From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst
14 July
Mozart rendered human emotion musically with ease; he had incomparable ability as a pianist and also, would you believe, at billiards. But his wife had to cut the meat at the dinner table – give HIM the knife and fork to do the needful for those at his table and he was all elbows and kneecaps. The moral: nobody’s genius [including yours and mine] is universal.
From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst
July 16
“Before Lincoln's 1860 election the Buchanan administration had done virtually nothing to put down what looked like an incipient rebellion. Buchanan himself, although he viewed secession as flagrantly unconstitutional, could not - or would not - see any way to counter the hemorrhaging of states seceding from the Union [in the ten weeks leading up to Lincoln's inauguration seven states had seceded from the then total of 34]. The lame duck Congress had done little better. To be sure, the House had introduced a bill that would have authorized the president to call out state militias, but the Senate – with the aid of senators from states about to secede - had actually passed a resolution requesting a lowering of the War Department's budget. When Lincoln took the oath he found that he had lost control to those seven states of all federal agencies; they had also seized every federal fortification except Forts Pickens and Sumter. In addition, the Mississippi River was obstructed or in Southern hands. Oh, and Washington, sandwiched between the southern-leaning states of Maryland and Virginia, was virtually defenseless...” - Arnold Kunst
From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst
July 15
“The country in the years during the run-up to the Civil War seemed to have completely lost all capacity to listen. Perhaps the most striking example occurred in 1856 when Senator Charles Sumner delivered a rousing anti-slavery speech in the US Senate that played well among his abolitionist supporters in his home state of Massachusetts. Unfortunately that speech infuriated the South – and induced a relative of the Southerner whose honor Sumner had besmirched to enter an almost empty senate chamber and attack Sumner as he sat at his desk, beating him with his walking stick with sufficient vehemence that Sumner took years of recuperating before he could return to his senatorial duties. And while Sumner was recuperating, his assailant received any number of replacement walking sticks from well-wishing fellow Southerners – to be used again in case any other Yankee hypocrite stepped out of line!” - Arnold Kunst
From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst
July 14
“Whatever you are, be a good one.” - Abraham Lincoln
From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst
13 July
“If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.” – Harriet Tubman
From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst
13 July
Don’t play old tapes. Ok, so you wet your pants on your first day in kindergarten, and you were really embarrassed. And for years after that, whenever you were embarrassed, that first day in school is what comes back to you. Bear in mind, unless you cope effectively with that mindset you won’t succeed at anything. Life just doesn’t work like that. You must take reasonable precautions about that playing-old-tapes thing. Here’s a suggestion: consider starting up a Warm-And-Fuzzies file. Buy yourself a really nice, expensive three-ring binder, and a packet or two of those clear plastic sheets designed to hold 8 1/2X11’s and fit into a three-ring binder. Then slip evidence of accomplishments into those plastic sheets to preserve them as if they were important - glowing letters of recommendation, certificates of completion, your kids’ drawings and hand-drawn birthday cards, heart-felt thank-you notes, e-mails from friends, or even strangers, you want never to forget. Throwing them out with yesterday’s newspaper is the very same thing as abdicating a kind of royal prerogative. For whether you realize it or not, you were built for greatness. You can neither accurately measure its impact nor alter that destiny - but you can intentionally walk away from it. And if you do abdicate, you’ll end up like the legions of historical might-have-beens; you’ll be just like a car driving along railroad tracks – with the right vehicle on the wrong surface it’s no wonder you’ll lose your transmission inside a mile!
From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst
July 13
Lincoln had turned his wizardry with words into a potent political weapon. In 1858 when Stephen Douglas, the powerful leader of the Democratic Party in the Senate, ran for re-election against Lincoln – victoriously, as it turned out – he knew he was up against a formidable opponent. “Every one of his stories seems like a whack upon my back,” said Douglas. “Nothing else – not any of his arguments or any of his replies to my questions –disturbs me. But when he begins to tell a story, I feel that I am to be overmatched.”
