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Ella Wheeler Wilcox: As you pass along the way
“Do you wish the world were happy? / Then remember day by day, / Just to scatter seeds of kindness / As you pass along the way.” —Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
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Richard Feynman: Create yourself continuously
“You are under no obligation to remain the same person you were a year ago, a month ago, or even a day ago. You are here to create yourself, continuously.” —Richard Feynman.
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Will Rogers: Fighting people versus thinking people
“A king can stand people’s fighting, but he can’t last long if people start thinking.” —Will Rogers.
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Estée Lauder: Good and bad luck
“In every life there is a moment—an event or a realization-that changes that life irrevocably. If the change is to be a happy one, one must be able to recognize the moment and seize it without delay. Rose Kennedy once told me that good luck is something you make and bad luck is something you…
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Jerry Seinfeld: Focus
“All this hand wringing worry and concern over how are people viewing me — someone said something bad about me, and you get so upset about it — is wasted time and energy. Your only focus should be on getting better at what you’re doing. Focus on what you are doing. Get better at what…
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Alexi Pappas: Training
“Think of training as a series of boxes all of equal value. Each day, I tick a box. The hard-workout box is just as important as the recovery box, and it is crucial not to place too much emphasis on any single box, good or bad. What is crucial is to give a hundred percent…
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Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux: Wisest man
“The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.” —Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux.
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Stephen Covey: Empathic listener
“It’s true that becoming an empathic listener takes time, but it doesn’t take any-where near as much time as it takes to back up and correct misunderstandings when you’re already miles down the road, to redo, and to live with unexpressed and unsolved problems.” —Stephen Covey.
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Jeff Bezos: Don’t be typical
“The world wants you to be typical. Don’t let it happen.” —Jeff Bezos.
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John Adams: Only maxim of a free government
“The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.” —John Adams.
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Alex Ewerlöf: Deprecate yourself
“Deprecate yourself. Don’t be the go-to person for the code. Optimize it for people to find their way fixing bugs and adding features to the code. Free yourself to move on to the next project/company. Don’t own the code or you’ll never grow beyond that.” —Alex Ewerlöf.
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James Boswell: Lash of wit
“He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.” —James Boswell.
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Vincent Van Gogh: Great things
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” —Vincent Van Gogh.
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Evelyn Waugh: Absolutely uninhabitable
“It is a curious thing that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.” —Evelyn Waugh.
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Samuel Johnson: Self-confidence
“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.” —Samuel Johnson.
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André Kostolany: I can’t tell you
“I can’t tell you how to get rich quickly. I can only tell you how to get poor quickly: by trying to get rich quickly.” —André Kostolany.
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Kwame Anthony Appiah: Figure out what game you’re playing
“In life the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what game you’re playing.” —Kwame Anthony Appiah.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Bad information
“…bad information is worse than no information at all.” —Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
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Robert Fritz: Natural route
“If a riverbed remains unchanged, the water will continue to flow along the path it always has, since that is the most natural route for it to take. If the underlying structures of your life remain unchanged, the greatest tendency is for you to follow the same direction your life has always taken.” —Robert Fritz.
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Brenda Ueland: Hold your audience in writing to the very end
“You have to hold your audience in writing to the very end — much more than in talking, when people have to be polite and listen to you.” —Brenda Ueland.
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Bram Cohen: Pointless
“The mark of a mature programmer is willingness to throw out code you spent time on when you realize it’s pointless.” —Bram Cohen.
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Emily Kimbrough: We all stumble
“Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.” —Emily Kimbrough.
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Rob Fraser: Mindset
“The goal was always so much larger than the pain I was dealing with, or the stress. The idea of not pushing forward wasn’t even there…. I ultimately think success in any large goal comes down to your ability to endure over the long term. Perseverance. Resilience. I think extending the time horizon—people always talk…
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Doris Lessing: Unnoticed and invisible
“All one’s life as a young woman one is on show, a focus of attention, people notice you. You set yourself up to be noticed and admired. And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous. No one notices you. You achieve a wonderful freedom. It’s a positive thing. You can move about unnoticed…
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Robert Green Ingersoll: Consequences
“In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.” —Robert Green Ingersoll.
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Shane Parrish: Copying others
“Copying others doesn’t work because success without substance doesn’t last.” —Shane Parrish.
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Best physician
“He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.” —Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
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Howard Marks: Close to nuts
“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 you think the future can be foreseen and a very different way if you think it can’t…. Investing in an unknowable future as an agnostic is a daunting prospect, but if…
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Chris Hoy: Limitations in different forms
“We all have limitations in different forms. It could be financial, health-wise, work, family, whatever — there are things on the surface that limit what you can do.” —Chris Hoy.
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Thomas Mitchell: Best secret
“One of the best secrets of a happy life is the art of extracting comfort and sweetness from every circumstance.” —Thomas Mitchell.
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Robert Blake: Wrath
“I was angry with my friend; I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe; I told it not, my wrath did grow.” —Robert Blake.
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H L Mencken: College football
“College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity.” —H. L. Mencken.
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Arthur Miller: Right regrets
“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.” —Arthur Miller.
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Glenan Doyle: Opposite of sensitive
“The opposite of sensitive is not brave. It’s not brave to refuse to pay attention, to refuse to notice, to refuse to feel and know and imagine. The opposite of sensitive is insensitive, and that’s no badge of honor.” —Glenan Doyle.
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Fran Lebowitz: God’s children
“All God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable.” —Fran Lebowitz.
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Friedrich Nietzsche: Actions
“One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.” —Friedrich Nietzsche.
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Isaac B Singer: Free will
“We must believe in free will. We have no choice.” —Isaac B. Singer.
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E E Cummings: To be nobody but myself
“To be nobody but myself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.” —E.E. Cummings.
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Lily Ledbetter: Be that person
“Change starts with one person standing up and saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ Be that person.” —Lily Ledbetter.
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Leonardo Da Vinci: You who live on dreams
“But you who live on dreams, you are better pleased with the sophistical reasoning and frauds of talkers about great and uncertain matters than those who speak of certain and natural matters, not of such lofty nature.” —Leonardo Da Vinci, The Codex on the Flight of Birds.
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Dr. Martin Schwarzschild: Space program
“The idea of man leaving this earth and flying to another celestial body and landing there and stepping out and walking over that body has a fascination and a driving force that can get the country to a level of energy, ambition, and will that I do not see in any other undertaking. I think if we are honest with ourselves, we…
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Margaret H Sanger: Free
“No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” —Margaret H. Sanger.
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Eleanor Roosevelt: Wise enough
“Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?” —Eleanor Roosevelt.
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Han Kang: Made of glass
“Glass is transparent, right? And fragile. That’s the fundamental nature of glass. And that’s why objects that are made of glass have to be handled with care. After all, if they end up smashed or cracked or chipped, then they’re good for nothing, right, you just have to chuck them away.Before, we used to have…
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Ethel Kennedy: Most grief is unnameable
“Most grief is unnameable; it knows no words, no boundaries, no time.” —Ethel Kennedy.
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Jerry Seinfeld: Focus
“All this hand wringing worry and concern over how are people viewing me — someone said something bad about me, and you get so upset about it — is wasted time and energy. Your only focus should be on getting better at what you’re doing. Focus on what you are doing. Get better at what…
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Lin Yutang: Small men, big shadows
“When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.” —Lin Yutang.
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Estée Lauder: Good luck
“In every life there is a moment—an event or a realization—that changes that life irrevocably. If the change is to be a happy one, one must be able to recognize the moment and seize it without delay. Rose Kennedy once told me that good luck is something you make and bad luck is something you…
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Ratan Tata: Work-life integration
“I don’t believe in work-life balance. I believe in work-life integration. Make your work and life meaningful and fulfilling, and they will complement each other.” —Ratan Tata.
