Every once a while I run into a quote that speaks to me. Over the years, I managed to collect a decent library of them. So why not to share with the world?
Unfortunatelly, I am not very good at keeping track of the sources and many of the quotes come without attribution. But all of them came from a mind more fertile than mine own. So if you care to know where, just search of it. I am sure you will find the appropriate source.
History became legend. Legend became myth.
When your adversary strengthens one part of their line, they weaken the other. - U. S. Grant
Scarcity requires management.
Once is by chance, twice is a pattern, three times is a habit.
Don’t confuse the scale of impact with the scale of organization.
In America, 100 years is a long time. In Europe, 100 miles is a long distance.
Revenue is ego, profit is concept, and cash is king.
Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do. Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do.
There are few things more dangerous in a man than a lack of doubt.
Unity doesn’t mean uniformity, and identity is compatible with change.
Every thought and act owes its complexion to the acts of your dead and living brothers.
There is nothing personal about facts, but there is about choosing and grouping them.
Every period stands justified in the sight of God, it deserves at least sympathy in the sight of Man.
Reasoning is that which knows that it lacks some necessary knowledge, whereas knowledge isn’t aware that it lacks some necessary reasoning.
Debt is best used to finance a predictable future. Equity is best used to finance an unpredictable future. The more debt you take on, the more confident you need to be in your ability to predict the future.
Based on Adam Smith’s logic of capitalism: egoism is altruism.
Empire that can’t withstand a blow is not really an empire.
Ancient rule: Biology enables, culture forbids.
Forgiveness has a time limit. While it’s never too late for revenge.
The half life of hate is forever.
Anger is a gift.
Shame lies at the core of poverty.
We can compel men not to be bad, but we can’t compel them to do good.
A dream is where wish and fear meet. When the wish and the fear are the same, we call the dream a nightmare.
The first rule of leadership: once you given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on the subject.
The 3B’s for changing user behavior:
- Behavior - which SPECIFIC one do we tackle?
- Barrier - what stands in the user’s way?
- Benefit - how do we reward the user immediately?
Currencies are energy stored with an expiry date. The higher the inflation the closer the expiry date.
Knowledge is having the right answers. Intelligence is asking the right questions. Wisdom is knowing when to ask the right questions.
As I age, I’ve learned to distinguish “not being excited” (languor) and “being tired” (exhaustion), which to my younger self felt like the same thing. The former is not always caused by a lack of energy, but also excessive idleness, especially if I’m doing things that requires attention but also isn’t intellectually stimulating.
We do not remember days, we remember moments.” —Cesare Pavese
“Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.” - Susan Ertz
In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. - Simon
Sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson once said that the real problem of humanity is [that] we have palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and God-like technology.
The real test of knowledge is not truth, but utility. Science gives us power. The more useful that power, the better the science. - Yuval Noah Harari
Wealth is an amplifier of power, wealth on itself is nothing, unless used.
Well, I have no sympathy with people who never write up an answer; it’s selfish to keep beautiful discoveries a secret.
To change oneself one needs half the time they are alive to do so. At 40 they need 20 years.
There’s only two kinds of economic systems: the market-driven and the government-directed. The more you move toward a state-directed economy, the less efficient and more corrupt it becomes.
What’s a good man to you? Someone who knows themselves.
Definition of success - defining goal and achieving it.
God is real because He is a necessary philosophical and metaphysical precondition for existence, logic and truth.
Life is like school with one key difference: in school you, you get the lesson and then you take the test. In life, you get the test and it’s your job to take the lesson.
In the short term, you are as good as your intensity. In the long term, you are only as good as your consistency.
“What every scientist knows, but few will admit, is that the requirement for great success is great ambition. Moreover, the ambition is for personal triumph over other men, not merely over nature."— Richard Lewontin
He who tries to determine everything by law, will foment crime rather than lessen it. - Spinoza
Sophisticated minds adopt simplified lifestyles; simplistic minds are drawn to overly sophisticated lifestyles.
We didn’t stop burning witches because we invented science, we invented science because we stopped burning witches. - Peter Thiel
We underestimate the risk of living an unremarkable life.
Of all lessons that matter, violence teaches none.
None can say all they mean, or mean all they say.
Person’s tongue gives you taste of their heart.
There are no rules when you have a grand vision.
The audience might be stupid but it’s never wrong.
