True Freedom

We don't begin to know what [true] freedom is until we come to a place in our lives where we have no need to impress anybody. - Joyce Meyer

Who is African?

"We are Africans not because we are born in Africa, but because Africa is born in us."
- Chester Higgins Jr. 

The tide of leadership

"Everything rises and falls on leadership" - John C. Maxwell

The wealthiest spot on earth

"The wealthiest spot on this planet is not the oil fields of Kuwait, Iraq, or Saudi Arabia. Neither is it the gold nor diamond mines of South Africa, the uranium mines of the Soviet Union or the silver mines of Africa. Though it may surprise you, the richest deposits on our planet lie just a few blocks from your house. They rest in your local cemetery or graveyard. Buried beneath the soil within the walls of those sacred grounds are dreams that never came to pass, songs that were never sung, books that were never written, paintings that never filled a canvas, ideas that were never shared, visions that never became reality, inventions that were never designed, plans that never went beyond the drawing board of the mind and purposes that were never fulfilled. Our graveyards are filled with potential that remained potential." -- Dr. Myles Munroe

Explanations

"I don't understand," said Thorin, and Bilbo felt he would have liked to say the same. The explanation did not seem to explain.

-- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

The most important thing in communication

"The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.'' - Peter F. Drucker

Keep on Dreamin'

It must be borne in mind that the tragedy in life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin.

- Dr. Benjamin E. Mays

Great it is to dream the dream...

Great it is to dream the dream
when you stand in youth by the starry stream.
But a greater thing is to fight life through
and say at the end, "The dream is true!"
- John Osteen

Arthur C. Clarke's Epitaph

Arthur C. Clarke (16 December 1917 - 19 March 2008) is one of my favourite scientists and science fiction authors. He died and is buried in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where the epitaph on his gravestone reads:

Here rests 

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke

He never grew up,
but he never stopped growing

The purpose of a team

The purpose of an organization [or a team] is to make the strengths of people productive and their weaknesses irrelevant.


- Peter F. Drucker

The soul of an advertisement

Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement. 

- Samuel Johnson, The Idler, No. 40 (Saturday, January 20, 1759)

The Wisdom of Couplets

Search the parks in all your cities,
Youʼll find no statues of committees.

Useless Efficiency

"There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all."
- Peter F. Drucker, "Managing for Business Effectiveness", Harvard Business Review, May 1963. (Full excerpt available from Google Books.)

Economical with the Truth

Thomas J. Sargent's speech at the Nobel Banquet on 10 December 2011 was economical with the truth in the very BEST senses of that phrase:

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Chris Sims and I thank you for recognizing the many women and men like us who use statistics and economic theory to understand how governments and markets can improve peoples' lives. I state 7 practical lessons taught by my beautiful subject, which investigates the consequences of time and chance and cooperation and competition and foresight and incentives.

1. Many things that are desirable are not feasible.

2. There are tradeoffs between equality and efficiency.

3. Other people have more information about their abilities, their efforts, and their preferences than you do.

4. Everyone responds to incentives, including people you want to help. That is why social safety nets don't always work as intended.

5. When a government spends, its citizens eventually pay, either today or tomorrow, either through explicit taxes or implicit ones like inflation and defaults on debts.

6. Most people want other people to pay for public goods and government transfers (especially transfers to themselves).

7. It is feasible for one generation to shift costs to subsequent ones. National government debts and the U.S. social security system do that (but not the social security system of Singapore).

Knowledge and Wisdom

"There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit not a vegetable. Wisdom is knowing not to include it in a fruit salad."
- Anonymous

Opportunities

“We pass through this world but once and the opportunities you miss will never be available to you again.”
- Nelson Mandela

Who is Keyser Soze?

From The Usual Suspects:

Verbal (Kevin Spacey): Who was Keyser Soze?

Verbal (Kevin Spacey): He's supposed to be Turkish. Some say his father was German. Nobody ever believed he was real. Nobody ever knew him or saw anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Soze. You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. [...] and like that, poof, he's gone. Underground. Nobody's ever seen him since. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night: "Rat on your pop and Keyser Soze will get you." And no one ever really believes.

Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri): Do you believe in him Verbal?

Verbal (Kevin Spacey): Keaton always said: "I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of Him." Well I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze.

Tactics vs Strategy

Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do, strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do.

– Savielly Tartakower

Truth and Falsehood

"Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?"
- John Milton, Areopagitica

The indomitable spirit

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.
- Maya Angelou