Bailouts and Begging
It is only the poor who are forbidden to beg.
It is only the poor who are forbidden to beg.
You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
— Jeannette Rankin
First woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives
I have always loved to collect intangible things. One of my favorites collections consists of opening lines of great novels. Who can forget “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . ” Other greats include “Who is John Galt?” Or “Howard Rork laughed.” My all-time favorite opening line comes from Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides: “My wound is geography.”
But lo, I digress. By far my largest stash of immaterial things are the countless quotes, words of wisdom, poems, and pithy sayings I have collected over the years. I have a library card catalog filled with hand written 3×5 cards with quotes accumulated from the days before computers had entered my life. In the intervening years I have made several vain attempts to catalog my precious to no avail. The first installment came and went in a HyperCard stack that is long gone. A Microsoft Access database of pearls of wisdom sits unused on an old Windows machine somewhere in the house. …
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
— William Shakespeare
I memorized this quote in grade 10 English class. Funny how some things stay with you forever.
I started with nothing and I still have most of it left.
— Unknown
If you are going through hell, keep going.
— Winston Churchill
Whatever you’re doing now is just a stepping-stone to the next project or adventure. Any rut you get into is one you can get yourself out of.
— Timothy Ferriss, 4-Hour Work Week