Feedback is fact.
Consumers buy products, enterprises buy platforms.
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. - Frédéric Bastiat
The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success are: concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation, and communication. - Michael Faraday
What a man wishes, that also will he believe. - Demosthenes
It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, bu the most responsive to change. - Charles Darwin
The reputation you have with yourself is more important than the reputation you have with others. Others come and go. - Naval
Character is destiny. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become. ― Heraclitus
Impatient with action, patient with results.
Overnight success/Overtime success.
We didn’t evolve to eat meat, we evolved because we eat meat.
Only fools worship their tools. - Dee Hock
Writing is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is. – Dick Guindon
Mathematics is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your writing is. Formal mathematics is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your mathematics is. – Leslie Lamport
When examples of real expertise are rare, mediocrity begins to look like excellence.
Your title makes you a manager, your team makes you a leader.
Don’t mistake charisma for leadership.
Tombstone: No longer hateful.
Skepticism empowers you. Cynicism empowers the people who’d exploit you.
Since economics is exactly about value, there cannot be an economic battle that isn’t also a moral battle.
Silence gives answers.
Be like a postage stamp — stick to one thing until you get there. — Josh Billings
The greatest mistake in business and life is not outright failure. It’s becoming successful without understanding why.
When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
What you have to learn is to fold early when the odds are against you, or if you have a big edge, back it heavily because you don’t get a big edge often. Opportunity comes, but it doesn’t come often, so seize it when it does come. — Charlie Munger
The rabbit runs faster than the fox, because the rabbit is running for his life while the fox is only running for his dinner. — R. Dawkins
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
Suffering upends the normal patterns of life and reminds you that you are not who you thought you were.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Imagination is the intelligence having fun.
It’s not a culture fit but culture add.
Technology expands at an exponential rate, but mans ability to absorb technology is linear.
Alea iacta est - The die is cast.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
For ordinary people, time buys money. For the rich, money buys time.
The only way to slash government for real is to go back to basic economic principles: You have to reduce the demand for government.
Faith based revenue.
Unfortunately, unlike in the past centuries, where the many economically average could eventually wage a war and take from the economic privileged few, I am not sure that will be the case with cognitive ability being the catalyst for wealth creation. Force cannot make someone smarter, more educated or more gifted.
Innovation requires articulation.
Slow down to go further.
I have been to the top of the mountain and there is nothing to see.
I’ve never been one to bet on the weather. It’s unpredictable, changing from day to day. I bet on the climate, which follows patterns year after year, decade after decade.
Visions without execution are hallucinations.
There are decades when nothing happens and there’re weeks when decades happen.
Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
Quantity has a quality on its own.
Vertical integration - single owner controls business at every step of the manufacturing process.
Regulatory arbitrage - countries fighting for new businesses.
God didn’t build the world for us, he build us for the world.
You never want to solve research problems with language.
Innovation is like breeding. You take the best results and continue with them.
Paradox of skill: When activities have both skill and luck, as skill increases, luck becomes more important.
Excess returns are the function of your skill times your opportunity set.
Great jazz artists often don’t come from Manhattan, but they struggle to build a reputation and gain career traction if they don’t come to Manhattan.
Burnout is caused when you repeatedly make large amounts of sacrifice and or effort into high-risk problems that fail. It’s the result of a negative prediction error in the nucleus accumbens. You effectively condition your brain to associate work with failure.
In the beginning all you want is results, in the end, all you want is control.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is an anchor that holds you in the past.
You can crush flowers, but you can’t stop the spring.
There are wavelengths that people cannot see, there are sounds that people cannot hear, and maybe computers have thoughts that people cannot think.
Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence.
Every single basis point of churn is important for anyone in the services business. The best way to grow is not to shrink.
Efficient market hypothesis: Prices reflect all available information. Thus there is no way to beat the market.
I sought good judgment mostly by collecting instances of bad judgment, then pondering ways to avoid such outcomes.
Betting on people can sometimes be more certain than betting on physical assets. - Warren Buffet
Attention is the scarce commodity of the late 20th century. - Jeff Bezos
There is a lot of generosity in the world but not enough justice.
The value of a company is the sum of all solved problems.
Attitude not aptitude. Education is freedom. We wake up on purpose.
“A person is what they think about all day long” - Ralph Waldo Emerson