Businesspeople From The United States

"The stock market teaches you the hard way - it's all in the margin."

"Think about it- the King James Bible took religion out of the hands of the high priests and put it in to the hands of the people. An entire generation became literate just to be able to read the King James version of the Bible."

"A product lowers the cost of doing something and eventually, customers will figure this out and buy the stuff in big volume, but they're not going to buy yet. You've got to have real conviction to step up and own this kind of company-you're staring over the edge of the waterfall, not sure when the growth is going to start."

"Cheap power helped create a new market that didn't exist previously."

"But someone knew and made a killing. It was investing when you know something no one else knows."

"High elasticity means that unit output goes up more than prices went down, so you get a growth business."

"When someone pukes up a stock, it's not hard to miss. Mispriced securities all over the table. And we are there with a barf bag, collecting all we can."

"When you think long-term, the edge is really investing because others can't know."

"It was what I didn't know about that always seemed more interesting."

"You invest in companies with great long-term prospects."

"You can't ever forget how precarious and humbling running money really is."

"That friggin’ outfit...they prostituted every goddamn thing I had. I had the greatest gravy in the world and those sons of bitches they dragged it out and extended it and wa­tered it down that I'm so goddamn mad."

"There's something inside of me that makes me want to help people, especially people who are having difficulty of some kind."

"Innovation is everything. When you're on the forefront, you can see what the next innovation needs to be. When you're behind, you have to spend your energy catching up."

"For nearly five years, the positive leadership, sound judgment, and unceasing efforts of Secretary of Defense Charles Erwin Wilson, have been major factors in strengthening the security of the United States and its allies against aggression. Under his guidance, the effectiveness of the armed forces of the United States has been greatly increased. Their strategic deployment to endangered parts of the world has been a major factor in the preservation of peace. Military assistance programs, including the provision of modern weapons, carried out under his supervision, have bolstered the will and determination of our allies to resist aggression. The common defense of free nations has been greatly furthered by his frequent discussions with foreign leaders both abroad and at home."

"No plan can prevent a stupid person from doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time - but a good plan should keep a concentration from forming."

"For years I thought that what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country. Our contribution to the nation is considerable."

"Costs of manufactured articles importantly depend on the cost of raw materials as well as labor, and the prices of many raw materials do not fluctuate directly with the labor cost of producing them."

"The way to advance the nation's prosperity and achieve higher standards of living for all is through science and technology, taking advantage of better tools, methods and organization, and substituting machines and power for human backs."

"Nor do I understand how anyone can feel that industrial progress has been made at the expense of social progress nor why any American should suffer from the great delusion that any form of communism or statism, which promotes the dictatorship of the few instead of the initiative of the millions, can produce a happier and more prosperous society."

"I haven't known that many freedmen. But those I knew in Bangor, Portland, — you look in the eye — there was a man. There was a "divine spark", as my mother used to call it. That is all there is to it. Races are men. "What a piece of work is man. How infinite in faculties and form, and movement. How express and admirable. In action how like an angel"."

"This is a different kind of army. If you look at history you'll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we're here for something new. This has not happened much, in the history of the world: We are an army out to set other men free. America should be free ground. All of it. Not divided by a line between slave state and free, all the way from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man born to royalty. Here, we judge you by what you do, not by who your father was. Here, you can be something. Here, is the place to build a home. But it's not the land. There's always more land. It's the idea that we all have value — you and me. What we're fighting for, in the end, we're fighting for each other."

"In the summer of 1994, when I was the deputy commanding general of Second Army at Fort Gillem in Atlanta, Georgia, I had the opportunity to visit training conducted by units of the Mississippi Army National Guard at Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. While walking through headquarters with Major General Jim Garner, the adjutant general of the State of Mississippi, I looked at prints of famous Confederate Generals such as Lee, Longstreet, and Barksdale prominently displayed on the walls. I stopped when I saw one Union general officer- Major General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. I asked, "What's he doing here?" General Garner replied, "He's a great soldier who has our utmost respect." This was 129 years after Chamberlain conducted the surrender ceremony at Appomattox Court House."

"The momentous meaning of this occasion impressed me deeply. I resolved to mark it by some token of recognition, which could be no other than a salute of arms. Well aware of the responsibility assumed, and of the criticisms that would follow, as the sequel proved, nothing of that kind could move me in the least. The act could be defended, if needful, by the suggestion that such a salute was not to the cause for which the flag of the Confederacy stood, but to its going down before the flag of the Union. My main reason, however, was one for which I sought no authority nor asked forgiveness. Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond;—was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured? Instructions had been given; and when the head of each division column comes opposite our group, our bugle sounds the signal and instantly our whole line from right to left, regiment by regiment in succession, gives the soldier's salutation, from the "order arms" to the old "carry"—the marching salute. Gordon at the head of the column, riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking the meaning, wheels superbly, making with himself and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives word for his successive brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual, honor answering honor. On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper of vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the dead!"

"You in my soul I see, faithful watcher by my cot-side long days and nights together through the delirium of mortal anguish, steadfast, calm, and sweet as eternal love. We pass now quickly from each other's sight; but I know full well that where beyond these passing scenes you shall be, there will be heaven!"

"My darling wife I am lying mortally wounded the doctors think, but my mind & heart are at peace Christ is my all-sufficient savior. I go to him. God bless & keep & comfort you, precious one. You have been a precious wife to me. To know & love you makes life & death beautiful. Cherish the darlings & give my love to all the dear ones. Do not grieve too much for me. We shall all soon meet Live for the children Give my dearest love to Father, Mother & Sallie & John Oh how happy to feel yourself forgiven God bless you evermore precious precious one Ever yours, Lawrence."

