If you can’t be precise, be concise; if you can’t be concise, be silent.

Rising at five thirty to write a thousand or more words before beginning the day’s labor became an entrenched habit, unbroken to this day. Each day’s writing ended with four or five short reflections on subjects then occupying my mind. By the late ’90s, my writing had grown to five thousand pages containing several thousand of the short

Academic education makes an informed man; Experiential education makes an able one.

Open your clenched fist and the universe will gladly lie down in the palm of your hand.

The businessman wants to make the world behave in accordance with his desires, the academic in accordance with his theories, the theologian in accordance with his beliefs, and the politician in accordance with his ambitions. What the world wants is to be left alone.

The greatest achievement in life is to become your own best self. Nothing external can help with that.

The universe does not exert force in any meaningful sense. The sun does not “force” the planets into orbit or “command” them to do anything. It merely places an attraction in their path to which they respond in accordance with their nature. It would be a blessing if people who aspire to be great could understand this principle and behave in

The essential reward of anything well done is to have done it. Everything else is surfeit.

As partial recompense for dislike of business, I continued to read and study voraciously. It led to three questions that soon dominated my life. Time and time again I asked: • Why are individuals, everywhere, increasingly in conflict with and alienated from the organizations of which they are part? • Why are organizations, everywhere, increasingly