To the late Chester I. Barnard I owe a special debt: first, for his book, Functions of the Executive, which exerted a major influence on my thinking about administration. Secondly, for the extremely careful critical review he gave the preliminary version of this book; and finally for his Foreword to the first edition.

Even if you have three or four extra syllables—or as many as five or seven—you need not worry as long as the verse sounds right. If even one sound unit stagnates in your mouth, give it a careful scrutiny.

Watch your back, be careful don't be careless.
In this day and age your paranoia is awareness.

The Western Wing is not a work written by an individual named Wang Shifu alone; if I read it carefully, it will also be a work of my own creation, because all the words in The Western Wing happen to be the words that I want to say and that I want to write down.

Take hold of the handles of government carefully and grip them tightly. Destroy all hope, smash all intention of wresting them from you; allow no man to covet them.

Learning from experience, however, can be complicated. It can be much more difficult to learn from success than from failure. If we fail, we think carefully about the precise cause. Success can indiscriminately reinforce all our prior actions.