Author: LINUS FERNANDES
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Niccolo Machiavelli: Satisfied with appearances
“For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.” —Niccolo Machiavelli
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Benjamin Franklin: Little strokes fell great oaks
“Little Strokes, Fell great oaks.” —Benjamin Franklin.
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Peter Bernstein: Humility
“Humility is an enormously important quality. You can’t win without it. Survival in the end is where the winners are by definition, and survival begins with humility.” —Peter Bernstein.
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Margaret Courtney: Innocent glee
“Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young, / Who loved thee so fondly as he? / He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue, / And joined in thy innocent glee.” —Margaret Courtney.
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Herman Melville: Puzzle
“As, in a Chinese puzzle, many pieces are hard to place, so there are some unfortunate fellows who can never slip into their proper angles, and thus the whole puzzle becomes a puzzle indeed, which is the precise condition of the greatest puzzle in the world — this man-of-war world itself.” — Herman Melville.
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Thomas Kuhn: Puzzle-solving ability
“Like any other value, puzzle-solving ability proves equivocal in application…. But the behavior of a community which makes it preeminent will be very different from that of one which does not.” — Thomas Kuhn.
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Huang Binhong: Cleverness and stupidity
“To understand that cleverness can lead to stupidity is to be close to the ways of Heaven.” — Huang Binhong.
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Mary H K Choi: Fall early, reach early
“It doesn’t get any less scary. All that happens is that you have less life left. It helps if you do your falling early, and it really helps if you do your reaching early.”— Mary H.K. Choi.
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Theodore Roosevelt: No substitute for elemental virtues
“Though conditions have grown puzzling in their complexity, though changes have been vast, yet we may remain absolutely sure of one thing; that now as ever in the past, and as it will ever be in the future, there can be no substitute for elemental virtues, for the elemental qualities to which we allude when…
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Tom Dale: Purely based on popularity
“If you are choosing a JavaScript library purely based on popularity, I think you deserve what you get.” —-Tom Dale.
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Haruki Murakami: Memories
“People’s memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive.” —-Haruki Murakami.
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Eric Hoffer: Inert coagulum
“The conservatism of a religion – it’s orthodoxy – is the inert coagulum of a once highly reactive sap.” — Eric Hoffer
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Danny Thorpe: Programming
“Programming without an overall architecture or design in mind is like exploring a cave with only a flashlight: You don’t know where you’ve been, you don’t know where you’re going, and you don’t know quite where you are.” – Danny Thorpe.
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Abraham Joshua Heschel: Admire kind people
“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.” —Abraham Joshua Heschel.
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Joseph Campbell: Goal of life
“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.” —Joseph Campbell.
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Lord Acton: Compromise and barter
“All government — indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act — is founded on compromise and barter.” —Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton).
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Stephen A Schwarzman: Time wounds
“Time wounds all deals, sometimes even fatally.” – Stephen A. Schwarzman.
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Simone de Beauvoir: Truth rewarded me
“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.” —Simone de Beauvoir.
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Richard Hamming: Little acorns
“The great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing right off. And that isn’t the way things go.”— Richard Hamming.
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Kahlil Gibran: Radiations of their personalities
“The lights of stars that were extinguished ages ago still reach us. So it is with great men who died centuries ago, but still reach us with the radiations of their personalities.” —Kahlil Gibran.
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Richard J Daley: Disorderly police
“The police are not here to create disorder, they’re here to preserve disorder.” -– Richard J. Daley.
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Rich Hickey: It’s about thinking
“Programming is not about typing, it’s about thinking.” — Rich Hickey.
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Benjamin Franklin: Be always at war
“Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbours, and let each new year find you a better man.” —Benjamin Franklin.
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Umberto Eco: Fear prophets
“Fear prophets and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.” —-Umberto Eco.
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Max Eastman: In favor of the status quo
“People who demand neutrality in any situation are usually not neutral but in favor of the status quo.” —-Max Eastman.
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J R R Tolkien: Round the corner
“Still round the corner there may wait, / a new road or a secret gate.” —-J.R.R. Tolkien.
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Isaac Asimov: Morals
“Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.” —Isaac Asimov.
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James Clear: Habits
“Habits do not restrict freedom. They create it. In fact, the people who don’t have their habits handled are often the ones with the least amount of freedom. Without good financial habits, you will always be struggling for the next dollar. Without good health habits, you will always seem to be short on energy. Without…
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William Gass: I write because I hate
‘If someone asks me, “Why do you write?” I can reply by pointing out that it is a very dumb question. Nevertheless, there is an answer. I write because I hate. A lot. Hard. And if someone asks me the inevitable next dumb question, “Why do you write the way you do?” I must answer…
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Pablo Casals: Perfect technique
“The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed at all.” —Pablo Casals.
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Rose Franken: Silly real lovers
“Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly.” —Rose Franken.
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Steve Allen: Absence of prayers
“If you pray for rain long enough, it eventually does fall. If you pray for floodwaters to abate, they eventually do. The same happens in the absence of prayers.” — Steve Allen.
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P J O’Rourke: Smart and stupid people
“Smart people don’t start many bar fights. But stupid people don’t build many hydrogen bombs.” —P J O’Rourke.
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John Cleese: Being right
“The trouble is that most people want to be right. The very best people, however, want to know if they’re right.” — John Cleese.
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Peter Medawar: Respect
“A scientist who wishes to keep his friends and not add to the number of his enemies must not be forever scoffing and criticizing and so earn a reputation for habitual disbelief; but he owes it to his profession not to acquiesce in or appear to condone folly, superstition, or demonstrably unsound belief. The recognition…
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Peter Medawar: Deceit
“A scientist who habitually deceives himself is well on the way toward deceiving others.” —Peter Medawar.
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Richard Feynman: Easiest person to fool
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.” —Richard Feynman.
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Peter Medawar: Groundless
“There is no certain way of telling in advance if the daydreams of a life dedicated to the pursuit of truth will carry a novice through the frustration of seeing experiments fail and of making the dismaying discovery that some of one’s favourite ideas are groundless.” —Peter Medawar.
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Yousuf Karsh: Lonely great men
“I’ve also seen that great men are often lonely. This is understandable, because they have built such high standards for themselves that they often feel alone. But that same loneliness is part of their ability to create.” —-Yousuf Karsh.
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Aesop: Thieves and public office
“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.” —Aesop.
