“Life is short. Spend your substance building stuff that matters.” – Arnold Kunst

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual” by Arnold Kunst

Every one of us was born utterly deficient in this, or in that; each of us has been dealt with an utterly despairing hand – and now we’re meant, somehow, to play out that hand, morphing it into success. Even so, be assured you’ll get all of what counts on this side of the grave by taking seriously any one of the abiding urges – the innocent, abiding urges – you just can’t escape, and pursuing it with the persistence and imagination that success in any human endeavor demands. In other words, you’re to pursue it with the relentless single-mindedness of a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly. To change the metaphor, you’re to bloom where you’re planted like a flower blossoming incongruously at 14,000 feet on some sheer alpine rock face.

“Nothing is more annoying, and fascinating, than the contradictions inherent in the human character.” – Arnold Kunst

From: “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst:

August 7

Lincoln could be, and often was, the very picture of contradiction[s]. ‘He dressed like a farmer but read books on geometry and poetry.  He told witty stories and yet could successfully prosecute a dry or boringly technical case… Jonathan Birch, a fellow lawyer, witnessed Lincoln holding forth in the court clerk’s office, surrounded by other lawyers and telling some story. ‘His eyes would sparkle with fun,’ Birch remembered, ‘and when he had reached the point in his narrative which invariably evoked the laughter of the crowd, nobody’s enjoyment was greater than his.’ An hour later, however, Birch would see Lincoln seated on a chair with the back leaned against the wall, ‘his hat tipped slightly forward as if to shield his face, his eyes no longer sparkling with fun or merriment, but sad and downcast and his hands clasped around his knees.’ Birch thought him ‘the very picture of dejection and gloom. Thus absorbed have I seen him sit for hours at a time defying the interruption of even his closest friends… It was a strange picture.’

- Brian Dirck

‘Be prepared to swim against the current. After all, any dead fish can swim with it.’

- Anonymous

“Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.” - Anonymous

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual” by Arnold Kunst

Make no mistake about it: the definitive always win; the tentative always lose.

“The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.” – Carl Sagan

From: “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst:

August 6

‘Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed by my fellow man, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem’

- Abraham Lincoln

'You see things that are and you ask, “Why?” But I dream things that never were and I ask, “Why not?”'

- George Bernard Shaw

“A narrow mind and a big mouth usually go together.” – Anonymous

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual” by Arnold Kunst

The religions we call false were once true [but in our insularity we’ve conveniently forgotten that fact].