this too shall pass

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pages: 426 words: 117,775

The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop Per Child
by Morgan G. Ames
Published 19 Nov 2019

Ivan Krstić (personal website), May 13, 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080517102347/http://radian.org:80/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi ———. “Sweet Nonsense Omelet.” Ivan Krstić (personal website), July 22, 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20090726005526/http://radian.org:80/notebook/nonsense-omelet ———. “This, Too, Shall Pass, or: Things to Remember When Reading News about OLPC.” Ivan Krstić (personal website), April 25, 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20140420030324/http://radian.org/notebook/this-too-shall-pass Kurland, D. Midian, and Roy D. Pea. “Children’s Mental Models of Recursive Logo Programs.” Journal of Educational Computing Research 1, no. 2 (May 1985): 235–243. https://doi.org/10.2190/JV9Y-5PD0-MX22-9J4Y.

However, even as he was questioning some of the core tenets of OLPC, in particular its commitment to open-source software, he continued to believe that had it been done right, the project would have had the transformative effects that had convinced him to join initially. See, e.g., Krstić, “Maintaining Clarity”; Krstić, “This, Too, Shall Pass”; Krstić, “Sic Transit Gloria Laptopi”; Krstić, “Sweet Nonsense Omelet.” 24. OLPC Wiki, “OLPC: Five Principles.” 25. Levy, Hackers, 3–60; Brand, “Spacewar.” 26. Papert, Children’s Machine, 33. 27. An early OLPC employee told me in an interview that this bumpy texture was, oddly enough, meant to stop children from covering their laptops with stickers—not so much to prevent children from customizing them as to prevent the disguising of stolen laptops.

Hormone Repair Manual
by Lara Briden
Published 14 Apr 2021

First, understand that symptoms (if you experience them) are likely to be temporary. Not all perimenopausal symptoms are temporary but many are, and knowing that will prevent you from thinking, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is how I’m always going to be now’. It’s not how you’re always going to be; this too shall pass. Next, understand that perimenopause is not just chaotic ‘hormonal fluctuation’, but a sequence of events, beginning with low progesterone paired with temporarily high estrogen, and concluding with low estrogen and some significant changes to insulin metabolism. Perceiving the process as a sequence of describable events will help you to find the right treatment.

But then I looked more closely at the research and was reassured to learn that it is usually temporary. ‘During the menopause transition,’ says Dr Gail A. Greendale from the University of California, ‘a woman’s brain may feel a little off, a little muddy, but when the transition passes, the clouds clear and the fog lifts. Sometimes all a woman needs to know is that this too shall pass.’ And according to neuroscientist Lisa Mosconi, our brains are doing better than we think. She says that we feel like our cognition is affected, but ‘women still outperform men in cognitive brain studies at any stage of life’. Mosconi is the researcher I quoted in Chapter 1 who proposes that Alzheimer’s disease in women begins with menopause; or rather that the risk of Alzheimer’s begins with menopause.

pages: 120 words: 33,892

The Acquirer's Multiple: How the Billionaire Contrarians of Deep Value Beat the Market
by Tobias E. Carlisle
Published 13 Oct 2017

What if we remove the need for high profits and just buy undervalued companies using the Acquirer’s Multiple? What if we buy fair companies at wonderful prices? 6. THE ACQUIRER’S MULTIPLE “In the old legend the wise men finally boiled down the history of mortal affairs into the single phrase, ‘This too shall pass.’” —Benjamin Graham, Security Analysis (1934) The Acquirer’s Multiple is an industrial-strength PE multiple. It’s a throwback to the corporate raiders and buyouts of the 1980s. In dusty, old finance journals, it is described it as the Acquirer’s Multiple because corporate raiders and buyout firms—the acquirers—used it to find whole companies cheap enough to take over.

pages: 119 words: 36,128

Dead People Suck: A Guide for Survivors of the Newly Departed
by Laurie Kilmartin
Published 13 Feb 2018

It’s hard to admit, but we non-atheists need your arrogant certainty right now. Our loved one is gone, so we are comforted by what’s still here, including your nasty, contrarian personality. Now is not the time to become vulnerable or likable. Deep down, we appreciate you spouting the only Bible quote that makes sense to you: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” This too shall pass, and soon you’ll be back to your irritating, logical self. REMEMBER: Atheists are allowed to go Buddhist for up to 90 days without losing their dick privileges. Facebook Keeps Putting Other People’s Dead Parents in My Feed I am haunted by other people’s dead parents. By posting about Dad’s cancer on Facebook, I seem to have activated an algorithm that decided I liked death, cancer, and miracle cures.

pages: 670 words: 194,502

The Intelligent Investor (Collins Business Essentials)
by Benjamin Graham and Jason Zweig
Published 1 Jan 1949

For more advanced discussions, see www.federalreserve. gov/Pubs/feds/2002/200232/200232pap.pdf, www.tiaa-crefinstitute.org/ Publications/resdiags/73_09-2002.htm, and www.bwater.com/research_ ibonds.htm. 13 For details on these funds, see www.vanguard.com or www.fidelity.com. * “It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: ‘ And this, too, shall pass away.’ How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride!—how consoling in the depths of affliction! ‘And this, too, shall pass away.’ And yet let us hope it is not quite true.”—Abraham Lincoln, Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, September 30, 1859, in Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1859–1865 (Library of America,1985), vol.

Simply by keeping your holdings permanently diversified, and refusing to fling money at Mr. Market’s latest, craziest fashions, you can ensure that the consequences of your mistakes will never be catastrophic. No matter what Mr. Market throws at you, you will always be able to say, with a quiet confidence, “This, too, shall pass away.” Postscript We know very well two partners who spent a good part of their lives handling their own and other people’s funds on Wall Street. Some hard experience taught them it was better to be safe and careful rather than to try to make all the money in the world. They established a rather unique approach to security operations, which combined good profit possibilities with sound values.

Hedgehogging
by Barton Biggs
Published 3 Jan 2005

Ben Graham preached that you always want to buy a common stock (or a corporate bond for that matter) with a margin of safety.That margin relates to the liquidating value of the assets of the company (the price an informed businessperson would pay) being well above the price you are paying for the stock. On the flyleaf of Graham’s classic book, Security Analysis, is the following from Horace’s Ars Poetica: “Many shall be restored that now are fallen and many shall fall that now are in honor.” AGNOSTICS BELIEVE THIS, TOO, SHALL PASS Agnostics don’t believe in either religion. They say that everything in the investment business is temporary. “This too shall pass” is their mantra. Religious fanatics, they argue, often end up getting burned at the proverbial stake. When growth stocks are relatively cheap and the economic environment favors them, agnostics will own growth.When value is cheap and growth is expensive, they will look for value.

pages: 165 words: 46,133

The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumph
by Ryan Holiday
Published 30 Apr 2014

As crafty and ambitious and smart as he was, Lincoln’s real strength was his will: the way he was able to resign himself to an onerous task without giving in to hopelessness, the way he could contain both humor and deadly seriousness, the way he could use his own private turmoil to teach and help others, the way he was able to rise above the din and see politics philosophically. “This too shall pass” was Lincoln’s favorite saying, one he once said was applicable in any and every situation one could encounter. To live with his depression, Lincoln had developed a strong inner fortress that girded him. And in 1861 it again gave him what he needed in order to endure and struggle through a war that was about to begin.

pages: 427 words: 134,098

Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley
by Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans
Published 25 Apr 2023

The discussion reached an impasse, but in the weeks after, Michelle started having doubts about their relationship. She soon visited Tony in Vegas again, but left feeling uncertain once more about where they stood. Some weeks later, after yet another whirlwind trip, she texted him from an airport, expressing as much. With hopes of comforting her, Tony responded, “This too shall pass.” Over the holidays, Michelle found herself at a crossroads. A friend had reentered her life and he wanted to be in a committed, monogamous relationship with her. Given her feelings of doubt about Tony, Michelle realized it was time to end the romance with him. “Hey, we need to be friends for a little bit,” she told Tony on a FaceTime call that December.

