“Travel is fatal to prejudice.” – Mark Twain

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

30 June

You and I must take care that we don’t enshrine small-mindedness, that we don’t carefully search out the next pebble on the road of life for to trip over. And don’t think you’re any more off this particular hook than I am.

Don’t believe me? Then consider a significant relationship that’s currently gone astray in some way – with your boss, your underlings, your spouse, your kid[s], your parent[s]. Without any trouble at all you [and I, God help me!] can recite chapter and verse to show how the other person is short-sighted, self-centered, deluded, incapable of seeing the situation correctly [i.e. the way I do] etc.

See any of those pebbles now?

“We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.” - John F. Kennedy

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

June 30

“The dream of the Confederacy started out with an expectation of nobility and ended cloaked in revisionist elitism. Both dreams contain fantastic, almost unbelievable, stories. But the story of what really happened is far more intriguing – and useful. If we are to learn from the history of men, we must be frank about their humanity. Those who led the Confederacy were not gods. They were men, sometimes bold and sometimes weak, sometimes hateful and sometimes grand, sometimes selfish, not always sober. Together they formed an imperfect union, and together they destroyed it.” - David Eicher

“Do not learn how to react. Learn how to respond.” – The Buddha

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

29 June

Be careful that you, as a parent, don’t find emotional blackmail too seductive to pass up. In a moment of passion it’s very easy, fairly early on in your career as a parent, to say to your child, “If you ever __________, you’re out of my life forever!” It doesn’t make any difference what you put in that blank space; that choice yields a yawning disaster stretching out beyond the furthest horizon that is as inevitable as it is profound.

“I believe the first test of a truly great man is humility.” - John Ruskin

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

June 29

“May the Almighty grant that the cause of truth, justice, and humanity, shall in no wise suffer at my hands.” - Abraham Lincoln

“God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer.” – Mother Teresa

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

28 June

Since listening is a luxury very few of us ever get from those around us, doing it well, and patiently, and maybe even consistently, is worth its weight in gold. Do it right and you could end up with a friend for life.

“The search for someone to blame is always successful.” - Robert Half

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

June 28

Reports of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 were highly partisan. Republican journalists, for their part, ridiculed Douglas's swagger, his dwarfish height, mammoth head, and duck-like walk, and described how he “foamed at the mouth” and dribbled “the saliva of incipient madness.” On the other side, Democratic journalists taunted Lincoln's gangly arms, clownish legs, and apelike gestures.