After almost a year of ignoring the pursuit of my own thoughts in 2011, this book gave me a renewed sense of mental vigor. I’m disappointed in myself for not taking more notes on this book because I remember the impression that I had when I was finished. It left me with a spark of humanitarian joy, and the desire to do more to help the greater good.

1. Humanitarians, warriors, scholars, and diplomats all do best when we recognize the difference between what we can fight for and what we must accept, between change that can be catalyzed and change that must be built over time, from within.
2. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

I need to go back and re-read this book. The words I just wrote stir me and excite me for the knowledge that I need to re-discover.
The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL