Hseldon > Hseldon's Quotes

“Watson. Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, Adventure of the Creeping Man

“The teachers are not supposed to be the source of knowledge but rather facilitators of the learning process. That means they are there to guide the process and instruct slightly, to let the students come up with their own conclusions; to let them fail and not correct them too early. The teachers should ask many questions, but provide few answers. Answers should come from the students.”
― Jason Gewirtz, Israel's Edge: The Story of The IDF's Most Elite Unit - Talpiot

“But market stats are like scripture: anyone can find that they're looking for to support their position if they look long and hard enough.”
― Tom Hogan, The Ultimate Start-Up Guide: Marketing Lessons, War Stories, and Hard-Won Advice from Leading Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors

“Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“We rode on the winds of the rising storm,
We ran to the sounds of the thunder.
We danced among the lightning bolts,
and tore the world asunder.”
― Robert Jordan, The Dragon Reborn

“There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”
― Bertrand Russell

“Remember, it is not enough to be hit or insulted to be harmed, you must believe that you are being harmed. If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation. Which is why it is essential that we not respond impulsively to impressions; take a moment before reacting, and you will find it easier to maintain control.”
― Epictetus, The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness

“One day you will wake up and there won't be any more time to do the things you've always wanted. Do it now.”
― Paulo Coelho

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke

“Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”
― Margaret Thatcher

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.”
― René Descartes

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“What I learned on my own I still remember”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”
― Steve Jobs

“Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.”
― Richard P. Feynman

“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
― Carl Sagan

“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
― Mark Twain

“The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. ... An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.”
― Willam James

“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”
― George Orwell

“Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.”
― George Orwell

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we
are. They are different. ”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.”
― Bertrand Russell

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his”
― Gen George S. Patton

“Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“War is the continuation of politics by other means. —Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831)”
― Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War

“No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.”
― George S. Patton Jr.

“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete beastiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. it sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn't it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked up on a word and made a mountain out of a pea--he knows all of that, and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility...”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov