and class.
-Explain but don't argue.
-Teach them indifference to be different.
-Keep your priorities straight.
-Your children may forget most of the details of what you teach them, but they will remember what was important to you.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes XIII
-Effective parent leaders team up to control the family's access to the tube.
-We will watch programs and play games that bring us together as a family.
-Don't let uncertainty lead to inaction.
-Think of time spent with the tube as time away from the family.
-It's unnatural and positively unhealthy for kids to sit still for hours.
-Have only one television in the house.
-All in all, it's not a bad thing for your children to get used to living a little bit different from the crowd, especially in moral matters.
-If young people get in good shape by the time they are sixteen, they will probably stay that way till their mid-forties or later.
-A great husband and wife share one mind and will concerning their children's upbringing.
-Confident kids resist drugs, peer-group pressures.
-How can parents work at strengthening a mutual support?
1. Set some time apart each week to talk about each of your children.
2. Determine that you will never ever oppose or demean each other in front of your children, especially when one of you is correcting a child.
3. Don't ever carry on a heated quarrel in front of your children.
-It is healthy for children to see that sometimes even loving parents will argue but then swiftly reconcile. Everyone has faults and anyone can have a bad day. Spotty flashes of anger flare up in nearly all marriages, but apologies swiftly cover these over. I am sorry... please forgive me... is one fo the strongest bonds of marriage.
-If you sense that a disagreement is getting out of hand, signal with each other. Whatever it takes, do anything rather than scare the kids.
-When your children ask your permission in a fairly important matter, put off your decision until you have checked with you spouse. And your spouse follows the same deferred decision policy with respect to you.
-No matter what you do, realize that each of you may have to swallow your pride a bit for the sake of presenting a united front to your children.
-Kids don't just need to be taught right from wrong; they need specific, concrete words and terms to fasten these concepts into their judgment and keep them there: honor, integrity, ethics, self-respect, etc.
-Judgment means the ability to make significant distinctions in life:
-We will watch programs and play games that bring us together as a family.
-Don't let uncertainty lead to inaction.
-Think of time spent with the tube as time away from the family.
-It's unnatural and positively unhealthy for kids to sit still for hours.
-Have only one television in the house.
-All in all, it's not a bad thing for your children to get used to living a little bit different from the crowd, especially in moral matters.
-If young people get in good shape by the time they are sixteen, they will probably stay that way till their mid-forties or later.
-A great husband and wife share one mind and will concerning their children's upbringing.
-Confident kids resist drugs, peer-group pressures.
-How can parents work at strengthening a mutual support?
1. Set some time apart each week to talk about each of your children.
2. Determine that you will never ever oppose or demean each other in front of your children, especially when one of you is correcting a child.
3. Don't ever carry on a heated quarrel in front of your children.
-It is healthy for children to see that sometimes even loving parents will argue but then swiftly reconcile. Everyone has faults and anyone can have a bad day. Spotty flashes of anger flare up in nearly all marriages, but apologies swiftly cover these over. I am sorry... please forgive me... is one fo the strongest bonds of marriage.
-If you sense that a disagreement is getting out of hand, signal with each other. Whatever it takes, do anything rather than scare the kids.
-When your children ask your permission in a fairly important matter, put off your decision until you have checked with you spouse. And your spouse follows the same deferred decision policy with respect to you.
-No matter what you do, realize that each of you may have to swallow your pride a bit for the sake of presenting a united front to your children.
-Kids don't just need to be taught right from wrong; they need specific, concrete words and terms to fasten these concepts into their judgment and keep them there: honor, integrity, ethics, self-respect, etc.
-Judgment means the ability to make significant distinctions in life:
- Needs from wants.
- Heroes from celebrities.
- Love from eroticism.
- Courage from cowardice.
- Objective from subjective.
-Active people make mistakes.
-Put worthwhile books into your children's hands, read aloud to them.
-Encourage children to form opinions, but to base these on facts.
-Integrity means unity of intention, word, and action.
-People respect for your world, your integrity depends hugely on your commitment to keep your commitments.
-You teach integrity in the areas of accepting invitations and keeping appointments.
-The last place where well-brought up kids behave rightly is at home.
-When the kids see that Mom considers Dad the Number One person in the family, and Dad treats Mom as Number One, then most other family lessons fall into place.
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes XII
-Children do have rights:
1. Right to privacy up to a point.
2. Right to presumption of innocence.
3. Right not to be publicly embarrassed.
4. Right to just punishment.
5. Right to a second chance.
-Never, ever, undercut you spouse if it was he or she who witnessed things. If you think your spouse is mistaken or over reactive, then discuss matters privately.
-The family is one place in the world where we can always count on a fresh start.
-When you apologize, you teach them a valuable lesson: that you put justice ahead of your ego.
-What you are really teaching your children is ethical conduct among responsible adults. You are treating your children as young adults in the making, and you begin by respecting them as people.
-Don't neglect your wife. Wake up. Pay attention. Listen to her carefully.
-Don't undercut your husband. Do all you can to lead your children to respect their father and his authority.
-Don't underestimate your children. Have high ambitions for their swift growth into maturity.
-Don't treat teenagers like large children. Tell them that you distinguish between integrity and judgment.
-Don't ever tell your teens that the high-school years are the best part of their lives.
-Don't let your kids weasel out of commitments.
-Don't ask children if they would like to do something that you expect them to do anyway.
-When you are correcting your kids and they ask why, don't argue with them. If they are looking for an explanation, give it once only. If they persist with why? then they are looking for an argument, not an explanation.
-Don't let your kids dress in such a way as to bring shame to the family.
-Don't miss small opportunities to talk with your children.
-Don't shout at your kids all the time.
-Don't get trapped into prolonged blazing arguments. On those rare occasions where the kids do something truly outrageous, they should experience outrage. Otherwise they won't know what's outrageous.
-Don't forget to praise your children, and be specific about it.
-Come down to your children's level, but don't stay there.
-Don't worry so much about trivia.
-Confidence in their parent's control forms the basis for their own growth in self-confidence.
-In those families where parents win out as boss, by the time kids are five, they years of adolescence are relatively untroubled.
-The why of correction is more important than the how.
1. Right to privacy up to a point.
2. Right to presumption of innocence.
3. Right not to be publicly embarrassed.
4. Right to just punishment.
5. Right to a second chance.
-Never, ever, undercut you spouse if it was he or she who witnessed things. If you think your spouse is mistaken or over reactive, then discuss matters privately.
-The family is one place in the world where we can always count on a fresh start.
-When you apologize, you teach them a valuable lesson: that you put justice ahead of your ego.
-What you are really teaching your children is ethical conduct among responsible adults. You are treating your children as young adults in the making, and you begin by respecting them as people.
-Don't neglect your wife. Wake up. Pay attention. Listen to her carefully.
-Don't undercut your husband. Do all you can to lead your children to respect their father and his authority.
-Don't underestimate your children. Have high ambitions for their swift growth into maturity.
-Don't treat teenagers like large children. Tell them that you distinguish between integrity and judgment.
-Don't ever tell your teens that the high-school years are the best part of their lives.
-Don't let your kids weasel out of commitments.
-Don't ask children if they would like to do something that you expect them to do anyway.
-When you are correcting your kids and they ask why, don't argue with them. If they are looking for an explanation, give it once only. If they persist with why? then they are looking for an argument, not an explanation.
-Don't let your kids dress in such a way as to bring shame to the family.
-Don't miss small opportunities to talk with your children.
-Don't shout at your kids all the time.
-Don't get trapped into prolonged blazing arguments. On those rare occasions where the kids do something truly outrageous, they should experience outrage. Otherwise they won't know what's outrageous.
-Don't forget to praise your children, and be specific about it.
-Come down to your children's level, but don't stay there.
-Don't worry so much about trivia.
-Confidence in their parent's control forms the basis for their own growth in self-confidence.
-In those families where parents win out as boss, by the time kids are five, they years of adolescence are relatively untroubled.
-The why of correction is more important than the how.
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes XI
-Discipline really means confident, effective parental leadership.
-Discipline in family life means leading the children to acquire the great virtues of sound judgment, a sense of responsibility, personal courage, self-control, and magnanimity.
-Effective parents practice what we might call affectionate assertiveness. They set out to correct the fault, not the person. They are willing to risk being unpopular.
-How do you show affectionate love to your children?
You physically touch them. You take them by the hand while walking together. When walking by them, you pat them on the head or ruffle their hair a bit.
-You should listen to your children with your eyes. In your eyes they can read your soul, your love for them, your pride in them, your hopes for their future.
-What can you do to punish misbehavior in fairly serious matters?
Time outs
Removing privileges
Putting them to work.
-Many healthy families hold to this policy: each child's bedroom is a place for study, reading, chatting, and playing with siblings, and sleep.
-Leisure is really enjoyable only when we have earned it.
-You can be tough with normal children and quite effective with them if, and only if, they perceive that you are trying to be fair.
-Establish three levels of misbehavior:
1. Misdemeanors.
2. Serious infractions.
3. Felony infractions.
-Discipline in family life means leading the children to acquire the great virtues of sound judgment, a sense of responsibility, personal courage, self-control, and magnanimity.
-Effective parents practice what we might call affectionate assertiveness. They set out to correct the fault, not the person. They are willing to risk being unpopular.
-How do you show affectionate love to your children?
You physically touch them. You take them by the hand while walking together. When walking by them, you pat them on the head or ruffle their hair a bit.
-You should listen to your children with your eyes. In your eyes they can read your soul, your love for them, your pride in them, your hopes for their future.
-What can you do to punish misbehavior in fairly serious matters?
Time outs
Removing privileges
Putting them to work.
-Many healthy families hold to this policy: each child's bedroom is a place for study, reading, chatting, and playing with siblings, and sleep.
-Leisure is really enjoyable only when we have earned it.
-You can be tough with normal children and quite effective with them if, and only if, they perceive that you are trying to be fair.
-Establish three levels of misbehavior:
1. Misdemeanors.
- Tracking mud in the house.
- Noisy rough-housing.
- Forgetting to do chores.
- Failing to put things away, etc.
Low level response, and sometimes just letting the matter go.
2. Serious infractions.
- Name-calling.
- Taking property without permission.
- Physical aggression.
- Profanity, etc.
You must correct these serious lapses of justice.
3. Felony infractions.
- Showing disrespect for you personally.
- Attempt to defy your authority.
- Deliberately lie to you.
Punishment should be swift and memorable.
Everything you have to teach your children depends on their respect for you and for your authority and for their own word of honor. If you lose this, you lose them.
Monday, March 18, 2019
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes X
-Family loyalty saves many teens and young adults from disaster. How does this loyalty come about? Through the power of WE.
-Active family rules cement the kids' rock-hard foundation in place and form the framework for their growth in character.
-Why does a healthy family have rules? For one simple reason: because it has a job to do, a service mission to carry out.
-Every serious enterprise has three basic elements:
1. A mission.
2. A responsible chain of command.
3. A set of performance standards.
-All the rules directly or implicitly, began with the word WE.
-The parents lived by the rules themselves, the same ones they imposed on their children. They practiced what they preached and led the way by their personal example.
-As the day goes, so goes one's life.
-All the rules seemed to fall into five distinct categories:
1. WE respect the rights and sensibilities of others.
2. WE all contribute to making our home a clean, orderly, civilized place to live.
3. WE give people information they need to carry out their responsibilities.
4. WE use electronic media only to promote family welfare, never to work against it.
5. We love and honor our Creator above all things; we thank Him for His blessings and ask His help for our needs and those of others.
-Active family rules cement the kids' rock-hard foundation in place and form the framework for their growth in character.
-Why does a healthy family have rules? For one simple reason: because it has a job to do, a service mission to carry out.
-Every serious enterprise has three basic elements:
1. A mission.
2. A responsible chain of command.
3. A set of performance standards.
-All the rules directly or implicitly, began with the word WE.
-The parents lived by the rules themselves, the same ones they imposed on their children. They practiced what they preached and led the way by their personal example.
-As the day goes, so goes one's life.
-All the rules seemed to fall into five distinct categories:
1. WE respect the rights and sensibilities of others.
- We say: thank you, please, excuse me, I am sorry, I give my word of honor.
- We don't gossip.
