Silver Rule

Rules are like umbrella spokes. You notice them only when one is missing. Silver Rule is a spoke worth keeping.

The rule protects you from your future self — the fellow who will be tired, hungry, and full of reasons to make an exception. Rules exist for the days when reasons are cheap.

It is worth keeping in your pocket not because it is always right, but because it is always available. A tool you carry beats a perfect tool you left at home.

Ask the LIC agent at your door and the trader at his terminal — both will tell you the same thing in different clothes: money listens to discipline and laughs at moods.

Money is a good clerk and a terrible master; the arrangement is entirely up to us. Write it on the wall of the mind, not the wall of the house. The house already has enough instructions.