"It Is Better To Be Alone, Than In The Wrong Company Tell me who your best friends are and I will tell you who you are. If you run with wolves, you will learn how to howl. But, if you associate with eagles, you will learn how to soar to great heights. "A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses." The simple but true fact of life is that you become like those with whom you closely associate - for the good and the bad. The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative thinking and negative acting people. As you grow, your associates will change. Some of your friends will not want you to go on. They will want you to stay where they are. Friends that don't help you climb will want you to crawl. Your friends will stretch your vision or choke your dream. Those that don't increase you will eventually decrease you. Consider this: Never receive counsel from unproductive people. Never discuss your problems with someone incapable of contributing to the solution, because those who never succeed themselves are always first to tell you how. Not everyone has a right to speak into your life. You are certain to get the worst of the bargain when you exchange ideas with the wrong person. Don't follow anyone who's not going anywhere. With some people you spend an evening: with others you invest it. Be careful where you stop to inquire for directions along the road of life. Wise is the person who fortifies his life with the right friendships (Mason, 1999)."
Mason, J. (1999). Know Your Limits - Then Ignore Them. Tulsa, OK: Insight Publishing Group.
Sail Frigate:
Built at Hartt's Shipyard, Boston, MA.
Launched, 21 October 1797
Commissioned USS Constitution, 22 July 1798, Commodore Samuel Nicholson, in command
Decommissioned and placed in ordinary, circa 1800, at Boston, MA.
Recommissioned, 1803
Decommissioned in November 1807
Recommissioned in August 1809
Decommissioned and placed in ordinary in 1815, at Boston, MA.
Recommissioned in May 1821
Decommissioned in 1830
Recommissioned in 1835
Decommissioned in 1851
Recommissioned in 1852
Decommissioned in 1855
Recommissioned in 1860
Decommissioned in 1871
Recommissioned in July 1877
Decommissioned in 1884
Renamed Old Constitution, 1 December 1917
Name restored, 24 July 1925
Recommissioned, 1 July 1931,
Decommissioned, 8 June 1934
Recommissioned, 24 August 1940
Classified Miscellaneous Unclassified (IX-21), 8 January 1941
Classification IX withdrawn 2 September 1975 by order of the Secretary of the Navy
On 28 October 2009 President Obama signed a law making USS Constitution the nation's "ship of state," in effect, a national flagship.