Roberts Rules of Financial Markets

Warren Buffett reveals his investment strategy for mastering the market

2023-09-01T12:51:00.004-07:00

https://youtu.be/SEZwkbliJr8?si=sWM7etz76M-QE64D

Tips for Journalists that Never Go Out of Style

2019-05-01T09:52:00.001-07:00

40 Time-tested Tips for Journalists that Never Go Out of Style

By Jezzamine Andaquig on October 10, 2017

1. Always get the name of the dog.

2. Better to get it right than get it first.

3. Trust is our most important asset.

4. Endure the awkward silences in interviews.

5. Avoid clichés.

6. Pick up the damn phone.

7. And get out of the damn office.

8. Only quote when paraphrasing doesn’t do a better job.

9. With multimedia: complement, don’t repeat.

10. Know your equipment before you hit the field.

11. Give credit and thanks for user submissions.

12. Follow the money.

13. Ask open-ended questions.

14. Keep asking yourself: what is the story REALLY about?

15. Get good natural sound.

16. Experiment and take risks.

17. Capture more b-roll than you think you need.

18. When the eye and the ear compete, the eye wins.

19. Better to coach writers than fix broken stories.

20. Reports are about information; stories are about experience.

21. Arrive early, stay late.

22. Don’t let the powerful answer in the passive voice: “Mistakes were made.”

23. The best quote often comes after the reporter closes the notebook.

24. Journalism is a discipline of verification, not assertion.

25. Good writing is not magic, it’s a process.

26. Great journalism comes at the intersection of craft and opportunity.

27. Take responsibility for what readers know and understand.

28. Each reader brings an autobiography with them to a story.

29. In a nut graph, it’s not the graph that’s important, but the nut.

30. Place the emphatic word in a sentence at the end.

31. The antidote to procrastination is rehearsal.

32. Show AND tell.

33. Get a good quote high in the story.

34. Express your most important idea in the shortest sentence.

35. The most powerful form of punctuation is white space.

36. Write early to learn what you still need to learn.

37. Tell the audience what you know—and how you know it.

38. Don’t just interview the boss, talk to the mechanic.

39. To find stories, take a different route home.

40. If your mother says she loves you, check it out.

Source: https://www.poynter.org/40-time-tested-tips-journalists-never-go-out-style

Billionaire Hedge-Fund Manager Warns a “Revolution” Is Coming

2019-04-26T06:19:00.001-07:00

BY DAVID A.GROGAN/CNBC/GETTY IMAGES.

BILLIONAIRE HEDGE-FUND MANAGER WARNS A “REVOLUTION” IS COMING

Ray Dalio is extremely worried there’s about to be an uprising in America.

BY BESS LEVIN

APRIL 5, 2019

Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio lives a pretty comfortable life, on account of the $16.9 billion to his name. But there’s something keeping him up at night, and it’s not the nagging sense that, at 69, he doesn’t have nearly enough time on earth left to spend that giant chunk of change. It‘s that there’s about to be an uprising in America, spurred by the widening wealth gap, and we all know who tends to fare the worst when the pitchforks come out.

Writing in a new essay on LinkedIn, the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund says that while capitalism has worked out exceedingly well for him, he’s also “seen capitalism evolve in a way that it is not working well for the majority of Americans because it’s producing self-reinforcing spirals up for the haves and down for the have-nots.” In turn, that’s created “widening income/wealth/opportunity gaps that pose existential threats to the United States because these gaps are bringing about damaging domestic and international conflicts and weakening America’s condition.” Dalio, who owns a 185-foot yacht, sites statistics that show:

Wages for the majority of Americans have been stagnant since 1980, with those who grew up in the middle class earning less than their parents as the income gap between the poorest and richest grows wider than ever;

Wealth determines the quality of education a child will receive, and because “richer communities tend to have public schools that are far better funded than poorer communities,” the “income/wealth/opportunity gap” gets reinforced; Dalio writes that not educating kids well is “the equivalent of child abuse” and “economically stupid”;

Americans earning less and dying younger—men at the bottom will likely die 10 years earlier than men at the top—has direct (negative) consequences on the economy.

“Disparity in wealth, especially when accompanied by disparity in values, leads to increasing conflict and, in the government, that manifests itself in the form of populism of the left and populism of the right and often in revolutions of one sort or another,” Dalio writes, saying that this makes him especially “worried what the next economic downturn will be like.” Dalio—who believes that firing people “is not a big deal”—would to make clear that the staggering gap between the haves and the have-nots is 100 percent not at all due to “evil rich people doing bad things to poor people” (or “lazy poor people and bureaucratic inefficiencies”), but “how the capitalist system is now working.” To avoid people like, for instance, Ray, being eaten for dinner when the revolution comes, he advises that:

The solution . . . lies in better leadership at the “top of the country;” treating the wealth and income gap as a national emergency; a bipartisan commission to re-engineer the economic system; more accountability, presumably for elected officials; minimum standards for health care and education; some redistributive taxes on the wealthy; and more coordination of monetary and fiscal policy to stimulate growth.

Link: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/04/ray-dalio-capitalism-revolution

Vanue Investing World's fav posts to read later

2019-04-26T00:12:00.000-07:00

Value Investing World is a blog dedicated to promoting the multidisciplinary approach to investing and development of – as Charlie Munger describes it – a latticework of mental models. Although largely focused on linking to investing and economic material it deems of interest, it will also post and link to material from other disciplines that it thinks worth reading or watching, and will occasionally post investment ideas that it thinks are worthy of either investment or further investigation by those with a value investing philosophy.

Blog Archive

► 2014 (53)

► 2013 (1191)

► 2012 (1575)

► 2011 (992)

► 2010 (600)

► 2009 (332)

▼ 2008 (187)
- ► December (19)
- ► November (15)
- ► October (16)
- ► September (14)
- ► August (9)
- ► July (17)
- ► June (14)
- ► May (15)
- ► April (17)
- ► March (9)
- ► February (19)

▼ January (23)

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger

2019-04-26T00:03:00.000-07:00

Lessons in Contentment from Warren and Charlie

The key lessons:

“Find what turns you on.” Warren said this in response to a question about what advice he’d give to his younger self 50 years ago. He wasn’t talking about sex, but about what you do for a living. And while we’ve all heard “Do what you love”, it’s telling that this is the one thing he’d tell his younger self — it’s that important to happiness. If you do what turns you on, you will be much further along the road to contentment.

Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. Charlie, who is impressively intelligent, said one of the big advantages that Berkshire Hathaway has had is that Warren and Charlie don’t need to worry about what everyone else is doing (in the investment world). Too many people get caught up in watching everyone else, and letting that influence them, that they lose their inner compass. Instead, figure out the guiding principles that matter the most to you, and let go of the need to check on what everyone else is doing, and the need to compare what you’re doing with everyone else.

Know your strengths. These two guys are very aware of their limitations — they almost never invest in tech companies, for example, because they don’t understand it well — and instead of feeling the need to go into their weak areas, they stay with their strong areas. They know what they’re strong at, and focus on that. Letting go of the need to do everything, and being happy with focusing on less, is an important contentment lesson.

Fewer and higher quality. Warren & Charlie have a “fewer is better” investment philosophy, where they aren’t nearly as active as your usual Wall Street investor … but they focus on a handful of really strong investments. Warren suggests that investors imagine they have a punchcard with 20 punch holes … once you make 20 investments in your lifestime, your punchcard is used up. If you did this, you’d really make them count.

This is the guiding principle, btw, in my book The Power of Less. You don’t need more — instead, be more discerning, and happy with less.

Know what you like and forget the rest. Warren Buffet, one of the world’s wealthiest men, has a nice but modest house and a surprisingly modest Cadillac (that he drives himself), and eats at his favorite (but pretty ordinary) restaurants … he can afford much more extravagance, but forgoes it because he knows the simple things he likes in life. He could have much, much more, but knows that he doesn’t need it. How many of us do that? Just enjoy the things we like, and not worry about what else we could be enjoying, or what everyone else is enjoying.

There will be some who say, “Sure, it’s easy to be content when you’re rich and successful,” but I think this is missing the point. They are successful because of these lessons.

I learned that inspiration for contentment can be found in surprising places, including in Omaha, where everyone I met had a kind word for me, and a smile on their faces. I left with a smile myself.

Link: http://zenhabits.net/buffett/

Useful Links and Other Recommended Reading

2019-04-25T23:55:00.004-07:00

Carol Loomis, Editor for Warren Buffett

2019-04-25T23:54:00.000-07:00

Carol Loomis, Editor for Warren Buffett, Leaves Job After 60 Years

By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY

JULY 3, 2014

Carol Loomis is retiring after a 60-year career at Fortune magazine. She also edits Warren Buffett’s writing, like his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.

Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

In January 1954, a bright-eyed 24-year-old from Cole Camp, Mo., walked into Fortune magazine’s offices at Rockefeller Center. Armed with a college journalism degree and work experience writing for a Maytag company magazine, she took an entry-level job assisting Fortune’s male writers.

The young woman, Carol Loomis, navigated the magazine’s “Mad Men”-like culture, on one occasion slapping a married colleague whom, she delicately recalled, “had an agenda.”

She proved herself as a reporter but had to battle gender stereotypes. In 1970, she fought her way into an Economic Club of New York dinner after its director said he did not want “any frivolous little Smith girls looking for a free dinner and the chance to spend an evening with 1,200 men in black tie.”

After 60 years at Fortune, Ms. Loomis is retiring as one of the country’s most venerated financial journalists, with a collection of work that reads like a history of modern Wall Street.

“She has an analytical mind and she keeps learning,” said Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor and a close friend. “We males never do that. We quit at about 15. We just think we know it all. At 85, she is interested in learning more.”

In the 1960s, she wrote one of the first articles about hedge funds. She reported two cover articles on the risk of derivatives in the mid-1990s, long before those instruments contributed to the near-collapse of the global economy.

A 1999 piece, “Lies, Damn Lies and Managed Earnings,” presaged the wave of accounting scandals a few years later. On Monday, Fortune will publish her final article before she retires, a piece about one of the world’s most powerful financiers, Laurence D. Fink of Black Rock.

Ms. Loomis is perhaps best known as Mr. Buffett’s Boswell. She has been Fortune’s resident expert on Mr. Buffett since meeting him in 1966, and each year edits the annual shareholder letter of Mr. Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, an unusual role for a financial journalist. The two speak nearly every business day and are frequent bridge partners, playing mostly over the Internet.

She will have more time now for bridge. At her age, she said, it was becoming too difficult to jump on a plane and take extended trips to write the deeply reported, lengthy magazine features that she worked on throughout her career.

“I began to realize that some of the things that a Fortune writer needs to do, just take for granted, become a little bit harder at this age,” said Ms. Loomis, seated in a Fortune conference room on Wednesday. “I didn’t want to be a Fortune writer who was constrained in any way.”

Ms. Loomis stressed that her departure had no connection to the recent spinoff of Fortune’s parent company, Time Inc., from the media conglomerate Time Warner. In fact, she said she was never fond of Time Inc.’s 1989 merger with Warner Communications.

Ms. Loomis and Mr. Buffett at a Fortune magazine event in Washington in 2010.

Credit Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Time Inc.

“I think it’s good that we’re out here on our own, don’t have to send money to Time Warner, and we sent a lot of money to Time Warner,” she said.

When Ms. Loomis started at Fortune, she was surrounded by journalistic luminaries. The magazine’s masthead included Hedley Donovan, who would go on to succeed Henry Luce as the editor in chief of Time Inc. William H. Whyte, author of “The Organization Man,” the seminal book about corporate culture, and the famed photographer Walker Evans, were also on the magazine’s staff.

She soon became a luminary herself. Among her influential articles was a 1966 piece about another former Fortune employee, Alfred Winslow Jones, considered the father of the hedge fund industry.

For decades, readers contacted Fortune for copies of the piece to use as a blueprint for using hedging techniques to make money on both rising and falling stocks. Ms. Loomis cast something of a skeptical eye on Mr. Jones’s fund, calling his record in forecasting the market “only fair.”

Alan Farnham, a former Fortune writer who worked at the magazine during the 1980s and ’90s, said Ms. Loomis taught him how much work went into producing great journalism. He worked for her as a researcher, and remembers her arriving at the office with a suitcase of documents and poring over them for days.

“She would research something to the nth degree before any of the interviewing started,” he said. “It was evident by every word and deed that she was committing herself to an uninterrupted siege of work.”

Fortune’s editors helped Ms. Loomis over her six-decade career — she is Time Inc.’s longest-serving employee — by allowing her a flexible schedule. In 1968, after she had her second child, her editors let her take summers off. As she hit her mid-60s, she cut her schedule to working seven months a year. And last year Andrew Serwer, Fortune’s managing editor, agreed to cut back her output to three lengthy features a year.

“We wanted to keep her and we wanted to keep her happy,” Mr. Serwer said. “You should be flexible for your most important employees.”

She was introduced to Mr. Buffett by her husband, John, a retired partner at First Manhattan, the New York investment manager. The couple, married 54 years, are longtime Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. They raised two children in Larchmont, N.Y., the Westchester suburb where they still live.

Now that she is officially retired, Ms. Loomis said she hoped to first catch up on the lunches she missed while finishing her article on Mr. Fink and BlackRock. She also needs to find a place for the nine boxes of reporter’s notes cluttering her garage. And she looks forward to playing more golf and bridge.

Ms. Loomis also plans to continue her regular conversations with Mr. Buffett and assist him with his writings. After editing the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter for nearly 40 years, she likes to remind Mr. Buffett that he still needs her help. She said that dangling participles and the passive voice were persistent problems.

“I kid him,” she said, “that he missed the class on active verbs.”

Information Overload is the Bane of my Life

2019-04-24T03:50:00.001-07:00

Information Overload is the Bane of my Life

My daily struggle is to understand what is important, to my situation, in the constant barrage of information on the Internet.

What can and should be ignored?

Is my purpose to seek distraction, novelty and entertainment?

Or is the goal and purpose to my Net Surfing to gain valuable knowledge?

What do I hope to accomplish?

“There are things that attract human attention, and there is often a huge gap between what is important and what is attractive and interesting."

- Yuval Noah Harari

And Donald Trump has not helped make being informed easy with all his mixed messages.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Gerald M. Loeb

2016-06-01T00:53:00.001-07:00



Gerald M. Loeb

Born	July 1899^[1]
Died	April 13, 1974 (aged 74)
Occupation	Stockbroker, Investment banker
Years active	1921–1974
Employer	E.F. Hutton and Co.
Known for	Wall Street Trader, author

Gerald Loeb (July 1899 – April 13, 1974) was a founding partner of E.F. Hutton & Co., a renowned Wall Street trader and brokerage firm. He was the author of the books The Battle For Investment Survival^[2] and The Battle For Stock Market Profits. Loeb promoted a view of the market as too risky to hold stocks for the long term in contrast to well known value investors. He also created the Gerald Loeb Award, given annually for excellence in various categories of financial journalism.^[3]

Career and writing

Loeb began his career in 1921, working in the bond department of a securities firm in San Francisco.^[4] He moved to New York in 1924 after joining E. F. Hutton & Co., and became vice-chairman of the board when the company incorporated in 1962.^[4]
Although he had largely avoided personal losses, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 greatly affected Loeb's investing style, making him skeptical of holding stocks for the long term. Loeb offered a contrarian investing viewpoint, in books and columns in Barron's, The Wall Street Journal, and Investor Magazine.^[3]^[4] Forbes magazine called Loeb "the most quoted man on Wall Street."^[5]
Loeb's first book, The Battle for Investment Survival(1935), sold over 200,000 copies during the Great Depression.^[2]^[3] Loeb updated the book in 1957 and 1965, as it attained the status of a classic financial text. In 1971, Loeb published The Battle for Market Profits as a follow up to his original book where he depicted the market as a battlefield.^[4] Loeb's books are still widely read today and hailed by many as a staple for investment professionals.

References

Hickerson, John Melancthon (1951). How I Made the Sale That Did the Most for Me. Prentice-Hall. p. 24.

Krass, Peter; Contributors Richard Poe, Warren Buffett. The Book of Investing Wisdom: Classic Writings by Great Stock-Pickers and Legends of Wall Street. John Wiley and Sons. p. 176. ISBN 0-471-29454-3. Cite uses deprecated parameter |coauthors= (help)

Good and bad businesses by EBITDA

2014-08-10T01:38:00.002-07:00

Seth Klarman EBITDA Example

EBITDA, in addition to being a flawed measure of cash flow, also masks the relative importance of the several components of corporate cash flow. Pretax earnings and depreciation allowance comprise a company’s pretax cash flow; earnings are the return on the capital invested in a business, while depreciation is essentially a return of the capital invested in a business. To illustrate the confusion caused by EBITDA analysis, consider the example portrayed in exhibit 1.

Investors relying on EBITDA as their only analytical tool would value these two businesses equally. At equal prices, however, most investors would prefer to own Company X, which earns $20 million, rather than Company Y, which earns nothing. Although these businesses have identical EBITDA, they are clearly not equally valuable. Company X could be a service business that owns no depreciable assets. Company Y could be a manufacturing business in a competitive industry. Company Y must be prepared to reinvest its depreciation allowance (or possibly more, due to inflation) in order to replace its worn-out machinery. It has no free cash flow over time. Company X, by contrast, has no capital-spending requirements and thus has substantial cumulative free cash flow over time.

From Margin of Safety:

EBITDA Analysis Obscures the Difference between Good and Bad Businesses

Anyone who purchased Company Y on a leveraged basis would be in trouble.

To the extent that any of the annual $20 million in EBITDA were used to pay cash interest expense, there would be a shortage of funds for capital spending when plant and equipment needed to be replaced.

Company Y would eventually go bankrupt, unable both to service its debt and maintain its business.

Company X, by contrast, might be an attractive buyout candidate.

The shift of investor focus from after-tax earnings to EBIT and then to EBITDA masked important differences between businesses, leading to losses for many investors.

Posted by Joe Koster at 2/11/2014
Labels: Seth Klarman

Warren Buffett Wisdom

2014-08-10T01:31:00.000-07:00

Warren Buffett's Priceless Investment Advice

"It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price."

If you can grasp this simple advice from Warren Buffett, you should do well as an investor. Sure, there are other investment strategies out there, but Buffett's approach is both easy to follow and demonstrably successful over more than 50 years. Why try anything else?

Two words for the efficient market hypothesis: Warren Buffett

An interesting academic study (link opens PDF file) illustrates Buffett's amazing investment genius. From 1980 to 2003, the stock portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B ) beat the S&P 500 index in 20 out of 24 years. During that same period, Berkshire's average annual return from its stock portfolio outperformed the index by 12 percentage points. The efficient market theory predicts that this is impossible, but the theory is clearly wrong in this case. And as Casey Stengel said, "You can look it up."

Buffett has delivered these outstanding returns by buying undervalued shares in great companies such as Gillette (now owned by Procter & Gamble) and Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM ) . Over the years, Berkshire has owned household names such as UPS (NYSE: UPS ) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT ) .

Although not every pick worked out, Buffett and Berkshire have, for the most part, made a mint. Indeed, Buffett's investment in Gillette increased threefold during the 1990s. Who'd have guessed you could get such stratospheric returns from razors?

The devil is in the details
So buying great companies at reasonable prices can deliver solid returns for long-term investors. The challenge, of course, is identifying great companies and determining what constitutes a reasonable price.

Buffett recommends that investors look for companies that deliver outstanding return on capital and produce substantial cash profits. He also suggests that you look for companies with a huge economic moat to protect them from competitors. You can identify companies with moats by looking for strong brands alongside consistent or improving profit margins and returns on capital.

How do you determine the right buy price for shares in such companies? Buffett advises that you wait patiently for opportunities to purchase stocks at a significant discount to their intrinsic values -- as calculated by taking the present value of all future cash flows. Ultimately, he believes that "value will in time always be reflected in market price." When the market finally recognizes the true worth of your undervalued shares, you begin to earn solid returns.

Do-it-yourself outperformance
Beginning investors will need to develop their skills in identifying profitable companies and determining intrinsic values before they'll be able to capture Buffett-like returns. In the meantime, one place to look for stock ideas is among Berkshire's own holdings.

For example, Berkshire opened a position in CarMax (NYSE: KMX ) late last year, and added to an existing stake in US Bancorp (NYSE: USB ) . So far both of those picks are in the red, which may signal a buying opportunity -- after all, getting a lower cost basis than the Oracle of Omaha has been a sound strategy in the past.

Another place to find great value stock ideas is Motley Fool Inside Value. Philip Durell, the lead analyst for the service, follows an investment strategy very similar to Buffett's. He looks for undervalued companies that also have strong financials and competitive positions. This approach has allowed Philip to outperform the market since Inside Value's inception in 2004. To see his most recent stock picks, as well as the entire archive of past selections, sign up for a free 30-day trial today.

If investing in wonderful companies at fair prices is good enough for Warren Buffett -- arguably the finest investor on the planet -- it should be good enough for the rest of us.

.............................

This article was originally published on April 7, 2007. It has been updated.

John Reeves can't remember the last time he used a razor made by someone other than Gillette and wishes he'd owned shares in that company before P&G acquired it. John does not own shares of any company mentioned in this article. The Motley Fool owns shares of Berkshire, which is an Inside Value and Stock Advisor recommendation. CarMax and Wal-Mart are also Inside Value selections. UPS and US Bancorp are Income Investor picks. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

By John Reeves
http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2008/07/01/warren-buffetts-priceless-investment-advice.aspx

Quotes

2014-08-10T01:24:00.000-07:00

Some of my favorite quotes

“We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Each day a few more lies eat into the seed with which we are born, little institutional lies from the print of newspapers, the shock waves of television, and the sentimental cheats of the movie screen.” - Norman Mailer

“Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” - Mark Twain

“When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.” - William Arthur Ward

“Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.” - Albert Einstein

“Go often to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.” - Albert Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.” - Henry Emerson Fosdick

“The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.” - Kahlil Gibran

“Persistent people begin their success where others end in failures.” - Edward Eggleston

“Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.” - Jonathan Kozol

“Show me a man with both feet on the ground, and I’ll show you a man who can’t put his pants on.” - Arthur K. Watson

“The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterward.” - Arthur Koestler

“Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.” - Mark Twain

“O senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm and yet will make Gods by the dozen!” - Michel de Montaigne

“Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” - Helen Adams Keller

“There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.” - Soren Kierkegaard

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

“Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out.” - Tony Hoare

“Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” - Heraclitus

“Most of us are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” - Mark Twain

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” - Helen Adams Keller

“If words are to enter men’s minds and bear fruit, they must be the right words shaped cunningly to pass men’s defenses and explode silently and effectually within their minds.” - J.B. Phillips

“A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.” - Sydney J. Harris

Do not praise yourself
not slander others:
There are still many days to go
and any thing could happen.
- Kabir

“War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.” - Thomas Jefferson

“It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.” - Bertrand Russell

“New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled, the humiliating question arises, ``Why then are you not taking part in them?’’” - H.G. Wells

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” - Henry David Thoreau

“Noise proves nothing—often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.” - Mark Twain

“It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.” - Alfred Adler

“We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.” - Helen Adams Keller

“One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer.” - Stephen Hawking

“Knowing all truth is less than doing a little bit of good.” - Albert Schweitzer

“If a man points at the moon, an idiot will look at the finger.” - Sufi wisdom

“A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.” - Chuang-tzu

“The refusal to choose is a form of choice; disbelief is a form of belief.” - Frank Barron

“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” - Francis Bacon

“Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.” - Paul Tournier

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.” - George Bernard Shaw

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

“Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.” - Charles F. Kettering

“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” - Robert F. Kennedy

“You can achieve anything you want in life if you have the courage to dream it, the intelligence to make a realistic plan, and the will to see that plan through to the end.” - Sidney A. Friedman

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” - William Arthur Ward

“For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his [or her] happiness on major events like a great job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.” - Andy Rooney

“Most of my major disappointments have turned out to be blessings in disguise. So whenever anything bad does happen to me, I kind of sit back and feel, well, if I give this enough time, it’ll turn out that this was good, so I shouldn’t worry about it too much.” - William Gaines

“If you let yourself be absorbed completely, if you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.” - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out of his conscience, thus helping to bring the collective conscience to life.” - Norman Cousins

“Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.” - Carl Jung

“Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius.” - George Sand

“It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

“As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.” - Josh Billings

“The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.” - Epictetus

“The future must be seen in terms of what a person can do to contribute something, to make something better, to make it go where he believes with all his being it ought to go.” - Frederick R. Kappel

“We can throw stones, complain about them, stumble on them, climb over them, or build with them.” - William Arthur Ward

“If you don’t make a total commitment to whatever you’re doing, then you start looking to bail out the first time the boat starts leaking. It’s tough enough getting that boat to shore with everybody rowing, let alone when a guy stands up and starts putting his life jacket on.” - Lou Holtz

“At times failure is very necessary for the artist. It reminds him that failure is not the ultimate disaster. And this reminder liberates him from the mean fussing of perfectionism.” - John Berger

“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.” - Jim Valvano

“When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” - Alexander Graham Bell

“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” - Niels Bohr

“Life is a long lesson in humility.” - James Barrie

“The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.” - Hugh Black

“If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” - Isaac Newton

“A man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of life getting his living.” - Henry David Thoreau

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” - Rabindranath Tagore

“He who would travel happily must travel light.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers… Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.” - Francois Fenelon

“No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.” - Victor Hugo

“People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.” - Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

“A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations.” - Bertrand Russell

“The journey into self-love and self-acceptance must begin with self-examination. … until you take the journey of self-reflection, it is almost impossible to grow or learn in life.” - Iyanla Van Zant

“Walking is also an ambulation of mind.” - Gretel Ehrlich

“The teacher is like the candle which lights others in consuming itself.” - Giovanni Ruffini

“How often is it a phantom woman who draws the man from the way he meant to go? So was man created, to hunger for the ideal that is above himself, until one day there is magic in the air, and the eyes of a girl rest upon him. He does not know that it is he himself who crowned her, and if the girl is as pure as he, their love is the one form of idolatry that is not quite ignoble. It is the joining of two souls on their way to God. But if the woman be bad, the test of the man is when he wakens from his dream. The nobler his ideal, the further will he have been hurried down the wrong way, for those who only run after little things will not go far. His love may now sink into passion, perhaps only to stain its wings and rise again, perhaps to drown.” - James Barrie (The Little Minister, Chapter 1: The Love-Light)

“The praise that comes of love does not make us vain, but humble rather. Knowing what we are, the pride that shines in our mother’s eyes as she looks at us, is about the most pathetic thing a man has to face, but he would be a devil altogether if it did not burn some of the sin out of him.” - James Barrie

“Yet if he upbraided her in his hurry, it was to repent bitterly his temper the next, and to feel its effects more than she, temper being a weapon that we hold by the blade.” - James Barrie

“A great writer has spoken sadly of the shock it would be to a mother to know her boy as he really is, but I think she often knows him better than he is known to cynical friends. We should be slower to think that the man at his worst is the real man, and certain that the better we are ourselves the less likely is he to be at his worst in our company. Every time he talks away his own character before us he is signifying contempt for ours.” - James Barrie

“So Babbie loved the little minister for the best that she had ever seen in man. I shall be told that she thought far more of him than he deserved, forgetting the mean in the worthy: but who that has had a glimpse of heaven will care to let his mind dwell henceforth on earth? Love, it is said, is blind, but love is not blind. It is an extra eye, which shows us what is most worthy of regard. To see the best is to see most clearly, and it is the lover’s privilege.” - James Barrie

“When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.” - Confucius

“The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.” - John Vance Cheney

“There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man.” - Aristotle

“You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.” - Wayne Dyer

“Security is not the meaning of my life. Great opportunities are worth the risk.” - Shirley Hufstedler

“Dreams have only one owner at a time. That’s why dreamers are lonely.” - Erma Bombeck

“Without danger you cannot get beyond danger.” - George Herbert

“If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.” - Rabbi Harold Kushner

“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” - Tom Robbins

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.” - Adlai E. Stevenson

“No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.” - George Eliot

“Nothing worse could happen to one than to be completely understood.” - Carl Jung

“Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it.” - Jack Canfield

“Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.” - Robert Anthony

“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.” - Mother Teresa

“You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.” - Henri Frederic Amiel

“What we wish, that we readily believe.” - Demosthenes

“Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.” - Demosthenes

“Most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use.” - Mark Twain

“There’s as much risk in doing nothing as in doing something.” - Trammel Crow

“We must travel in the direction of our fear.” - John Berryman

“How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most.” - Stephen Covey

“If you want happiness for an hour - take a nap. If you want happiness for a day - go fishing. If you want happiness for a month - get married. If you want happiness for a year - inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime - help someone else.” - Chinese Proverb

“Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.” - David Lloyd George

“Your decision to be, have and do something out of ordinary entails facing difficulties that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else.” - Brian Tracy

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make a mistake.” - Elbert Hubbard

“Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end.” - Germain de Stael

“Love your enemies because they bring out the best in you.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

“It’s only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth - and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, we will then begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.” - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

“The mind cannot long act the role of the heart.” - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.” - Henry David Thoreau

“Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.” - Victoria Holt

“We must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time; we can be responsible only for the one action of the present moment. But we can beg for an increase of love in our hearts that will vitalize and transform all our individual actions.” - Dorothy Day

“There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first. When you learn to live for others, they will live for you.” - Paramahansa Yogananda

“Playing it safe is the riskiest choice we can ever make.” - Sarah Ban Breathnach

“Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.” - Henry Van Dyke

“What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it.” - Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

“When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with such applause in the lecture room, how soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wandered off by myself, in the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, looked up in perfect silence at the stars.” - Walt Whitman

“People can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.” - Stephen R. Covey

“Praying without ceasing is not ritualized, nor are there even words. It is a constant state of awareness of oneness with God.” - Peace Pilgrim

“Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When you don’t know what harbor you’re aiming for, no wind is the right wind.” - Seneca

“The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.” - Herbert Sebastian Agar

“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” - Mahatma Gandhi

“We are no longer happy as soon as we wish to be happier.” - Walter Savage Landor

“To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind.” - Theophile Gautier

“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” - Andre Gide

“Figure out what your purpose is in life, what you really and truly want to do with your time and your life then be willing to sacrifice everything and then some to achieve it. If you are not willing to make the sacrifice, then keep searching.” - Quintina Ragnacci

“No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.” - Harry Emerson Fosdick

“Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.” - Kahlil Gibran

“When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world we lose connection with one another and ourselves.” - Jack Kornfield

“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.” - Albert Schweitzer

“I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change. I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.” - Erica Jong

“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for.” - Tennessee Williams

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” - Norman Cousins

“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.” - Francis Bacon

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction” - Albert Einstein

“Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.” - Buddha

“Most people are paralyzed by fear. Overcome it and you take charge of your life and your world.” - Mark Victor Hansen

“…if there is sin against life, it lies in hoping for another life and evading the implacable grandeur of the one we have.” - Albert Camus

“Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.” - Epicurus

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” - Charles Darwin

“One must never lose time in vainly regretting the past nor complaining against the changes which cause us discomfort, for change is the very essence of life.” - Anatole France

“The first step toward change is acceptance. Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That’s all you have to do. Change is not something you do, it’s something you allow.” - Will Garcia

“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will avoid one hundred days of sorrow.” - Chinese Proverb

“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” - Carl Bard

“The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.” - Harry Emerson Fosdick

“You will never find time for anything. You must make it.” - Charles Buxton

“Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.” - Benjamin Disraeli

“The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.” - Edwin Schlossberg

“Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both.” - John Andrew Holmes

“A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.” - Barnett Cocks

“It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.” - Mohandas K. Gandhi

“It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide what to do.” - Elbert Hubbard

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” - John Muir

“An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes.” - Cato The Elder

“The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.” - Moliere

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.” - Edward Abbey

“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.” - Walt Whitman

“Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.” - Alan Alda

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” - Ovid

“Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on ‘I am not too sure.’” - H.L.Mencken

“If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and to love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.” - Carl Jung

“How does one become a butterfly? … You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” - Trina Paulus

“We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas, and not for things themselves.” - John Locke

“People change and forget to tell each other.” - Lillian Hellman

“Thank God I’m not a Jungian.” - Carl Jung

“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done. Then they begin to hope it can be done. Then they see it can be done. Then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.” - Frances Hodgson Burnett

“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.” - Robertson Davies

“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.” - Henry Winkler

“Expect problems and eat them for breakfast.” - Alfred A. Montapert

“Life is an adventure in forgiveness.” - Norman Cousins

“I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me.” - Max Reger

“If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him.” - Cardinal Richelieu

“Whenever you do things from your Soul, you feel a river inside, a joy.” - Rumi

“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.” - Emily Dickinson

“God is in you as the ocean is in the wave.” - Eric Butterworth

“Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.” - Meister Eckhart

“The world in general doesn’t know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.” - W. Somerset Maugham

“The apparently unendurable conflict is proof of the rightness of your life. A life without contradiction is only half a life; or else a life in the Beyond, which is destined only for angels. But God loves human beings more than the angels.” - Carl Jung

“Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.” - Jean-Paul Sartre

“What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.” - Joseph Addison

“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. - Bertrand Russell (in The Triumph of Stupidity 10 May 1933)” - Bertrand Russell

“A bit of perfume always clings to the hand that gives the rose.” - Chinese proverb

“Often war is waged only in order to show valor; thus an inner dignity is ascribed to war itself, and even some philosophers have praised it as an ennoblement of humanity, forgetting the pronouncement of the Greek who said, ‘War is an evil in as much as it produces more wicked men than it takes away.’” - Immanuel Kant

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.” - Susan B Anthony

“All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.” - Marshall Rosenberg

“Punishment damages goodwill and self-esteem, and shifts our attention from the intrinsic value of an action to external consequences.” - Marshall Rosenberg

“My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I’m not selling bread, I’m selling yeast.” - Miguel de Unamuno

“The Experience of Sacred Space makes possible the founding of the world: where the sacred Manifests itself in space, the real unveils itself, the world comes into existence.” - Mircea Eliade

“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.” - Albert Einstein

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens….” - Carl Jung

“When we understand the needs that motivate our own and other’s behavior, we have no enemies.” - Marshall Rosenberg

“Everything has changed, except our way of thinking.” - Albert Einstein

“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence, but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“It’s never what people do that make us angry, it’s what we tell ourselves about what they did.” - Marshall Rosenberg

“Making a request without revealing the feeling/need takes all the joy out of other’s service.” - Lucy Leu

“You can never learn anything that is not a part of yourself.” - Louis Kahn

“The significant problems of our time cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” - Albert Einstein

“Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.” - Henry David Thoreau

“Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.” - Oscar Wilde

“Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.” - Emily Kimbrough

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” - Albert Einstein

“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” - Albert Einstein

“Enlightenment must come little by little—otherwise it would overwhelm.” - Idries Shah

“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.” - Barry LePatner

“Humanity has been sleeping—and still sleeps—lulled within the narrowly confining joys of its little closed loves. In the depths of the human multitude there slumbers an immense spiritual power which will manifest itself only when we have learnt how to break through the dividing walls of our egoism and raise ourselves up to an entirely new perspective, so that habitually and in a practical fashion we fix our gaze on the universal realities.” - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.” - James Barrie

“Politeness, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.” - Ambrose Bierce

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” - Voltaire

“People all say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” - Joseph Campbell

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” - Carl Jung

“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.” - Albert Einstein

“Being stuck is a position few of us like. We want something new but cannot let go of the old — old ideas, beliefs, habits, even thoughts. We are out of contact with our own genius. Sometimes we know we are stuck; sometimes we don’t. In both cases we have to do something.” - Inga Teekens

“If you are inside of something, say an atom, you only see electrons whirling chaotically around you. If you moved outside the atom you would see those electrons moving with a pattern around the atom. If you rise further above you see that atoms are actually the building blocks of larger structures called molecules. And so it goes, on up the scale, ad infinitum. The ever familiar ‘forest from the trees’ syndrome. It’s all a matter of perspective. True creativity is allowing yourself to gain the loftiest perspective you can in relation to the object of your quandary or inquiry.” - J.L. Read

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” - Buddha

“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.” - George Bernard Shaw

“Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.” - Philip Greenspun

“I don’t mind what happens.” - Jiddu Krishnamurti

“Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.” - Gene Fowler

“The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.” - Tacitus

“Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.” - Melvin Conway design systems communication organizations

“I did not fail two thousand times. I merely found two thousand ways not to make a lightbulb.” - Thomas Edison

“I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.” - Nikos Kazantzakis

“The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.” - Lao Tzu

“The best practice is inspired by theory.” - Donald Knuth

“The best theory is inspired by practice.” - Donald Knuth

“A moment’s thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.” - J. E. Houseman

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” - Lewis Carroll

“I’ve had a lot of trouble in my life—most of which never happened.” - Mark Twain

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - Buckminster Fuller

“Learning of all kinds goes on best, lasts best, and tends to lead itself on more when it grows out of a real focus of interest in the learner.” - Carl Rogers

“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.” - A N Whitehead

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices.” - William James

“You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” - Albert Einstein

“The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.” - Daniel J. Boorstin

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” - Shunryu Suzuki

“To get the viewpoint of the other person appreciatively and profoundly and reconcile it with his own so far as possible is the supreme achievement of man and his highest vocation.” - Henry Nelson Wieman

“I conclude that there are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.” - Tony Hoare

“We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.” - Tony Hoare

“Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits.” - Dan Barker

“There’s only one wrong way to live and that’s unhappily.” - Patrick Elliott

“If you have the same problem for a long time, maybe it’s not a problem. Maybe it’s a fact.” - Yitzhak Rabin

“If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.” - Lyndon Baines Johnson

“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.” - e.e. cummings

“To be positive: To be mistaken at the top of one’s voice.” - Ambrose Bierce

“The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best — and therefore never scrutinize or question.” - Stephen Jay Gould

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” - Søren Kierkegaard

“There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” - Albert Einstein

“Curiosity is a willing, a proud, an eager confession of ignorance.” - S. Leonard Rubinstein

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” - Albert Einstein

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

“Only short programs have any hope of being correct.” - Arthur Whitney

“The answers you get depend upon the questions you ask.” - Thomas Kuhn

“Discovery is the ability to be puzzled by simple things.” - Noam Chomsky

“Man’s ‘progress’ is but a gradual discovery that his questions have no meaning.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. Genius must always have lapses proportionate to its triumphs.” - Max Beerbohm

“Those who are enamored of practice without theory are like a pilot who goes into a ship without rudder or compass and never has any certainty where he is going. Practice should always be based on a sound knowledge of theory.” - Leonardo da Vinci

“IV.17 When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine your own self.” - Confucius

“When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.” - R. Buckminster Fuller

“The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.” - Stephen Jay Gould

“The data stream has been corrupted, return to first principles.” - Terence McKenna

“Religion is a defense against the experience of God.” - Carl Gustav Jung

“The attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.” - Alan Watts

“The discovery of this reality is hindered rather than helped by belief, whether one believes in God or believes in atheism. We must make here a clear distinction between belief and faith, because, in general practice, belief has come to mean a state of mind which is almost the opposite of faith. Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would ‘lief’ or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on the condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go. In this sense of the word, faith is the essential virtue of science, and likewise of any religion that is not self-deception.” - Alan Watts

“The object of mathematical rigor is to sanction and legitimize the conquests of intuition, and there was never any other object for it.” - Jacques Hadamard

“Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.” - Pablo Picasso

“Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” - Picasso

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.” - James Oppenheim

“As tedious as arguing about definitions is, it can’t hold a candle to arguing without definitions.” - David R MacIver

“On two occasions I have been asked, — ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.” - Charles Babbage

“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.” - Albert Einstein

“A variable is to data flow what GOTO is to control flow. Just as GOTO allows control to go anywhere, a variable allows data to go anywhere.” - Arch D Robinson

“Many of the things you can count, don’t count. Many of the things you can’t count, really count.” - Albert Einstein

“Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.” - Wayne Dyer

“Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.” - Oscar Wilde

“Everything you can imagine is real.” - Pablo Picasso

“The moon could not continue shining if it had to pay attention to all the dogs barking at it.” - Anonymous

“The great snare of thought is uncritical acceptance of irrational assumptions.” - Will Durant

“Sometimes we do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions not answers.” - Le Carre

“The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers.” - Richard Hamming

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” - William Butler Yeats

“The mind can assert anything and pretend it has proved it. My beliefs I test on my body, on my intuitional consciousness, and when I get a response there, then I accept.” - D.H. Lawrence

“Yo can’t reason someone out of something he didn’t reason himself into.” - Jonathan Swift (via Alfie Kohn)

“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.” - Edward R. Murrow

“What you already know is merely a good departure point.” - Keorapetse Kgositsile

“The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.” - William Somerset

“Being attached to a speculation is not a good guide to research planning. One should always try both directions of every problem. Prejudice has caused famous mathematicians to fail to solve famous problems whose solution was opposite to their expectations, even though they had developed all the methods required.” - Anil Nerode (on P vs NP)

At this point I am reminded of the keynote speech of the then boss of IBM in France who addressed the audience at the 7th IEEE Logic programming conference in Paris. IBM prolog had added a lot of OO extensions, when asked why he replied: Our customers wanted OO prolog so we made OO prolog. I remember thinking “how simple, no qualms of conscience, no soul-searching, no asking ‘Is this the right thing to do’” … - Joe Armstrong Why OO Sucks

“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.” - Linus Pauling

“Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in this world for ugly mathematics.” - G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” - Rene Descartes

“I have learned to use the word ‘impossible’ with the greatest caution.” - Wernher von Braun

“In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.’ I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.” - Stephen Jay Gould

“Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose.” - Eckhart Tolle (thanks @ktotheb)

“Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one’s awareness of one’s ignorance.” - Anthony de Mello

“I would suggest that today, we know about as much concerning the human mind as we knew about the galaxy in 1300.” - Alan Watts

“A question mark does not a question make.” - Anonymous (thanks @jakevsrobots)

“The act of forgiveness is the act of returning to present time. And that’s why when one has become a forgiving person, and has managed to let go of the past, what they’ve really done is they’ve shifted their relationship with time.” - Caroline Myss

“The creative adult is the child who has survived.” - Ursula K LeGuin (thanks @ktotheb)

“Only that in you which is me can hear what I’m saying.” - Ram Dass (thanks @ktotheb)

“If extreme idealism isn’t working out for you, maybe it is because you are not wholeheartedly following your own ideals.” - Luke Palmer (blog post)

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world (- Mahatma Gandhi). As applied to software: design software as if it were the beautiful paradise you want it to be, then build pieces of the scaffolding back to the status quo.” - Luke Palmer (blog post)

“It’s not what you look at that matters; it’s what you see.” - Henry David Thoreau

“The moment you realize you are not present, you are present.” - Eckhart Tolle

“Accept — then act. Whatever the present moment contains accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” - Eckhart Tolle

“Don’t seek happiness. If you seek it, you won’t find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness.” - Eckhart Tolle

“If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into aliveness, alertness, and creativity.” - Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

“When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life. It means fear is no longer a dominant factor in what you do and no longer prevents you from taking action to initiate change. The Roman philosopher Tacitus rightly observed that ‘the desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.’ If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into aliveness, alertness and creativity.” - Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

“Change is painful, yet pain is changeful.” - Anonymous

“Observe your thoughts, don’t believe them.” - Eckhart Tolle

“What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.” - Marshall B. Rosenberg

“We have produced many of our problems through our confused mental states.” - Tenzin Palmo

“If you want to enjoy intimacy, you must learn to enjoy pain.” - Marshall Rosenberg

“Man suffers because of his craving to possess and keep forever things which are impermanent.” - Alan Watts

Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls,
something borrowed which we mistake as our own.
Ignorance is better than this; clutch at madness instead.
Always run from what seems to benefit your self:
sip the poison and spill the water of life.
Revile those who flatter you;
lend both interest and principal to the poor.
Let security go and be at home amidst dangers.
Leave your good name behind and accept disgrace.
I have lived with cautious thinking;
now I’ll make myself mad.

Rumi, Mathnawi II: 2327–2332, version by Camille and Kabir Helminski, posted to Sunlight

“When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure.” - Rudolf Bahro

“Everything is the same spirit watching itself through the eyes of different observers.” - Depak Chopra

“Love is the beginning of the journey, its end, and the journey itself.” - Depak Chopra

“Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.” - Thomas H. Huxley

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.” - Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Hard writing is easy reading; easy writing is hard reading.” - E.B. White

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” - Rumi

“Learning is remembering what you’re interested in.” - Richard Saul Wurman

“I call intuition cosmic fishing. You feel a nibble, then you’ve got to hook the fish.” — Buckminster Fullero

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” - Anais Nin

“He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.” - Elbert Hubbard

“Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.” - Chinese Proverb

“The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.” - Yogananda

“Perhaps you have moved away by standing still.” - Anonymous (via @ktotheb)

“A man demonstrates his rationality, not by a commitment to fixed ideas, stereotyped procedures, or immutable concepts, but by the manner in which, and the occasions on which, he changes those ideas, procedures, and concepts.” - Stephen Toulmin (from “Human Understanding”)

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair

Are you willing to let go of all you hold dear to grasp what is real? - N. Robison 01/01/09

“If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinion for or against” - Osho (Rajneesh Chandra Mohan Jain)

“If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinion for or against. The struggle of what one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind.” - Hsin Hsin Ming

“Remain in wonder if you want the mysteries to open up for you. Mysteries never open up for those who go on questioning. Questioners sooner or later end up in a library. Questioners sooner or later end up with scriptures, because scriptures are full of answers. And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder.” - Osho

“He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.” - Raymond Hull

“Life cannot be possessed. You cannot have it in your fist. If you want to have it, you have to keep your hands open.” - Osho

“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” - Carl Sagan

“Doubt everything. Find your own light.” - Buddha

We too
should make ourselves empty,
that the great soul of the universe
may fill us with its breath.
Lawrence Binyon

“Practice not-doing, and everything will fall into place.” - Lao-tzu

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” - Krishnamurti

“Here it is — right now. Start thinking about it and you miss it.” - Huang Po

“Dare to be naive.” - R. Buckminster Fuller

“I am enthusiastic over humanity’s extraordinary and sometimes very timely ingenuities. If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat may come along and make a fortuitous life preserver. This is not to say, though, that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday’s fortuitous contrivings as constituting the only means for solving a given problem.” - R. Buckminster Fuller

“If we would have new knowledge, we must get a whole world of new questions.” - Susanne Langer

“We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us.” - Marshall McLuhan

“Unless you have the courage to doubt you will never come to know the truth.” - Osho

“When your creative expressions match the needs of you fellow humans, then wealth will spontaneously manifest.” - Deepak Chopra

“As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can’t see how it is.” - Ram Dass

“It is better to believe than to disbelieve, in so doing you bring everything to the realm of possibility.” - Albert Einstein

“The wise speak only of what they know.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

“I look into your eyes and see the whole universe, not yet born.” - Rumi

“Take sips of this pure wine being poured. Don’t mind that you’ve been given a dirty cup.” - Rumi

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci

“If the world is to be saved at all, it won’t be saved by old minds with new programs, but by new minds with no programs.” - Daniel Quinn

“If the world is saved, it will not be saved by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all.” - Daniel Quinn (The Story of B)

“Don’t choose one side of the argument. Learn to take both sides & work towards the middle.” - Paul Ferrini

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” - Arthur C. Clarke

“To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good.” - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The perfect way is only difficult for those who pick and choose. Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart. If you want the truth to stand clearly before you, never be for or against. The struggle between for and against is the mind’s worst disease. — Zen master Sent-ts’an

“The recognition of the false is already the arising of the real.” - Eckhart Tolle

“Preventing the new generation from changing in any deep way is what most societies require of their educators.” - George Leonard (1923–2010)

“Only the schools’ inefficiency can account for creativity surviving after age 25.” - George Leonard

“In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists”. - Eric Hoffer

“This impure world that we presently experience exists only in relation to our impure mind.” - G. K. Gystso (maybe for a post on FP)

“You’re happiest while you’re making the greatest contribution.” - Robert F. Kennedy

“Don’t keep searching for the truth, just let go of your opinions.” - Buddha

“Every really new idea looks crazy at first.” - Abraham H. Maslow

“Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.” - Edsger Dijkstra

“As is often the case with baffling errors it is really quite simple. We tend to fixate on incorrect assumptions, and overlook the obvious, surprisingly frequently. I have found that one way to break through such barriers is to use the ‘Spaniel’ method: Carefully explain the program to your dog. Since the dog knows nothing of programming, you must justify every statement you make. In the process you will often discover the mistake. (I know it sounds weird, but it really does work!)” - W. W. Waite (as quoted in “Literate Programming and the ‘Spaniel’ Method” by Nick Hatzigeorgiu and Apostolos Syropoulos)

“Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence.” - Pythagoras

“Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love” - Kahlil Gibran

“Philosophers’ Syndrome: mistaking a failure of imagination for an insight into necessity” (Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained, 1991).

“One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn’t fall” (Paul Valéry, Analecia, vol 14, 1970).

“Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future. In other words, if we’re going to be more cheerful in the future, it’s because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful in the present. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.” - Pema Chödrön in When Things Fall Apart

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” - Soren Kierkegaard

“The 70% solution is usually the 40% solution, described by someone who can’t tell the difference.” - Gilad Bracha

“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.” - Albert Einstein

“When you speak of love, please ask yourself: ‘Is my love free of conditions?’ When you speak of truth, please ask yourself: ‘Is my truth free of judgement or opinion?’ When you speak of essence, ask: `Am I attached to the way people perceive or receive me?’” - Paul Ferrini (From “I Am the Door: Exploring the Christ Presence Within”)

“A person is able to understand only when he solves the problem by himself.” - Peter Dunov

“Tears have cleansed my eyes, and errors have taught me the language of the hearts.” - Kahlil Gibran

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” - Charles Darwin

“To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.” - Charles Darwin

“The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.” - Bertrand Russell (from “In Praise of Idleness”)

“All great truths begin as blasphemies.” - George Bernard Shaw

“If a thing is worth doing at all, it’s worth doing badly.” - G. K. Chesterton

“The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.” - Jessica Hische

“It is what we think we know already that often prevents us from learning.” - Claude Bernard

“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” - Pablo Picasso

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” - Helen Keller

“The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist.” - J. Harold Wilkins

“A person hears only what they understand.” - Johann Wolfgang Goethe

“When you accept who you really are, your arguments with others cease.” - Paul Ferrini

“Self worth cannot be verfied by others” - Wayne W Dyer

“My commitment is to truth, not consistency.” - Gandhi

“Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.” - Wayne Dyer

“Beauty is a consequential thing, a product of solving problems correctly.” - Joseph Esherick

“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” - Ludwig Wittgenstein

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.” - G. K. Chesterton

“Belief is not merely an idea that the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind”. - Robert Bolt

“Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.” - Erica Jong

“I use memories but I do not allow memories to use me.” - Shiva Sutras

“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it in himself.” - Galileo Galilei

“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“It is not that he is ignorant, it is that so much of what he knows is not true.” - Mark Twain

“By living deeply in the present moment we can understand the past better & prepare for a better future.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

“Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone.” - Robert Allen

“The slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible.” - George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

“That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted.” - George Boole, The Laws of Thought

“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” - John Stuart Mill

“In order to forgive you must have blamed. If you don’t blame there is nothing to forgive.” - Wayne Dyer

“If you do not fling old ideas out of your mind, you cannot give birth to new ones.” - Peter Dunov

“Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional [or scholarly] writers.” - George Orwell “Politics and the English Language” 1946. (quoted)

“Nature is trying hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment.” - Buckminster Fuller

“All things are difficult before they are easy.” - Thomas Fuller

“The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred” - George Bernard Shaw

“A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.” - Gandhi

“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.” - Philip K. Dick

“Selfishness comes from poverty in the heart, from the belief that love is not abundant.” - Don Miguel Ruiz

“Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.” - Bertrand Russell

“Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.” - Marshall McLuhan

“Creativity arises out of the state of thoughtless presence in which you are much more awake than when you are engrossed in thinking.” - Eckhart Tolle

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

“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 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 up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for 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 knew neither victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt

“Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.” - James Harvey Robinson

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” - Buddha

“Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.” - Mahatma Gandhi

“We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.” - Bertrand Russell

“Dreams are the answers to questions that we haven’t yet figured out how to ask.” - Fox Mulder

“Your commitment to other people must be an extension of your commitment to yourself, not at odds with it.” - Paul Ferrini

“Stress is caused by being ‘here’ but wanting to be ‘there’.” - Eckhart Tolle

“He who experiences the unity of life, sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.” - Buddha

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” - Henri Bergson

“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.” - George Bernard Shaw

“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.” - Chinese Proverb

“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” - Sinclair Lewis

“For as knowledges are now delivered, there is a kind of contract of error between the deliverer and the receiver; for he that delivereth knowledge desireth to deliver it in such a form as may be best believed, and not as may be best examined; and he that receiveth knowledge desireth rather present satisfaction than expectant inquiry.” - Francis Bacon

“Whatever people do, they do for a reason and they think that it meets their needs….by their perception.” - Anthony Robbins

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” - Plato

“When you stop projecting your anger & fear on the world, you can stand for truth without hurting others.” - Paul Ferrini

“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.” - William Blake

“To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.” - Confucius

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” - Henry Ford

“Language etches the grooves through which your thoughts must flow.” - Noam Chomsky

“There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do.” - Anaïs Nin

“The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.” - Eckhart Tolle

“Attention Deficit Disorder was coined by regularity chauvinists. Regularity chauvinists are people who insist that you have got to do the same thing every time, every day, which drives some of us nuts. Attention Deficit Disorder - we need a more positive term for that. Hummingbird mind, I should think.” - Ted Nelson (via Jake Elliott)

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” - Epictetus

“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.” - Alan J. Perlis

“Facts are God’s native tongue.” - Michael Dowd

“Our minds can shape the way a thing will be, because we act according to our expectations.” - Federico Fellini

“The deeper you surrender to existence, life, nature, the more loving, more understanding, more insightful you become.” - Osho

“The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion.” - Arnold H. Glasow

“We criticize people for not giving us what we ourselves are afraid to ask for.” - Marshall Rosenberg

“You are not just a drop in the ocean, you the mighty ocean in the drop.” - Rumi

“The collective dream is the hypnosis of social conditioning. Only sages, psychotics & geniuses manage to break free.” - Deepak Chopra

“Education is a progressive discovery of our ignorance.” - Will Durant

“There is nothing so practical as a good theory” - Phil Wadler

“Education is a state-controlled manufactory of echoes.” - Norman Douglas

“Hell is just resistance to life.” - Pema Chödrön

“If you don’t have the right abstractions, you can make things artificially difficult. For example, if I was going to teach arithmetic and I only knew about Roman numerals, you might get the idea that multiplication is extremely difficult. Given the idea of Arabic numerals it becomes a lot easier. If we took Roman numerals, the Romans have no way to express zero. It was just a sort of concept that didn’t exist so a whole branch of mathematics was not only difficult, it was impossible. If we have the wrong abstractions, we can make things which are intrinsically rather simple very difficult. I think that’s what’s happened in parallel programming. We’re using the wrong abstractions and that’s making things artificially difficult.” - Joe Armstrong

“The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

“When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.” - Shunryu Suzuki

“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.” - Kahlil Gibran

“Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what’s going on.” - Pema Chödrön

“Awareness is the key. Do we see the stories that we’re telling ourselves and question their validity?” - Pema Chödrön

“What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.” - Paul Valery

“The only real security in life lies in relishing life’s insecurity.” - M. Scott Peck

“A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” - Lao Tzu

“To put it concisely, we suffer when we resist the noble and irrefutable truth of impermanence and death.” - Pema Chödrön

“There must be a way of promoting human values without involving religion, based on common sense, experience and recent scientific findings.” - Dalai Lama

“Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that’s all that’s happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness—life’s painful aspect—softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody’s eyes because you feel you haven’t got anything to lose—you’re just there. The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We’d be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn’t have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.” - Pema Chödrön (Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living)

“Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person.” - Pema Chödrön

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.” - Charles Mingus (via Garr Reynolds)

“Every problem contains within itself the seeds of its own solution.” - Stanley Arnold

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” - Plato

“If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you believe it won’t you will see obstacles.” - Wayne W Dyer

“Only the closed mind is certain.” - from the movie Dean Spanley

“Right perspective is no perspective or all perspectives.” - Buddha (via Deepak Chopra)

“If you don’t like something, change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” - Engelbreit (via ktotheb)

“Paradoxes are only conflicts between reality and your feelings of what reality ought to be.” - Richard Feynman (via Luke Palmer)

“It is not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It is because we dare not venture that they are difficult.” - Seneca

“In the most ordinary terms, egolessness is a flexible identity. It manifests as inquisitiveness, as adaptability, as humor, as playfulness.” - Pema Chödrön

“The most important thing in communication is to hear what is not being said.” - Peter Drucker

“Speak well of your enemies. After all you made them.” - Unknown

“Your problems are just old habit patterns, asking to be released.” - Karen Bell (KB, ktotheb)

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does tend to rhyme.” - Mark Twain

“All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician and ridiculous to the philosopher.” - Lucretius

“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.” - Henry David Thoreau

“What we think, we become.” - Buddha (via Garr Reynolds)

“Complexity grows incrementally. Regaining simplicity requires a revolution.” - Conal Elliott

“How much ‘ego’ do you need? Just enough so that you don’t step in front of a bus.” - Shunryu Suzuki

“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” - Christopher Columbus

“A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.” - Alan Perlis

“So often I hear ‘The Real World’ as a static notion (e.g., ‘but in the Real World …’). I’m for helping the Real World evolve.” - Conal Elliott

“A problem well stated is a problem half solved.” - Charles F. Kettering

“The Corporate impulse for human uniformity instills shame at difference and, thus, the contemporary zeal for privacy.” - John Perry Barlow

“What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.” - Thaddeus Golas

“Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd” - William Wordsworth

“Everything you do consciously is preserved for you: everything you do mechanically, since you did not do it, is lost.” - Maurice Nicoll (Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, volume 1, page 95)

“We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.” - Pema Chödrön

“… inherited collective mind-patterns … have kept humans in bondage to suffering for eons.” - Eckhart Tolle

“They belong to what is as yet a small but fortunately growing minority of spiritual pioneers: people who are reaching a point where they become capable of breaking out of inherited collective mind patterns that have kept humans in bondage to suffering for eons.” - Eckhart Tolle

“The future is uncertain. But such uncertainty lies at the very heart of human creativity.” - Ilya Prigogine

“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.” - Abraham Lincoln

“One of my favorite problem solving questions: what if what I’m trying to solve isn’t actually a problem? What if I embraced it?” - Luke Palmer

“We cannot change anything unless we accept it.” - Carl Jung

“Your happiness depends on you alone.” - Aristotle

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” - Peter Drucker

“In a sense, recursive equations are the ‘assembly language’ of functional programming, and direct recursion the goto.” - Jeremy Gibbons

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” - Marcus Aurelius

“They must find it hard to take Truth for authority who have so long mistaken Authority for Truth.” - Gerald Massey

“People who achieve access to the deepest roots of their freedom can completely change.” - Peter Koestenbaum

“It’s a healthy thing to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.” - Bertrand Russell

“People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals that do not inspire them.” - Anthony Robbins

“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” - Albert Einstein

“Someone once said the fundamental reason we get married is because have a universal human need for a witness.” - Roger Ebert.

“Being too early is indistinguishable from being wrong.” - Tim O’Reilly

“The truth is that good and bad coexist; sour and sweet coexist. They aren’t really opposed to each other.” - Pema Chödrön, (Start Where you Are)

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

“Philosophers’ Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.” - Daniel C Dennett

“Every time you share your vision, you strengthen your own subconscious belief that you can achieve it.” - Jack Canfield

“The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange.” - G.K. Chesterton

“A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month’s study of books.” - Chinese proverb

“You lose it if you talk about it.” - Ernest Hemingway

“You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time.” - John Knox

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts” - Richard Feynman

“Things are only impossible until they’re not.” - Jean-Luc Picard

“Jump and the net will appear.” - Mick Ebeling

“Where is peace to be found? The answer is surprising but clear. In weakness. Why there? Because in our weakness, our familiar ways of controlling and manipulating our world are being stripped away, and we are forced to let go from doing much, thinking much, and relying on our self-sufficiency. Right there where we are most vulnerable, the peace that is not of this world is mysteriously hidden.” - Henri Nouwen

“The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.” - Ram Dass

“The first step in conflict is to shift from agree/disagree to trying to understand, what is the experience of the person saying this?” - MK (Miki Kashtan?)

