Quotes collection

Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them all. Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them all.

The ceiling for 'trying hard' is ~2 orders of magnitude higher than you think. If you haven't spent entire years failing, you are trying medium-hard at best.

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, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; 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 fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

It's the size of the drop that matters, not the size of the bucket. And if we choose, we can create an enormous drop.

Job's not finished.

If the time is not ripe, then it is your job to ripen the time!

Who do you think you are? I am!

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

For progress, there is no cure. Any attempt to find automatically safe channels for the present explosive variety of progress must lead to frustration. The only safety possible is relative, and it lies in an intelligent exercise of day-to-day judgment.

Only boring people get bored.

Democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Almost no one is evil. Almost everything is broken.

I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds. I do not make any of my own clothing. I speak a language I did not invent or refine. I did not discover the mathematics I use. I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate. I am moved by music I did not create myself. When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive. I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with. I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being.

Humility is not thinking less about yourself, it's about thinking about yourself less.

Expectations aren't a burden. They're a privilege. Because it could be worse. No one could expect anything at all.

Smiling through it all! Can't believe this is my life.

People do not realize just how much they are putting at risk when they don't accept what life presents them with, the questions and tasks that life sets them. When they resolve to spare themselves the pain and suffering they owe to their nature. In so doing, they refuse to pay life's dues and for this very reason, life then often leads them astray. If we don't accept our own destiny, a different kind of suffering takes its place: a neurosis develops, and I believe that that life which we have to live is not as bad as a neurosis. If I have to suffer, then let it be from my reality. A neurosis is a much greater curse! In general, a neurosis is a replacement for an evasion, an unconscious desire to cheat life, to avoid something. One cannot do more than live what one really is. And we are all made up of opposites and conflicting tendencies. After much reflection, I have come to the conclusion that it is better to live what one really is and accept the difficulties that arise as a result—because avoidance is much worse.

No love, however brief, is wasted.

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan executed next week.

It's kind of a really nice day. He decides to walk around the block. On the side of the road he sees a woman's tennis shoe filled with leaves, and it fills him with inexplicable sadness. He walks down his side street and sees striking colors in the faces of the people around him, details in these beautiful brick walls, and weeds that he must have passed every day but never noticed. The air smells different, brighter somehow; and the currents under the bridge look strange and vivid; and the sun is warming his face; and the world is clumsy and beautiful and new; and it's as though he's been sleepwalking for God knows how long and something has violently shaken him awake. His bathmats are gorgeous. The grain patterns in his cheap wood cabinets vibrate something deep within him. He's fascinated by the way his paper-towels drink water. He's never really appreciated these things. All this detail he's never noticed. He's alive. The stars rattle him to the core. All these lights have traveled for tens of millions of years to reach him at this moment. How, somewhere far away, our own sun looks just like one of these. How many of the stars no longer even exist, but whose ancient light is just reaching him now, an impression from a ghost, an amazing, infinite time machine every night above his head that he's ignored for most of his life. He wants to stop people in the street and say: "Isn't this amazing? Isn't everything amazing?"

You are the traffic.

Don't immanentize the eschaton.

It's not a principle until it costs you money.

I also have a more visible, quantifiable kind of monstrousness—that of the artist who completes her work. Finishers are always monsters.

Time has upset many fighting faiths.

How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard?

I always want a project that, if successful, will make the rest of my career look like a footnote.

You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can't possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.

In one moment I knew that the valuing of men by their intelligence is crazy, that the peasant watching the night sky might feel more than I feel, that the man who dances might be superior to myself—word-bound and unable to dance. From then on I noticed how warped many people of great intelligence are, and I began to value people for their actions, rather than their thoughts.

The best advice often seems blindingly obvious in hindsight. After taking it, you wonder how you ever survived without it.

Living as a human is a state of constant cosmic horror in which your memories are constantly being deleted, corrupted, and modified every waking moment.

When I'm in a slump, I comfort myself by saying if I believe in dinosaurs, then somewhere, they must be believing in me. And if they believe in me, then I can believe in me.

The prospect for the human race is sombre beyond all precedent. Mankind are faced with a clear-cut alternative: either we shall all perish, or we shall have to acquire some slight degree of common sense. A great deal of new political thinking will be necessary if utter disaster is to be averted.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

And yet it moves.

All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?

I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.

Humans collapse during the course of their lives… we end up saying more and more of the same stuff, and the learning rates go down.

There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal, as human beings, to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.

Nothing is a better recruiter than success.

Art, like morality, consists of drawing a line somewhere.

If anything ail a man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even … he forthwith sets about reforming—the world.

I don't know exactly who to blame things on, but my working hypothesis is some kind of lawyer-administrator-journalist-academic-regulator axis. Lawyers sue institutions every time they harm someone (but not when they fail to benefit someone). The institutions hire administrators to create policies that will help avoid lawsuits, and the administrators codify maximally strict rules meant to protect the institution in the worst-case scenario. Journalists ('if it bleeds, it leads') and academics (who gain clout from discovering and calling out new types of injustice), operating in conjunction with these people, pull the culture towards celebrating harm-avoidance as the greatest good, and cast suspicion on anyone who tries to add benefit-getting to the calculation. Finally, there are calls for regulators to step in—always on the side of ratcheting up severity.

My mindframe has been trained with NVIDIA chips.

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

What are the most important problems in your field or life and why aren't you working on them?

Even a man with a gun has no power over someone who's not scared to die.

The future is already here—it's just not evenly distributed.

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

We have founded our republic upon the theory that the average man will, as a rule, do the right thing, that in the long run the majority will decide for what is sane and wholesome. If our fathers were mistaken in that theory, if ever the times become such—not occasionally but persistently—that the mass of the people do what is unwholesome, what is wrong, then the republic cannot stand, I care not how good its laws, I care not what marvelous mechanism its Constitution may embody. Back of the laws, back of the administration, back of the system of government lies the man, lies the average manhood of our people, and in the long run we are going to go up or go down accordingly as the average standard of our citizenship does or does not wax in growth and grace.

Until there is substantial and repeated evidence otherwise, assume counterintuitive findings to be false, and second-order effects to be dwarfed by first-order ones in magnitude.

The man who wishes to keep his respect for sausages and laws should not see how either is made.

We live in a world in which relatively few people—maybe 500 or 1,000—make the important decisions.

Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!

You can't actually feel the weight of the world. The human mind is not capable of that feat. But sometimes, you can catch a glimpse.

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

Theory ought to throw a clear light on the mass of objects… separate the important from the trifling.

People who believe in absurdities commit atrocities.

There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

Beware the student of one teacher. A good idea spirals into dogma when it gets applied to everything and stretched beyond the areas where it is useful. Remain open and embrace a lot of teachers.

Nah, imma do my own thing.

To laugh often and much; to win the 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 that one life has breathed easier because you lived here. This is to have succeeded.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

It does not matter whether or not you have the scientific or historical evidence to prove a truth if people do not have an economic incentive for adjudicating and then spreading that truth.

Priors, priors, do you have any priors?

All great events hang by a hair. The man of ability takes advantage of everything and neglects nothing that can give him a chance of success; whilst the less able man sometimes loses everything by neglecting a single one of those chances.

Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.

Be rational, don't rationalize.

The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better.

I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death.

When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists. The next best is a leader who is loved. Next, one who is feared. The worst is one who is despised.

Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.

Of course it is happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?

I could never catch up to Hypothetical Alternate Timeline Me. That guy's unstoppable.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.

All models are wrong, but some are useful.

If you do everything, you'll win.

The trial by which one learns is a trial by fire.

To ask the right question is harder than to answer it.

The myth of technological and political and social inevitability is a powerful tranquilizer of the conscience. Its service is to remove responsibility from the shoulders of everyone who truly believes in it. But in fact there are actors.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul—then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness!

Let that bomb, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things — praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends… not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs.

Rarely does anything understood deeply turn out to be useless, even though it may not serve the purpose you had hoped.

It is a shame for a man to grow old and not see what he's capable of.

The ironic tragedy is that life has to be lived forward, but only makes sense in reverse.

This little maneuver's gonna cost us 51 years.

Go hard to go easy.

Explore a single individual deeply enough and truths about all individuals emerge.

You don't need to exaggerate the present to prove that the future is being underrated.

What does you in is not failure to apply some high-level, intricate, complicated technique. It's overlooking the basics. Not keeping your eye on the ball.

If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking.

It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine—a gun—which could by its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a large extent, supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease would be greatly diminished.

That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.

Speak to all men as you do to yourself, with no concern for the effect you make, so that you do not shut them out from your world.

The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it—basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.

The treasure you seek is in the cave you fear to enter.

The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

Philosophy is mainly useful in inoculating you against other philosophy. Else you'll be vulnerable to the first philosophy you hear.

My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts… The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.

You can win with a long weapon, and yet you can also win with a short weapon. In short, the Way of the Ichi school is the spirit of winning, whatever the weapon and whatever its size.

Take people's concerns seriously, but not literally.

Never withhold an instinct to praise.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

Show the inside of your head in public, so people can see if they would like to live in there.

The mere consciousness of an engagement will sometimes worry a whole day.

Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a canvas into a beautiful masterpiece?

The lurking suspicion that something could be simplified is the world's richest source of rewarding challenges.

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.

If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.

Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks that happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary.

I have only started to describe and defend this theory, and I hope that others will do these things better than I have done.

Don't be evil.

I have had it. I have had it with crack houses, dictatorships, torture chambers, disease, old age, spinal paralysis, and world hunger. I have had it with a death rate of 150,000 sentient beings per day. I have had it with this planet. I have had it with mortality. None of this is necessary. The time has come to stop turning away from the mugging on the corner, the beggar on the street. It is no longer necessary to close our eyes, blinking away the tears, and repeat the mantra: 'I can't solve all the problems of the world.' We can. We can end this.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

In cases where it's possible to be either in a stable state or a widely varying state that can wind up in stable attractors, then I think you should expect over time, you will wind up in one of the stable attractors or you will change how the system works so that you can't bounce into a stable attractor.

As much as is needed, as little as possible.

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.

My greatest concern was what to call it. I thought of calling it 'information,' but the word was overly used, so I decided to call it 'uncertainty.' When I discussed it with John von Neumann, he had a better idea. Von Neumann told me, 'You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one really knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.'

The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

Concern for the man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors… Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

Prince Zuko, pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source.

Trust, but verify.

[Making money is] so much easier than building something great.

You will deal with a person who doesn't have those clearances only from the point of view of what you want him to believe and what impression you want him to go away with, since you'll have to lie carefully to him about what you know. In effect, you will have to manipulate him. You'll give up trying to assess what he has to say. The danger is, you'll become something like a moron. You'll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they may have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours.

Go where the action is. Then get to the center of it as fast as you possibly can.

I recommend you go easy on your paradise-engineering till you have the wisdom to do it right.

When the facts change, I change my mind — what do you do, sir?

If we could have devised an arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes, perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to every mood, and beginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered the limit of human felicity already attained.

Of all the marvellous achievements of modern science, the Electric Telegraph is transcendently the greatest and most serviceable to mankind. It is a perpetual miracle, which no familiarity can render commonplace.

You have erased from the calendar of human afflictions one of its greatest. … Future nations will know by history only that the loathsome smallpox has existed, and by you has been extirpated.

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day, I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death's final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.

The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.

Will it be sufficient… to trust these parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power?

This is such BS! All the training and sacrifice just flew out the window with one step that I've done millions of times! The frustration is unbearable. The anger is rage. Why the hell did this happen ?!? Makes no damn sense. Now I'm supposed to come back from this and be the same player Or better at 35?!? How in the world am I supposed to do that?? I have NO CLUE. Do I have the consistent will to overcome this thing? Maybe I should break out the rocking chair and reminisce on the career that was. Maybe this is how my book ends. Maybe Father Time has defeated me...Then again maybe not! It's 3:30am, my foot feels like dead weight, my head is spinning from the pain meds and I'm wide awake. Forgive my Venting but what's the purpose of social media if I won't bring it to you Real No Image?? Feels good to vent, let it out. To feel as if THIS is the WORST thing EVER! Because After ALL the venting, a real perspective sets in. There are far greater issues/challenges in the world then a torn achilles. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, find the silver lining and get to work with the same belief, same drive and same conviction as ever.

You wouldn't believe how much it costs to look this cheap.