Quotes

2018

September 2018

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind. -C.S. Lewis

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. -George Bernard Shaw

If you spend an extra hour each day of study in your chosen field you will be a national expert in that field in five years or less. -Earl Nightingale

If you have everything under control, you're not moving fast enough. -Mario Andretti

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

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably why so few engage in it. -Henry Ford

--- July 2018

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure. -Paolo Coelho

The idea is to die young as late as possible. -Ashley Montagu

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow, will be our doubts of today. -Franklin D. Roosevelt

Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions. -Albert Einstein

Imagination allows us to conceive of delightful possibilities, pick the most amazing one, and pull the present forward to meet it.

• Jason Silva (futurist and philosopher)

Whether you think you can or can't, you're right. -Henry Ford

If you don't risk anything, you risk even more. -Erica Jong

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. -Truman Capote

Quality is not an act, it is a habit. -Aristotle

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things. -Leonardo da Vinci

If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story. -Terry Pratchett

You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life? -Rumi

Find what you love and let it kill you. -Charles Bukowski

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. -Lao Tzu

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. -Beverly Sills

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. Henry David Thoreau

You can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will. -Stephen King

We are what we believe we are. -C.S. Lewis

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. -Albert Camus

I dream my painting and I paint my dream. -Vincent van Gogh

All things are difficult before they are easy. -Chinese proverb

Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own. -Bruce Lee

Wisdom begins in wonder. -Socrates

Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you. -Aldous Huxley

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. -Haruki Murakami

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. -Plutarch

The best way out is always through. -Robert Frost

Well done is better than well said. -Benjamin Franklin

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

We are all failures. At least the best of us are. -J.M. Barrie

Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star. -W. Clement Stone

Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty. -Mark Twain

Believe you can and you're halfway there. -Theodore Roosevelt

Don't wish it were easier, wish you were better. -Jim Rohn

Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going. -Sam Levenson

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self. -Aldous Huxley

What matters most is how well you walk through the fire. -Charles Bukowski

January 2018

Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging. — Joseph Campbell, American author, philosopher, and teacher (1904 – 1987)

Life's most persistent and urgent question is: "What are you doing for others?"

• Martin Luther King Jr.

Never appeal to a man's better nature. He may not have one.

• Mr. Robot S3 Ep 4

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see."

 - Arthur Schopenhauer.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

• Arthur Schopenhauer

Interviewer: "Why do you think Truman has never come close to discovering the true nature of his world until now?" Truman Show Director: "We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented. It's as simple as that."

• Truman Show (~65 minutes in) --- February 2018

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

• Edmund Burke

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” ― Aristotle Even greater wisdom lies in what is not said.

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion. --- March 2018

There's a saying in programming - when a programmer writes code, only he and God knows what it does; in 6 months only God knows.

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”by Jane Austen (about)

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”by Marilyn Monroe (about)

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”by André Gide (about)

“This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends - they'll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they'll come and go too. And baby, I hate to say it, most of them - actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can't give up because if you give up, you'll never find your soulmate. You'll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn't mean you're gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.”by Marilyn Monroe (about)

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”by J.K. Rowling (about)

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfect—you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break—her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.”by Bob Marley (about)

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.”by Dr. Seuss (about)

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”by Douglas Adams (about)

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”by Friedrich Nietzsche (about)

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”by Mark Twain (about)

“Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”by Allen Saunders (about)

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”by Mother Teresa (about)

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”by Dr. Seuss (about)

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”by Albert Einstein (about)

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.”by J.K. Rowling (about)

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”by Dr. Seuss (about)

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”by J.K. Rowling (about)

“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”by Bob Marley (about)

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”by J.K. Rowling (about)

“We read to know we're not alone.”by William Nicholson (about)

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”by Jorge Luis Borges (about)

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”by George Eliot (about)

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”by George R.R. Martin (about)

“If you can make a woman laugh, you can make her do anything.”by Marilyn Monroe (about)

“The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.”by Marilyn Monroe (about)

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“A wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left.”by Marilyn Monroe (about)

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”by Martin Luther King Jr. (about)

“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.”by J.K. Rowling (about)

“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.”by James Baldwin (about)

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”by Jane Austen (about)

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”by Eleanor Roosevelt (about)

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”by Haruki Murakami (about)

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”by Helen Keller (about)

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”by George Bernard Shaw (about)

“That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”by Charles Bukowski (about)

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”by C.S. Lewis (about)

“Not all those who wander are lost.”by J.R.R. Tolkien (about)

“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love.”by J.K. Rowling (about)

“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. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”by Ralph Waldo Emerson (about)

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”by Mark Twain (about)

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.

• Charles Bukowski

The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.

• George Carlin

“You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.”by John Lennon (about)

“The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.”by Ayn Rand (about)

“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”by Jane Austen (about)

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”by C.S. Lewis (about)

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”by C.S. Lewis (about)

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”by Mark Twain (about)

“I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.”by Jimi Hendrix (about)

“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”by J.M. Barrie (about)

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”by E.E. Cummings (about)

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”by Madeleine L'Engle (about)

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”by Mark Twain (about)

“... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”by George R.R. Martin (about)

"The closer he got to the realization of his dream, the more difficult things became."

• The Alchemist 2:04:04

A champion has failed more times than losers have even tried.

Most people are naturally gifted spectators, while some are meant to play the game, and even fewer still are destined to become champions and truly master their craft. I intend on being one of those masters.

When you practice, don't practice until you get it right. Practice until you never get it wrong.

“The feeling side of human nature is the feminine activity of consciousness within every individual. The thought is the masculine activity of the mind.”

“A thought never becomes dynamic in the outer world until it passes through the feeling body. The feeling condenses upon the thought pattern, the atomic substance of the outer activity of life. In this passing through the feeling body, the thought becomes clothed and therefore exists as a separate living thing outside the individual’s mind."

--- APRIL 2018 --- "You know what's interesting - you know who the best managers are? They're the great individual contributors who never ever wanna be a manager, but decide they have to be a manager because no one else is going to do as good a job as them."

• Steve Jobs

--- MAY 2018 --- Sometimes when people get what they want, they realize how limited their goals were.

• Joan (Mad Men season 1, last episode)

You have to start living the life of the person you want to be.

• Bobbie (Mad Men season 2 , ep 5)

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

• William Blake

---

2017

August 2017

The enlightened individual had learned to ask not "Is it so?" but rather "What is the probability that it is so?"

• Preface, A First Course in Probability, by Sheldon Ross --- ### November 2017

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

“The gods only laugh when men pray to them for wealth.” - Japanese proverb

“He who follows two hares catches neither.” (My Hero Academia)

“Money is the medium by which earthly success is measured.” - The Richest Man in Babylon

It turns out that having the discipline to live frugally, to invest rather than spend, to mend and make do, and to be able to live for longer and longer periods of time without having to work, are true measures of wealth. Deeply enjoying whatever it is you’re experiencing right now is the ultimate wealth.

"I’ve never had a failed experiment. I’ve only discovered 10,000 methods which do not work.” -Thomas Edison

2019-2021

Fall 2019

--- September 24 Play is the highest form of research. -Albert Einstein

If you are working on something that you really care about, you don't have to be pushed. The vision pulls you. -Steve Jobs

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. -Thomas Paine

Not all those who wander are lost. -J.R.R. Tolkien

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. -Marie Curie

By seeking and blundering we learn. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. -Thomas Edison

If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done. -Bruce Lee

The universe doesn't allow perfection. -Stephen Hawking

Creativity is intelligence having fun. -Albert Einstein

9/25/19 Each one of us has to start out with developing his or her own definition of success. And when we have these specific expectations of ourselves, we're more likely to live up to them. Ultimately, it's not what you get or even what you give. It's what you become. -Mary Gates (Inside Bill's Brain)

Things worth having take a while to get. -Joshua Fluke (paraphrased on YouTube)

October 20 “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” ― Desiderius Erasmus

---

Summer 2019

--- June 21 The most two important days in your life are the day you're born and the day you find out why. – Mark Twain

July 22 "Life is either a breeze or an adventure."

July 25 "The best way to become a CEO is to start your own company."

There are two ways to become a CEO. You could work your way up the corporate ladder, or you could start your own company. Either way, it's your choice.

August 23 It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you've failed by default. -J.K. Rowling

September 7 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 (The Big Short)

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably why so few engage in it. -Henry Ford

September 9 If you have someone you don't want to lose, you should keep them at a distance. -C.C. (Code Geass episode 14)

September 10 I found what I had wanted most, yet it was not what I expected. As is often the case when you gain your heart's desire. -Kvothe (The Name of the Wind, page 672)

You see, there's a fundamental connection between seeming and being. Every Fae child knows this, but you mortals never seem to see. We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be...It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story. -Bast (The Name of the Wind, page 689-690)

September 11 The realest people don't have a lot of friends. -Tupac

September 12 HOW you make your money is more important than HOW MUCH you make. -Gary V.

---

Spring 2019

--- April 1

Don't waste your time chasing butterflies. Mend your garden, and the butterflies will come. -- Mario Quintana

“The opportunities for friendship come with how people’s lives are organized,” Rawlins says. “When I talk to students, I say ‘Pay close attention to the habits you’re forming, because before you know it, you have organized your life in a way that doesn’t allow for the kind of friends that you would like to have.’”

April 7

"What we (you) do in the next 20 years will determine the future for all life on Earth." -- Our Planet Netflix documentary

April 25

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in adapting the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw

April 29 You're easy to like, hard to love. So let me love you, because I'll never stop.

April 30 What needs to be done is done by those capable of doing it. -- Psycho Pass

Better to be the head of a chicken than the tail of a bull. (Entrepreneur > Big Tech Employee) -- Street Food (Netflix, Episode 2)

May 14 A wise man gets more from his enemies than a fool from his friends. -- Niki Lauda (Rush, 2013)

May 16 Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible. -- Richard Feynman

---

Fall 2018

--- November 13

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. -Thomas Edison

October 2

All we are not stares back at what we are. -W.H. Auden

Whether you want to uncover the secrets of the universe or you want to pursue a career in the 21st century, basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn. -Stephen Hawking

October 3

A winner is a dreamer who never gives up. -Nelson Mandela

September 19

"Maybe nothing in this world happens by accident. As everything happens for a person, their destiny slowly takes form." -Mihawk (One Piece)

September 26

There is no passion to be found in playing small -- in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. -Nelson Mandela

September 27 Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill

September 28 Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. -Robert F. Kennedy

---

July 2018

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure. -Paolo Coelho

The idea is to die young as late as possible. -Ashley Montagu

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow, will be our doubts of today. -Franklin D. Roosevelt

Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions. -Albert Einstein

Imagination allows us to conceive of delightful possibilities, pick the most amazing one, and pull the present forward to meet it.

• Jason Silva (futurist and philosopher)

Whether you think you can or can't, you're right. -Henry Ford

If you don't risk anything, you risk even more. -Erica Jong

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. -Truman Capote

Quality is not an act, it is a habit. -Aristotle

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things. -Leonardo da Vinci

If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story. -Terry Pratchett

You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life? -Rumi

Find what you love and let it kill you. -Charles Bukowski

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. -Lao Tzu

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. -Beverly Sills

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. Henry David Thoreau

You can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will. -Stephen King

We are what we believe we are. -C.S. Lewis

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. -Albert Camus

I dream my painting and I paint my dream. -Vincent van Gogh

All things are difficult before they are easy. -Chinese proverb

Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own. -Bruce Lee

Wisdom begins in wonder. -Socrates

Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you. -Aldous Huxley

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. -Haruki Murakami

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. -Plutarch

The best way out is always through. -Robert Frost

Well done is better than well said. -Benjamin Franklin

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

We are all failures. At least the best of us are. -J.M. Barrie

Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star. -W. Clement Stone

Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty. -Mark Twain

Believe you can and you're halfway there. -Theodore Roosevelt

Don't wish it were easier, wish you were better. -Jim Rohn

Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going. -Sam Levenson

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self. -Aldous Huxley

What matters most is how well you walk through the fire. -Charles Bukowski

---

August 2017

The enlightened individual had learned to ask not "Is it so?" but rather "What is the probability that it is so?"

• Preface, A First Course in Probability, by Sheldon Ross

---

November 2017

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

“The gods only laugh when men pray to them for wealth.” - Japanese proverb

“He who follows two hares catches neither.” (My Hero Academia)

“Money is the medium by which earthly success is measured.” - The Richest Man in Babylon

It turns out that having the discipline to live frugally, to invest rather than spend, to mend and make do, and to be able to live for longer and longer periods of time without having to work, are true measures of wealth. Deeply enjoying whatever it is you’re experiencing right now is the ultimate wealth.

"I’ve never had a failed experiment. I’ve only discovered 10,000 methods which do not work.” -Thomas Edison --- January 2018

Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging. — Joseph Campbell, American author, philosopher, and teacher (1904 – 1987)

Life's most persistent and urgent question is: "What are you doing for others?"

• Martin Luther King Jr.

Never appeal to a man's better nature. He may not have one.

• Mr. Robot S3 Ep 4

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see."

• Arthur Schopenhauer

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

• Arthur Schopenhauer

Interviewer: "Why do you think Truman has never come close to discovering the true nature of his world until now?" Truman Show Director: "We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented. It's as simple as that."

• Truman Show (~65 minutes in) --- February 2018

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

• Edmund Burke

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” ― Aristotle Even greater wisdom lies in what is not said.

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion. ---

March 2018

There's a saying in programming - when a programmer writes code, only he and God knows what it does; in 6 months only God knows.

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”by Jane Austen (about)

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”by Marilyn Monroe (about)

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”by André Gide (about)

“This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends - they'll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they'll come and go too. And baby, I hate to say it, most of them - actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can't give up because if you give up, you'll never find your soulmate. You'll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn't mean you're gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.”by Marilyn Monroe (about)

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”by J.K. Rowling (about)

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfect—you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break—her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.”by Bob Marley (about)

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.”by Dr. Seuss (about)

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”by Douglas Adams (about)

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”by Friedrich Nietzsche (about)

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”by Mark Twain (about)

“Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”by Allen Saunders (about)

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”by Mother Teresa (about)

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”by Dr. Seuss (about)

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”by Albert Einstein (about)

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.”by J.K. Rowling (about)

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”by Dr. Seuss (about)

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”by J.K. Rowling (about)

“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”by Bob Marley (about)

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”by J.K. Rowling (about)

“We read to know we're not alone.”by William Nicholson (about)

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”by Jorge Luis Borges (about)

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”by George Eliot (about)

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”by George R.R. Martin (about)

“If you can make a woman laugh, you can make her do anything.”by Marilyn Monroe (about)

“The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.”by Marilyn Monroe (about)

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”by Albert Einstein (about)

“A wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left.”by Marilyn Monroe (about)

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”by Martin Luther King Jr. (about)

“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.”by J.K. Rowling (about)

“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.”by James Baldwin (about)

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”by Jane Austen (about)

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”by Eleanor Roosevelt (about)

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”by Haruki Murakami (about)

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”by Helen Keller (about)

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”by George Bernard Shaw (about)

“That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”by Charles Bukowski (about)

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”by C.S. Lewis (about)

“Not all those who wander are lost.”by J.R.R. Tolkien (about)

“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love.”by J.K. Rowling (about)

“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. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”by Ralph Waldo Emerson (about)

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”by Mark Twain (about)

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”by Charles Bukowski (about)

“The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.”by George Carlin (about)

“You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.”by John Lennon (about)

“The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.”by Ayn Rand (about)

“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”by Jane Austen (about)

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”by C.S. Lewis (about)

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”by C.S. Lewis (about)

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”by Mark Twain (about)

“I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.”by Jimi Hendrix (about)

“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”by J.M. Barrie (about)

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”by E.E. Cummings (about)

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”by Madeleine L'Engle (about)

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”by Mark Twain (about)

“... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”by George R.R. Martin (about)

"The closer he got to the realization of his dream, the more difficult things became."

• The Alchemist 2:04:04

A champion has failed more times than losers have even tried.

Most people are naturally gifted spectators, while some are meant to play the game, and even fewer still are destined to become champions and truly master their craft. I intend on being one of those masters.

When you practice, don't practice until you get it right. Practice until you never get it wrong.

“The feeling side of human nature is the feminine activity of consciousness within every individual. The thought is the masculine activity of the mind.”

“A thought never becomes dynamic in the outer world until it passes through the feeling body. The feeling condenses upon the thought pattern, the atomic substance of the outer activity of life. In this passing through the feeling body, the thought becomes clothed and therefore exists as a separate living thing outside the individual’s mind."

---

APRIL 2018

--- "You know what's interesting - you know who the best managers are? They're the great individual contributors who never ever wanna be a manager, but decide they have to be a manager because no one else is going to do as good a job as them."

• Steve Jobs

---

MAY 2018

--- Sometimes when people get what they want, they realize how limited their goals were.

• Joan (Mad Men season 1, last episode)

You have to start living the life of the person you want to be.

• Bobbie (Mad Men season 2 , ep 5)

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise. -William Blake

2020

January 2020

"I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately." -George Carlin

"Son, sometimes you have to be a lion so you can be the lamb you really are." -Dave Chappelle's Mom (2019 Mark Twain Prize Acceptance Speech)

"Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you." -Joe (You, S2E4)

"Destiny is just the embodiment of the soul's desire to grow." -Bard (Witcher S1 E5, NFLX)

"People linked by destiny will always find each other." -Witcher S1 E8

--- February 2020

“In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.” – Tony Montana

“I didn’t come to the United States to break my fucking back.” – Tony Montana

“You got nothing to do with your life, man. Why don’t you get a job? Do something, be a nurse. Work with blind kids, lepers, that kind of thing. Anything beats you waiting around all day, waiting for me to fuck you, I’ll tell you that.” – Tony Montana

"There's no point in following other people's footsteps." -Lara Croft, Tomb Raider (2013)

2/29/20 "Shit... If anything is worth doing, it's worth doing right." -Slipstream, Mycologist (shroomery.org)

"We can either choose to make money and trade our passion, or we can choose to make our passion and trade our money in the beginning." -Jay Shetty (Will you choose money or your passion?)

3/4/20 "The fruits of my labor, I enjoy 'em while they still ripe" "Bitch, real G's move in silence like lasagna" -Lil Wayne (6 Foot 7 Foot)

"I get what you get in ten years, in two days" -Chris Brown (Look At Me Now)

A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.

• Roald Dahl

2021-2023

OCTOBER 2022 The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital. The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, i.e., the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being. Everything which the political economist takes from you in life and in humanity, he replaces for you in money and in wealth; and all the things which you cannot do, your money can do. It can eat and, drink, go to the dance hall and the theatre; it can travel, it can appropriate art, learning, the treasures of the past, political power – all this it can appropriate for you – it can buy all this: it is true endowment. Yet being all this, it wants to do nothing but create itself, buy itself; for everything else is after all its servant, and when I have the master I have the servant and do not need his servant. All passions and all activity must therefore be submerged in avarice. The worker may only have enough for him to want to live, and may only want to live in order to have that.

• Karl Marx (https://youtu.be/ejoAG5n19iE?t=22)

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate.

• Ralph Waldo Emerson (Catherine, xQc gameplay)

A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty.

• Catherine

Men are simple in their complexity, women complex in their simplicity.

Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.

• Albert Einstein

A man who praises a man to his face is full of ulterior motives.

SEPTEMBER 2022 “The greatest crimes are not those committed for the sake of necessity but those committed for the sake of superfluity. One does not become a tyrant to avoid exposure to the cold.”

• Aristotle

All religion is a foolish answer to a foolish question.

• Thomas Shelby (Peaky Blinders S3E3)

AUGUST 2022 “People are wonderful. I love individuals. I hate groups of people. I hate a group of people with a 'common purpose'. 'Cause pretty soon they have little hats. And armbands. And fight songs. And a list of people they're going to visit at 3am. So, I dislike and despise groups of people but I love individuals. Every person you look at; you can see the universe in their eyes, if you're really looking.”

• George Carlin

JULY 2022 "Every action that we take outside of government control strengthens the market and weakens the state."

• Ludwig von Mises (in a sentence from Silk Road Movie, 2021)

"Stop funding the state with your tax dollars, and direct your productive energies towards the black markets."

• Ross Ulbricht (Silk Road, 2021)

"A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence."

• Sigmund Freud

MAY 2022 "A computer is an educational device, it's in fact a direct reflection of your own imagination, your own intelligence. And once you're given the freedom in which to create things and see the immediate response on the screen, then it becomes a very enjoyable experience - you go on to involve yourself in many other things."

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltNu-QS1ebA&ab_channel=NewRetroWave
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNT1L3jGjbA

MARCH 2022 "Do you know how you graduate business school? You quit and you start your own business."

• Asmongold, Twitch streamer (https:pi//clips.twitch.tv/FaithfulVastTermiteChocolateRain-o6QUom0yMBzCTp0B)

NFTs and The American Dream

• Asmongold (https://clips.twitch.tv/SourBombasticWoodpeckerMoreCowbell-Txy-PAIukwp0f692)

JANUARY 2022 The first work of the hero is to retreat from the world to zones of the psyche where the difficulties really reside, and there to clarify the difficulties, eradicate them and break through to the undistorted direct experience and assimilation of what Carl Jung called “the archetypal images.”

• The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Kay showed he was in the camp of those who saw personal computers primarily as tools for individual creativity rather than as networked terminals for collaboration. “ Although it can be used to communicate with others through the ‘knowledge utilities’ of the future such as a school ‘library,’ ” he wrote, “we think that a large fraction of its use will involve reflexive communication of the owner with himself through this personal medium, much as paper and notebooks are currently used.”

• The Innovators (Walter Isaacson)

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

• Epictetus

DECEMBER 2021 "What's the matter...? Are you simply going to watch? Are you forsaking him to save yourself? Death awaits him if you do nothing. Was your previous decision a mistake then? (No need for mere words. Show me your true feelings.) Very well... I have taken heed of your resolve. Vow to me! I am thou, thou art I... Thou who would accept blasphemy for the sake of thine own justice! Call upon my name, and release thy righteous rage! Reveal the strength of thy will to seek the truth on thine own, though thou be chained down by Hell itself!" —Arsène, Persona 5

The real game starts at two outs.

• Ryuji (Persona 5)

The Digital Revolution (also known as the Third Industrial Revolution) is the shift from mechanical and analogue electronic technology to digital electronics which began in the latter half of the 20th century, with the adoption and proliferation of digital computers and digital record-keeping, that continues to the present day.

You're better off to go out and start your own company and fail than it is to stick at one company for 30 years... but that wasn't true in the 1950's. -> Digital Revolution

• The Innovators (Walter Isaacson)

“You’re better off to go out and start your own company and fail than it is to stick at one company for thirty years.” ― Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

Innovation can be sparked by engineering talent, but it must be combined with business skills to set the world afire.

• The Innovators (Walter Isaacson)

“Innovation can be sparked by engineering talent, but it must be combined with business skills to set the world afire.” ― Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.

• Albert Camus

NOVEMBER 2021 “Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.”

• F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1945

"When you're going to change the world, don't ask for permission."

• Viktor (Arcane, Netflix S1E2)

"Any worthwhile venture involves risk."

• Councilor Medarda (Arcane S1E3)

"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."

• Van Gogh

"Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it."

• Albert Einstein

[James Baldwin (DeWitt Clinton alum, 1942)] [Society]

• You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.
• Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience, you must find yourself at war with your society.
• Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
• I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
• The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.
• The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now. [Education]
• The purpose of education…is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions.
• It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
• The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. [Writing]
• Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.
• The writer's greed is appalling. He wants, or seems to want, everything and practically everybody, in another sense, and at the same time, he needs no one at all.
• The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him. [Money/Power]
• The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.
• Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.
• When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

--- OCTOBER 2021 The coronavirus pandemic appears to have unleashed a tidal wave of entrepreneurial activity, breaking the United States — at least temporarily — out of a decades-long start-up slump. Americans filed paperwork to start 4.3 million businesses last year, according to data from the Census Bureau, a 24 percent increase from the year before and by far the most in the decade and a half that the government has kept track. Applications are on a pace to be even higher this year. The surge is a striking and unexpected turnaround after a 40-year decline in U.S. entrepreneurship. In 1980, 12 percent of employers were new businesses; by 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, that share had fallen to 8 percent. The prolonged decline worried economists, because... "Start-ups are a key source of job growth, innovation, and economic resiliency. A reversal of the trend could contribute to a more dynamic, productive economy that could more easily rebound from future recessions."

• Ben Casselman, NY Times ( https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/business/startup-business-creation-pandemic.html)

"What important truth do very few people agree with you on?" -> I hate the idea of working for a boss or several bosses; I would rather look for own customers to sell a product/service to.

• Peter Thiel (Zero To One)

Everyone at Harvard is inventing something. "Harvard undergraduates believe that inventing a job is better than finding a job." --> RICO So I suggest again that the two of you come up with a new project.

• The Social Network (2010) (Note: They don't teach you this in Stony Brook.)

You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library. - > OASIS/SRC29

• Matt Damon, Good Will Hunting

--- "The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want." — Paul Graham (Hackers & Painters)

More important than what we're learning, is why we're learning it in the first place. (making money, starting a business, programming)

“Timing beats speed, precision beats power.”

• Achilles

AUGUST 2021 "We found the trail to Babylon because the soul of a free man looks at life as a series of problems to be solved and solves them, while the soul of a slave whines, 'What can I do, who am but a slave?" -The Richest Man in Babylon

JULY 2021 "Philosophers until now have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it."

• Karl Marx

JUNE 2021 If in your office, you as an intellectual worker were supplied with a computer display backed up by a computer that was alive for you all day and was instantly responsive to every action you had, how much value could you derive from that?

• Doug Engelbart, 1968 (inventor of the mouse)

"Beautiful things don't ask for attention."

• Walter Mitty (snow leopards)

"Better late than never."

I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy … in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music. — John Adams

Act broke to stay rich. --- MAY 2021 Work is for the sake of leisure, not the other way around.

• Aristotle

"I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics."

• Michel de Montaigne

“I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good. But, then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts. And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”

• Steve Jobs

“When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.”

• Steve Jobs

--- APRIL 2021 hacker : n. - a person interested in exploration, usually of a computer. (Hackers Wanted, 2009) n. - one who applies ingenuity to create a clever result called a" hack".

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

• Jonathan Swift (Hackers Wanted, 2009) --- "Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world."
• Mr. Robot Ep. 2

"Chance only favors the prepared mind."

• Louis Pasteur

"With physical banks, you protect physical money with physical bullets. But with internet money, you protect it with great software engineering and secure systems."

• Garry Tan ( https://youtu.be/x5YApjnTG10?t=340)

“You spent 150 grand on an education you could have gotten for a $1.50 in late charges at the public library.”

• Good Will Hunting

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

• Steve Jobs

"The journey is the reward." -Steve Jobs maxim #1

"It's better to be a pirate than to join the navy." (rebel spirit, Persona 5, One Piece) -Steve Jobs maxim #2

"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

• The Dark Knight

“Every good story needs a villain."

"But the best villains are the ones you secretly like.” ― Stephanie Garber, Legendary

"Without the evil one nothing would change. There would be no crises, no challenge, no story, no heroism. The villain creates the situation in which the hero is born."

• (https://sethbalthazar.com/2017/02/16/every-story-needs-a-villain/)

"The Chosen One is born together with the Dark Lord. A villain is needed to call the hero to action, and to inspire the good guys to organize and mobilize."

• (https://sethbalthazar.com/2017/02/16/every-story-needs-a-villain/)

"One often meets his destiny on the path he takes to avoid it. "

• Kung Fu Panda

"This is pure genius. You can't teach shots like this. It's a half volley, open stance with a single-handed backhand. Last time we saw one of those, God was a boy."

• Commentator on Federer v. Murray @ ATP Tour Finals Semifinals 2012 https://youtu.be/lY1eZgKvVCE?t=202 ---

"It is impossible to idle thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do." ― Jerome K. Jerome

"I do my own thing, so I owe no favors."

"Finish before you start."

"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of the tyrants."

• Albert Camus

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." – Mark Twain

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

• Arthur C. Clarke

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it."

• Henry Ford

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life."

• Steve Jobs

"The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary."

• Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"The minute I stopped caring what other people thought and started doing what I wanted to do, is the minute I finally felt free."

• Phil Dunphy (Modern Family S4E4)

“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.” ― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (Modern Family S4E18)

2023-2024

BEST

"The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away."

• Pablo Picasso

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."

• Carl Sagan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8khZZNGjafc&t=3s)

"Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world."

• Mr. Robot Ep. 2

There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.

• John Adams

People do not understand our banking and monetary system. If they did, there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.

• Henry Ford

"Stop funding the state with your tax dollars, and direct your productive energies towards the black markets."

• Ross Ulbricht (Silk Road, 2021)

"Every action that we take outside of government control strengthens the market and weakens the state."

• Ludwig von Mises (in a sentence from Silk Road Movie, 2021)

The man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. -Henry David Thoreau

"A computer is an educational device, it is in fact a direct reflection of your own imagination, your own intelligence, your own programming skills. And once you're given the freedom in which to create things and to see the immediate response on the screen, then it becomes a very enjoyable experience; you go on to involve yourself in many other things."

• The Midnight (Youth) [1979 salesman]

I don't hate humans, I just feel better when they're not around.

• Charles Bukowski

Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you.

• Marsha Norman

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

• Oscar Wilde

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

• T. E. Lawrence

“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.” — Roald Dahl

Imagination means nothing without doing.

• Charlie Chaplin

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” ― Herman Melville

“It is not down on any map; true places never are.” ― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, the Whale

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.” ― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, the Whale

If you are a pirate, you pick what you want to believe in on your own!

• One Piece

The person with the most freedom is the Pirate King!

• Monkey D. Luffy

Those who stand at the top can decide the definition of evil. This place is the turning point.

• One Piece (https://youtu.be/NfN1Jl3VqR8?t=168)

“Pirates are evil? The Marines are righteous? These terms have always changed throughout the course of history! Kids who have never seen peace and kids who have never seen war have different values! Those who stand at the top determine what's wrong and what's right! This very place is neutral ground! Justice will prevail, you say? But of course it will! Whoever wins this war becomes justice!” ― Donquixote Doflamingo (One Piece - https://youtu.be/wMML-xB5PJc?t=12)

If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.

• Latin proverb

Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.

• Nikola Tesla

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

• Edmund Burke, 1729–1797

This is the real secret to life - - to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.

• Alan Watts

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

• William Blake

What is not proved was once only imagined.

• William Blake

I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's. I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

• William Blake

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

• Jonathan Swift

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.

• Arthur Schopenhauer

"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

"The best way to predict your future is to create it."

• Abraham Lincoln

“You spent 150 grand on an education you could have gotten for $1.50 in late charges at the public library.”

• Good Will Hunting

Let go your earthly tether, Enter the void. Empty, and become wind.

• Zaheer/Guru Laghima (Legend of Korra)

The first work of the hero is to retreat from the world to zones of the psyche where the difficulties really reside, and there to clarify the difficulties, eradicate them and break through to the undistorted, direct experience and assimilation of what Carl Jung has called “the archetypal images.” (This is the process known to Hindu and Buddhist philosophy as viveka, “discrimination.”) ― Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces

YODA: Careful you must be when sensing the future, Anakin. The fear of loss is a path to the dark side. ANAKIN: I won't let these visions come true, Master Yoda. YODA: Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is. ANAKIN: What must I do, Master Yoda? YODA: Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

• Arthur C. Clarke

"Technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born."

• Alan Kay

"If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything."

• Malcolm X

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

• African Proverb

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

• Thomas Edison

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."

• Franklin D. Roosevelt

"We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

• Joseph Campbell

"Your time is limited, don't waste it living someone else's life."

• Steve Jobs

"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much."

• Jim Rohn

"Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all."

• Helen Keller

--- DECEMBER 2022 To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden, a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

• Ralph Waldo Emerson

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

• George Orwell

“The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.”

• Arthur Schopenhauer

“To be alone is the fate of all great minds—a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils.”

• Arthur Schopenhauer

“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.”

• Aldous Huxley

“The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest men of past centuries.”

• René Descartes

"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.”

• George Bernard Shaw

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.--'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.'--Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

• Ralph Waldo Emerson (Self-Reliance, essay)

--- JANUARY 2023 "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered."

• Thomas Jefferson, 1802

"If in your office, you as an intellectual worker were supplied with a computer display backed up by a computer that was alive for you all day and was instantly responsive to every action you had, how much value could you derive from that?"

• Doug Engelbart, 1968 (inventor of the mouse)

"I'm still waiting for your idea so we can all quit our jobs."

