QUOTATIONS

This week, we revisit one of my favorite episodes about Rapoport's Rules for critical commentary.  I still struggle with this to this very day.  I hope this challenges you as much as it does me.  

Michael J. Fox has been an actor for decades.  He starred in Back to the Future, Spin City, & Family Ties.  He also happens to be an actor with Parkinson's.  Despite that diagnosis, he maintains palpable optimism.  How?  Today he tells us the magic ingredient to sustained optimism...it's gratitude.  

Oliver Warbucks is the fictional multi-millionaire in the classic musical Annie.  Though he is not a real person, he offers us valuable advice as we scramble for evermore success, wealth, and notoriety.  As you might expect, he reminds us that those things are not everything.  Of course, this is easy for him to say...but it doesn't mean there's not truth behind his words.  

Edmund Vance Cooke's poem is full of hardship, difficulty, and challenge.  It's also full of hope and should embolden us to stand still, with stiffened spines, as life's challenges confront us.  Let us have a good answer to the question "How did you die...?"

Chuck Palahniuk is the author of Fight Club, Choke, Invisible Monsters, and many other novels, often with troubled main characters and difficult circumstances.  Today's quote comes from one such character, Brandy, in Invisible Monsters.  We are the amalgamation of the people with whom we most often and closely associate.  Importantly, we can (and should) curate that group carefully.

Augustine of Hippo is a saint in multiple churches and penned a fascinating autobiography entitled Confessions.  In it, he describes his shortcomings as if to a priest and we, the readers, are able to get a unique glimpse into why he did what he did in life.  In today's quote, Augustine cautions us to beware the smooth talker AND the imperfect one as neither is guaranteed to be telling us the truth.  

There is trouble all around us.  Society is frustrating and counterproductive and sometimes seems downright impossible to change.  Today's quote by author and public speaker Barbara de Angelis acknowledges that we cannot singlehandedly fix all the injustices we see...but...we can initiate change and it's far easier than it seems.  

Montaigne was a 16th century French philosopher and essayist who wrote short, single-page essay and far longer ones.  Today's quote comes from one such essay and sets the tone, right from the start, that WE control how we respond to the inevitable hardships and torments of life.  We can, with effort, choose not to be victims of circumstance and allow them to perpetually harm us, but instead repurpose them for good, both for ourselves and for others.  

Steven Pressfield has written many amazing books.  His story of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, Gates of Fire, is among the finest.  In this week's episode, we explore Dienekes and his officership in the face of certain death at the hands of more 2 million Persian fighters.  He stood strong, steadied his men, and we can all learn something from that.  

Augustine Mandino was a highly successful salesman, author, and public speaker.  He wrote and spoke extensively on success and, in today's quote, shows us how important it is to treat people well.  If we do, then our lives will never be the same again.  

Here's a great 10min speech of his that I reference in the episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV0Vmth4kT0&t=924s