Cool Quotes Update

I haven't done any cool quotes on BadskiBlog in quite some time and I came across a few beauties the other day. Nothing like a daily dose of wisdom. Enjoy and post any additions in the comments section if you feel so inclined.

"Whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success." - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82, American poet and essayist)

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent." - John Donne (1328-1384, English reformer)

"A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week." - George S. Patton (1885-1945, General, USA)

New Blog Addition (And Bonus Cool Quotes)-The Art of Manliness

I have put yet another blog through the Badski trial run, and that blog is The Art of Manliness. Do not be deceived by the name. This isn't a blog about hunting and killing wild animals with your bare hands, or dressing like a lumberjack, or finding new ways disconnect from all things emotional and 'girly.' This site is aimed at restoring the glory that is manliness; what it used to and should represent.

The Art of Manliness is authored by husband and wife team, Brett and Kate McKay. It features articles on helping men be better husbands, better fathers, and better men. In our search to uncover the lost art of manliness, we’ll look to the past to find examples of manliness in action. We’ll analyze the lives of great men who knew what it meant to “man up” and hopefully learn from them. Every week we seek to uncover the essential skills and knowledge today’s man needs to know.

My idea for the Art of Manliness came about as I was reading Men’s Health magazine. It seemed to me that the magazine’s contents were continually going downhill, with more and more articles about sex and how to get six pack abs. Was this all there was to being a man? And as I looked around at the men my age, it seemed to me that many were shirking responsibility and refusing to grow up. They had lost the confidence, focus, skills, and virtues that men of the past had embodied and were a little lost. The feminism movement did some great things, but it also made men confused about their role and no longer proud of the virtues of manliness. This, coupled with the fact that many men were raised without the influence of a good father, has left a generation adrift as to what it means to be an honorable, well-rounded man.

Talking about honorable manliness was to me a niche seemingly not covered on the web or elsewhere, and I decided to start The Art of Manliness to talk about all things manly- both the serious and the fun, but with the ultimate eye toward encouraging readers to be better husbands, fathers, brothers, men.

I don’t claim to have all the answers, nor do I claim that I’m an expert on all things manly. I started this blog not because I had all the answers to being a man, but because I wanted to explore the questions with other men. Thankfully, I’ve found a whole community of men who wish to discover the lost art of manliness too.

Not only does the blog have an awesome mission statement that falls right in line with BadskiBlog's underlying theme of self improvement and passion for life, it has some incredibly useful and entertaining content as well. I recently discovered that a guy I went to college with is a contributing writer for the blog as well. He is a good dude who is practicing what he preaches. Small world.

I thought this latest post was perfect to give you a taste of what The Art of Manliness is all about. You know the annoying posters that say some inherently good trait that all people think they have? Like when they say "attitude" and then it has some cheesy advice below and a picture of some stream or a waterfall. Yeah those posters. Well they dedicated an entire series of posters to Teddy Roosevelt and put some of his finest quotes on them. Great lessons learned from quite a manly man.

No one preached the art of manliness more ardently or lived it more fervently than TR. To start your week off with a swift kick in the pants of manly inspiration, we’ve created some TR-themed motivational posters. Each poster includes a picture of Roosevelt living the strenuous life, along with a motivational quote from the man himself.

Cool Quotes Happiness Edition

It has been a rough few weeks for me and Heidi with the pending move, so I thought Cool Quotes around the topic of happiness would be appropriate. Great advice for anyone who is facing a little adversity.

“Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.” - Unknown

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence” - Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scientist and Physician, 384 BC-322 BC)

“Be happy. It's one way of being wise.” - Sidonie Gabrielle

“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” - Robert Heinlein (American science-fiction writer,1907-1988)

“We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.” - Frederick Keonig

“People love others not for who they are but for how they make them feel” - Irwin Federman

Cool Quotes

Here are some more Cool Quotes to get you through the weekend. Why try and say it any better than those who already said it best? Enjoy.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” - Mark Twain

“I had just one more chance to be a boy, and I took it!” - Theodore Roosevelt, in answer to a friend who asked why he had literally risked his life on an expedition into an explored river in Brazil.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Attributed to Mark Twain

Joseph Heller famously responded when told by Kurt Vonnegut that a hedge fund manager had made more money in a single day than his classic novel Catch-22 made in its entire history, “Yes, but I have something he will never have… enough.”

"All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own" - Markham was born on April 23, 1852 (American poet He is best-known for his poem of social protest, 1852-1940)

"One can only see what one observes, and one observes only things which are already in the mind." - Alphonse Bertillon was born on April 22, 1853

"Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself." - Thomas J. Watson

"Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends." - Shirley MacLaine was born on April 24, 1934 (Outspoken American actress and dancer, b.1934)

"The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade." - Anthony Trollope was born on April 24, 1815

Guest Bloggage (And Bonus Cool Quotes) - John Satterberg

Guest Bloggage With John Satterberg - I am pleased to present to all you BadskiBlog enthusiasts an awesome guest post by one of my best friends John (Opie) Satterberg. Opus and I grew up playing hockey together and began our quest into the awesome world of metal together. He served (and will continue to serve on the reunion tour) as the bassist and stage presence facilitator for our currently hibernating melodic metal band Mask Of Sanity. He is a true lifelong learner and an avid reader. He left his father's company to take a job in construction for a lot less money, and within a few years started his own construction company Satterberg Construction. I reached out to him to shed some light on how he started his own business, and he surpassed all expectations by delivering this beauty. Enjoy and if you are interested in adding a Guest Bloggage post to the BadskiBlog collection contact me at Truecore27@aol.com.

I’ve had trouble getting started on this installment of Badski’s guest blog for quite some time now and have decided to take a different approach to what may be ‘Conventional.’ When asked “How I started my business?” I could literally write a how-to manual that would read like stereo instructions and would be boring as hell; there are plenty of how to manuals out there for starting businesses and building houses. I could also share something based more on the ‘why?’ I started my business, which I feel is more important.

Most people have destinations that they want to arrive at during their lives, whether it’s an abundance of money, a meaningful relationship, a perfect family, a bunch of toys, etc., and people become so consumed with trying to reach their given destinations that they neglect the only opportunity they have to make any kind of a difference and that opportunity is only experienced in the now. In the past I have been stressed, anxious, fearful and hopeless in many different settings and if I had not experienced these feelings I would not have learned some of the valuable tools that I now have that bring me back into the present moment whenever my mind wants to be in the future.

The feelings listed above were all a result of my being in one situation and wanting to be in the future, thus resulting in anxiety caused by my mind, which is separate from being. The only real title I feel that anyone can give oneself is ‘human being.’ The attachments to titles such as “assistant to the assistant manager of the movie theater” are taken so seriously that I find them amusing. When speaking of being, I am referring to the oneness of all things, the energy flowing through all life forms in the universe, God if you will (George Lucas calls it ‘The Force’). The word that best describes this feeling of being is enlightenment.

I will not go so far as to say that I am ‘Enlightened,’ however in some of the hardest times of my life I have eventually come to experience the deepest feelings of peace, serenity, appreciation, wonder, and love, and in the feeling of these feelings I came to the realization that no matter what happens in this life, I will be OK. I was unaware until recently that the word for what I speak of is enlightenment, experiencing being to the fullest, which is nothing at all. It is everything stripped away to the very essence of who you are. Nothing in life is possible without love. Yes I believe in God, and I believe that God is not found outside oneself and that there is no one religion that has the right answer over another, I believe that God is everywhere and in everything and that God is here and now, presence, enlightenment, being.

This is ‘Why’ I started my business. I started my business because I learned that in life you are not a failure if you don’t make it, you are a success because you went for it and hopefully learned something along the way. The biggest struggles that we face are also the biggest opportunities for growth, and when we are experiencing the most pain around a given issue, we are simultaneously doing the most growing. I have a little black journal that I take with me everywhere. This journal is filled with quotes, ideas, fortunes, and other miscellaneous things that I find insightful. I’ll share some of my favorites. Thanks for reading, have fun and enjoy!

“The mouth of a wise man is in his heart.” –Benjamin Franklin

“The more I read, the more I meditate, and the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.” –Voltaire

“Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success you know.” -William Saroyan

“Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.” –Claude Bernard

“He who knows others is learned; He who knows himself is wise.” –Lao Tzu

“Man’s mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.” –Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

“The foolish person seeks happiness in the distance; the wise person grows it under his feet.” –James Oppenheim

“Courage means doing things in spite of fear.” –Dr. Laura Schlessinger

“If one remains on a journey of spiritual growth, one’s capacity to love grows and grows.” –M. Scott Peck

“He said that successful men rarely know the real reasons for their success, even though they always think they know. He added that this is caused by the fact that they’re too close to the forest to see the trees. That explanation had a big effect on me; if I couldn’t rely on the traditional advice of successful people, what could I rely on? It finally became apparent that the only solution was to develop my own philosophy and techniques, based on my own personal experience.” –Robert J. Ringer

“Through considerable wasted time, effort, and money, I found that most people, who claim to be real estate buyers (or buyers of any big ‘product’ for that matter) seldom, if ever, actually close a sale.” –Robert J. Ringer

“The more limited the parameters of consciousness, the more constrained the experience of life. Without consciousness there is no way to experience who we are.” –Shirley MacLaine

“If your goal is to become financially secure, you’ll likely attain it…but if your motive is to make money to spend money on the good life…you’re never gonna make it.” –Mr. Martin

“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” –General Patton

“Work as if you didn’t need the money. Aim for the point where you don’t do anything unless your heart is in it.” –Richard Templar

“Never mention how much you’ve got, what you’re worth, or how much you earn.” –Richard Templar

“Great moments are born from great opportunities.” –Herb Brooks

“The person who wants the deal the most gets the worst deal.” –Jo-Ellan Dimitrius

“If one throws salt at thee thou wilt receive no harm unless thou hast sore places.” –Latin Proverb

“All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.” –Blaine Pascal

Cool Quotes

More quotes to add to the cool quotes library!

"As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is our responsibility." - Arnold Toynbee

"Don't have sex man. It leads to kissing and pretty soon you have to start talking to them." - Steve Martin

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." - Wayne Gretzky

"Diligence is the mother of good luck." - Ben Franklin

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." - Ralph Waldo Emerson