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quotes.md

TODO: create a mini-web app that will allow me to store all these quotes.

  • I can implement this in a day and make it a progressive web app with offline capabilities by the end of the week.
  • Basic have:
  • label to view all
  • allow tagging: most quotes can fall under multiple categories. Handling this in plain text is a pain in the butt.

My Favorite Quotes

Table of Contents

Quotes by Genre/Theme

Quotes by Individuals

Concerning Attitude

  • "The things that are easy are also easy not to do." - Jim Rohn

  • "You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." - Marcus Aurelius

  • "Relax, nothing is ever under control, except your behavior in the current moment."

  • "Don't let your happiness depend on something you may lose. [Happiness is an internal process, a choice, you choose when to summon happiness]" - C.S Lewis

  • “Complaining about a problem without posing a solution is called whining.” - Teddy Rosevelt

  • "You either win or you learn - there is no losing."

  • "There is no stress in the world, only people thinking stressful thoughts."

  • "A healthy attitude gives you resilience, the ability to bounce back, to deal with the ratios of NO’s that outweighs the YES’s with the constant change that’s always taking place in our lives."

  • "You can't change the people around you, but you can change the people around you." - TheMinimalists

  • "I wake up not to an alarm clock, but an opportunity and happiness clock."

  • "Use the power of choice to work for you and not against you."

  • "The first & last 20 minutes of the day are very important & can shape your outlook for the entire day. Start & end positively no matter what, for yourself and subconscious mind."

  • "Simple-minded people are impressed by sophisticated things, and sophisticated people are impressed by simple things" - a saying that was mentioned in the Nand2Tetris course...interesting because when I see super "simple" computer programs I'm blown away by the power of it, since it makes building abstractions on top of it nice...(also to reason about it)

Concerning Being Yourself

  • "Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss

  • "Life is the most difficult exam. Many people fail because they try to copy others, not realizing that everyone has a different question paper."

  • "Happiness and self-confidence come naturally when you feel yourself moving and progressing toward becoming the very best person you can possibly be."

  • "Live in such a way that if someone spoke badly about you, no one would believe it."

Concerning Care & Love for Others

  • "Happiness comes more from loving than being loved; and often when our affection seems wounded it is only our vanity bleeding. To love and be hurt often, and to love again - this is the brave and happy life." - J.E Buchrose

  • "Love is patient, love is kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." - 1 Corinthian 4-7 (I mixed two bible versions since I liked the phrasing better for my own reading purposes)

  • "The biggest communication problem is we don't listen to understand, we listen to reply."

  • "Do you know what a foreign accent is? It's a sign of bravery." - Amy Chua

  • "Honesty doesn't require sharing every thought. You aren't hiding something because you are uncomfortable, you're often shielding things that would make others uncomfortable.

  • "You're purpose, isn't to be loving, your purpose is to be love and only have that to give away."

  • "You have choices. It's always a better choice to be loving, kind, and have an open mind."

Concerning Creativity

  • "What is the most valuable and highest paid work that you do? Thinking. Thinking is the most valuable work. If something is important, if it has big potential consequence. Something is unimportant, if it has low or no potential consequences. The number one reason for success is people focus on high potential consequences. The number one reason for failure is people focus on things that have low or no potential consequence." - Ways of Thinking (0:30-0:40)

  • "The consequences of thinking determine the entire quality of your life, then your quality of your thinking determines the quality of your life."

Concerning Discipline

  • Rule your mind or it will rule you.

  • "Shutdown rituals can become annoying, as they add an extra 10-15 minutes to the end of your workday (sometimes even more), but they’re necessary for reaping the rewards of systematic idleness. From my experience, it should take 1-2 weeks before the shutdown habit sticks—that is, until your mind trusts your ritual enough to actually begin to release work-related thoughts in the evening." - Cal Newport

  • “By constant self-discipline and self-control, you can develop greatness of character.” ~ Grenville Kleiser

  • "Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments." - Jim Rohn

  • "Do the right thing when no one is looking. You owe it to yourself to not waste your life away."

  • "Motivation is fleeting, discipline is reliable. Motivation requires no concentrated effort, it just comes to you.Cultivate discipline."

  • "Form good habits & make them your master. Most people are interested, but not committed and the difference is when your interested you do what's convenient, when your committed you do whatever it takes. When your interested you do whats easy and convenient for you, but when your commited [thinking] 'I'm going to get that result", you put everything into it, until you get the result." - YT video

Concerning Education

  • "The truly educated never graduate."

  • "Education costs money. But then so does ignorance." –Sir Claus Moser

  • "Be open to learn, unlearn and relearn. Let go of your ego."

  • "Sometimes the best way to learn something is by doing it wrong, sharing it with the world & getting feedback."

  • “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” - Stephen Hawking"

  • "Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune." - Jim Rohn

  • A quote to ponder since I mostly agree with it. Now how can I make the most out of my current situtation in college? "School steals your freedom to express yourself, crushes your dreams, and makes you wait to immerse yourself in your passions fully. Want to become a well-known mathematician? Sorry, your school will only give you two hours every day to study math. Want to create a robot that changes the world? Sorry, your robotics class is once a week. You get the idea. Great work needs you to become obsessive, not to focus on many unrelated fields. If you want to perform like a hero, you need to get a good night’s sleep, eat healthy, and learn from the elite in your field (not your school peers and rarely your teachers). School is a barrier to greatness." - Quora Link

Concerning Failures/Rebounding

  • "Focus and fail fast. Learn quickly and try something new. The faster you fail and learn, the faster you succeed. You actually learn to succeed by failing." - Ways of Thinking (0-0:15)

  • "If you want to increase your rate of success, you must increase your rate of failure. Success lies on the far side of failure." - Ways of thinking(0:18)

  • “Creative people experiment a lot more, therefore succeed a lot more, therefore fail a lot more.”

  • “Innovation requires a mindset that rejects the fear of failure and replaces that fear of failure with the joy of exploration and experimental learning.” Dr Edward D.Hess

  • “You need to embrace failure, it’s our friend anbd teacher. It’s a natural part of the path of progress. If you’re failing that means you’re trying, and eventually you will reach your goal.”

  • "Failure is just the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." – Henry Ford

  • “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” - Babe Ruth

  • "It's hard to be a person who never gives up." - Babe Ruth

  • "Expertise is knowing the right way to do a thing. Mastery is also knowing all the wrong ways."

  • "The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and deep loving concern. Beautiful people don’t just happen.“ - Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Concerning Fear

  • "One of the number one reasons we worry about in life is because of fear. And, when you ask yourself, 'what is the worst possible thing that could happen in this situation', and then if you can say 'if that happens, I'll live with it' then your worry goes away and your mind goes clear and calm and now you say, what can I do to make sure the worst does not happen. Then, you become proactive, you begin to take charge of your life." - Ways of Thinking (4:20-4:44)

Concerning Focus

  • "A person who chases two rabbits catches neither." - Confucius

  • "In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  • "There’s comfort in singletasking." - @TheMinimalists

  • "When your mind is calm, your entire cerebellum, your thinking and deciding brain functions at it's highest level. But, when you get upset and angry, what happens is your thinking reverts to the limbic or emotional system and your ability to think clearly diminishes dramatically and you make a lot of mistakes. That's why when your facing a difficult situation you have to use every skill, trick or game to stay calm."

  • "Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior” - Dee Hock

Concerning Forgiveness/Letting Go of the Past

  • "Forgiveness is the vital ingredient of the path of enlightenment. And if you don't know how to do it, then practice sending out love. Take the person or the people that you're having conflict with, any place in your life, send them something, you don't even have to do it physically. Just send them something that comes from inside. And what's inside is how you choose to think. If you can make that love, and do that "

  • It's not whether you can love someone when they smell good, when they do everything they're supposed to, but when you can love someone who has sent you hate or anguish in your life. You don't have to forget or go back, but you gotta get it out of you because it's blocking you and holding you back.

  • "The number one rule for success in business and personal life is cutting out your loses. When you realize you made a mistake [...] cut your loses quickly. Cut your loses and let your winnings ride. [..] The faster you cut your loses, fail fast, the faster you can start doing things that are much more productive." - Ways of Thinking (3:42)

Concerning Hard Work

  • "Don't join an easy crowd; you won't grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to perform are high." - Jim Rohn

  • If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. - Marcus Aurelius

  • "Not Bought In - Everyone wants to be successful but not everybody is willing to invest in making this a reality. To be bought in means to embrace the idea of doing everything required to achieve the success you are looking for. This could be anything from skipping parties to enduring a grueling training regimen." Quora link

  • "Eighty percent of success is showing up." - Woody Allen

  • "Action is the foundational key to all success." - Pablo Picasso

  • "Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so."

  • "An extraordinary life doesn't just happen. It is constructed, crafted, curated." - The Minimalists

  • "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity." – Amelia Earhart

  • “You create opportunities by performing, not complaining.” ~ Muriel Siebert

  • "Why is it so hard for so many to realize that winners are usually the ones who work harder, longer, & as a result, perform better?" - Wooden

  • "There's an opportunity cost for every action you make. Be conscious of the decisions you make."

  • "The very thing that makes somebody successful is actually the adversity." - Joe De Sena, Cofounder of the Spartan Race

  • "If I quit now, I will be back to where I started. And when I started, I was desperately wishing to be where I am now."

  • "Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them." - Ann Landers

  • "Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work." - Stephen King

  • "We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training."

  • "Walt Disney said, 'If you could dream it, you can do it.' Which means your never given a dream that comes out of your own desire, which isn't something that you have the capacity to fulfill. You may have to learn some new skills, you may have to partner up with some people, you may need to learn how to access some new resources along the way, but all of that is possible, if you simply dream the big dream." - YTV 30:19

  • "All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible." - T.E. Lawrence

  • "Good things come to those who, wait, no. Good things come to those you work their asses off and never give up. There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."

  • "Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place, and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that!" - Rocky Balboa(2006)

Concerning Health/Fitness

  • "Take a deep breadth, then act."

  • “To bear trials with a calm mind robs misfortune of its strength and burden.” - Seneca

  • “Your mind will quit a thousand times before you body will. Feel the fear and do it anyway.” – Unknown

  • "Exercise is the most potent & underutilized antidepressant ..and it's free."

Concerning Intentionalism

  • "Remember this— that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life." - Marcus Aurelius

Concerning Minimalism

  • "Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior."

Concerning Misfortune

  • “Fire tries gold, misfortune tries brave men.” - Seneca
  • “Misfortune is virtue's opportunity.” - Seneca
  • "The man who has anticipated the coming of troubles takes away their power when they arrive." - Seneca

Concerning Preparation

  • If you're not mentally ready, you're never really physically prepared.

Concerning Peace/Serenity

  • "Serenity means inner peace, it means you can find joy in any moment that you have in your life, instead of looking for it." - Way of being (7:10)

  • "When your mind is calm, your entire cerebellum, your thinking and deciding brain functions at it's highest level. But, when you get upset and angry, what happens is your thinking reverts to the limbic or emotional system and your ability to think clearly diminishes dramatically and you make a lot of mistakes. That's why when your facing a difficult situation you have to use every skill, trick or game to stay calm."

Concerning Problem Solving

  • "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way." - Marcus Aurelius

  • "With anything you want to accomplish there's always there's constraint, a limiting factor, or choke point that sets the speed at which you accomplish your goal. Here's the point: The way that you solve problems is to think about solutions. What are all of the possible solutions? Be intensely solution oriented. Don't let yourself to get bogged down, get negative, upset or unhappy about the problem and who did it, focus on the solutions and the actions you can take. And, when you start to think about the solutions, your mind goes calm, your creativity goes on, you start to have more energy, you start to feel more confident. Thinking about problems makes you negative and shuts down your brain. Thinking about who's to blame is the worst. Thinking about what you can do and the actions you can take, puts you back in charge." - Ways of Thinking (4:00+)

Concerning Productivity

  • “Action always prove why words mean nothing.”

  • "Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort." - Paul J Meyer

  • "If you want a great jump in the quality of your life, an extraordinary jump in the quality of your life, you have to set yourself up to win. You have to set yourself up for the process that allows you to consistently grow, consistently enjoy your life to consistently produce the results you want." - Tony Robbins in this YT video

Concerning Risk-Taking

  • “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” - T.S Elliot

  • “Stop worrying about what could go wrong & be excited about what could go right.”

  • "Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash." - George S. Patton

  • "Sometimes you have to risk it all for a vision no one can see but you."

  • "All you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrasing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it." - Matt Damon in the movie We Bought a Zoo

  • "It's not the things we do in life that we regret on our deathbed, it is the things we do not."

  • "A lot of social systems are hackable you generally don't need to follow the rules."

  • "If you’re not willing to risk, you cannot grow. If you cannot grow, you cannot be your best. If you cannot be your best, you cannot be happy. If you cannot be happy, what else is there?" - Les Brown

  • "Go for what you want, not what you think is possible." - YT video

Concerning Self-image/Confidence/Identity

  • "I’m only an expert on me." - Unknown

  • "Those who think they can & those who think they can't are both right." -Henry Ford

  • "Tomorrow is only as sweet as the decisions we make today." - Eric Thomas

  • "The most common way people give up their power is: thinking they don’t have any." – Alice Walker

  • "Not because of who I am, but because of what you've done. Not because of what I've done, but because of who your are." - Casting Crowns

  • "To make the right choices in life , you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this, you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions.” - Deepak Chopra

Concerning Wealth

  • "It's not a good deal, if you don't need it."

  • "Important things are rarely things."

  • "You save 100% on every ‘sale’ item you don’t purchase." - The Minimalists

  • "Always ask 'why' before you buy."

  • "If something cost $1,000, and it is on sale for $750, and then you decide to buy it, you did not save $250. You spent $750."

  • "It is always more important to learn to spend less than to learn to make more -- without this, earning more won't help." - Quora

  • “Procrastination is like a credit card: it's a lot of fun until you get the bill.” - Christopher Parker

  • "Constantly reevaluate your needs. Introduce things in your life that will help you lead a happier life. Quality life over appearance."

Albert Einstein

  • "You have to learn the rules of the game & then you have to play better than anyone else."

  • "The one who walks alone, is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been."

  • "Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."

  • Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Anthony Sosa

  • "Believe in God, in my dreams and fly without fears." - Anthony Sosa

Bill Gates

  • "If you are born poor, it's not your fault. But if you die poor, it's your fault." - Bill Gates

  • "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning."

  • "Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they cannot lose." Note: Ponder on this, what is losing when all in life you either win or you learn?

  • "Don't compare yourself with anyone in this world... if you do so, you are insulting yourself."

  • "Life is not fair, get used to it!"

  • "It's fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure."

Cal Newport

  • "Shutdown rituals can become annoying, as they add an extra 10-15 minutes to the end of your workday (sometimes even more), but they’re necessary for reaping the rewards of systematic idleness. From my experience, it should take 1-2 weeks before the shutdown habit sticks—that is, until your mind trusts your ritual enough to actually begin to release work-related thoughts in the evening." - Cal Newport

  • "Only the confidence that you’re done with work until the next day can convince your brain to downshift to the level where it can begin to recharge for the next day to follow."

Bob Proctor

  • What are our choices? We can live in an ignorant state, worry and doubt, let that lead to fear, which leads to anxiety, which leads to surpressing it, which turns into depression, disease and disintegration OR we can go on the other side and study. We can make a commitment to study, a commitment of repetition to break paradigms. You understand the laws of your being from studying.

  • Gods greatest gift to us was more talent and ability that we will ever hope to use in our lifetime. Our gift to God is to develop as much of our abilities as we can in our lifetime. There are no shortcuts and you’ll have to study, but you can make quantum leaps.

Devin Ross

  • "It's a full time job to not lose my faith."
  • "I praise the lord cause I ain't want much but now I got it in abundance."

Elon Musk

  • "So I am going to suggest that he is successful not because his visions are grand, not because he is extraordinarily smart and not because he works incredibly hard. All of those things are true. The one major important distinction that sets him apart is his inability to consider failure. It simply is not even in his thought process. He cannot conceive of failure and that is truly remarkable. It doesn't matter if its going up against the banking system (Paypal), going up against the entire aerospace industry (SpaceX) or going up against the US auto industry (Tesla). He can't imagine NOT succeeding and that is a very critical trait that leads him ultimately to success. - Jim Cantrell, On Space X founding team with Elon Musk.

Eric Thomas

  • "Every single day of my life I feel like giving 120! I don't have days when I don't feel like it. Why? Because I'm counting on me! My wife is counting on me! My son's counting on me. I don't have days to waste!"

Jim Rohn

  • The things that are easy are also easy not to do. - Jim Rohn

  • Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments. - Jim Rohn

  • Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. - Jim Rohn

  • Don't join an easy crowd; you won't grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to perform are high." - Jim Rohn

  • Major reason for not having everything you want in America? Major reason for not having what you want in America? More health, more money, more power, more influence, more everything. Major reason why you don't get it. Simple answer - NEGLECT!

  • You can wish for the wind to not blow as severe, but I'm telling you, wishing for the wind to change in your favor would be naive at best/ Don't do this any longer - wish for a better wind. They key is to wish for the wisdom to set a better sail. Utilize whatever wind that blows, to wherever you want to go.

  • Here's the problem with NEGLECT. It starts off as an infection and if you don't take care of it, it becomes a disease. Here's what else is the problem, one NEGLECT leads to another. NEGLECT to do wise things to do with your money and you'll probably NEGLECT to do wise things with your time. NEGLECT to do wise things with your time and you'll probably NEGLECT to do wise things with your business. One leads to another leads to another. Pretty soon NEGLECT has you by the throat! Emptying your purse, emptying your hearts and emptying your chances for equity & power and all of the good things. What if you should be walking around the block for your good health and you don't? I'm telling you, you are on the wrong track! You should do it, you don't do it, that's called a formula for disaster! All you have to do is let that & a few other things accumulate for 6 years and now your driving what you don't want to drive, wearing what you don't want to wear, living where you don't want to live, doing what you don't want to do, maybe becoming something you really didn't want to become. I'm telling you that's it! Just NEGLECT along, drift along and it's got you by the throat! It will take all your values, leave you with just a little bit of dust in the summer wind and it will soon be gone."

  • "The things that are easy are also easy not to do." - Jim Rohn

Jon Morrow

  • If you want to become a stronger and more capable person, the smartest thing you can do is systematically (and safely) increase your pain tolerance.

  • By not playing the government’s game. Instead, I created a different game, a game that worked by my rules, a game I could win.

  • One of the most inspiration stories I've ever read (link)

Joshua Biddle, Valedictorian of UC Berkeley

  • “In class, I ask more questions than most folks because I’m comfortable with my ignorance; I’m willing to put myself out there and learn.”

  • "I honor those who explore the truly dark places of this world so I don’t have to."

  • "Forgive me in advance if I hurl my words at you with too much desperation."

  • Inspiration Valedictorian Speech (link). Thank you Joshua!

Marcus Phillips, Cofounder of Hack Reactor

  • “If you don’t bother measuring a thing, you won’t have any hope of improving it.

  • "So I was looking around for some science that would back up my conclusion --and guess what? I FOUND some!"

  • "We’re not looking for a unicorn - all we need here is a donkey with a carrot strapped to its forehead...so to speak."

Richard Feynman

  • "What I cannot create, I do not understand." (I love this quote as it relates to programming & learning)

Robin Williams

  • "I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself." - Dead Poets Society

  • "So avoid using the word 'very' because it's lazy. A man is not tired he is exhausted. Don't use very sad, use morose.Language was invented for one reason boys, - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do."

  • "Now in my class you will learn to think for yourselves again. You will learn to savor words and language. No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world."

  • "You must strive to find your own voice because the longer you wait to begin the less likely you are to find it all."

  • "Real loss is only possible when you love something more than you love yourself." - Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting

  • "We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion, and medicine, law business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."

  • "Now, we all have a great need for acceptance, but you must trust that your beliefs are unique and your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular.

  • "Now when you read, don't just consider what the author thinks. Consider what you think."

  • "Sucking all the marrow out of life doesn't mean choking on the bone. There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution."

Steve Job Quotes

  • "Your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else's live."

  • “It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with humanities, that yields results that make our heart sing.”

  • "Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful, that's what matters to me."

  • "The only way to do great work is to love what you do."

  • "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is not reason not to follow your heart."

Tai Lopez

  • "The quality of your life is directly related to the speed with which you learn. Slow learning only works for people who are immortal, not us."

  • What skills have you mastered? If the answer is not many, then you better get on it. The world won't serve you success on a silver platter.

  • Conflict with someone is hard to deal with. But my greatest creativity sometimes comes in times of pain. Harness your pain into creativity.

  • I always read biographies to go to bed. The perfect blend of entertainment & knowledge to let your mind go to rest.

Thomas Paine

  • I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon … if I can. I seek opportunity … not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, Humbled and dulled by having the State look after me. I want to take the calculated risk, To dream and to build. To fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole; I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; The thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of Utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence Nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master Nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; To think and act for myself, To enjoy the benefit of my creations And to face the world boldly and say: This, with God’s help, I have done. All this is what it means to be an Entrepreneur.

Robert Sedgewick, CS Professor at Princeton University

  • "What's most important to recognize about this is: it's the algorithm design that enables the solution to the problem, a faster computer wouldn't help much. You could spend millions on a super computer & maybe you could get it (a problem) in 6 years instead of 30 or in 2 months, but with a fast algorithm, you can do it in seconds on your own computer."

Wayne Dyer

Other Quotes:

  • You only know the right questions, when you fail. I did X and Y, it failed. Should I have tried Z? When you know what works & what doesn't it's easy to spot where you can improve; otherwise your guessing. - Joshua Fletcher

  • Concerning mentorship: great mentors don't want to spend time qith guessers. They want to help people who ask specific questions. They don't care how motivated you are they care if you're willing to execute. - Joshua Fletcher

  • “The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.” - Salman Rushdie

  • "It is a pleasure to be able to quote lines to fit any occasion." - Abraham Lincoln

  • To argue with a perrson who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. - Thomas Paine

  • "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now." - Chinse Proverb

  • "We don't make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies." - Walt Disney

  • "Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know."

  • "An incentive is a bullet, a lever, a key: an often tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation." - Freakonomics

  • "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke

  • “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  • “The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles with yourself-the invisible battles inside of all of us -that’s where it’s at." - Jesse Owens

  • “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people won’t forget how you made them feel.”

  • "Not knowing something is the basis of creativity, imagination, and innovation. That’s where scientists come from. “I don’t know” is their most important question" - Carlos Rodriguez

  • "Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do." ― Rob Siltanen (Apple made this quote famous)

  • "No trick or gimmick will transform you into a 'fast learner.' When I started at university, I was struck by how quickly top students were able to understand and apply new concepts. Now, I understand that fast learning is an illusion - these students had encountered similar concepts in the past, and were modifying and combining old ideas to figure out new ones. They were always looking to learn new things, draw new connections, and develop their intuitions. [...] My advice is to not worry about time, learn something, and learn it well. Build your intuition - ask questions like, "Does this make sense?" "How does this fit in with everything I already know?" Make this a habit, and one day I guarantee someone will take you as a fast learner." - Mark Chen, MIT 2012, response to "What-learning-strategies-do-quick-learners-follow?" (https://www.quora.com/What-learning-strategies-do-quick-learners-follow)

  • "I've been in the web development industry for 16 years and have had to learn countless new technologies. I've also been a guitar, graphic design & video editing teacher for the better part of 2 decades. As a result, I've learned some very efficient ways to help people learn new things quickly:

  • Drown your way to swimming

    • Don't start at the bottom, start at the top. Find the very best person in the field and follow what they say. If you don't understand their words because they're over your head, listen to them more - google their terminologies - until you do understand the world they live in. Compare your work to the best on earth, not to your peers.

  • Put yourself in a place that's way over your head. Apply for a job that you probably won't get...the failed interview will provide invaluable information as to what people value on the playing field you want to be on.

    • "Play with the big boys" any chance you get. Get addicted to the feeling of being the worst on the team. If you become the best, find a new place to work where you aren't anymore.

  • Refuse to learn without doing

    • Don't read a blog on how to code without hand-coding/copying every example. If you listen to a lecture, take unnecessarily complex notes - this will lock in information. edit research shows that taking more selective notes causes you to process the information and retain it better: Taking Notes by Hand Benefits Recall, Researchers Find

  • Start a blog.

    • Disseminate the valuable information you're learning to others.The simple act of teaching will cause you to process the knowledge to a level of simplicity that greatly increases your understanding. Plus, any human interaction surrounding the knowledge - comments, arguments, corrections, will cause it to lock-in deeper into your memory.

