Know thyself: eyes can easily mislead, but the voice cannever: it is the clearest window to the soul.
Obedience and politics: Follow that which is fair and functional; fix the flawed–discard bathwater, not babies.
Empty words: Never use them. Example: ”That is easier said than done.” Everything is. Nothing is easier done than described. Do not waste words.
Living with empathy: So much of life is a comedy to those who think yet a tragedy to those who feel.
Living by principle: To align my habits, my priorities and my goals, I mean to mind my moment-to-moment choices with hope to understand their effects, so that I can either readily realize my measures or readily recognize that I stray from the path that I had set for myself and need now to reassess my priorities and aims…no homo.
Living Consciously: Learn from the past; look to the future; live in the present.
Living Consistently: Anti-war and pro-drugs is the political perspective of an impotent hypocrite.
The reality of interpersonal communication: We typically talk only to ourselves but sometimes loud enough for others to overhear.
The role of Friendship: As much as anything else, a friend is someone who keeps you off both your heels and your toes.
The one true government: Fundamentally we are anarchists, regardless the allegiances that we choose subsequently.
Discipline vs. Obedience: Hitler never killed anyone but by obedience to Hitler, Nazis killed millions.
Self-defense: No government can disarm a populace; only the populace, itself, can do that.
Self-control (the control of self): No one can offend you without your consent, and no one can diffuse offense that you insist on feeling.
Patriotism: In a beginning, the strongest patriots–their supporters scarce and their cause precarious–pave the road for change while hated and scorned; the timid then join, as the cause succeeds and the cost of patriotism becomes less dear.
The United States: This is the United States. You are free to speak; you are free to protest. But, in the United States, if your protestation requires a longer attention-span than the length of a commercial-break then it will usually fail.
Police:
The good ones: do all you can to honor, help and protect them.
The bad ones: do all you can to bury them, whether politically or literally (and remember your best teammates for this: those who hate bad cops most are good cops!)
Success: To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Integrity: To stand firm is to be misunderstood.
Kindness:
Expect to pass through this world but once;
so any good thing you can do,
any kindness you can show,
do it now: do not defer or neglect it.
You shall not pass this way again.
Diligence: Ignorance and Knowledge cost the same–your time and effort–but the tax on ignorance is immense.
Self-deception: One of the reasons that people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense that, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
Friendship: “Friend” and “fiend” are one letter apart, and unless you are careful, they are one and the same.
You come across like somebody who has a slight chemical imbalance that tries really hard to be insightful and intelligent but in the end is just an underachieving moron.