“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” - Lindquist

“The stories we tell ourselves can serve as straitjackets for stagnation, or scaffolding for transformation.” - Seb Paquet

“Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.” - Hardy D. Jackson

“Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them” - Seth Godin

“The intellectual mind that is unconnected to the heart is an uncultivated mind.” - B.K.S. Iyengar

“Although we think that we think, most of the time we are being thought by the collective mind, the hypnosis of conditioning.” - Deepak Chopra

“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.” - Naguib Mahfouz

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” - Joseph Chilton Pearce

“Nowadays, when people assert that mutable state is really what happens on the machine, I ask them if they mean string theory or quantum field theory.” - Chung-chieh Shan

“It is so interesting to watch how every soul is looking for trouble. It is not so interesting that every person is seeking pleasure, but it is most interesting to see how everyone is seeking his pain, looking out for it. Tagore says: ‘When the string of the violin was being tuned it felt the pain of being stretched, but once it was tuned then it knew why it was stretched’. So it is with the human soul. While the soul goes through pain, torture and trouble it thinks that it would have been much better if it had gone through life without it. But once it reaches the culmination of it then, when it looks back, it begins to realize why all this was meant: it was only meant to tune the soul to a certain pitch.” - Hazrat Inayat Khan (source)

“There is an almost sensual longing for communion with others who have a larger vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendships between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality almost impossible to describe.” - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“It is our duty as human beings to proceed as though the limits of our capabilities do not exist.” - Teilhard de Chardin

“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.” - William Shakespeare

“Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” - John F Kennedy

“Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled.” - William Blake

“In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become loyal to performing daily trivia until we become enslaved by it.” - Robert Heinlein

“When your judgements parade as the truth, you deceive everyone, including yourself.” - Paul Ferrini

“When the solution is simple, God is answering.” - Albert Einstein

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” - Hans Hofmann

“Participate joyfully in the sorrows of life.” - Joseph Campbell

“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

“Don’t Take Yes for an Answer” - Anon

“The use of anthropomorphic terminology forces you linguistically to adopt an operational view. And it makes it practically impossible to argue about programs independently of their being executed.” - Edsger Dijkstra

“‘I don’t know’ is my favorite position.” - Byron Katie

“You are never upset for the reason you think.” - A Course in Miracles

“If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” - Anatole France

“NVC is an awareness practice masquerading as a communication tool.” - Kit Miller

“Live out of your imagination, not your history.” - Stephen Covey

“The secret to creative freedom is letting go of our habitual certainities.” - Deepak Chopra

“When you blame and criticize others, you are avoiding some truth about yourself.” - Deepak Chopra

“People never leave a sinking ship until they see the lights of another ship approaching.” - Buckminster Fuller

“The chief source of problems is solutions.” - Eric Sevareid

“The purpose of visualization is insight, not pictures.” - Ben Shneiderman

“I wake up every day both wanting to change the world and to have one heck of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day difficult.” - E.B. White

“If something is not beautiful, it is probably not true.” - John Keats

“Do not confuse your horizon with the edge of the world.” - Seb Paquet

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” - Gandhi

“Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness.” - Margaret Millar

“If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.” - John von Neumann

“The two Virtues of Equanimity and Compassion become more available to the person whose ego-shell has been smashed—either by great suffering or by great love—or by both.” - Richard Rohr

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” - Howard Thurman

“An approximate answer to the right problem is worth a good deal more than an exact answer to an approximate problem.” - John Tukey

“Wisdom is what’s left after we’ve run out of personal opinions.” - Cullen Hightower

“FP offers a unique opportunity to exploit a compositional approach to algorithms and show the effectiveness of math in programming” - R. Bird

“Thesis, antithesis, synthesis — most of us only take the first or second steps.” - Edward Craig (@NewMindMirror)

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (or George Carlin? Uncertain)

“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” - Rumi

“Time is God’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.” - Anonymous

“You can’t come to a new point of view until you realize what your brainwashing has been.” - Morton Kelsey

“What we assume, what we have never clearly thought out, controls us.” - Morton Kelsey

“Honesty is not brutal. Brutality is not honest. If what you’re saying is brutal, you’re leaving unspoken a deeper, respectful truth.” - Dale Emery

“There is no security for those who seek it outside of themselves.” - Byron Katie

“Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” - Thomas Merton

“It is not that you must be free from fear. The moment you try to free yourself from fear, you create resistance against fear. Resistance in any form does not end fear. What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it, not how to resist it.” - Krishnamurti

“A thought is harmless unless we believe it.” - Byron Katie

“The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that.” - Eckhart Tolle

“In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.” - Robert G. Ingersoll

“Every nation makes decisions based on self-interest and defends them in the name of morality.” - William Sloane Coffin

“The shortest path to exceeding expectations doesn’t generally pass through meeting expectations.” - Ward Cunningham

“I don’t let go of my thoughts—I meet them with understanding, then they let go of me.” - Byron Katie

“The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.” - Pema Chödrön

“One can’t proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.” - Alan Perlis

“Wisdom is a love affair with questions. Knowledge is a love affair with answers.” - Julio Olalla (via Holly Croydon)

“What other people think about you is none of your business.” - unknown

“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” - Anaïs Nin

“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much of life. So aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.” - Henry David Thoreau

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” - Aristotle

“In the future, we will hold jealousy as a call for support, not a proof of love. A love where no one sacrifices to another, but grace is evoked through the sharing of deep vulnerability.” - Kelly Bryson

“drop the story line, which means instead of acting out/repressing—use the situation as an opportunity to feel your heart, to feel the wound.” - Pema Chödrön

“Feel the wounded heart that’s underneath the addiction, self-loathing, or anger.”- Pema Chödrön

“Most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting.” - Ivan Illich

“Pay close attention to when you’re being the real you and when you’re trying to impress an invisible jury.” - Derek Sivers

“The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.” - Rachel Naomi Remen

“Our listening creates a sanctuary for the homeless parts within another person.” - Rachel Naomi Remen

“When you listen generously to people they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time.” - Rachel Naomi Remen

“Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it” - Alan Perlis

“Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.” - Edsger Dijkstra

“I think the terminology I would use is ‘a continuous process of reflection’. I’ve always thought of only two questions that have mattered to me personally. One is what is really needed in the world and the second is what’s really important to me and how these two intersect. It’s always been a reflective process — spiraling around these two poles.” - Peter Senge

“Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, live truly, and forgive quickly.” - Paulo Coelho

“Seeking love keeps you from the awareness that you already are it.” - Byron Katie

“Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.” - Bertrand Russell

“The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.” - Herbert Agar

“Solving a problem simply means representing it so as to make the solution transparent.” - H.A. Simon

“We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what is to come out of the future. We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future. We must look with absolute equanimity to everything that may come and we must think only that whatever comes is given to us by a world direction full of wisdom. It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely to live out of pure trust without any security in existence, trusting in the ever present help of the spiritual world. Truly nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail. Let us discipline our will and let us seek the awakening from within ourselves every morning and every evening.” - Rudolf Steiner

“The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.” - Gloria Steinem

“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” - Steve Jobs

“Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.” - Bertrand Russell “Ideas that Have Harmed Mankind” (1946)

“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.” - Bertrand Russell

“Dialogue requires space, time, and a calm spirit. People need to be given a chance to tune into themselves. Dialogue is a deep process. For me, this requires some quiet and inner peace — and some time for interaction.” - Bob Niederman

“If you can’t solve a problem, then there’s an easier problem you can solve: find it.” - George Polya

“If you never did, you should. These things are fun and fun is good.” - Dr Suess

“We are all born originals — why is it so many of us die copies?” - Edward Young

“If I try to be like him, who will be like me?” - Yiddish proverb

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” - Anaïs Nin

“Resentment is disappointment waiting to be felt. When you feel it, you move through to space, resolution and peace.” - Bridget Pilloud

“The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. So long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.” - Bertrand Russell

“As the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.” - Mohandas K. Gandhi

“If the words ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on.” - Terence McKenna

“Worrying is using your imagination to create something you don’t want.” - Esther Hicks

“…Simplifications have had a much greater long-range scientific impact than individual feats of ingenuity. The opportunity for simplification is very encouraging, because in all examples that come to mind the simple and elegant systems tend to be easier and faster to design and get right, more efficient in execution, and much more reliable than the more contrived contraptions that have to be debugged into some degree of acceptability….Simplicity and elegance are unpopular because they require hard work and discipline to achieve and education to be appreciated.” - Edsger Dijkstra

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.” - C.S. Lewis

“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” ~Pema Chödrön (The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times)

“Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.” - Richard P. Feynman

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” - Philip K. Dick

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.” - Buddha

“The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.” - Edsger Dijkstra

“If you don’t stick to your values when they’re being tested, they aren’t values. They’re hobbies.” - Jon Stewart

“We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experience is a narrowing of the imagination.” - David Lynch

“We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.” - Buckminster Fuller

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford

“It has long been my personal view that the separation of practical and theoretical work is artificial and injurious. Much of the practical work done in computing, both in software and in hardware design, is unsound and clumsy because the people who do it have not any clear understanding of the fundamental design principles of their work. Most of the abstract mathematical and theoretical work is sterile because it has no point of contact with real computing. One of the central aims of the Programming Research Group as a teaching and research group has been to set up an atmosphere in which this separation cannot happen.” - Christopher Strachey (citation)

“People are so alienated from their own soul that when they meet their soul they think it comes from another star system.” - Terence McKenna

“Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got.” - Robert Brault

“If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.” - Mark Twain

“The more room you give yourself to express your true thoughts and feelings, the more room there is for your wisdom to emerge.” - Marianne Williamson

“Creativity, as has been said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know. Hence, to think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.” - George Kneller

“We all operate in two contrasting modes, which might be called open and closed. The open mode is more relaxed, more receptive, more exploratory, more democratic, more playful and more humorous. The closed mode is the tighter, more rigid, more hierarchical, more tunnel-visioned. Most people, unfortunately spend most of their time in the closed mode. Not that the closed mode cannot be helpful. If you are leaping a ravine, the moment of takeoff is a bad time for considering alternative strategies. When you charge the enemy machine-gun post, don’t waste energy trying to see the funny side of it. Do it in the”closed" mode. But the moment the action is over, try to return to the “open” mode—to open your mind again to all the feedback from our action that enables us to tell whether the action has been successful, or whether further action is need to improve on what we have done. In other words, we must return to the open mode, because in that mode we are the most aware, most receptive, most creative, and therefore at our most intelligent." - John Cleese

“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” - Albert von Szent-Gyorgy

“Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.” - Picasso

“When you are completely absorbed or caught up in something, you become oblivious to things around you, or to the passage of time. It is this absorption in what you are doing that frees your unconscious and releases your creative imagination.” - Dr. Rollo May

“The joy is in creating, not maintaining.” - Vince Lombardi

“One cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.” - Albert Einstein

“It is the questions in life that move us forward, not the answers.” - Anon (heard a talk from Unity of Hawaii in a podcast about the Yin & Yang of attachment)

“A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.” - Horace Mann

“Self-judgment is how conditioned mind keeps control over your life.” - Cheri Huber

“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measels of mankind. Never do anything against conscience — even if the state demands it.” - Albert Einstein

“To practice NVC, we must completely abandon the goal of getting other people to do what we want.” - Marshall Rosenberg

“As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.” - Eckhart Tolle

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.” - Noam Chomsky

“There is no ethics in general. There are only—eventually—ethics of processes by which we treat the possibilities of a situation.” - Alain Badiou, ‘Ethics’, 1993.

“As you inquire into issues and turn judgments around, you come to see that every perceived problem appearing ‘out there’ is really nothing more than a misperception within your own thinking.” - Byron Katie

“To ‘see both sides’ of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.” - Idries Shah

“If you want to enter a state of grace, question the assumption you’re defending right now.” - Byron Katie

“In that it dulls curiosity, the obvious is the enemy of the true.” - Conal Elliott

“My own approach to literary problems is very like the one Dr. Johnson’s blind housekeeper used when she poured tea—she put her finger inside the cup.” - Flannery O’Connor

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” - Oscar Wilde

“Whenever you think that your needs are not being met, you’re telling the story of a future.” - Byron Katie

“Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.” - Wayne W. Dyer

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” - Michelangelo

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” - W.B. Yeats

“People try nonviolence for a week, and when it ‘doesn’t work,’ they go back to violence, which hasn’t worked for centuries.” - Theodore Roszak

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit” - E.E. Cummings

“In many shamanic societies, if you came to a shaman or medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions. When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence? Where we have stopped dancing, singing, being enchanted by stories, or finding comfort in silence is where we have experience the loss of soul. Dancing, singing, storytelling, and silence are the four universal healing salves.” - Gabrielle Roth

“Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.” - Benjamin Lee Whorf (Language, Thought, and Reality, 1964)

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” - Ludwig Wittgenstein

“A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing.” - Alan Perlis

“As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else. All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.” - Eckhart Tolle

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.” - Pema Chödrön

“First something is a great idea, then it becomes a cause, then it becomes a business and finally it becomes a racket.” - Eric Hoffer

“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.” - Jiddu Krishnamurti

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.” - Lao Tzu

“William James used to preach the ‘will-to-believe.’ For my part, I should wish to preach the ‘will-to-doubt.’ None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.” - Bertrand Russell in “Sceptical Essays” (1928)

“There is a transcendental dimension beyond language…. It’s just hard as hell to talk about it.” - Terence McKenna

“Until you look forward to all criticism, your Work’s not done.” - Byron Katie (on Tumbler)

“I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.” - Gerry Spence

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

“In the end only three things matter: how fully you have lived, how deeply you have loved and how well you have learned to let go.” - Buddhist saying

“The plague of mankind is the fear and rejection of diversity: monotheism, monarchy, monogamy and, in our age, mono-medicine. The belief that there is only one right way to live, only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs is the root cause of the greatest threat to man: members of his own species, bent on ensuring his salvation, security, and sanity.” - Thomas Szasz

“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” - George Orwell

“‘Rights’ are granted; ‘duties’ are enforced. To speak of rights and duties is to think in terms of authority.” - Laurence Labadie

“Never say, and never take seriously anyone who says, ‘I cannot believe that so-and-so could have evolved by gradual selection’. I have dubbed this kind of fallacy ‘the Argument from Personal Incredulity’. Time and again, it has proven the prelude to an intellectual banana-skin experience.” - Richard Dawkins

Problems worthy of attack
prove their worth by hitting back.
— Piet Hein

“Any story that you tell about yourself is food for the ego. There is no authentic story.” - Byron Katie

“The opinion other people have of you is their problem, not yours.” - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

“If we are unduly absorbed in improving our lives we may forget altogether to live them.” - Alan Watts

“Successful problem solving requires finding the right solution to the right problem. We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem” - Russell Ackoff

“Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn’t there, and finding it.” - Oscar Wilde

“It’s very dangerous to mix up the words natural and habitual. We have been trained to be quite habitual at communicating in ways that are quite unnatural.” - Mohandas K. Gandhi

“Types don’t just contain data; types explain data.” - Conor McBride (source)

“The word choice is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.” Idries Shah

“Exhale only love.” - Rumi

Warren Buffett offers investing advice

2014-07-31T22:21:00.003-07:00

Warren Buffett called into CNBC to surprise 17-year-old Tre Grinner, a Hodgkin's Lymphoma patient who wants to be an investment banker.

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Warren Buffett surprises teen cancer patient on CNBC

Warren Buffett called into CNBC to surprise 17-year-old Tre Grinner, a Hodgkin's Lymphoma patient who wants to be an investment banker.

With help from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Grinner has been working as an intern at Goldman Sachs and he was doing a live interview about that experience.

Buffett's main piece of advice for Tre as he prepares to enroll in community college this fall: learn accounting so you can read financial statements. "Accounting is the language of business and there's nothing like getting it early and getting it into your system."

Pointing out that accounting is a "language all of its own," Buffett said, "Getting comfortable in a foreign language takes a little experience, a little study, early on but it pays off big later on."

He also told Grinner to ignore the day-to-day moves of the stock market, like today's plunge on Wall Street, and concentrate on buying stocks in good businesses at good prices. "The lower prices go, as long as you know the company you're investing in, the better it is for a buyer. Down days always make me feel good."

As part of his internship, Grinner was given $50,000 in imaginary money to "buy" stocks. He quickly turned it into $70,000.

Buffett was impressed, saying he wants Grinner to "do that for me."

At the end of the conversation, Buffett invited Grinner to come to Omaha for Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting in May. "I'd like to meet you personally."

Ben Hider | NYSE

—By CNBC's Alex Crippen. Follow him on Twitter: @alexcrippen

Link http://www.cnbc.com/id/101884484

...........

The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters

2014-02-11T17:40:00.002-08:00

The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters

Gregory Zuckerman of the Wall Street Journal

Moderated by Joel Kurtzman of the Milken Institute

February 6, 2014
4:30 p.m.-6:00 p.m.
Santa Monica

For decades, they operated on the fringes of the energy industry. Now the unlikely wildcatters who perfected fracking have moved from the fringes to the forefront of a revolution that has turned the United States into the world's fastest-growing energy power.

At this Milken Institute Forum, Gregory Zuckerman, a senior writer for the Wall Street Journal and the author of "The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters," will tell the dramatic tale of the ambitious and headstrong wildcatters who were determined to tap the massive deposits of oil and gas that the industry's giants had dismissed as a waste of time.

Their success with hydraulic fracturing--known as fracking--through extremely dense shale has transformed the U.S. energy landscape. Once dependent on imported energy, the U.S. is expected to pass Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world's largest oil producer. The wildcatters' success has transformed their personal lives as well. Like the Rockefellers and the Gettys before them, they're using their newfound wealth and power to influence politics, education, entertainment, sports, and many other fields. The revolution the frackers are responsible for has transformed the U.S. economy, raised environmental concerns, and upended global geopolitics. In some ways, their impact is just beginning.

Category - Nonprofits and Activism

License - Standard YouTube License

Book: The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters

Link: http://youtu.be/eWtkN44G9gM

Value Investing Quotes

2014-01-23T13:11:00.003-08:00

“As Pride increases, Fortune declines.”

“Industry, Perseverance, and Frugality, make Fortune yield.”

“To-morrow I’ll reform, the fool does say;
To-day itself’s too late; - the wise did yesterday.”

“Promises may get thee friends, but non-performance will turn them into enemies.”

“Enjoy the present hour, be mindful of the past; And neither fear nor wish the approaches of the last.”

“What signifies knowing the Names, if you know not the Natures of Things?”

“Well done, is twice done.”

“There are three Things extreamly hard; Steel, a Diamond and to know one’s self.”

“O Lazy bones! Dost thou think God would have given thee arms and legs, if he had not design’d thou should’st use them?”

“He’s a Fool that cannot conceal his Wisdom.”

“No gains without pains.”

“Beware of little Expenses: a small Leak will sink a great Ship.”

“Pay what you owe, and you’ll know what is your own.”

“Be always ashamed to catch thyself idle.”

“If you would keep your secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend.”

“Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths.”

“He that lieth down with dogs, shall rise up with fleas.”

“A Slip of the Foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the Tongue you may never get over.”

“He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of dinner.”

“Would you live with ease, do what you ought, and not what you please.”

“People who are wrapped up in themselves make small packages.”

“Would you persuade, speak of Interest, not of Reason.”

“Do good to thy Friend to keep him, to thy Enemy to gain him.”

“The first Degree of Folly, is to conceit one’s self wise; the second to profess it; the third to despise Counsel.”

“You may delay, but Time will not.”

“Lost time is never found again.”

“Take this remark from Richard, poor and lame, Whate’er’s begun in Anger, ends in Shame.”

“All things are easy to Industry, all things difficult to Sloth.”

“He that cannot obey, cannot command.”

“If you would reap Praise you must sow the Seeds, gentle Words and useful Deeds.”

“Haste makes Waste.”

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

“If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher’s stone.”

“Diligence is the mother of good luck.”

“At a great penny worth, pause a while.”

“Ignorance leads Men into a party, and Shame keeps them from getting out again.”

“He that pays for work before it’s done, has but a pennyworth for two pence.”

“Anger is never without Reason, but seldom with a good One.”

“Thou can’st not joke an enemy into a friend, but thou may’st a friend into an enemy.”

“He that falls in love with himself, will have no rivals.”

“Patience in Market, is worth Pounds in a year.”

“When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.”

“Virtue and Happiness are Mother and Daughter.”

“Buy what thou hast no need of, and e’er long thou shalt sell they necessaries.”

“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.”

“He that speaks much, is much mistaken.”

“Since thou art not sure of a Minute, throw not away an Hour.”

“’Tis easier to suppress the first Desire, than to satisfy all that follow it.”

“He that pursues two hares at once, does not catch one lets t’other go.”

“The sleeping Fox catches no poultry. Up! up!”

“If your Riches are yours, why don’t you take them to t’other World?”

“What more valuable than Gold? Diamonds. Than Diamonds? Virtue.”

“Great Estates may venture more; Little Boats must keep near Shore.”

“’Tis easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.”

“Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”

“Diligence overcomes Difficulties, Sloth makes them.”

“Neglect mending a small Fault, and ‘twill soon be a great One.”

“Proclaim not all though knowest, or all though owest.”

“A Change of Fortune hurts a wise Man no more than a Change of the Moon.”

“Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.”

“Dost thou love Life? Then do not squander Time; for that’s the Stuff Life is made of.”

“Silence is not always a Sign of Wisdom, but Babbling is ever a Folly.”

“A long Life may not be good enough, but a good Life is long enough.”

“For Age and Want save while you may; No morning Sun lasts a whole day.”

“Don’t think so much of your own Cunning, as to forget other Men’s; a Cunning Man is overmatched by a cunning Man and a Half.”

“You may give a Man an Office, but you cannot give him Discretion.”

“He that doth what he should not, shall feel what he would not.”

“He is a Governor that governs his Passions, and he a Servant that serves them.”

“Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.”

“Suspicion may be no fault, but showing it may be a great one.”

“A good Example is the best Sermon.”

“Wise Men learn by others’ harms; Fools by their own.”

“Laziness travels so slowly that Poverty soon overtakes him.”

“He that by the Plough would thrive, himself must either hold or drive.”

“Life with Fools consists in Drinking; with the wise Man, living’s Thinking.”

“The second Vice is Lying; the first is running in Debt.”

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

“The honest Man takes Pains, and then enjoys Pleasures; the knave takes Pleasure, and then suffers Pains.”

“To be proud of Knowledge, is to be blind with Light.”

“Get what you can, and what you get hold; ‘tis the Stone that will turn all your Lead into Gold.”

“An honest Man will receive neither Money nor Praise that is not his due.”

“Men take more pains to mask than mend.”

“To be proud of Virtue, is to poison yourself with the Antidote.”

“One To-day is worth two To-morrows.”

“Idleness is the Dead Sea, that swallows all Virtues: Be active in Business, that Temptation may miss her Aim; the Bird that sits, is easily shot.”

“Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, no example sway thee, no persuasion move thee, to do any thing which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollily; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.”

"So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do."

"When in doubt, don't."

Serenity Parayer Adapted for ADD

2014-01-22T05:58:00.000-08:00

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

The insight to prioritize wisely what I want to change;

The patience to resist trying to control everything I could, had I the energy and time;

The courage and skill to change the things I have chosen to change;

And the wisdom to know the differences among all these.

- Dr. Edward Hallowell

Buffett's Crisis-Lending Haul Reaches $10 Billion

2013-10-07T13:43:00.004-07:00

Buffett's Crisis-Lending Haul Reaches $10 Billion

Billionaire Warren Buffett tossed lifelines to a handful of blue-chip companies during the financial crisis. Five years later the payoff on those deals is becoming clear: $10 billion and counting.

Mr. Buffett approached that figure after he collected another hefty payment last week, bringing to nearly 40% the pretax income on his crisis-era investments, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

The bounty is a vivid illustration of one of Mr. Buffett's favorite investing maxims: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful."

Link: http://www.valueinvestingworld.com/2013/10/buffetts-crisis-lending-haul-reaches-10.html

Graham and Doddsville Newsletter

2013-10-07T13:38:00.003-07:00

Monday, October 7, 2013

Graham and Doddsville Newsletter – Fall 2013

Found via ValueWalk.

Link to: Graham and Doddsville Newsletter – Fall 2013

Link: http://www.valueinvestingworld.com/2013/10/graham-and-doddsville-newsletter-fall.html

One Life-Changing Class You Never Took: Alexa von Tobel at TEDxWallStreet

2013-07-18T16:22:00.001-07:00

Published on Apr 12, 2012

Link: https://www.learnvest.com/

Alexa von Tobel is the founder and CEO of LearnVest.com which she has been developing and growing since 2006.

LearnVest is the leading personal finance and lifestyle website that brings financial literacy to women. Since launching LearnVest, Alexa has been widely quoted as a personal finance expert and entrepreneur in top tier business and consumer publications including: New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, BusinessWeek, Shape, Fast Company, Marie Claire, ForbesWoman, InStyle, People StyleWatch, Time Out New York, The Huffington Post, among many others. Alexa has been included on Vanity Fair's 2011 Next Establishment list, featured on Business Insider's 2010 and 2011 Silicon Alley 100 lists, named "One of the Coolest Young Entrepreneurs" in Inc. Magazine's 30 Under 30 feature, titled a "Woman to Watch" by Forbes and included on the publication's 30 Under 30 list, highlighted on BusinessWeek's annual list of "Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs," among others. LearnVest has been named one of "25 Women-Run Startups to Watch" by Fast Company, included on Forbes' list of the "Top 100 Websites for Women" for the second year in a row, featured on Business Insider's Digital 100 list and included on Time Magazine's annual list of "50 Best Websites."
More information at http://www.TEDxWallStreet.com

About TEDx, x = independently organized event:

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.*

(*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Category

Education

License

Standard YouTube License

Link: http://youtu.be/8jkri0AeZWQ

Investment Advice From Warren Buffett

2013-07-12T23:34:00.002-07:00

9 Nuggets of Investment Advice From the Best Investor, Warren Buffett

By Selena Maranjian | More Articles
June 29, 2013

Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A ) (NYSE: BRK-B ) company's per-share book value has grown by an annual average of 19.7% between 1965 and 2012.

That's a total gain of more than 586,000%. (Compounding at its finest)

The company's stock has grown by about one million percent since 1965, enough to turn a $10,000 investment into roughly $100 million.