  • Practice shorter, but more frequently rather than longer, but less frequently

    • A guitar student who practices 10 minutes every day will do far better than one who plays 2 hours once a week. The latter will simply keep re-learning much of the same thing each week, forgetting it by the next week. Your brain remembers the first and last things the most, so make sure to recap each "learning session" with the most important things you want to remember. - Will Stern, Software engineer, response to "What-learning-strategies-do-quick-learners-follow?" (https://www.quora.com/What-learning-strategies-do-quick-learners-follow)

  • "Many people don't actually care, they're just curious." - Amelia Covello

  • "Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see." - Arthur Schopenhauer

  • "Social rejection is especially hard for members of a generation that has been conditioned to put such an intense emphasis on social proof."

  • Most of us can’t be trusted with the future tense. “The best way to predict the future is to act now.”

  • "The problem with the rat race is that even when you win it, you are still a rat"

  • Arnold asks the world heavy weight body builder, what this victory means to him: "It means everything. It means that the people who didn't believe were wrong. It means that when you don't believe, you do yourself a disservice, because it is wrong. You gotta believe in what you do, you gotta believe in what you want to accomplish and believe that some how, somewhere within yourself and in the universe around you there are tools & resources that will be of aid & help the person that really wants to get things done."

  • "Be boring and orderly in your life, so you may be violent and original in your work." - Gustave Flaubert

  • "A well built physique is a status symbol. It reflects you worked hard for it, no money can buy it. You cannot borrow it, you cannot inherit it, you cannot steal it. You cannot hold onto it without constant work. It shows discipline, it shows self respect, it shows patience, work ethic and passion. That is why I do what I do."-Arnold Schwarzenegger

  • "Mistakes are the portals of discovery." - James Joyce (1882-1941)

Things you can control:

  • Your beliefs
  • Your attitude
  • Your thoughts
  • Your perspective
  • How honest you are
  • Who your friends are
  • What books you read
  • How often you exercise
  • The type of food you eat
  • How many risks you take
  • How you interpret situations
  • How kind you are to others
  • How kind you are to yourself
  • How often you say "i love you"
  • How often you say “thank you"
  • How you express your feelings
  • Whether or not you ask for help
  • How often you practice gratitude
  • How many times you smile today
  • The amount of effort you put forth
  • How you spend/invest your money
  • How much time you spend worrying
  • How often you think about your past
  • Whether or not you judge other people
  • Whether or not you try again after a setback
  • How much you appreciate the things you have

Software Engineering

  • "When it comes to evolving legacy software and legacy minds, advice is “persuade, don’t preach." - Julie Lerman

  • "Engineers are hired to create business value, not to program things: Businesses do things for irrational and political reasons all the time (see below), but in the main they converge on doing things which increase revenue or reduce costs. Status in well-run businesses generally is awarded to people who successfully take credit for doing one of these things. (That can, but does not necessarily, entail actually doing them.) The person who has decided to bring on one more engineer is not doing it because they love having a geek around the room, they are doing it because adding the geek allows them to complete a project (or projects) which will add revenue or decrease costs. Producing beautiful software is not a goal. Solving complex technical problems is not a goal. Writing bug-free code is not a goal. Using sexy programming languages is not a goal. Add revenue. Reduce costs. Those are your only goals."

  • "We take other men’s knowledge and opinions upon trust; which is an idle and superficial learning. We must make them our own. We are just like a man who, needing fire, went to a neighbor’s house to fetch it, and finding a very good one there, sat down to warm himself without remembering to carry any back home. What good does it do us to have our belly full of meat if it is not digested, if it is not transformed into us, if it does not nourish and support us?" - Montaigne in The Complete Essays (“Of Pedantry”).

Programming Quotes

  • long buildtimes discourage refactoring and experimentation, leads to mental context switches - https://youtu.be/WSFbNhCbdJM?t=335 ...i think this is why I hated java when i first started learning it.

Concerning Mathematics

"Picasso didn't learn to paint by watching lectures. Math and science are the same — the all-time greats prioritize problem solving, and so does Brilliant." - Brilliant.org CTA message

Motivational Youtube Videos

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