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Abraham Joshua Heschel: All are responsible
“Some are guilty, but all are responsible.” —Abraham Joshua Heschel.
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Alan Perlis: Early bird
“In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.” —Alan Perlis.
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Ronald Coase: Torture the data
“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess.” — Ronald Coase.
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Simone de Beauvoir: Life of others
“One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, and compassion.” —Simone de Beauvoir.
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Howard Marks: Non consensus views
“To achieve superior investment results, you have to hold non consensus views regarding value, and they have to be accurate. That’s not easy. The attractiveness of buying something for less than it’s worth makes eminent sense. So how is one to find bargains in efficient markets? You must bring exceptional analytical ability, insight or foresight.…
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Edward R Tufte: Wrong numbers
“If the statistics are boring, then you’ve got the wrong numbers.” —Edward R. Tufte.
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Baltasar Gracian: When you counsel someone
“When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see.” —Baltasar Gracian.
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Dean Schlicter: Go down deep enough
“Go down deep enough into anything and you will find Mathematics.” —Dean Schlicter.
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Charles Peguy: Accomplice of liars and forgers
“He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers.” —Charles Peguy.
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Bianca Sparacino: Worth fighting for
“When you’re young, you believe that there will be many people with whom you’ll connect with deeply. Later in life, you come to realize that it only happens a few times. A few moments, frozen in genuine beauty, where you look at someone and you know, from a place deep within yourself, that they are…
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Rudyard Kipling: Best of everybody
“I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble.”— Rudyard Kipling.
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Umberto Eco: Fear prophets
“Fear prophets and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.” —Umberto Eco.
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Horace Mann: Same story every day for a year
“If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing it.” — Horace Mann.
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The Buddha: This and that
“This Exists, So that Exists. This is not there, so that is not there. This Ends, So that Ends. This Arises, So that Arises.” —The Buddha.
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Chris Begg: One decision
“We are seeking a level of Mastery in understanding the fundamental truths that enable a business to earn superior returns, with a healthy margin of safety over the longest duration possible. We prefer ‘one decision’ (buy) to ‘three decision’ (buy, sell, reallocate) investments, therefore the duration and sustainability of a business’s advantages are important to…
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Isaac Asimov: Sense of morals
“Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.” —Isaac Asimov.
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Leo Tolstoy: Excuses
“Most men spend more energy coming up with excuses than if they simply found the fix to their problems.” —Leo Tolstoy.
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J D Salinger: Paronoiac in reverse
“I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.” —J.D. Salinger.
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George Marshall: Prevent it
“The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it.” —George Marshall, US Army Chief, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Nobel laureate.
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Richard Wiseman: Make only one resolution
“Make only one resolution; your chances of success are greater when you channel energy into changing just one aspect of your behaviour.” —Richard Wiseman.
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Publius Syrus: Awareness
“Awareness, not age, leads to wisdom.”—Publius Syrus.
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Charles Bukowski: Go all the way
“If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.” —Charles Bukowski.
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Pablo Casals: Why should love stop at the border?
“The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?” —Pablo Casals.
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G K Chesterton: Dragons can be beaten
“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” —G.K. Chesterton.
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Mortimer J Adler: Good books
“In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” —Mortimer J. Adler.
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Alan Cooper: Design a likeable person
“If we want users to like our software, we should design it to behave like a likeable person.” —Alan Cooper.
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Sarah Vowell: Modern mocha
“Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch…
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Bernard Arnault: Long-term
“In business, I think the most important thing is to position yourself for long-term and not be too impatient, which I am by nature, and I have to control myself.” —Bernard Arnault.
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Baba Amte: My ideal in life
“I don’t want to be a great leader; I want to be a man who goes around with a little oil can and when he sees a breakdown, offers his help. To me, the man who does that is greater than any holy man in saffron-colored robes. The mechanic with the oilcan: that is my…
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Howard Marks: Self-doubt
“Investors hold to their convictions as long as they can, but when the economic and psychological pressures become irresistible, they surrender and jump on the bandwagon…. As an overpriced stock goes even higher or an underpriced stock continues to cheapen, it should get easier to do the right thing: sell the former and buy the…
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Paula Scher: Part of the process
“I still make things that are pretty awful. It’s part of the process. You have periods of tremendous productivity and other periods where you’re fallow. The fallow periods are really important because that’s where you’re figuring something it out. You have to work through it in order to discover something new. You need those sorts…
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Tony Hoare: No (obvious) errors
“There are two methods in software design. One is to make the program so simple, there are obviously no errors. The other is to make it so complicated, there are no obvious errors.” —Tony Hoare.
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Heather Henricks: Real hero
“You’re the real hero when you successfully complete a project and everyone still likes and respects each other.” —Heather Henricks.
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Charlie Munger: Good steward
“I watched a man build up a business in southern California, which was a wonderful business. And the time came to sell it — and he devoted his whole life to creating it — he sold it to a known crook who was obviously going to ruin the business just because he could get a…
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Charles de Lint: Weapons of the enemy
“It may sound trite, but using the weapons of the enemy, no matter how good one’s intentions, makes one the enemy.” —Charles de Lint.
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Charlie Munger: I have a defect
“Psychologically, I don’t mind holding a company I like and admire and I trust and know that it will be stronger than now after many years. And if the valuation gets a little silly, I just ignore it. So, I own assets that I would never buy at their current prices but I am quite…
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Rebecca West: If there is a God
“If there is a God, I don’t think He would demand that anyone bow down or stand up to him.” —Rebecca West.
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Jensen Huang: Software is eating the world
“Software is eating the world, but AI is going to eat software.” —Jensen Huang.
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Susanne Langer: New knowledge
“If we would have new knowledge, we must get us a whole world of new questions.” —Susanne Langer.
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Paul O Gaddis: Project manager
“In new and expanding fields like electronics, nucleonics, astronautics, avionics, and cryogenics, a new type of manager is being bred. Although he goes by many titles, the one most generally used is project manager. His role in modern industry deserves more scrutiny than it has received from students of management and professional managers.” —Paul O.…
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Phil Ochs: You must protest
“You must protest / It is your diamond duty / Ah but in such an ugly time / The true protest is beauty.” —Phil Ochs.
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Charlie Munger: Fixing the unfixable
“We were very lucky early. The habit of buying horrible businesses that were really cheap, gave us a lot of experience trying to fix unfixable businesses as they headed downward toward doom. That early experience was so horrible – fixing the unfixable – that we were very good at avoiding it thereafter. So I would…
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Steve Biko: Mind of the oppressed
“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” —Steve Biko.
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Charlie Munger: Outliers
“The records of people and companies that are outliers are always a mix of a reasonable amount of intelligence, hard work and a lot of luck.” —Charlie Munger.
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Charlie Munger: Four pounces
“I have been very well located in life. But with minor exceptions, what do I have relative to investments in life? I’ve got Costco stock, Berkshire stock, Li Lu’s China fund and Avi’s apartments. So I have four investments, basically, after 60 years or something — by the way, I feel perfectly adequately diversified. Nobody…
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Thomas Huxley: Little knowledge
“If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?” — Thomas Huxley, On Elementary Instruction in Physiology.
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Edna O’Brien: Carrying a fetus
“Writing is like carrying a fetus.” —Edna O’Brien.
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Franklin P Jones: Being punctual
“The trouble with being punctual is that nobody’s there to appreciate it.” —Franklin P. Jones.
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Ellen Jane Willis: Moral complexity
‘In its original literal sense, “moral relativism” is simply moral complexity. That is, anyone who agrees that stealing a loaf of bread to feed one’s children is not the moral equivalent of, say, shoplifting a dress for the fun of it, is a relativist of sorts. But in recent years, conservatives bent on reinstating an…
