Quote Of The Week

Quote of the Week 35 " I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.  " ― Douglas Adams " I rarely end up where I was intending to go, but often I end up somewhere I needed to be. " No, this quote is not from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . It  comes from The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul , which was published in 1988. Source:  Linda Curtis-Stolper Triggered by  Quote of the Week 28 .

Quote of the Week 34 “If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which ones to throw away.” ―   Linus Pauling   Source: Timespinner Press (Michael Dobson) Triggered by the use of a variant of the quote in a recent talk " Can LLMs Reason & Plan? " (slide 24) by Subbarao Kambhampati . “I get many ideas, and I throw away the bad ones.” Dear @aclmeeting Community: I was privileged to speak, and have invigorating conversations nonstop with many of you from 9AM-10:30PM today. For an old professor like me, this is pig's heaven! 🤗 Thank you for your kindness!🙏 Slides of my talk https://t.co/2iP0OwimG3 Audio… pic.twitter.com/FGAzSPEXEl — Subbarao Kambhampati (కంభంపాటి సుబ్బారావు) (@rao2z) August 13, 2024

Quote of the Week 33 " The first step in solving a problem is admitting there is a problem to be solved." ― Pete Seeger Similar quotes: "The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one." ―  Will McAvoy (fictional character, TV series The Newsroom ) ― Aaron Sorkin   (screenwriter of  The Newsroom ) "The first step in solving a problem is to recognize that it does exist." ― Zig Ziglar Triggered by a variant of the quote in Shreyas Doshi's  tweet : "The first step in fixing a problem is first admitting there’s a problem." The first step in fixing a problem is first admitting there’s a problem. In that spirit, here’s a short video summary of culture anti-patterns on Eng / PM / Design teams. (might help explain what you have seen on your team right now or on previous teams) https://t.co/IdAGe6j4ma — Shreyas Doshi (@shreyas) August 8, 2024

Quote of the Week 32 " We seldom think of what we have, but always of what we lack." ―  Arthur Schopenhauer The quote is sometimes supplemented by "Therefore, rather than grateful, we are bitter." but I could not find a corresponding reference in the original context . "S elten bedenken wir, was wir besitzen, stets was uns fehlt." German  variant - translated back from the English  quote :  " Wir denken selten an das, was wir haben, aber immer an das, was uns fehlt."   Triggered by Quote of the Week 28 .

Quote of the Week 31 " We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." ― Will Durant  (often attributed to Aristotle ) Source:  THE ART OF "QUOTEMANSHIP" AND "MISQUOTEMANSHIP"

Quote of the Week 30 " Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer." ― Randy Pausch , The Last Lecture   Related : "Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment." Not triggered by Crowdstrike but applicable. Triggered by Stefan Schruff's LinkedIn post referencing Pausch's Last Lecture  in 2007: Full quote : " Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer. "

Quote of the Week 29 " That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple." ― Steve Jobs  [ BusinessWeek, May 25, 1998 ]   Triggered  by  Founders podcast :  #349 How Steve Jobs Kept Things Simple , 05/04/2024.  See also: " Simplicity // Einfachheit ". Related: Quote of the Week 11, 2021 .

Quote of the Week 28 " I've learned that what we want is seldom what we need, and what we need is almost never what we want." ―  James Norbury    Source:  " The Cat Who Taught Zen ",  James Norbury ,  2023 See also:     " We Are Our Own Companion " Related:  " Fix You " (Coldplay) Lyrics "When you get what you want, but not what you need." Related: " You Can't Always Get What You Want " (The Rolling Stones) Lyrics [h/t IZ] “No, you can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want But if you try sometime you'll find You get what you need”

Quote of the Week 27 " To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own." ― Jack Kornfield   Everything has an end, and that which we call a pudding has two . Let's see what comes next. To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own. https://t.co/3t5xcHLCZ6 — Jack Kornfield (@JackKornfield) December 30, 2020 And here's a great song for those that can't let go .

Quote of the Week 26 " Receive without pride, let go without attachment. " ―  Marcus Aurelius  ( Meditations, 8.33 ) Alternative translation : " Receive [wealth or prosperity] without arrogance; and be ready to let it go. "   Triggered by a recent Daily Stoics tweet : "Receive without pride, let go without attachment." — Marcus Aurelius What do you think this means? pic.twitter.com/eGHrpPfZIz — Daily Stoic (@dailystoic) June 13, 2024

Quote of the Week 25 " Journalists ought not to be serving a cause, no matter how good." ― Walter Lippmann Triggered by last week's The Pioneer Briefing podcast " Die Medien tragen nicht unerheblich zur gesellschaftlichen Verrohung bei " and a controversial award . Hanns Joachim Friedrichs  made a variation of the quote popular in Germany :  „Einen guten Journalisten erkennt man daran, dass er Distanz zum Gegenstand seiner Betrachtung hält; dass er sich nicht gemeinmacht mit einer Sache, auch nicht mit einer guten Sache; dass er immer dabei ist, aber nie dazugehört.“

  2nd Quote of the Week 24 " A word model is not a world model." ―  Alan Bipe

2nd Quote of the Week 24 "Victory belongs to the most persevering." ― Napoleon Bonaparte Triggered by a variant of the quote as seen during the 2024 French Open final : "Victory belongs to the most tenacious." ― Roland Garros

Quote of the Week 23 " You can have it all, just not all at the same time." ― Betty Friedan A variation of the quote is attributed to Oprah Winfrey : " You can have it all. Just not all at once." Triggered by a recent Pivot podcast . Related  quote of week 4/24 : "Time exists so that everything doesn’t happen at once.    Space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you." ―  Susan Sontag  

Quote of the Week 22 " There is nothing more a wish can lose than by coming true." ― Peter Bamm " Ein Wunsch kann durch nichts mehr verlieren als dadurch, dass er in Erfüllung geht. "

Quote of the Week 21 " Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. " ―  Lord Acton Triggered by the episode " Keine Angst vor Macht und Mächtigen " (April 16, 2024) of the German " Wegen guter Führung " podcast.  See also: Macht // Power . Quote in context ( Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton , April 5, 1887 ): " ... I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility.  Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.  There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies t...

Quote of the Week 20 " The dose makes the poison." ―  Paracelsus aka  Theophrastus von Hohenheim "Sola dosis facit venenum." " Nur die Dosis macht das Gift. " Full quote : " All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison . "

Quote of the Week 19 " I know it when I see it." ―  Potter Stewart The phrase appears in Justice Potter Stewart's concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio , a pornography case decided by the Court in 1964. Also referred to as Steve Jobs ' Credo  by Malcolm Gladwell in a New Yorker book review of the Steve Jobs biography (authored by Walter Isaacson) : " I’ll know it when I see it.  That was Jobs’s credo, and until he saw it his perfectionism kept him on edge. "

Quote of the Week 18 " Tame birds sing of freedom. Wild birds fly. " ―  John Lennon Triggered by a memorial plaque as seen on the way to Hochries summit.

Quote of the Week 17 " What you can imagine depends on what you know. " ―  Daniel Dennett ( ✝ April 19, 2024) Full quote: “What you can imagine depends on what you know. Philosophers who know only philosophy consign themselves to a janitorial role in the great enterprises of exploration that are illuminating the mysteries of our lives.”

Quote of the Week 16 " Eventually all things fall into place. Until then, laugh at the confusion, live for the moments, and know everything happens for a reason. " ― Albert Schweitzer Triggered by a German reference to the first sentence of the quote as an Icelandic proverb in the book " Arschtritt ins Glück ": " Þetta Reddast. " "Everything will work out in the end." " Es wird sich alles fügen. "

Quote of the Week 15 " Friends should be judged by their acts, not their words. " ― Titus Livius ( Livy ) in  Ab urbe condita 34 ,49,7 . " Ex factis, non ex dictis amicos pensent. " " Nach ihren Taten, nicht nach ihren Worten soll man die Freunde wägen. " Related: "I ch hätte sie nach ihren Taten und nicht nach ihren Worten beurteilen sollen. " " I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. " ―  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry  in " Der Kleine Prinz " // " The Little Prince " "Taten, nicht Worte!" "Acta, non verba. " ―  Latin Phrase   " Actions speak louder than words. " ―  English Proverb

Quote of the Week 14 " Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it. " ― Daniel Kahneman  ( Thinking Fast and Slow ) Triggered by Cass Sunstein's tweet on the day of Kahneman's death last week (March 27, 2024).

Quote of the Week 13 " The movement you need is on your shoulder. " ― Paul McCartney ( Hey Jude , song lyrics) The best line in the song according to John Lennon.  Featured in  the  McCartney: A Life in Lyrics  podcast describing the genesis of the song by its creator .

Quote of the Week 12 " The idea of the future, pregnant with an infinity of possibilities, is thus more fruitful than the future itself, and this is why we find more charm in hope than in possession, in dreams than in reality. " ―   Henri Bergson The search for this quote was triggered by a recent visit to Bergson Kunstkraftwerk  still under construction. Another quote attributed to Bergson for which I could not find the original source: " New ideas, in most cases, are the children of old thoughts. "