-
Dr. Harold Urey: Nothing so deadly
“There is nothing so deadly as not to hold up to people the opportunity to do great and wonderful things, if we wish to stimulate them in an active way.” —Dr. Harold Urey.
-
Connie Francis: Everybody’s somebody’s fool
“There’s no exception to the rule, yes, everybody’s somebody’s fool.” —Connie Francis.
-
H L Mencken: Maker of entertainment
“Has the great art and mystery of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene and low down, and its salient virtuosi a gang of unmitigated scoundrels? Then let us not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickle the midriff, its incomparable services as a maker of entertainment.”…
-
Tony Kushner: Every student needs someone
‘Every student needs someone who says, simply, “You mean something. You count.”‘ —Tony Kushner.
-
Orson Welles: Cuckoo-clock
“In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace — and what did they produce? The cuckoo-clock.” —Orson Welles, The Third Man.
-
Iris Murdoch: Anything can be made holy
“I daresay anything can be made holy by being sincerely worshipped.” —Iris Murdoch.
-
Joan Didion: Writers are always selling somebody out
“There is always one thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out. “ —Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
-
Northrop Frye: Literature encourages tolerance
“Literature encourages tolerance — bigots and fanatics seldom have any use for the arts, because they’re so preoccupied with their beliefs and actions that they can’t see them also as possibilities.” —Northrop Frye.
-
John Ousterhout: Best performance improvement
“The best performance improvement is the transition from the nonworking state to the working state.” — John Ousterhout.
-
Mark Twain: Misprint
“Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint. “ —Mark Twain.
-
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Infinitely the most important
“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. “—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Case of Identity.
-
Mark Twain: Adversity
“By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean. “ —Mark Twain.
-
Marcel Proust: Suffering
“We are healed of a suffering only by expressing it to the full.” —Marcel Proust.
-
G K Chesterton: Bad theology
“To downgrade the human mind is bad theology.” —G. K. Chesterton.
-
Mark Twain: Holy passion of Friendship
“The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money. “ — Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar.
-
June Jordan: Fear of telling the truth
“As a child I was taught that to tell the truth was often painful. As an adult I have learned that not to tell the truth is more painful, and that the fear of telling the truth — whatever the truth may be — that fear is the most painful sensation of a moral life.”…
-
Mark Twain: Let us endeavor to live
“Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. “—Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar.
-
Mark Twain: Oyster
“We know all about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It seems almost certain that we have been |choosing the wrong time for studying the oyster.” —Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar.
-
Robert A Heinlein: Keystone of all tyranny
‘I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy … censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny…
-
G K Chesterton: Simplicity
“There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who eats Grape-Nuts on principle.” —G. K. Chesterton.
-
Julian McMahon: Some laws are wrong
“Some laws are wrong, and we have an obligation to speak out against those laws wherever they are.” —Julian McMahon.
-
Bill Belichick: Helping the team win
“Helping the team win doesn’t look warm and fuzzy. It looks like work—usually hard work—if you want to outcompete your opponent.” —Bill Belichick.
-
Leo Tolstoy: Thousand-mile walk
“A man on a thousand-mile walk has to forget his ultimate goal and say to himself every morning, ‘Today I’m going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.’” —Leo Tolstoy.
-
Robert King Merton: Skepticism, a virtue
“Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.” —Robert King Merton.
-
Diogo Jota: The first step
“The first step to achieve something is to believe.” —Diogo Jota.
-
Michael Madsen: Stop acting like one
“Kids are a great excuse for you to stop acting like one.” —Michael Madsen.
-
Jewel Kilcher: Do things
“Do things that lend themselves to the happiness you desire. Exercise. Eat well. Do something that makes you feel joy, even when you don’t feel like it. Surround yourself with people you admire and who add substance to your life.” —Jewel Kilcher.
-
Franz Kafka: Second the world
“In the struggle between yourself and the world, second the world.” —Franz Kafka.
-
Mark Twain: Most valuable thing
“Truth is the most valuable thing we have — so let us economize it.” —Mark Twain.
-
Hermann 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.
-
Arthur Conan Doyle: Empty little attic
“I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best…
-
Napoleon: Single thread
“All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.” —Napoleon.
-
Frédéric Bastiat: Plunder
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” —Frédéric Bastiat.
-
Mark Twain: Classic
“A classic is something that everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read. “ —Mark Twain, The Disappearance of Literature.
-
H L Mencken: Unable to think
“Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.” —H.L. Mencken.
-
Jim McCarthy: Dysfunctional families
“You can’t have great software without a great team, and most software teams behave like dysfunctional families.” — Jim McCarthy.
-
Strauss Zelnick: Unproductive and unkind
“’I know there’s been a lot of talk about what went wrong last week. I know everyone’s been at least somewhat focused on who’s to blame. I want you to know that I’ve searched long and hard and finally discovered who’s responsible.’ I paused. ‘I am.’ One could see varying looks of surprise and relief…
-
Marabeth Quin: Magic all around me
“The day I decided that my life was magical, there was suddenly magic all around me.” —Marabeth Quin.
-
William Shakespeare: Tempt not a desperate man
“Tempt not a desperate man. “ —William Shakespeare.
-
Richard Bach: Surprise quiz
“It’s like, at the end, there’s this surprise quiz: Am I proud of me? I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth what I paid?” —Richard Bach.
-
Warren Buffett: Exceptional results
“You don’t have to do exceptional things to get exceptional results.” —Warren Buffett.
-
Thackeray: To be beautiful is enough
“To be beautiful is enough! If a woman can do that well who should demand more from her? You don’t want a rose to sing.” —Thackeray.
-
Corwin: Steady movement
“Steady movement is more important than speed, much of the time. So long as there is a regular progression of stimuli to get your mental hooks into, there is room for lateral movement. Once this begins, its rate is a matter of discretion.” — Corwin, Prince of Amber.
-
Mark Twain: Annoyance of a good example
“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”—Mark Twain.
-
Blaise Pascal: Justified strength
“Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength.” —Blaise Pascal.
-
Mark Twain: Soap and education
“Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. “ —Mark Twain.
-
Edward Gibbon: School of genius
“Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.” —Edward Gibbon.
-
Helen Schucman: All things answered
“In quietness are all things answered.” —Helen Schucman.
-
Steve Jobs: Thinker and doer
“My observation is that the doers are the major thinkers. The people that really create the things that change this industry are both the thinker and doer in one person. And if we really go back and we examine, you know, did Leonardo have a guy off to the side that was thinking five years…
