Quote Of The Week

Quote of the Week 44 " The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have. " ―  Epictetus  ( Discourses and Selected Writings )

2nd Quote of the Week 43 "Smile and be happy, it could get worse!" ― Otto Waalkes „Und aus dem Chaos sprach eine Stimme zu mir: Lächle und sei froh, es könnte schlimmer kommen! Und ich lächelte und war froh - und es kam schlimmer." ―  Otto Waalkes Alternative translation : " Out of the gloom  a voice said unto me “Smile and be happy,  things could be worse.” So I smiled and was happy  and behold  things did get worse. " A seen in the Otto Waalkes exhibition " OTTO - The Exhibition " in the Buchheim Museum in Bernried (Lake Starnberg):

Quote of the Week 43 "How can I know what I think till I see what I say?" ―  E. M. Forster See Quote Investigator for the origin of the quote: T he saying was popularized by both Graham Wallas and E. M. Forster although both disclaimed credit for authorship. ...  In conclusion, in 1926 Graham Wallas attributed the expression to a little girl. In 1927 E. M. Forster attributed the expression to an old lady. Both of them helped to popularize the saying. W. H. Auden also used the saying, but he referred back to Forster. "Wie kann ich wissen, was ich denke, bevor ich höre, was ich sage?" ―  E. M. Forster

Quote of the Week 42 "Never push twice." ― Alan Bipe A reference to Twenty-One and the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Source:  https://twitter.com/llama_index/status/1712483872817156545

Quote of the Week 41 " Don't hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace. " ―  Epictetus  ( Discourses and Selected Writings ) Triggered once more by a recent Daily Stoic  tweet . pic.twitter.com/JKLpchGpUM — Daily Stoic (@dailystoic) September 25, 2023

Quote of the Week 40 "They get the facts wrong but often get the feelings right." ―  Naomi Klein ( commenting on conspiracy theorists) See also: On with Kara Swisher podcast.

2nd Quote of the Week 39 "With age, one's bite becomes less fierce." ― Alan Bipe "Mit dem Alter kommt die Zahnlosigkeit."

Quote of the Week 39 "I know, you said, you would, …" ― Delta Spirit („Hold My End Up“ song lyrics )

  Quote of the Week 38 " It's impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows . " ―  Epictetus Triggered by a Daily Stoic tweet .

Quote of the Week 37 " Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example. " ― François de La Rochefoucauld Quote found in the context of a search for another Rochefoucauld quote on "Contentment" / "Zufriedenheit": "Wenn wir Zufriedenheit nicht in uns selbst finden, ist es zwecklos, sie anderswo zu suchen. " ― François de La Rochefoucauld   "Wenn man seine Ruhe nicht in sich findet, ist es zwecklos, sie andernorts zu suchen. " "Si nous sommes incapables de trouver la tranquillité en nous-mêmes, il ne sert à rien de la chercher ailleurs. " " If we are incapable of finding peace in ourselves, it is pointless to search elsewhere. "    

Quote of the Week 36 " Never underestimate the man who overestimates himself. " ―  Charlie Munger Triggered by David Senra's tweet  which in turn references a February 2020 statement by Munger.

Quote of the Week 35 " We can know more than we can tell. " ―  Michael Polanyi  ( Polanyi's paradox ) Triggered by a reference to the paradox in a recent presentation at ICML 2023 by Prof. Subbarao Kambhampati :  Avenging Polanyi's Revenge: Exploiting the Approximate Omniscience of LLMs in Planning without Deluding Yourself In the Process

Quote of the Week 34 " The liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it; the bullshitter doesn't care if what they say is true or false. " ― Harry G. Frankfurt (" On Bullshit ")  Triggered by the ongoing discussion of trustworthiness of Large Language Models' (LLMs) output. Under this definition LLMs are bullshitters, not liars. But liars can use them to amplify their lies. Full quote : "The liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it; the bullshitter doesn't care if what they say is true or false, but rather only cares whether or not their listener is persuaded." Related : „It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.“ „Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstance require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about.“

Quote of the Week 33 " You always own the option of having no opinion. " ― Marcus Aurelius     Triggered by the use of the quote in a recent Daily Stoic   tweet : “You always own the option of having no opinion.” — Marcus Aurelius — Daily Stoic (@dailystoic) August 12, 2023 See also:  10 Stoic Rules From Marcus Aurelius RULE 5: You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.

Quote of the Week 32 " It takes a long time to become young. " ―  Pablo Picasso   Triggered by John Maeda's compilation of Picasso quotes  including " One starts to get young at 60, and then it’s too late . " See also:  https://joemckeever.com/wp/it-takes-a-long-time-to-become-young/ In his book by this title, Garson Kanin , a well-known playwright, told how Pablo Picasso walked into a hall where a massive display of his paintings was being exhibited. The artist strode into the gathering with a beautiful young woman on each arm and a smile on his countenance. Someone approached him and after the greeting, said, “Sire, I have a question. There is something about your painting that puzzles me.” The man pointed out that in Picasso’s first paintings, done when he was a young man, the scenes are dark and formal and according to all the standards. But, he said, “The paintings of your latter years are alive and colorful and so youthful! How do you explain that?” Picass...

Quote of the Week 31 " The higher you climb, the smaller your world becomes. " ― Esther Crawford   Triggered by Esther's tweet about working with Elon Musk at Twitter: Like seemingly everyone on this app I have plenty of opinions about Twitter > X and figure now is a good time to open up a bit about my experience at the company. I tweeted for years into the void for the love of it like many of you, but after selling my startup to Twitter in… pic.twitter.com/bw7CHhk0Xg — Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) July 26, 2023

Quote of the Week 30 " The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers. " ― Peter F. Drucker   Triggered by a discussion about leadership on Wednesday last week where I claimed that "Someone is a true leader when people follow the person voluntarily." just to find out that Peter Drucker has expressed a similar thought well before I ever did: " The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers. To gain followers requires influence but does not exclude the lack of integrity in achieving this ."

Quote of the Week 29 " What goes up must come down. " ― Old adage  (sometimes attributed to Isaac Newton )   Triggered by a report on the declining interest in ChatGPT.    

Quote of the Week 28 " The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. " ― Stephen King  (variation of a quote by Oscar Wilde)   " The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable. " ― Oscar Wilde     Triggered by King's tweet last week reflecting on the positive consumer reaction to Meta Thread vs. X Twitter.   Musk vs. Zuckerberg reminds me of what Oscar Wilde had to say about fox hunting: the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. — Stephen King (@StephenKing) July 7, 2023    

Quote of the Week 27 " You can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to it. " ― Ryan Holiday ( The Daily Stoic ) A variation of: " You don’t control the situation, but you control what you think about it. " ― Ryan Holiday   See also: “You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude  toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather  than allowing it to master you.”  ―  Brian Tracy " It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. " ―  Epictetus Triggered by the use of a variant of the quote in a recent Daily Stoic  tweet : You don’t control the situation, but you control what you think about it. — Daily Stoic (@dailystoic) June 29, 2023 Related: " Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness. " ― Viktor Frankl  

Quote of the Week 26 " So GPT-4 is actually 8 expert raccoons in a trenchcoat. " ― Sasha Luccioni   Triggered by the citation of Luccioni's tweet in the article " GPT-4's Secret Has Been Revealed " by Alberto Romero. So GPT-4 is actually 8 expert raccoons in a trenchcoat 😂 https://t.co/eRWhcZoJ5l — Dr. Sasha Luccioni 💻🌎🦋✨🤗 (@SashaMTL) June 20, 2023 Image created with Microsoft Bing Image Creator (powered by DALL-E):  

Quote of the Week 25 " You can make a short road take forever . " ― Sophocles  (Antigone) " Es braucht viel Zeit, einen kurzen Weg zu gehen . " ―  Sophokles  ( Antigone , 232) " Derlei bedenkend, ging ich müßig langsam.  Und so wird auch ein kurzer Weg zum weiten."   ―  Sophokles  ( Antigone ) "And so, mulling it over, on I trudged, dragging my feet,  you can make a short road take forever."  ―   Sophocles  ( Antigone ) Triggered by the use of the quote in German as banner on a theatre truck:

Quote of the Week 24 " Direction is much more important than speed . " ―  Richard Feynman   Shreyas Doshi did offer a related thought: 3/ It is important to move fast, but the direction of our movement is more important than the speed. Backtracking after ending up in the wrong place sounds easy in theory but is extremely hard in practice because of our ego, our users’ attachment, and our code’s inelasticity. — Shreyas Doshi (@shreyas) October 6, 2020 Triggered by the use of the quote in a recent @ProfFeynman tweet : Direction is much more important than speed. — Prof. Feynman (@ProfFeynman) June 7, 2023

Quote of the Week 23 " Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic . " ― Arthur C. Clarke   ( Clarke's 3rd Law ) Adapted by Grey's Law : " Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice ."

Quote of the Week 22 "A computer  is the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds. " ― Steve Jobs Triggered by the use of the quote in a Microsoft keynote by Satya Nadella last week: