performance

It is the social obligation of management to make certain that its executives are functioning at peak performance, both physically and psychologically. To keep top men from spinning, management must see that executives should: receive periodic medical checkups; receive periodic psychological evaluations; be given an adequate number of assistants of proper ability; have their time pressures reduced through improved selling; be given training in leadership.

Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance. . . . There will always be the false snobbery which tries to place one vocation above another. You will become a member of the aristocracy in the American sense only if your accomplishments and integrity earn this appellation.

Asking questions will get you the performance you are after far better than dictating demands.

Virtue is more clearly shown in the performance of fine actions than in the non-performance of base ones.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.

SIREN, n. One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing performance.

KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss." It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding; but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer.

INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.

Here's Abraham Lincoln's incredible journey to become the sixteenth president of the United States of America! 1809 - Born February 12 in a log cabin in the backwoods of Hardin County (now Larue County), Kentucky 1816 - He worked to support his family after they were forced out of their home. 1818 - His mother, Nancy Hanks, died. 1831 - Failed in business. 1832 - Defeated for Illinois House of Representatives. 1832 - Lost his job, couldn't get into law school, worked odd jobs. 1832 - Chosen captain of company of volunteers which did not see battle in the Black Hawk War. 1833 - Grocery business failed. Declared bankruptcy, yet paid off the money he borrowed from friends to start his business. 1834 - Elected to Illinois state legislature and served four successive terms (until 1841). 1836 - Obtained license as an attorney. 1837 - Became law partner in Springfield, Illinois, with John T. Stuart. 1838 - Defeated in becoming speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. 1840 - Defeated in becoming elector. 1842 - Married Mary Todd on Nov. 4. They had four sons. 1843 - Defeated for US House of Representatives. 1847 - Served one term in US House of Representatives as a Whig. 1849 - Defeated for US House of Representatives. 1849 - Rejected for the position of Commissioner of the General Land Office. 1849 - Retired from politics. 1855 - Defeated for US Senate as a Whig. 1855 - Became a Republican. 1856 - Considered for vice-president (got less than 100 votes in convention). 1858 - Nominated as the Republican candidate for US Senator from Illinois. 1858 - Challenged Stephen A. Douglas. The seven debates became famous. 1858 - Defeated for US Senate as a Republican, he had made his mark. 1860 - Selected as the Republican candidate for president. 1860 - Elected president of the United States with a minority of the popular vote. 1861 - Inaugurated March 4. 1861 - Seven states had seceded by the time of his inauguration. 1861 - On April 12, Fort Sumter was fired upon and the Civil War had begun. 1863 - Issued Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1. 1864 - Elected to second term as president by a great majority. 1865 - On April 9, Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant signed the terms of Confederate Surrender. 1865 - On April 14, Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a performance at Ford's Theater in Washington, DC. He died the next morning.