Miscellaneous Musings

Commentaries dealing with a variety of issues that are not readily the subject of any other category in this blog can be found herein.

1.  Things to Keep in Mind

Things to Keep In Mind

by Skip Keyser

There are any number of things that one ought to keep in mind.  Essentially these can be categorized as Things to Always Do, as Things to Never Do, and as Things to Remember.  Where known, attribution is in [brackets].

Things to always do:

• Always take notes.  [Vergerio]
• Observe everything: admire nothing.
• Rarely resist the opportunity to keep your mouth shut.

Things to never do:

• Never apologize; never explain.  [Lord Acton]
• Never suffer fools gladly.
• Never wrestle with a pig: you both get dirty and the pig likes it.
• Never argue with an idiot: bystanders may not be able to tell the difference.
• Never insult an alligator until after you have crossed the river.  [Cordell Hull]
• Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.  [Babe Ruth]
• Never look back - unless you intend to go that way.
• Never have a philosophy that supports a lack of courage.

Things to remember:

• Truth is not half way between right and wrong.  [Robert Reich]
• Life is not a rehearsal.
• Legally permissible is not synonymous with morally acceptable.
• If you don’t want to hear the answer, don’t ask the question.
• In the fight between you and the world - back the world.  [Franz Kafka]
• You are one of those who can be fooled some of the time.  [Laurence J. Peter]
• It’s sometimes easier to obtain forgiveness than permission.
• Pigs get fat; hogs get slaughtered.
• The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that is the way to bet.  [Damon Runyon]
• The unexamined idea isn’t worth dying for.
• Tomorrow is promised to no one.
• It is very difficult to forecast, especially about the future. 
• What you see depends on what you look for.
• When your work speaks for itself, try not to interrupt.  [Henry J. Kaiser]
• You can manage inventory; you have to lead people.
• Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.  [Agnes Allen]
• Any fool can make a rule - and every fool will mind it.  [Henry David Thoreau]
• Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.  [James Michener]
• Morality is its own advocate; it is never necessary to apologize for it.  [Edith L. Harrell]
• There is no safety in numbers - nor in anything else.  [James Thurber]
• Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.  [Harry Emerson Fosdick]
• When one is out of touch with oneself, one cannot touch others.  [Anne Morrow Lindbergh]
• There is no distance on this earth so far away as yesterday.  [Robert Nathan]
• Generalized Iceberg Theorem: Seven-eighths of everything can’t be seen.
• A valuable talent is never using several words when a few will do.  Thomas Jefferson
• An opinion can be argued with; a conviction is best shot.  [Col. T. E. Lawrence]
• Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.  [James Russell Lowell]
• Don’t get mad; get even.  [Senator Everett Dirksen]
• Don’t hesitate to ask what you may consider to be dumb questions.  Dumb questions are a lot easier to handle than dumb mistakes.
• Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.  [Thomas Jones]
• Good management consists of the radical idea that people ought to be treated considerately.
• He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass.  [Edgar R. Fiedler]
• Honesty is sometimes difficult to live with, but it’s impossible to live without.
• If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.
• If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.  [Derek Bok]
• If you want a new idea, read an old book.
• Let the other fellow find out who you are.  He’ll remember it longer.  [The Wall Street Journal]
• Nature will tell you a direct lie if she can.  [Charles Darwin]
• Observe the hole theory: when you’re in one, stop digging.
• Science is truth: don’t be misled by facts.