By Brian Pho September 13, 2020 ⋅ 44 min read ⋅ Other
A list of my favourite quotes that I’ve collected over the years.
Living
Life is wasted on the living. - Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Live and let live.
Some people die at twenty five and aren’t buried until they are seventy five. - Benjamin Franklin
Blink, and then it’s over. - Slander & William Black, Back To U
The days are long, but the years are short.
Life is too short to not be pursuing the best opportunity you know of.
Get busy living or get busy dying.
One of the hardest things you will ever have to do is grieve the loss of a person who is still alive.
The unexamined life is not worth living. - Socrates
The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the life too closely examined may not be lived at all. - Mark Twain
“What happens after you die?” “Lot’s of things happen after you die - they just don’t involve you”
Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. - Ludwig Jacobowski
We all have two lives, the second one starts when you realize you only have one. - Confucius
Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well. - Jack London
There’s no point in living if you can’t, at least occasionally, live.
Life - the way it really is - is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse.
If you wait until you’re ready, you’ll be waiting for the rest of your life. - Lemony Snicket, The Ersatz Elevator
I’m not afraid of death. It’s the stake one puts up to play the game of life.
Have recently come to appreciate the awesome, absurdist humor of Waiting for Godot. We so often wait, without knowing why, when or where. - Elon Musk
It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.
Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes but, when we look back everything is different. - C.S Lewis
In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on. - Robert Frost
A future is not given to you. It is something you must take for yourself.
It’s one of the great tragedies of life - something always changes.
People are usually afraid of change because they fear the unknown. But the single greatest constant of history is that everything changes.
To exist is to survive unfair choices.
The only desire the Culture could not satisfy from within itself was one common to both the descendants of its original human stock and the machines they had (at however great a remove) brought into being: the urge not to feel useless. - Iain M. Banks, Consider Phlebas
Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living. - Jonathan S. Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
That dwelling in the past only wastes your present and shortens your future.
One of the hardest decisions you’ll ever face in life is choosing whether to walk away or try harder. - Ziad Abdelnour
The dead escape death in heaven, and the living escape life in dreams. - Iain M. Banks, Look to Windward
But the impression was very much that you’d better have an unimpeachable reason for showing up at the gates of paradise with your own blood on your hands. - Iain M. Banks, Look to Windward
The more focused you were on the activity, the less focused you were on everything else. You kind of stopped being you and became the thing you were doing. - Matt Haig, The Midnight Library
If every day you’re looking for the next thing that’ll change your life — what’s left in the moments in between? - Aimee Ogden
There’s not a lot of things worth caring about.
Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we are not really living. - Gail Sheehy
You are inexperienced. So was I, once. So is every man. The measure of a person is not how much they have lived. It is not how easily they jump at a noise or how quick they are to show emotion. It’s in how they make use of what life has shown them. - Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law
I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. - Diane Ackerman
Sometimes we spend a lifetime climbing a ladder, not knowing it’s up against the wrong wall. - Allen Raine
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. - Annie Dillard
We demand proof of life from those who wish to speak to us. - Andrew Bosworth, Age of Authenticity
Time passes whether I stand still or move. - Anne Barngrover, On Maps, (AGNI 97)
One day you will do something the final time and you will rarely know when that day comes. - Andrew Anabi
It’s hard to remember that this day will never come again. That the time is now and the place is here and that there are no second chances at a single moment. - Jeanette Winterson
I’ll give you the hammer, you decide where to drive the nail. - James Clear
Things are the way we make them. - Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time
We’re as ephemeral as raindrops. We all fall, and we all land somewhere. - Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
When you hold an acorn you hold in your hand the possibility of an oak tree, and not just a single oak but all the progeny of that oak for centuries upon centuries. Enough oak wood to build whole cities … are cities made of oak? - Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
What we were transplanting this time was not biology but human history, and human history, Jase had said, burned like a fire compared to the slow rust of evolution. - Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
Mortality, a writer of my generation once said, trumps morality. - Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
Stoking memories like embers and warming herself at the heat. - Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
The young were still entitled to believe that the world’s problems always had clear solutions. - Alastair Reynolds, Absolution Gap
It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required. - Winston Churchill
You want an answer, the answer is you need to walk down the road to see where it goes. Life rarely makes itself clear, so if you wait for the perfect solution you will just keep on waiting. - Reddit
Some lessons have to be experienced to be learned. - James Clear
Live now, not later.
The worthwhile run is never the short one. - M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven
Old and young, we are all on our last cruise. - Robert Louis Stevenson
The hardest battles are given to the strongest soldiers.
If there is no wind, row. - Latin adage
Every man dies, not every man truly lives. - Braveheart 1995
Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. I choose to see the beauty. - Dolores Abernathy, Westworld
Who’s the person you’re afraid you’re becoming?
Culture
This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever fallen in love with a culture that was devouring their own. - Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire
A region touched by the reaching hand of Teixcalaan but not yet subject to the weight of it. - Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire
They were wrong, but they did not discover this until the dawn of interstellar society. Then, expeditions started finding evidence of fallen cultures, ruined worlds, extinct species. There were an uncomfortably large number of them. - Alastair Reynolds, Redemption Ark
Science
We must know, we will know. - David Hilbert
A scientist builds in order to learn; an engineer learns in order to build. - Fred Brooks
Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
I mean, you could claim that anything’s real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody’s proved it doesn’t exist!
For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
If our brains were simple enough for us to understand them, we’d be so simple that we couldn’t.
If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?
Not everything in science that is formally equivalent is semantically equivalent.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. - Carl Sagan
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain they do not refer to reality. - Albert Einstein
The very lack of evidence is thus treated as evidence; the absence of smoke proves that the fire is very carefully hidden. - C. S. Lewis
Engineering will build the tools to test science, and science will invent the theories to guide the construction of tools.
Explores formal principles of software engineering based on the common recognition that software engineering is not constrained by any physical laws as we know. - Yingxu Wang, ENSF 604
Interesting to think of physics as a set of compression algorithms for the universe. That’s basically what formulas are. - Elon Musk
You can prove anything you want by coldly logical reason, if you pick the proper postulates. - Isaac Asimov
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clarke
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
The time dilation effect seems to have been made so that people are able to travel to the stars.
Computer science actually began with its ‘theory of everything’.
When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did Shannon in. After information theory, what do you do for an encore? The great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing right off. And that isn’t the way things go. So that is another reason why you find that when you get early recognition it seems to sterilize you. - Richard Hamming
What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean. - Issac Newton
You know how powerful science can be. A thousand years to climb from ghosts and magic to technology; a day and a half from technology back up to ghosts and magic. - Peter Watts, Firefall
Could we do this? Portia echoes the past question from Zaine and, to herself, admits that they could not. And yet we have come to them, not they to us. Always better to be the explorer than the explored. - Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin
She understands, in a real and immediate way, how she stands on the backs of giants, and that her own back, too, will be strong enough to bear the weight of many generations to come. - Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time
And part of the reason you are able to contribute so significantly to this project is that you are not burdened by unnecessary knowledge. Some of it might help you, I agree, but some of it would also narrow your options, steer your thoughts in one particular direction, prevent you from seeing all there is to see. Since I cannot know which information would hinder your thought processes, I find it best to provide you only with what you really need to know. - Sylvain Neuvel, Sleeping Giants
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research. - Wilson Mizner
Even though most of us cannot separate science from superstition or technology from magic. - Peter Thiel
The drug of discovery.
I strongly believe that the only way to encourage innovation is to give it to the young. The young have a great advantage in that they are ignorant. Because I think ignorance in science is very important. If you’re like me and you know too much you can’t try new things. I always work in fields of which I’m totally ignorant. - Sydney Brenner
They’re playing the science game, not doing science. - Erik Hoel, The Revelations
Just like how new laws of physics were needed once you started looking at the very small and the very large, new laws might be needed once you start looking at the very complex. - Erik Hoel, The Revelations
I want to believe there is more to this world than we know. - Erik Hoel, The Revelations
How was science not just better eyes for seeing more of the spectrum, or smaller fingers for manipulating more accurately, sonic amplifiers for greater hearing, logic an extension of our primitive reasoning abilities, statistics to pick up on correlations in nature better than we naturally could, and so on—just tools to supplement our bodies so we could survive a bit better, a bit longer. - Erik Hoel, The Revelations
Diane had grabbed faith, Jason had grabbed science. And I had grabbed Jason and Diane. - Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
This is the most sophisticated technological artifact the Five Republics have produced, Tyler. - Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
The star was brighter than all the others in the sky, but it still looked like a star rather than a sun. - Alastair Reynolds, Redemption Ark
The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility. - Albert Einstein
Neuroscience
Praised be the human mind, which sees more sharply than does the human eye. - Aaron Bernstein
Intelligence attributes to itself as to why we are the dominant species of this planet.
If our brains were simple enough for us to understand them, we’d be so simple that we couldn’t.
We have not yet learned what the brain has to teach us. - Chris Eliasmith
Memory is the breaking and storing bits of passing time.
It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backward.
If there’s one thing I remember about memory, it’s that it doesn’t do its job.
However, you owe these drugs back what they delivered to you.
Being funny requires a considerable amount of intelligence. It doesn’t require massive amounts of intelligence but it requires enough to be able to be creative, witty, think quick, read people, play off people, ect. I’ve never met a dumb funny person.
We don’t live in a world of reality but in a world of perceptions.
Of the entire range of the electromagnetic spectrum, the unaided human eye could see little more than one percent: a single octave of radiation out of an immense long keyboard of tones.
The brain is the last and grandest biological frontier, the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe. It contains hundreds of billions of cells interlinked through trillions of connections. The brain boggles the mind. - James Watson
Change the eyes that look at the world, change the me does the looking? - Peter Watts, Firefall
[Direct stimulation of the visual cortex to induce hallucinations] That’s how you can tell it wasn’t. Since you don’t actually see it, there’s no messy eyeball optics to limit resolution. - Peter Watts, Firefall
Neurons only speak when spoken to; they don’t know why. - Peter Watts, Firefall
There is no red or green. All the colors we see are artificial; they’re constructs of the mind. This beautiful rainbow of colors you see here on these felt-pens is, in reality, different shades of gray. - Peter Cawdron, Anomaly
There are birds that migrate by the stars, bats that echolocate, bees that compute the variance of flower patches, spiders that spin webs, humans that speak, ants that farm, lions that hunt in teams, cheetahs that hunt alone, monogamous gibbons, polyandrous seahorses, polygynous gorillas. There are millions of animal species on earth, each with a different set of cognitive programs. The same basic neural tissue embodies all of these programs, and it could support many others as well. Facts about the properties of neurons, neurotransmitters, and cellular development cannot tell you which of these millions of programs the human mind contains. Even if all neural activity is the expression of a uniform process at the cellular level, it is the arrangement of neurons—into bird song templates or web-spinning programs—that matters. - Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works
To explain how birds fly, we invoke principles of lift and drag and fluid mechanics that also explain how airplanes fly. That does not commit us to an Airplane Metaphor for birds, complete with jet engines and complimentary beverage service. - Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works
But then we always suspected the cortex is a mere blanket for regulating the temperature of the crucial parts of the brain. And while some continue to protest that “the folds of human cortex are what makes us unique!”, they are denying the simple, near universally-accepted explanation — greater surface area improves heat dissipation. - Mark Humphries, Review of 2019 in neuroscience
Cogito ergo sum (‘I think, therefore I am’) - Descartes
The brain is a world consisting of a number of unexplored continents and great stretches of unknown territory. - Santiago Ramon y Cajal
The initial cause of any human action lies outside the person. - Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov
Instead of promising to satisfy your curiosity in what concerns the anatomy of the brain, I do confess here sincerely and publicly that I know nothing of this matter. - Matthew Cobb, The Idea of the Brain
Long before art and science and philosophy arose, consciousness had but one function: not to merely implement motor commands, but to mediate between commands in opposition. - Peter Watts, Firefall
There is something it is like to be! - Erik Hoel, The Revelations
What a mighty thing, consciousness! What aspect of our world does it not touch? In science it shows itself across all hierarchies, all primary and all special sciences. It appears as the monarch of psychology with all other mental events its yoked subjects. - Erik Hoel, The Revelations
It is unlike, in kind, anything else in nature. It has a greater claim to existence than anything else. Consciousness is not the hypothesis. The outside world is the hypothesis. If you cannot accommodate consciousness in your natural order, then the natural order must expand. - Erik Hoel, The Revelations
Reading neuroscience textbooks had always given Kierk that creepy feeling of being a machine reading its own blueprints. - Erik Hoel, The Revelations
The current neuroscientific explanation for the effect is that memories are laid down in greater detail and in greater number during novel experiences, so it really just seems as if subjective time slows. But to Kierk this can’t be the entire explanation; rather, it has to be that each conscious moment is actually deeper, richer—there is a greater volume of consciousness. - Erik Hoel, The Revelations
In which case the amount of time experienced is a function of the richness of the experience. - Erik Hoel, The Revelations
The brain, restored and rewired, became a subtly different organ. And its owner became a subtly different human being. - Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
It was like a picture of an impossible solid, one of those warped triangles or ever-rising staircases; a thing that looked plausible enough at first glance but which on closer inspection produced the effect of a knife twisting in a particular part of the brain—an area responsible for handling representations of the external universe, ah area that handled the mechanics of what did and didn’t work. - Alastair Reynolds, Absolution Gap
‘Memory, Khouri. Memory being laid down instantaneously. The dream felt real, but it was created in an instant when the dog began licking your face. Back-constructed. You never actually lived through it. It’s the same with these memories.’ - Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space
The complexity of the human brain, in its construction and function, has limited our ability to understand it. - Yasemin Saplakoglu
Artificial Intelligence
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. - Alan Perlis
Artificial intelligence is basically willy nilly, stabbing in the dark, trying to model natural intelligence.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Just like how there’s a certain combination of DNA (ATCG) that made us, there must be a certain combination of 0s and 1s that make AI.
Solve intelligence and then use it to help society solve everything else.
The field was founded on the claim that human intelligence “can be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it.”
Any A.I. smart enough to pass a Turing test is smart enough to know to fail it.
The robots declared us “artificially intelligent”.
To erase the line between man and machine is to obscure the line between men and gods. - Ex Machina
To build a machine smarter than you, it has to be more complex than you—and the ability to understand the machine begins to slip away. - David Eagleman, Sum
An electronic computer is also made up of matter, but organized differently; what is there so magical about the workings of the huge, slow cells of the animal brain that they can claim themselves to be conscious, but would deny a quicker, more finely-grained device of equivalent power - or even a machine hobbled so that it worked with precisely the same ponderous-ness - a similar distinction? - Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons
They [superintelligent AI] are rarely malicious, never vicious; not to us. Mainly this is because we are so far beneath them it would be demeaning to get that worked up about us and our feelings, but the thing is, they are vastly powerful artefacts, with senses and abilities and strengths that we only fool ourselves we know about or understand, and the subtlest, most infinitesimal of their machinations can bruise us, crush us utterly, if it catches us wrong. - Iain M. Banks, The Hydrogen Sonata
But in all cases communication is about projecting information. Man is the only animal that uses an intermediary form for communication, something static that forms a kind of intellectual echo, whether that’s a book or text on a computer screen, art hanging in a gallery or a play shown on the television, the principle is the same. The act of capturing communication, storing it and reusing it is a hallmark of intelligence, and I think they’ll appreciate that. - Peter Cawdron, Anomaly
Senkovi’s personal theory was that the pressure of being in the middle of the food chain was an essential prerequisite for complex intelligence. Like humans (and like Portiid spiders, had he only known), octopuses had developed in a world where they were both hunter and hunted. Top predators, in Senkovi’s assessment, were an intellectual dead end. - Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin
I wonder, briefly, if I’m going to have to go in there. And it occurs to me that until someone licks AI, this is why NASA needs monkeys in space. To make stupid monkey decisions like these. - Hugh Howey, Beacon 23
They had never encountered another extant machine-using intelligence, nothing to measure themselves against. Until now. - Alastair Reynolds, Redemption Ark
ChatGPT is really a reflection of human intelligence that’s shared on the internet. - Yejin Choi, Quanta Magazine
There are 2 hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-1 errors.
Dreams
We’re still pioneers, we’ve barely begun. Our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, cause our destiny lies above us. - Cooper, Interstellar
We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt. - Cooper, Interstellar
A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. - John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic
Sometimes it’s the very people who no one imagines anything of, who do the things no one can imagine. - The Imitation Game
You have been so focused on what’s ahead of you that you never looked what was above you. - Mr. Robot
Men ahead of their time were always, by definition, outside of it.
I didn’t come this far to only come this far. - Fearless Motivation
I had wanted to make history move ahead in the same way that a child pulls on a plant to make it grow more quickly. - Václav Havel
Don’t you find it odd that when you’re a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you’re older, somehow they act offended if you even try. - Ethan Hawke
To look up and wonder at our place in the universe, to look down and wonder my place in humanity.
You know that place between asleep and awake, that place where you still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting. - Rich Edwards, Where I’ll Be Waiting
They pop up every now and then. People who don’t wake up from the dream even after tens of years. I love people like that. - Erika Yano, Shirobako
We are always living in tomorrow’s history.
A dream we dream together is reality. - Burning Man 2017
Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence. - Lu Xun
One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now. - Paulo Coelho
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. - Epicurus
Words like anchors, tethering boats of memory that would otherwise be scuttled by the storm. - Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
Identity
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Your desire to understand was stronger than the other person’s desire to be understood.
People who say they have no regrets have never lost anything worthwhile.
The person that you will spend the most time with in your life is yourself, so try to make yourself as interesting as possible.
To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.
We’re all background characters in someone else’s story.
You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.
You be strange now but don’t be a stranger, nah’mean? - Leon, Mr. Robot
You have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.
It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be. - J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Not all those who wander are lost. - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Perhaps it’s impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.
We judge others by their actions and ourselves on our intentions.
We’d care a lot less about what others thought about us, if we realized how little they did.
You’re the asshole. Not because you’re wrong, but because you were a dick about it.
You can let people walk all over you and they will still complain that you are not lying flat enough.
People won’t remember the words you say but how it made them feel.
Normal people are just people you don’t know very well.
It’s not your fault but it is your responsibility.
He who knows the “why” for his existence will be able to bear almost any “how”.
I’m mystified by how people can talk all day and yet say absolutely nothing. - Reddit
Don’t let me do everything I want because sometimes I make bad choices. - Reddit
You don’t have to be the man you were five minutes ago.
No, it’s impossible. It’s impossible to tell anyone what it feels like to be you. It’s impossible. We live the same way that we dream - alone. - Joseph Conrad
A man must suffer if he is to remake himself, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.
Have the courage to live a life true to yourself, not the life others expect of you.
There are days that define your story beyond your life. - Louise Banks, Arrival
Think about yourself first. You’re no good to others if you aren’t good to yourself.
They’re not looking for a story that tells them who they are. They already know who they are. They’re here because they want a glimpse of who they could be. - Ford, Westworld
You were comforted by your future self. - Kubera
Be the change that you wish to see in the world. - Mahatma Gandhi
The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion. - Paulo Coelho
The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.
Don’t make this hard on me, I’m already hard on myself. - TELYKast, Somebody Else
When you’re 20 you care what everyone thinks, when you’re 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you’re 60 you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place. - Reddit
Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. - James Clear
Never make fun of someone for things they can’t change.
You do not follow me because I am the strongest. Pax is. You do not follow me because I am the brightest. Mustang is. You follow me because you do not know where you are going. I do. - Darrow, Red Rising
Respect yourself enough to walk away anything that no longer serves you, grows you or makes you happy.
Remember you’ll always regret what you didn’t do rather than what you did.
I want to know who they were, help them be who they are, and be there for who they will be.
These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb. - Najwa Zebian
Each time you do something generous, you’re shaping yourself into someone who’s more likely to be generous next time, and that matters. - Ted Chiang, Exhalation
They’re artists of information, and each data point adds a bit more pigment to their accumulating portrait of you. - David Eagleman, Sum
The knowledge that you cannot appreciate the destination without knowing the starting point. - David Eagleman, Sum
There’s a big war going on in that novel, and various individuals and groups manage to influence its outcome. But even being able to do that doesn’t ultimately change things very much. At the book’s end, I have a section pointing this out by telling what happened after the war, which was an attempt to pose the question, ‘What was it all for?’ I guess this approach has to do with my reacting to the cliché of SF’s ‘lone protagonist.’ You know, this idea that a single individual can determine the direction of entire civilizations. It’s very, very hard for a lone person to do that. And it sets you thinking what difference, if any, it would have made if Jesus Christ, or Karl Marx or Charles Darwin had never been. We just don’t know. - Iain M. Banks, Consider Phlebas
We are what we do, not what we think. - Iain M. Banks, The Player of Games
The tighter you cling to your current identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it. - James Clear
Our enemies’ opinion of us comes closer to the truth than our own. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Go quietly, and you’re a number. Go in spectacular fashion, and you’re a name. - Hugh Howey, Beacon 23
He somehow gets that I’m fucked up but that it isn’t my fault, and this feels really fucking amazing, to have someone think it’s not all my fault, and so I cry and cry while little pebbles and bits of steel bounce off my beacon and go tumbling like shed tears out into the cosmos. - Hugh Howey, Beacon 23
A man was defined not by his flaws, but by how he overcame them. - Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension
Vin stepped back into the room wearing a memory. - Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension
Kelsier always wanted me to be a general—I think, deep down, he thought that befriending people was inferior to leading them. - Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension
They became servants, lest they end up as slaves. - Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages
You hate change. I hate it too. But things can’t stay the same—and that’s well, for when nothing changes in your life, it’s as good as being dead. - Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages
A man can take it [the uniform] off, Lady Marasi. But he can never stop wearing it. - Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law
Yes, He hurt Wax. He hurt him badly. But He put the pain where He knew it could be borne. - Brandon Sanderson, Shadows of Self
The world will ask you who you are, and if you don’t know, the world will tell you. - Carl Jung
Create your life rather than live it. - James Clear
You’re like my own children, adults before I had time to know them as kids. - Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages
Besides, it was beneficial to have a reputation for honesty, if only so that one could lie at crucial moments. - Brandon Sanderson, Elantris
Modern life is a path that we must chart on our own. - Logan Ury, How to Not Die Alone
If we’re in charge, then we have only ourselves to blame. We could fail, and then it would be our fault. - Logan Ury, How to Not Die Alone
Mastery
There are some views you can’t see until you stand at the top. - Ping Pong the Animation
Winners never quit, and quitters never win. But people who never quit and never win are idiots.
You have to be odd to be number one. - Dr. Suess
If your ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step you take gets you to the wrong place faster.
Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person. - Albert Einstein
Practice puts brains in your muscles.
A student repays a master poorly if one only remains a student.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. - Rashmi Bansal
Consistently and overwhelmingly, the evidence showed that experts are always made, not born.
The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.
Nobody aims for the top without running into any monsters. - Ping Pong the Animation
The more extreme the greatness, the longer the shadow it casts.
An amateur practices until he can play it correctly, a professional practices until he can’t play it incorrectly.
We’re going to advance! Advance! We’ll stop at nothing to advance! - Thomas Wade, Death’s End
There are three choices in this life: be good, get good, or give up.
Having to work hard is not a sign of being stupid.
If you don’t have time to do it right, you must have time to do it over.
It takes great talent and skill to conceal one’s talent and skill.
What is the most important step a man can take? Not the first, but the next one. Always the next one.
It doesn’t take talent to practice.
If you want to be good at something you first must be willing to be bad at it.
A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.
Its never too late to reach for the stars.
The only way to be sure you won’t lose is to not fight. - Ping Pong the Animation
If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should and just because it’s comfortable, doesn’t meant it’s good.
We’re born with capabilities, and have to transform those capabilities into actual abilities.
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
No. You’ve got it wrong Steve. Everything you didn’t circle just became your ‘avoid at all cost list’. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5. - Warren Buffet
We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.
The best exercise for gaining strength is not missing workouts. - James Clear
Not everyone who works hard is rewarded, however all those who succeed have worked hard! - Hajime no Ippo
Too many people mistake speed for productivity. Sometimes, it’s more productive to slow things down. - Peter Cawdron, Wherever Seeds May Fall
Such success cannot be explained away by a better genetic hand; instead, they [alternate versions of you] played your cards better. - David Eagleman, Sum
Use what talents you possess - the woods will be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. - Henry van Dyke
A man must be a very great genius to make up for being such a loathsome human being. - Martha Gellhorn, Ernest Hemingway’s third wife
In every field, the real experts are also the best at business. - Stefan Zweig, Chess Story
The transformation was total: I had created an internal projection of the chessboard and pieces and was able to see any position based on nothing more than the formulas in the book, the way an expert musician has only to glance at a score to hear all the voices and their harmonization. - Stefan Zweig, Chess Story
There is no such thing as a general expert.
Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One person gets only a week’s value out of a year while another gets a full year’s value out of a week. - Charles Richards
It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a person’s life is made up of nothing but the habits they accumulated during the first half. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Almost everybody can stay excited for 2 or 3 months. A few people can stay excited for 2 or 3 years. But a winner will stay excited for 30 years or however long it takes to win. - Art Williams
I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. - Helen Keller
We are built to make mistakes, coded for error. We learn, as we say, by “trial and error.” - Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail
The test of a student is not how much he knows, but how much he wants to know. - Alice Wellington Rollins
I am always doing what I can’t do yet in order to learn how to do it. - Vincent Van Gogh
Past successes are no index to the future. - William James
Relationships
Great relationships are built, not discovered. - Logan Ury, How to Not Die Alone
Don’t try to change anyone. Change how you deal with them.
The saddest part of life is when the person that gave the best memories becomes a memory - YouTube
It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace. - Chuck Palahniuk
The cheapest woman tends to be the one you pay for. - Jack Reacher
Romantic
When you’re wearing rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.
Do you know what time erases? Pain. Do you know what erases time? Love.
You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.
Sometimes I think I need a spare heart to feel all the things I feel. - Me
Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood. - 1984
Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.
Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.
It is not a lack of love but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.
We accept the love we think we deserve.
Every human relationship can be adjusted with the right amount of money.
Back when it was new, that distance brought you together. Now, the closeness pulls you apart.
Don’t make permanent decisions based on temporary feelings.
Everybody is looking for the right person, and nobody is trying to be the right person.
When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t.
But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.
Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
Just because someone is easy to talk to does not mean that you should tell them everything.
To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world.
If the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.
How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
Just because a relationship ends, that doesn’t mean it was a failure or a mistake.
You’re not afraid she’s going to say no, and you’re afraid she’s going to say yes. - Reddit
Don’t make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.
One day, whether you are 14, 28 or 65, you will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in you that cannot die. However, the saddest, most awful truth you will ever come to find – is they are not always with whom we spend our lives.
Treat others the way they want to be treated.
Let the girl determine whether you are out of her league or not.
One of the worst pains comes from realizing you overestimated how much someone actually cares about you.
The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy.
It wasn’t about how great we were when things were good, it was about how perfect she was when things were bad.
It’s important to remember that it’s not how a relationship starts that matters, it’s how it evolves. - Reddit
Do you feel victory when your words cause pain?
The most fucked up joke life can play on you is letting you meet the right person at the wrong time.
I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not. - Kurt Cobain
He had seen a few smiles he might have killed for, but never one he’d have died for. - Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons
It’s hard to admit but we are visual creatures and we try to make love out of lust. - Reddit
I will always harbor the regret of leading her down a path that I was not prepared to follow. - Reddit
I think we both saw attraction, but not affection, in each other.
Does anyone feel like its pointless dating? It’s not pointless it’s challenging, just like anything else worthwhile in life. - Reddit
The right person at the wrong time is still the wrong person. You didn’t miss an opportunity, you just weren’t ready for one. - Reddit
It’s not about what someone can do for you, it’s who and what the two of you become in each other’s presence. - Ronald Sharp
Ladies, if you were dating a guy and he took you on a romantic trip to the Maldives, would that make you feel special? Ok, now imagine how you would feel if you discovered you were the 50th girl he took to the Maldives - how would you feel then? This is why body count matters. - YouTube
Just remember ladies, you’re the gatekeeper of sexual opportunity … but men are the gatekeeper of marriage opportunity. As long as men set the standard for who they want to marry, your opinion on your body count doesn’t matter. Either be the woman your dream-guy wants you to be, or do whatever you want and live with what’s left.
Many relationships exist because they figured out they can’t have the home or lifestyle they want without having a spouse.
A lot of you confuse ghosting with them just losing interest in you.
It’s just that what is being said isn’t “I don’t like fat people”, what is being said is “I don’t find fat people physically attractive”.
While walking together casually say “here can you hold this for me?” and just hold out your empty hand.
People rarely change. Don’t think you can fix the things that bother you about them. Accept them as they are.
Be with someone you want to grow with, not someone you want to change.
Because he already had his life together and going, I would just be an add on. Had a good job, money, car, beautiful house, he was beautiful but it just didn’t feel right. Maybe it was weird of me at the time, I just felt that I wanted to build a life with. - Reddit
The qualities we look for in dating are different than the qualities we looks for in marriage.
I think it has to do with wanting a physical connection but not necessarily the hard work that goes into a romantic relationship.
Love takes work—from finding it to keeping it alive. - Logan Ury, How to Not Die Alone
The magic lies in the fact that two strangers come together and create a life. It’s not important where or how they met. - Logan Ury, How to Not Die Alone
If you’re not going on dates, you’re not getting closer to knowing the kind of person you want to be with long term. - Logan Ury, How to Not Die Alone
One easy way to estimate someone’s loyalty is to see if they have friends from different stages of their lives. How many old friendships have they carried with them over the years? In general, old friendships indicate loyalty. - Logan Ury, How to Not Die Alone
“How do you move on?” You move on when your heart finally understands that there is no turning back. - JRR Tolkien
Sometimes, it isn’t the one who takes your breath away, it’s the one that reminds you to breathe. - Jennifer Johnson
The stars belong to you my love … I wish I could have given them to you. - YouTube
May you attract someone who speaks your language so you don’t have to spend a lifetime translating your soul.
I did it because I wanted to. I gave myself for my love. I have no regrets. - Reddit
Don’t wait until I die to love me.
Loneliness
A hug, all the warmth, but none of the heat. - V.E. Schwab, Vicious
I lost myself trying to please everyone. Now I’m losing everyone as I find myself.
I learned to give, not because I have too much. But because I know how it feels to have nothing.
I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.
The loneliest people are the kindest, The saddest people smile the brightest. The most damaged people are the wisest. All because they do not wish to see anyone else suffer the way they do.
In an era of breadlines, Depression, and wars, I tried to help people get away from all the misery; to turn their minds to something else. I wanted to make people happy, if only for an hour. - Busby Berkeley
Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.
Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.
We humans are alone in this world for a reason. We murdered and butchered anything that challenged our primacy. - Westworld
When you look out and realize how lonely we are, and when you look in and realize how lonely you are.
If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely.
The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.
People want to be loved; failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. They want to evoke some sort of sentiment. The soul shudders before oblivion and seeks connection at any price.
These walls that I built to protect me are now crushing me.
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal - Albert Camus
I guess that’s the strange torment I suffer: dying for company, for someone to talk to, but it’s never the right someone who shows. And an unwelcome presence is far worse than miserable silence. - Hugh Howey, Beacon 23
Crying isn’t simply about opening the floodgates to some private trauma and letting it out—crying is just as much about letting those around you know you’re hurting. - Hugh Howey, Beacon 23
Life isn’t meant to be lived alone. - Reddit
No one compares, you stand alone. - Selena Gomez, Love You Like a Love Song
Wisdom
Don’t confuse the truth with the opinion of the majority.
A wise man speaks because he has something to say. A fool speaks because he has to say something.
The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life. - Confucius
Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure. - J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter
A nation grows great when a man plants a tree: the shade of which he will never enjoy.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Maybe the grass seems greener on the other side because you’re not over there fucking it up. - Reddit
Sometimes the worst decision is no decision. Sometimes you just have to make a decision, any decision, then make that be the right one.
Somewhere, it’s windy and raining on another planet and there is no one there to experience it. Whenever I think about it, I feel very small in the universe.
That you cannot help someone who refuses to help themselves.
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.
A man who knows nothing, knows enough, if he knows when to stay silent.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime.
A fool thinks himself to be a wise man, a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
Truth is only as good as the reality it comes from.
Well, so what if we are? This is a distinction without a difference.
We shouldn’t fear being wrong, we should fear believing lies.
Now that I know better, I do better.
I know what it is like to be young but you don’t know what it is like to be old.
We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair. - Mitch Albom, The five people you meet in heaven
But it was something along the lines of how parents raise good children but should instead be raising good adults.
If you raise your kids you can spoil your grandchildren, but if you spoil your kids you will have to raise your grandchildren.
One of those people whose greatest contribution to society will be the day they leave it. - Reddit
Education is expensive, but no education is more expensive. - Reddit
Be decisive. Right or Wrong, make a decision. The road of life is paved with flat squirrels that couldn’t make a decision.
There’s no benefit to being right if you can’t make people listen to the answer.
You can learn a lot from your mistakes when you aren’t busy denying them.
Pretending that the fake is real only makes the real seem fake.
Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.
It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face.’ But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?
The future seems knowable only when it becomes the past.
If you are given a choice, you believe you have acted freely. - Raymond Teller
You had hoped that smarter creatures would be wiser ones. - Peter Watts, Firefall
Sometimes what goes without saying is best said anyway. - Iain M. Banks, The Hydrogen Sonata
It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. - Matt Haig, The Midnight Library
Well, that you can choose choices but not outcomes. - Matt Haig, The Midnight Library
I’m sorry. I didn’t lie but I did deceive. - Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons
We are living in an oasis of knowledge, but drowning in a pool of ignorance.
But the mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones. - Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law
The law is there to keep us from ruining everyone else’s ability to explore. Without law, there’s no freedom. - Brandon Sanderson, The Bands of Mourning
People can ask questions, but where there is no money, there are no answers. - Brandon Sanderson, The Bands of Mourning
Pushing society forward is no destruction. Even if, in doing so, it leaves us behind. - Brandon Sanderson, The Bands of Mourning
The saddest aspect of society right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
What you risk reveals what you value. - Jeanette Winterson
Boredom is the awareness of time passing. - Heidegger
A smart man learns from his mistakes. But a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
They look but they do not see. - Robert Charles Wilson, Spin
A smart man learns from his mistakes. But a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
You may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power. - Arthur Schopenhauer
Funny
Give a man a fire and he’s warm for a day, but set him on fire and he’s warm for the rest of his life.
Just found out I’m a rich man stuck in a poor man’s body. Like if you’re transfinancial too
Just found out I’m actually dead inside a living body. Like if you’re a transexistential too.
English class is like a conspiracy theory class because they will find meaning in absolutely anything.
If light travels faster than sound, then why can I hear my girlfriend bitching at me before I see what I’ve done wrong.
Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it goes away. - Reddit
Anyone going slower than you is an idiot and anyone going faster than you is a maniac.
You’ll never get her if you just keep staring at her Facebook page.
From a female friend who went to an engineering school: “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.” - Reddit
Watching a graduation ceremony is like sitting through a movie that’s entirely end credits. - Reddit
A girl says “Taken but not appreciated” in response to being given some advice about something. Someone responds with “I didn’t ask for the title of your autobiography”.
Suppose we’ve chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we’re just making him madder and madder. - Homer J. Simpson
Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Why fight a depressed person when I can just wait.
The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Now they pass it by Congress who will carefully evaluate the plan and eventually come to the conclusion that sending people in rockets to other planets is a waste of money better spend on sending rockets into people on this planet.
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.
This isn’t going to be one of those idiotic local disputes that end up being put to a vote of the whole Culture, is it? - Iain M. Banks, Look to Windward
No one speaks. Yeah, she thinks, academics can cast shade without uttering a single word. - Peter Cawdron, Wherever Seeds May Fall
Falling never killed anybody; it was when you stopped. - Iain M. Banks, The Player of Games
We play until we lose, but we can’t end on a loss. - Jason
I call this the Relativistic Weekend Effect. We live in the present, but our happiness relies heavily on the future. - Hugh Howey, Beacon 23
“I suggest that you never ask her to pass the milk,” Wayne added under his breath, so only Waxillium could hear. “As she seems likely to throw a cow at you, just to be certain the job is done thoroughly.” - Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law
He’d always found it odd that so many died when they were old, as logic said that was the point in their lives when they’d had the most practice not dying. - Brandon Sanderson, Shadows of Self
Hell, with some kandra friends, he could be annoying Steris well into the afterlife. - Brandon Sanderson, Shadows of Self
[After a sad story of a person] “Is that the end?” Marasi asked. “What?” Wayne said. “You want more to happen to the poor fellow? Right sadistic of you, Marasi. Right sadistic.” - Brandon Sanderson, The Bands of Mourning
I used to say pika before I sneezed as a kid so it came out like pika-CHOOOO. I have unthinkingly done this as an adult. People heard. - Redditor
She’s the type of girl who misses her doctor’s appointment because she was sick.
Now my computer has more viruses than an Iranian nuclear facility.
She just started talking to me and never stopped. - Someone who dated an extrovert
There was this Indian professor at some college. A guy wrote “Don’t be fooled. Looks like Gandhi but grades like Hitler”.
An Ancient Math Proverb: “That’s not what I got.”
If you create a robot without red lights build in, will it never turn evil?
Those that can’t do, teach.
Have you ever thought that the purpose of your life is to serve only as a warning for others?
Women age like milk, men age like wine.
I’ve taught you everything you know, not everything I know.
You can’t be ugly and play hard to get, you’re already hard to want.
If it burns, it isn’t healthy. - Brandon Sanderson, Elantris
Valensin pointed at the reefersleep casket. “You climb into that box one more time, we might as well paint it black and put handles on it.” - Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire
The enemy of my enemy is my enemy, but they took out my enemy for me. Time to get away. - YouTube Comment on The Three Body Problem
Me and my work bestie laughing because we told our coworker that she swallowed too many kids and that’s why everything out her mouth sounds childish and now we have a meeting with HR. - TikTok
Accidently became important at work and now its ruining my life.
Garage-to-billionaire pipeline.
They insist that the socks lost in the dryer are being sacrificed to the laundry gods for good fortune, and frankly, I’m starting to believe it too.
We are all the same height in bed. - Reddit
Reduce plastic but use more trees, reduce paper but use more plastic. - Reddit
Money
The essence of finance is time travel. Saving is about moving resources from the present into the future; financing is about moving resources from the future back into the present.
Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening. - Tom Goodwin
Don’t save what is left after spending; spend what is left after saving.
Concentrate to make money; diversify to keep money.
Spend money where you spend time.
If there is money to be made, there are morals to be discarded. - Asmongold
I have no problem spending money, but I have a problem wasting it. - Linus Sebastian, WAN Show
That money is only useful if you buy goods and services with it. So much of this sub just wants a fancy funeral or something. - Reddit
When you buy something cheap and bad, the best you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it. When you buy something expensive and good, the worst you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it. - Sasha Aickin Grandmother
Money plays an important role in life, but it can’t be the only filter for how you decide to spend your time. Nobody will ever pay you to go on a date with your spouse or take your kids to the park or grab coffee with your parents. - James Clear
In the west, if you buy luxury when you can’t afford it to try and gain admiration, it’s not admiration you get but pity for such obvious displays of wealth when you can’t actually afford it. - Reddit
Other
Even today on cruise ships it’s women and children first, not because men should be able to swim across an ocean but because we are disposable.
It’s called The American Dream for a reason, you have to be asleep to believe it.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
The only time you look in your neighbor’s bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don’t look in your neighbor’s bowl to see if you have as much as them. - Louis C.K.
The time to worry is when I quit yelling at you because that means I’ve decided you’re not worth the effort.
My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations. - John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. - Albert Einstein
Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say. - Edward Snowden
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. - Winston Churchill
The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.
To see a World in a Grain of Sand, And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour. - William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
It’s absurd to bury something much more valuable than a Bentley: your organs.
Starmaker rock is such a cooler name than flint.
Telling a guy to “man up” is the same as telling a woman to “get back in the kitchen”
INTJs are the coldest humans, INTPs are the warmest robots.
Dude, without feelers we would burn the world to see what colour the smoke is. - INTP Subreddit
Our foremost desire of logic puts us at odds to the illogical humanity.
In a case like this, there is very little cost to a false positive. But there may be a huge cost to a false negative.
And our best friend for this activity? The clear blue sky. The blue sky seems like it was invented to help humans pretend the Situation doesn’t exist, serving as the perfect whimsical backdrop to shield us from reality.
Don’t be a dick to your dog. he’s a few years of your life, but you are all of his.
He thinks I am myth made man. - Pierce Brown
Because I’m on the spectrum and it is a very cruel thing to subject someone to dating me.
Postulates are based on assumption and adhered to by faith. Nothing in the Universe can shake them.
Laws should expire every 19 years - Earth belongs to the living, not the dead.
If you’re not doing anything shady in your house you don’t need blinds or locks either!
We measure loss when we flip the counter from dead to living. - 12 Monkeys (2015)
While women are portrayed as sex objects, men are portrayed as success objects.
In the past, they told me to not use paper to save the trees. Now they tell me not to use plastic to save the planet.
Truth had never been a priority. If believing a lie kept the genes proliferating, the system would believe that lie with all its heart. - Peter Watts, Firefall
It would be worse than that; he would be treated with compassion, understanding, tolerance. But he would never be forgiven. - Iain M. Banks, The Player of Games
Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.
There is no logical reason to be logical.
People who mistake education for intelligence.
They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.
The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason. - Neal Stephenson, Seveneves
For he knew that the winning side wasn’t always the right side. - Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages
Even photos are lies—they frame reality rather than capturing it. - Peter Cawdron, Generation of Vipers
Conjoiner ships were here, too: sleek and black, as if chiselled from space itself. - Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space
They would learn of their implants, and how they enabled a second layer to be draped over reality, one that could be shaped into any form imaginable. - Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space
OneWeb was founded to bring the world closer together, but that is hard to do when the world is falling apart. - Eric Berger
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read. - Samuel Johnson
Crispy is the front of your teeth, crunchy is the back of your teeth.
Our problem-solving skills can often be overshadowed by our problem-creating abilities.
Never speak unless your words are more beautiful than silence.
But don’t tell no lie about me, and I won’t tell truths ‘bout you. - Kendrick Lamar
Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together—just the two of you. A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people—people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book. - EB White