Michelle continued to do media work for the Hsieh family, including the launch of the Tony Hsieh Award, which recognizes individuals who have achieved “significant advancement and bold innovation.” Collaborators on this include TED Talks, Alfred Lin, and Fred Mossler. In 2016, years after Tony texted her the message, “This too shall pass,” Michelle had the phrase tattooed on her back in Tibetan. After Tony’s death, she added “12.12” above the existing tattoo—for Tony’s birthday. Fred, his wife, Meghan, and their children still live in downtown Las Vegas. After Fred left Zappos, the couple started a new company, Ross and Snow, which sells authentic Italian leather shoes.

pages: 559 words: 155,372

Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley
by Antonio Garcia Martinez
Published 27 Jun 2016

There’s a Jewish folktale about a biblical king who dispatches one of his wise men to craft him a mantra that would both humble the proud and console the unfortunate. After searching in the market, where our wise man consults a local jeweler, he returns to the king with an engraved ring. The king holds the ring close and reads: THIS TOO SHALL PASS. So remember that, when lamenting your troubles, contemplating the perceived triumphs of peers and competitors, or rejoicing in that rare entrepreneurial triumph. It will all soon pass, and much faster than you think. To a startup, media attention is like sex. There are only two types: good . . . and better.

When Facebook arrived, instead of replacing the original sign, management had simply flipped it around, and intentionally neglected to paint or cover the back. It read SUN MICROSYSTEMS, along with the quadrangular logo made of S figures that used to appear at the top of every Web page you loaded. This too shall pass. What befell Sun could befall us too, so MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS! Zuck was saying by implication. Perhaps even the mighty Facebook Like button would one day be looked upon like the inscription on the fragment of Ozymandias’s statue in Shelley’s rumination on the transience of human ambition: an arrogant spasm of striving, forgotten and abandoned.

pages: 512 words: 153,059

There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America
by Brian Goldstone
Published 25 Mar 2025

Standing there with her daughter, holding her flimsy sign, she remembered what she had been doing almost exactly a year earlier: buying the kids’ presents, building the gingerbread house with Jacob and the kids. “That’s when I almost lost it,” Michelle said. “I just kept repeating to myself, ‘This too shall pass, this too shall pass.’ ” Christmas came and went, and then New Year’s. In mid-January, after missing a payment and with a lockout imminent, Michelle convinced one of the hotel workers to lend her the key to a storage room that she knew was never used. She and the kids slept on the filthy floor, trying to keep warm with the few blankets and bath towels they’d brought with them.

pages: 394 words: 57,287

Unleashed
by Anne Morriss and Frances Frei
Published 1 Jun 2020

Treat this development as an existential threat to your mission. When it comes to promoting inclusion—a mission so critical to the health of your organization—the right time to act is now. Your colleagues think they can wait you out. Management thought leader Earl Sasser calls this “kidney stone management,” the assumption that this too shall pass. Make it absolutely clear that you’re not going anywhere, preferably with a smile. If it takes showing up at someone’s office door with a cup of coffee (just the way they like it) every morning until you get the meeting, then so be it. That tactic, by the way, has never failed us. You keep hearing, “We’ve already tried that.”

pages: 184 words: 58,557

The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee
by Sarah Silverman
Published 19 Apr 2010

I think I'm starting to become friends with Tara Atta. She's really nice. Julie is downright cruel. Uhhg! She makes me so frustrated. I get so paralyzed around her. I feel like she's saying things about me behind my back. I really think she is. It makes me feel so helpless. Oh well, as Dad says, "This too shall pass." But wait--look how much more boring it is when she's not depressed: Today was fine. It seems kind of weird, I've been having not boring really, but very ordinary days lately. I'm starting a book called "The Color Purple." It is excellent. I find it hard to put down. My mother bought it for herself to read because both of my sisters read it and said it was a great book.

pages: 204 words: 63,571

You're Not Doing It Right: Tales of Marriage, Sex, Death, and Other Humiliations
by Michael Ian Black
Published 28 Feb 2012

That awful feeling of sleep deprivation has returned and settled deep into my limbs, making them heavy and unresponsive. I feel like I am living in a big pot of cauliflower-and-dick soup. My only consolation, if there is one, is that I have already experienced this once with Elijah, so I know, somewhere in the back of the reptilian part of my brain that I depend on for survival, that this too shall pass. Ruth will eventually sleep through the night. She will eventually stop crying all the time. She will. Right? I have to cling to this hope because hope is the only thing sustaining me right now. Martha and I are also in survival mode as a couple, sailors on a capsizing ship. The only way for us to stay afloat is to focus on simple daily tasks.

pages: 183 words: 60,223

Soulful Simplicity: How Living With Less Can Lead to So Much More
by Courtney Carver
Published 26 Dec 2017

What’s on the other side? Sometimes, until we have clarity, we get caught up in the drama, pain, or guilt and regret that often comes as a result. So yes, messes are painful, but they are also valuable. Getting through a mess provides confidence. You learn that you are strong and resilient, and that this too shall pass. Getting through one mess removes some of the mystery and drama from the next one. Sometimes it takes a big, heart wrenching mess to wake us up, inspire change, and to finally release us from the guilt of getting there in the first place. When our imperfections are splattered all over the floor, it becomes clear that we had to go through them to get to the lessons, the healing, and the enormous blessings.

pages: 288 words: 73,297

The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not a Disease
by Marc Lewis Phd
Published 13 Jul 2015

For addicts, long-term benefits are self-evident. They include happier, healthier relationships, physical health, money in the bank, self-respect, and the likelihood of staying out of jail. They are moulded into the slogans chanted at twelve-step meetings: Keep coming back, it works if you work it. This too shall pass. And they include the avoidance of long-term suffering, the inevitable descent into misery forewarned by messages from the War on Drugs, or into cancer and death, as threatened by dire words and images on cigarette boxes all over the world. Yet all these future rewards (and probable disasters) are minimized, dissipated, stripped of value, by the intrusive, glittering promise of the immediate goal.

pages: 291 words: 77,986

I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself: A Novel
by Marisa Crane
Published 17 Jan 2023

In the background, I hear the teacher yell, “That’s not how it happened.” “Hmm, three guesses as to why she did that,” says the kid. Click. The kid gets after-school detention for a week. The principal thinks that will talk some sense into her. Every day, Michelle and I pick her up at 5:30 p.m. and try to feed her small bits of wisdom. “This, too, shall pass.” “Your teacher represents a large portion of the population.” “Use this time for reflection.” “French fries can fix anything.” We order a mountain of fries at the drive-through. The kid asks for “one hundred and six ketchup packets, please.” Little do we know, the kid doesn’t want this time to pass.

pages: 287 words: 81,014

The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism
by Olivia Fox Cabane
Published 1 Mar 2012

My clients have found a wide variety of phrases useful, so here are a few examples, which could help you access calm and serenity. They run the gamut of tastes and styles, so you may find that some raise your hackles while others strongly resonate: A week from now, or a year from now, will any of this matter? This, too, shall pass. Yes, it will. Look for little miracles unfolding right now. Love the confusion. What if you could trust the Universe, even with this? Axioms like these can be a saving grace in moments of panic, when our brain goes blank and all we can remember are simple phrases. Beginning white-water rafters are taught an easy rhyme to remember—“toes to nose”—to remind them of the sequence of moves they should execute if the boat flips over.

pages: 274 words: 81,008

The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything
by Jason Kelly
Published 10 Sep 2012

It’s also hard to imagine that having Mitt Romney as a presidential nominee will have an actual impact on deals getting done. Capitalism tends to trump politics, especially once the stump speeches cease and the hot lights of the campaign dim. One private-equity executive said to me, with a sigh, when I brought up the topic of Romney, “This too shall pass.” But the Romney candidacy and the inevitable flood of questions from voters and reporters, along with the dozens and dozens of political ads, do lead to another larger private-equity question: Should the industry, or individual firms, ultimately be judged on how many jobs they create or destroy?

pages: 669 words: 210,153

Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers
by Timothy Ferriss
Published 6 Dec 2016

If you’re too embarrassed to admit that, as I was, then you can ping them “just to chat for a few minutes.” Pretend you’re killing time or testing different suicide hotlines for a directory you’re compiling. Whatever works. Speaking personally, I want to see the gifts you have to offer the world. And speaking from personal experience, believe me: This too shall pass, whatever it is. 2. I realized it would destroy other people’s lives. Killing yourself can spiritually kill other people. Your death is not perfectly isolated. It can destroy a lot, whether your family (who will blame themselves), other loved ones, or simply the law enforcement officers or coroners who have to haul your death mask–wearing carcass out of an apartment or the woods.

Hoffman, Reid: “I would put the billboard in Washington, D.C. I would target congresspeople, and I’d say, ‘Have you worked with someone across the aisle today?’ Because what matters is not partisan conflict, but how we govern our country to actually have a better future.” Holiday, Ryan: “‘And this too shall pass.’” John, Daymond: “‘There’s no reason why I could do it and you can’t.” Johnson, Bryan: “I would put it in New York and it would say, ‘Do an anonymous and random act of kindness today.’” From later exchanges: “‘Author life.’” Kagan, Noah: “‘Keep it real.’” Kamkar, Samy: “‘You are awesome.’”

pages: 335 words: 94,578

Spectrum Women: Walking to the Beat of Autism
by Barb Cook and Samantha Craft
Published 20 Aug 2018

In 15 minutes by bicycle, I can be in the woods or on the Ottawa River, the second largest in Eastern Canada, whose fate is watched over by a full-time riverkeeper. When I go backcountry canoe camping, I like to take photos, especially sunrises and sunsets. They help me deal with our long Canadian winters and remind me “this too shall pass.” Talk to the animals For many of us, the thought of life without animals is unbearable. The joy of a furry wake-up call, the steady companionship, and their carefree existence are all gifts to me. Friends call me the “cat-charmer” or “whisperer”; I know all the names of animal neighbors and tend to forget their humans.

pages: 300 words: 91,294

Sorrow and Bliss
by Meg Mason
Published 1 Sep 2020

I said, ‘I’m lonely.’ It was the truth. Followed by some lies, told to absolve him of concern. ‘I’m just lonely today. Not in general. Generally I’m completely fine.’ ‘Well, they say London is a city of eight million lonely people, don’t they.’ The man gently tugged the dog back to his side. ‘But this too shall pass. They also say that.’ He nodded goodbye and moved off along the path. * As a child, watching the news or listening to it on the radio with my father I thought, when they said ‘the body was discovered by a man walking his dog’, that it was always the same man. I still imagine him, putting his walking shoes on at the door, finding the leash, the familiar dread as he clips it onto the dog’s collar, but still setting out, regardless, in the hope that, today, there won’t be a body.

pages: 297 words: 96,509

Time Paradox
by Philip G. Zimbardo and John Boyd
Published 1 Jan 2008

Indeed, one of the hallmarks of depression is that when depressed people think about future events, they cannot imagine liking them very much.27 Vacation? Romance? A night on the town? No thanks, I’ll just sit here in the dark. Their friends get tired of seeing them flail about in a thick blue funk, and they tell them that this too shall pass, that it is always darkest before the dawn, that every dog has its day, and several other important clichés. But from the depressed person’s point of view, all the flailing makes perfectly good sense because when she imagines the future, she finds it difficult to feel happy today and thus difficult to believe that she will feel happy tomorrow.

pages: 335 words: 96,002

WEconomy: You Can Find Meaning, Make a Living, and Change the World
by Craig Kielburger , Holly Branson , Marc Kielburger , Sir Richard Branson and Sheryl Sandberg
Published 7 Mar 2018

World leaders promise to build walls, exit political unions, and retreat from economic alliances, withdrawing inward. So many of us are divided along racial, religious, and political lines that the rise of the individual and a “me first” mentality seems inevitable. It's enough to make even the most optimistic idealists furrow their brows. But progress happens in fits and starts; this too shall pass. We're firm believers that the “building walls” sentiment is a blip fostered by fear and misunderstanding, and that humankind is generally on a march toward a more open, interconnected world. Our global village is smaller than at any other time in human history. Individuals are connected and empowered by more knowledge, more information, and more tools, and can more easily mobilize around a cause.

pages: 363 words: 109,417

Big Dead Place: Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica
by Nicholas Johnson
Published 31 May 2005

I screamed. After the chitchat we got down to business, but I had already passed the test. “Do you ever feel sad?” she asked. “Not too often,” I said. “Well, sometimes there’s this kind of, well, we all feel a little bit—it’s not to the level of depression or anything—but what do you do?” “This too shall pass,” I said. “So you just let it go?” “Yeah.” “That’s great. The winter is dark and cold and you’ll be away from your friends and family for quite a while. If you start getting depressed, how do you think you’ll handle it?” “Well, I like to read a lot. I bought a ukulele. I’m going to learn how to play Hawaiian songs.

pages: 461 words: 106,027

Zero to Sold: How to Start, Run, and Sell a Bootstrapped Business
by Arvid Kahl
Published 24 Jun 2020

What was the right choice last month could become damaging to your business by next week. Keep your messaging under close observation. The sensibilities of people shift precariously, and your marketing slogans from last week may be ignored today. Healthy Optimism: Trust in Progress and the Good in Others "This, too, shall pass." The one good thing about recessions is that they end. They end because things turn around eventually. That doesn't happen by chance. It happens because entrepreneurs believe that it can be done, and then they just do it. This trust needs to come from within you, the founder. You need to have an inner compass that guides you through these times.

