Robert Frost – The Poetry of Robert Frost 1969

 “I left you in the morning,

And in the morning glow

You walked a way beside me

To make me sad to go.” (Frost ‘The Flower-Gathering’, 1969, p.12)

“The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.

My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.” (Frost ‘Mowing’, 1969, p.17)

“Part of a moon was falling down the west,

Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.

Its light poured softly in her lap.” (Frost ‘The Death of the hired man’, 1969, p.38).

“The mountain stood there to be pointed at.” (Frost ‘The Mountain’, 1969, p.41).

“”Warm in December, cold in June, you say?”

“I don’t suppose the water’s changed at all.

You and I know enough to know it’s warm

Compared with cold and cold comparedwith warm.

But all the fun’s in how you say a thing.”

“You’ve lived here all you life?”

                                                   “Ever since Hor

Was no bigger than a -----“ What, I did not hear.”” (Frost ‘The Mountain’, 1969, p.44).

“For, dear me, why abandon a belief

Merely because it ceases to be true.

Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt

It will turn true again, for so it goes.

Most of the change we think we see in life

Is due to truths being in and out of favour.

As I sit here, and oftentimes, I wish

I could be monarch of a desert land

I could devote and dedicate forever

To the truths we keep coming back and back to.

So desert it would have to be, so walled

By mountain ranges half in summer snow,

No one would covet it or think it worth

The pains of conquering to force change on.” (Frost ‘The Black Cottage’, 1969, p.58).

“It’s rest I want – there, I have said it out –

From cooking meals for hungry hired men

And washing dishes after them – from doing

Things over and over that just won’t stay done.” (Frost ‘A Servant to Servants, 1969, p.64).

“… You’ve found out something.

The hand that knows his business won’t be told

To do work better or faster – those two things.” (Frost ‘The Black Cottage’, 1969, p.70).

“Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day,

I paused and said, “I will turn back from here.

No, I will go on farther – and we shall see.”

The hard snow held me, save where now and then

One foot went through. The view was all in lines

Straight up and down of tall slim trees

Too much alike to mark or name a place by

So as to say for certain I was here

Or somewhere else; I was just far from home.” (Frost ‘The wood-pile’, 1969, p.101).

“Oh, let’s go up the hill and scare ourselves” (Frost ‘The Bonfire’, 1969, p.129).

“I wonder about the trees.

Why do we wish to bear

Forever the noise of these

More than another noise

So close to our dwelling place?” (Frost ‘The sound of trees’, 1969, p.156).

“… Do you know,

Considering the market, there are more

Poems produced than any other thing?

No wonder poets sometimes have to seem

So much more businesslike than businessmen.

Their wares are so much harder to get rid of.” (Frost ‘New Hampshire’, 1969, p.164).

“I don’t know what to say about the people.

For art’s sake one could almost wish them worse

Rather than better. How are we to write

The Russian novel in America

As long as life goes so unterribly?” (Frost ‘New Hampshire’, 1969, p.167).

“”You know Orion always comes up sideways

Throwing a leg over our fence of mountains,

And risiong on his hands, he looks in on me

Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something

I should have done by daylight, and indeed,

After the ground is frozen, I should have done

Before it froze.” (Frost ‘The star-splitter, 1969, p.176).

“I wondered who it was the man thought ground –

The one who held the wheel back or the one

Who gave his life to keep it going round?

I wondered if he really thought it fair

For him to have the say when we were done.

Such were the bitter thoughts to which I turned.” (Frost ‘The grindstpone’, 1969, p.190).

“What tree may not the fig be gathered from?

The grape may not be gathered from the birch?

It’s all you know the grape, or know the birch.” (Frost ‘Wild Grapes’, 1969, p.196).

“Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

(…)

The wood are lovely , dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.” (Frost ‘Stopping by woods on a snowy evening’, 1969, p.224).

“I wish I could promise to lie in the night

And think of an orchard’s arboreal plight

When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)

Its heart sinks lower under the sod

But something has to be left to God.” (Frost ‘Good-By and keep cold’, 1969, p.228).

“Love and forgetting might have carried them

A little further up the mountainside

With night so near, but not much further up.” (Frost ‘Two look at two’, 1969, p.229).

“To think to know the country and not know

The hillside on the day the sun lets go

Ten million silver lizards out of snow.

As often as I’ve seen it done before

I can’t pretend to tell the way it’s done.

It looks as if some magic of the sun

Lifted the rug that bred them on the floor

And the light breaking on them made them run.” (Frost ‘A Hillside Thaw’, 1969, p.237).

“The tree the tempest with a crash of wood

Throws down in front of us is not to bar

Our passage to our journey’s end for good

But just to ask us who we think we are.” (Frost ‘On a tree fallen across the road’, 1969, p.238).

“The heart can think of no devotion

Greater than being shore on the ocean –

Holding the curve of one position

Counting an endless repetition.” (Frost ‘Devotion’, 1969, p.247).

“Heaven gives its glimpses only to those

Not in position to look close.” (Frost ‘A passing glimpse’, 1969, p.248).

“”…. Safe!

Now let the night be dark for all of me.

Let the night be too dark for me to see

Into the future. Let what will be, be.”” (Frost ‘Acceptance’, 1969, p.229).

“Something sinister in tone

Told me my secret must be known:

Word I was in the house alone

Somehow must have gotten abroad,

Word I was in my life alone,

Word I had no one left but God.” (Frost ‘Bereft’, 1969, p.251).

“not to sink under being man and wife,

But get some color and music out of life.” (Frost ‘The investment’, 1969, p.264).

“When I spread out my hand here today,

I catch no more than a ray

To feel between thumb and fingers;

No lasting effect of it lingers.” (Frost ‘Sitting by a bush in broad sunlight’, 1969, p.266).

“For every parcel I stoop down to seize

I lose some other stuff off my arms and knees,

And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns –

Extremes too hard to comprehend at once,

Yet nothing I should care to leave behind.” (Frost ‘The armful’, 1969, p.266).

“What is this talked of mystery of birth

But being mounted bareback on the earth?

We can just see the infant up astride,

His small fist buried in the bushy hide.

There is our wildest mount – a headless horse.” (Frost ‘Riders, 1969, p.268).

“Won’t this whole instinct matter bear revision?

Won’t almost any theory bear revision?

To err is human, not to, animal.

Or so we pay the compliment to instinct,

Only too liberal of our compliment

That really takes away instead of gives.

(…)

We were lost piecemeal to the animals,

Like people thrown out to delay the wolves.

Nothing but fallibility was left to us,

And this day’s work made even that seem doubtful.” (Frost ‘The white tailed hornet’, 1969, p.279).

“As one who shrewdly pretends

That he and the world are friends.

(…)

“If I can with confidence say

That still for another day,

Or even another year,

I will be there for you, my dear,

I will be because, though small

As measured against the All,

I have been so instinctively thorough

About my crevice and my burrow.” (Frost ‘A drumlin woodchuck’, 1969, p.282).

“and by teaching them how to sleep the sleep all day

Destroy their sleeping at night the ancient way.” (Frost ‘A drumlin woodchuck’, 1969, p.287).

“What comes over a man, is it soul or mind –

that to no limits and bounds he can stay confined?

You would say his ambition was to extend the reach

Clear to Arctic of every living kind.

Why is his nature forever so hard to teach

That though there is no fixed line between wrong and right

There are roughly zones whose laws must be obeyed.” (Frost ‘There are roughly zones’, 1969, p.305).

“And anyone is free to condemn me to death –

If he leaves it to nature to carry out the sentence.” (Frost ‘Not quite social’, 1969, p.307).

“No memory of having starred

Atones for later disregard

Or keeps the end from being hard.

Better to go down dignified

With boughten friendship at your side

Than none at all. Provide, provide!” (Frost ‘A drumlin woodchuck’, 1969, p.307).

“Were I dictator, I’ll tell you what I’d do.

What should you do?

                                    I’d let things take their course

And then I’d claim the credit for the outcome.” (Frost ‘Build Soil’, 1969, p.320).

“We’re so much out that the odds are against

Our ever getting inside again.

But inside in is where we’ve got to get.

My friends all know I’m interpersonal.

But long before I’m interpersonal,

Away ‘way down I’m personal.” (Frost ‘Build Soil’, 1969, p.320).

“That none shall ever see you come to market –

Not for a lon, long time. Plant, breed, produce,

But what you raise or grow, why, feed it out,

Eat it or plow it under where it stands,

To build the soil.” (Frost ‘Build Soil’, 1969, p.323).

“… Come close, let us conspire ---

In self-restraint, if in restraint of trade.

You will go to your run-out mountain farm

And do what I command you.

(…)

Build soil. Turn the farm in upon itself

Until it can contain itself no more,

But sweating-full, drips wine and oil a little.

I will go to my run-out social mind

And be as unsocial as I can.

The thought I have, and my first impulse is

To take to market – I will turn it under.

The thought from that thought – I will turn it under.

And so on to the limit of my nature.

We’re too much out, and if we don’t draw in

We shall be driven in.” (Frost ‘Build Soil’, 1969, p.3203).

“We’re too unseparate out among each other –

With goods to sell and notions to impart.

A youngster comes to me with half a quatrain

To ask me if I think it worth the pains

Of working out the rest, the other half.” (Frost ‘Build Soil’, 1969, p.324).

“We congregate embracing from distrust

As much as love.” (Frost ‘Build Soil’, 1969, p.325).

“… I agree with you

We’re too unseparate. And going home

From company means coming to our senses.” (Frost ‘Build Soil’, 1969, p.325).

“The last step taken found your heft

Decidedly upon your left.

One more would throw your on the right.

Another still – you see your plight.

You call this thinking, but it’s walking.

Not even that, it’s only rocking.

(…)

If it makes you look helpless, please,

And a temptation to the tease.

Suppose you’ve no direction in you,

I don’t see but you must continue

To use the gift you do posess,

And sway with reason more or less.

(…)

So if you find you must repent

From side to side in argument,

At least don’t use your mind too hard,

But trust my instinct – I’m a bard.” (Frost ‘To a thinker’, 1969, p.326).

“I could give all to Time except – except

What I myself have held. But why declare

The things forbidden that while the Customs slept

I have crossed to Safety with? For I am There,

And what I would not part with I have kept.” (Frost ‘I could give all to Time’, 1969, p.335).

“I sang of death – but I had known

The many deaths one must have died

Before he came to meet his own.” (Frost ‘Build Soil’, 1969, p.336).

“The land was ours before we were the land’s.” (Frost ‘The gift outright’, 1969, p.348).

“And that defense makes three

Between too much and me.” (Frost ‘Triple Bronze’, 1969, p.349).

“One man had lived one hundred years and eight.

But though we all may be inclined to wait

And follow some development of state,

Or see what comes of science and invention,

There is a limit to our time extension.

We all are doomed to broken-off careers,

And so’s the nation, so’s the total race.

The earth itself is liable to the fate

Of meaninglessly being broken off.” (Frost ‘The lesson for today’, 1969, p.355).

“You must be made more simply wise than I

To know the hand I stretch impulsively

Across the gulf of well-nigh everything

May reach to you, but cannot touch your fate.

I cannot touch your life, much less can save,

Who am tasked to save my own a little while.” (Frost ‘To a moth seen in winter’, 1969, p.357).

“It seemed too tiny to have room for feet,

Yet must have had a set of them complete

To express how much it didn’t want to die.

It ran with terror and with cunning crept.

It faltered: I could see it hesitate;

Then in the middle of the open sheet

Cower down in desperation to accept

Whatever I accorded it of fate.” (Frost ‘Build Soil’, 1969, p.320).

“We heard “Tis over” roaring.

A year of leaves was wasted.” (Frost ‘November’, 1969, p.359).

“We need the interruption of the night

To ease attention off when overtight,

To break our logic in too long a flight,

And ask us if our premises are right.” (Frost ‘The literate farmer and the planet venus’, 1969, p.370).

“You know how cunningly mankind is planned:

We have one loving and one hating hand.

The loving’s made to hold each other like,

While with the hating other hand we strike.

The blow can be no stronger than the cluth,

Or soon we’d bat each other out of touch,

And the fray wouldn’t last a single round.” (Frost ‘The literate farmer and the planet venus’, 1969, p.371).

“Relying on its beauty, to the air.

(Less brave perhaps than trusting are the fair).” (Frost ‘A young birch’, 1969, p.375).

“Back out of all this now too much for us,

Back in a time made simple by the loss

Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off

There is a house that is no more a house

Upon a farm that is no more a farm

And in a town that is no more a town.” (Frost ‘Directive’, 1969, p.377).

“Where I could think of no thoroughfare,

Away on the mountain up far too high,

A blinding headlight shifted glare

And began to bounce down a granite stair,

Like a star fresh fallen out of the sky.” (Frost ‘II. Where I not in trouble’, 1969, p.383).

“If you should rise from Nowhere up to Somewhere,

From being No one up to being Someone,

Be sure to keep repeating to yourself

You owe it to an arbitrary god

Whose mercy to you rather than to others

Won’t bear too critical examination.

Stay unassuming.” (Frost ‘The Fear of God’, 1969, p.385).

“I opened the door so my last look

Should be taken outside a house and book.

Before I gave up seeing and slept

I said I would see how Sirius kept

His watchdog eye on what remained

To be gone into if not explained.” (Frost ‘One more brevity’, 1969, p.419).

“He is no fugitive – escaped, escaping.

No one has seen him stumble looking back.

His fear is not behind him but beside him.

(…)

It is the future that creates the present.

All is an interminable chain of longing.” (Frost ‘Directive’, 1969, p.421).

“Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee

And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.” (Frost ‘Forgive, O Lord …’, 1969, p.428).

“Mind you, we are mind.

We are not the kind

To stay too confined.” (Frost ‘Kitty Hawk’, 1969, p.434).

“But while meditating

What we can’t or can

Let’s keep starring man

In the royal role.

It will not be his

Ever to create

One last germ or coal.

Those two things we can’t.

But the comfort is

In the convenant

We may get control

If not of the whole,

Of at least some part

Where not too immense,

O by craft or art

We can give the part

Wholeness in a sense.” (Frost ‘Kitty Hawk’, 1969, p.4421).

