It is crucial that we realize the great value of human existence, the opportunity and the potential that our brief lives afford us. It is only as humans that we have the possibility of implementing changes in our lives.
What we can do is to shape how that process of global integration proceeds, so that it's increasing opportunity for ordinary people, so that it's creating better jobs, so that we are strengthening protections for workers, so that we are addressing some of the environmental challenges that come with rapid growth.
I violate no secret when I say that one of the greatest values in Masonry is that it affords an opportunity for men of all walks of life to meet on common ground where all men are equal and have one common interest.
The first thing I would do would be to move forward with an agenda to make sure that we give D.C. the opportunity to elect its own representatives and have some political power on Capitol Hill.
The history of mankind for the last four centuries is rather like that of an imprisoned sleeper, stirring clumsily and uneasily while the prison that restrains and shelters him catches fire, not waking but incorporating the crackling and warmth of the fire with ancient and incongruous dreams, than like that of a man consciously awake to danger and opportunity.
Everybody stumbles across a golden opportunity at least once in a lifetime. Unfortunately most people just pick themselves up, dust themselves down, and walk away from it.
There comes a precious moment in all of our lives when we are tapped on the shoulder and offered the opportunity to do something very special that is unique to us and our abilities, what a tragedy it would be if we are not ready or willing.
That may prevent us from getting a deal done, It is there to be had. Whether ultimately Iran can seize that opportunity - we will have to wait and see, but it is not for lack of trying on our part.
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.
We rarely use much debt and, when we do, we attempt to structure it on a long-term fixed rate basis. We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over-leverage our balance sheet. This conservatism has penalized our results but it is the only behavior that leaves us comfortable, considering our fiduciary obligations to policyholders, depositors, lenders and the many equity holders who have committed unusually large portions of their net worth to our care.
Businesses always have opportunities to improve service, product lines, manufacturing techniques, and the like, and obviously these opportunities should be seized. But a business that constantly encounters major change also encounters many chances for major error