Travels etc.

I’d like to start with some hypothetical examples. Example 1 . You might have seen somebody saying: “Machiavelli: The end justifies the means” or “As Machiavelli said: The end justifies the means”. Example 2 . “Be the change you wish to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi” Example 3 . “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. – Bertrand Russell”. Or “Don’t argue with idiots because they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. — Greg King” Example 4 . “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. – Confucius” or “Everything comes to you at the right time. Just be patient.” I am sure some of us are faced with the examples above or similar quotes quite often. Let’s look at them in detail and see how the quotes are usually used and how it can be improved. Usually there are several reasons to use a quote that appear separately or in combination with each other: a) Support...

I have just finished reading Alcibiades I , by Plato. In that dialog I found very good part that may illustrate many events that happen constantly when someone deals with people in regards to influence, politics, problem solving, negotiations etc. Here’s the text I’d like to quote: --- SOCRATES: Then let us compare our antecedents with those of the Lacedaemonian and Persian kings; are they inferior to us in descent? Have we not heard that the former are sprung from Heracles, and the latter from Achaemenes, and that the race of Heracles and the race of Achaemenes go back to Perseus, son of Zeus?  ALCIBIADES: Why, so does mine go back to Eurysaces, and he to Zeus!   SOCRATES: And mine, noble Alcibiades, to Daedalus, and he to Hephaestus, son of Zeus. But, for all that, we are far inferior to them. For they are descended 'from Zeus,' … whereas, we and our fathers were but private persons.   How ridiculous would you be thought if you were to make a display of yo...