thought for today

Russell Lincoln Ackoff: Common sense

“Common sense has the very curious property of being more correct retrospectively than prospectively, it seems to me that one of the principal criteria to be applied to successful projects is that its results are almost always obvious retrospectively; unfortunately, they seldom are successful prospectively.
Common sense provides a kind of ultimate validation after the work; after the project has completed its work; it seldom anticipates what the work is going to discover.”
— Russell Lincoln Ackoff.

Summer Sanders: Big picture

“To be a champion, I think you have to see the big picture. Its not about winning and losing, its about every day hard work and about thriving on a challenge. Its about embracing the pain that you’ll experience at the end of a race and not being afraid. I think people think too hard and get afraid of a certain challenge.”

—Summer Sanders.

Abraham Lincoln: With malice toward none

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.“
—Abraham Lincoln.

Josh Hutcherson: Love as motivator

“Once you have love as a motivator in a story, your character is free to do anything. Once you say the character is in love, he can do the craziest thing that nobody would do who’s not in love. Once you’re in love, you have that excuse to go and do whatever you want.”

—Josh Hutcherson.

Calvin Coolidge: Persistence

‘Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The slogan “Press On!” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.’
― Calvin Coolidge.

Ivo Andric: Bridges

“From everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living, nothing in my eyes is better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings and they do not serve for anything secret or bad.”

—Ivo Andric.

Frank Herbert: Fear

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

—Frank Herbert.

Dwight D Eisenhower: Followers

“In order to be a leader, a man (or woman) must have followers. And to have followers a man (or woman) must have their confidence. Hence, the supreme quality of a leader is unquestionably integrity. without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office. If a man’s associates find him guilty of being phony, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. The first great need, therefore, is integrity and high purpose.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower.