Quotes

These are my favorite quotes. Where quotes are given by fictional characters, the author’s name is used.

ON SElf-Discovery And Inner growth

“You cannot wake a person who is only pretending to be asleep.” - Navajo Proverb

“JUST GET OUT OF THE CAR!” - Scott Alexander

“The loudest alarm is probably false” - Patrick LaVictoire

“If you want to know the truth of who you are, travel until not a person knows your name.” - Rothsfuss

“A man cannot step in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.” - Heraclitus

ON THE POWER OF PERCEPTION AND PERSPECTIVE

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment" - Aurelius

“It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding.” - Upton Sinclair

“Refusing to administer a shock of 225 volts would be an implicit admission that they had been wrong to deliver 210.” - from the Milgram Experiment

“Perception shapes reality. Your perception shapes your reality, and, through that, the reality of others.”

“What are you going to do, shoot me?” - man who was shot

ON PERSEVERANCE ANd DETERMINATION
ON WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE

“Do not accept what you hear by report. Be lamps unto yourselves.” - Gautama

“All models are wrong, but some models are useful.” - George Box

ON SUCCESS AND ACHIEVEMENT

"These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb." - Najwa Zebian

ON HUMILITY AND SELF-AWARENESS

“If anyone can refute me — show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective — I’ll gladly change. It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.” - Aurelius

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?" - part of a Koan

“Travel and tell no one. Live a true love story and tell no one.” - Kahlil Gibran

“Archery is like how a noble man should behave; when you miss the target, you go back to yourself to find the reason. Not blaming the target.” - chinese proverb

ON LIVING IN THE PRESENT MOMENT

Even in Kyoto,
hearing the cuckoo’s cry —
I long for Kyoto.
- Bashō
(this haiku is about the contradiction of nostalgia. In his youth in Kyoto, the poet often heard cuckoo’s cries. Now, when he hears a cuckoo’s cry, he longs to be back in Kyoto - even when he’s in Kyoto!)

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF TAKING ACTION

“I know one thing for certain; it’s much harder to tell whether you are lost than whether you were lost, for, on many occasions, where you’re going is exactly where you are. On the other hand you often find that where you’ve been is not at all where you should’ve gone, and, since it’s much more difficult to find your way back from someplace you’ve never left, I suggest you go there immediately and then decide.” - Norton Juster

“A ship in the harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are for.”

ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH AND UNDERSTANDING

“We question all our beliefs except for the ones that we really believe, and those we never think to question.” - Orson Scott Card

“It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” - Mark Twain

ON THE VALUE OF HARD WORK AND DEDICATION
ON THE JOY OF LIVING
ON RELATIONSHIPS
ON THE POWER OF THE MIND
ON THE BEAUTY OF NATURE
ON THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS

ON SUCCESS

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children… to leave the world a better place… to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” - Emerson

“You are much mistaken, my friend, if you think that any man worth his salt cares about the risk of death and doesn’t concentrate on this alone: whether he’s done right or wrong, and his behavior a good man’s or a bad one’s.” - Unknown

“I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.” - Groucho Marx

“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

“This life you live… you will have to live innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh will have to return to you, all in the same sequence. Will you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would answer: "Never have I heard anything more divine.”” - Neitzsche via You Awaken in a Room

“In great attempts it is glorious even to fail” - Cassius Longinus (leader of the plot to assassinate Julius Caesar)

“Even the weatherman gets caught in the rain sometimes” - Lake Street Dive

“Constraint is the mother of innovation”

On calm

“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.” - Aurelius

“Awaken; return to yourself.
Now, no longer asleep;
knowing that they were only dreams;
clear-headed again —
treat everything around you as a dream.” - Aurelius

“Panic is contagious but so is calm.”

On ROMANCE AnD VULNERABILITY

“The irony is that when we’re standing across from someone who is hidden or shielded by masks and armor, we feel frustrated and disconnected. That’s the paradox here: Vulnerability is the last thing I want you to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you.” - Brene Brown

“Replacing human romance with anything simpler or easier would decrease the peak complexity of the human species.” - Yudkowsky

“Do not depend on other people for your happiness. Don’t look for someone to complete you; Complete yourself.”

“There was once a wise and wealthy man. Whenever a potential new friend or business partner would visit his home, he would invite them for a private drink in his parlor, where a $100 bill was left conspicuously on a side table. The wealthy man would then find an excuse to leave the room, leaving the visitor alone. He would return a few minutes later. If the money was gone, the wealthy man considered $100 a cheap price to find out that the visitor would be a bad friend.” - (I’m not sure where I heard this and I can’t find it)

“It is better to show somebody a genuine version of yourself and have them dislike you, than to show a fake version of yourself and have them like you. In both cases they don’t like the real you, but only in one do you have integrity.” - Micah

“When you are deciding how to answer a question, and considering between many possible answers that are all “true”, you should answer in the way that feels truest to your real self. If it takes longer to give the true answer, then take the time. Do not give a short answer that is misleading. Do not intentionally minimize your accomplishments to fit in, or spin them to lionize yourself.” - Micah

“You must consciously create conditions in which people are willing to give you an accurate picture of their lives. You have to put down your gun before they’ll put down theirs.”- Micah

“The world breaks everyone, and afterwards many are strong at the broken places. Those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave impartially.” - Hemingway

“And it’s paid off because now I live with Houndy, who is a lobsterman, and the thing about hi is that he could talk to me for four days straight without stopping about lobsters and their shells and the different tides and the sky, and nothing he ever said would bore me because the language that Houndy is really speaking in is all about love and life and death and appreciation”. - M. Dawson

"Not only did I love her, but I could tell the universe loved her, too. More than others. She was different. I would’ve been a fool not to notice.”

