Greg Smith

“Under the spoils system a man is appointed to an ordinary clerical or ministerial position in the municipal, federal, or state government, not primarily because he is expected to be a good servant, but because he has rendered help to some big boss or to the henchman of some big boss. His stay in office depends not upon how he performs service, but upon how he retains his influence in the party. This necessarily means that his attention to the interests of the public at large, even though real, is secondary to his devotion to his organization, or to the interest of the ward leader who put him in his place. So he and his fellows attend to politics, not once a year, not two or three times a year, like the average citizen, but every day in the year.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography

“Run a lot of miles Some faster than your race pace Rest once in a while”
― Alex Hutchinson, Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance

“I would try not to think of the future at all, but would proceed on the assumption that each office I held would be the last I ever should hold, and that I would confine myself to trying to do my work as well as possible while I held that office.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography

“endurance is “the struggle to continue against a mounting desire to stop.”
― Alex Hutchinson, Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance