Jeff Dow

“A properly educated leader, especially when harassed and under pressure, will know from his study of history and the classics that circumstances very much like those he is encountering have occurred from time to time on this earth since the beginning of history. He will avoid the self-indulgent error of seeing himself in a predicament so unprecedented, so unique, as to justify his making an exception to law, custom or morality in favor of himself. The making of such exceptions has been the theme of public life throughout much of our lifetimes. For twenty years, we've been surrounded by gamesmen unable to cope with the wisdom of the ages. They make exceptions to law and custom in favor of themselves because they choose to view ordinary dilemmas as unprecedented crises.”
― James B. Stockdale

“The fact is that every war suffers a kind of progressive degradation with every month that it continues, because such things as individual liberty and a truthful press are simply not compatible with military efficiency.”
― George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

“If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry. Worry never fixes anything.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“It is the future that we are more likely to think of immediately when the idea of progress is brought up," says Robert Nisbet, "but it was only when men became conscious of a long past . . . that a consciousness of progressive movement from past to present became possible" (History of the Idea of Progress, New York, 1980, p. 323).”
― James B. Stockdale, Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot