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Useful Quotes

There's no harm in asking.
Chinese fortune cookie
Things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out.
Unknown
Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Unknown
A beardless jew looks as ugly as a bearded jewess.
Unknown
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Albert Einstein
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
Galileo Galilei
A great teacher is not simply one who imparts knowledge to his students, but one who awakens their interest in it and makes them eager to pursue it for themselves. He is a spark plug, not a fuel pipe. The reason colleges exist is to bring students into contact with contagious personalities, for otherwise they might as well be correspondance schools.
Edmund Ware Sinnott, The biology of the spirit, Viking Press, 1955, p.99
Time exists solely to prevent all things from happening at once.
Chinese fortune cookie
It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.
Voltaire
We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.
Voltaire
God created sex. Priests created marriage.
Voltaire
Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast or of one thing too exclusively.
Voltaire
Faith: not wanting to know what is true.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
The thousand mysteries around us would not trouble but interest us, if only we had cheerful, healthy hearts.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
The best is the enemy of the good.
Voltaire
Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or never inventors.
Voltaire
Others cannot figure out what you want - speak up.
Chinese fortune cookie
A free soul ought not to pursue any study slavishly, for nothing that is learned under compulsion stays with the mind.
Socrates, in Plato's Republic
He who provides for this life but takes no care for eternity, is wise for a moment but a fool forever.
Unknown
Never complain, never explain.
Unknown
Science is better paid than at any time in the past. The results of this pay have been to attract into science many of those for whom the pay is the first consideration, and who scorn to sacrifice immediate profit for the freedom of development of their own concept. Moreover, this inner development, important and indispensable as it may be to the world of science in the future, generally does not have the tendency to put a single cent into the pockets of their employers.
Norbert Wiener, I am a Mathematician, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1956
I am particularly lucky that it has not been necessary for me to remain for any considerable period a cog in a modern scientific factory, doing what I was told, accepting the problems given me by me superiors, and holding my own brain only in commendam as a medieval vassal held his field. If I had been born into this latter day feudal system of the intellect, it is my opinion that I would have amounted to little. From the bottom of my heart I pity the present generation of scientists, many of whom, whether they wish it or not, are doomed by the "spirit of the age" to be intellectual lackeys and clock punchers.
Norbert Wiener, I am a Mathematician, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1956
If it is to be, it is up to me.
Unknown
Refuse to be a sidekick.
Unknown
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I cannot accept, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill today because they pissed me off. And also, help me to be careful of the toes I step on today as they may be connected to the ass that I may have to kiss tomorrow. Help me to always give 100% at work - 12% on Monday, 23% on Tuesday, 40% on Wednesday, 20% on Thursday, 5% on Friday. And help me to remember - When I'm having a really bad day, and it seems that people are trying to piss me off, that it takes 42 muscles to frown and only 4 to extend my middle finger and tell them to bite me! Amen.
A Prayer for the Stressed, Author Unknown
We all suffer from the disease of immortality. Those who do not make it to a monument on a square, want to have at least a street named after them - and similar guarantees of eternal memory. We want, if not an entire obituary column in a newspaper, then at least a mentioning as one who "lived life to the fullest and who always gave his all." But a child is not a lottery ticked with a chance to win a bust in a theater foyer or a portrait in the townhall. Wines and cigarettes, but not human beings, need to be popular.
Janusz Korczak, How to Love a Child
Life is a succession of moments. To live each is to succeed.
Corita Kent
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Don’t be so humble—you are not that great.
Golda Meir
Research is to see what everybody else has seen and to think what nobody else has thought.
Albert Szent-Gyorgi
People will do anything within their power to avoid thinking.
Unknown
It's not the most talented people who survive, but the ones with the most drive.
Norma Kamali
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
Albert Einstein
You cannot really teach anyone anything; all you can do is help them learn on their own.
Unknown
If a man's mind becomes pure, his surroundings will also become pure.
Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)
Mind is indeed the source of bondage and also the source of liberation. To be bound to things of this world: this is bondage. To be free of them: this is liberation.
Maitri Upanishad
We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.
John Naisbitt
The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else.
Martina Navratilova
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good you'll have to ram them down people's throats.
Howard Aiken
Don't be afraid of opposition. Remember, a kite rises against--not with--the wind.
Hamilton Mabie
How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
Ronald Reagan
Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.
Winston Churchill
Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
Winston Churchill
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
Winston Churchill
Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is.
Erich Fromm
You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
Wayne Gretzky
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
Oscar Wilde
Those fighting for free enterprise and free competition do not defend the interests of those rich today. They want a free hand left to unknown men who will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow...
Ludwig von Mises
It is all about re-wiring your brain.
Unknown
Lying makes a problem part of the future; truth makes a problem part of the past.
Rick Pitino
The squeaky wheel may get the most oil, but it is also the first to be replaced.
Marilyn Vos Savant
There are two ways to study butterflies: chase them with nets then inspect their dead bodies, or sit quietly in the garden and watch them dance among the flowers.
Nongnuch Bassham
Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects.
Will Rogers
It's great to be great, but its greater to be human.
Will Rogers
Never chase a lie. Let it alone, and it will run itself to death.
Lyman Beecher
Little things affect little minds.
Benjamin Disraeli
The greatest right in the world is the right to be wrong.
Harry Weinberger
Nothing is a snap.
Marc C. Hochberg
Living well is the best revenge.
George Herbert
Modern man thinks he loses something - time - when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains - except kill it.
Erich Fromm
It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
H.L. Mencken
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
H.L. Mencken
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
H.L. Mencken
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
H.L. Mencken
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
H.L. Mencken
Living well is the best revenge.
George Herbert
The strictest justice is sometimes the greatest injustice.
Terrence
Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.
Charles Peguy
We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see.
Charles Peguy
Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.
Charles Peguy
The honest man must be a perpetual renegade, the life of an honest man a perpetual infidelity. For the man who wishes to remain faithful must take himself perpetually unfaithful to all the continual, successive, indefatigable, renascent errors.
Charles Peguy
Love is rarer than genius itself. And friendship is rarer than love.
Charles Peguy
If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one.
John Galsworthy
What's the use of running when you are not on the right road?
Unknown
Strategic planning is worthless - unless there is first a strategic vision.
John Naisbitt
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching, but also without attempting to play God.
Henry Kissinger
Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
Judy Garland
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. ... The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Theodore Roosevelt
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
Marilyn vos Savant
Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
Thomas Jefferson
If you are losing your leisure, look out! You are losing your soul.
Logan Pearsall Smith
According to legend, a beginning student of geometry asked Euclid, "What shall I get by learning these things?" Euclid called his slave, saying, "Give him a coin, since he must make gain out of what he learns." To this day, this attitude toward application persists among many pure mathematicians - they study mathematics for its own sake, for its intrinsic beauty and elegance. Surprisingly enough ... pure mathematics often turns out to have applications never dreamt of by its creators ... Moreover, those parts of mathematics that have not been applied are also valuable ... as aesthetic works ... or as contributions to the expansion of human consciousness and understanding.
Marvin Jay Greenberg, in "Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometries," 2nd edition, W.H. Freeman and Co., New York, 1973, pp. 7-8
If the only prayer you say in your life is "thank you," that would suffice.
Meister Eckhart
A problem is something you have hopes of changing. Anything else is a fact of life.
S.R. Smith
Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.
Ogden Nash
The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and an almost fanatical love of justice ... these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my lucky stars that I belong to it.
Albert Einstein
Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.
Howard W. Newton
It is much safer to obey than to rule.
Thomas Kempis
So long as authority inspires awe, confusion and absurdity enhance conservative tendencies in society. Firstly, because clear and logical thinking leads to a cumulation of knowledge (of which the progress of the natural sciences provides the best example) and the advance of knowledge sooner or later undermines the traditional order. Confused thinking, on the other hand, leads nowhere in particular and can be indulged indefinitely without producing any impact upon the world.