"The enemy seemed to have gathered all their energies for their final assault. We had gotten our thin line into as good a shape as possible, when a strong force emerged from the scrub wood in the valley, as well as I could judge, in two lines in echelon by the right, and, opening a heavy fire, the first line came on as if they meant to sweep everything before them. We opened on them as well as we could with our scanty ammunition snatched from the field. It did not seem possible to withstand another shock like this now coming on. Our loss had been severe. One-half of my left wing had fallen, and a third of my regiment lay just behind us, dead or badly wounded. At this moment my anxietv was increased by a great roar of musketry in my rear, on the farther or northerly slope of Little Round Top, apparently on the flank of the regular brigade, which was in support of Hazlett's battery on the crest behind us. The bullets from this attack struck into my left rear, and I feared that the enemy might have nearly surrounded the Little Round Top, and only a desperate chance was left for us. My ammunition was soon exhausted. My men were firing their last shot and getting ready to "club" their muskets. It was imperative to strike before we were struck by this overwhelming force in a hand-to-hand fight, which we could not probably have withstood or survived. At that crisis, I ordered the bayonet. The word was enough. It ran like fire along the line, from man to man; and rose into a shout, with which they sprang forward upon the enemy, now not 30 yards away. The effect was surprising; many of the enemy's first line threw down their arms and surrendered. An officer fired his pistol at my head with one hand, while he handed me his sword with the other. Holding fast by our right, and swinging forward our left, we made an extended " right wheel," before which the enemy's second line broke and fell back, fighting from tree to tree, many being captured, until we had swept the valley and cleared the front of nearly our entire brigade."

"Trying to avoid clichés helps life become fresh again, helps us remember what life is about in the first place. -Fingerprint."

"Sometimes it seems Christians confuse their human nature with their sinful nature. The former we were created with, the latter we chose. It does us no good to try and escape our humanness and in so doing think we are escaping our sin. -Fingerprint."

"Any system of thought which allows no value to human thought will destroy its own efforts. -Fingerprint."

"Regular life, our humanness, often gets pushed aside. -Fingerprint."

"If every Christian would treat just one other person with real love, I'm sure more would come to faith than do at present, with all our mass harvesting techniques. -Appalachian Melody."

"Until we learn the language of those outside the Church, the language of their hearts and the language of their minds, we will never be able to communicate properly. -Appalachian Melody."

"Did you know that Bertrand Russell dropped all belief in God because he wasn't able to voice his doubts in the company of believers? -Appalachian Melody."

"I think seeds for doubt can be sown when a Christian is taught a narrow perspective in certain areas, and later, when that teaching is challenged by alternatives, the person panics. -Appalachian Melody."

"I have heard people say that reason leads to agnosticism, but I don't think that is necessarily the case. It was the other way around for me - it led to faith. -Appalachian Melody."

"In my skeptical days, people who wanted to appear very spiritual were always telling me to forget my questions, to shove them under the rug and go on in "faith." In fact, some of my friends thought my questions were my own devices to dodge the "real issues." They thought I must be morally decadent to voice such questions. -Appalachian Melody."

"It is really a kind of a slap in [God's] face to refuse to use the abilities He gave us just because there is danger involved. Just because adultery exists is no reason to avoid marriage. Just because gluttony exists is no reason to quit eating. We shouldn't be anhedonics under the guise of spirituality. -Appalachian Melody."

"A lot of times I wonder what Adam would have written songs about. -Appalachian Melody."

"Most Christians would say that the music should in some way glorify God. Obviously, one assortment of notes on the scale can't glorify God more than another. Neither can certain assortments of words. -Appalachian Melody."

"I don't believe God wants every Christian who plays an instrument to try and form a ministry from it. After all, you don't expect a tire salesman to form a ministry with his expertise on tread design as the basis. -Appalachian Melody."

"I guess it will always be that way until the Church learns how to take lessons from culture and from history, and stops... putting labels of "spiritual" and "unspiritual" on things which God never labeled. -Appalachian Melody."

"Maybe I'm just a selfish maniac who is wasting his time trying to transfer feelings which perhaps no one cares about onto a fretboard and a piece of magnetic tape. Maybe it's the modern petroglyph, or the modern way to write on the wall of your cave: "I was here." Maybe it is a cry to God about how much I hate the bad things and how much I love the good things."

"I must at least tell somebody, even only God and myself, what I have seen and felt."

"Artistic expression might be seen as a Darwinian protection device for the psyche of fragile individuals, for whom sensuous contact with the outside world is too much to bear, and is repressed, and must be brought up and thrust out into the open from time to time at great effort in order for them to simply survive emotionally."

"Maybe those inclined towards the arts are so spiritually retarded to a degree that we must go through the whole process of cathartic expression just to discover how we really feel."

"When you can see through the fog for an instant, and you understand haltingly and briefly what good is, and how God is connected with that, it cannot help but put a hell of a perspective on things you perceive as problems, and help you discover multiple ways in which you have been numb. For that brief moment you feel that God's in His heaven and all's right with the world."

"Writing brings about a catharsis of my own terror and pity. It is something I have to do."

"I wish sometimes that I just didn't have to think about any of this, and could drone away my life. It would be easier."

"I am increasingly irresponsible, it seems, in that I take on the mantle of Peter Pan and follow the second star to the right directly between a pair of speakers, or to the case that holds my mandolin."