Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give up the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose, that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing. Whenever you do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.

— Thomas Jefferson

I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes everything, even nature.

— John D. Rockefeller

Gordon Dean was a distinguished American lawyer and prosecutor. One of the original members of the Atomic Energy Commission, he became its chairman from 1950 to 1953. It’s said that when Dean died in a plane crash in 1958, among his personal effects was an envelope with nine life lessons scribbled on the back. They’re wisdom about his philosophy of life:

1. Never lose your capacity for enthusiasm.
2. Never lose your capacity for indignation.
3. Never judge people – don’t type them too quickly. But in a pinch never first assume that a man is bad; first assume that he is good and that, at worst, he is in the gray area between bad and good.
4. Never be impressed by wealth alone or thrown by poverty.
5. If you can’t be generous when it’s hard to be, you won’t be when it’s easy.
6. The greatest builder of confidence is the ability to do something – almost anything – well.
7. When confidence comes, then strive for humility; you aren’t as good as all that.
8. The way to become truly useful is to seek the best that other brains have to offer. Use them to supplement your own, and be prepared to give credit to them when they have helped.
9. The greatest tragedies in the world and personal events stem from misunderstandings. So communicate!

— Harvey Mackay, The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World

“Everyone knows that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. Few realize that it took three years, 22,000 volunteers, and 188,000 study participants to prove it.” That’s a quote by Meghan Murphy about one of the first large, long-term studies every undertaken by The American Cancer Society. It blew my mind when I first heard these numbers. Smoking causes lung cancer. This we know. But it’s an amazing reminder of the massive effort it takes to establish connections that we now take for granted.

It’s why clinical studies can be so difficult to execute. You need a large-scale, diverse population and the ability to collect data over an extended timeframe. But where would we be without those 22,000 volunteers and 188,000 participants?

Well, we’d still be staring at ads like this every time we’d flip open our magazines.

But not only would we be staring at them. We’d believe them. We’d buy into what they were selling. “More doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette.” Well then I should too! Smoking Lucky Strike will help me keep my slender figure? Yes, please! Read More →

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you’re not going to stay where you are.

— John Pierpont Morgan

Success seems to be connected to action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.

— Conrad Hilton