Posts Tagged ‘Outliers’

I’ve come across a few great ideas in some of the books I’ve been reading, and these books need to be returned. So I figure if I add them to a blog post, I will always have them accessible.

From David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell comes this about courage:

Courage is not something that you already have when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you’ve been through the tough times and you discover they aren’t so tough after all.

The conquering of fear produces exhilaration. The contrast between the previous apprehension and the present relief and  feeling of security promotes a self-confidence that is the very father and mother of courage.

– You should read all of his works – a great mix of history, sociology, psychology, and economics, and highly readable.

From Robert Heinlein and Revolt in 2100: Master Peter was right: the man who buys the meat is brother to the butcher. It was squeamishness, not morals….like the man who favors capital punishment but who himself  is ‘too good” to fit the noose or swing the axe. Like the person who regards war as inevitable and in some cases moral, but who avoids military service because he doesn’t like the thought of military service. Emotional infants, ethical morons – the left hand MUST know what the right hand doeth, and the heart is responsible for both.

War is a simple matter compared with revolution. War is an applied science, with well-defined principles tested in history; analogous solutions may be found from ballista to H-bomb. But every revolution is a freak, a mutant,  a monstrosity, its conditions  never to be repeated and its operations carried out by amateurs and individualists.

– Heinlein was an acquired taste for me, but this particular book is exactly the same premise as the novel I am working on. Spooky…..

From Sheri S. Tepper The Gate to Women’s Country: My art is drama, and my craft is gardening. Is your work a science, a craft, or an art….”My magic? If it has no science, it fails….If it has no craft, it bores, and if it has no art, it offends.”

-Really interesting take on the role of the sexes, and quite thought-provoking. I do love the idea of our lives consisting of an art, a science, and a craft.