A leader leads by example not by force. Opportunities multiply as they are seized. It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperilled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperilled in every single battle. For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. Merely stating a truth isn't enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic. You have to use showmanship. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers. There is a reason why the other man thinks and acts as he does. Ferret out that reason - and you have the key to his actions, perhaps to his personality. Try honestly to put yourself in his place. Be hearty in your praise and lavish in your approbation. Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones. Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike. Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorius triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do. Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless. It's not denial - I'm just very selective about what I accept as reality. What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never us a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use the passive where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase, scientific word, or jargon if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.