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Random Quotes – 2

This is a bunch of interesting quotes I’ve collected over the past few months. Maybe they are connected to each other, and maybe they are not:

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent
– John Maynard Keynes

Source: Wikipedia. See also this relevant article, about the US government bailout of financial institutions in September 2008.

Quotes of Kenneth Boundling, economist, which sound strangely more relevant after the global financial meltdown:

Mathematics brought rigor to Economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis

Nothing fails like success because we don’t learn from it. We learn only from failure.

Source: Wikipedia
Switching a little:

There you have it. Admiration for raw, undirected cleverness winning over a questioning of fundamental importance. I wish there’d been someone in the room like Fight Club’s Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt), who responds to a smart remark by Edward Norton’s narrator character with, “Clever. How’s that working out for you, being clever?”

Source: RibbonFarm.com

But let’s not worry so much about the crisis. Paul Graham points out that now is the best time to start a startup. However, many people think of doing startups, but not are not willing to quit their current job yet:

People wish to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground.
- Marcel Proust

Source: BrainyQuotes

But where do ideas for startups come from? Proust again:

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

Enough about money. Let’s focus on love and happiness. Here’s Proust again:

Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination.

We only really think when distressed, we shouldn’t worry about striving for happiness so much as “pursuing ways to be properly and productively unhappy.”
- Publisher’s Review weekly paraphrasing Proust

Source: How Proust can Change your life

Random Quotes – 1

Some random quotes that I collected from the web:

Reflecting on the misinformation, half-truths, and weasel-words that form the bulk of political-campaign speecifying, I conclude that listening to politicians’ campaign speeches yields about as much information as listening to insects buzzing: in both cases you’re made aware that annoying, and possibly dangerous, pests are nearby.

Source: Cafe Hayek

“Faith is Hope given too much credit.”

– Matt Tuozzo

Source: Overcoming Bias

NBC Universal, which is trying to block a public bike path from traversing its property along the waterway…
One bike advocate said Universal executives told him they feared that people would use the path to lob unsolicited screenplays onto the studio’s nearby production lot — something that apparently happens at other spots when a Universal film scores big at the box office.

Source: boing-boing.

Persistence isn’t using the same tactics over and over. That’s just annoying.

Persistence is having the same goal over and over.

Source: Seth Godin.

As usual, the idealists are 100% right in principle and, as usual, the pragmatists are right in practice.

Source: Joel on Software

In a relationship, you are not meant to make someone else happy; you want to be happy *with* that someone else.

Source: Solitary Dreamer (3rd comment)

J.K. Rowling on the power of failure

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeHarry Potter creator J.K. Rowling talked about what failure taught her at a recent commencement address she gave in Harvard:

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.

So, how many of you are working on an area that you succeeded in easily, but is not necessarily your primary passion? Co-incidentally, I had a similar discussion with a bunch of friends yesterday – i.e. those who did well in college and found well paying and mildly challenging jobs have the least motivation to do something truly interesting with their lives. It is the ones who did not do well who are now doing well.

Ever since I quit my job (six months ago) and started “goofing off” (i.e. working on a bunch of things that I feel passionately about), I’ve met more and more people who wish they could be doing the same, but are still unable to take the leap of faith required. I’ve also met more and more people who did take the leap of faith and are doing quite well. I’m fairly convinced that a lot of people in the first category should just bite the bullet and make an attempt at grabbing their dreams. Financial insecurity is often cited as a reason for not doing so, but I am not convinced. I think it is more of a comfort zone thing.

Think about it.