Acquisition Quotes - page 2
If, in each hour, a man could learn a single fragment of some branch of knowledge, a single rule of some mechanical art, a single pleasing story or proverb (the acquisition of which would require no effort), what a vast stock of learning he might lay by. Seneca is therefore right when he says: "Life is long, if we know how to use it." It is consequently of importance that we understand the art of making the very best use of our lives.
John Amos Comenius
It was the verdict of ancient writers that men afflict themselves in evil and weary themselves in the good, and that the same effects result from both of these passions. For whenever men are not obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition; which is so powerful in human breasts, that it never leaves them no matter to what rank they rise. The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it. From this arises the changes in their fortunes; for as men desire, some to have more, some in fear of losing their acquisition, there ensues enmity and war, from which results the ruin of that province and the elevation of another.
Niccolò Machiavelli
In going directly to Investment Heaven, you build your portfolio as you would build a wonderful company through a merger and acquisition program. You specify the way you want your portfolio to look, and then you assemble the profile piece by piece by bringing together companies that make their own individual contributions to the desired character.
Robert Haugen
The average person appreciates a value only "in the course of, and through comparison” with the possessions, condition, plight or quality of other persons. ... The awareness that the acquisition and enjoyment of that value is beyond the person's capacity ... triggers two mutually opposite, but equally vigorous reactions: an overwhelming desire (all the more tormenting because of the suspicion that it might be impossible to fulfill); and ressentiment-a rancor caused by a desperate urge to ward off self-deprecation and self-contempt by demeaning, deriding and degrading the value in question, together with its possessors.
Zygmunt Bauman
Learning to play the guitar is a combination of mental and motor skill acquisition. And to develop motor skills, repetition is essensial...Whenever musicians have trouble executing a passage, they generally tend to blame themselves for not having enought talent. Actually, all that's wrong is they don't know where their fingers are supposed to go...You should learn the piece in your head before you play it. And when you do play it, play it so slow that therre's no possibility of making a mistake.
Howard Roberts
...we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to every one in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavour to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live conformably to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all.
Justin Martyr
Going back to the most ancient times, national well-being, the national prestige depended on territory. The more territory a country had, the more income revenue there was, the more people there were to be mobilized for arms strength. So we had an enormous sense of territorial conflict and territorial integrity, and that was unquestionably a part of the cause of war, coupled with the fact that there was a disposition in that direction by the landed class, a disposition to think of territorial acquisition and territorial defense and to think of the peasantry as a superior form of livestock which could be used for arms purposes.
John Kenneth Galbraith
If they are unwilling to give, they should at least lend with all readiness and alacrity, not with the prospect of receiving anything back except the principal. ... In place of the interest which they determine not to accept they receive a further bonus of the fairest and most precious things that human life has to give, mercy neighborliness, charity, magnanimity, a good report and good fame. And what acquisition can rival these? Nay, even the great king will appear as the poorest of men if compared with a single virtue. For his wealth is soulless, buried deep in store-houses and recesses of the earth, but the wealth of virtue lies in the sovereign part of the soul, and the purest part of existence.
Philo
It is a fundamental and deplorable error by which we in this country have confused education with the acquisition of knowledge.... Amount of knowledge is in itself not of first importance, but to make the best use of what we know. The easy assumption of our educationists that we have only to supply the mind with a smattering of facts in each department of knowledge and the mind can be trusted to develop itself and take its own suitable road is contrary to science, contrary to human experience.... Much as we have lost as a nation, we have always preserved our intellectual alertness, quickness and originality; but even this last gift is threatened by our University system, and if it goes, it will be the beginning of irretrievable degradation and final extinction.
Sri Aurobindo
The degree of our worthiness to become a free people shall be determined by our ability to respect a lawful leader, to agree to the existence of an opposition, to listen to its arguments, and especially to put the nation's good above all party prejudices and private interest. Liberty is not one of man's inalienable rights' it is a desirable but difficult acquisition, and must be contended for constantly.
André Maurois
Most professors know that American higher education in the humanities is in a deplorable state. Yet many remain silent, perhaps through prudent self-preservation, which is starting to look a lot like moral cowardice. They have put loyalty to their colleagues before loyalty to their students, ostensibly the raison d'être for educational institutions. How many more minds must be distorted or destroyed before the faculty decides to defend the Western intellectual values of free inquiry and orderly acquisition of knowledge?
Camille Paglia
