For the ideal philosopher is one who understands the charm of women without being coarse, who loves life heartily but loves it with restraint, and who sees the unreality of the successes and failures of the active world, and stands somewhat aloof and detached, without being hostile to it.
– Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living
A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.
– Lawrence Pearsall Jacks, Education Through Recreation (1932)
Value investing is the one form of investing that puts risk management at the very heart of the approach. However, you will have to rethink the notion of risk. You will learn to think of risk as a permanent loss of capital, not random fluctuations. You will also learn to understand the trinity of sources that compose this risk: valuation, earnings and balance sheets.
Talent x effort = skill. Skill x effort = achievement. Without effort, your talent is nothing more than your unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t.
– Angela Duckworth, Grit
Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.
If you only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.
We must expose our children to adversity even if we have to purchase it for them.
You can write a narrative in your head, and spin yourself down a negative path, and beat yourself up and second guess. But what’s true is you made what you thought was the best decision in the moment. Then, you leave it behind. There’s no going back. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone makes good decisions, bad decisions, or they just didn’t work. For me, it’s: “Learn the lesson. Leave the event.”
If people can’t think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best plan is to let as few things into your identity as possible.