pages: 381 words: 111,629

The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer
by Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn and Dr. Elissa Epel
Published 3 Jan 2017

M., et al., “Self-Affirmation Activates the Ventral Striatum: A Possible Reward-Related Mechanism for Self-Affirmation,” Psychological Science 27, no. 4 (April 2016): 455–66, doi:10.1177/0956797615625989. 27. Kross, E., et al., “Self-Talk as a Regulatory Mechanism: How You Do It Matters,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 106, no. 2 (February 2014): 304–24, doi:10.1037/a0035173; and Bruehlman-Senecal, E., and O. Ayduk, “This Too Shall Pass: Temporal Distance and the Regulation of Emotional Distress,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 108, no. 2 (February 2015): 356–75, doi:10.1037/a0038324. 28. Lebois, L. A. M., et al., “A Shift in Perspective: Decentering Through Mindful Attention to Imagined Stressful Events,” Neuropsychologia 75 (August 2015): 505–24, doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.05.030. 29.

pages: 1,060 words: 265,296

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor
by David S. Landes
Published 14 Sep 1999

Come back a day later, and it might be gone, and nine tenths of a piece was better than none. The European companies in turn learned to accommodate these irregularities. Markets failed at times, but both Indians and Europeans seem to have viewed these lapses as a fact of life. Like famine: This too shall pass. The industry seems to have followed its own leisurely pace, which was not irrational. (It is ends that determine which means are rational.) In the Coromandel (southeast coast), for example, the raw cotton was moved from the interior to the spinning and weaving villages on and near the coast by huge bullock trains numbering in the thousands and tens of thousands, the whole shapeless mass feeding while shambling along at a rate of a few miles a day.

Take Thailand: in December 1997, the government finally agreed to close fifty-six of fifty-eight finance companies, but selling the assets of these companies was another matter. Other countries are still trying to put off the most painful liquidations, in part because the losers include very influential people. But this too shall pass, and I would expect that the east Asian and southeast Asian economies will soon resume the path of growth, because they have the skills and are capable of learning. But they will achieve this only on condition that they overcome the racist friction that invites fear, risk avoidance, and even flight.

pages: 561 words: 114,843

Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business, + Website
by Matt Blumberg
Published 13 Aug 2013

Your biggest client renews and gives you a testimonial. Then there are the dark moments of despair. You’re running out of cash. The new product release is behind schedule. A competitor steals a top client. No one lives for the lows but you at least grow to anticipate them and realize that “this, too, shall pass.” The thing I can never get used to is when those highs and lows occur simultaneously. It just seems unfair. Let me enjoy the good news—whatever it is—for at least a day or two before clocking me with something terrible! But perhaps that’s just another, even more poignant part of the humbling process that comes with running a startup.

pages: 426 words: 117,722

King Richard: Nixon and Watergate--An American Tragedy
by Michael Dobbs
Published 24 May 2021

Nixon often turned mean when he had been drinking, but on this occasion he was a happy drunk, addressing White House staff and cabinet secretaries alike as “boy” and complimenting them on their choice of wives. “How did you ever get to marry such a pretty girl?” he asked the governor of California. “My God!” “Well, I’m lucky,” drawled Ronald Reagan. “Damned nice of you to call,” said Nixon, emulating the Gipper himself, with his folksy, aw-shucks courtesy. “This, too, shall pass,” said Reagan. At 10:34, Elliot Richardson called to congratulate Nixon on his “finest hour.” The attorney general designate had been attending a dinner party and sounded fairly well lubricated himself, or perhaps it was just his upper-class Brahmin manner. “I won’t let you down,” he promised the president.

pages: 426 words: 118,913

Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet
by Roger Scruton
Published 30 Apr 2014

Throughout our civilization, and despite the wonderful apparatus of government that has come down to us from Greek democracy, Roman law and the Judaeo-Christian discipline of forgiveness and neighbour-love, we have seen mass movements of panic, some initiated by the real threats of war, invasion or plague, but just as many arising in the imagination, as thoughts of the last judgement, of witchcraft and the Devil’s work, of the Second Coming or the prophesied Armageddon, sweep across the trembling masses of the credulous and the ill-informed.99 The one who runs into the street crying ‘The End is nigh!’ is sure of an audience, as is the one who, like Lenin, stands on a soap-box shouting ‘What is to be done?’ The quiet voice of the Anglo-Saxon poet, who told us that ‘this too shall pass’ is heard only later, when the damage has been done.100 In all its forms, whether secular or religious, this intransigent doomsday posture involves a full-scale repudiation of life as it is. Nor is it only the egalitarians who are tempted by political salvationism. Individualists too may give way to it, calling for radical transformations, with themselves (or rather, fellow individualists) in charge.

Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep
by Kamini Desai
Published 7 Mar 2017

It reminds us that no matter what may be moving through the sky of awareness, we are awareness itself. We are there before, during and after these experiences come and go. A primary Intention helps us to disengage from whatever might be moving through and remember that we are the witness of it all. It helps us rest as the sky through which, “This too shall pass.” It allows us to remain steady and grounded in the only thing that doesn’t change – eternal Presence. Everything else is guaranteed to change. Presence is the one thing that won’t. When we rely on anything else other than Presence to steady us, we are resting on shifting sands. It may appear that people, situations or things are letting us down, but in fact they are not.

pages: 441 words: 124,798

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company That Addicted America
by Beth Macy
Published 4 Mar 2019

“It was just overwhelming, the ups and downs of clean Joey and relapsed Joey,” Emma said, recalling that supposedly sober Joey had talked her into sharing an apartment in 2013, and swore that she no longer used heroin. “I wouldn’t have let her move in with me if I had known,” Emma said. “Eventually, she’d do it [heroin] right in front of me; it was tough.” They parted ways over a missing six dollars, and for six months they didn’t speak. “This too shall pass,” Joey had written around that time on her Facebook page. “It might pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.” Joey was not only still using, but she had also allowed an abusive drug dealer and the dealer’s girlfriend to move in with her in exchange for drugs, unbeknownst to her dad. “She was ashamed of how low she’d gotten herself in her own eyes,” Jamie said.

pages: 385 words: 128,358

Inside the House of Money: Top Hedge Fund Traders on Profiting in a Global Market
by Steven Drobny
Published 31 Mar 2006

It’s not so much that markets have short memories but it’s somewhat related. I remember after September 11, the world was coming to an end in many people’s minds and bond markets rallied massively. Gloom was everywhere, but I never shared that gloom because I understand the great adaptability of the human species and that this, too, shall pass. When zero percent interest on cars came out post–September 11, causing record car sales, it showed that no matter how depressed people are, they will buy something if there is a bargain.We got very short bonds after 150 INSIDE THE HOUSE OF MONEY that car sales number. Retail sales came out next and it was a repeat of the car sales number.At this point, the market caught on and the bond market sold off like nobody’s business.

pages: 504 words: 129,087

The Ones We've Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform America
by Charlotte Alter
Published 18 Feb 2020

Millennials—born between 1981 and 1996—are already the largest living generation, the majority of the workforce, and will soon eclipse their parents as the biggest bloc of eligible voters. But even as America gets younger and more diverse, our national leadership is overwhelmingly dominated by white men in their seventies carrying baggage from the previous century. I offer this book as a reminder of the only real truth, in politics and in life: this, too, shall pass. Millennial attitudes already define most other aspects of American society: their startups have revolutionized the economy, their tastes have shifted the culture, and their enormous appetite for social media has transformed human interaction. Politics is just the latest arena ripe for disruption.

Braiding Sweetgrass
by Robin Wall Kimmerer

I lean over a still pool, reach in my hand, and let the drops fall from my fingers, just to be sure. Between the forest and the stream lies a gravel bar, a jumble of rocks swept down from high mountains in a river-changing flood last decade. Willows and alders, brambles and moss have taken hold there, but this too shall pass, says the river. Alder leaves lie fallen on the gravel, their drying edges upturned to form leafy cups. Rainwater has pooled in several, and it is stained red brown like tea from the tannins leached from the leaf. Strands of lichen lie scattered among them where the wind has torn them free.

Investing Amid Low Expected Returns: Making the Most When Markets Offer the Least
by Antti Ilmanen
Published 24 Feb 2022

In the spirit of the Serenity Prayer, we should remember that we can only control the ex-ante process and recognize the role of luck in ex-post outcomes. Let's keep exploring and improving our skill, but not demanding constant validation from realized success. Stable investment behavior is encouraged by calls for equanimity: “This too shall pass,” “You are never as good as your best year, and never as bad as your worst year,” or “If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same … (then) … Yours is the Earth.” A serene mindset helps make us into better, more patient, and more consistent investors – essential characteristics when a strategy is good only if you can stick with it.

pages: 509 words: 147,998

The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School
by Alexandra Robbins
Published 31 Mar 2009

Students feel trapped, despairing that in today’s educational landscape, they either have to conform to the popular crowd’s arbitrary standards—forcing them to hide their true selves—or face dismissive treatment that batters relentlessly at their souls. Schools struggle to come up with solutions. Even the most beloved parents are met with disbelief when they insist, “This too shall pass.” Adults tell students that it gets better, that the world changes after school, that being “different” will pay off sometime after graduation. But no one explains to them why. Enter quirk theory. Chapter 1 MEET THE CAFETERIA FRINGE DANIELLE, ILLINOIS | THE LONER When the bell rang, Danielle slowly gathered her books as the rest of her class scrambled out of the room.

pages: 541 words: 173,676

Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future
by Jean M. Twenge
Published 25 Apr 2023

Their children are grown, so unless they were providing care for grandchildren, school and day care closures did not directly impact them. And with their many years of life experience, the pandemic was just the latest in a long line of cataclysmic societal events they’d already survived. Silents believed that “this too shall pass.” Though it certainly didn’t pass as quickly as many had hoped, the Silents’ reserve of resilience from their earlier years helped them cope. Still, 2020 and 2021 were an emotional roller coaster—for Silents and everyone else. Anxiety increased substantially between 2019 and April 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, even for Silents.

pages: 645 words: 184,311

American Gods
by Neil Gaiman
Published 30 Jun 2001

First, life creeps back into prison. There are always places to go further down. Life goes on. And second, if you just hang in there, someday they're going to have to let you out. In the beginning it was too far away for Shadow to focus on. Then it became a distant beam of hope, and he learned how to tell himself "this too shall pass" when the prison shit went down, as prison shit always did. One day the magic door would open and he'd walk through it. So he marked off the days on his Songbirds of North America calendar, which was the only calendar they sold in the prison commissary, and the sun went down and he didn't see it and the sun came up and he didn't see it.

pages: 729 words: 195,181

The mote in God's eye
by Larry Niven; Jerry Pournelle
Published 30 Jan 2011

"It's only a hypothesis, you understand, but, Captain, we now think that every structure is only temporary to them. They must have had high-gee couches at takeoff, but they're gone now. They arrived with no fuel to take them home. They almost certainly redesigned their life-support system for free fall in the three hours following their arrival." " 'And this too shall pass away,' " Hardy added helpfully. "But the idea doesn't bother them. They seem to like it." "It's a major departure from human psychology," Horvath said earnestly. "Perhaps a Motie would never try to design anything permanent at all. There will be no sphinx, no pyramids, no Washington Monument, no Lenin's Tomb."

The Simple Living Guide
by Janet Luhrs
Published 1 Apr 2014

“To live together successfully you need an attitude of willingness to work with people and not run away from problems … you have to love one another in spite of the imperfections. For me, it’s very appealing to love and relate to someone on a consciously committed level—you have bumps in relating to each other, but you also have this innate confidence that this too shall pass and there is a nice time around the corner. That’s what makes the difference between just renting a room versus sharing your life with other committed adults.” Land also thinks it is very beneficial for his daughter to live with other caring adults. “I think it is important for a child to see adults having fun,” he said.

pages: 1,171 words: 309,640

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
by Christopher Paolini
Published 14 Sep 2020

Between the lashings of agony, fragments of memories passed through Kira’s mind … Alan; her father tending his Midnight Constellations; her sister, Isthah, chasing her through the racks in the storage room; Alan laughing; the weight of the ring sliding onto her finger; the loneliness of her first posting; a comet streaking across the face of a nebula. And more she failed to recognize. How long it went on, Kira didn’t know. She retreated deep into the core of herself and clung to one thought above all else: this too shall pass. … The machines stopped. Kira remained frozen where she was, sobbing and barely conscious. At any moment, she expected the laser to hit her again. “Stay where you are, Citizen,” said one of the loader bots. “Any attempt to escape will be met with lethal force.” There was a whine of motors as the S-PACs retreated into the ceiling, and a heavy series of steps as the two loader bots moved away from the exam table.