You yourself never loved; you never love! Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so?
When two peoples share a common passion: they are capable of empathising with each other's misery.
Every endeavour pursued with passion produces a successful outcome, regardless of the result. For it is not about winning or losing – rather, the effort put forth in producing the outcome.
World-class performance comes by striving for a target just out of reach, but with a vivid awareness of how the gap might be breached. Over time, through constant repetition and deep concentration, the gap will disappear, only for a new target to be created, just out of reach once again.
Progress is built, in effect, upon the foundations of necessary failure. That is the essential paradox of expert performance.
The practice sessions of aspiring champions have a specific and never-changing purpose: Progress. Every second of every minute of every hour, the goal is to extend one's mind and body, to push oneself beyond the outer limits of one's capacities, to engage so deeply in the task that one leaves the training session, literally, a changed person.
Mere experience, if it is not matched by deep concentration, does not translate into excellence.
Plato used the dialogue format because the exchange of views, the posing and answering of questions, showed that understanding is a living, dynamic process. He distrusted writing because the settled character of the written word makes it look as if truth can be fixed and made to stand still. It is worth remembering that this greatest advocate of the objective reality of truth also believed that our access to that truth was sustained in reasoned discussion.
With the schedule I created for myself, I saw a lot of times that others copied what I did. And if you copy somebody, you are always too late. And that was always my luck, that I never copied somebody, that I developed something new. And they were always one step behind.
Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
My own take on it is that government will never adequately represent every person in the country. It can't. It's not possible. It's a multicultural, multifaceted society in which we live. The country, I think, thrives because it's willing to embrace many ideas at the same time, but once a decision is made you will be unpopular with many people. The business of our political leaders is to go ahead and make a decision and let the chips fall where they may. That's a very hard thing to do.