- We keep our family's affairs within the family.
2. WE all contribute to making our home a clean, orderly, civilized place to live.
- We do not make promises unless we commit ourselves to carry them out.
- We show special respect to older people.
- We celebrate each other's accomplishments.
3. WE give people information they need to carry out their responsibilities.
- If we are going to be late, we call.
4. WE use electronic media only to promote family welfare, never to work against it.
- We permit nothing in our home that offends our moral principles.
5. We love and honor our Creator above all things; we thank Him for His blessings and ask His help for our needs and those of others.
- We serve the Lord by serving others.
-A great family never attains perfection, but it will never stop trying. To keep trying, no matter what, is the essence of greatness.
-Reaching an ideal is nearly impossible, but to try is always possible.
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes IX
-All leaders understand, and shun, the lamentable consequences of neglect.
-Leaders act. Real leaders never let indecision lead to inaction. When confronted with several tough choices of what to do, they do not shrink back.
-Neglect, to do nothing, is the worst mistake of all.
-Leaders are confident of their authority, which is as weighty as their responsibility.
-Authority means the right to make decisions and then impose them in order to carry out some responsibility.
-Rightful authority is both benevolent and beneficial. Leaders in any enterprise serve their people, often at great sacrifice, by constructing order out of chaos and by channeling people's best efforts toward some worthy goal. This is why service-oriented leaders are esteemed by their people, often with deep respect and even devotion.
-Authority means, among other things, the right to be obeyed.
-Leaders have joiners, not followers.
-To lead effectively means to get out in front and pull.
-All great leaders get out in front and strive forward some noble goal, and they motivate others to join them. They inspire others to reach that ideal with them, all together in a spirit of adventurous teamwork. In other words, leaders rely on the power of we. They make no demands of others that they fail to make of themselves. They lead mostly by example.
-Leaders have both the strategic vision and the tenacity to focus on the job at hand.
-The strategic thinking of effective parent leaders seems to go like this:
1. A parent, like a farmer, does the very best he or she knows how, and then leaves the rest in the hands of God.
2. Loving, self-sacrificing parents, do not fall into extremes.
3. Their number one job is to build inner strengths in their children.
4. They teach their children that responsible grown-up life is not self-centered play, but mostly service to others.
5. All respect in life, at any age, arises from some perception of strength.
6. The more highly kids admire Dad and Mom, the more deeply will they adopt their parents' attitudes, values, and character.
7. Kids do not come into the world with strong character.
8. Every decade of life passes twice as fast as the one before.
-What circumstances lead some people to be confident?
1. Surrounded by love.
2. Lifelong habit of attacking and solving problems, mostly with success.
3. Habit of turning concerns into corrective action.
4. The undertake a mission so important that brings out the best in them.
5. They know that someplace on this earth they have loved ones who are absolutely crazy about them.
-Definitions of a leader:
1. A leader is a dealer in hope.
2. A leader has the ability to asses priorities and know which problems to ignore.
3. A leader must things happen.
4. A leader is one who can get people to do what they don't want to do.
5. A leader establishes a personal identity with his cause.
6. A leader has profound respect and sympathy for those he leads.
7. A leaders knows when to listen, when to explain, and when to act.
8. A leader is willing to stand alone.
9. A leader has to have a great heart, a clear mind, and a thick skin.
-Leaders act. Real leaders never let indecision lead to inaction. When confronted with several tough choices of what to do, they do not shrink back.
-Neglect, to do nothing, is the worst mistake of all.
-Leaders are confident of their authority, which is as weighty as their responsibility.
-Authority means the right to make decisions and then impose them in order to carry out some responsibility.
-Rightful authority is both benevolent and beneficial. Leaders in any enterprise serve their people, often at great sacrifice, by constructing order out of chaos and by channeling people's best efforts toward some worthy goal. This is why service-oriented leaders are esteemed by their people, often with deep respect and even devotion.
-Authority means, among other things, the right to be obeyed.
-Leaders have joiners, not followers.
-To lead effectively means to get out in front and pull.
-All great leaders get out in front and strive forward some noble goal, and they motivate others to join them. They inspire others to reach that ideal with them, all together in a spirit of adventurous teamwork. In other words, leaders rely on the power of we. They make no demands of others that they fail to make of themselves. They lead mostly by example.
-Leaders have both the strategic vision and the tenacity to focus on the job at hand.
-The strategic thinking of effective parent leaders seems to go like this:
1. A parent, like a farmer, does the very best he or she knows how, and then leaves the rest in the hands of God.
2. Loving, self-sacrificing parents, do not fall into extremes.
3. Their number one job is to build inner strengths in their children.
4. They teach their children that responsible grown-up life is not self-centered play, but mostly service to others.
5. All respect in life, at any age, arises from some perception of strength.
6. The more highly kids admire Dad and Mom, the more deeply will they adopt their parents' attitudes, values, and character.
7. Kids do not come into the world with strong character.
8. Every decade of life passes twice as fast as the one before.
-What circumstances lead some people to be confident?
1. Surrounded by love.
2. Lifelong habit of attacking and solving problems, mostly with success.
3. Habit of turning concerns into corrective action.
4. The undertake a mission so important that brings out the best in them.
5. They know that someplace on this earth they have loved ones who are absolutely crazy about them.
-Definitions of a leader:
1. A leader is a dealer in hope.
2. A leader has the ability to asses priorities and know which problems to ignore.
3. A leader must things happen.
4. A leader is one who can get people to do what they don't want to do.
5. A leader establishes a personal identity with his cause.
6. A leader has profound respect and sympathy for those he leads.
7. A leaders knows when to listen, when to explain, and when to act.
8. A leader is willing to stand alone.
9. A leader has to have a great heart, a clear mind, and a thick skin.
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes VIII
-The healthy family, the sporting adventure family, sees their children as adults in the making.
-Family rules are set in place not to control the children but rather to direct them. The rules have a purpose: to strengthen the kids' conscience and character through example and directed practice in responsible living.
-Parent either pay now, or they pay later.
-Responsible parents act as leaders in the family.
-Leaders are moved by a long-term vision, and so they win people's respect. Our most respected leaders are those who look farthest toward the future and foresee oncoming perils and opportunities.
-The farther and clearer the vision, the greater the respect.
-Parent leaders set high ideals for their children's later lives. They think of their children's future along these lines:
1. Children will have excellent judgment, especially in the choice of a spouse.
2. They will center their lives in a stable, happy marriage.
3. They will succeed in their careers, doing work they enjoy.
4. They will support their families comfortably but not luxuriously.
5. They will be generous to friends and those in need.
6. They will never live as quitters.
7. They will be nobody's fool or pushover.
8. When they've done wrong, they'll face the truth and apologize.
9. They will be esteemed for their honesty, integrity, hard work, generosity, religious commitment, and confident good humor.
10. They will remain close to family.
11. They will live by their parents' principles.
12. Their whole lives will be moved by love.
-Family rules are set in place not to control the children but rather to direct them. The rules have a purpose: to strengthen the kids' conscience and character through example and directed practice in responsible living.
-Parent either pay now, or they pay later.
-Responsible parents act as leaders in the family.
-Leaders are moved by a long-term vision, and so they win people's respect. Our most respected leaders are those who look farthest toward the future and foresee oncoming perils and opportunities.
-The farther and clearer the vision, the greater the respect.
-Parent leaders set high ideals for their children's later lives. They think of their children's future along these lines:
1. Children will have excellent judgment, especially in the choice of a spouse.
2. They will center their lives in a stable, happy marriage.
3. They will succeed in their careers, doing work they enjoy.
4. They will support their families comfortably but not luxuriously.
5. They will be generous to friends and those in need.
6. They will never live as quitters.
7. They will be nobody's fool or pushover.
8. When they've done wrong, they'll face the truth and apologize.
9. They will be esteemed for their honesty, integrity, hard work, generosity, religious commitment, and confident good humor.
10. They will remain close to family.
11. They will live by their parents' principles.
12. Their whole lives will be moved by love.
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes VII
-Negative lessons are valuable.
-Clearly, something is wrong in today's society. We look around in our workplaces and neighborhoods and see young people who are immature and irresolute, soft and irresponsible, uneasy about themselves and their futures.
-What is striking today is the huge percentage of seriously troubled youths from normal families. Some sort of subtle dysfunction is corroding large numbers of typical, middle-class homes.
-The suicide rate among young people in the United States is directly proportional to family income.
-Normal American families seem to fall into to broad categories:
1. Self-absorbed consumerist family.
2. Other-centered sporting adventure family.
-Consumerist parents are unconcerned with growth in virtue, whether for themselves or their children whom are steadily apprenticed through childhood as consumers, not producers.
-The life of grown-up work is solely for piling up spending money. We work in order to spend, we produce in order to consume.
-Staring in their middle-school years, very many self-absorbed kids grow bored with juvenile amusements and avidly turn to novel kinds of powerfully pleasurable sensations: alcohol, drugs, the erotic and increasingly violent rock culture, vandalism, reckless driving, recreational sex. Because their life has centered on things, they are disposed to put things ahead of people, to treat people as objects.
-In consumerist families, both parents give in readily to children's wishes and feelings, even when they judge that this might be a mistake. So the children fail to distinguish between wants and needs. To the children, wants are needs. As a result, feelings not conscience become a guide for action.
-In the consumerist family, children have a low tolerance for discomfort or even inconvenience. Their outlook on life remains unchanged from infancy: me first. These children complain and whine about situations that can't be helped: bad weather, reasonable delays, physical discomfort, moderately heavy workloads, personality differences and the like.
-Materialism really means seeing and treating other people as things.
-Respect for people nearly always derives from some perception of strength.
-Many well-off middle class, even wealthy, families are not materialistic.
-Clearly, something is wrong in today's society. We look around in our workplaces and neighborhoods and see young people who are immature and irresolute, soft and irresponsible, uneasy about themselves and their futures.
-What is striking today is the huge percentage of seriously troubled youths from normal families. Some sort of subtle dysfunction is corroding large numbers of typical, middle-class homes.
-The suicide rate among young people in the United States is directly proportional to family income.
-Normal American families seem to fall into to broad categories:
1. Self-absorbed consumerist family.
2. Other-centered sporting adventure family.
-Consumerist parents are unconcerned with growth in virtue, whether for themselves or their children whom are steadily apprenticed through childhood as consumers, not producers.
-The life of grown-up work is solely for piling up spending money. We work in order to spend, we produce in order to consume.
-Staring in their middle-school years, very many self-absorbed kids grow bored with juvenile amusements and avidly turn to novel kinds of powerfully pleasurable sensations: alcohol, drugs, the erotic and increasingly violent rock culture, vandalism, reckless driving, recreational sex. Because their life has centered on things, they are disposed to put things ahead of people, to treat people as objects.
-In consumerist families, both parents give in readily to children's wishes and feelings, even when they judge that this might be a mistake. So the children fail to distinguish between wants and needs. To the children, wants are needs. As a result, feelings not conscience become a guide for action.
-In the consumerist family, children have a low tolerance for discomfort or even inconvenience. Their outlook on life remains unchanged from infancy: me first. These children complain and whine about situations that can't be helped: bad weather, reasonable delays, physical discomfort, moderately heavy workloads, personality differences and the like.
-Materialism really means seeing and treating other people as things.
-Respect for people nearly always derives from some perception of strength.
-Many well-off middle class, even wealthy, families are not materialistic.
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes VI
-Temperance is power to say no, at will, to our laziness, passions, and appetites. It is the power, built through practice, to wait for rewards and to earn them.
-Self-controlled people do not turn wants into needs, and they know the difference.
-Temperance means sensible enjoyment. They enjoyment comes from other people, not just things. To the extent that they take pleasure in food, drink, entertainment, and work, it's because of the company, family and friends, with whom they share these things. They are affable, fun to be with, enjoyable to work with. Their greatest delight is to delight their friends.
-Temperance means mastery of one's speech and actions. Temperance people have class.
-The greatness of heart is the all-important spiritual power that gives force to all the other virtues. The ancient Romans called it magnanimity, greatness of soul.
-Heart is the capacity and desire to surpass ourselves, to endure or overcome anything for the sake of somebody else's welfare or happiness. It's generosity, the drive to give others the best of what we have for their sake, and expect little or nothing in return.
