a place to stay in Berlin

Hotel Adlon

"go!"

bolt of lightening

Kate Moss

"Inspiration is for amateurs."
- Chuck Close

comfortable with that

"I taught in jail; people can get better."
- John Waters [born 1946]

marmalade

"Hitler was said to favor waking up at about 10 a.m., breakfasted on coffee, bread and marmalade shortly afterward, and received visitors including his doctor in the afternoon. The accounts show he apparently worked until late in the night and went to sleep as late as 4 a.m."

Read on.

"the right thing to do"

Julian Schnabel, Girl with no eyes, 2001

"I painted her with no eyes so you'd look at her chin."

reformer

"Don't be afraid to take a big step. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."
- David Lloyd George [1863-1945]

hustle

"Speed is the only modern sensation."
- Attributed to Aldous Huxley by Jeremy Clarkson

philosophy

"Don't paint what you see."
- Augustus Dunbier [1888-1977]

a place for drinks in London

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http://www.shochulounge.com/

"The only King with taste"

Anthony van Dyck, Charles I: King of England at the Hunt, 1635

... and the only British King to have his head cut off.

dictum

" ... success will always be achieved by making minuscule improvements on a grand scale."
- Robert Herjavec, Driven: How to Succeed in Business and Life, pg.289

condition necessary for success

"I live in a sort of perpetual dissatisfaction."
- Karl Lagerfeld

paradigmatic inflection

“We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.”
- Albert Einstein

behavior in context

"Mental illness is not a matter of taking a pill and being cured. This is why it is so important we recognize so early the symptoms. You have to go into therapy, you have to talk it out, you have to get rid of the guilt and shame for the actions you did in the past. You have to forgive others for not understanding what you were going through."
- Margaret Trudeau in The Globe and Mail

money

"You really learn who you are in deep success and deep failure."
- Jon Favreau [born 1966]

prohibited

Strictly No Photography is a web site devoted to pictures taken in locations where no photography is allowed.

success

"All you need are fifty good breaks."
- Walter Matthau [1920-2000]

silversmith

- Nathaniel Hurd by John Singleton Copley [1738-1815]

eudaimonia

"I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we are all seeking something better in life."
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Intelligent People Drink More Alcohol

Satoshi Kanazawa reports on the link between smart children, and the larger amounts of alchohol they consume as adults. The studies controlled for "both income and education, as well as childhood social class and parents’ education." The study concluded:

“Very bright” British children grow up to consume nearly eight-tenths of a standard deviation more alcohol than their “very dull” classmates.

It's what Oakeshott called "the ordeal of consciousness." When you have constantly charging brain, you need to shut it off sometimes in order to breathe and live. It's no wonder so many brainiacs self-medicate in this way. The key thing, as always, is moderation.

From Andrew Sullivan.

due to inbreeding

Hapsburg Lip is a thick, overdeveloped lower lip that often accompanies Hapsburg jaw.

perfect circle

Pericles and Aspasia at the Studio of Phidias

Phidias [5th century BCE] was known to draw perfect circles freehand.

entrepreneur

german translated into english

"Once your reputation has been ruined, you can live quite freely."

birthplace of the tattoo

Traditionally, in Polynesia, the purpose of the tattoo was to make the body beautiful so the soul wouldn't leave.

governing principle

"First thought, best thought."
- Allen Ginsberg on spontaneous and fearless writing

The true size of Africa

http://bit.ly/c3oYT0

16 cows

In 1888, Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, where the value of one slave equalled sixteen cows.

vivid

1. To feed the hungry
2. To give drink to the thirsty
3. To clothe the naked
4. To visit and ransom the captive, (prisoners)
5. To shelter the homeless
6. To visit the sick
7. To bury the dead

The Seven Acts of Mercy by the most important painter of the counter-reformation, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1607.