Polinius' Advice to Laertes

Hamlet 
Act 1 Scene 3

Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

" Talent means nothing in this game."

Jack:  "Listen, tell me something. Tell me something. All the years you've been doing this, what's the biggest gamble you ever took? On a job. You know, biggest long shot."

Nick:  "I don't take long shots."

Jack: "Look, I know you're careful. You know, I'm careful too. That's not what I mean. I mean, you know, when you were starting out, when you were just getting going, you must have taken some fliers here and there, done something that was a little wild. I'm just curious"

Nick:  "Never took long shots.  I'm gonna say something to you. You're smart, you're talented and you know a few things but talent means nothing in this game if you don't make the right choices. There's plenty of talented people out there who will never see the light of day anymore. Last thing: It takes discipline because this whole game is one big long shot and if you don't have the discipline to stay away from the fliers or from the gambles or whatever else you wanna call a stupid move then, my friend, I'm afraid to say, one day you will go down. It's inevitable. 

You want my advice? Make a list of everything you want now and then plan on spending the next 25 years of your life getting it. Slowly, piece by piece"

Before The Law There Stands a Guard - Franz Kakfa

BEFORE THE LAW stands a doorkeeper on guard. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. "It is possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment." Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway into the interior. Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and says: "If you are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him." These are difficulties the man from the country has not expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin, black Tartar beard, he decides that it is better to wait until he gets permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his importunity. The doorkeeper frequently has little interviews with him, asking him questions about his home and many other things, but the questions are put indifferently, as great lords put them, and always finish with the statement that he cannot be let in yet. The man, who has furnished himself with many things for his journey, sacrifices all he has, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper accepts everything, but always with the remark: "I am only taking it to keep you from thinking you have omitted anything." During these many years the man fixes his attention almost continuously on the doorkeeper. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing access to the Law. He curses his bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly; later, as he grows old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since in his yearlong contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even the fleas in his fur collar, he begs the fleas as well to help him and to change the doorkeeper's mind. At length his eyesight begins to fail, and he does not know whether the world is really darker or whether his eyes are only deceiving him. Yet in his darkness, he is now aware of a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the gateway of the Law. Now he has not very long to live. Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one point, a question he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low towards him, for the difference in height between them has altered much to the man's disadvantage. "What do you want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are insatiable." "Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admittance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and to let his failing senses catch the words, roars in his ear: "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it."

                                     
                              -An excerpt from The Trial by  
                      Franz Kafka -             

The Future - Leonard Cohen

                                                                

                                                              
                                                          

Give me absolute control 
over every living soul 
And lie beside me, baby, 
that's an order! 

Give me crack and anal sex 
Take the only tree that's left 
and stuff it up the hole 
in your culture 

Give me back the Berlin wall  

give me Stalin and St Paul 
I've seen the future, brother: 
it is murder. 

Things are going to slide in all directions 
Nothing will be measured anymore 
The blizzard of the world 
has crossed the threshold 
and overturned 
the order of the soul 

When they said Repent 
I wonder what they meant 


You don't know me from the wind 
you never will, you never did 
I'm the little jew 
who wrote the Bible 

I've seen the nations rise and fall 
I've heard their stories, heard them all 
but love's the only engine of survival 

Now your servant has been told 
to say it clear, to say it cold: 
It's over, it ain't going 
any further 

And now the wheels of heaven stop 
you feel the devil's riding crop 
Get ready for the future: 
it is murder 

Things are going to slide in all directions 
Nothing will be measured anymore 
The blizzard of the world 
has crossed the threshold 
and overturned 
the order of the soul 

When they said Repent 
I wonder what they meant 

There'll be the breaking of the ancient western code 
I mean your private life will suddenly explode

 There'll be phantoms 
There'll be fires on the road 
and the white man dancing 

You'll see your woman hanging upside down 
her features covered by her fallen gown 
and all the lousy little poets coming round 
tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson 


Give me back the Berlin wall 
Give me Stalin and St Paul 
Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima 
Destroy another fetus now 
We don't like children anyhow 
I've seen the future, baby: 
it is murder 

Quotes - November

By Evan Robertson

11/8

"Lose your mind and come to your senses." - Fritz Perls

11/10

“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.” - Bob Dylan

" I'm good at love. I'm good at hate. It's in between I freeze." - Leonard Cohen

" I hear their voices in the wine
  That sometimes did me seek
  The band is playing Auld Lang Syne
  But the heart will not retreat
  There's no forsaking what you love
  No existential leap
  As witnessed here in time and blood
  A thousand kisses deep"  - Leonard Cohen

11/11


“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”  ― Fyodor Dostoevsky

" The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated." - Oscar Wilde

11/17

"Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools." - Douglas Bader

11/18

“Do not hurry; do not rest.” - Goethe

"Our lives are frittered away by details...simplify, simplify." - Throeau

11/19

“Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”  - Ernest Hemingway,

11/20

“There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.” –Salvador Dalí

"Vision without execution is hallucination" - Edison

"The most important thing about power is to make sure you don't have to use it." - Edwin Land

 "Don't do anything that someone else can do." - Edwin Land

Puppets and Machines

“Every time you went into the library,” said the book, “the Creator of the Universe held His breath. With such a higgledy-piggledy cultural smorgasbord before you, what would you, with your free will, choose?”

“Your parents were fighting machines and self-pitying machines,” said the book. “Your mother was programmed to bawl out your father for being a defective moneymaking machine, and your father was programmed to bawl her out for being a defective housekeeping machine. They were programmed to bawl each other out for being defective loving machines.

“Then your father was programmed to stomp out of the house and slam the door. This automatically turned your mother into a weeping machine. And your father would go down to a tavern where he would get drunk with some other drinking machines. Then all the drinking machines would go to a whorehouse and rent fucking machines. And then your father would drag himself home to become an apologizing machine. And your mother would become a very slow forgiving machine.”

                            Kurt Vonnegut
                        Breakfast of Champions 

Quotes - October

By Evan Robertson

10/10


" Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent. " - George Orwell

"A woman simply is, but a man must become. Masculinity is risky and elusive. It is achieved by a revolt from woman, and is confirmed only by other men. Feminist fantasies about the ideal “sensitive” male have failed. Manhood coerced into sensitivity is no manhood at all." - Camille Paglia


10/13

" The scariest moment is always just before you start." - Stephen King, on Writing.

10/24

" All men's miseries come from their inability to sit quiet and alone." - Blaise Pascal

" It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just aint so." - Mark Twain

10/26

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is." - Yogi Berra

" Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want." - Howard Marks

" Good times teach only bad lessons." - Howard Marks

" Being too far ahead of your time is indistinguishable from being wrong." Howard Marks

10/20

“I don’t deserve this honor – but, then, I have arthritis, and I don’t deserve that either.” Jack Benny

“If you don’t know whose side someone is on, he’s probably not on yours.” - Warren Buffett

"Having a rich daddy can lead to sloppy decisions." - Warren Buffett

“Develop your eccentricities when young. That way, when you get older, people won’t think you are going gaga.” - David Ogilvy 

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” - Charles Darwin

10/28

" The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on." - Oscar Wilde

Cockroach rule " Where there is one, there are many."

" Predicting rain doesn't count; building ark does." - Warren Buffett