Author: LINUS FERNANDES
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Sinead O’Connor: Success makes you invisible
“It’s a very complicated thing to explain, but the price you pay for being a successful musician is your life, and the more successful you are, the more of a price you pay. That makes you invisible. People project onto you, and they see something that isn’t really you, and the only time you’re with…
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Carl Sagan: Built-in error-correcting mechanism
“At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly contradictory attitudes — an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. Of course, scientists make…
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Kathleen Norris: Conflict
“In any free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent, unresolvable, and necessary.” —Kathleen Norris.
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Philippe Schnoebelen: Algebraic symbols
“Algebraic symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about.” —Philippe Schnoebelen.
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George Bernard Shaw: Lion tamer
“I have never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from other men. There is not much harm in a lion. He has no ideals, no religion, no politics, no chivalry, no gentility; in short, no reason for destroying anything that he does not want…
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Phyllis Rose: Bad luck
“If the hero or heroine didn’t have a flaw, it wouldn’t be tragic because it wouldn’t ‘mean’ anything. It would just be bad luck.” — Phyllis Rose.
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Eric Hoffer: No chaste minds
“There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.” —Eric Hoffer.
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Merrick Furst: Time and space
“The biggest difference between time and space is that you can’t reuse time. “ —Merrick Furst.
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Amelia Earhart: Courage
“Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things.” —Amelia Earhart.
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Pearl Zhu: Gaps
“The more gaps a leader can bridge, the more significant influence she or he can make.” —Pearl Zhu.
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Michel Villette & Catherine Vuillermot: Reduction of risks
“The greatest successes are explained by the establishment of clever arrangements for the reduction of risks rather than by excessive risk taking.” —Michel Villette & Catherine Vuillermot.
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Mathurin De Lescure: Women reason with the heart
“Women reason with the heart and are much less often wrong than men who reason with the head.” —Mathurin De Lescure.
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Woody Allen: Tell God about your plans
“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” —Woody Allen.
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Ernest Hemingway: Seriously
“The man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without.” —Ernest Hemingway.
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Virginia Satir: See, hear, understand and touch
“I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen, heard, understood, and touched by them. The greatest gift I can give is to see, hear, understand, and touch another person.” —Virginia Satir.
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Martin Fowler: Iterative development
“When to use iterative development? You should use iterative development only on projects that you want to succeed.” —Martin Fowler.
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Michael T Fisher & Martin L Abbott: Art of scaling
“You can’t scale without focusing on all three elements of people, process, and technology. Too many books and Web sites feature the flavor of the day technical implementation to fix all needs. Vision, mission, culture, team composition, and focus are the most important elements to long-term success. Processes need to support the development of the…
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Carlos Santana: Instrument of peace
“The most valuable possession you can own is an open heart. The most powerful weapon you can be is an instrument of peace.” —Carlos Santana.
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Pearl Zhu: Innovation
“Innovation is the art at the eyes of artist; the science at the mind of scientist; and the bridge between the art and science.” —Pearl Zhu.
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Mark Twain: Full value of joy
“Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.” —Mark Twain.
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Eve Merriam: What was war?
‘I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, “Mother, what was war?”‘ —Eve Merriam.
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Franklin Adams: Switching
“When a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or four years ago, he is a broad-minded man who has courage enough to change his mind with changing conditions. When a man you don’t like does it, he is a liar who has broken his promises.” —Franklin Adams.
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Samuel Goldwyn: Psychiatry
“Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.” —Samuel Goldwyn.
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Nelson Mandela: Place remains unchanged
“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” —Nelson Mandela.
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Sun Tzu: Blend and harmonize
“Having collected an army and concentrated his forces, he must blend and harmonize the different elements thereof before pitching his camp.”—Sun Tzu.
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Hannah Senesh: Light the way for humankind
“There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind.” —Hannah Senesh.
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Hunter S Thompson: Heinous chemicals
“Every now and then, when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas … with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.” —Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and…
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James Dyson: A little further
“Perhaps millions of people, in the last few thousand years, have had ideas for improving it. All I did was take things a little further than just having the idea.” — James Dyson, Against the Odds: An Autobiography.
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Colson Whitehead: Slavery is a sin
“Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African. All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man.” —Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad.
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Woody Allen: How to get the bark on
‘As the poet said, “Only God can make a tree” — probably because it’s so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.’ —Woody Allen.
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Russel Ackoff: System
“A system is a whole that consists of parts, each of which can affect its properties. Each part of the system, when it affects the system, is dependent on the other parts for its effect. No part of the system, or any combination of parts, has an independent effect on the system. Therefore a system…
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Quentin Crisp: Housework
“There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.” —Quentin Crisp.
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Ernest Rutherford: Some do, some don’t
“The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the ‘social sciences’ is: some do, some don’t.” —Ernest Rutherford.
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Pema Chodron: You are the sky
“You are the sky. Everything else — it’s just the weather.” —Pema Chodron.
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John O’Hara: Unique
“America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization.” —John O’Hara.
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Gary Paulsen: Why do I read?
“Why do I read?I just can’t help myself.I read to learn and to grow, to laughand to be motivated.I read to understand things I’ve neverbeen exposed to.I read when I’m crabby, when I’ve justsaid monumentally dumb things to thepeople I love.I read for strength to help me when Ifeel broken, discouraged, and afraid.I read when…
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Milan Kundera: Love
“Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).” —Milan Kundera.
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Milan Kundera: Vertigo
“Anyone whose goal is ‘something higher’ must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.” —Milan Kundera.
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James Montier: Way of pricing
“Those of us who follow a value-based approach don’t generally excel at what Ben Graham called the ‘way of timing.’ Instead, we prefer to put our faith in the ‘way of pricing.’” —James Montier.
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Aleister Crowley: Power lost
“Knowledge is power — knowledge shared is power lost.” —Aleister Crowley.
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Cleon, Thucylides: Bad versus good laws
“We should realize that a city is better off with bad laws, so long as they remain fixed, then with good laws that are constantly being altered, that the lack of learning combined with sound common sense is more helpful than the kind of cleverness that gets out of hand, and that as a general…
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Elwood P Dowde: I recommend pleasant
‘My mother once said to me, “Elwood,” (she always called me Elwood) “Elwood, in this world you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.” For years I tried smart. I recommend pleasant.’ —Elwood P. Dowde, Harvey.
