“Prudence in action avails more than wisdom in conception.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 4

 ‘I shall go just as fast and only as fast as I think I’m right and the people are ready for the step.’

- Abraham Lincoln

‘I’ve got a theory that if you give 100% all the time, somehow things will work out in the end.’

- Lady Bird Johnson

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” – Zig Zigler

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

3 November

From the Which-End-Is-Up Department:

For a number of years I taught recorder to small classes of children in various primary schools. A recorder is a plastic musical instrument about 15 inches long, an inexpensive cross between a tin whistle and a flute, and a wonderful way to introduce music to children from the inside out.

At the end of each school year we would put on a concert for parents and teachers of the music we had learned during the school year. One such concert stands out in my mind particularly. Standing in the hallway just before we entered the room where our audience had gathered, little Jacqueline said excitedly to me, “Oh, Mr. Kunst, I’m SO nervous – do we have to do this?”

When the concert was over and we were once again back in that same hallway, she said, every bit as excitedly, “Oh, Mr. Kunst, can we do that again?!”

"A champion is someone who gets up when they can't." - Jack Dempsey

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 3

'My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.'

- Abraham Lincoln

‘You will never really win until you develop the holding power life requires of all winners.'

- Arnold Kunst

“I’d rather die on an adventure than live standing still.” – V. E. Schwab

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

2 November

Life isn't always easy; get used to it. Sometimes it's grueling, often grubby. It can be replete with injustices flung inescapably in your face. Often it's a lonely 3AM-type journey into a desert as distinctive to you as your fingerprints, as inevitable as the journey of a fetus down the birth canal.

“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.” – Mark Twain

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 2

During one of the 1858 senatorial debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln reached for a metaphor to describe the 'humbuggery' of popular sovereignty as a sort of anti-expansionist device. Thanks to Douglas's own inconsistent interpretations, 'had it not got down as thin as a homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that died of starvation?'

'Humor is a rubber sword - it allows you to make a point without drawing blood'

- Nancy Hirsch

“Many argue; few converse.” – Louisa May Alcott

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

1 November

A $75 1937 Packard and a $750,000 2018 Lamborghini are idling next to each other at a red light. The Packard bangs and wheezes like it has emphysema; the Lamborghini purrs. The moral: quality is inversely proportional to noise. [So, how much noise do YOU make?]

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 1

'Lincoln's strength is of a peculiar kind; it is not aggressive so much as it is passive, and among passive things it is like the strength not so much of a stone buttress, as of a wire cable. It is strength swaying to every influence, yielding on this side and on that to popular needs, yet tenaciously and inflexibly bound to carry its great end; and probably by no other kind of strength could our national ship have been drawn safely thus far during the tossings and tempests which beset her way. Surrounded by all sorts of conflicting claims, by traitors, by half-hearted, timid conservatives, he has listened to all, weighed the words of all, waited, observed, yielded now here and now there, but in the main kept one inflexible, honest purpose, and drawn the national ship through.' 

- Harriet Beecher Stowe

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

- Arnold Kunst