Welcome to My Shack

The reason that Obama is failing was well set out in an old issue of Sirp ja Vasar, the Estonian weekly: "It is an error to think that filling an unethical structure with ethical elements would make the structure ethical. Only these unmatching elements will be desrtroyed."
— "Hello, Perestroika!" p.17.

Even with enormous uncertainties, some courses of action are better than others. But you shouldn't be very confident of your choices. Actions that acknowledge a high degree of uncertainty are often very different from actions that don't. It's frightening to think that you might not know something, but more frightening to think that, by and large, the world is run by people who have faith that they know exactly what's going on.
— Amos Tversky

The great French author Flaubert says, "The principle thing in this world is to keep one's soul aloft." I think that sentence is worthy of immortality.
This is a beautiful world, filled with glory and loveliness, but it is also a cruel world, filled with pain, suffering, confusion, war and death. It is not always easy, and only strong men and women live in it successfully. God never meant life to be easy, for He wants His children to be strong. And the only way to do that is to keep your soul aloft.
— Norman Vincent Peale, "Your Hope Can Come True," April, 1985.

Look for those who seek the truth; avoid those who think they've found it.
— Vaclav Havel

The best leader is the one who has sense enough to pick good people ... and the self-restraint to keep from meddling with them.
— Theodore Roosevelt

Intellectuals Are The Shoeshine Boys Of The Ruling Elite
— LP title of the group Killdozer

Someone once said: "In our youth we collect materials to build a bridge to the moon. And in our old age we use those materials to build a shack."
— Clifford Odets, "Rocket to the Moon"

Pound had to go to Europe ... Try to imagine Pound in Chicago, it's absurd!
— Alfred Kazin