Inspirations

Sometimes I’ll come across a pithy quote that has a magical effect— it illuminates a sentiment that was previously difficult to articulate; it provides proper perspective; it inspires. Aphorisms have power because they contain wisdom, tiny packaged human truths that don’t always fit neatly into our mental models. I have come across these quotations from various places, plucking them from books or articles I’ve read, or searching online for them after hearing it in a speech, or seeing it on a bumper sticker. I avoid the most well-worn, “pop culture-y”, trite aphorisms we see everywhere, because their commonality, for me, somehow reduces their power. I’ve tried to source the original author where possible, but sometimes the historical origin is dubious. Ultimately it is the not person who said it first that matters, but the insight. I have saved this collection of my favorites to be used for my own reference, especially during challenging times.

Quotations

Wisdom

“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”
— Yogi Berra or Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut

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

“Done is better than perfect.”
— Sheryl Sandberg

“The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of the perfect plan.”
— Carl von Clausewitz

“A man who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.”
— Mark Twain

“Many men go fishing their entire lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.”
— Henry David Thoreau

“We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.”
— Confucius

[pullquote-right] “A witty saying proves nothing.” ― Voltaire [/pullquote-right]

“Man surprised me most about humanity. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
— James Lachard (often mis-attributed to the Dalai Lama)

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
— H. L. Mencken

“Don’t take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side.”
— Baltasar Gracian (Spanish philosopher and writer)

“If you would take, you must first give. This is the beginning of intelligence.”
— Tao Te Ching

“Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.”

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
 — Albert Einstein

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
— Albert Einstein

“Never argue with a stupid person. They will drag you down to their level and than beat you with experience.”
— Mark Twain

“Intelligence is capacity, smart is what you do with it.”

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.”
— Antisthenes (Greek philosopher)

“When my enemies stop hissing, I shall know I’m slipping.”
— Maria Callas (American opera singer)

Success

“To laugh often and much; to win respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“What’s money?  A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”
 — Bob Dylan

“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.”
— Dale Carnegie

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
— Mark 8:36 (King James Bible)

“And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count; it’s the life in your years.”
— Abraham Lincoln

“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.”
— Henry Ford

Attitude

“The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.”
— Charles du Bois

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

“I will not be out-worked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things you got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there’s two things: you’re getting off first, or I’m going to die. It’s really that simple, right?”
— Will Smith

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
— Calvin Coolidge

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; for it becomes your destiny.”
— Lao Tzu

“Show me your room, I’ll tell you who you were;
Show me your friends, I’ll tell you who you are;
Show me the books you read, I’ll tell who you will be!”

“If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done”.
— Thomas Jefferson

“Everything in moderation, including moderation.”
— Oscar Wilde

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow.  Learn as if you were to live forever.”
— Mahatma Ghandi

Justice

“In all ages and in all places, he who lives a righteous life dedicated to his people and humanity may not be victorious… may meet a gruesome end in his lifetime, but will be triumphant and honoured in history; he who wins by injustice may dominate the present day, but history will always judge him to be a shameful loser.”
― Kim Dae-jung (South Korean President, Nobel Peace Prize winner)

Peace

“The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force.”
― George Bancroft (American writer)

Traveling

“I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.”
― from “The Third and Final Continent”, by Jhumpa Lahiri

“No matter where you go, there you are.”

― Buckaroo Banzai (movie)

“Most travel is best of all in the anticipation or the remembering; the reality has more to do with losing your luggage.”
― Regina Nadelson (American writer)

Communication

“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.”
 — Peter Drucker

“Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.”
— Clarence Thomas (U.S. Supreme Court Justice)

“Charm is getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.”
— Albert Camus (French philosopher and writer)

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
— Maya Angelou

“He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.”
— Joseph Conrad (Polish writer)

Love

“We love because it’s the only true adventure.”
― Nikki Giovanni (American writer)

“I don’t care if you’re black, white, straight, bisexual, gay, lesbian, short, tall, fat, skinny, rich or poor. If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. Simple as that.”
— Eminem

“Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to.”
— Alfred A. Montapert

“Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.

Beauty

“Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Investing

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”
— Ben Franklin

“The time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets.”
— Baron Rothschild

“Nobody knows nothing.”
— John Bogle

“After nearly 50  years in this business, I do not know of anybody who has done market timing successfully and consistently. I don’t even know anybody who knows anybody who has done it successfully and consistently.
— John Bogle

“The market timer’s Hall of Fame is an empty room.”
— Jane Bryant Quinn

“In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.”
— Benjamin Graham

“The investor’s chief problem— and even his worst enemy— is likely to be himself.”
— Benjamin Graham

“Fear incites human action far more urgently than does the impressive weight of historical evidence.”
— Jeremy Siegel

“I will tell you how to become rich. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.”
— Warren Buffett

“If you’re not willing to react with equanimity to a market price decline of 50% two or three times a century, you’re not fit to be a common shareholder and you deserve the mediocre results you’re going to get.”
— Charlie Munger

“I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.”
— Isaac Newton

“If you want to have a better performance than the crowd, you must do things different from the crowd.”
— Sir John Templeton

“The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.”
— Albert Einstein

“It’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.”

Business

“If you want to be  a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline.”
— Richard Branson

Risk

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
— Mark Twain

“I am, at the Fed level, libertarian;
at the state level, Republican;
at the local level, Democrat;
and at the family and friends level, socialist.
If that saying doesn’t convince you of the fatuousness of left vs. right labels, nothing will.”
— Nassim Taleb

Money

“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”
— Will Rogers (actor)

“Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.”
— Groucho Marx

“If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.”

 Poems

Manifestos

Essays