Many people need desperately to receive this message: “I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don’t care about them. You are not alone.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Quotations
Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. — Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect. — Mark Twain
Bokononism
“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before,” Bokonon tells us. “He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle Read more →
How Are Things Going?
You go up to a man, and you say, “How are things going, Joe?” and he says, “Oh fine, fine — couldn’t be better.” And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn’t be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody’s having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much. — Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan Read more →
In Praise of the Fighters
Those who are weak don’t fight. Those who are stronger might fight for an hour. Those who are stronger still might fight for many years. The strongest fight their whole life. They are the indispensable ones. — Bertolt Brecht Read more →
Craftsmanship over Crap. — Uncle Bob
Aside
Drew Magary: “I do what I fucking want, which should be the first and last stupid retarded ‘man law’ ever.”
The Thousand-Mile Road
Step by step walk the thousand-mile road. Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men. — Miyamoto Musashi, The Book Of Five Rings Read more →
An elevated spirit is weak and a low spirit is weak. Do not let the enemy see your spirit. — Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings
Aside
He in his madness prays for storms
And dreams that storms will bring him peace.
The Job of Our Time
The job of our time is to hospice the death of the old unsustainable systems and structures, and to midwife the birth of new sustainable systems and new ways of being. — Lynne Twist Read more →
Start by Visualizing Perfection
One can come at improvement from two angles: How can we make things suck less? or What is the ideal state that we should shoot for? I’m for the second option. It is the classic Lean approach to improvement, BTW: Start by visualizing perfection. — Mary Poppendieck Read more →
Your Time is Limited
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. — Steve Jobs Read more →
Saying No to 1,000 Things
[Innovation] comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important. — Steve Jobs Read more →
Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
A Half-Assed Job of Anything
It’s enough to make you cry to see how bad most people are at their jobs. If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. — Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano Read more →
He thought: I didn’t say the right words. Why do I never find the right words? The man needed help and I recited a formula. God forgive me. Will someone only give me a formula too when I come to die? — Graham Greene, Monsignor Quixote
He prayed in his silence: O God, make me human, let me feel temptation. Save me from my indifference. — Graham Greene, Monsignor Quixote
. . . you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on. — Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable