Quotes
I’ve been collecting quotes and blurbs that I come across for a number of years. Generally I add something here when it makes me think a little bit, makes me laugh, or I just find it to be pleasing turn of phrase. These are roughly here in order of when I came across each one. Generally I do a bit of research on a quote to determine the author before including it here, but there could be some errors.
Disclaimer: the inclusion of a quote here does not imply anything about my opinion of its author.
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. -Marcus Aurelius
Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten. -Cree Indian Proverb
If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do things worth the writing. -Benjamin Franklin
Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister[a] or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor? -James 4:11-12
Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently—they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do. -Steve Jobs
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable -John F. Kennedy
A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live. -Martin Luther King, Jr.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. -Abraham Maslow
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -H.L. Mencken
My mother said to me, ‘If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.’ Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso. -Pablo Picasso
Good artists copy, great artists steal. -Pablo Picasso
The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things. -Rilke
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. -Dr. Seuss
Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple. -Dr. Seuss
Life isn’t about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself. -George Bernard Shaw
…who humbly prays for mercy and relief with the pathetic faith of the deceived and the unteachable. -Mark Twain
Anyone can give up; it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that’s true strength. -Unknown
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. -Ernest Hemingway
It takes great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it. -Oscar Wilde
We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. -Maya Angelou
An adequate religion is always an ultimate optimism which has entertained all the facts that lead to pessimism -Niebuhr
The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’ -Isaac Asimov
A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a shortcut to meet it. -J.R.R. Tolkien
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. -Martin Niemöller
If we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as “lines produced” but as “lines spent”. -Edsger Dijkstra
Nevertheless, she persisted. -Mitch McConnell of Elizabeth Warren
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. -Kant
The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so that they believe they are as clever as he. -Karl Kraus
Trolling, needing an education, bigot, closed-minded, I don’t need to label it, I just know your views are slowly, surely, two steps forward, one step back, painfully, with the suffering and dead to be remembered along the way, being left behind by time and tide. -George Martin (facebook comment)
SOME great economists are Aristotelians, discerning the logic of markets from tangible examples around them. Others are Platonists, using their powers of reasoning to grasp ideal economic forms, of which actually existing markets are but flickering shadows. -The Economist, in an obituary of Kenneth Arrows
Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics, I assure you that mine are greater. -Albert Einstein
Silicon Valley favors the bold -Jim McCarthy
“The secret of a happy life is to know when to stop - and then go that bit further.” -Inspector Morse
You’re just going to have to learn the hard way -Deshaun Watson, on NFL teams who pass him up
All new news is old news happening to new people -Malcolm Muggeridge
“There’s math and then everything else is debatable.” -Chris Rock
I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time. Mom -Blaise Pascal, 1656
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. -Isaac Newton
The journalistic caution in me keeps having to write that these could all be coincidences, but the journalistic instinct has learned long ago that coincidence is the albino alligator of political reality: It exists, but is exceedingly rare. -Charles M. Blow
I am neither clever nor especially gifted; I am only very, very curious -Albert Einstein
Sunlight is the best disinfectant -Unknown
Those most suited to lead are the least inclined to do so -Unknown
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. -Calvin Coolidge
I do not know with what weapons WWIII will be fought, but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones. -Albert Einstein
To begin, begin. –William Wadsworthn
In my experience, telling your version of the truth is far more effective than lying -me
America is a nation with the soul of a church -G.K. Chesterton
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -Howard Thurman
You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming. -Pablo Neruda
The great use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it. -William James
Wherever a process of life communicates an eagerness to him who lives it, there the life becomes genuinely significant -William James
Some people meet death with open arms And thank god their time has come Others beg for just one more day Saying there’s much to be done. But if we, before an act, would think of death Of death, of judgement, and of all such things I’m sure we would do our best So that our time comes We may say take me lord, without delay -Cathy Cesnik
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. -Al Barlett
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that we used when we created them. -Albert Einstein
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a NukeChicago procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a NukeCity procedure, to which Chicago could be given as a parameter. -Nathaniel Borenstein
Some people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest. -Judge Frank Easterbrook
This is politics defined in the usual upper-middle-class way: a noisy distraction from the status quo and brunch -Dave Weigel, in a tweet responding to Ivanka Trump saying “I try to stay out of politics”
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: ‘If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.’ It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘no’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. -Steve Jobs
I want to put a ding in the universe. -Steve Jobs
The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. -Steve Jobs
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. -Steve Jobs
Hate has caused a lot of problems in the world, but it has not solved one yet. -Maya Angelou
We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. -Wiesel
There are no atheists in foxholes. -Unknown
A time comes when silence is betrayal -Dr. Martin Luther King
Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right. -Henry Ford
The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing. -Voltaire
Men of science have made abundant mistakes of every kind; their knowledge has improved only because of their gradual abandonment of ancient errors, poor approximations, and premature conclusions. -George Sarton
My main interest.. is the love of truth, whether pleasant or not. Truth is self-sufficient, and there is nothing to which it can subordinated without loss. When truth is made subservient to anything else, however great (say religion), it becomes impure and sordid. -George Sarton
The most malicious kind of hatred is that which is built upon a theological foundation. -George Sarton
A deed happens in a definite place at a definite time, but if it be sufficiently great and pregnant, its virtue radiates everywhere in time and place. -George Sarton
A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, and a little less than his share of the credit. -Arnold H. Glasgow
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. -Albert Einstein
I don’t care that they stole my idea. I care that they don’t have any of their own. -Nikola Tesla
I don’t think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success… such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything. -Nikola Tesla
Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more. -Nikola Tesla
Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality. -Nikola Tesla
With ideas it is like dizzy heights you climb; At first they cause you discomfort and you are anxious to get down, distrustful of your own powers; but soon the remoteness of the turmoil of life and the inspiring influence of the altitude calm your blood; you step gets firm and sure and you begin to look - for dizzier heights. -Nikola Tesla
Scientists today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane. -Nikola Tesla
The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter - for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way. -Nikola Tesla
Art is never finished, only abandoned. -Leonardo Da Vinci
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son -Rudyard Kipling
The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows. -Aristotle
There is scarcely an instance of a man who has made a fortune by speculation and kept it. -Andrew Carnegie
Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful. -Maggie Smith (Good Bones)
To give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. To presume to point a man to the right and ultimate goal — to point with a trembling finger in the RIGHT direction is something only a fool would take upon himself. -Hunter S. Thompson
Lies have long legs: they are ahead of their time. The conversion of all questions of truth into questions of power, a process that truth itself cannot escape if it is not to be annihilated by power, not only suppresses truth as in earlier despotic orders, but has attacked the very heart of the distinction between true and false, which the hirelings of logic were in any case diligently working to abolish. -Theodor W. Adorno (Minima Moralia, 1951)
It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter. -Nathaniel Borenstein
For the timid, change is frightening; for the comfortable, change is threatening; but for the confident, change is opportunity -Nido Qubein
The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards. -Arthur Koestler
As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison. -Nelson Mandela
“When I don’t understand, I have an unbearable itch to know why.” -Robert Heinlein
The most improper job for any man, is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. -Tolkien
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end being governed by your inferiors. -Plato
The best way to predict the future is to create it. -Lincoln
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 Watson
Each problem I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems. -René Descartes
If I do a job in 30 minutes it’s because I spent 10 years learning how to do that in 30 minutes. You owe me for the years, not the minutes. -@davygreenberg
There is no man who cannot do more than he thinks he can. -Henry Ford
The 60s are gone, dope will never be as cheap, sex never as free, rock and roll never as great. -Abbie Hoffman
It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do. -Steve Jobs
Those who don’t change will perish, but so will those who do. -Park Sae-Bo (translation from Korean)
Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years -Bill Gates
The older I get the more I realize how many kinds of smart there are. There are a lot of kinds of smart. There are a lot of kinds of stupid, too. -Jeff Bezos
Trump, she went on, “doesn’t care about any of that. This is a strain of cat that I don’t have the medical credentials to analyze nor the religious credentials to judge.” -Nancy Pelosi (New Yorker article)
If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule? -chigurh, no country for old men
Start now. Optimize later. An imperfect start can always be improved, but obsessing over a perfect plan will never take you anywhere on its own. -James Clear
A dog with two owners dies of hunger. (Idiom, unknown origin)
The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it’s considered to be your style. -Fred Astaire
When you’re the janitor, reasons matter (when things go wrong). Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering.” -Steve Jobs
Don’t walk ten miles into a forest and expect to come out in five. -Harry Once (Kristen bells therapist?)
