Author: LINUS FERNANDES
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Ellen Jane Willis: Moral complexity
‘In its original literal sense, “moral relativism” is simply moral complexity. That is, anyone who agrees that stealing a loaf of bread to feed one’s children is not the moral equivalent of, say, shoplifting a dress for the fun of it, is a relativist of sorts. But in recent years, conservatives bent on reinstating an…
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G K Chesterton: Hot water
“I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.” —G K Chesterton.
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Simon Sinek: One set of eyes
“It’s dangerous to perceive the world through only one set of eyes. The problem is we can only perceive the world through one set of eyes.” —Simon Sinek.
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Patty Duke: Destructive
“I still have highs and lows, just like any other person. What’s missing is the lack of control over the super highs, which became destructive, and the super lows, which are immediately destructive.” —Patty Duke.
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Stephen Covey: Selfless service
“Selfless service has always been one of the most powerful methods of influence.” —Stephen Covey, writer and educator.
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George Polya: Pedantry and mastery
“Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a rule to the letter, rigidly, unquestioningly, in cases where it fits and in cases where it does not fit, is pedantry … To apply a rule with natural ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and without ever letting the words of…
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Will & Ariel Durrant: Every vice once a virtue
“Probably every vice was once a virtue—i.e., a quality making for the survival of the individual, the family, or the group. Man’s sins may be the relics of his rise rather than the stigmata of his fall.” —Will and Ariel Durant (The Lessons of History).
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C S Lewis: Conversion
“If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man’s outward actions – – if he continues to be just a snobbish or spiteful or envious as he was before –- then I think we must suspect that his ‘conversion’ was largely imaginary.” —C S Lewis.
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G K Chesterton: Frivolous
“The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it all the easier to be united for no reason.” —G K Chesterton.
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Simon Sinek: What and why
“Those who know WHAT they do tend to work harder. Those who know WHY tend to work smarter.” —Simon Sinek.
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Simon Sinek: Visionaries
“The visionaries aren’t always the ones who have the ideas. The visionaries are the ones who can clearly communicate their ideas to others.” —Simon Sinek.
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William Lloyd Garrison: All mankind
“Our country is the world — our countrymen are all mankind.” —William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist, journalist, and suffragist (12 Dec 1805-1879).
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G K Chesterton: Terrible
“It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.” —G K Chesterton.
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Warren Buffett: Post-bubble periods
“Post-bubble periods, I think, depending on how big the bubble is and how many were participating in it….can produce fallout that not everyone will be terribly good at predicting.” —Warren Buffett (2002 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting).
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Gustave Flaubert: Read in order to live
“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.” —Gustave Flaubert.
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Bob Marley: Just let it be
“Never assume. Never ask. And never demand. Just let it be. If it’s meant to be, it will happen.” —Bob Marley.
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Simon Sinek: Asking for help
“We all understand the importance of asking for help, but those who achieve big things are the ones who accept it when it’s offered.” —Simon Sinek.
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Eckhart Tolle: Powerful spiritual practice
“Do not be concerned with the fruit of your action — just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord. This is a powerful spiritual practice.” —Eckhart Tolle.
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G K Chesterton: Not a private matter
‘There are several things to be noted about this novel maxim, “religion is a private matter.” The first is that it is obviously untrue, except in the sense that it is too true to be useful, or so obvious as to be useless.’ —G K Chesterton.
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John Kerry: For a mistake
“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” —John Kerry.
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Niels Bohr: Never express yourself
“Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.” —Niels Bohr.
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G K Chesterton: Modern Thought
“We talk, by a sort of habit, about Modern Thought, forgetting the familiar fact that moderns do not think. They only feel, and that is why they are so much stronger in fiction than in facts; why their novels are so much better than their newspapers.” —G K Chesterton.
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Robert Greene: Path of least resistance
“We descended from chimpanzees. It’s the fact that we tend to react to what’s immediately in front of our face, like a cow or a dog or anything. We bark and that’s who we are. And we tend to always want things to be easier to take the path of least resistance. We all have…
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Emily Dickinson: Truth
“Tell all the Truth but tell it slant– / … The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind.” —Emily Dickinson, poet (10 Dec 1830-1886).
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Nikolas Tesla: More systematic and designing
“Our first endeavors are purely instinctive, promptings of an imagination vivid and undisciplined. As we grow older reason asserts itself and we become more and more systematic and designing.” ‒Nikola Tesla, My Inventions, 6 part series in Electrical Experimenter, Feb-Jun and Oct 1919.
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Clive Anderson: Planting trees
“Schoolchildren and older people like the idea of planting trees. For children, its interesting that an acorn will grow into an oak, and for older people its a legacy. And the act of planting a tree is not that difficult.” —Clive Anderson.
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G K Chesterton: Philosophy
“Philosophy is merely thought that has been thought out. It is often a great bore. But man has no alternative, except between being influenced by thought that has been thought out and being influenced by thought that has not been thought out.” —G K Chesterton.
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Peter Kropotkin: Only by terror
“The law is an adroit mixture of customs that are beneficial to society, and could be followed even if no law existed, and others that are of advantage to a ruling minority, but harmful to the masses of men, and can be enforced on them only by terror.” —Peter Kropotkin.
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Jennifer Yane: One day at a time
“I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.” —Jennifer Yane.
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William Durant: Trouble with most people
“The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.” —William Durant.
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Carl Sagan: Bamboozle
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a…
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Simon Sinek: Great structures
“An architect imagines what if. A builder figures out how to. Great structures emerge only when the two work well together.” —Simon Sinek.
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Willa Cather: Happiness
“That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.” —Willa Cather, novelist (7 Dec 1873-1947).
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Tom Waits: Buried
“We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge, quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.” —Tom Waits.
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Simon Sinek: Failure
“Failure is not tied to money; it is a mindset. Failure is when we accept the lot we are given.” —Simon Sinek.
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Ludwig Wittgenstein: Imprisoned in a room
“A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that’s unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push it.” —Ludwig Wittgenstein.
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Warren Buffett: Say no to almost everything
“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” —Warren Buffett.
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George H W Bush: Our will is greater
“I do not mistrust the future. I do not fear what is ahead. For our problems are large, but our heart is larger. Our challenges are great, but our will is greater.” —George H. W. Bush.
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Charles John Darling: Timid question
“A timid question will always receive a confident answer.” —Charles John Darling, lawyer, judge, and politician (6 Dec 1849-1936).
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Charlie Munger: Ponzi scheme
“What makes common stock prices so hard to predict is that a general liquid market for common stocks creates, from time to time, either in sectors of the market or in the whole market, a Ponzi scheme. In other words, you have an automatic process where people get sucked in and other people come in…
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Alfred Eisenstaedt: Click with people
“It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter.” —Alfred Eisenstaedt.
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Ernest Hemingway: Bullfighting
“Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter’s honor.” —Ernest Hemingway.
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Christina Rossetti: Work never begun
“Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun.” —Christina Rossetti, poet (5 Dec 1830-1894).
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Warren Buffett: Volatility
“The key to [Benjamin] Graham’s approach to investing is not thinking of stocks as stocks or part of a stock market. Stocks are part of a business. People in this room own a piece of a business. If the business does well, they’re going to do all right as long as they don’t pay way…
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Martin Van Buren: Sober Second Thought
“The government should not be guided by Temporary Excitement, but by Sober Second Thought.” —Martin Van Buren.
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Regina Dugan: Supposed to be hard
“The path to truly new, never-been-done-before things always has failure along the way. It’s supposed to be hard.” —Regina Dugan, businesswoman and technology developer.
