A Few (More) Words From...Demosthenes

"'Well', some you may say, 'why tell us this now?'  Because, men of Athens, I want you to know and realize two things:  first, what an expensive game it is to squander your interests one by one; and secondly, the restless activity which is ingrained in Philip's nature (Philip II of Macedon, 382-336 B.C.), and which makes it impossible for him ever to rest on his laurels.  But if Philip adopts the principle that he ought always to be improving his position, and you the principle of never facing your difficulties resolutely, just reflect what is likely to be the end of it all.  Seriously, is anyone here so foolish as not to see that our negligence will transfer the war for Chalcidice to Attica?  Yet, if that comes to pass, I am afraid, men of Athens, that just as men who borrow money recklessly at high interest enjoy a temporary accommodation only to forfeit their estates in the end, so we may find that we have paid a heavy price for indolence, and because we consult our own pleasure in everything, may hereafter come to be forced to do many of the difficult things for which we had no liking, and may finally endanger our possessions in Athens itself."  - First Olynthic

"You cannot, I suppose, have a proud and chivalrous spirit, if your conduct is mean and paltry, any more than your spirit can be mean and humble, if your conduct is honourable and glorious; for whatever a man's pursuits are, such must be his spirit." - On Organization

"For there would have been no changes for better or worse in the fortune of states, had it not been that a nation in peril is guided to safety by good policy, good laws, and good citizens and by the observance of order in all things, but in the case of a nation that seems established in perfect prosperity, all these things, being neglected, slip away little by little.  For most men achieve prosperity by planning soundly and by despising nothing; but they do not take the trouble to guard it by the same means.  Let not this mistake be yours today, and do not think that you ought to ratify a law which will taint the reputation of our city in the time of her prosperity and, if ever a crisis comes, will leave her destitute of those who would be willing to do her service." - Against Leptines

"It is not right, Athenians, to cite the laws of the Lacedaemonians or of the Thebans in order to undermine the laws established here; it is not right that you should want to put a man to death for transplanting to Athens any of the institutions that have made those nations great, and yet lend a willing ear to those who propose to destroy the institutions under which our democracy has flourished."              - Against Leptines

A Few Words From...Tides Of War

Last week, overtaken by a nostalgia for The Peloponnesian War (who is not, from time to time), I re-picked up Steven Pressfield's Tides of War, which is a fictional history of the war as seen through the life of the Athenian Alcibiades.  Pressfield, if you have not read him, is an amazing author - his Gates of Fire, which is a fictional account of the Battle of Thermopylae, may be the best historical fiction I have ever read.

In re-reading him, I was re-confronted with a number of quotes, really about leadership and the state.  They are presented in no particular order - given the last time I read the book (2-3 years ago) and the current state of the world, they seem even more poignant in some cases.

"Men hate nothing worse than that mirror held before them whose reflection displays their own failure to prove worthy of themselves."

"The man of the land," Grandfather rejoined, "is in the business of peace, he of the city in the service of war."

"A commander's role is to model arete, excellence, before his men.  One need not thrash them to greatness; only hold it out before them.  They will be compelled by their own nature to emulate it."

"Man's predicament is that he dwells as the intersection of Necessity and free will."

"Always assign a man more than he believes himself capable of.  Make him rise to the occasion.  In this way you compel him to discover fresh resources, both in himself and others of his command, thus enlarging the capacity of each, while binding all beneath the exigencies of risk and glory."

"As we seek to make our enemies own their defeat at our hands, so we must make our friends own their victories. The less you give a man, and have him succeed, the more he draws his achievement to his heart.  Remember we may elevate the (Athenian) fleet in two ways only.  By acquiring better men or making those we have better.  Even were the former practicable, I would disdain it, for  a hired man may hire out to another master but a man who makes himself master stays loyal forever."

"The prophet perceive truth, Pericles, but the politician brings it into manifestation, for his countrymen and often in the face of their bitter opposition."

"How lead free men?  Only by this means:  the summoning of each to his nobility."

A Few More (More) Words From...Gene Logsdon

 "If parsnips could talk or write, they could provide us with a formula for how to attain life everlasting in the garden, if not elsewhere.  In an interview, Mr. Parsnip would have plenty of advice, honed by centuries of survival.

"First, cultivate an independent kind of ornery reliability that will draw admiration from everyone, except maybe politicians and church authorities who want their subjects to stand before them with bowed heads in abject dependence.   Learn how to survive in winter in frozen ground, or for you humans, how to survive economic recession in comfort.  We parsnips not only know how to endure frozen soil, but how to taste better because of it.  Then make sure your seed will drop and sprout of its own accord if necessary to guarantee something close to perpetual life.

Second, develop a distinctive personality like we parsnips do, with a taste only appreciated by the few rather than by the many.  You want to appeal to the discerning minority, not the herd-like majority, which is always susceptible to the moneychangers.  If you are too desirable a plant, the gene manipulators will bioengineer you into oblivion.

Third, don't try to look too pretty in public.  Everybody is dressing up fancy these days, so if you follow suit (no pun intended), you'll just be ignored.  Or worse, you will be asked to head up a fund-raiser.  If you look sort of bony, weathered, and wrinkled, like us parsnips, some master chef will get interested and make you famous."

- "The Parsnip Way To Everlasting Life", Gene Everlasting

A Few Words From....Sakai Yusai

"The message I wish to convey is, please, live each day as if it is your entire life.  If you start something today, finish it today; tomorrow is another world.  Live life positively."

