Matt Fowler

Twain wrote this at the end of The Innocents Abroad, after five months at sea with a shipload of Americans who mostly went looking for home.

Addams moved into a run-down mansion on Chicago’s West Side in 1889 and stayed the rest of her life. Hull House was built on this idea: the good you keep to yourself is the fragile kind. It only holds once your neighbors have it too. It’s the argument I keep coming back to on housing.

Hundreds of years ago Montaigne met Indigenous Brazilians brought to France and concluded the so-called savages were less barbaric than the Europeans burning each other over doctrine. Today, […]

I have been thinking about a simple proposition: You get to keep a portion of the value you create. At first glance, that sounds like a defense of […]

Ron Chernow on NPR “Mark Twain had very valuable things to say on patriotism. It drove him crazy when people would say, my country, right or wrong. He […]

Lao Tzu has a point. Don’t think about the 1,000 miles. Just do the first step, then the next one. Direction is more important than speed so get pointed in the right direction and take the step.

This is my thesis for the year. Safety has its place—as preparation, not destination. Time is precious, any worthy goal means leaving the safety of the known, the harbor.