“Like a kitchen spoon

Of a size Titanic

To keep all things stirred

In a blend mechanic

Saying That’ the tune

That’s the pretty kettle!

Matter mustn’t curd,

Separate and settle.

Action is the word.

Nature’s never quite

Sure she hasn’t erred

In her vague design

Till on some fine night

We two cam in flight

Like a king and queen

And by right divine,

Waving sceptre-baton

Undertake to tell her

What in being stellar

She’s supposed to mean.” (Frost ‘Kitty Hawk’, 1969, p.442).

“Once in a California Sierra

I was swooped down upon when I was small,

And measured, but not taken after all,

By a great eagle bird in all its terror.” (Frost ‘Auspex’, 1969, p.443).

“It is right in there

Betwixt and between

The orchard bare

And the orchard green,

When the boughs are right

In a flowery burst

Of pink and white,

That we fear the worst.

For there’s not a clime

But at any cost

Will take that time

For a night if frost.” (Frost ‘Peril of hope’, 1969, p.445).

“The freedom they seek is by politics,

Forever voting and haranguing for it.

The reason artists show so little interest

In public freedom is because the freedom

They’ve come to feel the need of is a kind

No one can give them – they can scarce attain –

The freedom of their own material:

So, never at a loss in simile,

They can command the exact affinity

Of anything they are confronted with.

This perfect moment of unbafflement,

When no man’s name and no noun’s adjective

But summons out of nowhere like a jinni.

We know not what we owe this moment to.

It may be wine, but much more likely love –

Possibly just well-being in the body,

Or respite from the thought of rivalry.

It’s what my father must mean by departure,

Freedom to flash off into wild connections.

Once to have known it, nothing else will do.

Our days all pass awaiting its return.” (Frost ‘A-wishing well’, 1969, p.461).

“The chance is the remotest

Of its going much longer unnoticed

That I’m not keeping pace

With the headlong human race.

And some of them may mind

My staying back behind

To take life at a walk

In philosophic talk;” (Frost ‘Some science fiction’, 1969, p.465).

“God: I’ve had you on my mind a thousand years

To thank you someday for the way you helped me

Establish once for all the principle

There’s no connection man can reason out

Between his just deserts and what he gets.

Virtue may fail and wickedness succeed.

‘Twas a great demonstration we out on.” (Frost ‘A masque of reason’, 1969, p.475).

“God: My thanks are to you for releasing me

From moral bondage to the human race.

The only free will there  at first was man’s,

Who could do good or evil as he chose.

I had no choice but I must follow him

With forfeits and rewards he understood –

Unless I liked to suffer loss of worship.

I had to prosper good and punish evil.

You changed all that. You set me free to reign.

Yo are the Emancipator of your God,

And as such I promote you to a saint.” (Frost ‘A masque of reason’, 1969, p.476).

“… We disparage reason.

But all the time it’s what we’re most concerned with.

There’s will as motor and there’s will as brakes.

Reason is, I suppose, the steering gear.

The will as brakes can’t stop the will as motor

For very long. We’re plainly made to go.” (Frost ‘A masque of reason’, 1969, p.476).

“Jonah: … I can’t trust God to be unmerciful.

Keeper: You’ve lost your faith in God?” (Frost ‘A masque of mercy, 1969, p.498).

“Keeper: … Mercy and justice are a contradiction.” (Frost ‘A masque of mercy, 1969, p.498).

“Jesse Bel: Is this the love of God you preached to me?

Jonah: There’s not the least lack of the love of God

In what I say. Don’t be silly, woman.

His very weakness for mankind’s endearing.

I love and fear Him. Yes, but I fear for Him.

I don’t see how it can be to His interest,

This modern tendency I find in Him

To take the punishment out of all failure.

To be strong, careful, thrifty, diligent,

Anything we once thought we had to be.

Keeper: You know what let’s us off from being careful?

The thing that did what you consider mischief,

That ushered in this modern lenience,

Was the discovery of fire insurance.

The future state is springing even now

From the discovery that loss from failure,

By being spread out over everybody,

Can be made negligible.” (Frost ‘A masque of mercy, 1969, p.506).

“Paul: … I’m glad to hear you say

You can’t trust God to be unmerciful.

Whaot would you have God if not merciful?

Jonah: Just, I would have Him just before all else,

To see that the fair fight is really fair.

Then he could enter on the stricken field

After the fight’s so definitely done

There can be no disputing who has won –

Then he could enter no the stricken field

As Red Cross Ambulance Commander-in-Chief

To ease the more extremely wounded out

And mend the others up to go again.” (Frost ‘A masque of mercy, 1969, p.508).

“Paul: … The rich in seeing nothing but injustice

In their impoverishment by revolution

Are right. But ‘twas intentional injustice.

It was their justice being mercy-crossed.

The revolution Keeper’S brining on

Is nothing but an outbreak of mass mercy.” (Frost ‘A masque of mercy, 1969, p.509).

“Paul: … And if you’ve got to see your justice crossed

(And you’ve got to), which will you prefer

To see it, evil-crossed or mercy-crossed.” (Frost ‘A masque of mercy, 1969, p.510).

“Paul: Christ came to introduce a break with logic

That made all other outrage seem as child’s play:

The Mercy on the Sin against the Sermon.” (Frost ‘A masque of mercy, 1969, p.511).

“Keeper: … The Sermon on the Mount

Is just a frame up to insure the failure

Of all of us, so all of us will be

Thrown prostrate at the Mercy Seat for Mercy.” (Frost ‘A masque of mercy, 1969, p.511).

“Paul: Yes, spoken so we can’t live up to it,

Yet so we’ll have to weep because we can’t.

Mercy is only to the undeserving.

But such we all are made in the sight of God.” (Frost ‘A masque of mercy, 1969, p.512).

“Jonah: If what you say is true, if winning ranks

The same with God as losing, how explain

Our making all this effort mortals make?” (Frost ‘A masque of mercy, 1969, p.517).

“Jesse Bel: … I am right then?

Keeper:                                 --- In glorifying courage.

Courage is of the heart by derivation,

And great it is. But fear is of the soul.

And I’m afraid.” (Frost ‘A masque of mercy, 1969, p.520).

“Paul: … We have to stay afraid deep in our souls

Our sacrifice – the best we have to offer.

(…)

Our lives laid down in war and peace – may not

Be found acceptable in Heaven’s sight.

And that they may be is the only prayer

Worth praying. May my sacrifice

Be found acceptable in Heaven’s sight.

Keeper: (…)

We both have lacked the courage in the heart

To overcome the fear within the soul

And go ahead to any accomplishment.

Courage is what it takes and takes the more of

Because the deeper fear is so eternal.

(…)

Nothing can make injustice just but mercy.” (Frost ‘A masque of mercy, 1969, p.521).

Strategy – A History – Lawrence Freeman 2013

A great overview of strategic thought – I wanted to see a bit more of Freeman’s own thought.

“By and large, strategy comes into play where there is actual or potential conflict, when interests collide and forms of resolution are required.” (Freeman, 2013, p.xi). “It is about getting more out of a situation than the starting balance of power would suggest. It is the art of creating power.” (Freeman, 2013, p.xii).

“From Homer came the contrasting qualities, represented respectively by Achilles and Odysseus, of bie and metis (strength and cunning).” (Freeman, 2013, p.23). “The play underlined the difficulty of relying on deception and then expecting to be trusted.” (Freeman, 2013, p.28). “Supreme excellence in war was not found in winning “one hundred victories in one hundred battles.” Rather, it was better “to subdue the enemy without fighting.”” (Freeman quoting Sun Tzu, 2013, p.44).

“Despite its dangers, battle had a special role as an occasional means of agreeing on who had won and what victory meant.” (Freeman, 2013, p.49). “The battles were limited in time and space, fought on a defined field within a single day (tension at dawn, exhaustion by dusk). Within those confines they would be bloody and vicious, but at least they might produce a conclusion without spilling over into the rest of the country.” (Freeman, 2013, p.49).

“Most importantly, he (Alexander) understood that Napoleon wanted battle. If that was what he wanted, that was exactly what he should not have.” (Freeman, 2013, p.79). “”Time which is allowed to pass unused accumulates to the credit of the defender.”” (Freeman, 2013, p.90).

“Friction helped explain the difference between was as it might be – that is, absolute and unrestrained – and actual war.” (Freeman, 2013, p.87). “His advice was to keep the plan simple, especially against a capable opponent. (…) the strategic plan survived so long as successive engagements were being won.” (Freeman, 2013, p.90).

“”A center of gravity,” he explained, “is always found where the mass is concentrated the most densely. It presents the most effective target for a blow; furthermore, the heaviest blow is that struck by the center of gravity.” (Freeman, 2013, p.91).

 “Niederwerfungsstrategie, the strategy of annihilation. (…) Ermattungsstrategie, the strategy of exhaustion, sometimes translated as attrition. Whereas with a strategy of annihilation there was just one pole, the battle, with exhaustion there was another pole, involving a variety of ways to achieve the political ends of war, including occupying territory, destroying crops, and blockading.” (Freeman, 2013, p.108).

“In this respect, the “ideal concentration” was “an appearance of weakness that covers the reality of strength.”” (Freeman, 2013, p.120).

 “Fuller became one of the first to focus on the possibility of disorienting the enemy’s “brain” rather than eliminating his physical strength. (…) using tanks and aircraft in a battle would be decisive as a result of psychological dislocation rather than physical destruction.” (Freeman, 2013, p.131).

“The manoeuvre which brings an ally into the field is as serviceable as that which win a great battle.” (Freeman, 2013, p.139). “Thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them.” (Freeman, 2013, p.146).“”The power to hurt is bargaining power. (…) Under this proposition, strategy moved from consideration of conquest and resistance to deterrence, intimidations, blackmail, and threats.” (Freeman, 2013, p.163).

“the greater the success of the original strategy the greater the risk of friction as an army moved away from home base.” (Freeman, 2013, p.212).

“When a radical spoke of the “Spirit of History, the ceaseless March of Progress,” Herzen exclaimed, “A curse on your capital letters! We’re asking people to spill their blood – at least spare them the conceit that they are acting out the biography of an abstract noun.” (Freeman, 2013, p.266).

“War involved nationalism, which was in principle threatening class solidarity.” (Freeman, 2013, p.295).“If war came it should be used to hasten the revolution.” (Freeman, 2013, p.295).

 “At the heart of his (Tolstoy’s) antistrategic vision was the belief that divisions within human society were unnatural, and so if they were healed there would be no need for struggle and conflict.” (Freeman, 2013, p.308). “evil can only be overcome with good and cannot be opposed.” (Freeman, 2013, p.311).

“He (James) define the pragmatic method as “the attitude of looking away from first things, principles, ‘categories’, supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things, fruits, consequences, fact.” (Freeman, 2013, p.317). “He (Gandhi) argued the inseparability of ends and means: violent methods could not deliver a peaceful society.” (Freeman, 2013, p.348).

“Instead of decisions being taken by individuals who were detached, remote, and looking after their own interests, a way had to be found to engage people so that they could shape their own destinies.” (Freeman, 2013, p.367).

“Critical to this school of thought was the conviction, bolstered by research, that social problems had social rather than personal causes.” (Freeman, 2013, p.378). “They understood the futility of expecting people absorbed in a daily struggle for survival to sign up for an even larger and more dangerous struggle defined only by vague slogans.” (Freeman, 2013, p.409).

“At every moment the relationship of power may become a confrontation between two adversaris.” (Freeman quoting Foucault, 2013, p.426). “In an inversion of Clausewitz, he presented politics as a continuation of war.” (Freeman, 2013, p.426).

“Mark Turner argued that life would be chaotic without simple stories turning pieces of information into a coherent patterns.” (Freeman, 2013, p.429). “It was another way the weak could take on the strong: less muscle but better stories. A battle of narratives was to be preferred to a real battle.” (Freeman, 2013, p.430).

“When in 1914 Ford started to have difficulty maintaining a stable workforce because of the dreary and routine nature if assembly-line work, he announced that his workers would be paid five dollars a day. This he described as one of the “finest cost-cutting moves we ever made.”” (Freeman, 2013, p.480).

At first Sloan was reporting to Pierre DuPont, who was chairman and chief executive. This meant that, unlike Ford, Sloan had to have an internal strategy as well one to deal with the competition.” (Freeman, 2013, p.484).

“With a social role far beyond anything implied in the term “private enterprise,” this was an economic power that could compete on its own terms with the political power of the state. A new form of struggle was developing: “The state seeks in some aspects to regulate the corporation, while the corporation, steadily becoming more powerful, makes every effort to avoid such regulation.”” (Freeman, 2013, p.490).

“Drucker blamed Taylor for separating planning from doing.” (Freeman, 2013, p.493)

“The fundamental strategic rule was: “Induce your competitors not to invest in those products, markets, and services where you expect to invest most.”” (Freeman, 2013, p.507).

“In this way, Justin Fox remarked, “rational market idea” moved from “theoretical economics into the empirical subdivision of finance.” There it “lost in nuance and gained in intensity.” It was now seeking to use the “stock market’s collective judgements to resolve conflicts of interest that had plagued scholars, executives, and shareholders for generations.” (Freeman, 2013, p.526).

 “the start to consider human beings as social actors and organizations as bundles of social relationships.” (Freeman, 2013, p.542). “critique of modernist forms of rational bureaucracy.” (Freeman, 2013, p.542).“Once organizations began to be viewed as social systems in their own right rather than as means to some management goal, questions arose (…) how organizations could be arranged to make for a more fulfilling life for the workforce.” (Freeman, 2013, p.543). “Business should be about heart, beauty and art – not some “disembodied bloodless enterprise” but “the selfless pursuit of an ideal.” (Freeman quoting Peters and Waterman, 2013, p.547).

“It (bounded rationality) accepted human fallibility without losing the predictability that might still result from a modicum of rationality. Simon showed how people might reasonably accept suboptimal outcomes because of the excessive effort required to get to the optimal.” (Freeman, 2013, p.592).

“It is the easy problems – the mundane math problems of daily life – that are the best suited to the conscious brain. (…) Complex problems, on the other hand, require the processing power of the emotional brain the supercomputer of the mind.” (Freeman, 2013, p.602). “The revelation lay in just how much computation and analysis humans were capable of before they were really aware of any serious thought underway at all. Here in the subconscious could be found the various heuristics and biases explored by the behavioural economists, or the repressed feelings.” (Freeman, 2013, p.602). “Human beings did, what felt right, but that did not mean their behaviour was uninformed or irrational.” (Freeman, 2013, p.602).

“To this end this chapter explores the value of considering strategy as a story about power told in the future tense from the perspective of the leading character” (Freeman, 2013, p.606). “Strategy therefore starts with an existing state of affairs and only gains meaning by an awareness of how, for better or worse, it could be different.” (Freeman, 2013, p.611). “Strategy is best understood modestly, as moving to the “next stage” rather than to a definitive and permanent conclusion.” (Freeman, 2013, p.611).

“The reason this book has returned so often to questions of language and communication is because strategy is meaningless without them. Not only does strategy need to be out into words so that others can follow, but it works through affecting the behaviour of others. Thus it is always about persuasion.” (Freeman, 2013, p.614). “The challenges for the strategist – indeed, the essence of strategy – is to force or persuade those who are hostile or unsympathetic to act differently than their current intentions.” (Freeman, 2013, p.627).

Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 2010

A very short book, given how much of life it covers.

“He found he had forgotten nothing but what he wanted to forget.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 12).

“it was impossible because she could not get out of the habit of regarding him as her husband and loving him.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 13).

“It would seem that nothing could be simpler tan for him, a man of good family, rich rather than poor, and thirty-two years of age to propose to the Princess Sherbatskaya. In all likelihood he would have been considered quite a suitable match. But Levin was in love, and therefore Kitty seemed to him so perfect in every respect, so transcending everything earthly, and he seemed to himself so very earthly and insignificant a creature that the possibility of his being considered worthy of her by others or by herself was to him unimaginable.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 30).

 “Oblonsky smiled. He understood that feeling of Levin’s so well, knew that for Levin all the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class included all the girls in the world except her, and they had all the usual human failings and were ordinary girls; while the other class – herself alone – had no weaknesses and was superior to all humanity.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 51).

“Anna read and understood, but it was unpleasant to read, that is to say, to follow the reflection of other people’s lives. She was eager to live herself.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 138).

“But it is really funny; her aim is to do good, she is a Christian and yet she is always angry and always has enemies – all on account of Christianity and philantrophy!” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 150).

“Karenin was being confronted with life – with the possibility of his wife’s loving somebody else, and this seemed stupid and incomprehensible to him, because it was life itself. He had lived and worked all his days in official spheres, which deal with reflections of life, and every time he had knocked up against life itself he had stepped out of its way.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 196).

“Levin frowned. The insult of the refusal he had had to face burned in his heart like a fresh, newly-received wound. But he was at home and the walls of home are helpful.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 237).

“As a child that has been hurt skips about making his muscles move in order to dull its pain so Karenin needed mental activity to smother those thoughts about his wife which in her presence and in the presence of Vronsky, and amid the continual mention of his name, forced themselves upon him. And as it is natural for the child to skip about, so it was natural for him to speak cleverly and well.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 287).

“To Constantine the country was the place where one lives – that is to say, where one rejoiced, suffered and laboured; but to Koznyshev the country was, on the one hand, a place of rest from work, and on the other hand, a useful antidote to depravity, an antidote to which he resorted with pleasure and with a consciousness of its utility.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 327).

“Had Constantine been asked whether he liked the peasants, he would not have known what to answer. He both liked and disliked them, just as he liked and disliked all human beings.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 328).

“Oblonsky had gone to Petersburg to fulfil a very necessary duty – which to officials seems most natural and familiar, though to laymen it is incomprehensible – that of reminding the Ministry of his existence, without the performance of which rite continuance in Government service is impossible.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 357).

“Though the children did not know Levin well and did not remember when they had last seen him, they did not feel toward him any of that strange shyness and antagonism so often felt by children toward grown-up people who ‘pretend’, which causes them to suffer so painfully.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 368).

“All had been drowned in the sea of their joyful common toil. God had given them the day and the strength, and both the day and the strength had been devoted to labour which had brought its own reward. For whom they had laboured and what the fruits of their labour would be was an extraneous and unimportant affair.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 380).

“death would come and end everything, so that it was useless to begin anything, and that there was no help for it. Yes it was terrible, but true.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 481).

“He dressed in haste, and as if he were carrying a cup brimful of wrath and were afraid of spilling any and of losing with his anger the energy he needed for an explanation with his wife, he went to her room as soon as he knew that she was up.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 500).

“’What is the use arguing? No one ever convinces another.’” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 545).

“his pity for her, remorse at having wished for her death, and above all the joy of forgiving, in itself gave him not only relief from suffering but inward peace such as he had never before experienced.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 545).

“But quite on the contrary, it is precisely of this loss of freedom that I am glad.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 608).

“One impulse, an habitual one, drew him to shift the blame from himself and lay it upon her, but another, and more powerful one, drew him to smooth over the breach as quickly as quickly as possible and not allow it to widen. To remain under so unjust an accusation was painful, but to justify himself and hurt her would be still worse.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 661).

“They made it up. Having realised that she was in the wrong, though she did not acknowledge it, she became more tender to him, they enjoyed a new and doubled happiness in their love.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 661).

“Nevertheless, her chief preoccupation was still herself – herself in so far as Vronsky held her dear and in so far as she could compensate him for all he had given up.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 879).

“’Then why do you go on with it (the estate and agriculture), if it is a clear loss?’

‘Well you see …  one goes on! What would you have? It’s a habit, and one knows that it’s necessary!

(…)

‘Yes, yes,’ said Levin, ‘that is quite so! I always feel that I am getting no real profit out of my estate and yet I go on … One feels a sort of duty toward the land.’” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 898).

“He only knew and felt that what was happening (birth) was similar to what had happened the year before in the hotel of the provincial town on the deathbed of his brother Nicholas. Only that was sorrow and this was joy. But that sorrow and this joy were equally beyond the usual conditions of life: they were like openings in that usual life through which something higher became visible. And, as in that case, what was now being accomplished came harshly, painfully; and while watching it, the soul soared, as then, to heights it had never known before, at which reason could not keep up with it.

‘Lord, pardon and help us!’” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 974).

“Kitty was alive, her sufferings were over; and he was full of unspeakable bliss. This he comprehended, and it rendered him entirely happy. But the child? Whence and why had he come? Who was he? … He could not at all accustom himself to the idea. It seemed something superfluous, something overflowing, and for a long time he was unable to get used to it.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 978).

“You see, he who sits down to play against me, wishes to leave me without a shirt, and I treat him the same! So we struggle, and therein lies the pleasure!” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 1022).

“It was as impossible not to look after his brother’s and sister’s affairs, and those of all the peasants who came for advice and were accustomed to do so, as it is impossible to abandon a baby you are already holding in your arms.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 1080).

“Thinking about it led him into doubts and prevented him from seeing what he should and should not do. But when he did not think, but just lived, he unceasingly felt in his soul the presence and infallible judge deciding which of two possible action was the better and which the worse; and as soon as he did what he should not have done, he immediately felt this.

In this way he lived, not knowing and seeing any possibility of knowing what he was or why he lived in the world.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 1081).

“’To live not for one’s needs but for God! For what God? What could be more senseless than what he said? He said we must not live for our needs – that is, we must not live for what we understand and what attracts us, what we wish for, but must live for something incomprehensible, for God whom nobody can understand or define.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 1086).

“Nobody is free from doubt about other things, but nobody ever doubts this one thing, everybody always agrees with it.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 1086).

“’Theodore says that Kirilov, the innkeeper, lives for his belly. That is intelligible and reasonable. We all, as reasoning creatures, cannot live otherwise. And then that same Theodore says that it is wrong to live for one’s belly, and that we must live for Truth, for God and at the first hint I understand him!” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 1087).

“this knowledge cannot be explained by reason: it is outside reason, has no cause, and can have no consequences.

‘If goodness has a cause, it is no longer goodness if it has a consequence – a reward, it is also not goodness. Therefore goodness is beyond the chain of cause and effect.

‘It is exactly this that I know and that we all know.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 1087).

“Having then for the first time clearly understood that before every man, and before himself, there lay only suffering, death, and eternal oblivion, he had concluded that to live under such conditions was impossible: that one must either explain life to oneself so that it does not seem to be an evil mockery by some sort of devil or one must shoot oneself.

But he had done neither the one nor the other, yet he continued to live, think, and feel, had even at that very time got married, experienced many joys, and been happy whenever he was not thinking of the meaning of his life.

What did that show? It showed that he had lived well, but thought badly.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 1089).

“’I looked for an answer to my question. But reason could not give me an answer – reason is incommensurable with the question. Life itself has given me the answer, in my knowledge of what is good and what is bad. And that knowledge I did not acquire in any way, it was given to me as to everybody, given because I could not take it from anywhere.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 1089).

“Not reason! Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 1090).

“’I shall still get angry with Ivan the coachman in the same way, shall dispute in the same way, shall inopportunely express my thoughts; there will still be a wall between my soul’s holy of bodies and other people; even my wife I shall still blame for my own fears and shall repent of it. My reason will still not understand why I pray, but I shall still pray, and my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, is every moment of it no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an unquestionable meaning of goodness with which I have the power to invest it.” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 1116).