“The Greeks often talk about phronesis, practical wisdom. It’s a concept that has no direct equivalent in English. We sometimes talk of “knowledge” or “common sense,” but phronesis implies something more. Phronesis is the ability to figure out what to do, while at the same time knowing what is worth doing.
“Phronesis allows soldiers to fight well and leaders to rule well, and, as Aristotle argued, it can only be obtained through experience. My own experiences in Rwanda, in Iraq, and elsewhere had not made me a militarist or a pacifist, or any kind of “ist.” I knew that the world would continue to require us to make hard decisions about when we draw the sword and I’d seen that the use of force was both necessary and imperfect. There is no school of thought that can save us from the simple fact that hard decisions are best made by good people, and that the best people can only be shaped by hard experience.” -- “The Heart and the Fist,” by Eric Greitens“I feel like anyone who scratches a piece of paper, children especially, are natural talents as artists. The thing that defeats children from becoming great artists are adults coming up to them and looking at it and saying, ‘Well, let’s see, maybe we can make that look more like a dog.’ All it is is the suppression of the child. Society wipes them out, fills them with fear.” -- J.P. Donleavy
“Even hatred needs a response if it is to endure.” –- “The Death of the Adversary,” by Hans Keilson
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