"Stop breaking your own heart by exaggerating your place in other people's lives"

ON ACTION

“God created the Earth, but the Dutch created the Netherlands.” - Dutch proverb

“Decisions are made by the people who show up.” - Sorkin

“Know that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world, because it’s the only thing that ever has.” - Sorkin

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” - Truman

“You should always expect to feel like you did more than your fair share.” - Naugle

“Never make two mistakes at the same time.” - Mom

“The smallest deed is better than the grandest intention.” - Roger Baldwin

“The most important step a man can take, is the next one.” - Sanderson

“We who hold the love and the secret of joy, to what punishment have we been sentenced for it, and by whom?” - Rand (I’m happy to discuss Rand with anyone - I think most opinions on her work are valid but I won’t talk about it with anyone who hasn’t read it)

“A good society is one in which old men plant trees in whose shade they will never sit.”

“I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related to through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.”

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

On LEADERSHIP

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, bur rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“If your boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, then give him loyalty.” USAF Col. John Boyd

“It’s a camel! It’s a camel: it’s a horse, designed by committee!” - Sorkin

“A giraffe doesn’t waste time quarreling with rabbits over what the top of a tree looks like." - Matshona Dhliwayo
[addition: A giraffe also shouldn’t argue with a rabbit about what conditions are like on the ground]

“In a crisis don’t hide behind anything or anybody. They’re going to find you anyway.”

“A weak king must be what other kings have been; a strong king is himself, and from then on the meaning of the name of King is changed.” - O.S. Card

ON POLITICS

“This is all strongly reminiscent of the heyday of communism and socialism, when the bourgeoisie were hated from both ends; by the proles, because they had all the money, and by the intelligentsia, because of their tendency to spend it on lawn ornaments.” - Stephenson

“One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that. No ordinary man could be such a fool.” - Unknown

“Every piece of social commentary is most likely to go to the people who need it least.” - Unknown

“Americans hold that every problem has a solution. The Chinese hold that every solution is an admissions ticket to a new set of problems.” - Kissinger

“What’s the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars? It’s about a billion dollars.”

“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”- unknown, likely derived from Proverbs 17:28.

On VICTORY

“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.” - O.S. Card

“Conquer the angry one by not getting angry; conquer the wicked by goodness; conquer the stingy by generosity, and the liar by speaking the truth.” - Gautama

ON RELIGION

“To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.” - Weir

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.” - Weir

“The bones are hard and by themselves seem dead and stony, but by rooting into and pulling themselves against the skeleton, the rest of the body carries out all of the motions of life.”

“There will be some who will understand.” - Siddhartha

JUST WELL WRITTEN

“RESULTS ARE NOT GUARANTEED, BUT IF NOT PERFECTLY SATISFIED, YOUR WASTED TIME WILL BE REFUNDED.” - Juster

“Whether or not you find your way, you’re bound to find some way. If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago. I imagine by now it’s quite rusty.” - Juster

“Go out in the early days of winter, after the first cold snap of the season. Find a pool of water with a sheet of ice across the top, still fresh and new and clear as glass. Near the shore the ice will hold you. Slide out farther. Farther. Eventually you’ll find the place where the surface just barely bears your weight. There you will feel what I felt. The ice splinters under your feet. Look down and you can see the white cracks darting through the ice like mad, elaborate spiderwebs. It is perfectly silent, but you can feel the sudden sharp vibrations through the bottoms of your feet.” - Rothsfuss

Some day we will build a thinking machine. It will be a truly intelligent machine. One that can see and hear and speak. A machine that will be proud of us. — A Thinking Machines brochure

“He’s all hat and no ranch!” - Sorkin

“[He’s] a sheep in sheep’s clothing!” - Churchill

“I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care.” - popular headstone engraving in the Roman empire

PERSONALLY SIGNIFICANT

“If you want someone to do your statistics homework, sir, I’m not your guy. But if you need someone to write some code, I can do that.”

"Why do you not have a stick?”

“Yeah… I’ll take the fall for you.”

“Software is magic and you are a wizard.”

“That’s why they pay me the medium bucks.”

“You know, there’s a piece of art I’m working on that’s not quite finished yet. It has a big hole in it. [How you decide to answer] is going to have a huge influence over exactly how it’s completed.”