Walk a fine line between flexibility and consistency. A strategist must have faith in his strategy and the courage to follow it through, and still be open-minded enough to realize when a change of course is required.
Now that phenomenal existence is no more bolstered by impressions from within or without, we feel the need to lean on something that abides, that will never play us false – a reality, an absolute and everlasting truth: the perfect friend.
I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire–why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express & admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals–and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
There are three things which are real: God, human folly, and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third.