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Baltasar Gracián: All excess is a vice
“One of life’s great lessons lies in knowing how to refuse, and it is even more important to refuse yourself, both to business and to others. There are certain inessential activities—moths of precious time—and it is worse to busy yourself with the trivial than to do nothing. To be prudent, it isn’t enough not to meddle in…
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Baltasar Gracián: Helped along by effort
“Good fortune has its rules, and to the wise not everything depends upon chance. Fortune is helped along by effort.” —Baltasar Gracián.
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Baltasar Gracián: Checkmate his will
‘Find each person’s “handle,” his weak point. The art of moving people’s wills involves more skill than determination. You must know how to get inside the other person. Each will has its own special object of delight; they vary according to taste. Everyone idolizes something. Some want to be well thought of, others idolize profit,…
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Affection never was wasted
“Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted.” —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
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Baltasar Gracián: Perfection belongs to only a few
“Don’t think highly of the person who never opposes you. It doesn’t show that he loves you, it shows he loves himself. Don’t be fooled by flattery: don’t reward it, condemn it. Consider it an honor to be criticized, especially by those who speak ill of good people. You should be pained when your things…
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Baltasar Gracián: Helped along by effort
“Good fortune has its rules, and to the wise not everything depends upon chance. Fortune is helped along by effort.” —Baltasar Gracián.
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Baltasar Gracián: Don’t raise other people’s expectations
“When you start something, don’t raise other people’s expectations. What is highly praised seldom measures up to expectation. Reality never catches up to imagination. It is easy to imagine something is perfect, and difficult to achieve it. Imagination marries desire, and conceives much more than things really are. No matter how excellent something is, it…
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Baltasar Gracián: Application and capacity
“Application and capacity. Eminence requires both. When both are present, eminence outdoes itself. The mediocre people who apply themselves go further than the superior people who don’t. Work makes worth.” —Baltasar Gracián.
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Baltasar Gracián: Never outshine the sun
“Being defeated is hateful, and besting one’s boss is either foolish or fatal. Superiority is always odious, especially to superiors and sovereigns. The common sort of advantages can be cautiously hidden, as beauty is hidden with a touch of artful neglect. Most people do not mind being surpassed in good fortune, character, or temperament, but…
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Baltasar Gracián: Foreseeing danger
“Two kinds of people are good at foreseeing danger: those who have learned at their own expense, and the clever people who learn a great deal at the expense of others.” —Baltasar Gracián.
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Baltasar Gracián: Knowing when to discard
“The best skill at cards is knowing when to discard.” —Baltasar Gracián.
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Baltasar Gracián: More use from enemies
“A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.” —Baltasar Gracián.
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Baltasar Gracián: Lesser evil
“Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.” —Baltasar Gracián.
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Victor Hugo: Compliment
“A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.” —Victor Hugo.
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Samuel Lover: Pay no rent
“Come, live in my heart and pay no rent.” —Samuel Lover.
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W E B Du Bois: Theory of democratic government
“The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.” —- -W.E.B. Du Bois.
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James Russell Lowell: Less than a single lovely action
“Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.” —-James Russell Lowell.
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Horace: Safety
“Your own safety is at stake when your neighbor’s wall is ablaze.” —Horace.
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Sacha Guitry: My ignorance
“The little I know, I owe to my ignorance.” —Sacha Guitry.
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Isaac Asimov: Jokes
“Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.” —-Isaac Asimov.
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Charlie Munger: Human egg
“What I’m saying here is that the human mind is a lot like the human egg, and the human egg has a shut-off device. When one sperm gets in, it shuts down so the next one can’t get in. The human mind has a big tendency of the same sort. And here again, it doesn’t…
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Ryan Holiday: Cognitive rigidity
‘Once the mind has accepted a plausible explanation for something, it becomes a framework for all the information that is perceived after it. We’re drawn, subconsciously, to fit and contort all the subsequent knowledge we receive into our framework, whether it fits or not. Psychologists call this “cognitive rigidity”. The facts that built an original…
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Leo Tolstoy: Perpetual kindness
“Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.”—Leo Tolstoy.
