“It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously…”— H. L. Mencken, amazon.com
“The facts and techniques or whatever they teach you in class isn't going to be very useful in the real world, that's for sure.”— Haruki Murakami, amazon.com
“Things don't always work out the way we want.”— Kristine Huntley, Natalie Callaway, Aislinn Paul, imdb.com
“[Marcus Aurelius] used people for the tasks they excelled at and praised them for it. Used to say it was impossible to make men as we would like them to be but was fitting to use them where they were useful.”— Pierre Hadot, Cassius Dio, amazon.com
“It's easy to think about flipping an obstacle or steely your emotion. Just like it's easy to learn any technique but remember, things look a lot dirtier in execution than in practice or on paper. The Stoics have a saying: 'Don't go expecting Plato's Republic.'”— Epicurus, amazon.com
“It's like weaving: the weaver doesn't make the wool, he makes use of whatever wool he's given. God gives you food and property and can take them back–your body too. Work with the material you are given.”— Epicurus, amazon.com
“The greatness of Zemurray lies in the fact that he never lost faith in his ability to salvage a situation. Bad things happen to him as bad things happen to everyone, but unlike so many, he was never tempted by failure. He never felt powerless or trapped. He was, as I said, an optimist. He stood in c…”— Rich Cohen, amazon.com
“When Zemurray didn't get permission to build a bridge... he built long piers on both sides and ran a flotation device between them.”— Rich Cohen, amazon.com
“In the Banana War with United Fruit, there was a dispute over who owned 5k acres of crucial land. UF spent months with lawyers investigating who owned it. Zemurray simply bought it from both claimants: He paid more yes, and got his hands a little dirty, but he won. And he saved time and trouble. And…”— Rich Cohen, amazon.com
“Guys like Zemurray see the problem and the solution at the same time. What are we trying to do here?”— Rich Cohen, amazon.com
“I have very few negotiations where I pound the table and say this is what I am going to pay... It's much more important to negotiate what we're going to get for the money.”— John Skipper, bloomberg.com
“I concluded it was better to make a rule for the practical matter in hand than to decide a general question.”— Abraham Lincoln, amazon.com
“[On Lincoln] No man has ever distinguished more carefully between 'is' and 'ought to be.'”— Robert Penn Warren, amazon.com