Practice makes permanent.

When he was in his mid-eighties, the great cellist Pablo Casals kept practicing his instrument for four or five hours each day. Someone once asked him why, at his age, he still worked so hard. "Because," he said, "I have a notion that I am making some progress."

"According to neuroscientist Ian Robertson of Trinity College, Dublin, in his engaging new book Mind Sculpture (Fromm International, 2000), mental practica can actually increase real world perfomance. Case in point: When people who mentally practiced a five-finger piano exercise (in other words, they never touched the piano) were compared with those who physically practiced, both groups showed improvements in accuracy."

I thought Tiger Woods was crazy. What in the world did he have in his mind anyway? Here is the man who dominated the pro-golf world, who had won the prestigious Masters, who was blasting 300 yard drives, hitting crisp iron shots at the pins, like shooting darts, and draining putts from every spot on the green. Here is the man who had already won several million dollars in prize money, who had gained over sixty million bucks from endorsements, and was being hailed as the next Jack Nicklaus. Now...this man...on top of the golf world...takes time out to...change the way he swung the golf club! Was he out of his mind? When asked, Wood replied, "I wasn't in the greatest of positions on my swing. Because my timing was great, I got away with it. But I wondered how I could contend in tournaments where my timing was off. The answer was 'no.' I wanted to change that." He phoned his old coach, Butch Harmon, and said he wanted to rebuild his swing. The two of them went to work, pounding a zillion golf balls on the practice range, reviewing tapes of Woods' swing, and, slowly but surely, reforming the way this brilliant golfer manipulated the club. So? So this year of 2000, Woods simply won 3 of the 4 majors. And more money than he can ever spend. The best wanted to get better! That, to me, is the legacy of Tiger Woods.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is.

If I do not practice one day, I know it. If I do not practice the next, the orchestra knows it. If I do not practice the third day, the whole world knows it.

Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it; men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts, we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we become brave. -- Aristotle

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind." -- Leonardo da Vinci

[all this is paraphrased] For Superbowl 38, Sports Illustrated shot 16,183 digital pictures shot in Houston's Reliant Stadium using eleven photographers over a span of six hours. All that to gain a handful of photos for their magazine. What's the lesson? Excellence comes through volume. The way to take good photos is to take many. The way to write good essays is to write many. The way to preach good sermons is to preach many.