Stanislav Andreski
Science is at no moment quite right, but it is seldom quite wrong, and has, as a rule, a better chance of being right than the theories of the unscientific. It is, therefore, rational to accept it hypothetically.
Bertrand Russell
Above all, try something.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dare to be naive.
R. Buckminster Fuller
As soon as you bend over, people think you like to work in a bent-over position.
Peter Block
Easy to criticize. More difficult to be correct.
Charlie Chan
To make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
T.S. Eliot
Fight! Be somebody! If you have lost confidence in yourself, make believe you are somebody else, somebody that’s got brains, and act like him.
Sol Hess
When a man sits down to think, he is immediately asked if he has a headache.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We become that which we tolerate.
Nan DeMars
Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.
H. Jackson Brown
Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
Bertrand Russell
A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.
Robert A. Heinlein
In jealousy there is more of self-love than love.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld
My wife's jealousy is getting ridiculous. The other day she looked at my calendar and wanted to know who May was.
Havelock Ellis
The jealous are possessed by a mad devil and a dull spirit at the same time.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
Jealousy, the jaundice of the soul.
John Dryden
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies; Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you've got anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway.
Mother Teresa
New technologies should be applied very cautiously to the traditional areas. For example, one can substitute toilet paper with a computer, however, wiping your bottom with a computer is probably not the best idea. Some traditional areas should remain unchanged - no matter what new technologies come and go. This relates particularly to education. All students must memorize the multiplication facts, no matter how powerful their calculators are.
Faina Atamas
Rest not! Life is sweeping by; go and do before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.
Johann Goethe
Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.
Buddha
One should act in consonance with the way of Heaven and Earth, enduring and eternal, the superior man perseveres long in his course, adapts to the times, but remains firm in his direction and correct in his goals.
I Ching
Pain and suffering are inevitable, but misery is optional.
Unknown
Change is inevitable. Struggle is an option.
Unknown
You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.
Abraham Maslow
A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
Abraham Maslow
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
Abraham Maslow
Only the flexibly creative person can really manage the future, only the one who can face novelty with confidence and without fear.
Abraham Maslow
I have learned the novice can often see things that the expert overlooks. All that is necessary is not to be afraid of making mistakes, or of appearing naive.
Abraham Maslow
If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.
Abraham Maslow
I'm not a good shot, but I shoot often.
Theodore Roosevelt
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Theodore Roosevelt
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.
Theodore Roosevelt
When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.
Theodore Roosevelt
Don't hit at all if it is honorable possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft!
Theodore Roosevelt
Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
Unknown
Do what you can with what you have where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt
It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic, is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.
Theodore Roosevelt
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
Theodore Roosevelt
Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.
Theodore Roosevelt
If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness.
Theodore Roosevelt
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
Winston Churchill
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
Winston Churchill
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Winston Churchill
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
Winston Churchill
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
Winston Churchill
When you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
Winston Churchill
Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Half effort does not produce half results, it produces no results. Work, continuous work and hard work, it the only way to accomplish results that last.
Hamilton Holt
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
Leo Tolstoy
Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible.
Maurits Cornelis Escher
Wisdom comes by disillusionment.
George Santayana
A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man, and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.
Helen Rowland
True, but irrelevant.
Barbara White
Do not ask for what you cannot take.
Unknown
Do not trouble trouble, until trouble troubles you.
Unknown
  • Associate only with the best - better than you at whatever it is; the greater the disparity, the more valuable the association.
  • Select mentors carefully and be absolutely open with them.
  • Listen. Shut up and listen.
  • Observe. Don't watch. Observe.
  • Speak and write the truth. Or don't speak and write.
  • Make no enemies before their time, but know them for whom they are. Eschew your enemies; pay attention to what you're doing. Some of our most disagreeable first contacts have grown into meaningful, purposeful relationships. And some of our warmest introductions have turned to bitter dust.
  • Don't beg, whine, victimize, bitch, slavishly or selfishly grasp, act in desperation, exceed negatively, disparage or otherwise give up on your passion.
  • Look forward, not backward. Ask of yourself how whatever it is you're up to is expected to get you better at what you do.
  • Be acutely, currently aware of the technologies of your work, and experience the best and newest of them. If you're really good at what you do, you'll reach a point where there are real, physical limits to your days and the strength in your sinews, and the only way to achieve more or achieve it better is to be more productive. Technology is a tireless engine of individual productivity.
  • When you're ready, teach your craft to others. This is best done personally. You don't need a podium or tenure to perform; if you get really good at what you do at this or that, folks who give a damn will seek you out. Teach with both honor and humility. And answer the question you're asked. You'll be continually surprised at how much you don't know about what you know when keenly inquiring minds start inquiring.
  • Take courageous, considered risks; do not take brave, foolish risks. You will be known for your successes and your failures. Failing at courageous, considered risks is OK. Failing at brave, foolish risks is not OK.
  • Constantly be careful to define and be keenly aware of your competition.
  • Be prepared to be lucky. We sometimes refer to this precept as knowing which train to board. In this metaphor, lucky trains don't stop at one's station very often in a lifetime.
  • Really competent people easily share their competence, though they may not have the time in their lives to share it all or say it twice. So listen hard.
  • The lowest bid may not be the best bid. It's just the cheapest.
  • Truth sets both of us free.

    You want it really cheap and easy and right away? You want it somewhere else.

    The Autocad Granddad (quoted with permission from www.beforethearchitect.com)

    There is never a raised voice or an argument, there is just a conversation.
    Barbara White
    Look broadly. Think broadly. Act and write specifically, narrow, repetitive, much - do not be afraid to re-iterate your point.
    Unknown
    The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all is the person who argues with him.
    Stanislaw Jerszy Lec
    He who limps still walks.
    Stanislaw Jerszy Lec
    Thoughts, like fleas, jump from man to man. But they don't bite everybody.
    Stanislaw Jerszy Lec
    Murder is a crime. Describing murder is not. Sex is not a crime. Describing sex is.
    Gershon Legman
    Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.
    Madeleine L'Engle
    The Great God Science. It has failed us, because it was never meant to be a god, but only a few true scientists understand that.
    Madeleine L'Engle
    I take no more notice of the wind that comes out of the mouths of critics than of the wind expelled from their backsides.
    Leonardo da Vinci
    Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing.
    Konrad Lorenz
    Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.
    Thomas Henry Huxley
    Any subject may be made repulsive by presenting it bristling with difficulties.
    Silvanus Thompson
    Civilization rests on a set of promises; if the promises are broken too often, the civilization dies, no matter how rich it may be, or how mechanically clever. Hope and faith depend on the promises; if hope and faith go, everything goes.
    Herbert Agar
    Ignorant people are sure of the causes of everything.
    James Thorpe
    Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
    Aldous Huxley
    The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
    Plutarch
    Never stop looking for a better job.
    Unknown
    It is better to be unfaithful than to be faithful without wanting to be.
    Brigitte Bardot
    Variety is the spice of life.
    Unknown
    Live as if everything you do will eventually be known.
    Hugh Prather
    Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.
    Hugh Prather
    Almost any difficulty will move in the face of honesty. When I am honest I never feel stupid. And when I am honest I am automatically humble.
    Hugh Prather
    If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire must be not to write.
    Hugh Prather
    The society based on production is only productive, not creative.
    Albert Camus
    We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
    Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
    Life is a struggle. Before lunch - with hunger, and after lunch - with sleepiness.
    Unknown
    Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.
    Sigmund Freud
    Life is a sexually transmitted disease with 100% lethality.
    Unknown
    Beaten paths are for beaten people and it's not that life is too short it's just that we're dead for such a long time.
    Unknown
    Anyone who doesn't have a mistress is a nincompoop.
    Francis I of France
    Keep trying. Stay humble. Trust your instincts. Most importantly, act. When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
    Yogi Berra
    The fool wonders, the wise man asks.
    Benjamin Disraeli
    I have been told that in order to reach inner peace and eternal happiness I have to resolve to find myself, to be what I am, to realize my authentic self. I am not sure what to do with this advice, because if it is true, I would have to resolve to become a slut.
    Unknown Female Philosopher
    Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
    Bertrand Russell
    I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
    Bertrand Russell
    Sir J. Arthur Thomson says: "Science as science never asks the question Why? That is to say, it never inquires into the meaning, or significance, or purpose of this manifold Being, Becoming, and Having Been." And he continues: "Thus science does not pretend to be a bedrock of truth." "Science," he tells us, "cannot apply its methods to the mystical and spiritual." Professor J. S. Haldane holds that "it is only within ourselves, in our active ideals of truth, right, charity, and beauty, and consequent fellowship with others, that we find the revelation of God." Dr. Malinowski says that "religious revelation is an experience which, as a matter of principle, lies beyond the domain of science."
    Bertrand Russell
    One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community.
    Albert Einstein
    Any action of an individual is meaningful only in a social context, either immediate and direct or remote and indirect, but still social context.
    Some fat guy
    Avoiding unnecessary activities is a sign of a clear mind.
    Some fat guy
    Small choices may have far-going consequences.
    Unknown
    Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.
    Baruch Spinoza
    All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
    Galileo Galilei
    It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away, I'm looking for the truth.' and so it goes away. Puzzling.
    Robert M. Pirsig
    The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
    Oscar Wilde
    Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.
    Winston Churchill
    We often choose a friend as we do a mistress - for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.
    William Hazlitt
    Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease". Disraeli replied, "That all depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
    Benjamin Disraeli
    God made me an atheist. Who are YOU to argue with Him?
    An Unknown Atheist
    If you cannot fix the people, fix the situation.
    Barbara White
    The Boss: Tell me again what the issue is. Dilbert: Do you want the simple but misleading explanation or the one you won't understand? The Boss: Either one is good, I wasn't planning on listening.
    Dilbert by Scott Adams
    There are two paths to follow in life. One is the path of the Dreamer, and the other is the path of the Dream Stealer. Which path are you following through life? If your life is worth living then it's worth living the life of your DREAMS!
    Rod Moore
    Where is the fun of religion if you can't disapprove of other people! There are some people, I suspect, who would feel obscurely cheated if, when they finally arrive in heaven, they found everybody else there as well. Heaven would not be heaven unless those who reached it could peer over the celestial parapets and watch other unfortunates roasting below. We need training in compassion because it does not come to us naturally.
    Karen Armstrong
    Carl Jung once said that a great deal of institutional religion seems designed to prevent the faithful from having a spiritual experience.
    Karen Armstrong
    Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new decalogue, not intended to replace the old one but only to supplement it. The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:
    1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
    2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
    3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
    4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
    5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
    6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
    7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
    8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
    9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
    10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
    Bertrand Russell
    All great truths begin as blasphemies.
    George Bernard Shaw
    The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.
    George Bernard Shaw
    Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
    George Bernard Shaw
    Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
    George Bernard Shaw
    It takes as much effort to be nice and polite as it does to be rude and vulgar.
    Unknown
    Underpromise and overdeliver.
    Business wisdom
    In business, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.
    Chester L. Karrass
    Among the many things my late father, God bless his soul, taught me was don't whine, don't complain, don't fall in a trap and say, well, it's bad luck or good luck.
    Dan Rather
    Never miss a chance to shut up.
    Unknown
    Many of us live perpetually in fire-fighting mode afraid to stop the assembly line long enough to fix chronic problems.
    Roger Erickson
    When you find people digging themselves into a hole, and offer to help, they will ask you to jump in and help them dig faster.
