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James Clear: Habits
“Habits do not restrict freedom. They create it. In fact, the people who don’t have their habits handled are often the ones with the least amount of freedom. Without good financial habits, you will always be struggling for the next dollar. Without good health habits, you will always seem to be short on energy. Without…
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Peter Kaufman: Patience
“Patience is a product of confidence and trust.” —Peter Kaufman.
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William Gass: I write because I hate
‘If someone asks me, “Why do you write?” I can reply by pointing out that it is a very dumb question. Nevertheless, there is an answer. I write because I hate. A lot. Hard. And if someone asks me the inevitable next dumb question, “Why do you write the way you do?” I must answer…
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Karen Lamb: A year from now
“A year from now, you will wish you had started today.” — Karen Lamb.
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Pablo Casals: Perfect technique
“The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed at all.” —Pablo Casals.
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Rose Franken: Silly real lovers
“Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly.” —Rose Franken.
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Steve Allen: Absence of prayers
“If you pray for rain long enough, it eventually does fall. If you pray for floodwaters to abate, they eventually do. The same happens in the absence of prayers.” — Steve Allen.
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P J O’Rourke: Smart and stupid people
“Smart people don’t start many bar fights. But stupid people don’t build many hydrogen bombs.” —P J O’Rourke.
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John Cleese: Being right
“The trouble is that most people want to be right. The very best people, however, want to know if they’re right.” — John Cleese.
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Peter Medawar: Respect
“A scientist who wishes to keep his friends and not add to the number of his enemies must not be forever scoffing and criticizing and so earn a reputation for habitual disbelief; but he owes it to his profession not to acquiesce in or appear to condone folly, superstition, or demonstrably unsound belief. The recognition…
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Peter Medawar: Deceit
“A scientist who habitually deceives himself is well on the way toward deceiving others.” —Peter Medawar.
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Richard Feynman: Easiest person to fool
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.” —Richard Feynman.
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Peter Medawar: Groundless
“There is no certain way of telling in advance if the daydreams of a life dedicated to the pursuit of truth will carry a novice through the frustration of seeing experiments fail and of making the dismaying discovery that some of one’s favourite ideas are groundless.” —Peter Medawar.
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Andrea Wulf: Republic of freedom
“Nature itself was a republic of freedom.” —Andrea Wulf.
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Yousuf Karsh: Lonely great men
“I’ve also seen that great men are often lonely. This is understandable, because they have built such high standards for themselves that they often feel alone. But that same loneliness is part of their ability to create.” —-Yousuf Karsh.
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Aesop: Thieves and public office
“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.” —Aesop.
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Muhammad Ali: Rude to the waiter
“I don’t trust anyone who’s nice to me but rude to the waiter. Because they would treat me the same way if I were in that position.” —Muhammad Ali.
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Russell Brand: Inequality
“When I was poor and complained about inequality they said I was bitter; now that I’m rich and I complain about inequality they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m beginning to think they just don’t want to talk about inequality.” —Russell Brand.
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Jeff Weiner: Best products
“Almost without exception, the best products are developed by teams with desire to solve a problem; not a company’s need to fulfil a strategy.” —Jeff Weiner.
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Trent Johnson: Next level of disruption
“If you focus only on diversity numbers, you might get people to join your team, but if they don’t feel included, they’ll leave. I personally believe inclusion is the next level of disruption.”— Trent Johnson.
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Jean-Michel Basquiat: Artistic space, musical time
“Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.” —Jean-Michel Basquiat.
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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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John F Kennedy: Conformity
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” – John F. Kennedy.
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Susanne Langer: New questions, new knowledge
“If we would have new knowledge, we must get us a whole world of new questions.” —Susanne Langer.
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Phil Ochs: World of hunger in vengeance
“And the evil is done in hopes that evil surrenders / But the deeds of the devil are burned too deep in the embers / And a world of hunger in vengeance will always remember.” —Phil Ochs.
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Colleen Hoover: Best outcomes
“Sometimes the hardest decisions a person can make will most likely lead to the best outcomes.” — Colleen Hoover.
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Vincent Van Gogh: I must still have hope
“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me…
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Bill Bullard: Opinion
“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.” —Bill Bullard.
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Judging
“We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.” —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
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Margaret Mead: Someone to wonder where you are
“One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night.” —Margaret Mead.
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Joyce Wheeler: Leave alone and pause
“Sometimes it’s better to leave something alone, to pause, and that’s very true of programming.” ––Joyce Wheeler.
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Muriel Rukeyser: Made of stories
“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” —Muriel Rukeyser.
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Ellen Jane Willis: Arbitrary
‘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…
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Ross Macdonald: Walls of books
“The walls of books around me, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters.” —Ross Macdonald.
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Gustave Flaubert: Violent and original work
“Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.” —-Gustave Flaubert.
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Rafe Sagarin: Organisms in nature
“Organisms in nature have survived and thrived for three and a half billion years, and they’ve done it without any kind of planning or predicting, or anything that we spend so much of our time doing.” — Rafe Sagarin.
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George Herbert: Lean compromise
“A lean compromise is better than a fat lawsuit.” –– George Herbert.
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Louis Kronenberger: Modest vanity
“Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, in fact, of our modesty.” —Louis Kronenberger.
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Mario Fusco: Old programs
“Programs, like people, get old. We can’t prevent ageing, but we can understand its causes, limit its effects and reverse some of the damage.” —Mario Fusco.
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James Thurber: Two kinds of light
“There are two kinds of light — the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.” —James Thurber.
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Willa Cather: Happiness
“That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.” —Willa Cather.
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Alan Rosenberg: Leverage
“Fair play doesn’t pertain in bargaining. What matters there is leverage.” —Alan Rosenberg.
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Leo Tolstoy: All else is folly
“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.” —Leo Tolstoy.
