Quite a Quote!

Paul Van Doren: One big idea

“My entire life, I never had one big idea. I like to think I woke up one day and figured out how to make the world’s best canvas-and-rubber, waffle-soled deck shoes, how to distribute said shoes, and thus create the first vertically integrated tennis shoe company in the world; but the fact of it is,…
Roger Ebert: Idea of the Holocaust

“The ability of so many people to live comfortably with the idea of capital punishment is perhaps a clue to how so many Europeans were able to live with the idea of the Holocaust: Once you accept the notion that the state has the right to kill someone and the right to define what is…
Neil Gaiman: Because you are successful

“The biggest problem of success is that the world conspires to stop you doing the thing that you do, because you are successful. There was a day when I looked up and realised that I had become someone who professionally replied to email, and who wrote as a hobby.” — Neil Gaiman.
Igor Stravinsky: Silence

“Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.” —Igor Stravinsky, composer.
Raymond Chandler: Marriage

“Never forget that a marriage is in one way very much like a newspaper. It has to be made fresh every damn day of every damn year.” —Raymond Chandler, Letter to Neil Morgan, 18th November 1955, Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler.
Ted Hughes: Nest of small scorpions

“Marriage is a nest of small scorpions, but it kills the big dragons.” —Ted Hughes, Letter to Daniel WeissbortAutumn 1961,Letters of Ted Hughes.
Yukihiro Matsumoto: Ruby

“I didn’t work hard to make Ruby perfect for everyone, because you feel differently from me. No language can be perfect for everyone. I tried to make Ruby perfect for me, but maybe it’s not perfect for you. The perfect language for Guido van Rossum is probably Python.” —Yukihiro Matsumoto.
Harriet Beecher Stowe: The longest day must have its close

“The longest day must have its close — the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to an eternal day.” —Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and novelist.
Werner Erhard: Life is a game

“Life is a game. In order to have a game, something has to be more important than something else. If what already is, is more important than what isn’t, the game is over. So, life is a game in which what isn’t, is more important than what is. Let the good times roll.” —Werner Erhard.
Mencken: First love

“A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that begins to bunch them.” —Mencken.
William Butler Yeats: We make poetry

“Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.” —William Butler Yeats, writer, Nobel laureate.
Anne Frank: Urge and rage

“I don’t believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and…
Howard Marks: Significant ramifications

“The question of whether trying to predict the future will or will not work isn’t a matter of idle curiosity or academic musing. It has—or should have—significant ramifications for investor behavior. If you’re engaged in an activity that involves decisions with consequences in the future, it seems patently obvious that you’ll act one way if…
Naval Ravikant: Goal of media

“The goal of media is to make every problem, your problem.” —Naval Ravikant.
Saul Bellow: Everybody needs his memories

“Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.” —Saul Bellow, writer, Nobel laureate.
Richard Hamming: Right problem, wrong way

“It is better to do the right problem the wrong way than the wrong problem the right way.” —Richard Hamming.
Rumi: Today I am wise

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” —Rumi.
Aristotle: Victory over self

“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is the victory over self.” —Aristotle.
Gwendolyn Brooks: Preference for candy bars

“Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars.” —Gwendolyn Brooks, poet.
Arnold Van Den Berg: If you don’t lose, you win

“If you don’t lose, you win. If we buy 20-25 companies…some of them will continue to disappoint and lag and so forth. But there’ll be enough winners in there to make up for the losers as long as we don’t lose a lot…. When we discuss private market value, price-to-sales multiples, etc., we’re talking about…
Mignon McLaughlin: Impossible loyalty

“It’s impossible to be loyal to your family, your friends, your country, and your principles, all at the same time.” —Mignon McLaughlin, journalist and author.
Gaius Julius Caesar: Treason

“I love treason but hate a traitor.”—Gaius Julius Caesar.
George T Angell: Working at the roots

‘I’m sometimes asked “Why do you spend so much of your time and money talking about kindness to animals when there is so much cruelty to men?” I answer: “I am working at the roots.”‘ —George T. Angell, reformer.
J Hawes: Good name

“A good name lost is seldom regained. When character is gone, all is gone, and one of the richest jewels of life is lost forever.” —J. Hawes
Seneca: Different person

“If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.” —Seneca.
Robert Fulghum: Children

“Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.” —Robert Fulghum, author.
Victor Papanek: Design

“The only important thing about design is how it relates to people.” —Victor Papanek.
Allen Ginsberg: Follow your inner moonlight

“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” —Allen Ginsberg, poet.
Camillo Di Cavour: Art of deceiving diplomats

“I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth and they never believe me.” —Camillo Di Cavour.
Thomas Hardy: Grandeur and sorriness

“The business of the poet and the novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things.” —Thomas Hardy, novelist and poet.
Howard Aiken: Ram them down people’s throats

“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.” —Howard Aiken.
Kent Nerburn: Debt

“Debt defines your future, and when your future is defined, hope begins to die. You have committed your life to making money to pay for your past.” — Kent Nerburn.
Walt Whitman: Secret

“Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.” —Walt Whitman, poet.
Neil Gaiman: Trust your obsessions

“Trust your obsessions. This is one I learned more or less accidentally. People sometimes ask whether the research or the idea for the story comes first for me. And I tell them, normally the first thing that turns up is the obsession: for example, all of a sudden I notice that I’m reading nothing but…
Howard Marks: Manage risk and protect capital

“The main job of a steward of other people’s assets is to manage risk and protect capital.” —Howard Marks.
Hal Clement: Speculation, science and superstition

“Speculation is perfectly all right, but if you stay there you’ve only founded a superstition. If you test it, you’ve started a science.” —Hal Clement, science fiction author.
Bertrand Russell: On avoiding foolish opinions

“If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If some one maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know…
John F Kennedy: Entrust

“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” —John F. Kennedy, 35th US president.
Steven H Strogatz: Fundamentally naive

“Calculus is fundamentally naive. Almost childish in its optimism. Experience teaches us that change can be sudden, discontinuous, and wrenching. Calculus draws its power by refusing to see that. It insists on a world without accidents, where one thing leads logically to another. Give me the initial conditions and the law of motion, and with…
Walker Percy: Worst of us

“We love those who know the worst of us and don’t turn their faces away.” —Walker Percy, author.
Verity Stob: Cardinal rule

“The primary duty of an exception handler is to get the error out of the lap of the programmer and into the surprised face of the user. Provided you keep this cardinal rule in mind, you can’t go far wrong.” — Verity Stob.
Hubert Humphrey: Freedom

“Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.” —Hubert Humphrey, US Vice President.
Warren Buffett: No equations

“We have no equations [in making acquisitions]. Ben Graham used to say that it’s a lot like selecting a wife. You can thoughtfully establish certain qualities you’d like her to have, and then all of a sudden you meet someone and you do it.” —Warren Buffett.
Warren Buffett: Change the future

“Human beings are human beings, and we all have weaknesses and peculiarities—and everything else. Don’t be too hard on yourself because you have some of those. But don’t be totally forgiving either. You can change the future. You can’t change the past. But you can change the future.” —Warren Buffett.
Warren Buffett: They’re delusional

“It is interesting how many mistakes you can make if you just keep going. And Charlie used to talk about that ‘you just soldier through.’ You just keep going. But you still need luck. Anybody that says ‘I did it all myself’—they’re delusional.” —Warren Buffett.
Harry Emerson Fosdick: Life

“Life is like a library owned by an author. In it are a few books which he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him.” —Harry Emerson Fosdick, preacher and author.
Charlie Munger: Good general education

“I’m all in favor of a good general education. And I think it helps investment performance. And it helps business performance. And it helps one be a better citizen. And some of the things people say are quite memorable. And therefore, they’re helpful to the mind by the very ease of which they’re remembered. And…
Margaret Fuller: Knowledge

“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.” —Margaret Fuller, author.
Charlie Munger: Luck

“Spend less than you earn. Invest shrewdly. Avoid toxic people and toxic activities. Try to keep learning all your life. And do a lot of deferred gratification. If you do all those things, you are almost certain to succeed. And if you don’t, you’ll need a lot of luck. And you don’t want to need…
Arthur Conan Doyle: Even the little ones count for something

“I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better for my presence. Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and something might be done by throwing all one’s weight on the scale of breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man and beast. We can’t all strike…