Tag: quotes
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“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly…
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Here are my reflections on Chapter 15 of Longinus’ “On the Sublime,” using the Criticism, Rhetoric, Aesthetics, and Philosophy (CRAP) framework. Criticism Longinus begins this chapter by emphasizing the importance of phantasia, or visualization: “…dignity, grandeur, and urgency are to a very large degree derived from visualization (phantasia).” He distinguishes this from the mere production…
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“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.” – Cory Doctorow Jared Henderson included this quote in a July 2025 video…
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“One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” – Maya Angelou With courage, Maya Angelou once said, comes the ability to consistently practice any other kind of virtue, including kindness, honesty, and…
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“Writing: It starts at the keyboard, and it ends at the far corners of the universe.” — Paako, From Vincent Lowry, Constellation Chronicles: The Lost Civilization of Aries Long ago I came across this quote on Twitter and it got me thinking. Whenever I sit down to write something, I usually don’t have much of…
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“Failure runs parallel to letting your guard down.” – Eric Longenhagen & Kiley McDaniel, Future Value No matter how hard you try to prevent it, failure will happen in your life. It’s an unavoidable part of being human, especially when you have your guard down. Sometimes you think it’s safe to relax and let your…
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“It is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.” – Sherlock Holmes, from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes short story, The Man with the Twisted Lip. While I’ve always been a fan of the Sherlock Holmes mystery stories, since reading the DK Big Ideas Book about Sherlock Holmes, I’ve gained new…
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“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.” – Marcus Aurelius Accepting and cherishing your own individuality is the most important thing in leading a good life. The greatest…
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“Luck is the residue of design.” – Branch Rickey, legendary baseball general manager Branch Rickey is most famous for being the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers who signed Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to become a regular player in Major League Baseball. In baseball circles, though, he’s perhaps even more famous for inventing what…
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“Ask for money, you get advice, ask for advice, get money twice.” – Pitbull Yes, this quote is from the very Pitbull you believe I’m referring to, the rapper from Miami, Florida. The quote is literally from the opening lines of “Feel This Moment,” the fourth single from his Global Warming album. This is excellent…
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“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.” – Pablo Picasso Many people might think of Picasso as the man who looked at the world as if it were a kaleidoscope and thought, “Why not make it even more twisted?” But, he’s also the guy…
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“You know my method. It is founded on the observation of trifles.” – Sherlock Holmes in “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the greatest fictional detective of all time and Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous character. It’s probably not too surprising as I find myself quoting Holmes that I tend to analyze everyday…
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“Failure is always an option.” – Adam Savage of MythBusters Is it better to fail miserably and be forgotten, or to fail gloriously and make history? Would it be better to fail in obscurity and fade away into irrelevance? Or, should we seek to fail spectacularly in public view so that others may partake in…
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“You gain more by not being stupid than you do by being smart.” – Phil Birnbaum, baseball analyst, “An Important Life Lesson from Blackjack and Baseball” In an article published on Slate.com, baseball analyst Phil Birnbaum talked about focusing on minimizing bad decisions rather than trying too hard to make the right decisions. Birnbaum continued…
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“David Goodstein, a physicist at Cal Tech, notes that science has been growing nearly exponentially for centuries and that it cannot continue such growth — because then everybody on the planet would have to be a scientist, and then the growth would have to stop.” – Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World At first, this passage…
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“The idea that Mr. Spock could be a cross between a human being and a life-form independently evolved on the planet Vulcan is genetically far less probable than a successful cross of a man and an artichoke.” – Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World Yeah we don’t like to think about that do we? Ironically, Star…
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“Why aren’t we using sports to teach science?” – Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World Sagan was apparently a huge fan of basketball as a way to teach science and mathematics. In his book, The Demon-Haunted World, Sagan’s bit about using basketball to teach probability and logic is classic for him—he’s always looking for sneaky scaffolding.…
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“There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.” – Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World Are some questions “dumb”? Maybe in the moment—but even the worst-formed ones come from a mental framework…
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“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” —Leonardo da Vinci I’ve always preferred Frankenstein’s Monster to the Mona Lisa. We’re often told to look to Leonardo da Vinci as the “patron saint” of genius, the man who could paint a masterpiece while dissecting a frog. But da Vinci, excellent as he…
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“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams This axiom from Ansel Adams, one of the 20th century’s most acclaimed photographers, remains one of the most vital distinctions in visual art. It highlights a fundamental split in how we interact with the world, between passive extraction and active construction. To “take” implies…