Be optimistic

"Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts, the Depression, a dozen or so recessions and financial panics, oil shocks, a flu epidemic, and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497."

This bit of investment advice offers useful perspective, reminding us that the market's overall trend has been to rise, despite some big and small hiccups.

Geniuses need not apply

It can be easy to assume that you need to be brilliant like Buffett to make money in stocks. He would disagree, though:

"You don't need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ."

That point is supported by plenty of examples of the bumbling of brilliant folks, such as the 1994 implosion of the massive Long Term Capital Management hedge fund company, which boasted two Nobel laureates and lost billions anyway.

Investing is simple ... sort of

So what specific investment advice does Buffett offer? Here it is, in a nutshell:

"All there is to investing is picking good stocks at good times and staying with them as long as they remain good companies."
That sure makes it sound easy. Note, though, that his investment advice isn't to simply buy and hold forever.

You should hang on only as long as a company remains promising. Here's a little more detail:
"Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, 10, and 20 years from now. Over time, you will find only a few companies that meet these standards – so when you see one that qualifies, you should buy a meaningful amount of stock. You must also resist the temptation to stray from your guidelines: If you aren't willing to own a stock for 10 years, don't even think about owning it for 10 minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio's market value."

That investment advice contains some key concepts -- for instance, making sure to buy at attractive prices, and focusing on companies that are easy for you to understand.

It's not all simple, though:

"When managers want to get across the facts of the business to you, it can be done within the rules of accounting. Unfortunately, when they want to play games, at least in some industries, it can also be done within the rules of accounting. If you can't recognize the differences, you shouldn't be in the [stock]-picking business."

The main message here is that it's important to keep reading and learning, so you can become a better investor. (If you don't have the time or interest for that, Buffett has recommended simple index funds, as we at the Fool have also recommended for many years, too.)

Be patient

Another key bit of investment advice from Buffett is to maintain a long-term view:
"When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever."
Indeed, Buffett has held shares in some companies for decades. This quotation is from his 1988 letter to shareholders, and in that letter he lists stock in Coca-Cola and Washington Post as major holdings, and he still has his shares.

The investment advice to be patient and calm has been reiterated many times.

For example:

"You could be somewhere where the mail was delayed three weeks and do just fine investing."

Don't get emotional

Another vital piece of investment advice is to avoid being influenced by dangerous emotions:

"Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful."

This makes a lot of sense if you think about it: Others tend to be greedy when the market has been soaring, so they often end up buying at inflated prices. Folks get fearful and often sell after big market drops, but by doing so they lose money (or reap smaller gains) and miss out on some great buying opportunities.

Be careful whom you listen to

Finally, an often overlooked bit of investment advice is to be careful where you gather your investment advice:

"Never ask the barber if you need a haircut."

If you're getting stock-investing guidance from a broker, he or she may have some conflicts of interest and not have your best interests at heart.

There's much more to learn from Buffett. You might start with his many annual letters to shareholders, which are quite accessible -- and often even entertaining.

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

Link: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/06/29/9-nuggets-of-investment-advice-from-the-best-inves.aspx

Seven Ways To Conquer Indecision

2013-07-11T15:47:00.001-07:00

Ever feel that gnawing pain in your stomach because you…just…can’t…decide?

Don’t feel bad: Even the greatest leaders suffer from indecision. What distinguishes the best from the rest is the ability to get at the fundamental cause of their mental roadblock—and then set dynamite to it.

Take my former client, whom I’ll call JC. This guy built a $400-million enterprise in less than a decade. Along the way, he never suffered indecision. He was not rash or foolhardy, and on most days, he knew his mind and had the confidence to act on it.

That changed radically, however, after his company was profitable for seven consecutive quarters and his big backers urged him to kick growth into high gear. Although JC anticipated this directive, given how well his company was performing, it caused him to start second-guessing himself, and eventually brought on serious distress.

Plenty of executives I have coached had the same reaction JC did. It is so prevalent that I gave it a name so I could more readily help folks except it as non-career-threatening: I call it “Executive Yips,” like the kind a golfer suffers when sweating over a three-foot, straight-uphill put.

When golfers get the yips, they experience shaky hands, an inability to focus, or unsteady posture.

Executives Yips grip business leaders with dread. After setting a course of action and narrowing the strategy to a few choices, they simply freeze up. Typically, in this dilemma, they’ll turn to various advisors and ask, “What should I do?” This never works since Executive Yips are never about making the correct choice but, rather, about being blocked from action.

To help JC, I had him consider what he would have to do before he could expand his business. The harsh reality: He had to replace his founding executive team—which included a bunch of JC’s college fraternity brothers, a group that was not up to the task. After JC finally dealt with the pain of telling those he truly loved that he would have to let them go, his Executive Yips vanished as suddenly as they appeared.

JC (and I) got lucky on that one. In most cases, folks who struggle with indecision have it bad. Because indecision is ultimately an action issue (rather than a cognitive one), the person gripped by it can look contemplative when, in fact, he is immobilized by fear.

Before I began working with JC, none of his colleagues knew that he was suffering Executive Yips; he always looked before he leaped, so they assumed he was just being judicious in setting a grander course for the business. No one guessed that he was paralyzed by concern for his fraternity brothers. Because indecision has no overt symptoms that reliably distinguish it from deep thought, JC could have languished in that state until his stakeholders roused him with an annoyed, “What’s up?”

Chronic indecisiveness can be one of the toughest psychological demons to banish. Here are seven ways to help you pull the trigger when a big part of you would rather do anything but.

Forget About Always Appearing Smart

Plenty of talented people, even those who have made a killing, go to exhaustive lengths not to appear dumb. (For proof, read Paul Allen’s recent autobiography: The man has billions but still craves respect.)

Actually, the smarter you are, the more likely your indecision is born of this anxiety. A kid building a startup can be wrong, fail, and feel no shame: “I’m a kid… what do you expect?” Not so for someone with an established reputation to protect. This fear of shame is pernicious, mainly because it’s useless. Let it go.

Trust Your Gut (It’s Savvier Than You Think)

As Malcolm Gladwell hammers home in Blink, mistrusting emotion-driven decisions can be dangerous. What you refer to as “your gut” is actually a wealth of knowledge marbled with empirically validated facts that you aren’t in touch with at critical crossroads.

Better yet, recall the breezy mantra: “If you don’t make the right decision, you can make the decision right.” If that sounds like cold comfort, set up a straw man—your gut—to absorb criticism if you end up making a poor choice. By making your gut the scapegoat, you protect your analytic self (your cortex) from blame, and prime it for triage, if necessary.

Beware The Paradox Of Choice

Really smart folks often fare poorly on multiple-choice tests if they view all the possible answers to a question rather than answer the question and then see if their answer is one of the choices. That’s because the better the test, the more similar “wrong” choices are to the correct one.

Similarly, getting outside perspective is wise only to a point. Shopping for advice does only one thing: It lengthens your list of possibilities, and that can grind you to a halt—or even make the choice you eventually do make less satisfying.

Prioritize Your Demands (And Fears)

People suffering indecision often get hamstrung by blurred boundaries. That’s precisely what happened to JC: He knew what to do—as CEO—to boost sales, but the need to protect his friends got in the way. Once he realized he had to be a CEO first and friend second, he pulled the trigger.

Channel Winston Churchill

Sociopaths aside (and after 30 years in psychiatry I’ve met a few), people generally know what the “right” choice is. Yet they allow themselves, if only for a second, to ponder a lesser, lower path—and that slope gets slick and steep in a hurry.

If you want to snuff indecision in its tracks, repeat after General Churchill: “The only guide to man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.”

Accept The Limits Of Analysis

The road to hell, we’re told, is paved with good intentions, judicious decisions and exhaustively analyzed strategies. Wars have been lost owing to unexpected weather conditions; data-wielding sports scouts draft college players who fail in the pros.

Bottom line: Avoid paralysis by analysis. Act, examine your results, make adjustments, and move on. (This approach, by the way, is gaining serious traction in the world of technology startups. )

Flip A Coin

“When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.” The eminent psychologist/philosopher William James said this, and he was dead-on. If you feel like a hung jury that’s taken 18 successive votes and is still deadlocked, use a coin to break your psychic logjam.

Remember: Indecision is all about avoiding 1) the choice between two negative alternatives, one of which has to be adopted, or 2) the choice between two fairly equal courses of action. In both cases, the solution may well be heads or tails.

I am an executive coach and management consultant who, for over 25 years, was on the faculty of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry. During that time I maintained a private psychotherapy practice in Boston where I used techniques of behavioral and psychodynamic psychiatry to treat patients who were professionally successful yet self-defeating. I use the same skill sets today to design interventions that foster the success of entrepreneurs and C-level executives, particularly those at risk for career burnout or engaging in self-defeating behaviors. My interest in entrepreneurs dates back to 1986 when I realized that their spirit is the only naturally occurring inoculation against the disorders that cause successful people to self-destruct. I began writing about entrepreneurs in Inc. Magazine, and have taught courses on The Psychology of the Entrepreneurial Spirit at USC’s Marshall School of Business and UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. I welcome questions and suggestions.

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Steven Berglas, Contributor

I wrangle with the psychological challenges of life and business.

Steven Berglas’ Popular Posts
Ten Signs You're Depressed But Don't Know It
Ten Horrible Reasons To Get Rich
The Top 10 Reasons Lying Will Corrode Your Self-Esteem.
How To Tell Someone They're Wrong (And Make Them Feel Good About It)
How To Boost Your Confidence At Work

Seven Ways To Conquer Indecision - Forbes

Source: http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenberglas/2012/01/10/seven-ways-to-cope-with-indecision/

Compound Growth

2013-07-11T14:41:00.001-07:00

This is the Secret to Warren Buffett's Success ... he understood the Magic of Compound Return on his Assets

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umFnrvcS6AQ&feature=share&list=TLRLwy8nshQbs

Charlie Rose - An Hour with Warren Buffett

2013-07-11T01:03:00.001-07:00

http://youtu.be/xVOn371TCPo

The Psychology of Human Misjudgement - Charlie Munger Full Speech

2013-07-11T01:01:00.001-07:00

ublished on Jan 13, 2013

BuffettMungerWisdom: http://buffettmungerwisdom.wordpress.com
"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Rober Cialdini"http://amzn.to/WgcAuo
"Poor Charlie's Almanack Expanded Third Edition"http://amzn.to/13szxgn

Audio of the often referred to speech by Charlie Munger on the psychology
of human misjudgement given to an audience at Harvard University circa Jun 1995.
Mr. Munger speaks about the framework for decision making and the
factors contributing to misjudgements. c. Jun 1, 1995

FULL TEXT:
http://buffettmungerwisdom.wordpress....

Category
Education
License
Standard YouTube License

Link: http://youtu.be/pqzcCfUglws

A Conversation with Charlie Munger (U Michigan)- 2010

2013-07-11T00:52:00.001-07:00

Roberts Rules of Financial Markets

Warren Buffett reveals his investment strategy for mastering the market

Tips for Journalists that Never Go Out of Style

Billionaire Hedge-Fund Manager Warns a “Revolution” Is Coming

Vanue Investing World's fav posts to read later

Blog Archive

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger

Useful Links and Other Recommended Reading

Carol Loomis, Editor for Warren Buffett

Carol Loomis, Editor for Warren Buffett, Leaves Job After 60 Years

Information Overload is the Bane of my Life

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

Gerald M. Loeb

Contents

Career and writing

See also

References

Further reading

Navigation menu

Good and bad businesses by EBITDA

Warren Buffett Wisdom

Quotes

Warren Buffett offers investing advice

Warren Buffett called into CNBC to surprise 17-year-old Tre Grinner, a Hodgkin's Lymphoma patient who wants to be an investment banker.

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Warren Buffett surprises teen cancer patient on CNBC

The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters

Category - Nonprofits and Activism

License - Standard YouTube License

Value Investing Quotes

Serenity Parayer Adapted for ADD

Buffett's Crisis-Lending Haul Reaches $10 Billion

Buffett's Crisis-Lending Haul Reaches $10 Billion

Graham and Doddsville Newsletter

Monday, October 7, 2013

Graham and Doddsville Newsletter – Fall 2013

One Life-Changing Class You Never Took: Alexa von Tobel at TEDxWallStreet

Investment Advice From Warren Buffett

Seven Ways To Conquer Indecision

Compound Growth

Charlie Rose - An Hour with Warren Buffett

The Psychology of Human Misjudgement - Charlie Munger Full Speech

Category

License

A Conversation with Charlie Munger (U Michigan)- 2010