-Where does someone put his heart? What does he love most in life? What would he be willing to suffer for, even die for? Answer these questions and you put your finger on that person's values.
-To speak of people's values, is to speak of their priorities in life: what comes first to them, then, what comes second, third, and on down the line. Where, in what order, do people put their passions? What do they love most?
-People differ in their values because they differ in what they love most and least.
-We can tell people's values by which of these loves they hold closest, and which they belittle or ignore.
-Some parents give their hearts to God, family, friends, truth, and service-directed work. Everybody who knows these parents, including their children, considers them great people. Other parents, unfortunately, put power, career, and comfort ahead of anything else, and their families suffer, both now and later.
-In adolescence, teens are strongly tempted to put conformity and pleasure ahead of their family. But if mom and dad won their hearts in childhood, that is, if teenagers' love for family comes first, they can shunt these allurements aside. They love their parents deeply, and so will never betray them.
-Do your children know your priorities, the loves you hold above all others? Tell them. Urge them to follow you, to embrace your values as their own and live by them. And warn them about one of life's greatest disasters: to marry someone with mismatched priorities, whose values conflict with their own.
-A great person is one who never loses the heart he had as a child.
-What are the great loves of childhood?
1. Love for God.
2. Love for family.
3. Love for life, friends, laughter.
4. Love for those in need.
5. Love for the truth.
-Great people are those who possess within their souls the powers of adults and the hearts of children.
-Your job as a parent, your mission in life, is to raise your children to this ideal: to form generosity and character so deeply within them as to direct the course of their lives to greatness.
-The happiest people we meet in life are those who somehow enjoy what they have to do anyway, that is their duties.
-Tell someone he's brave, and you make him brave. Courage does not mean fearlessness. Means doing what is right despite our fears. Courageous people do not lose their fears, they just overcome them.
-We can change people's character but not their temperament.
-People who are most successful in business and professional life seem to have two personal traits:
1. The know how to concentrate and work hard at will, even when they don't feel like it.
2. They have excellent social skills: they are courteous, gracious, ethical, consistently good listeners, and explainers.
-Self-controlled people do not turn wants into needs, and they know the difference.
-Temperance means sensible enjoyment. They enjoyment comes from other people, not just things. To the extent that they take pleasure in food, drink, entertainment, and work, it's because of the company, family and friends, with whom they share these things. They are affable, fun to be with, enjoyable to work with. Their greatest delight is to delight their friends.
-Temperance means mastery of one's speech and actions. Temperance people have class.
-The greatness of heart is the all-important spiritual power that gives force to all the other virtues. The ancient Romans called it magnanimity, greatness of soul.
-Heart is the capacity and desire to surpass ourselves, to endure or overcome anything for the sake of somebody else's welfare or happiness. It's generosity, the drive to give others the best of what we have for their sake, and expect little or nothing in return.
-Where does someone put his heart? What does he love most in life? What would he be willing to suffer for, even die for? Answer these questions and you put your finger on that person's values.
-To speak of people's values, is to speak of their priorities in life: what comes first to them, then, what comes second, third, and on down the line. Where, in what order, do people put their passions? What do they love most?
-People differ in their values because they differ in what they love most and least.
-We can tell people's values by which of these loves they hold closest, and which they belittle or ignore.
-Some parents give their hearts to God, family, friends, truth, and service-directed work. Everybody who knows these parents, including their children, considers them great people. Other parents, unfortunately, put power, career, and comfort ahead of anything else, and their families suffer, both now and later.
-In adolescence, teens are strongly tempted to put conformity and pleasure ahead of their family. But if mom and dad won their hearts in childhood, that is, if teenagers' love for family comes first, they can shunt these allurements aside. They love their parents deeply, and so will never betray them.
-Do your children know your priorities, the loves you hold above all others? Tell them. Urge them to follow you, to embrace your values as their own and live by them. And warn them about one of life's greatest disasters: to marry someone with mismatched priorities, whose values conflict with their own.
-A great person is one who never loses the heart he had as a child.
-What are the great loves of childhood?
1. Love for God.
2. Love for family.
3. Love for life, friends, laughter.
4. Love for those in need.
5. Love for the truth.
-Great people are those who possess within their souls the powers of adults and the hearts of children.
-Your job as a parent, your mission in life, is to raise your children to this ideal: to form generosity and character so deeply within them as to direct the course of their lives to greatness.
-The happiest people we meet in life are those who somehow enjoy what they have to do anyway, that is their duties.
-Tell someone he's brave, and you make him brave. Courage does not mean fearlessness. Means doing what is right despite our fears. Courageous people do not lose their fears, they just overcome them.
-We can change people's character but not their temperament.
-People who are most successful in business and professional life seem to have two personal traits:
1. The know how to concentrate and work hard at will, even when they don't feel like it.
2. They have excellent social skills: they are courteous, gracious, ethical, consistently good listeners, and explainers.
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes V
-If you why is strong enough and clear enough, you can figure out most of the how for yourself.
-Sound judgment is the power of discernment.
-We have good judgment when we have the power to weigh people's motivations, values and priorities in life.
-Someone who is both shrewd and good-willed has the essence of wisdom.
-Sound judgement is the ability to foresee the probable consequences, both good and bad, of a projected course of action.
-The Greeks called responsibility justice, or giving others what is due to them.
-Responsibility means so as to respect the rights of others, included their right not to be offended.
-Responsibility is a habit of doing our duties whether we feel like it or not.
-Fortitude is also known by other words: courage, perseverance, toughness, guts.
-Fortitude is the acquired ability either to overcome or to endure difficulties: pain, discomfort, disappointment, setbacks, worry, tedium, looking different.
-Life brings hardships, and many of these and unavoidable, even insoluble.
-Most of the time, expectations hurts more than reality: that is, anticipated problems nearly always seem worse than they turn out to be once we tackle them.
-Fortitude is a confidence in our problem-solving abilities, built through a lifetime of practice in solving problems.
-There is such a thing as good stress: when we are under reasonable stress and adversity, we all do our best work.
-The power of fortitude is the exact opposite of getting in touch with our feelings, a woefully common outlook today in too many schools and families.