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Thomas J Watson: Costly mistake
“Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?” —Thomas J. Watson.
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Larry Wall: Virtues of a programmer
“Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.” —Larry Wall.
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Henry Adams: Systematic organization of hatreds
“Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” —Henry Adams.
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Jeremy Bentham: Can they suffer?
“The question is not Can they reason?, nor Can they talk?, but Can they suffer?” —Jeremy Bentham.
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Robert Green Ingersoll: Ever gleaming star
“The hands that help are better far / Than lips that pray. / Love is the ever gleaming star / That leads the way, / That shines, not on vague worlds of bliss, / But on a paradise in this.” —Robert Green Ingersoll.
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Margaret Halsey: National characteristics
“The crucial disadvantage of aggression, competitiveness, and skepticism as national characteristics is that these qualities cannot be turned off at five o’clock.” —Margaret Halsey.
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Adlai Stevenson: Unpopular positions
“All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.” —Adlai Stevenson.
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Charles Dickens: Out of countenance
“I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don’t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance, any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.” —Charles Dickens.
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Aaron Hill: Custom
“I see too plainly custom forms us all. Our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed belief, are consequences of our place of birth.” —Aaron Hill.
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Albert Einstein: Man of value
“Try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value.” —Albert Einstein.
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George Goodman: Seductive game
“Nothing works all the time and in all kinds of markets. This is what is wrong with systems and the books that tell you ‘You Can Make a Million Dollars.’ What is important to realize is that the Game is seductive. If playing it has been fun, it may be difficult to stop playing, even…
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Alice Walker: Self-interest
“I find it difficult to feel responsible for the suffering of others. That’s why I find war so hard to bear. It’s the same with animals: I feel the less harm I do, the lighter my heart. I love a light heart. And when I know I’m causing suffering, I feel the heaviness of it.…
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John Ruskin: Endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful
“I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own powers. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly,…
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Warren Buffett: Circle of competence
“If you have doubts about something being into your circle of competence, it isn’t…. If you get to something that your friend is buying, or that everybody says a lot of money’s going to be made, and you’re not sure whether you understand it or not, you don’t. It’s better to be well within the…
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Louis Nizer: Laborer, craftsman, artist
“A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.” —Louis Nizer.
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Bertrand Russell: Old age
“Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One’s thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things…
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Bill Ackman: Success
“I’ve always had this view that success is not a straight line up. If you read the stories of successful people, almost every successful person has had to deal with some degree of hardship, whether that hardship is personal hardship, health-related hardship, or a business issue. I’ve always had the view that how successful you…
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Frederick Buechner: Listen to your life
“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”―…
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Henry Miller: Growing old
“Perhaps the most comforting thing about growing old gracefully is the increasing ability not to take things too seriously. One of the big differences between a genuine sage and a preacher is gayety. When the sage laughs it is a belly laugh; when the preacher laughs, which is all too seldom, it is on the…
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Henry Miller: At his side
“One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless. … I have accepted the fact, hard as it may be, that human beings are inclined to behave in ways that would make animals blush. The ironic, the tragic thing is that we often behave in ignoble fashion from what we consider the highest motives.…
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Robert Sapolsky: Genes
“Genes have plenty to do with behavior. Even more appropriately, all behavioral traits are affected to some degree by genetic variability. They have to be, given that they specify the structure of all the proteins pertinent to every neurotransmitter, hormone, receptor, etc. that there is. And they have plenty to do with individual differences in…
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Gertrude Stein: Careful
“Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.” —Gertrude Stein.
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Mich Ravera: It doesn’t work
“If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter how fast it doesn’t work.” —Mich Ravera.
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James Joyce: Mistakes
“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.” —James Joyce.
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Langston Hughes: All the corners
“When you turn the corner / and you run into yourself / then you know that you have turned / all the corners that are left.” —-Langston Hughes
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Thomas Merton: Savage
“Do not be too quick to assume your enemy is a savage just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy because he thinks you are a savage. Or perhaps he is afraid of you because he feels that you are afraid of him. And perhaps if he believed you are capable of…
