When people choose between talk about the past and talk about the future, a pragmatic person will always opt for the future and forget the past.
But I don’t consider history to be a field. It’s just all the stuff that’s happened so far. You have to call it a field so people who study what happened in the past can get a job teaching blank. But it doesn’t seem to me that it’s a subject.
The infecting-character type is not restricted to women; it has nothing to do with gender.
You do not belong to you. You belong to the Universe. Your significance will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your job if you apply yourself to converting your experiences to the advantage of others.
By taking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack. Instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp, keep yourself adaptable and on the move. Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed. The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water; never bet on stability or lasting order. Everything changes.
Self absorption is anti-seductive; it is a sign of insecurity.
You want to retain the elasticity of spirit you had as a child, interested in everything, while retaining the hard-nosed need to verify and scrutinize for yourself all ideas and beliefs.
In the realm of power, you must ask yourself, what is the point of chasing here and there, trying to solve problems and defeat my enemies, if I never feel in control?
This means that you yourself are largely the agent of anything bad that happens to you. With more prudence, wiser policies, and greater vision, you could have avoided the danger. So when something goes wrong, look deep into yourself – not in an emotional way, to blame yourself or indulge your feelings of guilt, but to make sure that you start your next campaign with a firmer step and greater vision.
When we are tired, it is often because we are bored. When no real challenge faces us, a mental and physical lethargy sets in. “Sometimes death only comes from a lack of energy,” Napoleon once said, and lack of energy comes from a lack of challenges, comes when we have taken on less than we are capable of.
I got very good on the telephone tricks too. Like calling up a company and find out that the plant was going to building a new addition and getting hold of the engineering office and getting the secretary to give me the direct extension.
Be like vapor. Do not give your opponents anything solid to attack; watch as they exhaust themselves pursuing you, trying to cope with your elusiveness. Only formlessness allows you to truly surprise your enemies – by the time they figure out where you are and what you are up to, it is too late.
Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive.
Once envy reveals itself for what it is, the only solution is often to flee the presence of the enviers, leaving them to stew in a hell of their own creation.
The fetish is an object that commands an emotional response and that makes us breathe life into it. Because it is an object we can imagine whatever we want to about it.
We live in a world that seems increasingly beyond our control. Our livelihoods are at the whim of globalized forces. The problems that we face – economic, environmental, and so on – cannot be solved by our individual actions.
On July 2, 1960, a few weeks before that year’s Democratic National Convention, former President Harry Truman publicly stated that John F Kennedy – who had won enough delegates to be chosen his party’s candidate for the presidency – was too young and inexperienced for the job.
Money must circulate to bring power.
Power cannot accrue to those who squander their treasure of words.
Once it is solid, do not let yourself get angry or defensive at the slanderous comments of your enemies – that reveals insecurity, not confidence in your reputation.