-
Henry Agard Wallace: American fascists
“The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American…
-
Anatole France: Very honest people
“There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant.”—Anatole France.
-
Victor Hugo: Change your opinions
“Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.”— Victor Hugo.
-
Jeffrey Archer: Million
“Making a million legally has always been difficult. Making a million illegally has always been a little easier. Keeping a million when you have made it is perhaps the most difficult of all.” —Jeffrey Archer.
-
Jeffrey Archer: Deal with a fool
“If you make a deal with a fool, don’t be surprised when they act foolishly.” —Jeffrey Archer.
-
Vaclav Havel: Purely moral act
“Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.” —Vaclav Havel.
-
Charlie Munger: Wooden lesson
“I think the great lesson of these careers is what I call The Wooden Lesson. And Wooden had the best basketball coaching record in the world, and nobody else was even close. How did he do it? The answer was, he concentrated almost 100% of the playing time on his top seven players. And of…
-
Sara Hooker: Underestimate difficulty
“The first step of any meaningful pursuit is to severely underestimate its difficulty.” —Sara Hooker.
-
Mike Tomlin: Fewer people are willing
“It’s not what you are capable of; it’s what you are willing to do. Plenty of people are capable. Fewer people are willing.” —Mike Tomlin.
-
Shane Parrish: Disaster
“One of the worst qualities a person can have is the need to show how smart they are by catching others’ mistakes. In some areas, this may be useful, but in general life, it’s a disaster.” —Shane Parrish.
-
Daniel J Boorstin: True heroes
“In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person with solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard…
-
German proverb: Don’t paint the devil on the wall
“Don’t paint the devil on the wall.” —German proverb.
-
Matty Fusaro: Good life
“The world is not designed to give you a good life. It’s designed to distract you from building one.” —Matty Fusaro.
-
Miguel de Cervantes: Tongue of the mind
“The pen is the tongue of the mind.” —Miguel de Cervantes.
-
Roy Thomson: Editorial integrity
“No newspaper can have editorial integrity unless it is making money.” —Roy Thomson.
-
Evelyn Beatrice Hall: By character
“It is by character and not by intellect the world is won.” —Evelyn Beatrice Hall.
-
Roy Baumeister: Evil
“Evil usually enters the world unrecognized by the people who open the door and let it in. Most people who perpetrate evil do not see what they are doing as evil. Evil exists primarily in the eye of the beholder, especially in the eye of the victim.” —Roy Baumeister.
-
Bruce Schneier: Amateurs hack systems
“Amateurs hack systems, professionals hack people.” — Bruce Schneier.
-
Jim Rohn: Opportunity follows difficulty
“Opportunity follows difficulty.” —Jim Rohn.
-
William Faulkner: No battle is ever won
“No battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.” —William Faulkner.
-
Shane Parrish: Average performance
“Best practices guarantee average performance. They are literally the prescriptions of others that limit variation and get you to a baseline of performance. Following them virtually ensures that you will be working harder and harder just to “keep up.” To be the best, you have to do things that no one can prescribe.” —Shane Parrish.
-
John Brunner: Absolute evil
“If there is such a phenomenon as absolute evil, it consists in treating another human being as a thing.” —John Brunner.
-
Divya Venn: Cost of relationships
“Being annoyed is the price you pay for community. It means having guests when you’d rather be alone. It means letting someone live with you even when they get on your nerves. It means showing up for events that you’d rather not go to. It means turning the other cheek.” —Divya Venn.
-
Walter Lippmann: Radical change in conscience
“Our conscience is not the vessel of eternal verities. It grows with our social life, and a new social condition means a radical change in conscience.” —Walter Lippmann.
-
Stanley Kubrick: Indirect storytelling
“If you really want to communicate something, even if it’s just an emotion or an attitude, let alone an idea, the least effective and least enjoyable way is directly. It only goes in about an inch. But if you can get people to the point where they have to think a moment what it is…
-
Lord Chesterfield: Learning
“Learning is acquired by reading books; but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading man, and studying all the various editions of them.” —Lord Chesterfield.
-
Leonard Cohen: We are not mad
“We are not mad. We are human.We want to love, and someone must forgive us for the paths we take to love, for the paths are many and dark, and we are ardent and cruel in our journey.” —Leonard Cohen.
-
Khalil Gibran: Keep me away
“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.” —Khalil Gibran.
-
Russ Cox: Software engineering
“Software engineering is what happens to programming when you add time and other programmers.” —Russ Cox.
-
Madam C J Walker: Get up and make them
“Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.” —Madam C J Walker.
-
Haruki Murakami: Time solves most things
‘What lasts, lasts; what doesn’t, doesn’t. Time solves most things. And what time can’t solve, you have to solve yourself.’ —Haruki Murakami.
-
Samuel Johnson: Extended empires
“Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.” —Samuel Johnson.
-
Adi Shankaracharya: Enjoyment of the learned
“Loud speech, profusion of words, and possessing skillfulness in expounding scriptures are merely for the enjoyment of the learned. They do not lead to liberation.” —Adi Shankaracharya.
-
John Wooden: Perfection of minor details
‘When you see a successful individual, a champion, a “winner,” you can be very sure that you are looking at an individual who plays great attention to the perfection of minor details.’ —John Wooden.
-
Ursula K Le Guin: Destroys itself
“What goes too long unchanged destroys itself.” —Ursula K Le Guin.
-
Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld: Opposites
“Some people with great virtues are disagreeable, while others with great vices are delightful.” —Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld.
-
Shane Parrish: Ambition
“Ambition becomes a superpower when you stop expecting achievement to satisfy you and learn to love the pursuit itself.” —Shane Parrish.
-
Bob Mackie: Glamour
“Glamour has to come from you and it has to come from confidence. The pope is glamorous. There are people who are automatically glamorous. Marilyn Monroe was glamorous in a towel. She couldn’t help herself.” —Bob Mackie.
-
Scott Meyers: APIs
“APIs should be easy to use correctly and hard to use incorrectly.” —Scott Meyers.
-
Subhas Chandra Bose: Education for service
“Education for service; discipline for self-control; character for courage.” —Subhas Chandra Bose.
-
Spanish proverb: Perspective and empathy
“How nice it is to see the rain and not get wet.” —Spanish proverb.
-
Jessica Mitford: Embarrass the guilty
“You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty.” —Jessica Mitford.
-
Greta Thunberg: Make a difference
“You are never too small to make a difference.” —Greta Thunberg.
-
Cyril Connolly: Card indexes
“Our memories are card indexes consulted and then returned in disorder by authorities whom we do not control.” —Cyril Connolly.
-
European proverb: Speech and character
“A bird is known by his note and a man by his talk.” —European proverb.
-
Leo Tolstoy: Get off his back
“I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means — except by getting off his back.” —Leo Tolstoy.
-
Chinese proverb: Single thread
“A cloth is not woven from a single thread.” —Chinese proverb.
-
Claude Pepper: Next generation
“If more politicians in this country were thinking about the next generation instead of the next election, it might be better for the United States and the world.” —Claude Pepper.
-
Charles Darwin: Ignorance begets confidence
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” —Charles Darwin.
-
Edith Sitwell: Stupidity
“I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.” —Edith Sitwell.
