The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. GOOGLE PARENTS “Like meddlesome parents who never let their kids do anything on their own, Google, Facebook, and other makers of personal software end up demeaning and diminishing qualities of character that, at least in the past, have been seen as essential to a full and vigorous life: ingenuity, curiosity, independence, perseverance, daring.”

Excerpt From: Carr, Nicholas. “The Glass Cage: Automation and Us.”

  1. DRONES “As currently deployed, missile-carrying drones aren’t all that different from cruise missiles and other weapons. A person still pulls the trigger.

The big change will come when a computer starts pulling the trigger. Fully automated, computer-controlled killing machines—what the military calls lethal autonomous robots, or LARs—are technologically feasible today, and have been for quite some time. Environmental sensors can scan a battlefield with high-definition precision, automatic firing mechanisms are in wide use, and codes to control the shooting of a gun or the launch of a missile aren’t hard to write. To a computer, a decision to fire a weapon isn’t really any different from a decision to trade a stock or direct an email message into a spam folder. An algorithm is an algorithm.

Excerpt From: Carr, Nicholas. “The Glass Cage: Automation and Us.”

  1. QUOTED BY REAGAN

“The nation that forgot God has never been allowed to endure.”

— G. Washington

“It is not our duty to leave wealth to our children, but it is our duty to leave liberty to them.”

— John Dickinson, Signer, Declaration of Independence

“If men will not be governed by God, then they must be governed by tyrants.”

— William Penn

  1. BOOK BURNINGS “Undesirable books, by contrast, were destroyed. In Eastern Europe, the Nazis burned a staggering 375 archives, 402 museums, 531 institutes, and 957 libraries. It is estimated that Hitler destroyed half of all books in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and fifty-five million tomes in Russia. Libraries in occupied nations that remained open were reorganized to serve the Nazi agenda.”

Excerpt From: Molly Guptill Manning. “When Books Went to War.”

  1. RAPPORT “Everyone who was ever a guest of Theodore Roosevelt was astonished at the range and diversity of his knowledge. Whether his visitor was a cowboy or a Rough Rider, a New York politician or a diplomat, Roosevelt knew what to say. And how was it done? The answer was simple. Whenever Roosevelt expected a visitor, he sat up late the night before, reading up on the subject in which he knew his guest was particularly interested.

For Roosevelt knew, as all leaders know, that the royal road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most.”

Excerpt From: Carnegie, Dale. “How To Win Friends & Influence People.”

  1. MARRIAGE “In the 1885 case of Murphy v. Ramsey, the US Supreme Court recognized the fundamental importance of the traditional institution of marriage: No legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self-governing commonwealth, than that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization; the best guaranty of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement.

Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”

  1. WHEN BOOKS BURNED “With the passage of nine years and a formal declaration of war, the book burnings were cast in a new light: a warning of the destruction that would follow. In nine years’ time, cities were destroyed, millions of lives were lost, and devastation had spread across Europe like a plague. As one newspaper remarked, “Hunger, forced labor, imprisonment, concentration camps, unarmed crowds of fleeing citizens slaughtered from the skies, nations murdered without cause”—these “are the spectacles that have succeeded those bonfires of books.”

Excerpt From: Molly Guptill Manning. “When Books Went to War.”

  1. YOUR LIFE – F. CHAN https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jF_x8dsvb_4
  2. CALLING “If you are doing a job someone else can do, it is not your calling.”

— Bob Shank

  1. NOTHING NEW UNDER SUN “What [Booker T.] Washington tried to help an increasingly secular nation to understand was the spiritual principle of sowing and reaping, that every action plants seeds that bear fruit for generations after. “If you could look about the South and see the shiftless way in which the people are living, you would think the case almost hopeless. I have felt so. If you could see some of those men, you would realize as never before the awful curse of slavery. You would realize that ‘Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.’” The principle applied, he believed, to every aspect of social and political life.”

Excerpt From: Mansfield, Stephen. “Then Darkness Fled.”

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. QUALITY OR QUANTITY “Fully 85 percent of your happiness in life will come from happy relationships with other people, especially those closest to you, as well as the members of your family. The critical determinant of the quality of your relationships is the amount of time that you spend face-to-face with the people you love, and who love you in return.”

Rule: It is the quality of time at work that counts and the quantity of time at home that matters.

Excerpt From: Tracy, Brian. “Eat That Frog!.”

  1. LEGACY “If you walk away from the truth, the linkage to the gospel may be severed for your descendents. Is there anything in life that is more important than that?”

Excerpt From: Dobson, James. “Your Legacy.”

  1. THE BIBLE “Isn’t it interesting that the Book of Exodus, which was written nearly 3,600 years ago, is still relevant to our lives today? It is because the biblical text was “God-breathed.” It was written by forty authors over a course of 1,500 years, on three continents and in three languages. There has never been another book like the Bible, yet it has been banned in public schools, in most universities, and in the public square.”

Excerpt From: Dobson, James. “Your Legacy.”

  1. ATTITUDE  “The last of the human freedoms [is] to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” — Victor Frankl
  2. LIFE’S FAST PACE “There is more to life than just increasing its speed.”

–GANDHI

  1. ULTIMATE CHOICE “We don’t choose where or when to be born. We don’t choose where or when to die. But we do choose how to live in between.”    –Unknown
  2. HABITS “The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably, thought and act.”

–ORISON SWETT MARDEN

  1. PRAISE OVER CRITICISM “In the early nineteenth century, a young man in London aspired to be a writer. But everything seemed to be against him. He had never been able to attend school more than four years. His father had been flung in jail because he couldn’t pay his debts, and this young man often knew the pangs of hunger. Finally, he got a job pasting labels on bottles of blacking in a rat-infested warehouse, and he slept at night in a dismal attic room with two other boys—guttersnipes from the slums of London. He had so little confidence in his ability to write that he sneaked out and mailed his first manuscript in the dead of night so nobody would laugh at him. Story after story was refused. Finally the great day came when one was accepted. True, he wasn’t paid a shilling for it, but one editor had praised him. One editor had given him recognition. He was so thrilled that he wandered aimlessly around the streets with tears rolling down his cheeks. The praise, the recognition, that he received through getting one story in print, changed his whole life, for if it hadn’t been for that encouragement, he might have spent his entire life working in rat-infested factories. You may have heard of that boy. His name was Charles Dickens. Use of praise instead of criticism is the basic concept of B. F. Skinner’s teachings. This great contemporary psychologist has shown by experiments with animals and with humans that when criticism is minimized and praise emphasized, the good things people do will be reinforced and the poorer things will atrophy for lack of attention. Excerpt From: Carnegie, Dale. “How To Win Friends & Influence People.”
  2. SELF-DISCIPLINE “Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.” — Elbert Hubbard
  3. NOW “There’s no time like the present and there’s no present like the time.” –Unknown
  4. FAILURE’S TRICK “Before success comes in any man’s life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat, and, perhaps, some failure. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to QUIT. That is exactly what the majority of men do.

Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning. It takes great delight in tripping one when success is almost within reach.

One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat.”

Excerpt From: Hill, Napoleon. “Think and Grow Rich.”

 

 

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. BOOKER T. INSIGHT ON SLAVERY “Yet while a race remembers and relives its sufferings and wrongs, it is often unwittingly transformed, often into the very image of its oppressor. Moreover, bitterness anchors the mind in the past and takes the heart with it. There is no future and no sense of the possible. There is only the incessant churning. Soon it becomes an excuse, a room into which the heart can run to find justification for failure and wrongs of its own. The end comes after the isolation and the rage have run their course. Bitterness is the second sting of the wound, and its fruit is death.

If his people gave in to such a fate, there would be no day of destiny, no uplift from the bog of slavery. Instead, there would be slums, race wars, poverty, cold distance from the white man and the comforting ooze of anything that deadened the mind and masked the pain. They would never show their worth, never achieve their best, and never give the next generation a higher plane from which to launch into a new day. Then the haters would seem to be right. Black people would indeed be worthless, for bitterness makes impotent all that it touches.

So Washington determined to drive the spirit of bitterness from his people. He had been a slave and he knew that there were “cruel wrongs inflicted upon us.” He admitted these openly, but he also begged his people to remember that the God who loved them had a plan for turning the horror to good. The Negro had come into slavery the pagan property of white people. Now the Negro was a Christian and an American with a ballot in hand. There was good that had come out of the tragedy and blacks “should not permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

Excerpt From: Mansfield, Stephen. “Then Darkness Fled.”

  1. PERSEVERANCE “You outlive your darkest day. In other words, failure can never be your destination. In adverse circumstances, you must remind yourself that this day is not your last. You must look for a destination beyond the devastation.”

Excerpt From: “Coach K’s Key Words for Success”

  1. PROGRESS “Progress is impossible if you only attempt to do the things you have always done.”

Excerpt From: “Coach K’s Key Words for Success”

  1. WINSOME “Wouldn’t you like to have a magic phrase that would stop arguments, eliminate ill feeling, create good will, and make the other person listen attentively?

Yes? All right. Here it is: “I don’t blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do.”

An answer like that will soften the most cantankerous old cuss alive. And you can say that and be 100 percent sincere, because if you were the other person you, of course, would feel just as he does.”

Excerpt From: Carnegie, Dale. “How To Win Friends & Influence People.”

  1. HAVE A PLAN “An average plan vigorously executed is far better than a brilliant plan on which nothing is done.”

Excerpt From: Tracy, Brian. “Eat That Frog!”

  1. FLOOD OF FAITH “God informed Noah of His plan: He was going to destroy the world with a flood. So for one hundred and twenty years, by faith, Noah followed the Lord’s leading. He gathered the materials, he built the ark, probably to the ridicule of everyone around him. After all, this was a world that had never known rain; the earth was watered from beneath. And while Noah was building this ark, he was preaching righteousness to those around him. . . . Surrounded and mocked by his depraved . . . contemporaries, this preacher of righteousness, by faith, stood against the tide of his culture.”

Excerpt From: Charles R. Swindoll. “Wisdom for the Way.”

  1. FAILURE = SUCCESS “My personal rule is “Get it 80 percent right and then correct it later.” Run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. Don’t expect perfection the first time or even the first few times. Be prepared to fail over and over before you get it right.

