Useful Quotations on Success

31 March 201316 April 2020 ~ MD Harris Institute ~ Leave a comment

Pithy Prose for Politicians, Preachers, Professors, Pundits, and Public Speakers.

If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always be where you’ve always been. Anon

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing. Dale Carnegie

Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts. Winston Churchill

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. Bill Cosby

Try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value. Albert Einstein

Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success. Henry Ford

Heroes are made in the hour of defeat. Success is, therefore, well described as a series of glorious defeats. Mohandas K. Gandhi

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing. Abraham Lincoln

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will. Vince Lombardi

There is only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give it everything. Vince Lombardi

I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom. General George S. Patton

The past does not equal the future. Anthony Robbins

“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it” Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

The fame you earn has a different taste from the fame that is forced upon you. Gloria Vanderbilt

“There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

The Financial Crisis and the Concentration of Financial Power

31 March 201316 April 2020 ~ MD Harris Institute ~ Leave a comment

Power of all types must be diffused throughout society, because no person or entity can be trusted with too much of it.

One of the most troubling realizations during the financial meltdown of 2008 was that some companies were “too big to fail”. Chrysler and General Motors were “too big to fail” because of their strategic importance to American industry and because of the thousands of jobs that would be lost if they collapsed. So they received billions in taxpayer money. Remarkably, Ford Motor Company, just as big, in the same industry, the same environment and also threatening thousands of jobs, did not need government assistance.

Big financial companies, including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Bear Sterns, Wachovia, American International Group, and others were also considered too big to fail. The fear was that if they failed, so much confidence would be lost in the financial system that markets would implode. As a result the Bush and later Obama administrations did some legal ledgermain to merge companies and sank hundreds of billions of dollars into these entities. Individual taxpayers, home owners and account holders got a shakedown. While the blame for the crisis belongs throughout our society, from greedy lenders to irresponsible borrowers, the pain hit us all, including many who never deserved it.

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On Disagreements

23 December 20129 October 2023 ~ MD Harris Institute ~ Leave a comment

How to disagree with others but maintain a good relationship with them, and minimize disagreements in the future.

By Mark D. Harris

Last night my family and I hosted a party for our children’s friends, about 30 kids from elementary school through high school. Our daughter and two of her high school friends who are all home from college were here as all. After the party, our family and Anna’s friends, Megan and Jamie, watched the 1947 movie Miracle on 34^th Street, a perennial Christmas favorite. Megan had seen the movie at our house the year before and loved it. Like most young millennials in our experience, Jamie rarely watched old movies and hadn’t seen it. We all hoped that Jamie would enjoy the film, just as we had when Megan watched it the year before, but between texting and stepping away, I feared that she would miss the subtleties that make many old movies so good. As the courtroom scene reached its climax, Jamie became more and more engaged. At the end, with a smile a mile wide, she said that it was a terrific movie.

When others don’t like what we like

We all want others to enjoy the things that we enjoy, because doing such things together brings us together as people. Friends who like Chinese food, baseball games, and reading Shakespeare will enjoy doing these things together, making them more fun for all and building their relationships. People who have little or nothing in common will not likely be friends, or stay friends for long.

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“Haves and have nots” or “Do and do nots?”

23 September 201210 October 2023 ~ MD Harris Institute ~ Leave a comment

Our acrimonious political debates often center on class struggle, those who “have” against those who “have not.” Perhaps the conflict is really between those who “do”, who contribute to wider society, and those who “do not,” who take without giving.

The 2012 Presidential Election campaign is in its final weeks, and while one candidate seems to relish contrasting the “haves and have nots”, the other candidate recently implied that the real division is between the “do and do nots.” One group seems to boil with resentment against those who they perceive have more than they do. Another group seems to boil with resentment against those who they perceive do less than they do. Is either narrative accurate? Are both narratives accurate but incomplete? The debate is not limited to candidates or even parties; large swaths of the American population seem to feel the same way. The structure of the human body can shed light on these questions.

The human body

The human body is made of billions of cells, the building blocks of life. The cells are fundamentally the same, including parts such as the nucleus, the cytoplasm, the mitochondria, and the cell membrane. There is also diversity amidst the unity, with cells of hundreds of types and functions, including muscle cells, bone cells, hormone secreting cells, nerve cells, skin cells, fat cells, and many others. They are arrayed in a system of incredible complexity, and work together with precision to accomplish the purposes of the body. The human body is a truly magnificent creation.