Author: LINUS FERNANDES
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Richard Wiseman: Make only one resolution
“Make only one resolution; your chances of success are greater when you channel energy into changing just one aspect of your behaviour.” —Richard Wiseman.
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Charles Bukowski: Go all the way
“If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.” —Charles Bukowski.
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Pablo Casals: Why should love stop at the border?
“The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?” —Pablo Casals.
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G K Chesterton: Dragons can be beaten
“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” —G.K. Chesterton.
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Mortimer J Adler: Good books
“In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” —Mortimer J. Adler.
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Alan Cooper: Design a likeable person
“If we want users to like our software, we should design it to behave like a likeable person.” —Alan Cooper.
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Sarah Vowell: Modern mocha
“Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch…
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Bernard Arnault: Long-term
“In business, I think the most important thing is to position yourself for long-term and not be too impatient, which I am by nature, and I have to control myself.” —Bernard Arnault.
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Baba Amte: My ideal in life
“I don’t want to be a great leader; I want to be a man who goes around with a little oil can and when he sees a breakdown, offers his help. To me, the man who does that is greater than any holy man in saffron-colored robes. The mechanic with the oilcan: that is my…
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Howard Marks: Self-doubt
“Investors hold to their convictions as long as they can, but when the economic and psychological pressures become irresistible, they surrender and jump on the bandwagon…. As an overpriced stock goes even higher or an underpriced stock continues to cheapen, it should get easier to do the right thing: sell the former and buy the…
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Paula Scher: Part of the process
“I still make things that are pretty awful. It’s part of the process. You have periods of tremendous productivity and other periods where you’re fallow. The fallow periods are really important because that’s where you’re figuring something it out. You have to work through it in order to discover something new. You need those sorts…
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Tony Hoare: No (obvious) errors
“There are two methods in software design. One is to make the program so simple, there are obviously no errors. The other is to make it so complicated, there are no obvious errors.” —Tony Hoare.
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Heather Henricks: Real hero
“You’re the real hero when you successfully complete a project and everyone still likes and respects each other.” —Heather Henricks.
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Charlie Munger: Good steward
“I watched a man build up a business in southern California, which was a wonderful business. And the time came to sell it — and he devoted his whole life to creating it — he sold it to a known crook who was obviously going to ruin the business just because he could get a…
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Charles de Lint: Weapons of the enemy
“It may sound trite, but using the weapons of the enemy, no matter how good one’s intentions, makes one the enemy.” —Charles de Lint.
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Charlie Munger: I have a defect
“Psychologically, I don’t mind holding a company I like and admire and I trust and know that it will be stronger than now after many years. And if the valuation gets a little silly, I just ignore it. So, I own assets that I would never buy at their current prices but I am quite…
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Rebecca West: If there is a God
“If there is a God, I don’t think He would demand that anyone bow down or stand up to him.” —Rebecca West.
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Jensen Huang: Software is eating the world
“Software is eating the world, but AI is going to eat software.” —Jensen Huang.
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Susanne Langer: New knowledge
“If we would have new knowledge, we must get us a whole world of new questions.” —Susanne Langer.
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Paul O Gaddis: Project manager
“In new and expanding fields like electronics, nucleonics, astronautics, avionics, and cryogenics, a new type of manager is being bred. Although he goes by many titles, the one most generally used is project manager. His role in modern industry deserves more scrutiny than it has received from students of management and professional managers.” —Paul O.…
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Phil Ochs: You must protest
“You must protest / It is your diamond duty / Ah but in such an ugly time / The true protest is beauty.” —Phil Ochs.
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Charlie Munger: Fixing the unfixable
“We were very lucky early. The habit of buying horrible businesses that were really cheap, gave us a lot of experience trying to fix unfixable businesses as they headed downward toward doom. That early experience was so horrible – fixing the unfixable – that we were very good at avoiding it thereafter. So I would…
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Steve Biko: Mind of the oppressed
“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” —Steve Biko.
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Charlie Munger: Outliers
“The records of people and companies that are outliers are always a mix of a reasonable amount of intelligence, hard work and a lot of luck.” —Charlie Munger.
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Charlie Munger: Four pounces
“I have been very well located in life. But with minor exceptions, what do I have relative to investments in life? I’ve got Costco stock, Berkshire stock, Li Lu’s China fund and Avi’s apartments. So I have four investments, basically, after 60 years or something — by the way, I feel perfectly adequately diversified. Nobody…
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Thomas Huxley: Little knowledge
“If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?” — Thomas Huxley, On Elementary Instruction in Physiology.
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Franklin P Jones: Being punctual
“The trouble with being punctual is that nobody’s there to appreciate it.” —Franklin P. Jones.
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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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Martin Fowler: Refactor
“When you feel the need to write a comment, first try to refactor the code so that any comment becomes superfluous.” —Martin Fowler
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Heinrich Heine: Whenever books are burned
“Whenever books are burned men also in the end are burned.” —Heinrich Heine.
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Charlie Munger: Few sensible things to do
“Part of that [having uncommon sense], I think, is being able to tune out folly, as distinguished from recognizing wisdom. You’ve got whole categories of things you just bat away so your brain isn’t cluttered with them. That way, you’re better able to pick up a few sensible things to do.” —Charlie Munger.
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Gerald Nachman: Nachman’s Rule
“Nachman’s Rule: When it comes to foreign food, the less |authentic the better.”—Gerald Nachman.
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Erasmus Darwin: He who allows oppression
“He who allows oppression, shares the crime.” —Erasmus Darwin.
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Chris Martin: Dynamic typing
“Dynamic typing: The belief that you can’t explain to a computer why your code works, but you can keep track of it all in your head.” —Chris Martin.
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Alexander Solzhenitsyn: He’s free again
“You only have power over people as long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power — he’s free again.” —Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
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Warren Buffett: Portfolio concentration
“The strategy we’ve adopted precludes our following standard diversification dogma. Many pundits would therefore say the strategy must be riskier than that employed by more conventional investors. We disagree. We believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks…
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Francis Bacon: Opportunities
“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.” —Francis Bacon.
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Seth Klarman: Immediate opportunity set
“Why should the immediate opportunity set be the only one considered, when tomorrow’s may well be considerably more fertile than today’s?” —Seth Klarman.
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Thomas Jefferson: Good and safe government
“No, my friend, the way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to. It is by dividing and subdividing these republics from the national one down through all its subordinations, until…
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Louis de Bernieres: Real index of civilization
“The real index of civilization is when people are kinder than they need to be.” —Louis de Bernieres.
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Howard Marks: Avoiding pitfalls
“The essential first step in avoiding pitfalls consists of being on the lookout for them. The combination of greed and optimism repeatedly leads people to pursue strategies they hope will produce high returns without high risk; pay elevated prices for securities that are in vogue; and hold things after they have become highly priced in…
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Noam Chomsky: Freedom of expression
“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” —Noam Chomsky.
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Mark Bowden: Every battle is a drama
“Every battle is a drama played out apart from broader issues. Soldiers cannot concern themselves with the forces that bring them to a fight, or its aftermath. They trust their leaders not to risk their lives for too little. Once the battle is joined, they fight to survive as much as to win, to kill…
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Charles John Darling: Timid question
“A timid question will always receive a confident answer.” —Charles John Darling.
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James Jones: Combat
“I don’t think that combat has ever been written about truthfully; it has always been described in terms of bravery and cowardice. I won’t even accept these words as terms of human reference any more. And anyway, hell, they don’t even apply to what, in actual fact, modern warfare has become.” —James Jones.
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Walt Disney: Playing down to children
“I don’t believe in playing down to children, either in life or in motion pictures. I didn’t treat my own youngsters like fragile flowers, and I think no parent should. Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want…
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Dr. Julie Gurner: Slogging
“I think we talk about discipline because it feels tough to do. We’re doing the hard thing. We’re slogging through. But when we are at our best, we’re not slogging through. Great people are obsessed and they’re not slogging through. They are driven. They are motivated. They are deeply, deeply engaged. … If it starts…
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Edith Cavell: Patriotism is not enough
“I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.” —Edith Cavell.
