The View From Ninety

Napoleon is believed to have said that the only quality he wanted his generals to have was to be lucky. By which, to my way of thinking, he meant they’d done the real preparation so that they were ready for whatever happened.

There must be space in the togetherness.

Education is about drawing out of people what they already know but don’t understand, not putting in what they will forget immediately.

Ernest Hemingway said, ‘The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.’ That is very much the kintsugi philosophy – if you fall, pick yourself up and you’ll be the stronger for it, mature from the experience, and your face might show it with a cut or a bruise – but that’s what makes it interesting.

The so-often unsung virtues of kindness, reliability, honesty and fairness are in the end what people remember you for.