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Pico Iyer: Larger picture
“It’s easy to feel as if we’re standing two inches away from a huge canvas that’s noisy and crowded and changing with every microsecond. It’s only by stepping farther back and standing still that we can begin to see what that canvas (which is our life) really means, and to take in the larger picture.”…
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Alexis Ohanian: Stories
“Stories outlive founders, companies, and even sports teams. Build the story right, and the world will keep telling it for you.” —Alexis Ohanian.
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Adam Smith: Attendance
“No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are really worth the attending.” —Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations.
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Malcolm De Chazal: Pure communism
“The sun is pure communism everywhere except in cities, where it’s private property.” —Malcolm De Chazal.
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Saul Bellow: Price tag
“I’ve never turned over a fig leaf yet have a price tag on the other side.” —Saul Bellow.
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Charlie Kirk: Both sides
“Many textbooks fail to present students with both sides of an issue. Students are being pushed toward an education that demonizes free enterprise while advocating top-down government, deficit spending and class warfare.” —Charlie Kirk.
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Robin Givhan: Patriotism and nationalism
“Patriotism is like the love that a parent has for a child; nationalism is akin to believing that one’s child can do no wrong.” —Robin Givhan.
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Nithin Kamath: Curiosity
“Curiosity. I think everyone needs the ability to remain curious. In the world of AI, people who are curious will have an advantage.”— Nithin Kamath, CEO, Zerodha.
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Dennis Ritchie: UNIX
“UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity.” —Dennis Ritchie.
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Cyril Connolly: Strung bow
“In a perfect union the man and woman are like a strung bow. Who is to say whether the string bends the bow, or the bow tightens the string?” —Cyril Connolly.
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Mustafa Suleyman: AI consciousness
“There’s zero evidence of AI consciousness today. But if people just perceive it as conscious, they will believe that perception as reality.”— Mustafa Suleyman, CEO, Microsoft AI.
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Dennis Ritchie: General advice
“At least for the people who send me mail about a new language that they’re designing, the general advice is: do it to learn about how to write a compiler.” —Dennis Ritchie.
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Leo Tolstoy: Simplicity, goodness and truth
“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.” —Leo Tolstoy.
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St. Carlo Acutis: Holiness
“Holiness is not a process of adding anything, but of subtraction. It is a removal of myself to make space for God.” —St. Carlo Acutis.
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Zach Mercurio: Opposite of loneliness
“The opposite of loneliness isn’t being surrounded by more people. It’s feeling that you matter to the people who are already there.” —Zach Mercurio.
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Claude Pepper: Next generation
“If more politicians in this country were thinking about the next generation instead of the next election, it might be better for the United States and the world.” —Claude Pepper.
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John Maynard Keynes: When the facts change
“When the facts change, I change my mind. And what do you do, sir?” —John Maynard Keynes.
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Tom Lehrer: Shut up!
“Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate with the people they love; Husbands and wives who can’t communicate, children who can’t communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in these books and plays and…
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Fyodor Dostoevsky: Compulsive gamblers
“Compulsive gamblers do not fail to moderate their bets out of lack of will power… the whole point of this kind of gambling is to maximise risk… for its own sake.” —Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Gambler.
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Giorgio Armani: Well-maintained physique
“A well-maintained physique is a great business card. Ideas and intelligence are what matters, but if you have a well-maintained physique, it’s better.” —Giorgio Armani.
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C S Lewis: Hardships
“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” —C. S. Lewis.
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Ivan Illich: Two kinds of slaves
“In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.” —Ivan Illich.
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Mahavir: Entwined
“One who neglects or disregards the existence of earth, air, fire, water and vegetation disregards his own existence which is entwined with them.” —Mahavir.
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Sarah Orne Jewett: Harbor
“A harbor, even if it is a little harbor, is a good thing, since adventurers come into it as well as go out, and the life in it grows strong, because it takes something from the world, and has something to give in return.” —Sarah Orne Jewett.
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Minna Antrim: River of contempt
“Between flattery and admiration there often flows a river of contempt.”—Minna Antrim.
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Paul Bourget: Complicity
“There are conditions of blindness so voluntary that they become complicity.” —Paul Bourget.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson: Training in empathy
“Humans aren’t as good as we should be in our capacity to empathise with feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on Earth. So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy.” —Neil deGrasse Tyson.
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Sarah Kendzior: Ideologues
“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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Chinese Proverb: Be not afraid
“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.” —Chinese Proverb.
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Marcus Aurelius: Ask yourself
“Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticise?” —Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.
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Winston Churchill: Bucket handle
“For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” —Winston Churchill.
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Cleon: Fixed bad laws
“We should realize that a city is better off with bad laws, so long as they remain fixed, then with good laws that are constantly being altered, that the lack of learning combined with sound common sense is more helpful than the kind of cleverness that gets out of hand, and that as a general rule, states…
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: What business is it of yours?
“If I love you, what business is it of yours?” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
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Pedro Domingos: AI breakthroughs
“These days there are so many claims of AI breakthroughs that a real one would risk going unnoticed.” —Pedro Domingos.
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Ensign Flandry: What more dare we ask for?
“We’re mortal — which is to say, we’re ignorant, stupid, and sinful — but those are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for?” —Ensign Flandry.
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Adam Smith: Bargains
“Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this — no dog exchanges bones with another.” —Adam Smith.
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Terry Pratchett: Psychic equivalent
“It is well known that *things* from undesirable universes are always seeking an entrance into this one, which is the psychic equivalent of handy for the buses and closer to the shops.” —Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic.
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Plato: Bad people
“Bad people will find a way around the laws.” —Plato.
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Willard Scott: Weather
“Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody ever seems to do anything about it.” —Willard Scott.
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Jiddu Krishnamurti: Freedom
“Freedom is entirely different from revolt. There is no such thing as doing right or wrong when there is freedom. You are free and from that centre you act. And hence there is no fear… a mind that has no fear is capable of great love.” —Jiddu Krishnamurti.
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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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Jonathan Walpole: Biggest issue
“The biggest issue you’ll face in security, and in life, is your own stupidity.” —Jonathan Walpole.
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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 [2004], when tourists grabbed their digital cameras and ran…
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Vikram Sarabhai: Music
“He who can listen to the music in the midst of noise can achieve great things.” —Vikram Sarabhai.
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Ogden Nash: Kempt
“I dreamt that my hair was kempt. Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it.” —Ogden Nash.
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Edgar Guest: I’d rather see a sermon
“I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day; I’d rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way.” —Edgar Guest.
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Milan Kundera: Dogs
“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring – it was peace.” —Milan Kundera.
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Ovid: Opportunity
“Opportunity is ever worth expecting; let our hood be ever hanging ready. The fish will be in the pool where you least imagine it to be.” —Ovid.
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Gulzar: Walk across the line
“Dreams heed no borders, the eyes need no visas. With eyes shut I walk across the line in time. All the time.” —Gulzar.