The biggest enemies we have to overcome on the road to success are not a lack of ability and a lack of opportunity but fears of failure and rejection and the doubts that they trigger. The only way to overcome your fears is to “do the thing you fear,” as Emerson wrote, “and the death of fear is certain.”

Excerpt From: Tracy, Brian. “Eat That Frog!.”

  1. LIFE’S CHALLENGES Imagine yourself on a stormy night all alone in your TV room watching a horror film. You are captivated by fear – if only imaginary – and your focus is completely on the plot and images right in front of you.  You are drawn in to the point of obsession. Now imagine that same film playing in your living room – in the background – on a sunny Sunday afternoon as you are in the kitchen baking cookies and talking with family or occasionally on the phone as the oven readies the treats. That is what scary things/problems in our lives are like. We can be totally focused and obsessed with our problems to the exclusion of all else, or we can know that there are always difficult situations in our lives that we must handle.  They are always going on in the background, but we cannot let them continually dominate our attention to the exclusion of other responsibilities and pleasures in life.

–Unknown

  1. PRAYERS ANSWERED “On some occasions my prayers were answered the way I wanted. At other times He seemed to say, “Not now,” or “No,” or simply “Wait.” This third reply is the most difficult to accept.”

Excerpt From: Dobson, James. “Your Legacy.”

  1. CONFRONT EVIL  “The issues of the world must be met and met squarely. The forces of evil do not disdain preparation, they are always prepared and always preparing.”

— C. Coolidge

 

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. ABE “A close friend of Abe Lincoln, Joshua Speed, published Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, which includes a story from 1864 when he visited Lincoln:

When I knew [Mr. Lincoln], in early life, he was a skeptic. He had tried hard to be a believer, but his reason could not grasp and solve the great problem of redemption as taught. He was very cautious never to give expression to any thought or sentiment that would grate harshly upon a Christian’s ear. For a sincere Christian, he had great respect. . . . But this was a subject we never discussed. The only evidence I have of any change, was in the summer before he was killed. I was invited out to the Soldier’s Home to spend the night. As I entered the room, near night, he was sitting near a window intently reading his Bible. Approaching him I said, “I am glad to see you so profitably engaged.” “Yes,” said he, “I am profitably engaged.” “Well,” said I, “if you have recovered from your skepticism, I am sorry to say that I have not.” Looking me earnestly in the face and placing his hand on my shoulder, he said, “You are wrong, Speed. Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man.” Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”

  1. STRENGTH  “The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

553. PLAN “If everything goes as planned, you don’t have a story.” –Unknown

554. WW II WEAPON “We all know that books burn—yet we have the greater knowledge that books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory. No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever. No man and no force can take from the world the books that embody man’s eternal fight against tyranny of every kind. In this war, we know, books are weapons.

Excerpt From: Molly Guptill Manning. “When Books Went to War.”

  1. WARNING “A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished from its edges.” — Benjamin Franklin
  2. LEGACY Jonathan Edwards, born in 1703, was perhaps the most brilliant thinker America has ever produced. Even though he and his wife had 11 children, he invested one hour each day into their lives.

Of his known descendants:

– 300 became pastors and missionaries

– 120 became university professors

– 110 became lawyers

– 60 were prominent authors

– 30 were judges

– 13 served as presidents of colleges and universities

– 3 served inThe US Congress

– 1 became Vice President of the United States

  1. MENTORS “If you want a year of prosperity, grow grain.

If you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees.

If you want one hundred years of prosperity, grow people.”

—CHINESE PROVERB

  1. NEXT GENERATION “Relay races are usually won or lost in the passing of the baton. So it is with the Christian life. When members of one generation are committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and are determined to finish strong, they rarely fumble the baton. But getting the handoff securely in the hands of children can be difficult and risky. That is when Christian commitments between generations can be dropped. It isn’t always the fault of the parents. Some young runners refuse to reach out and grasp the baton. Either way, there is nothing more tragic than failing to transfer the baton to those who come after.”

Excerpt From: Dobson, James. “Your Legacy.”

  1.  CLOTHING “Our culture has sacrificed the innocence of our youth on the altar of sexual glorification. It’s no longer about selling clothes; it’s more about selling our souls. We decry the way our wives and daughters are disparaged over their body images and seen as sexual objects, yet promulgate the very lifestyles and clothing lines that lead to the thing we denounce. We have become a schizophrenic society.”

Excerpt From: Battaglia, Joe. “The Politically Incorrect Jesus.”

  1. HUMILITY [Booker T.] Washington’s humility was not merely a matter of principle and theological abstraction. It was practical, working itself out in the fabric of his life, in the daily and the mundane of his existence. Once when he was staying in a Des Moines hotel, a woman guest mistook him for a porter and asked him to fetch her a drink of water. Washington was at that moment a leading educator, an internationally renowned author, an adviser to governments, and arguably the most famous black man in the world. But he didn’t hesitate. He immediately went to the hotel’s front desk to ask for the water. He felt no offense because true humility removes the sting of the common.

Excerpt From: Mansfield, Stephen. “Then Darkness Fled.”

 

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

541. POWER OF THE AIRWAVES “Hitler prepared for battle by infiltrating France’s airwaves. Germany hired native-French broadcasters to lure unsuspecting listeners to tune in to amusing radio shows and popular music. Many listeners were oblivious to the propaganda that was subtly included. These radio commentators expressed worry over the German army’s dominance and military strength, and predicted that France could not withstand an attack. The doubt Hitler’s radio programs planted in French minds quickly spread. Edmond Taylor, a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune who lived in France during this period, witnessed Hitler’s intricately choreographed propaganda campaign and how it crumbled France’s resolve. Describing it as a “strategy of terror,” Taylor reported that Germany spent enormous amounts on propaganda and even bribed French newspapers to publish stories that confirmed the rumors of Germany’s superiority. According to Taylor, Germany’s war of ideas planted a sense of dread “in the soul of France that spread like a monstrous cancer, devouring all other emotional faculties [with] an irrational fear [that was] . . . uncontrollable.” So weakened was the confidence of the French that something as innocuous as a test of France’s air-raid-siren system generated ripples of panic; the mere innuendo of invasion somehow reinforced the idea that France would undoubtedly be defeated.

Over 230 million Europeans, once free, fell under Nazi rule.”

Excerpt From: Molly Guptill Manning. “When Books Went to War.”

542. COMPUTER GAMES/SIMULATORS “Artificial renderings of space may provide stimulation to our eyes and to a lesser degree our ears, but they tend to starve our other senses—touch, smell, taste—and greatly restrict the movements of our bodies. A study of rodents, published in Science in 2013, indicated that the brain’s place cells are much less active when animals make their way through computer-generated landscapes than when they navigate the real world. “Half of the neurons just shut up,” reported one of the researchers, UCLA neurophysicist Mayank Mehta. He believes that the drop-off in mental activity likely stems from the lack of “proximal cues”—environmental smells, sounds, and textures that provide clues to location—in digital simulations of space. “A map is not the territory it represents,” the Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski famously remarked, and a virtual rendering is not the territory it represents either.”

Excerpt From: Carr, Nicholas. “The Glass Cage: Automation and Us.”

543. PRAYER IN SCHOOLS In 1962, the state of New York proposed this prayer for Its schools: “Almighty God we acknowledge our dependence on thee and we beg thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional.

Excerpt From: Reagan, Ronald. “The Notes.”

544. TIME “Alas! There is no casting anchor in the stream of time!”

— Marguerite Gardiner, 1850

545. PLEASE JUST LISTEN “Many persons call a doctor when all they want is an audience.” — Readers Digest

546. GOOD CONVERSATION “If you want to know how to make people shun you and laugh at you behind your back and even despise you, here is the recipe: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. If you have an idea while the other person is talking, don’t wait for him or her to finish: bust right in and interrupt in the middle of a sentence.

People who talk only of themselves think only of themselves. And “those people who think only of themselves,” Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, longtime president of Columbia University, said, “are hopelessly uneducated. They are not educated,” said Dr. Butler, “no matter how instructed they may be.”

So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.”

Excerpt From: Carnegie, Dale. “How To Win Friends & Influence People.”

547. GEN. BRADLEY KNEW “General Omar Bradley was one of the main US Army field commanders in North Africa and Europe during World War II. Later, he was the first officer assigned to the post of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1948, he stated this powerful insight, “We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. . . . The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”

Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”

548. CONTROL YOUR TEMPER “You can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry.” — Bits and Piece

549. PRESIDENTIAL FAITH “No man who enters upon the office to which I have succeeded can fail to recognize how every president of the United States has placed special reliance upon his faith in God. Every president has taken comfort and courage when told . . . that the Lord “will be with thee. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Fear not—neither be thou dismayed”. . . Each of our presidents in his own way has placed a special trust in God. Those who were strongest intellectually were also strongest spiritually. . . .” — John F. Kennedy in a February 1961 speech

550. BE THERE “God doesn’t ask for ability, but for availability.”

— Unknown

 

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

531. SMART PHONES AND DEMENTIA? “One of the earliest and most debilitating symptoms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, is hippocampal and entorhinal degeneration and the consequent loss of locational memory. Victims begin to forget where they are. Véronique Bohbot, a research psychiatrist and memory expert at McGill University in Montreal, has conducted studies demonstrating that the way people exercise their navigational skills influences the functioning and even the size of the hippocampus—and may provide protection against the deterioration of memory. The harder people work at building cognitive maps of space, the stronger their underlying memory circuits seem to become. They can actually grow gray matter in the hippocampus—a phenomenon documented in London cab drivers—in a way that’s analogous to the building of muscle mass through physical exertion. But when they simply follow turn-by-turn instructions in “a robotic fashion,” Bohbot warns, they don’t “stimulate their hippocampus” and as a result may leave themselves more susceptible to memory loss. Bohbot worries that, should the hippocampus begin to atrophy from a lack of use in navigation, the result could be a general loss of memory and a growing risk of dementia. “Society is geared in many ways toward shrinking the hippocampus,” she told an interviewer. “In the next twenty years, I think we’re going to see dementia occurring earlier and earlier.”

Excerpt From: Carr, Nicholas. “The Glass Cage: Automation and Us.”

532. PERSEVERE Thomas Edison once said, “Most of life’s failures are people who didn’t realize how close they were to success before they gave up.”

533. LEGACY “Great people plant trees they will never sit under.” — Alfred North Whitehead

534. CIVILITY “The strength of a nation is not its legal machinery, but the moral stamina and courage of its people. The law is but the codification of their conscience. There are not enough laws and never will be, to keep a society stable if its members no longer will it. There are not enough policemen, courts, judges or prisons, nor ever can be to prevent the death of a civilization whose people no longer care. Law enforcement is for the criminal few; it collapses if it must be enforced against the many. When the sense of personal accountability is no longer present in majority strength, then no legal device known to man can hold the society together. Freedom is a timely torch blazing in the dark.”

— Ralph Bradford

535. TAXES “The moment you abandon the cardinal principle of extracting from all individuals the same proportion of their income or their property you are at sea without rudder or compass & there is no amount of injustice or folly you may not commit.”

— John McCulloch (100 years ago)

536. BEING LIGHT “What is to give light must endure burning.”

—VIKTOR E. FRANKL

537. TECH EFFECT “Ours may be a time of material comfort and technological wonder, but it’s also a time of aimlessness and gloom. During the first decade of this century, the number of Americans taking prescription drugs to treat depression or anxiety rose by nearly a quarter. One in five adults now regularly takes such medications. The suicide rate among middle-aged Americans increased by nearly 30 percent over the same ten years, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 10 percent of American schoolchildren, and nearly 20 percent of high-school-age boys, have been given a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and two-thirds of that group take drugs like Ritalin and Adderall to treat the condition.”

Excerpt From: Carr, Nicholas. “The Glass Cage: Automation and Us.”

538. BIBLE & PRESIDENTS “The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.”

CALVIN COOLIDGE, THIRTIETH PRESIDENT

“We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity.”

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, THIRTY-SECOND PRESIDENT

“The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and Saint Matthew, from Isaiah and Saint Paul. . . . If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State!”

HARRY S. TRUMAN, THIRTY-THIRD PRESIDENT

“Inside the Bible’s pages lie all the answers to all of the problems man has ever known. . . . The Bible can touch our hearts, order our minds, and refresh our souls.”

RONALD REAGAN, FORTIETH PRESIDENT

Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”

539. The word “sin” is no longer included in the latest version of the Oxford Junior Dictionary.

540. “Some people mistake a bad memory for a clear conscience.” — Chris Seidman

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

521. INTERSTATES “One of President Eisenhower’s most enduring contributions is the interstate highway system—something few twenty-first-century Americans can imagine life without. Ike was first inspired to undertake this initiative shortly after the invasion of Normandy on D-Day in 1944. After troops had landed, they had some difficulty navigating the back roads of France. Those navigational difficulties impaired the American troops’ ability to drive the Nazis back into Germany and finish the war. When the Americans finally did make it to Germany, they found that the Germans had a much more sophisticated roadway system than the French. Ike never forgot that, and as president, he was determined that in the U.S. the road system would be modeled after the one in Germany.”

The interstate highway system contributed to this problem by making our country smaller. It has given those who are motivated to commit violent crimes easier access to potential victims and has allowed them to escape more quickly to destinations that are farther away.

Transportation has also changed the nature of crime in America. Before we had an interstate system, the most violent crimes were between people who knew one another. Over the last several decades, interpersonal crimes against total strangers have been on the rise. The Internet has accelerated this trend—creating, in effect, a new virtual interstate highway system that brings people closer together, for both good and bad purposes.”

Excerpt From: Adams, Mike. “Letters to a Young Progressive.”

522. GENERAL MacARTHUR General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the Pacific during World War II, said this in December 1951:

“In this day of gathering storms, as moral deterioration of political power spreads its growing infection, it is essential that every spiritual force be mobilized to defend and preserve the religious base upon which this nation is founded; for it has been that base which has been the motivating impulse to our moral and national growth. History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual reawakening to overcome the moral lapse or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.”

Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”

523. NOTHING NEW “In the 1650s and ’60s the long-simmering fear of God’s wrath grew acute. Every Christian knew his Bible, and everyone knew that the Bible talked of a day of judgment. The question was not whether the world would end but how soon the end would come. The answer, it seemed, was very soon.

Almost no one believed in the idea of progress. (The very scientists whose discoveries would create the modern world did not believe in it.) On the contrary, the nearly universal belief was that the world had been falling apart since Adam and Eve were banished from Eden. Now, it seemed, the fall had accelerated. From high and low, in learned sermons and shrieking pamphlets, men pointed out the signs that the apocalypse was near. Books on the Second Coming were written by the score during this period.”

Excerpt From: Dolnick, Edward. “The Clockwork Universe.”

524. WHY SCIENCE SO COMPLICATED? “God “took delight to hide his works, to the end to have them found out.”

Why would God operate in such a roundabout way? If his intent was to proclaim His majesty, why not arrange the stars to spell out BEHOLD in blazing letters? To seventeenth-century thinkers, this was no mystery. God could have put on a display of cosmic fireworks, but that would have been to win us over by shock and fear. When it came to intellectual questions, coercion was the wrong tool. Having created human beings and endowed us with the power of reason, God surely meant for us to exercise our gifts.

The mission of science was to honor God, and the best way to pay Him homage was to discover and proclaim the perfection of His plans.”

Excerpt From: Dolnick, Edward. “The Clockwork Universe.”

525. WELFARE “If, through guarantees, monopolies, or socialism, one’s paycheck is ensured without effort, the majority will do the minimum possible to continue to receive the reward. We first discovered this in Frédéric Bastiat’s book, The Law.

Bastiat wrote: “Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property.

But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder.

Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain—and since labor is pain in itself—it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it.

When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.”

Plunder can be as simple as receiving a check without working, or as big as one country invading another to receive the fruits of another’s labor. Either way the desire is within the heart of man and must be accounted for. In other words, each system must be designed with this inherent attribute in mind, or the organization will decline when people find ways to resort to plunder rather than productivity.

As long as our system encourages various types of plunder rather than making work the easiest way to succeed, we’ll continue to decline. No politician or political party can do anything against this truth.

Excerpt From: Orrin Woodward & Oliver DeMille. “LeaderShift.”

526. SURPRISE QUOTE? “The Fed. govt. must and shall quit this business of relief. Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to National fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.”

— FDR, 1935

527. PEACE THRU STRENGTH “The vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk its own destruction.”

— D. Eisenhower

528. RESULTS OF WEAK VIRTUES “It is my purpose . . . to show how easily the tragedy of the Second World War could have been prevented; how the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.”

–W. Churchill

529. DOCTORS AND COMPUTERS “Being led by the screen rather than the patient is particularly perilous for young practitioners, Lown suggests, as it forecloses opportunities to learn the most subtle and human aspects of the art of medicine—the tacit knowledge that can’t be garnered from textbooks or software. It may also, in the long run, hinder doctors from developing the intuition that enables them to respond to emergencies and other unexpected events, when a patient’s fate can be sealed in a matter of minutes. At such moments, doctors can’t be methodical or deliberative; they can’t spend time gathering and analyzing information or working through templates. A computer is of little help. Doctors have to make near-instantaneous decisions about diagnosis and treatment. They have to act. Cognitive scientists who have studied physicians’ thought processes argue that expert clinicians don’t use conscious reasoning, or formal sets of rules, in emergencies. Drawing on their knowledge and experience, they simply “see” what’s wrong—oftentimes making a working diagnosis in a matter of seconds—and proceed to do what needs to be done.

Put a screen between doctor and patient, and you put distance between them. You make it much harder for automaticity and intuition to develop.”

Excerpt From: Carr, Nicholas. “The Glass Cage: Automation and Us.”

530. THE WORLD’S VIEW “…upon coming into the world, we soon find that wisdom and virtue are by no means the sole objects of respect; nor vice and folly, of contempt. We frequently see the respectful attentions of the world more strongly directed towards the rich and the great, than towards the wise and the virtuous.”

Excerpt From: “The Book of Moral Sentiments” by Adam Smith

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

511. LAWS “It will be of little avail to the people that laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.” –A. Hamilton

512. PERSECUTION : “The patriot, like the Christian, must learn to bear revilings and persecutions as a part of his duty; and in proportion as the trial is severe, firmness under it becomes more requisite and praiseworthy.  It requires, indeed, self-command.  But that will be fortified in proportion as the calls for its exercise are repeated.” — Thomas Jefferson

513. INFORMATION UNDERLOAD “Automation actually places added and unexpected demands on people, burdening them with extra work. Researchers worry that the lassitude produced by information underload is going to be a particular danger with coming generations of automotive automation. As software takes over more steering and braking chores, the person behind the wheel won’t have enough to do and will tune out. Making matters worse, the driver will likely have received little or no training in the use and risks of automation. Some routine accidents may be avoided, but we’re going to end up with even more bad drivers on the road.”

Excerpt From: Carr, Nicholas. “The Glass Cage: Automation and Us.”

514. WISDOM ABOUT WEALTH “That some should be rich shows that others may become rich & hence is just encouragement to industry & enterprise.” — A. Lincoln

515. TAXATION At the beginning of the dynasty taxation yields a large revenue from small assessments. At the end of the Dynasty taxation yields a small revenue from large assessments.” –Ibn Khaldoun (Moslem Phil. 14th Century)

516. VIRTUE PROTECTS A NATION Samuel Adams, the great American patriot accused by King George III of being “the chief rabble-rouser” of American independence, wrote the following in a letter to James Warren, the president of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, in 1779:

“A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader. How necessary then is it for those who are determined to transmit the blessings of liberty as a fair inheritance to posterity, to associate on public principles in support of public virtue.”

God said that He will never leave us or forsake us, but if we leave Him, what then? In Joshua 7, God’s people turned their backs on God and did not obey Him. Only when we are in God’s perfect will, only when we have forsaken sin, will we have the privilege of His presence with us.

Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”

517. KNOW IT ALL? “The sea gets deeper as you go further into it.” The more you know, the more you realize how much there is to know. You really don’t have to pretend to know everything. Admitting ignorance can be bliss.”

Excerpt From: Roberts, Russ. “How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life.”

518. QUEST FOR EQUALITY “We know from history that any society foolish enough to experiment with Marxism will find that the quest for equality results in a lower standard of living for all. Similarly, any society foolish enough to embrace cultural relativism will find that the quest for equality results in a lower overall standard of morality.”

Excerpt From: Adams, Mike. “Letters to a Young Progressive.”

519. BLACK REVOLUTIONARIES “The first man killed in the American Revolution was a black man. When British soldiers fired on an angry, taunting Boston crowd in 1770, they killed the man who led the “riot” with their first volley. His name was Crispus Attucks, a sailor, a runaway slave, and a black man. He died in what is now known as the Boston Massacre, the first martyr of the revolutionary cause. Blacks rallied to the cause. They crossed the Delaware with Washington and were with him at Valley Forge. It was a black man named Prince who captured British General Prescott, commander of the Royal Army at Newport, Rhode Island. It was another black man, Salem Poor, who distinguished himself so gallantly in battle that fourteen American officers praised him before Congress. In fact more than five thousand blacks fought in defense of liberty at battles like Monmouth, Saratoga, Princeton, and Yorktown.”

Excerpt From: Mansfield, Stephen. “Then Darkness Fled.”

520. HOW PRESIDENTS ONCE TALKED

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OvN1jTkzXbY?rel=0

 

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

501. NEW NATION “It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance.” — Calvin Coolidge

502. WHY CONSTITUTION ERODING? “Jefferson and John Marshall argued about the role of the Court, and in the Civil War era various leaders debated the pros and cons of increased power in Washington. Later, various national leaders debated the changes of 1913 (income tax and Senators generally elected), as well as the Butler case and so many other cases, not to mention the various changes in our laws created by executive orders or treaties like the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 or the proposed Rome Statute of 1998.

But why did all of these happen? Why did the Constitution break down? What was supposed to stop these kinds of things from occurring?”

In all of these situations, freedom was ultimately lost for the same reason. The people let it happen. The Constitution gave them power to stop these things, but they didn’t use it. They assumed their political leaders would do it for them. They were focused on other things, like making a living and raising their families, and they just let their freedoms be written away.

There’s a special word for a society where the four groups don’t really work together on big things, where the political leaders make the governmental decisions while the business leaders focus on profit and growth, and families and influencers are content not to be involved in governance. And that word is decline.

Excerpt From: Orrin Woodward & Oliver DeMille. “LeaderShift”

503. “WHO” or “WHOM”? How do you decide which one to use? When in doubt, substitute him and see if that sounds right. If him is OK, then whom is OK. If the more natural substitute is he, then go with who. For example: You talked to whom? It would be incorrect to say You talked to he? but saying You talked to him? makes grammatical sense.

Source: Dictionary.com

504. PILGRIMS KNEW “We shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world.”

–John Winthrop, Deck of Arbella, 1630, off Massachusetts Coast

505. CHANGING OUR NATION “We shouldn’t forget the nation’s Founders. They had to totally overcome their culture by taking on centuries of the British caste system, a near-religious belief in the divine right of kings, and the universally accepted but false idea that men are not created equal. It was hard work, but they did it. Our task is no more difficult than theirs.”

Excerpt From: Orrin Woodward & Oliver DeMille. “LeaderShift.”

506. DREAM “There is no magic in small dreams.” –Unknown

507. COMMUNISM “Be prepared to resort to every illegal device to conceal the truth—It would not matter if ¾ of the human race perished; the important thing is that the remaining ¼ be communist.” –V. Lenin

508. EDUCATION “Education which trains in skills but does not teach values is deficient. Its emphasis today all too often does not seek to make the individual a thinking person but seeks to condition him to the generally accepted view of the common good.” –A.C. Brownfield

509. ACHIEVEMENT “The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it.” – Chinese Proverb

510. REPEAT TRUTH! “The truth must be repeated again and again because error is constantly being preached round about us. And not only by isolated individuals but by the majority. In the newspapers and encyclopedias, in the schools and Universities everywhere error is dominant, securely and comfortable ensconced in public opinion which is on its side.” — Goethe, 1828

 

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

491. NON-PROFIT MYTH “According to Giving USA, based on data collected each year from The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, U.S. charitable giving totaled $298.42 billion in 2011. Of that, individuals (and bequests) gave 81 percent, while foundations and corporations combined gave 19 percent.

Yet as we read and heard stories of Mission Drift, we were surprised how often corporate, government, and foundation donors drove the drift. Organizations compromised on their core values to woo these institutional funders, while ignoring individuals, who collectively give over four times as much. The sum of the many individuals is far greater than the sum of the few major foundations and corporate donors.

This myth drives boards of many faith-based organizations to water down their Christian distinctiveness.”

Excerpt From: Peter Greer, Chris Horst & Anna Haggard. “Mission Drift.”

492. ENJOY KIDS “Each day may pass slowly when you’re tired and weary, but the years pass quickly. Today your children are totally dependent babies; tomorrow they will be grown and gone.”

Excerpt From: Jim Bob Duggar. “The Duggars: 20 and Counting!.”

493. WORSHIPPING CREATION “Because God created the world “very good” (Genesis 1:31), all created things have good in them. We are right to find them admirable and to enjoy them. The problem comes from giving any created thing inordinate affection—the ultimate affection, which only God deserves and has the right to demand. Paul is saying that the human heart loves to make a good thing into its god thing. (Rom. 1)

This exchange in our worship and service undoes the created order.”

Excerpt From: Keller, Timothy. “Romans 1-7 For You.”

494. FAITH “Elton Trueblood put it this way, “Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.” Strength comes from choosing to fully trust, pray, and praise. Our circumstances may not change, but in the process we change.”

Excerpt From: Charles R. Swindoll. “Wisdom for the Way.”

495. FEARING GOD “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:18).

The “fear of God” is a central concept in the Bible. We are repeatedly told: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (eg: Psalm 111:10). It is the starting point for everything else; it is the stumbling block which bars everything else. What is the “fear of God”? The psalmist says something surprising: “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared” (Psalm 130:3-4). He “fears” God because God forgives sins! So the “fear of God” does not mean a servile, cringing fear of punishment. It means, rather, an inner attitude of awe, respect, and sober, trembling joy before the greatness of God.”

Excerpt From: Keller, Timothy. “Romans 1-7 For You.”

496. GIRLS AND GUYS Is it wrong or unbiblical to rent an apartment with a person of the opposite sex?

“Sex or no sex, thoughts or no thoughts, the situation is inherently unchaste; it corrodes the virtue of modesty. I suppose you’ll tell me that you’ve never eaten breakfast or watched TV together in your pajamas or hung your intimate clothing over the shower rail to dry.

It’s wrong not only to commit sin, but also to give the appearance of committing sin. Doing so shows lack of love for others because you’re demoralizing them through bad example.

Modesty is a biblical virtue; it’s a biblical precept to avoid not only evil, but also the appearance of evil; and avoiding not only sin, but also the risk of sin, is a counsel of biblical wisdom: “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?” (Proverbs 6:27-28).

Excerpt From: Budziszewski, J. “Ask Me Anything.”

497. NATIONAL HUMILITY “As long as King David chose righteousness, God blessed the nation of Judah.

Similarly, as America entered the dark days of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln realized that the nation needed to turn its heart to God. On August 12, 1861, after the Union Army’s defeat at the Battle of Bull Run, Mr. Lincoln called the American people to a time of repentance, prayer, and fasting, so that “the united prayer of the nation may ascend to the throne of grace and bring down plentiful blessings upon our country.”

God greatly delights in such humility.”

Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”

498. . HEIRS “The righteous will leave an inheritance not only for their children but also for their grandchildren (13:22). This conveys the idea of passing on part of God’s abundance to bless future generations, but we know that sometimes an inheritance can become a curse. Insecurity may cause people to fearfully hoard wealth, not releasing it until they no longer have a choice. Many businesspeople store their wealth and leave an overabundance for future generations who are unprepared to handle it. This results in a double loss: the good that could have been done and wasn’t, followed by the self-destruction of incapable beneficiaries when the benefactor is no longer around to help.

I believe wealth should be stewarded to future generations appropriately, which includes ensuring that beneficiaries have the training and wisdom to handle it. Large amounts of money can have negative effects on children and grandchildren who have not learned to be stewards. We know from Proverbs that an inheritance claimed too soon is not blessed (20:21).”

Excerpt From: Harris, Raymond. “The Heart of Business.”

499. DEBT DANGER “The attraction of easy money obscures the hard payback.

God desires us to be free and unencumbered so we might focus on the important things of life. The pressure of repaying debt weighs heavily on our emotions, distracting us from serving fully in his kingdom. The pressure of debt is like the stress of carrying a heavy backpack: It’s uncomfortable and keeps us from enjoying the journey. When it comes to your business, it’s wise to keep your backpack as light as possible, avoiding heavy debt and long-term lease commitments.”

Excerpt From: Harris, Raymond. “The Heart of Business.”

500. JUDGEMENTALISM The first step in thinking about what it means to live a good life is to accept that you’re going to have to make judgments—not just statements about your own tastes and preferences, but judgments about what are the excellences that human beings should strive to realize, which in turn means judgments about what is right and wrong, good and evil.

Of the many pernicious aspects of today’s academic culture, I think the worst is its celebration of nonjudgmentalism. I assume you’ve heard it many times (I certainly have) when you think you’ve made an incisive argument: “You’re being judgmental.” It’s a glib, contemptible response. The ability to make judgments is what distinguishes Homo sapiens from every other living creature. But the ability to make judgments carries with it the obligation to do so. You don’t have a choice.

Nor does he have the option of saying that differences exist but that he will not judge them. To notice a difference is to have an opinion about it—unless one refuses to think. And that is my ultimate objection to nonjudgmentalism. We can refuse to voice our judgments, but we cannot keep from having them unless we refuse to think about what is before our eyes.

Judgment is more than just a matter of opinion and about the necessity of judging—we have no choice, because even the refusal to judge is a commitment to a point of view.”

Excerpt From: Murray, Charles. “The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead.”