Ask YC: what is your favorite startup related quote?

"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (from http://workhappy.net)

Shakespeare' quote:"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we might oft win, by fearing to attempt."

From: What They Don’t Tell You About Being An Entrepreneur ( http://how2livelife.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-they-dont-tell... )

Whether it is urban legend or not is still an open question but this ad, supposedly placed by Ernest Shackleton in London newspapers before one of his expeditions, sums up a startup nicely:

"MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS."

Cheers

Jason

Henry Ford: "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have asked for a faster horse."

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. (Winston Churchill)

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt

If you have two choices, choose the harder.

--Paul Graham in http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein

Do, or do not. There is no try.

not a quote, but i like the poem "if" by rudyard kipling. it kind of describes the sort of evenness and perseverance that is required of an entrepreneur...

http://www.swarthmore.edu/~apreset1/docs/if.html

"Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades" - James M. Kilts, CEO and President, The Gillette Company.

I can't believe I'm quoting Donald Trump, but..

"If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big."

When the winds of change are blowing some people are building shelters, and others are building wind mills. - Chinese proverb

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

"Go the extra mile. It's never crowded."

Randy Pausch (speaking of apparent barriers between you and your goals): "The wall is there for you to show how bad you want it."

(From his "Last Lecture", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo)

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain

For a true writer [hacker?] each book [project?] should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed. How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him. - Ernest Hemingway

The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. -Fred Brooks

Programming...gratifies creative longings built deep within us and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men. -Fred Brooks

'Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!' - Andrew Carnegie

Don't be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the ark and a large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.

- Anais Nin

"Build your castles in the air. That is where they belong. Then go build foundations under them." -- Henry David Thoreau

I didn't realise this was a pg quote until I Googled it:

"If you want to win in a software business, just take on the hardest problem you can find, use the most powerful language you can get, and wait for your competitors' pointy-haired bosses to revert to the mean."

I've seen enough PHBs around software to know you won't be waiting long.

"Do Something Small Useful Now." Bob Bemer, inventor of ASCII

"Make something people want."

"Cash is king. Every week figure out when you will run out of cash. Figure out when the last payroll checks will clear, in best and worst case circumstances. Assume the worst case." -what smart people told me + I found to be true

We're like _____ for _______. (comparison quote that almost guarantees failure)

Happyness is a positive cash flow - A sign on an CFO desk at Digital Equipment Corporation.

From: http://www.cryan.com/quotes/

Two somewhat related quotes:

Short version:

"Bad shit is coming. It always is in a startup." -Paul Graham

Long version:

"First, and most importantly, realize that a startup puts you on an emotional rollercoaster unlike anything you have ever experienced.

You will flip rapidly from a day in which you are euphorically convinced you are going to own the world, to a day in which doom seems only weeks away and you feel completely ruined, and back again.

Over and over and over.

And I'm talking about what happens to stable entrepreneurs." -Marc Andreessen

"SPLIT YOUR LUNGS WITH BLOOD AND THUNDER! When you see the white whale! Break your backs and crack your oars, men! If you wish to prevail! This ivory leg is what propels me! Thrust your harpoons to the sky, Aim directly at his crooked brow, And look him straight in the eye! WHITE WHALE-- HOLY GRAIL!"

I took this quote to heart when I first read (guess what book) and it seems to apply to nearly every situation I've been in, somehow.

"Almost there"

"In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

To lead people, walk behind them. - Sun Tzu

"The quickest route to describing a seed's output is to sprout it." - Kevin Kelly, 'Out of Control'

"The work of intellectuals is ordered and paid for by Governments or rich men, whose aims probably seem absurd, if not pernicious, to the intellectuals concerned. But a dash of cynicism enables them to adjust their consciences to the situation." - Bertrand Russell

Consistency, not novelty, is the key to success - John Berardi Shove the sun aside - Dave Weiner

This guy needs coffee and crullers, STAT! -- Wayne Campbell (Wayne's World)

"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." - Confucius

"It's not important to get it right, it's important to get it going"

'Do it Fu*king Now'

[http://seoblackhat.com/2007/01/29/do-it-fucking-now/]

Not a quote, but if you need inspiration:

http://reddit.com/r/inspirational

"the future is in beta"

Wired used to have great passages on the inside of the front cover. this one always stuck with me.

“Non notationes, sed notiones” (Not Notations, but Notions) - Carl Friedrich Gaus

“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.”

genius is craziness controlled

Lots of these are trivialisms and quite a few are contradicting eachother.

"The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire." -John N. Mitchell

"We don't have venture capital, we just have money." --Philip Greenspun

"Anything you can conceive and believe, you can achieve" - anonymous

Guy Kawasaki: "Too many companies duke it out on the same curve. If they were daisy wheel printer companies, they think innovation means adding Helvetica in 24 points. Instead, they should invent laser printing."

You cannot hide two things: 1. Talent 2. Itching

"When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." -- Paulo Coelho

Because its there...

"Read Paul Graham"

"billions and billions"

-Carl Sagan

The difference between genius and insanity is measured only by success.

- Eliot Carver