Quotes

One of the fondest memories of my Granddad Nelson was trading quotes regularly over email. Sadly I lost the email archive when I went on my mission, but it has continued to be an interest of mine. I hope you enjoy my collection of quotes. A bit of everything from religion to politics to leadership.

Adulthood is saying ‘But after this week things will slow down a bit’ over & over until you die.

I don’t know what the answer is, precisely, but I know it starts when we stop blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what we can do to make things better.

The best way to look at this might be to recognize that you probably can’t fix these things. They’ll always be around. But maybe you can put your thumb on the scale a little for the people at the margins.

No person’s childhood gives him or her a perpetual moral get-out-of-jail-free card

This is just one version of how the world of successful people actually works. But social capital is all around us. Those who tap into it and use it prosper. Those who don’t are running life’s race with a major handicap.

Social capital isn’t manifest only in someone connecting you to a friend or passing a résumé on to an old boss. It is also, or perhaps primarily, a measure of how much we learn through our friends, colleagues, and mentors.

The old adage says that it’s better to be lucky than good. Apparently having the right network is better than both.

That doesn’t mean the strength of your résumé or interview performance is irrelevant. Those things certainly matter. But there is enormous value in what economists call social capital. It’s a professor’s term, but the concept is pretty simple: The networks of people and institutions around us have real economic value. They connect us to the right people, ensure that we have opportunities, and impart valuable information. Without them, we’re going it alone.

…despite all of the environmental pressures from my neighborhood and community, I received a different message at home. And that just might have saved me.

Some problems are best solved with an optimistic approach. Optimism shines a light on alternatives that are otherwise not visible.