Author: LINUS FERNANDES
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Margaret Mead: Change the world
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” —–Margaret Mead.
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Simon Sinek: When to break the rules
“We don’t trust people to follow the rules. We trust people to know when to break them.” –Simon Sinek.
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John Milton: Reproach them for their blindness
“Those who put out the people’s eyes, reproach them for their blindness.” —John Milton
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Noam Chomsky: Limits of debate
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system…
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Jonathan Swift: All his opinions
If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last! -Jonathan Swift.
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Steven Brust: Seek understanding
“To seek understanding before taking action, yet to trust my instincts when action is called . Never to avoid danger from fear, never to seek out danger for its own sake. Never to conform to fashion from fear of eccentricity, never to be eccentric from fear of conformity.” —-Steven Brust.
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George Wald: Learned small boy
“A scientist is in a sense a learned small boy. There is something of the scientist in every small boy. Others must outgrow it. Scientists can stay that way all their lives.” —George Wald.
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Joseph McCabe: Different reason
“An idea or institution may arise for one reason and be maintained for quite a different reason.” —Joseph McCabe.
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Peter Weiss: Glorious victories
“Once and for all / the idea of glorious victories / won by the glorious army / must be wiped out / Neither side is glorious / On either side they’re just frightened men messing their pants / and they all want the same thing / Not to lie under the earth / but to…
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Simon Sinek: Just cause
“A Just Cause should direct a business model, not the other way around.” —Simon Sinek.
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Yaa Gyasi: Family
“The family is like the forest: if you are outside, it is dense; if you are inside you see that each tree has its own position.” —Yaa Gyasi.
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Yaa Gyasi: Weakness and strength
“You want to know what weakness is? Weakness is treating someone as though they belong to you. Strength is knowing that everyone belongs to themselves. “ —Yaa Gyasi.
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James Reston: Foreign affairs
“This is the devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and will not always conform to our whim.” —James Reston.
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Simon Sinek: Understand people, understand business
“If we don’t understand people, we don’t understand business.” —Simon Sinek.
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Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux: Wisest man
“The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.” —Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux.
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Simon Sinek: Infinite thinking
‘To ask, “What’s best for me?” is finite thinking. To ask, “What’s best for us?” is infinite thinking.’ —Simon Sinek.
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Simon Sinek: Only if you are willing to learn
“Teach only if you are willing to learn.” —Simon Sinek.
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Indra Nooyi: Focus on the job
“Focus on the job you’re doing, don’t focus on the next few jobs. Understand the company’s politics, but don’t play in the politics. And put your hand up for the toughest assignments. That’s when you’ll get noticed.” —Indra Nooyi.
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Simon Sinek: Be an idealist
“Reality does its thing, so why help it? Be an idealist, see what happens.” —Simon Sinek.
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Simon Sinek: Inspire
“If we manipulate people, they will give us exactly what we pay for. If we inspire people, they will give us more than we ask for.” —Simon Sinek.
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Kamala Harris: Make sure you’re not the last
‘My mother used to tell me — she would tell my sister — my mother would look at me and she’d say, “Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you are not the last.” And that’s why breaking those barriers is worth it. As much as anything else, it…
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Simon Sinek: Integrity
“If we say and do what we actually believe, everyone will know what we actually believe. (It’s a handy little thing called integrity.)” —Simon Sinek.
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Logan Pearsall Smith: Devil’s traps for artists
“The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work, is the most familiar of all the devil’s traps for artists.” —Logan Pearsall Smith.
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Friedrich Nietzsche: He who fights with monsters
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” —-Friedrich Nietzsche.
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Nida Fazli: Hell-bent
“Someone is Hindu, someone is Muslim, someone is Christian / Everyone is hell-bent on not becoming a human being.” —-Nida Fazli.
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Eleanor Roosevelt: Mature person
“A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in…
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Neil deGrasse Tyson: Bacteria
“Within one linear centimeter of your lower colon there lives and works more bacteria (about 100 billion) than all humans who have ever been born. Yet many people continue to assert that it is we who are in charge of the world.” —-Neil deGrasse Tyson.
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Rutherford B Hayes: Unrestricted competition
“The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.” —-Rutherford B. Hayes.
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Daniel J Boorstin: Anonymous
“In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person of solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard…
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Ta-Nehisi Coates: Racism
“Racism tends to attract attention when it’s flagrant and filled with invective. But like all bigotry, the most potent component of racism is frame-flipping — positioning the bigot as the actual victim. So the gay do not simply want to marry; they want to convert our children into sin. The Jews do not merely want…
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Simon Sinek: Authenticity
“Authenticity is more than speaking. Authenticity is also about doing. Every decision we make says something about who we are.” —Simon Sinek.
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Michael Lewis: Stories people tell themselves
“As I’ve gotten older…I could not help but notice the effect on people of the stories they told about themselves. If you listen to people—if you just sit and listen—you’ll find that there are patterns in the way they talk about themselves. There’s the kind of person who’s always the victim in any story that…
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Georges Clemenceau: Interesting primarily
“A man’s life is interesting primarily when he has failed — I well know. For it is a sign that he has tried to surpass himself.” —Georges Clemenceau.
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William Empson: Imaginative literature
“The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own.” —William Empson, literary critic and poet.
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Soren Kierkegaard: Freedom of speech
“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” —Soren Kierkegaard.
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J B Priestley: Mental pregnancy
“Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries.” —J.B. Priestley.
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Simon Sinek: Intelligence versus creativity
“Intelligence uses what is known to solve problems. Creativity uses what is unknown to discover possibilities.” —Simon Sinek.
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Peter Sellers: Classic example
“I’m a classic example of all humorists – only funny when I’m working.” —Peter Sellers.
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Simon Sinek: Connect
“Remember to connect with people now and then. In fact, pick up the phone, right now, and call a friend for no other reason than to say hi.” —Simon Sinek.
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Robert M Pirsig: Dogmas
“When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.” -Robert M. Pirsig.
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Alanis Obomsawin: You can’t eat money
“When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.” —Alanis Obomsawin.
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Spanish proverb: An ounce of mother
“An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.” —Spanish proverb.
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Jeanette Winterson: Book collecting
“Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it.” —Jeanette Winterson.
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John Buchan: Debt to the past
“We can pay our debt to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves.” —John Buchan.