All great literature is one of two stories: a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. -Leo Tolstoy
If you are the person who says the sky is falling and it falls, you definitely feel like saying ‘Why didn’t people listen to me?’ But there are a lot of people saying the sky is falling about other things, and it doesn’t. -Nathan Wolfe
Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong. -Nietzsche
Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again. -Steve Jobs
Poco a poco se anda lejos (Little by little, one goes far). -Spanish Proverb
Well, why did we do it? Lay waste to a whole continent, and all in the name of a lunatic, hysterical despot. The question will, I imagine, be asked for a thousand years. -Herman Wouk (War and Remembrance)
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. -Lao Tzu
If you think that’s a big failure, we’re working on much bigger failures right now — and I am not kidding,” he said. “Some of them are going to make the Fire Phone look like a tiny little blip. -Jeff Bezos
There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult. -Warren Buffett
Don’t ask a barber whether you need a haircut. -Warren Buffett
Bad technology decisions thrive in environments where good technology decisions are difficult, complex or costly. -Mark Headd (Twitter)
Culture is what people do when you don’t tell them what to do. -Ben Horowitz
Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and may pretend to no office other than to serve and obey them. -David Hume, a treatise on human nature
Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become a study for archaeologists…but it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio. -Lafcadio Hearn, Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn
There is scarcely any great author in European literature, old or new, who has not distinguished himself in his treatment of the supernatural. In English literature, I believe there is no exception from the time of the Anglo-Saxon poets to Shakespeare, and from Shakespeare to our own day. And this introduces us to the consideration of a general and remarkable fact, a fact that I do not remember to have seen in any books, but which is of very great philosophical importance: there is something ghostly in all great art, whether of literature, music, sculpture, or architecture. It touches something within us that relates to infinity -Lafcadio Hearn
Now I, like that Chinese devotee, must confess myself a very ignorant person, and naturally unable to hear the conversation of Ants. But the Fairy of Science sometimes touches my ears and eyes with her wand; and then, for a little time, I am able to hear things inaudible, and to perceive things imperceptible. -Lafcado Hearn, Kwaidan
Hunter S Thompson to Hume Logan: https://fs.blog/2014/05/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/
“The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, ’If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king’.” -Anthony de Mello
“If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else.” “I know. An overwhelming passion for it.” “No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong.” -Anthony de Mello
“People who want a cure, provided they can have it without pain, are like those who favour progress, provided they can have it without change.” -Anthony de Mello, Awareness: A de Mello Spirituality Conference in His Own Words
“When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.” -Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom
“Thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it.” -Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom
“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 will not find God, any more than you will find the soul through careful examination of your body.” -Anthony de Mello, Awakening: Conversations with the Masters
“There was an exhausted woodcutter who kept wasting time and energy chopping wood with a blunt ax because he did not have the time, he said, to stop and sharpen the blade.” -Anthony de Mello, Taking Flight
The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless. -Alan Moore
Be careful what you wish for, not because you’ll get it but because you’ll be turned into the thing that can get it. It’s not a process where you just ask for something and it magically appears, it’s a process that breaks you down and rebuilds you into the right tool for the job. -Jed Mckenna
“Seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth.” -Anthony de Mello
If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. -Montesquieu
In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. -Hunter S. Thompson
And I think that the ultimate way you and I get lucky is if you have some success early in life, you get to find out early it doesn’t mean anything. Which means you get to start early the work of figuring out what does mean something -David Foster Wallace
In my experience, it’s easier for many developers to blame the tools and language rather than admit the dumpster fire of a codebase was entirely their doing and their responsibility. -bg4, hacker news thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26539508
Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies-”God damn it, you’ve got to be kind. -Kurt Vonnegut
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool. -Richard Feynman
Abraham Lincolns Lyceum address: http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/lyceum.htm
The saying, ‘Life is just one damn thing after another,’ is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap. -The Cincinnati Enquirer
If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions. -Albert Einstein
Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems. -Rene Descartes
It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong. -Richard P. Feynman
Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise -Bertrand Russell
You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit and if I can’t figure it out, then I go on to something else, but I don’t have to know an answer, I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is so far as I can tell. It doesn’t frighten me. -Richard Feynman
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. -John Gall, The Systems Bible
We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works. -Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -Pablo Picasso
The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall. -Edward O. Wilson
When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. -R. Buckminster Fuller
Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple. -Woodie Guthrie
Any scientist who can’t explain to an eight-year-old what he is doing is a charlatan. -Kurt Vonnegut