Quotes

“There are cathedrals everywhere for those with the eyes to see.”

You can just do things.

There are decades in which nothing happens and weeks in which decades happen

“We have to find our way back to a definite future, and the Western world needs nothing short of a cultural revolution to do it. […] A startup is the largest endeavor over which you can have definite mastery. You can have agency not just over your own life, but over a small and important part of the world. It begins by rejecting the unjust tyranny of Chance. You are not a lottery ticket.”

“Principles are important because there will always be a string of reasonable sounding words that can justify (close enough to) anything.”

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

“We weep for a bird's cry, but not for a fish's blood. Blessed are those with a voice.”

“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

“If you’ve been in the game 30 minutes and you don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy.”

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

“More fiction is written in excel than word.”

“If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry.”

“You have no enemies, you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor. He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure, must have made foes. If you have none, small is the work that you have done. You’ve hit no traitor on the hip. You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip. You’ve never turned the wrong to right. You’ve been a coward in the fight.”

Once someone gets you to chant absurdities you start believing them, and once you believe in absurdities you’re ready to commit atrocities.

In my experience, getting to know someone I lionize ends up being a disappointment and getting to know someone I demonize is pleasantly surprising. Because humans aren't angels or demons, they're humans.

“We do not place especial value on the possession of a virtue until we notice its total absence in our opponent.”

“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”

“To consistently create brilliant poets, you need a society awash in mediocre, even tawdry poetry. Brilliant minds will find their way towards poem writing when poem writing and poem reading is the thing that people do.”

“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought.”

“You can’t overtake 15 cars in sunny weather… but you can when it’s raining.”

“The smartest people are also the laziest ones. I’m glad that I’m not smart.”

You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.

“It never gets easier, you just go faster.”

“Do not resent growing old, many are denied the privilege.”

“You fight the battle you’re in, not the one you planned to be in.”

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

Let me write the songs of a nation, and I care not who writes its laws.

“I have conquered the need to conquer the world.”

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design”

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then they fight you half-heartedly, then they’re neutral, then they then they grudgingly say you might have a point even though you’re annoying, then they say on balance you’re mostly right although you ignore some of the most important facets of the issue, then you win.”

“Don’t debate people in the media when you can debate them in the marketplace.”

“If you want to predict the future, invent it.”

“Trade money for time, not time for money. You’re going to run out of time first.”

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

“Every revolution needs three people: someone to think crazy ideas, someone to explain the ideas, and someone to carry them out”

The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.

There is not a strong correlation between “lots of people do it” and “it is good” for any definition of “good” other than “lots of people do it”.

What Orwell failed to predict is that we’d buy the cameras ourselves, and that our biggest fear would be that nobody was watching.

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.

“When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.”

“When you humanize your enemy, you, in turn, may be dehumanized by your community.”

“Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.”

“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.”

“I wonder if anyone in the architecture profession has ever proclaimed `”Well if you really want to change the world, empower regular people to build skyscrapers.” Probably not. And yet the programming profession seems to be constantly obsessed with making the field accessible to everybody and her sister, as if programming should be something any idiot off the street can do easily.”

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

“It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”

If you say something was terrible, that creates a memory of it being terrible. If you say 'oh, it's fine, I can't complain, but…' then you actually don't have the memory of having a shitty day. So seriously, you cannot complain. Never complain.

“In a Democratic Society, power deserves scrutiny not gratitude.”

“Press used to be about the relationship between journalists and public figures. But now, everyone is both a journalist and a public figure.”

“The tools for learning are abundant. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.”

“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”

“Architect for flexibility, engineer for performance.”

“War does not determine who is right — only who is left.”

“Trust because you are willing to accept the risk, not because it’s safe or certain.”

“Why should you mind being wrong if someone can show you that you are?”

“Ever love someone so much, you would do anything for them? Yeah, well, make that someone yourself and do whatever the hell you want.”

“A ship in harbor is safe — but that is not what ships are built for.”

“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”

“Never confuse an argument about linguistics with an argument about the world.”

“The way things are supposed to work is that we’re supposed to know virtually everything about what they [the government] do: that’s why they’re called public servants. They’re supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that’s why we’re called private individuals.”

“The world is against me. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

“Meek young men grow up in libraries believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote those books.”

“Solving a problem is hard enough; it gets that much harder if you’ve decided beforehand it can’t be done.”

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

“Be stubborn on the vision, flexible on the details.”

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to live forever.”

“I am indebted to my father for living but I am indebted to my teacher for living well.”