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His grandeur he deriv’d from heaven alone,
For he was great e’er fortune made him so
And wars like mists that rise against the sun
Made him but greater seem, not greater grow.
No borrow’d bays his temple did adorn,
But to our Crown he did fresh jewels bring;
Nor was his virtue poison’d soon as born,
With the too early thoughts of being King.
--
John Dryden, Heroick Stanzas consecrated to his Highness Oliver

 

Oliver Cromwell

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Of all the trees that grow so fair,
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Rudyard Kipling

 

Heaven says nothing, and the whole earth grows rich beneath its silent rule. Men, too, are touched by heaven's virtue; yet, in their greater part, they are creatures of deceit. They are born, it seems, with an emptiness of soul, and must take their qualities wholly from things without. To be born thus empty into this modern age, this mixture of good and ill, and yet steer through life on an honest course to the splendors of success — this is a feat reserved for paragons of our kind, a task beyond the nature of the normal man.

 

Ihara Saikaku

 

Thoughts give birth to a creative force that is neither elemental nor sidereal. Thoughts create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy, from which new arts flow. When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him. ... For such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth.

 

Paracelsus

 

We need examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek — not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions, self-possession; and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace.

 

John Ruskin

 

Because of the space between stimulus and response, people have the power of choice; therefore, leaders are neither born nor made — meaning environmentally ?trained and nurtured. They are self-made through chosen responses, and if they choose based on principles and develop increasingly greater discipline, their freedom to choose increases.

 

Stephen Covey