"He who will not economize will have to agonize." The Analects of Confucius

„"I shall succeed!" he said to himself. So says the gambler; so says the great captain; but the three words that have been the salvation of some few, have been the ruin of many more.“ Le Pere Goriot

“Vasudeva rose. “It is late,” he said, “let’s go to sleep. I can’t tell you that other thing, oh friend. You’ll learn it, or perhaps you know it already. See, I’m no learned man, I have no special skill in speaking, I also have no special skill in thinking. All I’m able to do is to listen and to be godly, I have learned nothing else. If I was able to say and teach it, I might be a wise man, but like this I am only a ferryman, and it is my task to ferry people across the river.” ” Siddhartha

[..] the values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed