“We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.” - Abigail Adams

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

31 October 

“We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much.” – Sojourner Truth 

“Don’t be stupid! Be a smartie! Come and join the NaziParty!” – “The Producers”

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

31 October

Most losers, almost by definition, pursue life as distinguished graduates of the Adolf Hitler School of Human Motivation.

‘Be content with your own company. Relish tranquility.' - Anonymous

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

October 31 

When pressed for biographical details concerning his early life, Lincoln replied, “It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life. It can be all condensed into a simple sentence, and that sentence you will find in Gray's Elegy: ‘The short and simple annals of the poor.’ That's my life, and that's all you or any one else can make out of it.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Caring for others is an expression of what it means to be fully human.” – Hillary Clinton

 From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

30 October 

"I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.'" – Toni Morrison

“There’s more than enough of everything to go around.” - Anonymous

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

30 October

“Keep it short and sweet with no wasted movements, just like the old lady’s dance.” - Abraham Lincoln

“If God created shadows it was to better emphasize the light.” - Pope John XXIII

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

October 30 

“The Lincolns enjoyed a relatively stable marriage…. Lincoln, for his part, understood Mary better than anyone, loved her in spite of her flaws, shielded her from criticism, and remained thoroughly loyal to her as a husband. In turn, Mary could be tender to him, extremely tender. And no matter how lonely she was with him gone so much of the time, she shared his love of politics, wanted him to succeed, and was fiercely proud of him.” - Stephen Oates

“Women. They are a complete mystery.” – Stephen Hawking

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

29 October 

“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“Be gentle to all and stern with yourself.” – St Teresa of Avila

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

28 October 

“To the wrongs that need resistance, to the right that needs assistance, to the future in the distance, give yourselves.” – Carrie Chapman Catt 

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” – Marcus Aurelius

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

27 October 

“If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.” – Toni Morrison

“There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed. “ – Woodrow Wilson

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

29 October

“Remember how your child used to be? ‘Now, Johnny, take my hand while we cross the street.’ And 4-year old Johnny would dutifully take your hand and say, happily, ‘Ok, daddy!’ Ten, twelve years down the line that compliance thing will go into what you might call an extended eclipse. That very same Johnny, now a teenager, one day is going to say to you, ‘I don’t care whatever else you do, just don’t play any of that dorkey music of yours when my friends are around.’ Only he may use a far less PG word than ‘dorky.’ That’s just the way they’re wired. Be ready for it.” – Arnold Kunst

“My name is Ozymandias,King of Kings; / Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ / Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away.” – Percy Bysshe Shelly

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

28 October

This life you’re leading is a real life – it’s not a dress rehearsal for life. When you turn 37 remember this: you’ll never, ever be 36 again. In addition, there’s no guarantee that you’ll make it to 38 - or to tomorrow!

“I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.” - Thomas Carlyle

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

27 October

“Lincoln was not doctrinaire - and that at a time when being doctrinaire was automatically taken to mean being a man of convictions. His contemporaries had the answers, all the answers, and had them surprisingly easily. At the very outset of Lincoln’s term, when South Carolina actually passed what was called an Ordinance of Secession, Northern editorial writers in the winter-spring of 1860-61 saw the situation in simple terms: they wrote [pontificated?] that if South Carolina wanted to leave the Union, we should just let ‘em go - good riddance to bad rubbish; they’ve been nothing but trouble from the beginning anyway. Simple! Similarily, South Carolinians manning artillery aimed at Fort Sumter saw the situation in equally simple terms: we gonna kill us some Yankees! Simple! The examples go on and on. And against all that was this new man in the White House who said, more than once, ‘My policy is to have no policy.’” – Arnold Kunst

“The imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with objects immense and eternal.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

26 October

“First convince a man that you are his sincere friend. Therein is the drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what you will, is the great high road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause.” - Abraham Lincoln

“One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” - Anonymous

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

October 29

“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend” it.’” - Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address

“The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues.” - Marcus Aurelius

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

October 28

“The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.” - Abraham Lincoln

"Slavery: nothing succeeds like success." - Anonymous

 From "Lincoln 365," by Arnold Kunst

October 26
“We have as all will agree a free Government where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed.” - Abraham Lincoln
“Slavery was established by decree of Almighty God… it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation… it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.” - Jefferson Davis

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” – Oprah Winfrey

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

26 October 

“A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started. He is going to sit where you are sitting, and when you are gone, attend to those things you think are important. You may adopt all the policies you please, but how they are carried out depends on him. He will assume control of your duties, states and nations. He is going to move in and take over your churches, schools, universities and corporations. The fate of humanity is in his hands.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.” – Confucius

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

25 October 

“Perhaps some day men will raise a tablet reading in letters of gold: ‘All honor to women, the first disenfranchised class in history who, unaided by any political party, won enfranchisement by its own effort and achieved the victory without the shedding of a drop of human blood. All honor to women of the world!’” - Harriet Stanton Blatch

“A man without religion is like a horse without a bridle.” - Anonymous

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

25 October

“Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.” – Bobby Kennedy

Live your life as if your son were right next to you, drinking it all in. [And trust me, if he WERE right next to you he would be drinking it all in.]

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

24 October

“For the winner the glass is always half full. He empowers, encourages, praises. Like flowers in sunlight, the rest of us bloom just because we’re in his presence.” - Arnold Kunst

“I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves.” - Thomas Jefferson

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

October 25

“Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?” - Abraham Lincoln

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.” - Robert Burns

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

October 24

The South should have won the Civil War. They had a cause, for starters, that was so stirring that it excited the admiration, and unfortunately the allegiance, of the vast majority of America’s military talent, to include arguably the most able field commander in American history, Robert E. Lee. The Confederate fighting man left his Yankee counterpart in the dust in terms of ferocity, ingenuity, stamina. [Case in point: in one seven-month period in 1862 the Army of Northern Virginia under the command of Robert E. Lee inflicted almost 71,000 enemy casualties while suffering just over 48,000; they captured nearly 75,000 small arms while losing only 6,000 and captured 155 Union cannon while losing only eight.] Then there were the text-book considerations: interior lines of transportation and communication, and the fact that a defensive war can be won even if you’re outnumbered three to one if you’re prepared to pay the price. And the Confederacy more than paid the price. And finally, we compare the two presidents and it’s all over. Jefferson Davis cut his teeth in the big leagues of Washington politics for nearly 15 years; he slipped into the presidency of the Confederacy smooth like a hand into a glove. A West Point graduate and decorated hero of the Mexican War, he was a former Secretary of War who, unlike Lincoln, required no steep learning curve – as Commander in Chief Davis was up to speed from day one. True, the North outnumbered the South by 5 to 2, had a vastly more robust industrial base, but none of those factors would be decisive as long as the war was a short one.

“Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.” – Emily Dickinson

 From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

24 October  

“I want to have fun, but I don’t quite know how.” – Malala Yousafzai

“It’s never just a game when you’re winning.” – George Carlin

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

23 October 

For the loser failure is always a person. 

For the winner failure is always an event.

“There is no problem so big it cannot be run away from.” - Charles M. Schulz

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

October 23 

“My father taught me how to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh - anything but work.” - Abraham Lincoln 

“At 15 a little Pet; at 20 a little Coquette; at 40 not married yet; at 50 a Suffragette.” – Anti-Suffragette propaganda piece

 From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

22 October  

“I was the first woman to speak ever at the National Press Club, and they gave me a necktie.” – Gloria Steinem

“Those who gossip with you will gossip about you.” - Anonymous

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

22 October 

On the best of days the loser believes all men speak ill of him. 

The winner’s sense of inner peace is undisturbed when people talk about him behind his back.

“The job of an educator is to teach students to see the vitality in themselves.” – Joseph Campbell From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 21 October I am called upon, on a regular basis, to jettison small-mindedness. If I don’t do it I model for the young around me that mediocrity is the acceptable standard, that they deserve a trophy for just showing up - and they should be held to a higher standard than that.“The job of an educator is to teach students to see the vitality in themselves.” – Joseph Campbell

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

21 October 

I am called upon, on a regular basis, to jettison small-mindedness. If I don’t do it I model for the young around me that mediocrity is the acceptable standard, that they deserve a trophy for just showing up - and they should be held to a higher standard than that.

“If you tell the truth, sooner or later someone's going to find out.” - Arnold Kunst

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

October 22 

Long-term reactions to Lincoln's death came from as far away as Russia in the early 20th century. In the eyes of the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy Lincoln was a kind of world folk legend through “peculiar moral powers and greatness of character... He was what Beethoven was in music, Dante in poetry, Raphael in painting and Christ in the philosophy of life. If he had failed to become President, he would be no doubt just as great, but only God could appreciate it. We are still too near his greatness, and so can hardly appreciate his power; but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do.”

“Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” - Jesus Christ

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

October 21 

“Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.” – Winston Churchill

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

20 October  

“Don’t be like the rest of them, darling.” – Coco Chanel

“Forgive others as readily as you expect God to forgive you.” - Anonymous

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

20 October 

We live in a world of deception and hypocrisy, of greed and materialism, of brutality and cowardice. In addition we are, each of us, wounded souls.  And yet we are, each of us, called to be the balm to one another’s wounds.

“For each ecstatic instant We must an anguish pay In keen and quivering ratio To the ecstasy.” - Emily Dickinson

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

October 20 

There was a grim simplicity to Grant. In 1863 during the campaign to take Vicksburg, the last Confederate bastion on the Mississippi River, he and his 40,000 men cut themselves off from all outside contact, lived off the land, seemed endlessly to slog through Mississippi swamps – and after a number of spectacular victories including the capture of the capital of Mississippi, ended up attacking Vicksburg not from the river to the west but up through the swamps to the east. And he didn’t whine about the need for reinforcements – he just got on with the job at hand until he got that job done. 

It looked like Lincoln had finally found a general who knew that winning this thing was going to take bloody, relentless toil in the field against a vastly determined foe. Oysters and champagne on the Potomac weren’t going to cut it. 

“Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.” - Aristotle

 From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

19 October  

“Now that we have the vote let us remember we are no longer petitioners. We are not wards of the nation, but free and equal citizens. Let us do our part to keep it a true and triumphant democracy.” – Carrie Chapman Catt

“Don’t count the days; make the days count.” – Mohammad Ali

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

19 October 

Mohammad Ali - "move like a butterfly, sting like a bee” - was arguably the greatest boxer who ever lived. But my guess is that when he was a little kid, maybe 7 or 8 years old and known as Cassius Clay, he probably ran across some big kid who beat him so badly that, in addition to being reduced to tears, he determined that he would never let anything like that happen again. Thus was born the following: “I Am The Greatest!” But for this kid it was a decision on steroids.

"Opportunity always lies buried in the midst of difficulty. Always.” - Anonymous

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst October 19 “It is difficult to make a man miserable while he claims kindred to the great God who made him.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.” – John Muir

 From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

18 October  

“The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.” – Amelia Earhart

“A day in which I don’t write leaves a taste of ashes.” – Simone de Beauvoir

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

18 October

When you’re faced with inescapable evil - the loss of something prized, the enduring of some rank, inescapable injustice – that’s God’s way of saying He’s got something better in mind. If you just don’t get it, if you choose to wallow in self-pity, you’ll let Him down big-time. But keep your head and get it together – that way if you’re lucky He won’t conclude He’s been backing a flake…

“Do what you can where you’re at with what you’ve got.” - Anonymous

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

October 18

“I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we cannot hold Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland. These all against us, and the job on our hands is too large for us.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything.” – St Teresa of Avila

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

17 October 

"I have always believed that women are not victims. We are agents of change, we are drivers of progress, we are makers of peace–all we need is a fighting chance." – Hilary Clinton

“Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will.” - Oliver Cromwell

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

16 October 

“I don’t mind if I have to sit on the floor at school. All I want is education. And I’m afraid of no one.” – Malala Yousafzai

“Fair peace becomes men; ferocious anger belongs to beasts.” - Ovid

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

17 October

“The winner is ok with saying to his wife during a heated discussion, ‘you and I need to stop right now before we say/do something hurtful. Instead let’s continue this in a few hours, ok?’ It’s called emotional self-discipline.” – Arnold Kunst

"God's on your side; so you're worried about, what again?" - Arnold Kunst

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

October 17

“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.” - Abraham Lincoln

“When you undertake to bring your life into relation with God, you are embarking upon a serious and demanding task, a task that leaves no leeway for self-deception or delusion. It requires the most rigorous dedication, self-discipline and self-knowledge. Dive in with gusto – the good news is since God is involved you are sure to find the process boundlessly exhilarating.” - Arnold Kunst 

“It is better, as far as getting the vote is concerned, to have a small, united group than an immense debating society.” – Alice Paul

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

15 October 

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

14 October 

“The work is the most fun; it seems illicit how much fun it is.” – Meryl Streep 

“Pain is never permanent.” – St Teresa of Avila

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

13 October 

In early 1841 Abraham Lincoln broke off his engagement with Mary Todd. Although they subsequently did marry, at that particular point his despair was palpable. “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.” – Dr. Seuss

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 16 October No goal is achieved, no dream realized, until you • write it down – as they say, “when you think it, ink it.”  • share your dream with a friend who has your best interests at heart, who will hold your feet to the fire. In your heart of hearts you know this is true: if the thing just sits there, it is dead because an unspoken, an unwritten, dream is no more real than a one-sided coin.

“Nothing is denied to well-directed labor, and nothing attained without it.” - Anonymous

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst October 16 “It is much for the young to know that treading the hard path of duty will be noticed and lead to high places.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Earth is bulging with heaven.” – Arnold Kunst

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

15 October

It’s all in the attitude.

The story of the Garden of Eden, looked at prosaically, shows Adam and Eve - a husband and wife team - involved in a multitude of mundane activities: sowing, irrigating, tilling, harvesting, storing, distributing. They could have viewed themselves as live-in gardeners on the estate of some absentee Landlord. But instead, the harmonious meshing together of all these disparate elements became "Paradise". The psychological source of this harmony was, of course, their attitude, their sense of self worth. Just like them, you and I can transform the plethora of the mundane within which we are positioned into Paradise by transforming our attitude, our sense of self worth. For we are not nearly so hermetically sealed off from Paradise as we've conned ourselves into believing. 

It’s ALL in the attitude. 

“The root of suffering is attachment.” – The Buddha

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

14 October 

I came into this world with nothing, and that’s how I’ll leave. When death comes, everything I’ve garnered since birth will be taken away – all my worldly goods, toys, family, talents, the lot. All I’ll take with me is the love, the peace, the encouragement, the vibrant sense of justice, the childlike sense of wonder that I’ve given away with God’s very own prodigality. In fact, my guarantee of eternal bliss is that they’re the only “things” that belong to that realm of the timeless and the spaceless, a realm that is – surprise, surprise! - my natural habitat.