32. Many men
are mutually well-disposed,
yet at table will torment each other.
That strife will ever be;
guest will guest irritate.
(Source: http://heathengods.com/havamal/thorpe.htm)Conflict is an inevitable fact of life. If you want to open the door then the door will resist your efforts to open it. Yet you must persist until you succeed. One side is victor the other is loser.
31. Clever thinks himselfMocking and open ridicule, either by one social group to another or by one person to another, are indicators of who one's enemy is.
the guest who jeers a guest,
if he takes to flight.
Knows it not certainly
he who prates at meat,
whether he babbles among foes.
(Source: http://heathengods.com/havamal/thorpe.htm)
Robert Owen, 1821 (aged 50)
Robert Owen (14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Owen
Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars: First, no one was responsible for his will and his own actions because his whole character is formed independently of himself; people are products of their heredity and environment, hence his support for education and labour reform. Second, all religions are based on the same ridiculous imagination, that make man a weak, imbecile animal; a furious bigot and fanatic; or a miserable hypocrite; (though in his later years he embraced Spiritualism).[1] Third, support for the putting-out system instead of the factory system.
[..]
Robert Owen was born in Newtown, a small market town in Montgomeryshire, Mid Wales, in 1771. He was the sixth of seven children. His father, also named Robert Owen, had a small business as a saddler and ironmonger. Owen's mother was a Miss Williams, and came from one of the prosperous farming families.[2] Here young Owen received almost all his school education, which ended at the age of ten.
[..]
Many employers operated the truck system, whereby payment to the workers was made in part or totally by tokens. These tokens had no value outside the mill owner's "truck shop". The owners were able to supply shoddy goods to the truck shop and charge top prices. A series of "Truck Acts" (1831–1887) stopped this abuse. The Acts made it an offence not to pay employees in common currency. Owen opened a store where the people could buy goods of sound quality at little more than wholesale cost, and he placed the sale of alcohol under strict supervision. He sold quality goods and passed on the savings from the bulk purchase of goods to the workers. These principles became the basis for the cooperative shops in Britain that continue to trade today.
His greatest success was in the support of the young, to which he devoted special attention. He was the founder of infant childcare in Great Britain, especially in Scotland.
[..]
He was at first regarded with suspicion as a stranger but he soon won the confidence of his people. The mills continued to have great commercial success, but some of Owen's schemes involved considerable expense, which displeased his partners. Tired of the restrictions imposed on him by men who wished to conduct the business on the ordinary principles, in 1813 Owen arranged to have them bought out by new found investors.[..]At an early age he had lost all belief in the prevailing forms of religion and had thought out a creed for himself, which he considered an entirely new and original discovery. The chief points in this philosophy were that man's character is made not by him but for him, that it has been formed by circumstances over which he had no control, that he is not a proper subject either of praise or blame.
30. For a gazing-stock
no man shall have another,
although he come a stranger to his house.
Many a one thinks himself wise,
if he is not questioned,
and can sit in a dry habit.
(Source: http://heathengods.com/havamal/thorpe.htm)People who stay in their comfort zone all of their lives and leave their beliefs unchallenged quite often think that they are wise (in the right) and that everyone else a fool (is in the wrong).
29. He utters too manyBe warey of those who speak at too quickly, or use words that are too ostentatious or uncommon (such as jargon, or buzz words like Tsunami instead of tidal wave), for they are not as wise as they appear. Women speak more words than men per day and often do so just to inflict psychical/mental discomfort in the other person.
futile words
who is never silent;
a garrulous tongue,
if it be not checked,
sings often to its own harm.
(Source: http://heathengods.com/havamal/thorpe.htm)
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| Richard Trevithick, 1816 (aged 45) |
Richard Trevithick (13 April 1771 – 22 April 1833) was a British inventor and mining engineer from Cornwall.[1] Born in the mining heartland of Cornwall, Trevithick was immersed in mining and engineering from a young age. The son of a mining captain, he performed poorly in school, but went on to be an early pioneer in steam-powered rail. His most significant contribution was to the development of the first high pressure steam engine, he also built the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive. On 21 February 1804 the world's first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place as Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren Ironworks, in Merthyr Tydfil in Wales.[2][3]
[..]
Richard Trevithick was born at Tregajorran (in the parish of Illogan), between Camborne and Redruth, in the heart of one of the rich mineral mining areas of Cornwall. He was the youngest-but-one child and the only boy in a family of six children. He was very tall for the era at 6 ft 2in, as well as athletic and concentrated more on sport than schoolwork. Sent to the village school at Camborne, he did not take much advantage of the education provided – one of his school masters described him as "a disobedient, slow, obstinate, spoiled boy, frequently absent and very inattentive". An exception was arithmetic, for which he had an aptitude, but arrived at the correct answers by unconventional means.[4]
[..]
Trevithick became engineer at the Ding Dong Mine in 1797, and there (in conjunction with Edward Bull) he pioneered the use of high-pressure steam. He worked on building and modifying steam engines to avoid the royalties due to Watt on the separate condenser patent.
[..]
According to his son Francis, Trevithick was the first to make high pressure steam work in England in 1799. Not only would a high pressure steam engine eliminate the condenser, but it would allow the use of a smaller cylinder, saving space and weight. He reasoned that his engine could now be more compact, lighter and small enough to carry its own weight even with a carriage attached.
28. He thinks himself wise,
who can ask questions
and converse also;
conceal his ignorance
no one can,
because it circulates among men.
(Source: http://heathengods.com/havamal/thorpe.htm)Wisdom is both knowing and asking; it's active aswell as passive. This means that the unwise will be double aided (if his nature is good) or doubly crippled (if his nature is bad) in the face of a wise man.
27. A foolish man,
who among people comes,
had best be silent;
for no one knows
that he knows nothing,
unless he talks to much.
He who previously knew nothing
will still know nothing
talk he ever so much.
(Source: http://heathengods.com/havamal/thorpe.htm)As Abraham Lincoln or Mark Twain said: "It's best to keep your mouth closed and let them think you a fool than open it and remove all doubt."
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| Wyatt Earp, 1881 (aged 33) |
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was a city policeman ("assistant city marshal") in Wichita, Kansas and Dodge City, Kansas. He also served as a deputy sheriff and deputy U.S. marshal in Tombstone, Arizona. He was also at different times a farmer, teamster, buffalo hunter, bouncer, saloon-keeper, gambler, miner, and on one occasion a boxing referee. He was never a cowboy or drover. He is best known for his part in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral during which three outlaw Cowboys were killed. The 30-second gunfight defined the rest of his life. Earp's modern-day reputation is that of the Old West's "toughest and deadliest gunman of his day."[1]
[..]
Among his peers, Wyatt was respected. His deputy Jimmy Cairns described Wyatt's work as a police officer in Wichita, Kansas. "Wyatt Earp was a wonderful officer. He was game to the last ditch and apparently afraid of nothing. The cowmen all respected him and seemed to recognize his superiority and authority at such times as he had to use it." [102] He described Wyatt as "the most dependable man I ever knew; a quiet, unassuming chap who never drank and in all respects a clean young fellow."[103]
[..]
Bill Dixon knew Wyatt early in his adult life. He wrote:
Wyatt was a shy young man with few intimates. With casual acquaintances he seldom spoke unless spoken to. When he did say anything it was to the point, without fear or favor, which wasn't relished by some; but that never bothered Wyatt. To those who knew him well he was a genial companion. He had the most even disposition I ever saw; I never knew him to lose his temper. He was more intelligent, better educated, and far better mannered than the majority of his associates, which probably did not help them to understand him. His reserve limited his friendships, but more than one stranger, down on his luck, has had firsthand evidence of Wyatt's generosity. I think his outstanding quality was the nicety with which he gauged the time and effort for every move. That, plus his absolute confidence in himself, gave him the edge over the run of men.[6]
26. A foolish man
thinks he know everything
if placed in unexpected difficulty;
but he knows not
what to answer,
if to the test he is put.
(Source: http://heathengods.com/havamal/thorpe.htm)A thought for those who socialise only with people that confirm their beliefs and never let them get tested.
25. A foolish man
thinks all who speak him fair
to be his friends;
but he will find,
if into court he comes,
that he has few advocates.
(Source: http://heathengods.com/havamal/thorpe.htm)Be ware of the fake smiles, be they of salesmen or women.
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| William Cody, 1865 (aged 19) |
William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917) was an American soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of Iowa), in Le Claire but lived several years in Canada before his family moved to the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for service to the US Army as a scout. One of the most colorful figures of the American Old West, Buffalo Bill became famous for the shows he organized with cowboy themes, which he toured in Great Britain and Europe as well as the United States.
[..]
William Frederick Cody was born on February 26, 1846 on a farm just outside of Le Claire, Iowa.[4]
[..]
In Kansas, the family was frequently persecuted by pro-slavery supporters, forcing Isaac Cody to spend much of his time away from home. His enemies learned of a planned visit to his family and plotted to kill him on the way. The young Cody, despite his youth and the fact that he was ill, rode 30 miles (48 km) to warn his father. Cody's father went to Cleveland, Ohio to organize a colony of thirty families to bring back to Kansas. During his return trip he caught a cold, which he eventually died from. The combination of his stab wound, that he never fully recovered from, and complications from kidney disease became too much and he died in April, 1857.[6][7]
After the father's death, the Cody family suffered financially. At age 11, Bill Cody took a job with a freight carrier as a "boy extra." He would ride up and down the length of a wagon train, and deliver messages to the drivers and workmen.
[..]
As a frontier scout, he respected Native Americans and supported their rights. He employed many more natives than Sitting Bull, as he thought his show offered them good pay for a better life. He called them "the former foe, present friend, the American", and once said, "Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government."[3]
[..]
He supported conservation by speaking out against hide-hunting and pushing for a hunting season.[3]
