Author: LINUS FERNANDES
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Abigail van Buren: Index to person’s character
“The best index to a person’s character is how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and how he treats people who can’t fight back.” —Abigail van Buren.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Equality in probability
“To rephrase, every human should at all times have equality in probability (which we can control), not equality in outcome.” —Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
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Franz Kafka: I don’t eat you any more
“Now I can look at you in peace; I don’t eat you any more.” —Franz Kafka, novelist (3 Jul 1883-1924) [while admiring fish in an aquarium].
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Warren Buffett: Dollar on the dollar
“What we really want to do is buy a business that’s a great business, which means that business is going to earn a high return on capital employed for a very long period of time, and where we think the management will treat us right. We don’t have to mark those down a lot when…
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Marcus Aurelius: Secret of cheerfulness
“This is the secret of cheerfulness—not depending on someone’s help or expecting them to provide us tranquillity.” —Marcus Aurelius.
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Albert Einstein: God’s thoughts
“I want to know God’s thoughts. The rest is mere details.” — Albert Einstein.
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George Sanders: Big questions
“Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.” —George Sanders.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Kafkaesque world
“A Kafkaesque World. With the inquisition spirit & the criminalization of politics, you will soon wake up every morning with the question: “Which rule I didn’t know existed did I violate yesterday?” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Herman Hesse: Cabinet minister
“A man who is ‘ill-adjusted’ to the world is always on the verge of finding himself. One who is adjusted to the world never finds himself, but gets to be a cabinet minister.” —Hermann Hesse, novelist, poet, Nobel laureate (2 Jul 1877-1962).
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Charlie Munger: Real credit contraction
“The whole investment world is more and more competitive, and if you talk about a real credit contraction, which gums up the whole civilization, no one would welcome that. And I would predict that if we ever had a really big credit contraction after a period like the one we’re in with all this excess,…
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Start by being warm
“Start by being warm, pleasant, & generous w/every person you meet; but if someone tries to exercise power over you, exercise power over him; & if he messes w/you, remember to keep messing w/him long after he has forgotten about it”. Silver Rule of Fat Tony in #SkinInTheGame by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
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Mary Calderone: Irrevocable sex education
“Before the child ever gets to school it will have received crucial, almost irrevocable sex education and this will have been taught by the parents, who are not aware of what they are doing.” —Mary Calderone.
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Jay Levinson: When your accountant is tired of them
“Don’t change your ads when you’re tired of them. Don’t change them when your employees are tired of them. Don’t even change them when your friends are tired of them. Change them when your accountant is tired of them.” —Jay Levinson.
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Lee Iacocca: Success and failure
“We like to read about success but what we have to deal with in everyday life is failure.” —Lee Iacocca.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Four feet deep on average
“Don’t cross a river if it is four feet deep on average.” —Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
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Charlie Munger: Contrary behaviour
“Man has known for a long time that getting too enchanted with the trappings of power is counterproductive. The Roman emperor that’s most remembered as presiding over a period of great felicity was Marcus Aurelius, who was totally against the trappings of power even though he had them all — he had all the power.…
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Warren Buffett: Private equity activity
“The nature of the private equity activity is such that it really isn’t a bubble that bursts. Because if you’re running a large private equity fund and you lock up $20 billion for five or longer years and you buy businesses which are not priced daily, as a practical matter — even if you do…
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Pico Iyer: Three pieces of information
“A human being knows one important truth that a data-bank does not: that it’s often more useful to have three pieces of information than three thousand.” —Pico Iyer.
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Dr. William James Mayo: Deliver me
“Lord, deliver me from the man who never makes a mistake, and also from the man who makes the same mistake twice.” —Dr. William James Mayo.
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Simon Sinek: Good friends
“Good friends make us better people. They cheer us on when we hit bottom and keep us humble when we reach the top.” —Simon Sinek.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Rare privilege
“My lesson from Soros is to start every meeting at my boutique by convincing everyone that we are a bunch of idiots who know nothing and are mistake-prone, but happen to be endowed with the rare privilege of knowing it.” —Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Pain and pleasure
“The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.” —Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher and author (28 Jun 1712-1778).
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Joseph Sobran: Abortion
‘Abortion advocates keep shifting their ground, first agreeing it’s evil but arguing that legalizing it would control it; then turning agnostic, adopting the line “when life begins” is a “religious” question; finally, insisting it’s a “right,” the State should promote and subsidize. Even now they shuttle between saying that we should try to make abortion…
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Gilda Radner: Delicious Ambiguity
“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.” —Gilda Radner.
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Emma Goldman: Foolish enough
“The idealists and visionaries, foolish enough to throw caution to the winds and express their ardor and faith in some supreme deed, have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.” —Emma Goldman, social activist (27 Jun 1869-1940).
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Pico Iyer: Saying yes to life
‘Saying yes to life is wonderful—so long as you remember that life will often say “Maybe” or even “No” in response.’ —Pico Iyer.
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Simon Sinek: Remarkable
“When we give expecting nothing in return, it is remarkable how much more others will give back to us.” —Simon Sinek.
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Warren Buffett: Shorted
“I’ve probably had a hundred ideas of things that should be shorted, and I would say that almost every one of them have turned out to be correct. And I’ll bet if I’d tried to do it and make money out of it, I probably would have lost money, I would have had no fun,…
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Dwight L Moody: Word and work
“Word and work make healthy Christians. If people are all Word and no work, they will suffer from what I may call religious gout. On the other hand, if they are all work and no Word, it will not be long before they will fall into all kinds of sin and error, so that they…
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Bjarne Stroustrup: Be clear
“The most important single aspect of software development is to be clear about what you are trying to build.” —Bjarne Stroustrup
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Simon Sinek: Easier for us to be better people
“When we don’t fear our own leaders, it’s easier for us to be better people.” —Simon Sinek.
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Pearl S Buck: Truly creative mind
“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.…
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Howard Marks: Remedy for everything
“For every asset, there’s a price that’s low enough to make the risk palatable . . . Low price is the remedy for everything.” —Howard Marks.
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Dan Rockwell: Great conversations
“People who don’t like you are more helpful than those who think you’re great, when it’s time to improve. Success begins with great conversations. Some of the most important leadership conversations happen with critics.” —Dan Rockwell.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Universities
“Universities have been progressing from providing scholarship for a small fee into selling degrees at a large cost.” —Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Heuristic
“A heuristic on whether you have control of your life: can you take naps?” —Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
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Chris Isaak: Pied Piper of love
“When I play it I look out and see people hold on to each other and dance or just couples leaning into each other and kiss. And I’ll go: You know, I could have worked hard at school and been a dentist. But I’m so glad I didn’t. Because when I look out and see…
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Simon Sinek: Rule books
“Rule books tell people what to do. Frameworks guide people how to act. Rule books insist on discipline. Frameworks allow for creativity.” —Simon Sinek.
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Warren Buffett: Strategic buyer
“A strategic buyer is some guy that pays too much. And he wants to justify it, so he says it’s strategic. I have never understood being a strategic buyer. Every time somebody calls me up and says, ‘We think, maybe, you’re the logical strategic buyer for that,’ I hang up faster than Charlie would…. The…
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George Orwell: No such thing
‘In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics”. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.’ —George Orwell, novelist (25 Jun 1903-1950).
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Phyllis George: Labor-saving device
“The most popular labor-saving device is still money.” —Phyllis George.
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Norman Cousins: Transcend
“All men — whether they go by the name of Americans or Russians or Chinese or British or Malayans or Indians or Africans — have obligations to one another that transcend their obligations to their sovereign societies.” —Norman Cousins, author, editor, journalist and professor (24 Jun 1915-1990).
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Brooks Adams: Friendship
“One friend in a lifetime is much, two are many, three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.” —Brooks Adams.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Hammurabi’s code
“Hammurabi’s code: He who falsely accuses someone of a crime is to be penalized as if he committed it himself. Applies to all: right,left,…” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
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David Ogilvy: Best ideas
“The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.” —David Ogilvy.
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Edward VIII: Only two rules really count
“Perhaps one of the only positive pieces of advice that I was ever given was that supplied by an old courtier who observed: Only two rules really count. Never miss an opportunity to relieve yourself, never miss a chance to sit down and rest your feet.” —Edward VIII.
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Warren Buffett: What others are doing mean nothing
“Ben Graham said long ago that you’re neither right nor wrong because people agree with you or disagree with you. In other words, being contrarian has no special virtue over being a trend follower. You’re right because your facts and reasoning are right. So all you do is you try to make sure that the…
