Andrew Eason

The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

The path of duty lies in what is near, and men seek for it in what is remote; the work of duty lies in what is easy, and men seek for it in what is difficult.

Mencius

"Plans are worthless, but planning is everything"-

Dwight D. Eisenhower.

[note that this neatly hinges the tension between the strategic and tactical modes of engagement]

There is no better means of intensifying the treasured feeling of individuality than the possession of a secret which the individual is pledged to guard. The very beginnings of societal structures reveal the craving for secret organizations. When no valid secrets really exist, mysteries are invented or contrived to which privileged initiates are ad

Seneca indicates that the Eleusinian Mysteries continually helped the ancient Greeks to grow spiritually.

"There are holy things that are not communicated all at once: Eleusis always keeps something back to show those who come again.
"
(Quaestiones Naturalis VII, 30:6)

"The value of myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by 'the veil of familiarity'" in this, fantasy did precisely the opposite of what its critics alleged -- it did not represent a flight from the real world but a return to it, an unveiling of it" [Hannah Long in the Weekly Stan

In Margaret Murray's 1955 Presidential Address to the Folklore Society she stresses the importance of folklore:

"we are too near to events which will become history to realise what folklore underlies them. But folklore is a living thing, it is always with us, and therefore may have effect on even the greatest events of history. "[Murray, 1955: 266]

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
I

Voltaire: “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”