A Quote by John Flanagan

Men... performed better when they understood why they were being asked to carry out a task. — © John Flanagan
Men... performed better when they understood why they were being asked to carry out a task.
It is as if a king had sent you to a country to carry out one special, specific task. You go to the country and you perform a hundred other tasks, but if you have not performed the task you were sent for, it is as if you have done nothing at all. So people have come into the world for particular tasks, and that is our purpose. If we don't perform it, we will have done nothing.
Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist, once asked a group of women at a university why they felt threatened by men. The women said they were afraid of being beaten, raped, or killed by men. She then asked a group of men why they felt threatened by women. They said they were afraid women would laugh at them.
Even the mundane task may have something to teach you - especially if it's a task you haven't performed before.
A reader does not suddenly comprehend what is being read or studied, in a snap, miraculously. Comprehension needs to be worked forged, by those who read and study; as subjects of the action, they must seek to employ appropriate instruments in order to carry out the task. For this very reason, reading and studying form a challenging task, one requiring patience and perseverance.
I asked God "Why, why, why?" I turned my face away and wished that I were imagining it all. I had tasted the bitterest essence of war, the sight of helpless comrades being slaughtered, and it filled me with disgust.
We talked about and that has always been a puzzle to me why American men think that success is everything when they know that eighty percent of them are not going to succeed more than to just keep going and why if they are not why do they not keep on being interested in the things that interested them when they were college men and why American men different from English men do not get more interesting as they get older.
I am asked why I live in the green mountains; I smile but reply not, for my heart is at rest. The flowing waters carry the image of the peach blossoms far, far away; there is an earth, there is a heaven, unknown to men.
Posthumous men-myself, for example-are not as well understood as timely ones, but we are listened to better. More precisely: we are never understood-hence our authority.
I was at an autograph show, and there were a lot of people from TNA there doing meet and greets. One of the girls from TNA there asked me why I hadn't joined yet and I said I'd tried and it didn't work out. She asked me to give her a video and pictures, and a few days later I got asked to do a tryout.
This all came of a conversation I had with [John] Steinbeck once when we were standing in a men's room somewhere. Steinbeck asked me why I didn't play the banjo any more and I told him that went out with the high-button shoes.
You know, a friend of mine asked me before I got here... it was when we were all shipping out. He asked me, 'Why are you going to fight somebody else's war? What, do y'all think you're heroes?' I didn't know what to say at the time, but if he asked me again, I'd say no. I'd say there's no way in hell. Nobody asks to be a hero. It just sometimes turns out that way.
If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and ... if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own I would refuse... I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being's right to exist.
Men will work hard for money. They will work harder for other men. But men will work hardest of all when they are dedicated to a cause. Until willingness overflows obligation, men fight as conscripts rather than following the flag as patriots. Duty is never worthily performed until it is performed by one who would gladly do more if only he could.
I never understood why you tried so hard to fit in, when you were obviously meant to stand out.
It's important to understand the work that's being done, and to make sure it's actually helping. And sometimes, by working on it myself, I get a better grasp of the challenges and complexities of the task, and I'm able to talk about it better. That's why a balance of actual work and awareness is good, because they feed each other.
Men after death ... are understood worse than men of the moment, but heard better.
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