CUNNING, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: "The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses."
I believe in Providence and I believe Providence to be just. Therefore I believe that Providence always rewards the strong, the industrious, and the upright.
Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo Ipse domi stimul ac nummos contemplar in arca. (The public hiss at me, but I cheer myself when in my own house I contemplate the coins in my strong-box.)
The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He is thoroughly persuaded of the truths of arithmetic. There is always a reason, in the man, for his good or bad fortune in making money. Men talk as if there were some magic about this. He knows that all goes on the old road, pound for pound, cent for cent - for every effect a perfect cause - and that good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.
Regard this fleeting world like this:
Like stars fading and vanishing at dawn,
like bubbles on a fast-moving stream,
like morning dewdrops evaporating on blades of grass,
like a candle flickering in a strong wind...
echoes, mirages, and phantoms, hallucinations,
and like a dream.
I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.
Let me tell you another place to look for some savings. We are currently spending $10 billion a month in Iraq when they have a $79 billion surplus. It seems to me that if we're going to be strong at home as well as strong abroad, that we have to look at bringing that war to a close.
Saudi Arabia has stability. The social contract and the political contract between the king and the rulers and the royal family and the ruled people in Saudi Arabia is very strong and the bondage is so solid.
Strong coffee, much strong coffee, is what awakens me. Coffee gives me warmth, waking, an unusual force and a pain that is not without very great pleasure.
The human will stands beyond all circumstances. Everything must go down before the will, for that comes from God Himself; a pure and a strong will is omnipotent. Before it all the powers, even of nature, must bow down, succumb, and become its servants - the strong gigantic, infinite will in man.
And oft I thought (my fancy was-so strong) That I, at last, a resting-place had found: 'Here: will I dwell,' said I,' my whole life long, Roaming the illimitable waters round; Here will I live, of all but heaven disowned. And end my days upon the peaceful flood - To break my dream the vessel reached its bound; And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.
He who, conscious of being strong, is content to be weak, he shall be the paragon of mankind. Being the paragon of mankind, Virtue will never desert him. He returns to the state of a little child.