“Mastery is the best goal because the rich can’t buy it, the impatient can’t rush it, the privileged can’t inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it through hard work. Mastery is the ultimate status.” Derek Sivers, How to Live, 2021.
“What good pilots consistently do is perfect their foundational skills. They practice — they live — on airmanship. It’s courtesy, consistency, and core competency.” Darren Pleasance, new President and CEO of AOPA, in Pursuit of Excellence, AOPA PILOT magazine March 2025.
“The attainment of proficiency, the pushing of your skill with attention to the most delicate shades of excellence, is a matter of vital concern. Efficiency of a practically flawless kind may be reached naturally in the struggle for bread. But there is something beyond — a higher point, a subtle and unmistakable touch of love and pride beyond mere skill; almost an inspiration which gives to all work that finish which is almost art — which IS art.” Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea, 1906. Fascinating observations from the peak of perfection of the age of sail.
“Like that of Ulysses, each of our lives is a miniature Odyssey, going to new places, seeing new things, understanding new ideas, and each day penetrating the biggest unkown of all: tomorrow. For each of us it should be, and can be, an exciting voyage. Buen Viaje!” Neil Armstrong, 2011. The picture is from his last public presentation at the first Starmus Festival on the island of Tenerife, 24 June 2011. The quote is from his submission to the 2014 book Starmus: 50 Years of Man in Space.
