Quote Of The Week

Quote of the Week 30 " Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought. " ―  Albert Szent-Györgyi Triggered by a @ProfFeynman tweet . [Update: 09/17/2025] The original quote is attributed to Arthur Schopenhauer.

Quote of the Week 29 "I’m not young enough to know everything." ― James Matthew Barrie (sometimes attributed to Oscar Wilde) Triggered by a reply to a @wilddueck  tweet .

Quote of the Week 28 " Proximity does breed creativity within a group of people." ― Kara Swisher Triggered by Kara's claim in a recent Pivot Podcast episode: . @karaswisher explains that there are some real advantages to working in-person in the office: “Proximity does breed creativity within a group of people.” Stream Pivot here, presented by @Salesforce + 👉 https://t.co/wo1l2mMrMP pic.twitter.com/coSLj8xTsS — Pivot Podcast (@PivotPod) June 3, 2022 Unfortunately, I could not yet find a research study that fully backs this opinion. While the creativity myth   "Creativity tends to be a solitary activity" has been challenged, " face-to-face verbal interaction is typically not an effective way to tap the creative potential of a group "   according to  Alone versus together: Finding the right balance for creativity (researchgate.net) . [Update: July 17, 2022 Proximity does indeed cause contagion within a group of people. ]

Quote of the Week 27 " By far the greatest flow of newness is not innovation at all. Rather, it is  imitation ." ― Theodore Levitt "Imitation is not only more abundant than innovation, but actually a much more prevalent road to business growth and profits." Triggered by the inflationary u se of the term "innovation" in marketing new products. Theodore Levitt already diagnosed the same more than half a decade ago in his 1966 Harvard Business Review article "Innovative Imitation" summarized here . [ Post | LinkedIn ]

Quote of the Week 26 " The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than is needed to produce it." ― Brandolini's Law (aka Bullshit Asymmetry Principle ) Triggered by the u se of the quote in Tony Fadell's recent book " Build ".

2nd Quote of the Week 25 " Creativity is a spiritual experience, not a mental experience." ―  Deepak Chopra Triggered by the interview with Deepak Chopra @ OpenText World EMEA 2022 in Munich. See  Creativity (blog-on-innovation.blogspot.com)  for a brief overview of the concept of creativity summarized by another Chopra quote: " To harness true creativity, you must silence the conditioned mind."

Quote of the Week 25 " Listen, everyone is entitled to my opinion. " ―  Madonna Use of the quote  triggered by recent actions of a certain self-proclaimed "free speech advocate".

Quote of the Week 24 " You can’t copy your way to the top ." ―  Steven B. Sample ( The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership ) Cited in Contingency Theories for Leadership . Source:  DALL·E mini - a Hugging Face Space by dalle-mini More counter-intuitive lessons from the book : Never make a decision today that can reasonably be put off to tomorrow. Think gray. Don’t form opinions if you don’t have to. Think free. Move several steps beyond traditional brainstorming. Listen first, talk later. And when you listen, do so artfully. Shoot your own horse. Don’t force others to do your dirty work. The best leaders don’t keep up with the popular media and the trades. Know what hill you are willing to die on—and keep its exact location to yourself. Know the all–important difference between being leader and doing leader. You can’t copy your way to the top.

Quote of the Week 23 " To catch up, you have to run faster than the leader. " ―  Mark Akers Full quote taken from the book Indiana (in) Decision  by Mark Aker: " If you are running in a race and are behind the leader,  to catch up, you have to run faster than the leader ." Triggered by Gunter Dueck 's variant of the quote in German: "Wenn man zur Spitze aufschliessen will, muss man schneller laufen als der Erste."

Quote of the Week 22 " It is a lot better to walk alone than with a crowd going in the wrong direction ." ―  A @ProfFeynman tweet Source: Tweet

Quote of the Week 21 " Intelligence is what you use when you don't know what to do. " ―  Jean Piaget Triggered by the use of the  quote  in a recent tweet by François Chollet.

Quote of the Week 20 " All actual life is encounter. " ―  Martin Buber (I and Thou) Variant translation: "All real life is meeting." "Alles wirkliche Leben ist Begegnung." ―  Martin Buber (Ich und Du) Triggered by the use of the  quote  in a recent podcast .

Quote of the Week 19 " They lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them. " ―  Elena Gorokhova ( A Mountain of Crumbs ) Triggered by the use of a variant of the quote attributed to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn : "We know they are lying. They know they are lying. They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie."

Quote of the Week 18 " Don’t tell people what to do; tell them what you need accomplished, and you’ll be amazed at the results. " ― George S. Patton Triggered by Marty Cagan's use of this variant of the quote in the Silicon Valley Product Group blog article " The Alternative to Roadmaps ". Original quote : " Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results. "

Quote of the Week 17 " Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." ― misattributed to Oscar Wilde Source: Quote Investigator . See also: Professor Buzzkill .

Quote of the Week 16 " There is no truth, only belief." ― Unknown I have seen this quote attributed to René Descartes and David Hume but could not find a definitive source. See also " The Belief in Truth " and Oleg Filin's " The Portrait of M. Monroe " for expressing the same thought.

Quote of the Week 15 " Good artists copy. Great artists steal." ― Misattributed to Pablo Picasso Source: Quote Investigator

Quote of the Week 14 " Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen,  few in pursuit of the goal." ― Friedrich Nietzsche Triggered by the use of the quote in an internal presentation. " V iele sind hartnäckig in Bezug auf den einmal eingeschlagenen Weg, wenige in Bezug auf das Ziel ." ― Friedrich Nietzsche  ( Werk: Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, Aph. 494 )

Quote of the Week 13 " The truth is rarely pure and never simple." ― Oscar Wilde Triggered by the use of the  quote  from "The Importance of Being Earnest" in a recent tweet  by  Kara Swisher.

Quote of the Week 12 " There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all. " ― Peter Drucker Triggered by the use of the quote in a review of the book " Ask Your Developer " by Jeff Lawson. In line with a quote cited here before: " What's not worth doing is not worth doing well. " ―  Abraham Maslow

Quote of the Week 11 "Optimism is just lack of information ." ― Heiner Müller Alternative view:  "Pessimism is just lack of hope ." Original quote  in German:  "Optimismus ist nur ein Mangel an Information ." ― Heiner Müller

Quote of the Week 10 "Y ou are not lost unless you think you are lost ." ― Thomas F. Freeman Source:  NY Times 2020 Obituary  citing from his biography authored by James Ford. Unofficial motto:  “What we do, we do well; what we don’t do well, we don’t do at all.” Originally triggered by Ethan Mollick's tweets in January 2022 and 2021  for Martin Luther King Day.

Quote of the Week 9 " Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength . " ―  Corrie ten Boom Triggered by Scott Barry Kaufman's tweet . “Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.” - Corrie ten Boom pic.twitter.com/vMAayJWrYj — Scott Barry Kaufman ⛵ (@sbkaufman) February 27, 2022 " Sich sorgen nimmt dem Morgen nichts von seinem Leid, aber es raubt dem Heute die Kraft. " ―  Corrie ten Boom

Quote of the Week 8 "50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work." ― Price's Square Root Law (adapted) Triggered by Brian Burns ' use of the law in the context of sales organizations. Note that  Price 's well-known square root law originally states that "half of the literature on a subject will be contributed by the square root of the total number of authors publishing in that area". ( Price's square root law: Empirical validity and relation to Lotka's law - ScienceDirect ) One should be careful applying the law to different organizational contexts. It  does not necessarily apply to performance management in general. ( Kienbaum Blog - Price’s Law and the Trouble of Operationalizing Performance ) See also:  Price's Law: What It Is And Why You Should Care - Darius Foroux

Quote of the Week 7 "Which is more important," asked Big Panda, "the journey or the destination?" "The company," said Tiny Dragon. ― James Norbury ( Big Panda & Tiny Dragon ) (C) James Nurbory,  jamesnurbory .com German translation : "Was ist wichtiger?",  fragte der große Panda, "Der Weg oder das Ziel?" "Die Weggefährten", sagte der kleine Drache.