Josh Kaufman

Pablo Picasso, cubist painter and sculptor:

“You must always work not just within but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.”

James A. Michener, Pulitzer Prize-winning author:

“The master of the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he’s always doing both.”

The Tao Te Ching:

“Confront the difficult when it is still easy: accomplish the great task by a series of small acts.”

Anonymous:

“Life does not reward us for effort expended.”

From Aesop’s fables, as retold by Rose Owens:

One summer day a grasshopper was singing and chirping and hopping about. He was having a wonderful time. He saw an ant who was busy gathering and storing grain for the winter.

“Stop and talk to me,” said the grasshopper. “We can sing some songs and dance a while.”

“Oh no,” said the ant. “Winter is coming. I am storing up food for the winter. I think you should do the same.”

“Oh, I can’t be bothered,” said the grasshopper. “Winter is a long time off. There is plenty of food.” So the grasshopper continued to dance and sing and chip and the ant continued to work.

When winter came the grasshopper had no food and was starving. He went to the ant’s house and asked, “Can I have some wheat or maybe a few kernels of corn. Without it I will starve,” whined the grasshopper.

“You danced last summer,” said the ants in disgust. “You can continue to dance.” And they gave him no food.

MORAL: There is a time to work and a time to play.

From a piece of street art by British guerilla artist Banksy (Hat Tip to Happy at Work):

Once upon a time there was a bear and a bee who lived in a wood and were the best of friends. All summer long the bee collected nectar from morning to night while the bear lay on his back basking in the long grass.

When Winter came the Bear realised he had nothing to eat and thought to himself, “I hope that busy little Bee will share some of his honey with me.” But the Bee was nowhere to be found—he had died of a stress-induced coronary disease.

Epictetus, Greek Stoic philosopher:

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those that he has.”

John Steinbeck, Nobel Prize-winning novelist, in East of Eden:

“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is the one thing which by inspection destroys such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it, and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If that glory can be killed, we are lost.”

Mahatma Gandhi, political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement and advocate of non-violent civil protest (ahimsa):

“The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated on achieving reform from within.”

Mahatma Gandhi, political and spiritual leader of the Indian Independence Movement:

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?”

Sun Tzu, early Chinese general and author of The Art of War:

In the operations of war, where there are in the field a thousand swift chariots, as many heavy chariots, and a hundred thousand mail-clad soldiers, with provisions enough to carry them
a thousand li, the expenditure at home and at the front, including entertainment of guests, small items such as glue and paint, and sums spent on chariots and armor, will reach the total of a thousand ounces of silver per day. Such is the cost of raising an army of 100,000 men.

When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.

Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.

Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.

Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.

There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.

Hermann Göring, second in command of the German Third Reich during the reign of Adolph Hitler:

“Naturally, the common people don’t want war … but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”

Ron Paul, US Congressman and 2008 Presidential Candidate:

“Terror is a tactic. We can not wage ‘war’ against a tactic.”

Isaac Asimov, celebrated science-fiction author:

“Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent.”

Ronald Regan, 40th President of the United States:

“History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.”

Ernest Hemingway, American novelist:

“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”

Benjamin Franklin, early American polymath and Founding Father of the United States:

“Never has there been a good war or a bad peace.”

Today has been an interesting day. Within 4 hours of posting the new Personal MBA manifesto and reading list, I was simultaneously featured on Reddit, StumbleUpon, Seth Godin’s blog, and many, many blogs. As a result, my server got tired and shut down due to lack of capacity. (Mind you, these pages are pretty small, and I’m using a very good web host.)

I am working diligently to get personalmba.com back online. Thanks for your patience!

I just launched the new version of the Personal MBA manifesto and recommended reading list. For details, read this post on the PMBA blog.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States of America:

“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”

Ron Paul, 10-term American Congressman from Texas and 2008 US Presidential Candidate:

“No matter how well intentioned, an authoritarian government always abuses its powers.”

Anais Nin, French author:

“When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.”

Confucius, early Chinese moral and political philosopher:

“To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.”

John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States:

“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”

John Adams, 2nd President of the United States of America:

“There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”

George Washington, first elected president of the United States of America:

“Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States of America and author of the Declaration of Independence:

“That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.”

(Related reading: An Open Letter to High School Students)

Charles Darwin, creator of the theory of biological evolution via natural selection, stating an early version of what is now known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect:

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”

Herbert Simon, American social and political scientist:

“What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”