Quotes from my good friend

​

I've got a good friend who sends out a yearly missive where he shares about the past year, including some quotations that he likes.

​

When I replied back, I shared with him a critique of the quotes that I think are misguided (marked with >>>).

​

The ones I didn't critique, I found no major problem with.

​

The quotes

​​

• Will power is soluble in alcohol, Reality in ideology, Integrity in money.  Unknown

• >>> I disagree with the third one. Often the person with little money has little money because they lack integrity.

​

• The truth doesn't mind being questioned, the lie does.   Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche. 

• You don't have enough information about that to panic.  Unknown

• “You cannot save anyone. You can be present with them, offer your groundedness, your sanity, your peace. You can even share your path with them, offer your perspective. But you cannot take away their pain. You cannot walk their path for them. You cannot give answers that are right for them, or even answers they can digest right now. They will have to find their own answer."   Jeff Foster

• >>> Although I would not call it “saving someone,” I disagree with “or even answers they can digest right now.” As a life coach I often do that, asking them if my suggestion fits for them. Waiting for them to find their own answer is sometimes the hard way.

​

• Three clergy  were debating when life begins. One argued at the moment of conception, another when the first breath is drawn. The Rabbi said, Life begins when your children leave home.   Unknown.

• "The older I get, the more clearly I remember things that never happened.  Mark Twain

• "We don’t grow older, we grow riper." Pablo Picasso

• “Everything slows down with age, except for the time it takes cake and ice cream to reach your hips.” – John Wagner

•  "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.”  Sir Ken Robinson

• You are both the leaf and the wind.  Alan Watts

• When ignorance screams, intelligence moves on.  Unknown

• I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own interests.  Susan B. Anthony

• >>> Since I have coached many people who think they know what God wants, I often find that they think He wants them to sacrifice for others…so, in this regard, what Susan says is often not true.

 

• Don't wait for the storm to pass, learn to dance in the rain. Vivian Greene

• When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. -- Maya Angelou

• All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but when the fraud is exposed, they must rely exclusively on force. George Orwell

• When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.  llya Pigogine, Nobel Prize winning chemist

• In the next civil war, the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon, but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.  Ulysses S. Grant, 1875

• No plan survives first contact with the enemy.   Carl von Clausewitz, possibly others.

• We build too many walls and not enough bridges. - Sir Isaac Newton

• >>> I’m not sure what Newton would say about “keeping good boundaries” with others and staying out of others’ business?

 

• You will continue to suffer if you allow your emotions to be a reflection of everything you hear. True power lies in observing with logic in maintaining restraint. Words only have the control you give them. If they control you, anyone can control you. Take a deep breath and let what doesn't matter just go.  Bruce Lee

• Observe don't absorb.  Unknown

• Choose to be optimistic. It feels better. Dalai Lama

• >>> Yes, it can feel better at the beginning. But if you’re optimistic because you’re setting up expectations without acknowledging the risk, then you’re upset waiting to happen.

 

• Emotions should never dictate policy.  Tom Nichols, ATLANTIC

• If your version of American history is completely positive with all the negative parts white-washed away, then it's not history; it's propaganda.  Unknown.

• We don't know what this life will bring, so it is what we bring to life that matters. Patricia Campbell Carlson.

​

With love and thanks to my good friend Tom