    Anonymous
    A common dilemma in decision-making: rely on evidence or eminence?
    Everyone's problem
    The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
    Oscar Wilde
    Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
    Oscar Wilde
    The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
    Oscar Wilde
    Failing to plan is planning to fail.
    Unknown
    The more human beings proceed by plan the more effectively they may be hit by accident.
    Friedrich Dürrenmatt
    The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
    Jack London
    The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
    Pearl S. Buck
    You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.
    James A. Froude
    If you wait until you are sure, you will never take off the training wheels.
    Unknown
    If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right.
    Henry Ford
    The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary, it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people cruel and bitter.
    W. Somerset Maugham
    There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.
    Napoleon Bonaparte
    If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.
    Napoleon Bonaparte
    Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.
    Andre Gide
    Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
    Andre Gide
    It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.
    Andre Gide
    One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
    Andre Gide
    Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
    Gandhi
    If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
    Albert Einstein
    To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.
    Bertrand Russell
    Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.
    Marie Curie
    I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.
    Robert Louis Stevenson
    What you do not do is as important, if not more important, as what you do do.
    Barbara White
    All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.
    Albert Camus
    It is as important to decide what not to do as what to do.
    Folk wisdom
    Problems are the price we pay for living.
    Some fat guy
    In business, the only rational thing to do is to make a suggestion.
    Some fat guy
    Let spirited, chaotic dreams
    Rule rational, orderly days

    Trusting in fate

    Mark V. Dahl
    One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
    Friedrich Nietzsche
    Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.
    Aesop
    Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
    Arthur Conan Doyle
    Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.
    John F. Kennedy
    The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or to say a new thing in an old way.
    Richard Davis
    No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.
    Honore de Balzac
    As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air--however slight--lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
    Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
    Why compare gray and dark gray instead of comparing black and white?
    Some ugly woman
    Half the truth is often a great lie.
    Benjamin Franklin
    Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.
    John F. Kennedy
    - A bumblebee is faster than a John Deere tractor.
    - Always drink upstream from the herd.
    - An egotist is someone who talks about himself when you want to talk about yourself.
    - Country fences need to be horse high, pig tight, and bull strong.
    - Don't corner something meaner than you.
    - Don't interfere with something that ain't botherin' you none.
    - Don't judge people by their relatives.
    - Don't name a pig you plan to eat.
    - Don't sell your mule to buy a plow.
    - Don't squat with your spurs on.
    - Don't worry about biting off more than you can chew; your mouth is probably a whole lot bigger than you think.
    - Every path has some puddles.
    - Facts do not cease to exist simply because they are ignored.
    - Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.
    - Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
    - If it doesn't seem like it's worth the effort, it probably isn't.
    - If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.
    - If you get to thinking you're a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else's dog around.
    - If you're riding ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there with you.
    - It doesn't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.
    - It doesn't take a very big person to carry a grudge.
    - It's better to be a has-been than a never-was.
    - Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.
    - Letting the cat out of the bag is a whole lot easier than putting it back in.
    - Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.
    - Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.
    - Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.
    - Meanness doesn't happen overnight.
    - Most of the stuff people worry about never happens.
    - Never miss a good chance to shut up.
    - Only cows know why they stampede.
    - Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
    - Sometimes you get and sometimes you get got.
    - The best sermons are lived, not preached
    - The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with watches you shave his face in the mirror every morning.
    - The easiest way to eat crow is while it's still warm. The colder it gets, the harder it is to swallow.
    - The easiest way to find time to do all the things you want to do is to turn off the TV set.
    - When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.
    - Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled.
    - You can't tell how good a man or a watermelon is until they get thumped.
    - You can't unsay a cruel thing.
    - Your life is in the hands of any fool who can make you lose your temper.
    Cowboy truths
    Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
    Edward R. Murrow
    Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.
    Edward R. Murrow
    We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.
    Edward R. Murrow
    Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
    Bernard Shaw
    Every country has the government it deserves.
    Joseph Marie de Maistre
    I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
    Michel de Montaigne
    It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
    Michel de Montaigne
    “It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of activity or methods. It must always relate directly to how life is better for everyone... The aim of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must include plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment.”
    W. Edwards Deming
    If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.
    W. Edwards Deming
    It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.
    W. Edwards Deming
    It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.
    W. Edwards Deming
    Innovation comes from the producer -- not from the customer.
    W. Edwards Deming
    Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.
    Job 28:28
    The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.
    Psalms 111:10
    The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
    Proverbs 1:7
    The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
    Proverbs 9:10
    The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility.
    Proverbs 15:33
    Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
    Bertrand Russell
    Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
    Marie Curie
    People living deeply have no fear of death.
    Anais Nin
    Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.
    Dorothy Thompson
    There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth, the persistent refusal to analyze the causes of happenings.
    Dorothy Thompson
    Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
    Marianne Williamson
    Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson
    Do not be too timid and squeamish about your reactions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson
    I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.
    Rosa Parks
    The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
    Aristotle
    An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.
    Jack Welch
    I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.
    Martha Washington
    People are just about as happy as they have a mind to be.
    Abraham Lincoln
    A lover always thinks of his mistress first and himself second; with a husband it runs the other way.
    Honore de Balzac
    The best people want to interact with other best people. It is always about making a better union.
    Roger Erickson
    If you can't stand to be with your real peers, get out of science.
    James D. Watson
    Everything about modeling concerns time scales and length scales.
    Jonathan Bell
    Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.
    Thomas Jefferson
    Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.
    Thomas Jefferson
    Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.
    Thomas Jefferson
    In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
    Thomas Jefferson
    Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself.
    Thomas Jefferson
    An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.
    Thomas Jefferson
    Health is worth more than learning.
    Thomas Jefferson
    Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.
    Thomas Jefferson
    Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
    Thomas Jefferson
    The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.
    Abraham Lincoln
    Four-fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still.
    Calvin Coolidge
    Trust, but verify.
    Ronald Reagan
    The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
    Franklin D. Roosevelt
    There is nothing more thrilling in this world, I think, than having a child that is yours, and yet is mysteriously a stranger.
    Agatha Christie
    Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
    Henry David Thoreau
    People need love most when they deserve it least.
    Ernest Eberhard
    Ambition is the last refuge of failure.
    Oscar Wilde
    Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
    Proverbs 16:18
    Only those who will risk going too far, can possibly find out how far one can go.
    T.S. Elliot
    An issue that has been controversial for a long time is unlikely to be resolved by repeated exercising of the same approaches that made it controversial in the first place. A new approach, including a new perspective on the issue, is needed for pushing the controversy toward resolution.
    SPA
    It is a comfort to the miserable to have comrades in misfortune, but it is a poor comfort after all.
    Christopher Marlowe
    To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
    Herman Melville
    You can't solve problems with the same mindset that created them.
    Albert Einstein
    The last thing a woman will consent to discover in a man whom she loves, or on whom she simply depends, is want of courage.
    Joseph Conrad
    A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
    Harry Truman
    It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.
    W. Somerset Maugham
    The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt.
    Bertrand Russell
    If a man never contradicts himself, the reason must be that he virtually never says anything at all.
    Miguel de Unamuno
    A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about.
    Miguel de Unamuno
    Life is doubt, and faith without doubt is nothing but death.
    Miguel de Unamuno
    Science is a cemetery of dead ideas.
    Miguel de Unamuno
    Never underestimate the power of a few committed individuals to change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
    Margaret Mead
    Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
    Bertrand Russell
    Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
    George Bernard Shaw
    You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
    George Bernard Shaw
    Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
    Ambrose Bierce
    It does not really matter WHO is right, it is WHAT is right that makes the difference.
    Unknown
    When applying for a job, show respect, but do not view your potential employer as authority. In most cases they are no more qualified than you are.
    SPA
    Exuberance is beauty.
    H.G. Wells
    It is wise to turn circumstances to good account.
    Aesop
    From now on, you will view human bodies as physico-chemical machines, and yourself as mechanics who maintain and repair them.
    Herman V. Troitski - Biochemistry lecture to 2nd-year medical students
    From now on, you will view all human endeavors as process-machines, and yourselves as the process mechanics who maintain and repair them.
    Roger Erickson - On similarites of economies/cultures and biology
    Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.
    Henry Ford
    Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.
    Abraham Lincoln
    All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
    Aristotle
    Do not guess. Measure.
    Unknown
    In any complex system, the highest cost, by far, is the cost of coordination.
    Walter A. Shewhart
    Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    Failure can be divided into those who thought and never did and into those who did and never thought.
    W.A. Nance
    Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
    Winston Churchill
    Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
    Samuel Beckett
    Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better.
    Samuel Beckett
    There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.
    Erich Fromm
    Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
    Theodore Roosevelt
    Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
    Robert F. Kennedy
    It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
    Herman Melville
    Failure is the tuition you pay for success.
    Walter Brunell
    A diamond cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.
    Chinese proverb
    A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner.
    English proverb
    Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.
    Horace
    Data without context is meaningless, so post-docs without markets are useless.
    Business view of academics (RGE)
    Never underestimate the destructive power of a pretentious fool.
    Some fat guy
    Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain -- and most fools do.
    Dale Carnegie
    For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself for he has no desire for that of which he feels no want.
    Plato, Symposium
    Ignorance is not innocence but sin.
    Robert Browning
    Isolation - and trying to be "happy" - is not a sustainable strategy. Only adventure keeps happiness in equilibrium.
    Roger Erickson
    As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
    H.L. Mencken, 1920
    Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
    Thomas Jefferson
    Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.
    Thomas Jefferson
    Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
    Thomas Jefferson
    Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.
    Charles Darwin
    In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
    John Adams
    You can only really be friends with someone when you're really angry at the rest of the world with them.
    Nicholas Atamas
    Exams and interviews only select good performers who know how to mobilize themselves. Exams and interviews do not select those who are smart and knowledgeable, because the smart and knowledgeable are always full of doubt, and therefore do not perform well.
    Herman V. Troitski
    Speak in benefits, not features.
    Salesman's wisdom
    Doubt is not a pleasant state of mind, but certainty is absurd.
    Voltaire
    Only simple ideas can be held by large groups of people. Commonly held ideas are almost always dumbed down until they are practically lies... and often dangerous ones. Once vast numbers of people have come to believe the lie, they adjust their own behavior to bring themselves into sync with it, and thereby change the world itself. The world, then, no longer resembles the one that gave rise to the original insight. Soon, a person's situation is so at odds with the world as it really is that a crisis develops, and he or she must seek a new metaphor for explanation and guidance.
    Bill Bonner
    The trouble with metaphors is that no matter how true they may be when they are fresh and clever, when the multitudes pick them up, they almost immediately become worn out and false. For the whole truth is always complex to the point of being unknowable, even to the world's greatest geniuses.
    Bill Bonner
    There is much more truth in a metaphor than in a fact.
    Norman Mailer
    People of action despise thinking of any sort, and rightly so, because the more they think, the more their actions are beset by doubts and arrière-pensées. The more man thinks, the slower he moves. Thought uncovers the limitations of his plans. Exploring the possibilities, he sees yet more potential outcomes, a greater number of problems... and he increasingly recognizes how little he actually knows. If he keeps thinking long and hard enough, he is practically paralyzed... a person of action no more.
    Bill Bonner
    The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
    Albert Einstein
    There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
    Booker T. Washington
    One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
    Booker T. Washington
    I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
    Booker T. Washington
    He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
    Sir William Drummond
    As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it.
    Dick Cavett
    Even God can not change the past
    A popular misconception
    The past is never dead. It's not even past.
    William Faulkner