Author: LINUS FERNANDES
-
Jonathan Swift: Falsehood flies
“Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men…
-
Robert Orben: No place to put it all
“There’s so much pollution in the air now that if it weren’t for our lungs there’d be no place to put it all.” —Robert Orben.
-
Kent Nerburn: No inherent value
“We must always remember that possessions have no inherent value. They become what we make them. If they increase our capacity to give, they become something good. If they increase our focus on ourselves and become standards by which we measure other people, they become something bad.” — Kent Nerburn.
-
Jean Jacques Rousseau: What wisdom?
“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?” —Jean Jacques Rousseau, philosopher and author.
-
Jerry Seinfeld: Simpler, pure moments
“People are always trying to add more stuff to life. Reduce it to simpler, pure moments.” — Jerry Seinfeld.
-
Helen Adams Keller: Test of democracy
“The test of a democracy is not the magnificence of buildings or the speed of automobiles or the efficiency of air transportation, but rather the care given to the welfare of all the people.” —Helen Adams Keller, lecturer and author.
-
D J Hicks: Paranoids
“Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It’s easy to criticize, but if everybody hated you, you’d be paranoid too.” —D. J. Hicks.
-
Pearl S Buck: Necessity to create
“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.…
-
Publius Terentius Afer (Terence): Disposition of women
“I know the disposition of women: when you will, they won’t; when you won’t, they set their hearts upon you of their own inclination.” —Publius Terentius Afer (Terence).
-
Anonymous: Programming languages
“Programming languages should be designed not by piling feature on top of feature, but by removing the weaknesses and restrictions that make additional features appear necessary.” —Anonymous.
-
Norman Cousins: Early warning system
“History is a vast early warning system.” —Norman Cousins, editor and author.
-
C S Lewis: Tyranny
‘Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own…
-
Epicetus: Education
“To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.” —Epictetus.
-
Rainer Rilke: Wonderful living side by side
“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the sky.” —Rainer Rilke.
-
Jean-Paul Sartre: Details of victory
“Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.” —Jean-Paul Sartre, writer and philosopher.
-
Thomas Jefferson: Stand like a rock
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” —Thomas Jefferson.
-
Seth Klarman: We work really hard
“We work really hard never to get confused with what we know from what we think or hope or wish.” —Seth Klarman.
-
Blaise Pascal: Religious conviction
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” —Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician.
-
Paul Van Doren: One big idea
“My entire life, I never had one big idea. I like to think I woke up one day and figured out how to make the world’s best canvas-and-rubber, waffle-soled deck shoes, how to distribute said shoes, and thus create the first vertically integrated tennis shoe company in the world; but the fact of it is,…
-
Roger Ebert: Idea of the Holocaust
“The ability of so many people to live comfortably with the idea of capital punishment is perhaps a clue to how so many Europeans were able to live with the idea of the Holocaust: Once you accept the notion that the state has the right to kill someone and the right to define what is…
-
Neil Gaiman: Because you are successful
“The biggest problem of success is that the world conspires to stop you doing the thing that you do, because you are successful. There was a day when I looked up and realised that I had become someone who professionally replied to email, and who wrote as a hobby.” — Neil Gaiman.
-
Igor Stravinsky: Silence
“Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.” —Igor Stravinsky, composer.
-
Raymond Chandler: Marriage
“Never forget that a marriage is in one way very much like a newspaper. It has to be made fresh every damn day of every damn year.” —Raymond Chandler, Letter to Neil Morgan, 18th November 1955, Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler.
-
Ted Hughes: Nest of small scorpions
“Marriage is a nest of small scorpions, but it kills the big dragons.” —Ted Hughes, Letter to Daniel WeissbortAutumn 1961,Letters of Ted Hughes.
-
Yukihiro Matsumoto: Ruby
“I didn’t work hard to make Ruby perfect for everyone, because you feel differently from me. No language can be perfect for everyone. I tried to make Ruby perfect for me, but maybe it’s not perfect for you. The perfect language for Guido van Rossum is probably Python.” —Yukihiro Matsumoto.
-
Harriet Beecher Stowe: The longest day must have its close
“The longest day must have its close — the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to an eternal day.” —Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and novelist.
-
Werner Erhard: Life is a game
“Life is a game. In order to have a game, something has to be more important than something else. If what already is, is more important than what isn’t, the game is over. So, life is a game in which what isn’t, is more important than what is. Let the good times roll.” —Werner Erhard.
-
Mencken: First love
“A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that begins to bunch them.” —Mencken.
-
William Butler Yeats: We make poetry
“Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.” —William Butler Yeats, writer, Nobel laureate.
-
Anne Frank: Urge and rage
“I don’t believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and…
-
Howard Marks: Significant ramifications
“The question of whether trying to predict the future will or will not work isn’t a matter of idle curiosity or academic musing. It has—or should have—significant ramifications for investor behavior. If you’re engaged in an activity that involves decisions with consequences in the future, it seems patently obvious that you’ll act one way if…
-
Naval Ravikant: Goal of media
“The goal of media is to make every problem, your problem.” —Naval Ravikant.
-
Saul Bellow: Everybody needs his memories
“Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.” —Saul Bellow, writer, Nobel laureate.
-
Richard Hamming: Right problem, wrong way
“It is better to do the right problem the wrong way than the wrong problem the right way.” —Richard Hamming.
-
Rumi: Today I am wise
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” —Rumi.
-
Aristotle: Victory over self
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is the victory over self.” —Aristotle.
-
Gwendolyn Brooks: Preference for candy bars
“Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars.” —Gwendolyn Brooks, poet.
-
Arnold Van Den Berg: If you don’t lose, you win
“If you don’t lose, you win. If we buy 20-25 companies…some of them will continue to disappoint and lag and so forth. But there’ll be enough winners in there to make up for the losers as long as we don’t lose a lot…. When we discuss private market value, price-to-sales multiples, etc., we’re talking about…
-
Mignon McLaughlin: Impossible loyalty
“It’s impossible to be loyal to your family, your friends, your country, and your principles, all at the same time.” —Mignon McLaughlin, journalist and author.
-
George T Angell: Working at the roots
‘I’m sometimes asked “Why do you spend so much of your time and money talking about kindness to animals when there is so much cruelty to men?” I answer: “I am working at the roots.”‘ —George T. Angell, reformer.
-
J Hawes: Good name
“A good name lost is seldom regained. When character is gone, all is gone, and one of the richest jewels of life is lost forever.” —J. Hawes
-
Seneca: Different person
“If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.” —Seneca.
-
Robert Fulghum: Children
“Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.” —Robert Fulghum, author.
-
Victor Papanek: Design
“The only important thing about design is how it relates to people.” —Victor Papanek.
-
Allen Ginsberg: Follow your inner moonlight
“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” —Allen Ginsberg, poet.
-
Camillo Di Cavour: Art of deceiving diplomats
“I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth and they never believe me.” —Camillo Di Cavour.
-
Thomas Hardy: Grandeur and sorriness
“The business of the poet and the novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things.” —Thomas Hardy, novelist and poet.
