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Turkish Proverb: Circus
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace turns into a circus.” —Turkish Proverb.
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Samuel Beckett: All I know
“All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead.” —Samuel Beckett.
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Francis Bacon: Books
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” —Francis Bacon.
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Lazarus Long: ‘Better nature’
“Never appeal to a man’s ‘better nature.’ He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.” —Lazarus Long.
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Roger Federer: Yes, talent matters
“Yes, talent matters. I’m not going to stand here and tell you it doesn’t. But talent has a broad definition. Most of the time, it’s not about having a gift. It’s about having grit. In tennis, like in life, discipline is also a talent. And so is patience. Trusting yourself is a talent. Embracing the…
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Thomas Mitchell: Happiness
“People are always looking for happiness at some future time and in some new thing, or some new set of circumstances, in possession of which they some day expect to find themselves. But the fact is, if happiness is not found now, where we are, and as we are, there is little chance of it…
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Annie Dillard: Parasitic insects
“I learn that ten percent of all the world’s species are parasitic insects. It is hard to believe. What if you were an inventor, and you made ten percent of your inventions in such a way that they could only work by harnessing, disfiguring, or totally destroying the other ninety percent?” —Annie Dillard.
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Peter Cundhill: Hire a squirrel
“You can teach a donkey to climb a tree but it’s easier to hire a squirrel.” —Peter Cundhill.
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David S Landes: Three kinds of nations
“This world is divided roughly into three kinds of nations: those that spend lots of money to keep their weight down; those whose people eat to live; and those whose people don’t know where their next meal is coming from.” —David S. Landes.
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Victor Hugo: Compliment
“A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.” —Victor Hugo.
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Alan J Perlis: Constant variable
“One man’s constant is another man’s variable.” — Alan J. Perlis.
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Frank Mankiewicz: Simply complex
‘In a medium in which a News Piece takes a minute and an “In-Depth” Piece takes two minutes, the Simple will drive out the Complex.’ —Frank Mankiewicz.
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Oliver Cromwell: Necessity hath no law
“Necessity hath no law.” —Oliver Cromwell.
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Edward R Murrow: Accomplices
“No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.” —Edward R. Murrow.
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Nancy Friday: Perfect friend
“The perfect friend sees the best in you — sees it constantly — not just when you occasionally are that way, but also when you waver, when you forget yourself, act like less than you are. In time, you become more like his vision of you — which is the person you have always wanted…
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Anthony Trollope: Habit of reading
“The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade.” —Anthony Trollope.
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John Moore: No heart, no brain
“He who hasn’t hacked assembly language as a youth has no heart. He who does as an adult has no brain.” —John Moore.
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William Shakespeare: Make the angels weep
“But man, proud man, / Drest in a little brief authority, / Most ignorant of what he’s most assured, / His glassy essence, like an angry ape, / Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven / As make the angels weep.” —William Shakespeare.
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Stanley Druckenmiller: Take the mentor every time
“If you’re early on in your career and they give you a choice between a great mentor or higher pay, take the mentor every time. It’s not even close.” —Stanley Druckenmiller.
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Carl Jung: Death ripens
“If you accept death, it is altogether like a frosty night and an anxious misgiving, but a frosty night in a vineyard full of sweet grapes. You will soon take pleasure in your wealth. Death ripens. One needs death to be able to harvest the fruit. Without death, life would be meaningless, since the long-lasting…
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Henry Fielding: Reason
“Neither great poverty nor great riches will hear reason.” —Henry Fielding.
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Steve Wozniak: Work alone
“Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me … they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone …. I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone… Not on a…
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Bruce Flatt: Reasonable returns
“Success in investing isn’t about making a lot of money in a short period of time. It’s about earning reasonable returns over very long periods.” —Bruce Flatt.
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John Mackey: Whole Foods
“Whole Foods emerged… not always because we had the best stores; it was because we were more ambitious and thought strategically about the long term. We weren’t ambivalent about either money or growth. And yet we retained our high standards and ideals.” —John Mackey.
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Clarence Darrow: If I am free
“You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free.” —Clarence Darrow.
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Cornelius Vanderbilt: I’ll ruin you
“Gentlemen: You have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue, for the law is too slow. I’ll ruin you.” —Cornelius Vanderbilt.
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Isak Dinesen: Salt water
“The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the sea.” —Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen).
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Doris Lessing: Only one way to read
“There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag – and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or…
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Charlie Chaplin: I don’t want to be an emperor
“I’m sorry but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, gentile, black man, white.” —Charlie Chaplin.
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Larry Tisch: Move the dial
“The most important thing is to stay focused on what matters. Most little things ultimately have no effect on an enterprise. It’s the big deals – and the big decisions that do. Don’t spend too much time on little things. The important choices and opportunities are the ones that move the dial.” —Larry Tisch.
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Thomas Szasz: Clear thinking
“Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.” —Thomas Szasz.
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George Santayana: Gregarious animal
“A man is a gregarious animal, and much more so in his mind than in his body. He may like to go alone for a walk, but he hates to stand alone in his opinions.” —George Santayana.
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Arnold Toynbee: Civilizations in decline
“Civilizations in decline are consistently characterized by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity.” —Arnold Toynbee.
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Mark Fewster: Automating chaos
“It is far better to improve the effectiveness of testing first than to improve the efficiency of poor testing. Automating chaos just gives faster chaos.” —Mark Fewster.
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L Peter Deutsch: Human and divine
“To iterate is human, to recurse divine.” – —L. Peter Deutsch.
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Michael Sinz: Programming
“Programming Is Like S*x: One mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life.” — Michael Sinz.
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Charles Evans Hughes: Power, peril, hope
“No greater mistake can be made than to think that our institutions are fixed or may not be changed for the worse. … Increasing prosperity tends to breed indifference and to corrupt moral soundness. Glaring inequalities in condition create discontent and strain the democratic relation. The vicious are the willing, and the ignorant are unconscious…
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Donald Knuth: Beware of bugs
“Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.” —Donald Knuth.
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Strauss Zelnick: Real intelligence
“If you’re busy showing off your brains, you’re probably not listening closely enough, thinking hard enough or reaching the smartest conclusions.” —Strauss Zelnick.
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Charles Baudelaire: Kinsman in the clouds
“The poet is a kinsman in the clouds / Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day; / But on the ground, among the hooting crowds, / He cannot walk, his wings are in the way.” —Charles Baudelaire.
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Alexi Pappas: Don’t blame time
“’I don’t have enough time’ is not a useful phrase when it comes to anything related to your dream. It’s okay to actively choose to do something or not, but don’t blame time.” —Alexi Pappas.
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Johann Cryuff: Practically impossible
“What I know for certain is that the conclusions I would draw from experience are different from the ones based only on figures. Because if Lionel Messi scores three times out of every ten attempts, he might be criticized by someone who sees only the statistics for being just 30 per cent effective. I’d say:…
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Edward Gibbon: School of genius
“Conversation enriches the understanding but solitude is the school of genius.” —Edward Gibbon.
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Joan Didion: Live in it
“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To…
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Richard Feynman: Fall in move with some activity
“Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the…
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Maya Angelou: Untold story
“There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.” —Maya Angelou.
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Lord Chesterfield: Distrust
“Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason.” —Lord Chesterfield.
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Washington Irving: Love is never lost
“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.” —Washington Irving.
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N V Plyter: It still isn’t your turn
“Sometime when you least expect it, Love will tap you on the shoulder… and ask you to move out of the way because it still isn’t your turn.” —N.V. Plyter.
