those torrential rivers

I think it may be true that fortune determines one half of our actions, but that, even so, she leaves us to control the other half, or thereabouts.

And I compare her to one of those torrential rivers that, when they get angry, break their banks, knock down trees and buildings, strip the soil from one place and deposit it somewhere else. Everyone flees before them, everyone gives way in the face of their onrush, nobody can resist them at any point. But although they are so powerful, this does not mean men, when the waters recede, cannot make repairs and build banks and barriers so that, if the waters rise again, either they will be safely kept within the sluices or at least their onrush will not be so unregulated and destructive. 

The same thing happens with fortune: She demonstrates her power where precautions have not been taken to resist her; she directs her attacks where she knows banks and barriers have not been built to hold her.

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

Resilience: Hard-won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. p.160

a small daily task

A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

Anthony Trollope

Resilience: Hard-won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. p.154

hold two opposed ideas

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

F.Scott Fitzgerald

Resilience: Hard-won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. p.132

weighing up the consequences

It was my fault, she sobbed. And it was true, no one could deny it, but it is also true, if this brings her any consolation, that if, before every action, we were to begin by weighing up the consequences, thinking about them in earnest, first the immediate consequences, then the probable, then the possible, then the imaginable ones, we should never move beyond the point where our first thought brought us to a halt. The good and the evil resulting from our words and deeds go on apportioning themselves, one assumes in a reasonably uniform and balanced way, throughout all the days to follow, including those endless days, when we shall not be here to find out, to congratulate ourselves or ask for pardon, indeed there are those who claim that this is the much-talked-of immortality, Possibly, but this man is dead and must be buried. 

Blindness by José Saramago. English translation 1997. p.71

not knowing everything

Move and the way will open. – ZEN PROVERB

At the start of many important endeavors, you’ll often think: How can I do this? I don’t even know enough to begin. It’s a common excuse, and it’s often a mask for cowardice. When we say that we don’t know what to do, it’s often not information we’re lacking, but courage.

When we begin, we sometimes lack the skills, knowledge, and experience to carry out even the most basic tasks. Of course we do. If we had the experience we needed, we’d already be done.

Not knowing everything cannot be an excuse for not doing anything.

Resilience: Hard-won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. p.39, 47