“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” – Anonymous

From: “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst:

August 5

'The lady bearer of this says she has two sons who want to work. Set them at it if possible. Wanting to work is so rare a want that it should be encouraged.'

- Abraham Lincoln

'People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, they make them.'

- George Bernard Shaw

“Ecstasy cannot be constant, or it would kill.” – Anonymous

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

Life is built on the twin pillars of agony and ecstasy.

“Every leader fights lonely battles.” – Anonymous

From: “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst:

August 4

One knowledgeable observer wrote in the summer of 1863: '… As to the politics of Washington the most striking thing is the absence of personal loyalty to the President. It does not exist. He has no admirers, no enthusiastic supporters, none to bet on his head. He has a kind of shrewdness and common sense, mother wit, and slipshod, low-level honesty that made him a good Western jury lawyer. But he is an unutterable calamity to us where he is.'

'We are continually buying something that we never get, from a man that never had it.'

- Will Rogers

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

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

For the loser failure is always a person.

For the winner failure is always an event.

“If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.” – Mother Teresa

From: “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst:

August 3

Lincoln liked to tell the story of a seedy fellow asking Secretary of State Seward for a consulate in Berlin, then Paris, then Liverpool, eventually coming down to a clerkship in the State Department. Hearing these places were all filled, he said, 'well, then, can you lend me $5?'

'A people-pleaser will know exactly what to do, whom to associate with, what to think, where to go, and especially what to do with his money - just as soon as someone tells him.'

- Arnold Kunst