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Winston Churchill: Prophesying
“I always avoid prophesying beforehand because it is much better to prophesy after the event has already taken place. ” —Winston Churchill.
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Cash McCall: Wrapped up in playing the game
“I guess I’ve been so wrapped up in playing the game that I never took time enough to figure out where the goal line was — what it meant to win — or even how you won.” —Cash McCall.
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Michael T Fisher & Martin L Abbott: Unprofitable data
“Business schools often spend a great deal of time discussing the concept of unprofitable customers. An unprofitable customer is a customer that costs you more to keep than you make off of them through their relationship life. Ideally, you do not want to service or keep your unprofitable customers assuming that you have correctly identified…
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Bruce Lee: Love
“Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.”—Bruce Lee.
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Nathaniel Howe: Way of the world
“The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones.” —Nathaniel Howe.
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Sun Tzu: Secure victory
“In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory.”—Sun Tzu.
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Dinah Jane: Something magical
“With the right vibes and the right people, it’s easy to create something magical.” – Dinah Jane.
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Sinclair Lewis: Ethics
“… a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you were a High-Class Realtor and if you hadn’t you were a shyster, a piker and a fly-by-night. These virtues awakened Confidence and enabled you to handle Bigger Propositions. But they didn’t imply that you were to be impractical and refuse…
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Niccolò Machiavelli: Prophets
“Hence it comes that all armed prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed prophets have been destroyed.”—Niccolò Machiavelli.
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John Carmack: Strategic company relationships
“At some point, bits have to go into packets and routers need to make decisions on them. Changes at that level is what I want to hear about, not strategic company relationships.” —John Carmack.
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Cynthia Heimel: What we can be like
‘You know what we can be like: See a guy and think he’s cute one minute, the next minute our brains have us married with kids, the following minute we see him having an extramarital affair. By the time someone says “I’d like you to meet Cecil,” we shout, “You’re late again with the child…
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Yogi Berra: If you don’t know where you’re going
“You got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.” —Yogi Berra.
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Groucho Marx: Till the cows come home
“I could dance with you till the cows come home. On second thought, I’d rather dance with the cows till you come home.” —Groucho Marx.
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Greenlandic proverb: Hush a ghost
“If you hush a ghost, it will only grow in size.” —Greenlandic proverb.
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Frank Lloyd Wright: Salvation by imagination
“An idea is salvation by imagination.” —Frank Lloyd Wright.
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J R R Tolkien: Live dragons
“Never laugh at live dragons.”—Bilbo Baggins [J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit”]
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Martin Mull: I’m a man
“In the eyes of my dog, I’m a man.” —Martin Mull.
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Sandra Boynton: Chocolate has its season
“As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.” —Sandra Boynton.
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Walt Kelly: No easy quick way out
“There’s no easy quick way out, we’re gonna have to live through our whole lives, win, lose, or draw.” —Walt Kelly.
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Karl Popper: Only possible theory
“Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.” —Karl Popper.
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Arthur Schopenhauer: Foundation of whole nature
“For, after all, the foundation of our whole nature, and, therefore, of our happiness, is our physique, and the most essential factor in happiness is health, and, next in importance after health, the ability to maintain ourselves in independence and freedom from care.” —Arthur Schopenhauer.
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Samuel Johnson: Health
“Health is so necessary to all the duties, as well as pleasures of life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly.” —Samuel Johnson.
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Thomas Jefferson: No happiness
“Without health there is no happiness. An attention to health, then, should take the place of every other object.” —Thomas Jefferson.
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Anthony de Mello: Analysis
“The genius of a composer is found in the notes of his music; but analyzing the notes will not reveal his genius. The poet’s greatness is contained in his words; yet the study of his words will not disclose his inspiration. God reveals himself in creation; but scrutinize creation as minutely as you wish, you…
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Anthony de Mello: Happiness
“Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture. To acquire happiness you don’t have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already.…
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Maya Angelou: Great achievements require time
“All great achievements require time.” —Maya Angelou.
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Nikki Giovanni: Always something to do
“There is always something to do. There are hungry people to feed, naked people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well. And while I don’t expect you to save the world, I do think it’s not asking too much for you to love those with whom you sleep, share the happiness of those…
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C S Lewis: Little Christ
“Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply that: nothing else.” —C S Lewis.
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William R Inge: Two kinds of fools
‘There are two kinds of fools: One says, “This is old, therefore it is good”; the other says, “This is new, therefore it is better.”‘ —William R. Inge.
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Fred Brooks: Late software project
“Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.” —Fred Brooks.
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Bill Gates: Measuring programming progress
“Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.” —Bill Gates.
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John Maynard Keynes: Assault of thoughts
“Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.” —John Maynard Keynes.
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Robert Fulghum: True love
“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness — and call it love — true love.” —Robert Fulghum.
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Sun Tzu: Clever fighter
“What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.”—Sun Tzu.
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Mickey Mantle: Better care of myself
“If I knew I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” — Mickey Mantle.
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C S Lewis: Why should you be treated like children?
“Theology means ‘the science of God’, and I think any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available. You’re not children: why should you be treated like children?” —C S Lewis.
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C S Lewis: Reading great literature
“But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself…
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Cornel West: Price
“There is a price to pay for speaking the truth. There is a bigger price for living a lie.” —Cornel West.
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Grady Booch: In search of magic
“The amateur software engineer is always in search of magic.” —Grady Booch.
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Marilyn Monroe: Career
“A career is wonderful, but you can’t curl up with it on a cold night.” —Marilyn Monroe.
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C S Lewis: Criticism
“Criticism normally casts a retrospective light on what we have already read. It may sometimes correct an over-emphasis or a neglect in our previous reading and thus improve a future rereading. But it does not often do so for a mature and thoroughgoing reader in respect of a work he has long known. If he…
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C S Lewis: Distrust
“If you already distrust the man you are going to meet, everything he says or does will seem to confirm your suspicions.” —C S Lewis.
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Virgil: Pleasant to remember
“Perhaps one day this too will be pleasant to remember.” —Virgil.
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Benjamin Franklin: Best sermon
“A good Example is the best Sermon.” —Benjamin Franklin.
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Encouragement does more
“Correction does much, but encouragement does more.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
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John Maynard Keynes: Valuation
“A valuation, which is established as the outcome of the mass psychology of a large number of ignorant individuals is liable to change violently as the result of a sudden fluctuation of opinion due to factors which really do not make much difference . . . since there will be no strong roots of conviction…
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C S Lewis: Something better
“The real way of mending a man’s taste is not to denigrate his present favourites but to teach him how to enjoy something better.” —C S Lewis.
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C S Lewis: Confined poetry
“Poetry confines itself more and more to what only poetry can do; but this turns out to be something which not many people want done. Nor, of course, could they receive it if they did. Modern poetry is too difficult for them. It is idle to complain; poetry so pure as this must be difficult.…
