no time to stand on trifles

Having no authority whatever to do so, [George Washington] offered a bounty of ten dollars for all who would stay another six months after their enlistments expired that day – a considerable sum for men whose pay was six dollars a month.

“I feel the inconvenience of this advance.” Washington would later tell Congress. “But what was to be done?” To Robert Morris he said more bluntly, “I thought it no time to stand on trifles.”

David G. McCullough

1776. Simon & Schuster, 2005. p.285

parade with us, my brave fellows

Parade with us, my brave fellows. There is but a handful of the enemy, and we will have them directly!

George Washington riding among the Americans during the battle at Princeton on Jan. 3, 1777

in 1776 by David G. McCullough. Simon & Schuster, 2005. p.289

marshmallows and patience

In the 1960s, a professor at Stanford University began a modest experiment testing the willpower of four-year-old children. He placed before them a large marshmallow and then told them they could eat it right away or, if they waited for 15 minutes, they could have two marshmallows.

He then left the children alone and watched what happened behind a two-way mirror. Some of the children ate the marshmallow immediately; some could wait only a few minutes before giving in to temptation. Only 30 percent were able to wait. 

It was a mildly interesting experiment, and the professor moved on to other areas of research, for, in his own words, “there are only so many things you can do with kids trying not to eat marshmallows.” But as time went on, he kept track of the children and began to notice an interesting correlation: the children who could not wait struggled later in life and had more behavioral problems, while those who waited tended to be more positive and better motivated, have higher grades and incomes, and have healthier relationships.

What started as a simple experiment with children and marshmallows became a landmark study suggesting that the ability to wait—to be patient—was a key character trait that might predict later success in life.


Dieter F. Uchtdorf
"Continue in Patience", Ensign, May 2010, 56–59

See Jonah Lehrer, “Don’t! The Secret of Self-Control,” New Yorker, May 18, 2009, 26–27. 

the rainbow's treasure

You may grind their souls in the self-same mill,
And bind them heart and brow;
But the poet will follow the rainbow still,
And his brother will follow the plow.


John Boyle O'Reilly
Quoted in Unweaving The Rainbow by Richard Dawkins

the things that make him angry

A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.


Winston Churchill
Anger: Handling a Powerful Emotion in a Healthy Way. Gary D. Chapman. Moody Publishers. 2007.