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Warren Buffett: Price of excellence
“Intensity is the price of excellence.” —Warren Buffett.
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John Galsworthy: Untidy
“The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.” —John Galsworthy.
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Rakesh Jhunjhunwala: When opportunities come
“When opportunities come, they can come through technology, marketing, brands, value protections, capital, etc. You need to be able to spot those.” —Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.
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Linus Torvalds: Open source science
“I often compare open source to science. Science took this whole notion of developing ideas in the open and improving on other peoples’ ideas – making it into what science is today and the incredible advances that we have had. And I compare that to witchcraft and alchemy, where openness was something you didn’t do.”…
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Lillie Devereux Blake: Trained in gender roles
“People share a common nature but are trained in gender roles.” —Lillie Devereux Blake.
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Warren Buffett: Control your emotions
“Anything that causes people to get wildly enthusiastic or wildly depressed, actually, is what allows people to make lots of money in securities…. It doesn’t make sense to have that much volatility in the market, but humans behave the way humans behave, and they’re going to continue to behave that way in the next 50…
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Rainn Wilson: Hopeful, positive and proactive
“It’s way easier to be negative, sarcastic, and cynical. It’s much harder to be hopeful, positive, and proactive.” —Rainn Wilson.
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Charlie Munger: Search expenses
“The search expenses that brought us Ajit Jain, now there was an investment that really paid a dividend. I can think of no higher return investment that we’ve ever made that was better than that one. And I think that’s a good life lesson. In other words, getting the right people into your system can…
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Anthony Haden-Guest: Secrets
“Of course I can keep secrets. It’s the people I tell them to that can’t keep them.” —Anthony Haden-Guest.
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Sara Teasdale: Plowed by pain
“My soul is a broken field, plowed by pain.” —Sara Teasdale.
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Howard Marks: Widespread belief
“There are few things as risky as the widespread belief that there’s no risk, because it’s only when investors are suitably risk-averse that prospective returns will incorporate appropriate risk premiums.” —Howard Marks.
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Adrian Tchaikovsky: No life at all
“A life lived entirely at the whim of another is no life at all.” —Adrian Tchaikovsky.
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Richard Hofstadter: Mood of a society
“One of the primary tests of the mood of a society at any given time is whether its comfortable people tend to identify, psychologically, with the power and achievements of the very successful or with the needs and sufferings of the underprivileged.” —Richard Hofstadter.
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Wendell Berry: Downstream upstream
“Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.” —Wendell Berry.
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Fred Miller: Worst speech
“The worst speech you will ever give, will be far better than the one you never give.” —Fred Miller.
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William James: Uncertified result
“It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.” —William James.
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Bertrand Meyer: Software quality or pointer arithmetic
“You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time.” —Bertrand Meyer.
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H L Mencken: Imagination over intelligence
“Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.” —H. L. Mencken.
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Mother Jones: United States Senator
“I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.” —Mother Jones (Mary Harris Jones).
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Alan Perlis: Syntactic sugar
“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.” —Alan Perlis.
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John Hall: Means of grace
“Kind words, kind looks, kind acts, and warm hand-shakes, — these are means of grace when men in trouble are fighting their unseen battles.” —John Hall.
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Howard Marks: Fifth psychological influence
“The fifth psychological influence is envy. However negative the force of greed might be, always spurring people to strive for more and more, the impact is even stronger when they compare themselves to others. This is one of the most harmful aspects of what we call human nature. People who might be perfectly happy with…
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Emily Bronte: Sufficient company in himself
“I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.” —Emily Bronte.
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Guy Kawasaki: Polarize people
“Don’t be afraid to polarize people. Most companies want to create the holy grail of products that appeals to every demographic, social-economic background, and geographic location. To attempt to do so guarantees mediocrity. Instead, create great products that make segments of people very happy. And fear not if these products make other segments unhappy. The…
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Don Marquis: Human wandering through the zoo
“human wandering through the zoo / what do your cousins think of you.” —Don Marquis.
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Howard Marks: I just don’t know which one
“If there is a bunch of real estate funds formed this year, somebody who puts all of their money into office, and somebody who puts none of their money into office—one of them will be the best performer. I just don’t know which one.” —Howard Marks.
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Grady Booch: Function of good software
“The function of good software is to make the complex appear to be simple.”—Grady Booch.
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Georg Lichtenberg: In love with himself
“He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage — he won’t encounter many rivals.” —Georg Lichtenberg.
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Linus Torvalds: Data structures and their relationships
“Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.” —Linus Torvalds.
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Aldous Huxley: Caesars and Napoleons
“So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise and make them miserable.” —Aldous Huxley.
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Joseph Campbell: Follow your bliss
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.” —Joseph Campbell.
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Eric Hoffer: Hatred
“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.” —Eric Hoffer.
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Howard Marks: Oxymoron
“Reaping dependably high returns from risky investments is an oxymoron. But there are times when this caveat is ignored—when people get too comfortable with risk and thus when prices of securities incorporate a premium for bearing risk that is inadequate to compensate for the risk that’s present.” —Howard Marks.
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Carsten Jensen: The law protects the rich
“Only the stupid steal from the rich. The clever steal from the poor. The law usually protects the rich.” —Carsten Jensen.
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Otto Von Bismarck: In principle
“When you say that you agree to a thing in principle, you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.” —Otto Von Bismarck.
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Haile Selassie: Throughout history
“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” —Haile Selassie.
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Dale Carnegie: What you think about
“It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.” — Dale Carnegie.
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Tom Robbins: No crime so heinous
“If it is committed in the name of God or country, there is no crime so heinous that the public will not forgive it.” —Tom Robbins.
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Steve Cohen: People are afraid of success
‘People are afraid of success. You could have some people really bright, and they just, somehow when they get to the end of the year they just haven’t somehow performed at a level that they expect themselves to.People have a funny way of looking at the world in the way they cut the data. They’re…
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Niccolo Machiavelli: When evening comes
“When evening comes, I return home and enter my study; on the threshold I take off my workday clothes, covered with mud and dirt, and put on the garments of court and palace. Fitted out appropriately, I step inside the venerable courts of the ancients, where, solicitously received by them, I nourish myself on that…
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Alan Perlis: Think about programming
“A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing.” —Alan Perlis.
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George McGovern: Old men dreaming up wars
“I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.” —George McGovern.
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Martha Gellhorn: We must be interested in politics
“People often say, with pride, I’m not interested in politics. They might as well say, I’m not interested in my standard of living, my health, my job, my rights, my freedoms, my future or any future. If we mean to keep any control over our world and lives, we must be interested in politics.” —Martha…
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Carl Sagan: Built-in error-correcting mechanism
“At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly contradictory attitudes — an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. Of course, scientists make…
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Howard Marks: Good buys
“Our goal isn’t to find good assets, but good buys. Thus, it’s not what you buy; it’s what you pay for it. A high-quality asset can constitute a good or bad buy, and a low-quality asset can constitute a good or bad buy. The tendency to mistake objective merit for investment opportunity, and the failure…
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Tony Kushner: You count
‘Every student needs someone who says, simply, “You mean something. You count.”‘ —Tony Kushner.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson: Knowledge is the encourager
“The child is as much in danger from a staircase, or the fire-grate, or a bath-tub, or a cat, as the soldier from a cannon or an ambush. Each surmounts the fear as fast as he precisely understands the peril and learns the means of resistance. Each is liable to panic, which is, exactly, the…
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Iris Murdoch: Most civilized conveyance known to man
“The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.” —Iris Murdoch.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson: Antidote to fear
“Knowledge is the antidote to fear.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson.
