Success

To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child , a garden patch, or a redeemed condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Thoughts across eras - in books

It's surprising how certain ideas and concepts seem to be transmitted across eras and writers. I was reading a chapter of the book/collection of columns of Capt. Raghu Raman 'Everyman's War' titled "Surviving a Perfect Storm".

Coincidentally, I'm also (re)reading these days the Leo Tolstoy magnum opus 'War and Peace':

Raghu Raman's piece starts with "No plan survives first contact with the enemy”—Carl Von Clausewitz’s aphorism —seems prophetic in current volatile times", and then goes on to describe a process which "allows officers to know the extent of leeway they have when situation is not going according to plans and they can assume orders when communications break down—a very frequent occurrence during combat."

This passage took me back Chapter 33 of 'War and Peace', the following passage:

It'd seem certain ideas in certain domains, for instance battle combat, have eternal validity.  Time for us all to start reading Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War'...

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