-In real life, self-centered feelings must give way to duty; if they do not, the young people have practically no capacity for sacrifice, which is the absolute essence of real love. Genuine love means ignoring our self-centered feelings for the sake of others.
-Sound judgment is the power of discernment.
-We have good judgment when we have the power to weigh people's motivations, values and priorities in life.
-Someone who is both shrewd and good-willed has the essence of wisdom.
-Sound judgement is the ability to foresee the probable consequences, both good and bad, of a projected course of action.
-The Greeks called responsibility justice, or giving others what is due to them.
-Responsibility means so as to respect the rights of others, included their right not to be offended.
-Responsibility is a habit of doing our duties whether we feel like it or not.
-Fortitude is also known by other words: courage, perseverance, toughness, guts.
-Fortitude is the acquired ability either to overcome or to endure difficulties: pain, discomfort, disappointment, setbacks, worry, tedium, looking different.
-Life brings hardships, and many of these and unavoidable, even insoluble.
-Most of the time, expectations hurts more than reality: that is, anticipated problems nearly always seem worse than they turn out to be once we tackle them.
-Fortitude is a confidence in our problem-solving abilities, built through a lifetime of practice in solving problems.
-There is such a thing as good stress: when we are under reasonable stress and adversity, we all do our best work.
-The power of fortitude is the exact opposite of getting in touch with our feelings, a woefully common outlook today in too many schools and families.
-In real life, self-centered feelings must give way to duty; if they do not, the young people have practically no capacity for sacrifice, which is the absolute essence of real love. Genuine love means ignoring our self-centered feelings for the sake of others.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes IV
-As a parent you make sacrificial effort every day, for years, to turn your children's daily habits into lifelong virtues. You lead your children to become responsible, you teach them justice, fortitude, -courage is the memory of past successes-, you teach them healthy, realistic self-esteem from work well done, you teach them an all important lesson about life: comfort and convenience are only by-products of a successful life, not its purpose.
-We are here to serve others with our powers.
-As a parent you never give up until your children have acquired the powers to live rightly on their own.
-Verbal explanation works mostly to form children's judgment and conscience.
-You explain the importance of work well done and the disgrace of being a slacker or quitter.
-You rely on talk only to reinforce and explain action, to help the children grasp why you live the way you do, and why you press them the way you do.
-The two most troubled stages of children's lives: at ages two to five, and again at thirteen to seventeen.
-Practice builds habits, while explanations build judgment, conscience, attitudes, values.
-For most people, the voice of conscience is the voice of their parents, the memory of their parents' lessons about right and wrong.
-Above all you should listen to your children: their progress in judgment and conscience, their worries and self-doubts, their problems.
-Adolescents who deeply love and respect their parents remain virtually immune to perilous peer-pressures and untouched by the rock-sex-drug culture. Their parent's character is the measure by which they judge their peers.
-When you chat with your children, be sure you listen with your eyes. Children are extremely sensitive to what they see in their parent's eyes. Make eye-contact with them to show your undivided attention: that's how important they are to you. When they look into your eyes, let them see your heartfelt love for them, your hopes for their future, your pride in their growing character.
-We are here to serve others with our powers.
-As a parent you never give up until your children have acquired the powers to live rightly on their own.
-Verbal explanation works mostly to form children's judgment and conscience.
-You explain the importance of work well done and the disgrace of being a slacker or quitter.
-You rely on talk only to reinforce and explain action, to help the children grasp why you live the way you do, and why you press them the way you do.
-The two most troubled stages of children's lives: at ages two to five, and again at thirteen to seventeen.
-Practice builds habits, while explanations build judgment, conscience, attitudes, values.
-For most people, the voice of conscience is the voice of their parents, the memory of their parents' lessons about right and wrong.
-Above all you should listen to your children: their progress in judgment and conscience, their worries and self-doubts, their problems.
-Adolescents who deeply love and respect their parents remain virtually immune to perilous peer-pressures and untouched by the rock-sex-drug culture. Their parent's character is the measure by which they judge their peers.
-When you chat with your children, be sure you listen with your eyes. Children are extremely sensitive to what they see in their parent's eyes. Make eye-contact with them to show your undivided attention: that's how important they are to you. When they look into your eyes, let them see your heartfelt love for them, your hopes for their future, your pride in their growing character.
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes III
-Your children see everything. They miss nothing. Their eager eyes, their lithe little bodies, constantly flit around, roving and scanning, noticing every details of their parents' lives. Children, it seems, are wired this way: to watch how adults, and most of all their parents, go about the business of living.
-Children perceive confident, adult-level strength in you, and this awareness leads them to respect you. Children must, above all, respect their parents, and (we cannot stress this enough) all respect derives from perception of strength.
-You are teaching more about the virtues, indeed about yourself, when you scarcely realize it. Your snatches of conversation, your reactions to events (good and bad), your assessments of people and your dealings with them, your earnest personal prayer, your exertion in work and play, your comments on the news, your humor, whatever angers or delights you, even the look in your eyes: all these details sink into your children's minds and hearts. In fact, what your children overhear at home is at least as important as what you say to them directly, often much more so.
-Parents cannot teach character effectively unless they first set example for their children.
-Virtue is a habit of living rightly. And all habits are built by repeated practice. You, as a parent, must lead your children to act, to learn by doing.
-Every single day, the children are forming permanent habits. The question for parents is: which ones?
-Children perceive confident, adult-level strength in you, and this awareness leads them to respect you. Children must, above all, respect their parents, and (we cannot stress this enough) all respect derives from perception of strength.
-You are teaching more about the virtues, indeed about yourself, when you scarcely realize it. Your snatches of conversation, your reactions to events (good and bad), your assessments of people and your dealings with them, your earnest personal prayer, your exertion in work and play, your comments on the news, your humor, whatever angers or delights you, even the look in your eyes: all these details sink into your children's minds and hearts. In fact, what your children overhear at home is at least as important as what you say to them directly, often much more so.
-Parents cannot teach character effectively unless they first set example for their children.
-Virtue is a habit of living rightly. And all habits are built by repeated practice. You, as a parent, must lead your children to act, to learn by doing.
-Every single day, the children are forming permanent habits. The question for parents is: which ones?
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes II
-A couple of ideas crucial to your job as a parent:
1. Children do not come into the world imbued with these virtues. They do not start out in life with sound judgment, responsibility, courageous perseverance, or self-mastery. These powers must be built from scratch as children grow up, formed as it were from the outside in, or else the children will grow up without them.
2. Your job as a parent is to make sure your children do not grow up this way: as thoughtless, self-centered, impulsive, irresponsible hedonists and manipulators. Your job is to teach your children habitual lifelong powers of sound judgment, responsibility, courageous perseverance, self-control, and heart. This is the core responsibility of parenthood.
-Your children will not grow up when the can take care of themselves. They will really and truly grow up only when they can take care of others, and want to.
-Characteristics of character: excellent judgment, wisdom, a refined sense of right and wrong, ethical uprightness, courage, thoughtful concern for others' needs and feelings, putting people ahead of things.
-Children seem to acquire character in three ways and in this order:
1. By example. What children witness, and then imitate, in the lives of their parents and other adults whom they respect (teachers, coaches)
2. By directed practice. What children are led to do, or are made to do repeatedly by parents and other respected adults.
3. By word. What children hear from parents and others as explanation of what they witness and are led to do.
1. Children do not come into the world imbued with these virtues. They do not start out in life with sound judgment, responsibility, courageous perseverance, or self-mastery. These powers must be built from scratch as children grow up, formed as it were from the outside in, or else the children will grow up without them.
2. Your job as a parent is to make sure your children do not grow up this way: as thoughtless, self-centered, impulsive, irresponsible hedonists and manipulators. Your job is to teach your children habitual lifelong powers of sound judgment, responsibility, courageous perseverance, self-control, and heart. This is the core responsibility of parenthood.
-Your children will not grow up when the can take care of themselves. They will really and truly grow up only when they can take care of others, and want to.
-Characteristics of character: excellent judgment, wisdom, a refined sense of right and wrong, ethical uprightness, courage, thoughtful concern for others' needs and feelings, putting people ahead of things.
-Children seem to acquire character in three ways and in this order:
1. By example. What children witness, and then imitate, in the lives of their parents and other adults whom they respect (teachers, coaches)
2. By directed practice. What children are led to do, or are made to do repeatedly by parents and other respected adults.
3. By word. What children hear from parents and others as explanation of what they witness and are led to do.
Compass, a handbook on parents leadership by James Stenson. Quotes
-Parents really win success with their children only in the long term. Parents succeed with their children when the kids grow up to become competent, responsible, considerate, and generous men and women who are committed to live by principles of integrity, adults who bring honor to their parents all their lives through their conduct, conscience, and character. Raising children like this is what parenthood is all about.
-When parent bring children into the world, they set out on the greatest, most satisfying adventure of all.
-Clear thought is necessary for any leadership.
-Knowing where you are going helps you know what you are doing, and this builds the courage you need to stick with your mission, no matter what.
-Parents must teach their children the invisible. Conscientious and savvy parents lead their children to know, and live by, those internal, invisible realities that form a great life: honor, integrity, self-mastery, courage, courtesy, dedicated service, sacrificial love, conscience, God, grace, the soul. Great men and women, it seems at moved mostly by what's invisible.
-Before we delve into details of how this is done, we must first stand back and look at the big picture, the why. So we begin by looking at character.
-Character is what each of us is, minus our money and possessions.
-Character is what people admire in us besides our talents and acquired skills.
-Character is what makes people proud and delighted to count us as friends, not just acquaintances. It is what makes friendships last a lifetime.
-Character is an integration of what the greatest minds of antiquity used to called virtues, those powers of mind and will and heart built up through repeated practice:
Prudence
Justice
Fortitude
Temperance
Character to them, is the sum total of these habitual powers joined together in one's personality.
-In more modern day, commonsensical terms:
Prudence: is sound judgment and conscience.
Justice: is a sense of responsibility and fair play.
Fortitude: is courage, persistence, guts.
Temperance: is self-mastery, self-discipline, self-control.
-To this four classical concepts of virtue, we add the other, the heart. This is generosity, magnanimity, charity, a capacity for compassionate understanding and forgiveness.
-When parent bring children into the world, they set out on the greatest, most satisfying adventure of all.
-Clear thought is necessary for any leadership.
-Knowing where you are going helps you know what you are doing, and this builds the courage you need to stick with your mission, no matter what.
-Parents must teach their children the invisible. Conscientious and savvy parents lead their children to know, and live by, those internal, invisible realities that form a great life: honor, integrity, self-mastery, courage, courtesy, dedicated service, sacrificial love, conscience, God, grace, the soul. Great men and women, it seems at moved mostly by what's invisible.
-Before we delve into details of how this is done, we must first stand back and look at the big picture, the why. So we begin by looking at character.
-Character is what each of us is, minus our money and possessions.
-Character is what people admire in us besides our talents and acquired skills.
-Character is what makes people proud and delighted to count us as friends, not just acquaintances. It is what makes friendships last a lifetime.
-Character is an integration of what the greatest minds of antiquity used to called virtues, those powers of mind and will and heart built up through repeated practice:
Prudence
Justice
Fortitude
Temperance
Character to them, is the sum total of these habitual powers joined together in one's personality.
-In more modern day, commonsensical terms:
Prudence: is sound judgment and conscience.
Justice: is a sense of responsibility and fair play.
Fortitude: is courage, persistence, guts.
Temperance: is self-mastery, self-discipline, self-control.
-To this four classical concepts of virtue, we add the other, the heart. This is generosity, magnanimity, charity, a capacity for compassionate understanding and forgiveness.
Saturday, March 9, 2019
Do as I Say not as I do by Peter Schweizer. Quotes II
-The Clintons appear to have repeatedly overstated their charitable contributions.
-The Clintons believe in using the tax code to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor; it's just that they don't have their own wealth in mind.
-In the Clintons' moral universe, their own motives and intentions are always pure. Their adversaries, on the other hand, are animated by selfishness and greed, a conservative disease to which they claim to be immune. Through all the contradictions in their lives, and despite their voluminous reflections on themselves, they seem utterly clueless about their own greed and avarice, all the while continuing to offer unsought advise about how other people can live up to their exalted moral standards.
-On a personal level, Nader may be the spartan moralist he claims to be, avoiding the lavish lifestyles of comrades in arms like Michael Moore. But in the end, he puts his faith in corporations and behaves like a traditional sweatshop boss. Co-ops and unions are great; but when you are trying to create a revolution, you are better off investing in corporations and working your employees to the bone.
-Far from acting in accordance with her professed principles, Pelosi in fact epitomizes the very attitudes and practices she claims to detest.
-Offshore businesses that avoid taxation are a Soros specialty.
-The Hollywood grapevine is filled with stories about how Barbra S. can be to those who work for her. "She was generous in terms of large amounts, he said, but absolutely mean and niggardly about the salaries of the working people she hired".
-While Steinem was writing those words, encouraging young woman to turn their backs on long-term relationships with men, she herself was engaged in a longtime relationship with television writer, producer and musician Blair Chotzinoff.
-Publicly Cornel West criticized middle class blacks for their greed and materialism. Privately, this socialist paragon revealed his true colors when he bought homes in two of Boston's best neighborhoods.
-The Clintons believe in using the tax code to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor; it's just that they don't have their own wealth in mind.
-In the Clintons' moral universe, their own motives and intentions are always pure. Their adversaries, on the other hand, are animated by selfishness and greed, a conservative disease to which they claim to be immune. Through all the contradictions in their lives, and despite their voluminous reflections on themselves, they seem utterly clueless about their own greed and avarice, all the while continuing to offer unsought advise about how other people can live up to their exalted moral standards.
-On a personal level, Nader may be the spartan moralist he claims to be, avoiding the lavish lifestyles of comrades in arms like Michael Moore. But in the end, he puts his faith in corporations and behaves like a traditional sweatshop boss. Co-ops and unions are great; but when you are trying to create a revolution, you are better off investing in corporations and working your employees to the bone.
-Far from acting in accordance with her professed principles, Pelosi in fact epitomizes the very attitudes and practices she claims to detest.
-Offshore businesses that avoid taxation are a Soros specialty.
-The Hollywood grapevine is filled with stories about how Barbra S. can be to those who work for her. "She was generous in terms of large amounts, he said, but absolutely mean and niggardly about the salaries of the working people she hired".
-While Steinem was writing those words, encouraging young woman to turn their backs on long-term relationships with men, she herself was engaged in a longtime relationship with television writer, producer and musician Blair Chotzinoff.
-Publicly Cornel West criticized middle class blacks for their greed and materialism. Privately, this socialist paragon revealed his true colors when he bought homes in two of Boston's best neighborhoods.
Monday, February 25, 2019
Do as I Say not as I do by Peter Schweizer. Quotes.
-Hypocrisy has proved to be a wonderful weapon for liberals in their war against conservatives.
-When Chomsky appears on college campuses, he usually dresses in a rumpled shirt and jacket. He is identified with dozens of left-wing causes and professes to speak for the poor, the oppressed, and the victims of capitalism. But Chomsky is himself a shrewd capitalist, worth millions, with money in the dreaded and evil stock market, and at least one tax haven to cut down on those pesky inheritance taxes that he says are so important.
-Publicly, Michael Moore is a populist crusader who stands up to profit-minded corporations on behalf of workers, women, minorities, and the environment. Privately, he is the consummate capitalist single-mindedly focused on money.
-Franken was simply doing what he had always done, putting people down and making fun of them, whether they were breast cancer survivors, drug addicts, homosexuals, or conservative talk show hosts.
-Ted Kennedy's actions match his words? A closer look at his conduct in private life reveals that this champion of liberal causes is really the king of liberal hypocrites.
-When Chomsky appears on college campuses, he usually dresses in a rumpled shirt and jacket. He is identified with dozens of left-wing causes and professes to speak for the poor, the oppressed, and the victims of capitalism. But Chomsky is himself a shrewd capitalist, worth millions, with money in the dreaded and evil stock market, and at least one tax haven to cut down on those pesky inheritance taxes that he says are so important.
-Publicly, Michael Moore is a populist crusader who stands up to profit-minded corporations on behalf of workers, women, minorities, and the environment. Privately, he is the consummate capitalist single-mindedly focused on money.
-Franken was simply doing what he had always done, putting people down and making fun of them, whether they were breast cancer survivors, drug addicts, homosexuals, or conservative talk show hosts.
-Ted Kennedy's actions match his words? A closer look at his conduct in private life reveals that this champion of liberal causes is really the king of liberal hypocrites.
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Simon Sinek. How to make your life a success. On humility and working as a team
"The biggest lesson I learned, -because I was the boss- is I thought I had to know all the answers and if I didn't I thought I had to pretend I did. And that's stupid.
And what I learned is that just because I may have the top position in the hierarchy, I am not expected to know everything and if I pretend to know everything it diminishes the value of all the great ideas and the great intelligence around me.
And when things got difficult I would never admit it. I would just put on a brave face and show up.
And the biggest lesson I learned was to say I don't know, I don't understand or I need help at any level, about any subject and... amazingly I was always surrounded by people who wanted to help and who knew answers but they never offered to help or offered the answers because they didn't think I needed it because I kept pretending that I knew it all, right? Not to mention the fact that nobody likes a know-it-all...
So that was huge for me and when I was willing to ask for help and accept it when it was offered and sort of accept the humility of the fact that other people know a lot of more about a lot of things than I know... I know one thing... and they know lots of things... that's when things really started to move because we were now a team, that we were actually working together".
And what I learned is that just because I may have the top position in the hierarchy, I am not expected to know everything and if I pretend to know everything it diminishes the value of all the great ideas and the great intelligence around me.
And when things got difficult I would never admit it. I would just put on a brave face and show up.
And the biggest lesson I learned was to say I don't know, I don't understand or I need help at any level, about any subject and... amazingly I was always surrounded by people who wanted to help and who knew answers but they never offered to help or offered the answers because they didn't think I needed it because I kept pretending that I knew it all, right? Not to mention the fact that nobody likes a know-it-all...
So that was huge for me and when I was willing to ask for help and accept it when it was offered and sort of accept the humility of the fact that other people know a lot of more about a lot of things than I know... I know one thing... and they know lots of things... that's when things really started to move because we were now a team, that we were actually working together".
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
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