Swanson Pyramid of Greatness.
Ron Swanson developed the Pyramid of Greatness over the course of many years. It's a perfectly calibrated recipe for maximum personal achievement. Likely inspired by the Wooden Pyramid of Success. Ron shows the pyramid while coaching a boys basketball team (Go Big or Go Home).
(Categories listed top to bottom by importance)
Category 1[]
- HONOR: If you need it defined, you don't have it.
Category 2[]
- America: The only country that matters. If you want to experience other "cultures", use an atlas or a ham radio.
- Buffets: Whenever available. Choose quantity over quality.
Category 3[]
- Weapons
- Wood working
- Welfare avoidance
Category 4[]
- Teamwork: Work together as if your life depends on it... IT DOES!
- Selfishness: Take what's yours.
- Haircuts: 3 acceptable styles: High and Tight, Crew Cut & Buzz Cut.
- Greatness itself: The best revenge.
Category 5[]
- Discipline: The ability to repeat a boring thing over and over again.
- Attire: Shorts over 6" are capri pants. Shorts under 6" are European.
- Self-reliance: Trust yourself.
- Suspicion: Do not trust anyone else.
- Skim milk: That's right. It's on here twice. Avoid it.
Category 6[]
- Cow protein
- Pig protein
- Chicken Protein
- Romantic love
- Deer protein
- Fish (Sport only)
Category 7[]
- Intensity: Give 100%. 110% is impossible. Only idiots recommend that.
- Torso: Should be thick and impenetrable.
- Old wooden sailing ships: They're beautiful
- B.O: Cultivating a manly musk puts your opponents on notice.
- Stillness: Don't waste energy moving unless necessary.
- Skim milk: Avoid it.
- Cursing: There's only one bad word: taxes. If any other word is good enough for sailors, it's good enough for you.
Category 8[]
- Friends: One to three is sufficient.
- Property rights: They exist. Do not let them be taken away from you.
- Masonry: Building walls makes you strong. Defending them makes you even stronger.
- Cabins: Places to rest that are made of logs.
- Perspiration: Only sweat during physical activity or love making. No emotional sweating.
- You: You are your biggest ally and your worst enemy, at the same time.
- Crying: Acceptable at funerals and the Grand Canyon.
- Physical Fitness
Category 9[]
- Frankness: Cut the B.S.
- Capitalism: God's way of determining who is smart, and who is poor.
- Facial hair: Full, thick and square. Nothing sculpted. If you have to sculpt it, that probably means you can't grow it.
- Living in the woods: Live off the land.
- Rage: One rage every three months is permitted. Try not to hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it.
- Security: Secure the land.
- Poise: Sting like a bee. Do not float like a butterfly. That's ridiculous.
- Handshakes: Firm, Dry, Solid. 3 seconds.
- Body grooming: Only women shave beneath the neck.