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Kindle Notes & Highlights
“If you get your head above the crowd, you’re going to be criticised. So get used to the idea.”
‘If I were to try to read, much less to answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be, closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me won’t matter. If the end brings me out wrong, then ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.’
Do the very best you can; and then put up your old umbrella and keep the rain of criticism from running down the back of your neck.
If we hear that someone has spoken ill of us, let’s not try to defend ourselves. Every fool does that. Let’s be original – and humble – and brilliant! Let’s confound our critic and win applause for ourselves by saying: ‘If my critic had known about all my other faults, he would have criticised me much more severely than he did.’
Let’s keep a record of the fool things we have done and criticise ourselves. Since we can’t hope to be perfect, let’s do what EH Little did: let’s ask for unbiased, helpful, constructive criticism.
‘The sun is shining overhead. The sky is blue and sparkling. Nature is calm and in control of the world – and I, as nature’s child, am in tune with the Universe.’
The sense of must or obligation; the unending stretch of things ahead that simply have to he done.
Those two priceless abilities: first, the ability to think. Second, the ability to do things in the order of their importance.
‘Our life is what our thoughts make it.’
If we get tired enough, nature will force us to sleep even while we are walking.
When men are completely exhausted they sleep right through the thunder and horror and danger of war.
