Our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives.
― Paulo Coelho, The Zahir
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt
— Bertrand Russell, couriousity of Dunning–Kruger effect
Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.
— Mark Twain
The minimum could be defined as the perfection that an artefact achieves when it is no longer possible to improve it by subtraction. This is the quality that an object has when every component, every detail, and every junction has been reduced or condensed to the essentials. It is the result of the omission of the inessentials.
— John Pawson, “Minimum” (1998)
I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. Humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list….That didn’t look so good, but then someone at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of lomotion for a man on a bicycle and a man on a bicycle blew the condor away. That’s what a computer is to me: the computer is the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.
— Steve Jobs, Interview for the documentary “Memory and Imagination,” 1990
First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
— Pastor Martin Niemoller Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller (14 January 1892 – 6 March 1984) was a German anti-Nazi theologian
Do or do not, there is no try.
— Yoda
When you’re the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes, you’re basically saying, “I’m right, and everyone else is wrong.” That’s a very unpleasant position to be in. It’s at once exhilarating and at the same time an invitation to be attacked.
— Larry Elison
When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts.
— Larry Elison
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
— Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived
— Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance, Act 3 Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet (1854 – 1900)
What happens when we fall in love? Under the influence of the stimulus hypothalamus emits a powerful charge of endorphins. But why is this woman or this man? Perhaps an individual set of pheromones gives us a genetic signal? Or we learn the features of someone’s appearance? Mom’s eyes? The scent awakens pleasant memories? Perhaps love – this is part of the plan? Weapon in the war two types of reproduction? Bacteria and viruses – asexual organisms. With each division, they mutate and improve faster than we are. Against this we have only one deadly weapon – sex. Two people mix their genes, shuffled the deck and create a new man. The less it looks like the parents, the better the resistance to viruses. What if we unwitting soldiers in a war between two kinds of reproduction?
– Mr Nobody (Film)
To See a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Ethernity in an Hour
Ważne by coś przeżyć, czegoś się dowiedzieć, rozmawiać z kimś wyjątkowym. Nie chodzi już o kolejne miliony, ale o frajdę z robienia Biznesu
– Jan Kulczyk
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act
– George Orwell