Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
The disappointment is great. Nobody is speaking in the dressing room. The players are crying.
Once in a while we put a lot of effort into not making anything. It’s an exercise in loss.
When I tell you how to get food ready for eating, I won’t use just a cold mathematical formula to help you put it on your table. I’ll be telling you how to prepare it like a man who’s talking to you right over your kitchen stove.
When I went to high school I had a teacher, in the arts, who was head of the department of Central High, William Grey, and he gave a course in Architecture, the only course in any high school I am sure, in Greek, Roman, Renaissance, Egyptian, and Gothic Architecture, and at that point two of my colleagues and myself realized that only Architecture was to be my life. How accidental our existences are, really, and how full of influence by circumstance.
He called her later that day, catching her just before she went to bed. “Good night my love,” he said. “I look forward to sleeping next to you again.” She would use the exact same words at his funeral, 11 days later.
I admire machinery as much as any man, and am as thankful to it as any man can be for what it does for us. But, it will never be a substitute for the face of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and true.
Charles Dickens
[…] until the wise among men have again become happy in their folly and the poor happy in their wealth.