Inspirational Quotes
I used to have a long ass ascii text file containing a bunch of quotes. Most were inspirational and motivational, others were just witty and hilarious. I have since lost that file so I figured I'd start compiling quotes again... this time in the blog. I bring you the first installment of suntzu's favorite quotes:
Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, architecture, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work and theft will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to."
-- Jim Jarmusch
The only person who can truly persuade you is yourself. You must turn the issues over in your mind at leisure, consider the many arguments, let them simmer, and after a long time turn your preferences into convictions
--Milton Friedman (from Capitalism and Freedom)
Generating a rapidly changing environment--that is, engaging in actively that is so quick it is disorienting and appears uncertain or ambiguous to the enemy--inhibits the adversary's ability to adapt and causes confusion and disorder that, in turn, causes an adversary to overreact or underreact. Boyd closed the briefing by saying the message is that whoever can handle the quickest rate of change is the one who survives.
--Robert Coram (from Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War)
I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.
-- Winston Churchill
Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision.
-- Ayn Rand
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
-- Epictetus
When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this... you haven't.
--Robert Schuller
Many people suffer with their thoughts, not knowing that revealing them on paper, continuously over a two hour period, removes the stinging bitterness which they are tightly wrapped within.
-- Asmos
On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
He who hunts monsters should see to, that in the process, he does not become a monster himself.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
-- Rumi
If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.
-Niccolo Machiavelli
The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes but in having new eyes.
-- Marcel Proust
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.
-- James Oppenheim
One should count each day a separate life.
-- Seneca
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
-- Albert Einstein
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
-- Albert Einstein
Courage is being scared to death--and saddling up anyway.
-- John Wayne
You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.
-- George Bernard Shaw
The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation.
-- Pearl S. Buck
It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
-- Walt Disney
You'll miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
-- Wayne Gretzky
Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.
-- Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene II
Great minds discuss ideas;
Average minds discuss events;
Small minds discuss people--Eleanor Roosevelt
Intellectuals solve problems. Geniuses prevent them.--Albert Einstein
For you to insult me, I must first value your opinion.--unknown
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.--Thomas Alva Edison
The sign of an intelligent people is their ability to control their emotions by the application of reason.--Marya Mannes
Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.
--Linus Torvalds