Following the Law, Plato on Socrates, from Crito

From Crito, by Plato

A friend, Crito, approached Socrates who is in prison condemned to death. The friend as an escape plan. Socrates does not take the offer.

Nay, but if they who call themselves friends are truly friends, they surely will. "Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito."

For a bowl of water: poem that influenced Gandhi

A Gujarati poem, by Shyamlal Bhat, that Gandhi read and left deep impression on his mind

For a bowl of water give a goodly meal;
For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal;
For a simple penny pay thou back with gold;
If thy life be rescued, life do not withhold.
Thus the words and actions of the wise regard;
Every little service tenfold they reward.
But the truly noble know all men as one,
And return with gladness good for evil done.

"Early Glimpses of Religion," by M.K. Gandhi (1948)
As found in The Gandhi Reader edited by Homer A. Jack (1983)

Breakfast at Tiffany's passage

It was no novelty to encounter suspicious specimens among Holly's callers, quite the contrary; but one day late that spring, while passing through the brownstone's vestibule, I noticed a very provocative man examining her mailbox. A person in his early fifties with a hard, weathered face, gray forlorn eyes. He wore an old sweatstained gray hat, and his cheap summer suit, a pale blue, hung too loosely on his lanky frame; his shoes were brown and brand-new. He seemed to have no intention of ringing Holly's bell. Slowly, as though he were reading Braille, he kept rubbing a finger across the embossed lettering of her name.

from "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Truman Capote (1958)

A Few Poems by Emily Dickinson

#305
The difference between Despair
And Fear--is like the One
Between the instant of a Wreck--
And when the Wreck has been--

The Mind is smooth--no Motion--
Contented as the Eye
Upon the Forehead of a Bust--
That knows--it cannot see--


#35
A Nameless Rose

Nobody knows this little Rose--
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it--
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey--
On it's breast to lie--
Only a Bird will wonder--
Only a Breeze will sigh--
Ah Little Rose--how easy
For such as thee to die!


#101
Will there really be a "Morning"?
Is there such a thing as "Day"?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as all as they?

Has it feet like Water lilies?
Has it feather like a Bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?

Oh some Scholar! Oh some Sailor!
Oh some Wise Man from the skies!
Please to tell a little Pilgrim
Where the place called "Morning" lies!

30 Overlooked Acts of Leadership Courage by Asmus

30 Overlooked Acts of Leadership Courage
http://www.aspire-cs.com/30-overlooked-acts-of-leadership-courage

June 14th, 2011 Author: Mary Jo Asmus

We often think of leaders as exhibiting big acts of courage – overcoming huge obstacles and saving lives, metaphorically and literally. Yet I’m amazed and humbled at the courageous things leaders do that we don’t think of as brave. The small courageous things that we overlook every day are the stuff that make up the character of great leaders.

You exhibit leadership courage daily in a lot of unnoticed ways like these when you:

Speak up when you know you’ll be judged harshly.
Shut up and let others have their say even if you think you are right.
Give critical feedback to someone in power when you know it might have unfavorable consequences.
Receive critical feedback from others with grace.
Develop others without fear even when you know they may become smarter than you are.
Be kind to those who disagree with you because they might teach you something.
Coach and mentor others even if it’s not part of your job description.
Say no when everyone else is saying yes.
Say yes when everyone else is saying no.
Accept responsibility for the shameful or embarrassing things you’ve done.
Take the high road when you know how difficult it can be.
Walk away when the fight isn’t worth it.
Stay and fight for the greater good when everyone else is running away from it.
Reflect deeply when you really just want to take action.
Love your followers even when you’re unhappy with them.
Forgive others’ failures when you know they’ve learned an important lesson.
Give others credit even when you’d like to take it for yourself.
Keep going when the going gets really, really tough.
Connect with your heart when your head wants to rule.
Connect with your head when your emotions are threatening to take over.
Ask “what’s right” when you prefer to be critical.
Be curious when you’d rather be judgmental.
Step out of your comfort zone when you hate stepping out or being uncomfortable.
Listen to others deeply, without giving advice.
Ask when you really want to tell.
Do things a different way even though it’s “always been done this way”.
See the potential in others when everyone else sees what’s wrong with them.
Admit your failings when you think you’re supposed to be perfect.
Control your impulses and desires when the temptation is greatest.
Reduce suffering because you can.

What unexpected acts of courage will you act upon today?

Business Leader Quotes

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
Bill Gates

For the wise man, one human life is sufficient, and the stupid man will not know what to do with eternity.
William Shirer, a favorite quote of Bernard Rapoport

Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.
Henry Ford

I don't have to work hard, but we are changing China. It's not how much money you make, it's how you change society.
Jack Ma (As quoted in Barron's 6 June 2011)

Rapoport is a cheerful workaholic, a chronic optimist, a tennis nut, and an avid bibliophile who can't quite understand why other people don't get as much of a thrill out of working as he does.
Jim Wright on Bernard Rapoport (in Being Rapoport)

Strong people have sound ideas and the force to make these ideas effective.
Andrew Mellon

When you work twenty hours a day, when do you have time to develop friends who are not in the business?
Lee Iacocca (Iacocca, chapter 10)

There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that this will work. It is one characteristics of a leader that he not doubt for one moment the capacity of the people he is leading to realize whatever he is dreaming. Imagine if Martin Luther King said "I have a dream. But I am not sure if they are up to it."
Benjamin Zander, TED Conference 2008

Top Scientists, from Simmons The Scientific 100

The Top Twenty-Five

1. Issac Newton and the Newtonian Revolution
2. Albert Einstein and Twentieth-Century Science
3. Neils Bohr and the Atom
4. Charles Darwin and Evolution
5. Louis Pasteur and the Germ Theory of Disease
6. Sigmund Freud and Psychology of the Unconscious
7. Galileo Galilei and the New Science
   
8. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier and the Revolution in Chemistry
9. Johannes Kepler and Motion of the Planets
10. Nicolaus Copernicus and the Heliocentric Universe
11. Michael Faraday and the Classical Field Theory
12. James Clerk Maxwell and the Electromagnetic Field
13. Claude Bernard and the Founding of Modern Physiology
14. Franz Boas and Modern Anthropology
15. Werner Heisenberg and Quantum Theory
16. Linus Pauling and Twentieth-Century Chemistry
17. Rudolf Virchow and the Cell Doctrine
18. Erwin Schrodinger and Wave Mechanics
    
19. Ernest Rutherford and the Structure of the Atom
20. Paul Dirac and Quantum Electrodynamics
21. Andreas Vesalius and the New Anatomy
22. Tycho Brahe and the New Astronomy
23. Comte de Buffon and l'Histoire Naturelle
24. Ludwig Boltzmann and Thermodynamics
25. Max Plank and the Quanta
26. Marie Curie and Radioactivity

From John Simmons, The Scientific 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Scientists, Past and Present (Secaucus NJ, Citadel Press, 1996)

Suggested Science Fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin

--Hard To Be a God by Strugatski Brothers
--Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick
--Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch
--The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem
--The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
--The Dream Master by Roger Zelazny
--The Exile Waiting by Vonda N. McIntyre
--And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees by Michael Bishop
--The Non-Existent Knight by Italo Calvino
--The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino
--The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino

As told by Kim Stanley Robinson in an untitled chapter in 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le Guin edited by Karen Joy Fowler and Debbie Notkin (Seattle, Aqueduct Press, 2010)

Philosophy and Old Texts

Quote:

There is nothing to stop us from lifting a sentence from an old text and seeing what it can do for us now. If we want to lift the thought, not just the sentence, we may have to put some work into deciding what the sentence meant. If we aren't prepared to do that we shouldn't expect too much of it, and we certainly shouldn't disparage its author if we don't get too much from it. But given that precaution we will often find it relevant to our concerns, because much philosophy arises from facts about human beings and human life which are pretty stable -- at any rate they haven't changed much over the last 3,000 years.

From Edward Craig, Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (New York, Oxford University Press, 2002)

A Shadow in the City by Charles Bowden, good quote

(an undercover cop thinking about his rules for working smart)

Be yourself, Sonrisa advises. Never stance, never lie about yourself. Just be yourself. Don't pretend to be more than you are, people will smell the fraud coming off you. Don't be tough, just be natural. If you are reading some cookbook, then you are the guy reading a cookbook. Don't pretend to be reading something else. Because the trick in this world of deals and frauds and rip-offs is this: Be trustworthy. Be natural. Don't talk about yourself, don't tell others anything, absolutely nothing, that they don't need to know for the deal. But given this curtain of privacy, still be natural and open. If you do not drink, then refuse the drink. If you do not like t**** bars, say so. If you don't know shit about bikes, admit it. And for God's sake, don't pretend to be some tough guy because in the room someone eventually will test your claim.

Chapter 2
A Shadow in the City: Confessions of an Undercover Drug Warrior
by Charles Bowden
San Diego, Harcourt, Inc., 2005