Notable quotables

Sun, Apr 11, 2010 - 1:45pm -- Isaac Sukin

Quotes are no fun if they're not shared with others, so here's a few of my favorites.

All the fun's in how you say a thing.
--Robert Frost

Brevity is the soul of wit.
--Shakespeare

Necessity is the mother of invention.
--Plato

It's a good thing so many people speak foreign languages, or they wouldn't have anyone to talk to.
--Steven Wright

That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
--Barack Obama

Ask your doctor if getting off your ass is right for you.
--Bill Maher, on his "silver bullet for healthcare"

Leadership is about finding questions no one is asking. Management is about finding answers that most everyone is expecting.
--Jatin Desai

It's one of the curses of designing that when you look at anything, you're constantly thinking, Why? Why -- why was it designed like that, and not like this?
--Jonathan Ive, Senior VP of Industrial Design at Apple

I know it is ugly, but it is ugly only once.
--Scott Reynolds

It was hard to tear myself away from a machine at which I could so unambiguously demonstrate success.
-- Bill Gates, on how much time he spent programming as a teenager

In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.
--Albert Einstein

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
--Albert Einstein

Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
--James A. Baldwin

Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.
--Farrah Gray

"Now, don't think my opinion on these matters is final," he seemed to say, "just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are."
--The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Perhaps a few folks other than potato farmers think of the price of potatoes in America minutes after the explosion of a nuclear reactor in Russia, but I have never met them.
--Michael Lewis, Liar's Poker

If you are serious about building something big and changing the game, you better get the culture of the team right. Culture enables passion, and passion can even make the impossible, possible.
--Dries Buytaert

The most important thing is to make the most important thing the most important thing.
--Jeff Skinner

Entrepreneurs are always searching for knowledge, and they can't wait to share it with you. To be a successful entrepreneur, you need to live in a world that doesn't exist yet: the world that you want to create.
--Chrys Bader

[Entrepreneurship] is like a man riding a lion. People look at him and think, "This guy's really got it together! He's brave!" And the man riding the lion is thinking, "How the hell did I get on a lion, and how do I keep from getting eaten?"
--Toby Thomas

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, if today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?
--Steve Jobs

I wonder why, I wonder why
I wonder why I wonder
I wonder why I wonder why
I wonder why I wonder
-- Richard Feynman

We don't build services to make money; we make money to build better services.
-- Mark Zuckerberg

Learners are doers, not recipients.
--Walter J. Ong

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
--Unknown

These things are far too important to take seriously. We need to be able to play.
--Bill Buxton

We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it.
--Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg

Our greatest danger in life is in permitting the urgent things to crowd out the important.
--Charles E. Hummel

This is a starting point, not a self-contained black box of no-touchiness.
--Eric Meyer

Like all great theologies, Bill O'Reilly's can be boiled down to one sentence: there must be a God, because I don't know how things work.
--Stephen Colbert

Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.
--Linus Torvalds

How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are for. I only coded it.
--Linus Torvalds

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
--Donald Knuth

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
--Gehm's corollary to Clarke's Third Law

Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit from the experience of others.
--Otto von Bismarck

Startups don't compete with airlines by purchasing a bunch of planes, hiring a bunch of pilots and locking up a bunch of terminals at airports. Startups compete with airlines by inventing videoconferencing.
--Bryce Roberts

You won't reach the moon by improving the ladder.
--Bret Victor

People will forget what you said; people will forget what you did; but people will never forget how you made them feel.
--Maya Angelou

Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.
--George Addair

The question is not who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.
--Ayn Rand

It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings.
--Ann Landers

The reason I talk to myself is because I'm the only one whose answers I accept.
--George Carlin

He's got that ambition, baby,
Just look in his eyes.
This week he mops the floor,
Next week it's the fries.
--Kanye West, "Gold Digger"

If I could change the world...
Race crimes, hate crimes would never exist
I'd turn every bullet to a Hershey's Kiss
And we could eat away our fears.
--Akon, "Change"

Well the party don't start 'till I walk in
And I usually don't leave until the thing ends
But in the mean time, in-between time,
You work yo' thing, I'll work mine.
--Jermaine Dupri, "Welcome to Atlanta"

We only humans, we make mistakes
To make it up I do whatever it takes
I love you like a fat kid loves cake
I'd do anything to make you smile
--50 Cent, "21 Questions"

Hold up, wait, look up in the sky
It's a bird, it's a plane--
No it's me, 'cause I'm fly.
--Mims, "Superman"

Ain't nobody perfect,
but you've got some perfect
imperfections
and that makes you worth it
--Ludacris, "Tell Me a Secret"

We can make it work, do believe that;
Leave mistrust in the dust and believe fact:
We can achieve tact
by tuning out negative feedback.
--Q-Tip, "Believe"