Life happens. You make your choices. Time flies. Life happens.

Just saw one of the greatest comments ever, posted at the Wall Street Journal by one Charles Aulbach (don’t know if that’s a real name or not). I know nothing about the person. I don’t even know if this was published somewhere else first, or any original sources that may exist for particular turns of phrase. But as a group it’s a damned fine collection. Here goes:

• You cannot change history by hiding it.
• The more positive you are that you are right, the more likely it is that you are wrong.
• The wise man celebrates his mistakes as much as his successes. That’s why we erect statues and monuments. They are memorials to both.
• If you can’t face the past clearly and objectively, it will crush you.
• The randomness of individual activity is the source of humanity’s achievements.
• Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is self-destruction. Learn everything that you can.
• Groupthink isn’t thinking. It’s going along to get along. It produces low-level mediocrity.
• Do-gooders eventually become you-do-as-I-sayers.
• Shut up and listen, or leave.

I love this list.