"Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial
Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
Don't over-react to the trouble makers.
Even when a drunk guy, a program director, was slurring his words and telling me what to do with my career, I didn't react to him in a negative way. You kind of have to joke back with them to put them in their place.
One thing that I learned that helped me deal with human behavior is confrontation, and I'm not that great with confrontation at all. But once I started to be O.K. with that, the better everybody's life got.
But I had not the strength nor the inclination to bandy words with a drunkard. What have you done when you have bested a fool?
In life, we will always encounter difficult people. Don't allow them to frustrate you or steal your joy.
Experience has taught me a technique for dealing with such people [...] I counter the devotees of the Great Pyramid by adoration of the Sphinx; and the devotee of nuts by pointing out that hazelnuts and walnuts are as deleterious as other foods and only Brazil nuts should be tolerated. But when I was younger I had not yet acquired this technique, with the result that my contacts with cranks were sometimes alarming.
It isn't the ups and downs that make life difficult; it's the jerks.
I know how to stand up to a bully - but maybe more importantly how to work around a bully.
The key is, how do you feel with the one asshole? They cannot be talked to. That's why they are assholes.
Fortunately, her year of graduate classes prepared her for obnoxious conduct.
Because you can't argue with all the fools in the world. It's easier to let them have their way, then trick them when they're not paying attention.
