There is only one 'retirement plan' for terrorists.
Jim MattisRead
I can't tell you the number of times I looked down at what was going on on the ground, or I was engaged in a fight somewhere, and I knew within a couple of minutes how I was going to screw up the enemy. And I knew it because I'd done so much reading.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Knowledge and preparation are crucial for success in challenging situations.
In this quote, Jim Mattis emphasizes the importance of knowledge and experience in achieving success during conflicts or challenges. He highlights that rigorous reading and preparation have equipped him with the foresight to anticipate outcomes and devise effective strategies, illustrating how intellectual engagement can profoundly impact practical scenarios.
Themes
KnowledgePreparationReadingStrategyExperience
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about the importance of education, one might invoke this quote to emphasize the value of reading.
More from Jim Mattis
All quotes →There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.
Jim MattisRead
Now from a distance, I look back on what the Corps taught me: to think like men of action, and to act like men of thought!
Jim MattisRead
I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn't waste their lives because I didn't have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.
Jim MattisRead
For whatever trauma came with service in tough circumstances, we should take what we learned - take our post-traumatic growth - and, like past generations coming home, bring our sharpened strengths to bear, bring our attitude of gratitude to bear.
Jim MattisRead
Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.
Jim MattisRead
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The mind of one who practises doesn't run away anywhere, it stays right there. Good, evil, happiness and unhappiness, right and wrong arise, and he knows them all. The meditator simply knows them, they don't enter his mind. That is, he has no clinging. He is simply the experiencer.
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The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the most to be distrusted.
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Don't be different just for different's sake. If you see it differently, function that way. Follow your own muse, always.
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It is better to be an outcast, a stranger in one’s own country, than an outcast from one’s self. It is better to see what is about to befall us and to resist than to retreat into the fantasies embraced by a nation of the blind.
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Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they are executed.
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The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.
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