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Francois Poulain: Great rewards
“We offer great rewards to a man who can tame a tiger, admire those who can train horses, monkeys, and elephants, and praise to the skies the author of some modest work. Yet we neglect women who have spent years and years nourishing and educating children.” —Francois Poulain.
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Richard Feynman: Problem solving
“[Problem solving] has to do with curiosity. It has to do with people wondering, ‘What makes something do something?’ And then to discover, when you try to get answers, that they’re related to each other. The things that make the wind make the waves, and the motion of the water is like the motion of…
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Robert M Pirsig: In doubt
“When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.” —Robert M. Pirsig.
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Jim Kwik: Superpower
“If knowledge is power, learning is our superpower.” —Jim Kwik.
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Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan: Untamed brute
“If he does not fight, it is not because he rejects all fighting as futile, but because he has finished his fights. He has overcome all dissensions between himself and the world and is now at rest… We shall have wars and soldiers so long as the brute in us is untamed.” —Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.
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Mary Renault: Into our very soul
“In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.” —Mary Renault.
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Rebecca Skloot: Immortality
“But I tell you one thing: I don’t want to be immortal if it mean living forever, cause then everybody else just die and get old in front of you while you stay the same, and that’s just sad.” —Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
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Louis Sullivan: Form follows function
“Form follows function.” —Louis Sullivan.
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Stephen Colbert: Cynicism
“Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the furthest thing from it.”— Stephen Colbert.
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Sarah Kendzior: Bad character
“When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatize those who let people die, not those who struggle to live.” —Sarah Kendzior.
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Ellen Ullman: Relationship with error
“To be a programmer is to develop a carefully managed relationship with error. There’s no getting around it. You either make your accommodations with failure, or the work will become intolerable.” —Ellen Ullman.
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Charles Reznikoff: Fingers of your thoughts
“The fingers of your thoughts are molding your face ceaselessly.” —Charles Reznikoff.
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George Abbott: Three act structure
“In the first act, your hero gets stuck in a tree. In the second act, you throw stones at him. In the third act, you get him out of the tree.” —George Abbott.
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Honore de Balzac: Deep abyss
“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss, at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.” —Honore de Balzac.
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John Irving: Constructing a story
“There is no (literary) language in a screenplay. (For me, dialogue doesn’t count as language.) What passes for language in a screenplay is rudimentary, like the directions for assembling a complicated children’s toy. The only aesthetic is to be clear… A screenplay, as a piece of writing, is merely the scaffolding for a building someone…
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Maurice Maeterlinck: Decent moderation of today
“The decent moderation of today will be the least of human things tomorrow. At the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the opinion of good sense and of the good medium was certainly that people ought not to burn too large a number of heretics; extreme and unreasonable opinion obviously demanded that they should burn none…
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William Goldman: Movies are structure
“Movies are structure and that’s all they are. The quality of writing — which is crucial in almost every other form of literature — is not what makes a screenplay work.” —William Goldman.
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Money and time
“Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
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David Mamet: Stories
“Stories happen because somebody wants something and has trouble getting it.” —David Mamet.
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E M Forster: Story versus plot
“The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then the queen died of grief is a plot.” —E M Forster.
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William Least Heat-Moon: You are what you are
“When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” —William Least Heat-Moon.
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Marie Kondo: Truly cherish
“To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose.” —Marie Kondo.
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John Heywood: Beggars should be no choosers
“Beggars should be no choosers.” —John Heywood.
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Martin Amis: Bullets
“Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the gun.” —Martin Amis. Something on your
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Herodotus: Accidents
“Accidents rule men, not men accidents.” —Herodotus.
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Paulo Coelho: Not your opinion
“The world is changed by your example, not your opinion.” —Paulo Coelho.
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Russell Baker: Admission of unfaithfulness
“In an age when the fashion is to be in love with yourself, confessing to be in love with somebody else is an admission of unfaithfulness to one’s beloved.” —Russell Baker.
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Mark Twain: The world owes you nothing
“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.” —Mark Twain.
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Will Cuppy: Cobras
“A few cobras in your home will soon clear it of rats and mice. Of course, you will still have the cobras.” —Will Cuppy.
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Ambrose Bierce: Granted
‘After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, and turned to God and said, “A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon to be created.” “This is true,” He replied. “He will need laws,” said the Demon slyly. “What! You,…
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John Ciardi: Good question
“A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.” —John Ciardi.
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Howard Marks: Reaching for return
“There’s no easy answer for investors faced with skimpy prospective returns and risk premiums. But there is one course of action—one classic mistake—that I most strongly feel is wrong: reaching for return.” —Howard Marks.
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Charles M Schulz: When he doesn’t do anything
“The only time a dog gets complimented is when he doesn’t do anything.” —Charles M Schulz.
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Dorothy Parker: Quicksilver
“Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.” —Dorothy Parker.
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James Dyson: Quantum leap
“There is no such thing as a quantum leap. There is only dogged persistence — and in the end you make it look like a quantum leap.” —James Dyson.
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B R Myers: Dumb animals
“Life cannot be classified in terms of a simple neurological ladder, with human beings at the top; it is more accurate to talk of different forms of intelligence, each with its strengths and weaknesses. This point was well demonstrated in the minutes before last December’s tsunami, when tourists grabbed their digital cameras and ran after…
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Peter Kaufman: Dogged, incremental, constant progress
“The most powerful force that could be potentially harnessed is dogged, incremental, constant progress over a very long time frame.” —Peter Kaufman.
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Chris Begg: PIPER mindset
“The common thread that connects our greatest investments over the longest durations has been one of greater structural organization leading to the ability to scale those businesses whereby greater and greater amounts of work are attracted to that system. Intuition might suggest that the great investments came from being early to a revolutionary product or…
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Charles Munger: Secret parts
“Almost everyone in this room has a higher IQ than Darwin did. Yet Darwin’s body now lies next to Newton’s in Westminster Abbey. Part of his secret was doggedness. Part of his secret was immense objectivity. And part of his secret was an extreme curiosity. What a diligent, objective curiosity will do for you in…
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Bill Garrett: Linux and language
“Linux supports the notion of a command line or a shell for the same reason that only children read books with only pictures in them. Language, be it English or something else, is the only tool flexible enough to accomplish a sufficiently broad range of tasks.” —Bill Garrett.
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Phyllis McGinley: Peace is the measure
“Of one thing I am certain, the body is not the measure of healing, peace is the measure.” —Phyllis McGinley.
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Gulzar: All the time
“Dreams heed no borders, the eyes need no visas. With eyes shut I walk across the line in time. All the time.” —Gulzar.
