Author: LINUS FERNANDES
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W H Auden: No poet or novelist
“No poet or novelist wishes he was the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted.” —W. H. Auden.
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Bob Marley: Hit me with music
“One good thing about music, Well, it helps you feel no pain. So hit me with music; Hit me with music now.” —Bob Marley.
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C S Lewis: Pretence
“What’s the good of pretending to be what you aren’t? Well, even on the human level, you know, there are two kinds of pretending. There’s a bad kind, where the pretence is there instead of the real thing; as when a man pretends he’s going to help you instead of really helping you. But there’s…
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Joyce Carol Oates: Symbols are inventions
“H. sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.” —Joyce Carol Oates.
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Ambrose Pierce: Fourteen hundred and forty times a day
“You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are avenged fourteen hundred and forty times a day.” —Ambrose Bierce.
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Marc Andreessen: Good news
“I am here to bring the good news: AI will not destroy the world, and in fact may save it.” —Marc Andreessen.
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Carl Sagan: Extraterrestrial intelligence
‘I’m often asked the question, “Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelligence?” I give the standard arguments — there are a lot of places out there, and use the word *billions*, and so on. And then I say it would be astonishing to me if there weren’t extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as…
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Norman Ralph Augustine: Laws
“The thickness of the proposal required to win a multimillion dollar contract is about one millimeter per million dollars. If all the proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top of each other at the bottom of the Grand Canyon it would probably be a good idea. Ninety percent of the time things will…
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C S Lewis: Neither Totalitarian nor Individualist
“When you find yourself wanting to turn your children, or pupils, or even your neighbours, into people exactly like yourself, remember that God probably never meant them to be that. You and they are different organs, intended to do different things. On the other hand, when you are tempted not to bother about someone else’s…
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Al Capone: Sick of the job
“Let the worthy citizens of Chicago get their liquor the best way they can. I’m sick of the job. It’s a thankless one and full of grief.” —Al Capone.
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Bob Dylan: Insulting and humiliating music
“We’re constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products. Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spiritual and emotional feelings. It might taste good or clever, but in the long run, it’s not…
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Charlie Munger: What’s going on now
“You can’t make a lot of money knowing what’s going on now.” —Charlie Munger.
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Harriet Beecher Stowe: Words left unsaid, deeds left undone
“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.” —-Harriet Beecher Stowe.
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Christopher Evans: Automobile industry
“Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a Rolls-Royce for $2.75,…
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Honore de Balzac: Credit for nothing
“When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.” —Honore de Balzac.
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Irvin D Yalom: I, too, crave enchantment
“I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy — I, too, crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection.” —Irvin D. Yalom.
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Irvin D Yalom: Icy chill of mortality
“Adults who are racked with death anxiety are not odd birds who have contracted some exotic disease, but men and women whose family and culture have failed to knit the proper protective clothing for them to withstand the icy chill of mortality.” —Irvin D. Yalom.
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Chris Evans: Go for it
“If women feel they are able to go from partner to partner without feeling emotionally invested and ultimately hurt, they should go for it.” —Chris Evans.
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Robert Fulghum: What I learned in kindergarten
“Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain but there in the sandbox at nursery school. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit…
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Francois Fenelon: Civil wars
“All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers … Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.” —Francois Fenelon.
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Sun Tzu: Designs of our neighbors
“We cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our neighbors.” —Sun Tzu.
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Bob Stanfield: I can’t swim
“If I were to walk on water, the press would say I’m only doing it because I can’t swim.” —Bob Stanfield.
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Winston Churchill: Prophesying
“I always avoid prophesying beforehand because it is much better to prophesy after the event has already taken place. ” —Winston Churchill.
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Cash McCall: Wrapped up in playing the game
“I guess I’ve been so wrapped up in playing the game that I never took time enough to figure out where the goal line was — what it meant to win — or even how you won.” —Cash McCall.
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Michael T Fisher & Martin L Abbott: Unprofitable data
“Business schools often spend a great deal of time discussing the concept of unprofitable customers. An unprofitable customer is a customer that costs you more to keep than you make off of them through their relationship life. Ideally, you do not want to service or keep your unprofitable customers assuming that you have correctly identified…
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Bruce Lee: Love
“Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.”—Bruce Lee.
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Nathaniel Howe: Way of the world
“The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones.” —Nathaniel Howe.
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Sun Tzu: Secure victory
“In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory.”—Sun Tzu.
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Dinah Jane: Something magical
“With the right vibes and the right people, it’s easy to create something magical.” – Dinah Jane.
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Sinclair Lewis: Ethics
“… a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you were a High-Class Realtor and if you hadn’t you were a shyster, a piker and a fly-by-night. These virtues awakened Confidence and enabled you to handle Bigger Propositions. But they didn’t imply that you were to be impractical and refuse…
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Niccolò Machiavelli: Prophets
“Hence it comes that all armed prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed prophets have been destroyed.”—Niccolò Machiavelli.
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John Carmack: Strategic company relationships
“At some point, bits have to go into packets and routers need to make decisions on them. Changes at that level is what I want to hear about, not strategic company relationships.” —John Carmack.
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Cynthia Heimel: What we can be like
‘You know what we can be like: See a guy and think he’s cute one minute, the next minute our brains have us married with kids, the following minute we see him having an extramarital affair. By the time someone says “I’d like you to meet Cecil,” we shout, “You’re late again with the child…
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Yogi Berra: If you don’t know where you’re going
“You got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.” —Yogi Berra.
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Groucho Marx: Till the cows come home
“I could dance with you till the cows come home. On second thought, I’d rather dance with the cows till you come home.” —Groucho Marx.
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Greenlandic proverb: Hush a ghost
“If you hush a ghost, it will only grow in size.” —Greenlandic proverb.
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Frank Lloyd Wright: Salvation by imagination
“An idea is salvation by imagination.” —Frank Lloyd Wright.
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J R R Tolkien: Live dragons
“Never laugh at live dragons.”—Bilbo Baggins [J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit”]
