“No two countries that both had McDonald’s

had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald’s” 

Thomas L. Friedman:  Lexus and the Olive Tree,  1999

Buckminster Fuller

Richard Buckminster Fuller ( July 12, 1895, Milton, MA, US – July 1, 1983, Los Angeles, CA, US) .

   In 1927, at age 32, Fuller lost his job as president of Stockade Building Systems, a business which aimed to provide affordable, efficient housing. The Fuller family had no savings, and during the autumn of 1927, Fuller contemplated suicide by drowning in Lake Michigan, so that his family could benefit from a life insurance payment. Fuller said that he had experienced a profound incident which would provide direction and purpose for his life. He felt as though he was suspended several feet above the ground enclosed in a white sphere of light. A voice spoke directly to Fuller, and declared:

"From now on you need never await temporal attestation to your thought. You think the truth. You do not have the right to eliminate yourself. You do not belong to you. You belong to Universe. Your significance will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your role if you apply yourself to converting your experiences to the highest advantage of others." In 1927 Fuller resolved to think independently which included a commitment to "finding ways of doing more with less to the end that all people everywhere can have more and more"
   Fuller taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina during the summers of 1948 and 1949, serving as its Summer Institute director in 1949.  At Black Mountain, with the support of a group of professors and students, he began reinventing a project that would make him famous: the geodesic dome. 

 The Montreal Biosphère, formerly the American Pavilion of Expo 67, by R. Buckminster Fuller

Although the geodesic dome had been created, built and awarded a German patent on June 19, 1925 by Dr. Walther Bauersfeld, Fuller was awarded United States patents. Fuller neglected to cite that the self supporting dome had already been built some 26 years prior in his patent applications. Although Fuller undoubtedly popularized this type of structure he is mistakenly given credit for its design.

Fuller believed human societies would soon rely mainly on renewable sources of energy, such as solar- and wind-derived electricity. He hoped for an age of "omni-successful education and sustenance of all humanity".

2016-2017

Fortune cannot aid those who do nothing.

Sophocles (496 BC-406 BC)

I never reasoned on what I should do, but what I had done; as if my Reason had her eyes behind, and could only see backwards.

Henry Fielding (1707-1754)

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

Here is true immorality: ignorance and stupidity; the devil is nothing but this.

Gustave Flaubert(1821-1880)

Buy an annuity cheap, and make your life interesting to yourself and everybody else that watches the speculation.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

1-12 2015

Honest people don't hide their deeds. 
Emily Bronte (1818-1848) 
The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worth dying for.
Homer (900 BC-800 BC)
 I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
 Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
 And come he slow, or come he fast, It is but death who comes at last.
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

If the market is going your way, you'll never have enough on. If the market's going against you, you'll always have too many!

Richard H. Hoagland, 40 year floor trader.
If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
Michael Jordan
People who dream of starting their own business should realize that success will not depend upon the size of the business or the size of the bankroll, says Leonard M. Greene, author of Inventorship: The Art of Innovation (John Wiley & Sons): “Not having a lot of money at the beginning can even be an advantage. Beginners with much capital often don't know how to use it properly.”
Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

The prayers of cowards fortune spurns. 
Ovid

From Work Like Your Dog Fifty Ways to Work Less, Play More, and Earn More by Matt Weinstein and Luke Barber (Villard) "A new motto for the 21st century employee might well be: Be funny, make money. There is a direct correlation between having fun on the job and being more productive. Successful companies are learning to hire, reward and promote individuals who bring a sense of play to their work.”

In fact, now I come to think of it, do we decide questions, at all? We decide answers, no doubt: but surely the questions decide us? It is the dog, you know, that wags the tail—not the tail that wags the dog.
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Objectivity and justice have nothing to do with one another.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.

Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)
There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.
George Eliot (1819-1880)
Let your hook be always cast. In the pool where you least expect it, will be fish. Ovid
How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.
John F. Kennedy(1917-1963)

The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

1-12, 2014

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

Evil companions bring more hurt than profit.
Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)

He who blinded by ambition, raises himself to a position whence he cannot mount higher, must thereafter fall with the greatest loss.
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Silence is the virtue of fools.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
  
The greatness of a society and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
Gandhi

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)

Children have a natural antipathy to books--handicraft should be the basis of education. Boys and girls should be taught to use their hands to make something, and they would be less apt to destroy and be mischievous.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Don't tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Einstein’s  last interview

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.  
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930 

There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, and the third is useless.
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) 

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
George Eliot (1819-1880)

Men often bear little grievances with less courage than they do large misfortunes.
Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)

The ultimate in disposing one's troops is to be without ascertainable shape. Then the most penetrating spies cannot pry in nor can the wise lay plans against you.
Sun Tzu (544 BC-496 BC)

Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear.
Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)

Distrust interested advice.
Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)

Thought is the labor of the intellect, reverie is its pleasure.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

Borrow trouble for yourself, if that's your nature, but don't lend it to your neighbors.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Wit has always an answer ready.
Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)

Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.
Sun Tzu (544 BC-496 BC)

The uglier a man's legs are, the better he plays golf—it's almost a law.
H.G. Wells (1866-1946)

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

Abstain and enjoy.
Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

What is most truly valuable is often underrated.
Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)

You see, but you do not observe.
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.
Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

Only cowards insult dying majesty.
Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)

owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
Gilbert Chesterton (1874-1936)

Everyone is more or less master of his own fate.
Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)

Insanity: repeating the same behavior and expecting different results.
Einstein

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world--and never will.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them instructions and care for them. Thus doubled agents are recruited and used.
Sun Tzu (544 BC-496 BC)

In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
Sun Tzu (544 BC-496 BC)

Fine feathers don't make fine birds.
Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)

To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.
Sun Tzu (544 BC-496 BC)

Self-help is the best help.
Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)

Better no rule than cruel rule.
Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)

Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

Si vis pacem, para bellum. (хочешь мира — готовься к войне)

Always do what you are afraid to do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way.
Sophocles (496 BC-406 BC)

Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Sentence first, verdict afterwards.

Lewis Carroll(1832-1898)

Brain, n.: An apparatus with which we think we think.

Ambrose Bierce(1842-1914)

I fear the day that technology will surpass our human intereaction The world will have a generation of idiots.
A. Einstein

03-12 12

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Virtue is insufficient temptation.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)
The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.
 Lois Hector Berlioz
The nations of the earth are mostly swayed by fear—fear of the sort that a little cheap oratory turns easily to rage, hate, and violence.
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)
At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC
Too much work and too much energy kill a man just as effectively as too much assorted vice or too much drink.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!
John Milton (1608-1674)
Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.
George Eliot (1819-1880)
Prognostication is difficult... especially as regards the future
Mark Twain
Teach him to think for himself? Oh, my God, teach him rather to think like other people!
Mary Shelley (1797-1851)
Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.
Agatha Christie (1890-1976)
Habits change into character.
Ovid
Wit is educated insolence.
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)

My argument is that War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal, and do well.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
The best morale exists when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it’s usually lousy.
 Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
 I gave enough to my children so that they could do anything, but not so much as they could do nothing  
Warren Buffet  
The popular idea that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years.
Agatha Christie (1890-1976)
 No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation's greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can't get out of it if we would.
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
 The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
Oscar Wilde
Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)
Capitalisation is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse, and helping your uncle jack off a horse.
Prognostication is difficult, especially as regards the future.
Mark Twain
I can resist everything except temptation.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.
Bill Gates Microsoft co-founder, philanthropist
Even in a minute instance, it is best to look first to the main tendencies of Nature. A particular flower may not be dead in early winter, but the flowers are dying; a particular pebble may never be wetted with the tide, but the tide is coming in.
Gilbert Chesterton (1874-1936)
We have no right to distress any of God's creatures without a very good reason.
Anna Sewell (1820-1878)
Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
Sun Tzu (544 BC-496 BC)

0212

The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything.
L. Frank Baum (1856-1919)
Friendless, adj.: Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
Novels so often provide an anodyne and not an antidote, glide one into torpid slumbers instead of rousing one with a burning brand.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
The fortunes of war more than any other are liable to frequent fluctuations.
Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)
A just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the others willing to let them.
American poet Robert Frost

0111

Spare the rod spoil the child.
English wisdom
Most amusements only mean trying to win another person's money.

Rudyard Kipling(1865-1936)

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow.
Ovid
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism.

E. M. Forster(1879-1970)

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who'll decide where to go.
Dr. Seuss
Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

A child miseducated is a child lost.

John F. Kennedy(1917-1963)