- Sakai Yusai, Daigyoman Ajari (Saintly Master of Higher Practice), Monastery of Mt. Hiei, Kyoto, Japan

A Few Words From..Ol' Remus

“Middle class America is no less violent than any other people. They seem passive because they’re results oriented. They rise not out of blood frenzy but to solve the otherwise insoluble. Their methods of choice are good will, cooperation, forbearance, negotiation and finally, appeasement, roughly in that order. Only when these fail to end the abuse do they revert to blowback. And they do so irretrievably. Once the course is set and the outcome defined, doubt is put aside. The middle class is known, condemned actually, for carrying out violence with the efficiency of an industrial project where bloody destruction at any scale is not only in play, it’s a metric. Remorse is left for the next generation, they’ll have the leisure for it. We’d like to believe this is merely dark speculation. History says it isn’t.” – The Late Ol’ Remus

(Hat Tip:  Survival Blog)

(And we do dearly miss him and his wisdom.  Rest well, friend.)

A Few Words From...Étienne de la Boétie,

 Hat tip to Survival Blog.  This is simply too good not to share.

“Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good! You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as your own; and it would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your property, your families, and your very lives. 

All this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon you not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as powerful as he is, for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death. He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands, only one body, no more than is possessed by the least man among the infinite numbers dwelling in your cities; he has indeed nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you. Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you? What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you were not traitors to yourselves? 

You sow your crops in order that he may ravage them, you install and furnish your homes to give him goods to pillage; you rear your daughters that he may gratify his lust; you bring up your children in order that he may confer upon them the greatest privilege he knows — to be led into his battles, to be delivered to butchery, to be made the servants of his greed and the instruments of his vengeance; you yield your bodies unto hard labor in order that he may indulge in his delights and wallow in his filthy pleasures; you weaken yourselves in order to make him the stronger and the mightier to hold you in check. 

From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.” – Étienne de la Boétie, Discours de la servitude volontaire (The Politics of Obedience)

A Few Words From...Demosthenes

"Virtue?  You runnagate; what have you or your family to do with virtue?  How do you distinguish between good and evil report?  Where and how did you qualify as a  moralist?  Where did you get your right to talk about education?  No really educated man would use such language about himself, but would rather blush to hear it from others; but people like you, who make stupid pretensions to the culture of which they are utterly destitute, succeed in disgusting everybody whenever they open their lips, but never in making the impression they desire" - "On The Crown", 330 B.C.

"...that a democracy is the most unstable and capricious thing in the world, like a restless wave of the sea ruffled by the breeze as chance will have it.  One man comes, another goes; no one attends to, or even remembers, the common weal." - "On The Embassy", 343 B.C.

(Demosthenes Practicing Oratory, Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouy)

A Few (More) Words From...Theodore Roosevelt

A Few Words From...William J.H.Boetcker

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.

You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.

You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.

And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

- William J.H. Boetcker (1873 -1962)

Yet A Few (More) Words from...Benjamin Franklin

A Few Words From...Johnny Cash

"The things that have always been important: to be a good man, to try to live my life the way God would have me, to turn it over to Him that His will might be worked in my life, to do my work without looking back, to give it all I've got, and to take pride in my work as an honest performer."

A Few (More) Words From...Benjamin Franklin

“When you incline to have new clothes, look first well over the old ones, and see if you cannot shift with them another year, either by scouring, mending, or even patching if necessary. Remember, a patch on your coat, and money in your pocket, is better and more creditable, than a writ on your back, and no money to take it off.”

(Hat Tip:  Survival Blog)

A Few Words From...Alexis De Tocqueville

"I am tempted to believe that what we call necessary institutions are no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.  In matters of social constitution, the field of possibilities is much more extensive than men living in their various societies are ready to imagine."

A Few Words From...William James

"I have always thought that the best way to define a man's character is to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensively active and alive.  At such moments, there is a voice inside which speaks and says 'This is the real me'."

A Few Words From..Diogenes

A Few Words From....Henry David Thoreau

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away."

(Hat Tip:  Survivalblog.com)

A Few Words from...Jerry Pournelle

"By the 1960's, the authorities could write that peace was more important than law.  Enforcement of international law was entrusted to the United Nations - whose charter stated that no power could interfere in the internal affairs of another, and made self defense the only reason for resorting to force.

A small country could seize the property of a great power; murder her citizens, defy every contract and convention; and the authorities would gravely announce that the Great Power had no right to take military action.   The powers could only sue before a court that could not enforce its judgments.

Pretty soon, nobody paid much attention to international law."

- "Enforcer", High Justice (1974)

"As he went through the rather dingy corridors Enoch thought about Alden.  Incomprehensible, like all Americans.  The whole country seemed to have a collective guilt complex about its past successes.  The world struggled after the impossible goal of obtaining a way of life that Americans had achieved, while the Americans grimly hung onto what they had and covered themselves with self reproach.  Incomprehensible people, all of them."

- "Enforcer, High Justice (1974)

A Few Words From...Charlton Heston

A Few Words From...Thomas Jefferson

“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.” 

(HT:  Survival Blog)

A Few (More) Words from Yamaoka Tesshu

"Do not desire money,

do not depend on empty principles,

do not seek fame:

just go with what you have

and you will pass safely through this world."