Sunday 31 January 2021

Hamlet Prince of Denmark – Shakespeare 1996

 





“King:
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son –
Hamlet (aside):
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
King: How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Hamlet:
Not so, my Lord; I am too much I’th’sun.
Queen: 
Good Hamlet, cast thy knighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark,
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.673).

“Polonius: 
This above all, - to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.676).

“Ghost:
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint no thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.678).


“Hamlet:
… to me it is a prison.
Rosencrantz: 
Why, then, your ambition makes it one; ‘tis too 
Narrow for your mind.
Hamlet:
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and
Count myself a king of infinite space, where it not
That I have bad dreams.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.684).


“Hamlet: 
Is it not monstrous, that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
That, from her working, all his visage wann’d
Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant; and amaze, indeed, 
The very faculties of eyes and ears. 
Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.687).


“Hamlet: 
To be, or not to be,- that is the question:-
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? – To die, - to sleep, - 
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis consummation
Devoutly to be wisht. To die, - to sleep; -
To sleep! Perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause; there’s the respect 
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death, - 
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No travellers returns, - puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.688).

“King: 
Madness in great ones must not unwatcht go.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.689).

“Player King:
I do believe you think what now you speak
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave of memory;
Of violent birth, but poor validity:
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary ‘tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending doth the purpose lose.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.692).

“Hamlet: 
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.694).

“King: 
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And like a man to double business bound, 
I stand in pause where I shall first begin
And both neglect.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.694).

“Queen:
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
Hamlet: 
O, throw away the worser part of it
And live the purer with the other half.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.697).

“Hamlet: 
I must be cruel, only to be kind,
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.697).


“Hamlet:
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.699).

“Queen:
So full of artless joy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.700).

“Hamlet: 
… there’s a special
Providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
Now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readi-
ness is all: since no man knows aught of what he 
leaves, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be. 


Saturday 30 January 2021

Twelfth night; Or, what you will – Shakespeare 1996

 

“Viola: 
O Time, thou must untangle this, not I;
It is too hard a knot for me t’untie,” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.648).




“Viola: 
We men may say more, swear more: but, indeed,
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.652).

“Malvolio:
Some are born great,
Some achieve greatness, and some have greatness
Thrust upon ‘em.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.654).

“Sir Toby Belch:
Why, thou hast put him in such a dream, that,
When the image of it leaves him, he must run mad.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.654).

“Clown: 
Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the
Sun, it shines every where.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.655).

“Sebastian: 
What relish is in this? How runs the stream?
Or I am mad, or else this is a dream;” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.663).

Sunday 24 January 2021

As you like it – William Shakespeare

 


“Duke Senior: 

… Are not these woods

More free from peril than the envious court?

Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,

The seasons’ difference; as the icy fang

And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind, 

Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,

Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say

‘This is not flattery; these are counsellors

That feelingly persuade me what I am.’

Sweet are the uses of adversity;” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.617).



“Duke Senior: 

Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy.

This wide and universal theatre

Presents more woeful pageants than the scene

Wherein we play in. 


Jaques: 

All the world’s a stage;

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven age. As, first, the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.

And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like a snail

Unwilling to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then the soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like a pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world oo wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again into a childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.622).


“Celia: 

O, that’s a brave man! He writes brave verses,

Speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and 

Breaks them bravely, quite traverse.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.629).


“Phebe:

For I must tell you friendly in your ear, - 

Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.630).



Servant Leadership - Robert K. Greenleaf 1977


“1) The essence of moral authority or conscience is sacrifice – the subordinating of one’s selfe or one’s ego to a higher purpose, cause or principle.” (Covey in Greenleaf, 1977, p.6). “In this sense, both leaders and followers are followers. Why? They follow truth. They follow natural law. They follow principles.” (Covey in Greenleaf, 1977, p.6). 




“The deepest part of human nature is that which urges people – each one of us – to rise above our present circumstances and to transcend our common nature.” (Covey in Greenleaf, 1977, p.1).



The servant as leader. 

“they will freely respond only to individuals who are chosen as leaders because they are proven and trusted as servants.” (Covey in Greenleaf, 1977, p.11 ). “Why would anybody accept the leadership of another except that the other sees more clearly where it is best to go?” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.29). 


“I am reminded of Greenleaf’s acid test of servant leadership. How do you tell a servant-leader is at work? – “Do the people around the person grow?”” (Senge in Greenleaf, 1977, p.357). “Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely to themselves become servants?” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.27).



Institutions as servants

“This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions.” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.62). 


“The first order of business is to build a group of people who, under the influence of the institution, grow taller and become healthier, stronger, more autonomous.” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.53). “Some institutions achieve distinction for a short time by the intelligent use of people. (…) But these are not the means whereby an institution moves from people-using to people-building.” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.55). 


“What we have learned about caring for individual persons we must now learn to give to institutions. Have you ever noted how much less qualm of conscience some people have about cheating an institution than they have for cheating an individual person? We must change that.” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.255).


Business as a serving institution

“The work exists for the person as much as the person exist for the work.” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.155). “The business then becomes a serving institution – serving those who produce and those who use.” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.155). “”What are you in business for?” the answer may be: “I am in business for growing people – people who are stronger, healthier, more autonomous, more self-reliant , more competent. Incidentally, we also make and sell at a profit things that people want to buy, so we can pay for all of this.” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.159).



Leading

“Leadership – going out ahead to show the way – is available to everyone in the institution who has the competence, values, and temperament for it, from the chair to the least skilled individual.” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.109). “Prexy, as I saw him, was a problem-centered man. Either problems came to him in the normal course of events or he created them by setting goals and making commitments.” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.297).



Loss as the basis for growth

“to acknowledge that we do not want for pain to keep us awake, but to make a virtue of it – learn from it – and to see the darkest of it still ahead (as it is for most of us) and cut away the gloom.” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.316). “Loss, every loss one’s mind can conceive of, creates a vacuum into which will come (if allowed) something new and fresh and beautiful, something unforeseen – and the greatest of these is love. The source of this attitude toward loss and being lost is faith.” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.340). “each loss grants them the opportunity to be greater than before. Loss, by itself, is not tragic. What is tragic is the failure to grasp the opportunity which loss presents.” (Greenleaf, 1977, p.340).


“”In Here, Not Out There.” The real territory of change is always “in here.” Now, the consequences must be “out there” if we’re really interested in institutional change. But we can’t get there from just focusing “out there.” That is the paradox. That’s what it means to take a capacity-building approach.” (Senge in Greenleaf, 1977, p.348). “Every process of transformation begins with yourself. It has to start with personal change. The abstraction of corporate transformation – that’s a result, that’s not a metod.” (Senge in Greenleaf, 1977, p.356).



Growth through aspiration.

“There’s an old saw, that there are only two fundamental sources of change in human affairs: aspiration and desperation. (…) As far as I can see, the number one leadership strategy is quite simple to describe: Create a crisis. Or, if you’re really clever, create the fear that a crisis is abut to hit. That shows the extent to which we have allowed the diminishment of our capacity for aspiration.” (Senge in Greenleaf, 1977, p.348).

“Aspiration drives virtually all fundamental learning. (…) Or did we learn to walk because we wanted to? That’s aspiraton. Just imagine: What if nine out of ten change initiatives, in our organizations or in our societies were driven by excitement, by the idea that this would serve somebody in a different way, that this would give us a better way of living?” (Senge in Greenleaf, 1977, p.348).