quotes
89 quotes collected over the years — one rotates on the home page.
persistence 15
“Never, never, never give up.”
“You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.”
“Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.”
“This is my quest, to follow that star, No matter how hopeless, no matter how far To fight for the right without question or pause To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause And I know if I'll only be true to this glorious quest That my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I'm laid to my rest And the world will be better for this That one man, scorned and covered with scars Still strove with his last ounce of courage To reach the unreachable star”
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
“When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
“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 alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
“It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.”
“He conquers who endures.”
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocremined”
“It's the job that's never started takes longest to finish.”
“...one person in this group who is chronically underestimated is me.”
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
“If you going to give 99% go home. I dedicated my life to giving 100%. I am never going to stop giving 100% to be good enough for you.”
“Show me someone who sweats every day and spends as much time playing sports as watching them on TV, and I'll show you a young man who is good at life.”
craft 13
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
“Within a couple weeks of learning Lisp I found programming in any other language unbearably constraining.”
“Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot.”
“Lisp is the red pill.”
“Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.”
“Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.”
“A programming language is for thinking about programs, not for expressing programs you've already thought of. It should be a pencil, not a pen.”
“I suppose I should learn Lisp, but it seems so foreign.”
“The best writing is rewriting.”
“You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.”
“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.”
“A startup founder asked me for advice, I told him cut features, cut more features and then simply.”
leadership 11
“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
“We define our destinies as we define our reality. We are the world we live in. Our generation will be known in history for the Internet, thriving sciences, dominance of the world, and other epic achievements. It is up to us, if our generation would be known for its people.”
“Power is a drug of it's own.”
“None of us is as smart as all of us...”
“Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.”
“Let him who would move the world, first move himself.”
“Speculation the means to wealth for the American Masters of enterprise, if you want to be rich that's the first thing you should know”
“Lighting a fire in the hearts of men, nothing can be more challenging.”
wisdom 17
“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
“Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.”
“Ron's first law: All extreme positions are wrong.”
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
“The most vexing aspect of one's own idiocy is that it does not yield readily to introspection.”
“A teacher is never a giver of truth - he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself. A good teacher is merely a catalyst.”
“Following the sun we left the old world.”
“The most Beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”
“Imaginations is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited imagination encircles the world”
“A friend in the market is better than money in the purse”
“Every mishap, mistake, surprise and adventure are gifts because life is nothing if it's not memorable.”
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
“Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.”
“There is no knowledge that is not power.”
“Thoughts become words, words become actions, actions become habits, habits become your character - and you character becomes your destiny...”
“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”
heart 12
“We all have a destiny, we'll fulfill it one step at a time. Are you following your heart? Are you living to your full potential? Think about it!”
“There are no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.”
“If you love something set it free, if it comes back to you it's yours forever, if it doesn't it was never yours to begin with.”
“If you keep some one close to your heart you will never lose them.”
“To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.”
“Treat every stranger as your best friend, because the next person you meet might be.”
“Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.”
“In life you might not get to where you are headed but you'll alway end up where your heart is.”
“There comes a time in your life when you realize who matters, who never did, who won't anymore, and who always will. So don't worry about people from your past, there's a reason why they didn't make it to your future”
“I got Hiro Nakamura. you are a curious boy that is always happy I wanted to be Peter Petrelli. - you are a boy that is always trying to save the world”
“Take this ring, Master, for your labours will be heavy; but it will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself. For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.”
“The ultimate goal for any male is to create...surplus value. ... It means you give more than you get. For men, this means providing more love to others than was given to you—becoming a better son, brother, friend, or employer to people.”
absurdity 21
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.”
“There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.”
“Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.”
“In those days he was wiser than he is now; he used to frequently take my advice.”
“I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”
“C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.”
“That's not just a bad idea. that's bad thinking.”
“Giles: You mean life? Buffy: Yeah. Does it get easy? Giles: What do you want me to say? Buffy: Lie to me. Giles: Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after. Buffy: Liar.”
“Nothing usually works the way it's supposed to unless it's tv”
“The job involves making nuclear weapons out of baby seals.”
“Rowling is the richest woman in Britain -- wealthier than even the queen -- with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine last year at more than $1 billion.”
“God Bless their little cotton socks”
“The best ship is one with out a sail”
“At a bookstore the other day, I saw a book entitled, "Sex for Dummies." Why would someone want to teach dumb people how to reproduce? Aren't there enough of them now???”
“I see no reason why this can't be done.”
“Prophylactic, I don't know what that means in Russian”
“I don't agree with your premise, (then moving on)”
“I don't understand what you just said so I am going to pretend you said nothing”
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.”
“I believe that the power to make money is a gift from God.”
“You shouldn't take life to seriously. You'll never get out alive.”