Maxims and Reflections

[Captdon]

The greatest error in thinking I made as a young adult and continued to believe was that the average person on the street or anywhere else was inherently good. As I got older I realized that the average person you encounter is inherently evil with malicious intent and little if any integrity

I have found the average person doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone but himself.

[Nemo]

Free Thinking


"It is a rare fortune of these days that a man may think what he likes and say what he thinks."
Tacitus, Historiae, 1.1 (AD 105).
. . .

The right think what you wish is an attribute of freedom of speech, which is a direct grant of liberty under the First Amendment to the Constitution. There have been times in the history of the world when people were persecuted, arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and put to death for nothing more than their thoughts and beliefs. Free thinking can be a dangerous occupation. Such thoughts are rarely welcome: they challenge the authority of the conventional wisdom, and threaten the security of the status quo. (After being imprisoned twice, Voltaire fled Paris to live near the Swiss border to escape arrest for his free thinking.) Indeed, history records that more than a few free thinkers (e.g., Socrates, Cicero, Christ) were executed.

[Nemo]

Equity
Equity is the conscience of the law, for equity would do what the law, but for lack of a remedy, could do and should do. Equity is the measure of fairness when the scales of justice hang unbalanced. Equity awards the righteous their just desserts; but not those that sit on their rights. And it is a maxim that one who seeks equity must do equity, for it will not do to come to equity with unclean hands. Equity is a court of last resort, and its jurisdiction only seldom invoked; for when the law confers rights, equity will not serve as substitute.

[Nemo]

Change

There is nothing more characteristic of human nature than its resistance to change. There is a strong preference for the familiar; and old habits, however bad, persist. Thomas Jefferson observed in the Declaration of Independence that mankind was more disposed to suffer evil than abolish its accustomed forms. But to change requires more than just independence of mind or spirit: it requires courage. For there is no action that is more difficult or more daring.

[carolina73]

Change

There is nothing more characteristic of human nature than its resistance to change. There is a strong preference for the familiar; and old habits, however bad, persist. Thomas Jefferson observed in the Declaration of Independence that mankind was more disposed to suffer evil than abolish its accustomed forms. But to change requires more than just independence of mind or spirit: it requires courage. For there is no action that is more difficult or more daring.

Or maybe what you thought was good change wasn't.

[Nemo]

Not all change is for the better; but to change oneself for the better is good. It is a triumph of the will.

[Nemo]

Ambition

Nothing succeeds like ambition; it can overcome, or get around, all obstacles, and has no scruples justifying ends to means. It is relentless:The ambitious will never leave you in peace while you stand in their way; or until they have made you a stepping stone on their path to success. Not even the useless are exempt for they are discarded for ambition's purpose.