• Tamer K. (1/18/22)

"Difficulty is what wakes up the genius."

• Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent".

• Plato, The Republic (reminded me of Squid Game)

--- FEBRUARY 2023 "I can tell you like me too, and I know I'm right..."

• Avril Lavigne (Girlfriend)

"...you still come up... ...you still come up... It's all in my head, there's not much I can do You set your pace, I'll keep mine too Each time I chase, I feel dark blue Confuse your face for someone new"

• TSSF (Nerve) --- You (S4E1) "Heartbreak is our greatest teacher and if so, thank you for making me wise."

"I study to learn how they tick, so I can avoid the circus."

Heartbreak is always the catalyst for a new path. --- MARCH 2023 miwa (441 ) “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” I don’t need pretty words like that. Just be with me Sitting close to me, calling my name; such little pieces of happiness are enough

What are thinking about right now? Are you always thinking about me? Don’t leave. Look at me. We’re not too late

miwa (chAngE) In such a repetitive world as this, I sometimes lose sight of who I am I don't want to fit in the frames, so don't make my decisions I'll walk down the pathless road Even if I stay here, even if I wait, nothing would begin ... Change; I will be reborn, no matter how many times Embracing even my sadness, I'll run I can never return to you again The way I want me to, I wanna change ... Why do you hesitate so much - and where are you who are not satisfied? It doesn't disappear and it doesn't rust; make me whole more The world I realize because I've changed, will project my current self In the future you think of, what is projected? ... I'll go to the loveless tomorrow Don't hold me back, even if I miss it, I want to go forth ... Change; I won't stop and I won't look back I want to always be searching for the truth I think I can hold even tears dear to me ... Change; I won't forget and I don't want to lose it So embracing even my happiness, I'll run Even if I stray away from you The way I want me to, I wanna change --- If where I am changed, you will be there If where you are changed, I will be there --- Change; I won't be bent and I won't be swept away I want to stay honest to how I feel now I won't let it go the way someone wants it to Change; I will be reborn, no matter how many times Embracing even my sadness, I'll run If I can see the same view with you I want to go back to you someday The way I want me to, I wanna change ---

APRIL 2023

"DISTURBING THE COMFORTABLE COMFORTING THE DISTURBED"

• Zumiez (on GIgi's twitch stream)

If somebody can tell you when to be at work, and what to wear, and how to behave, you're not a free person; you're not actually rich.

• Naval Ravikant (https://youtu.be/GNVUA8J_9A0)

Better to be good and lazy than evil and productive.

--- SOLITUDE --- “Solitude is the soil in which genius is planted, creativity grows, and legends bloom; faith in oneself is the rain that cultivates a hero to endure the storm, and bare the genesis of a new world, a new forest.”

• Mike Norton, White Mountain

"The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."

• Albert Einstein

"I think that all great innovations are built on rejections, and that all great beginnings start with a deep sense of solitude, a feeling of being alone."

• Steve Jobs

"Without great solitude, no serious work is possible."

• Pablo Picasso

"The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself."

• Michel de Montaigne

"Solitude is not a withdrawal from life, but a preparation for it."

• Lawrence Durrell

"It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having."

• Henri Nouwen

"In solitude, the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself."

• Laurence Sterne

"It is only in solitude that a man can truly know himself."

• Fyodor Dostoevsky

"The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude."

• Aldous Huxley

"Solitude is a catalyst for innovation."

• Susan Cain

"We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers."

• Henry David Thoreau

"The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude."

• Nikola Tesla

"I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude."

• Henry David Thoreau

"The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it's not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of the other person--without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now."

• Osho --- ### MAY 2023 "Without the evil one nothing would change. There would be no crises, no challenge, no story, no heroism. The villain creates the situation in which the hero is born."
• (https://sethbalthazar.com/2017/02/16/every-story-needs-a-villain/)

"The Chosen One is born together with the Dark Lord. A villain is needed to call the hero to action, and to inspire the good guys to organize and mobilize."

• (https://sethbalthazar.com/2017/02/16/every-story-needs-a-villain/)

"It is impossible to idle thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do." ― Jerome K. Jerome

--- JULY 2023 All the places I go It still hasn't left me I hated it then And now it consumes me

All I can show Is absence from your life That I can't control It's all that I get right Keep paying the toll I know that it seems like I'm always upset I know it seems like I'm always upset

All that I know Is your space is empty It's buried below It still hasn't left me All that I know Is your space is empty It's buried below It still hasn't left

I dwell on it nightly Tread swiftly and lightly Make up the lost ground And see what you don't see All questions aside I asked and you lied And now my hands are tied

• TSSF (Empty Space)

---

2024

Games have the power to distract people from stressful situations.

• Michael Scott

2025

Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes.

• Carl Jung