Ask HN: What's one simple yet POWERFUL quote that you keep going back to? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's one simple yet POWERFUL quote that you keep going back to?

5 pointsabhiminator12 comments

For me, it has been this Eleanor Roosevelt quote:

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

The quote above has helped me classify hundreds of conversations I've had with different people over the years and has generally helped me make better choices with respect to the kind of conversation I'd like to have.

It also acts as a people filter of sorts, and I have used that quite extensively to filter out people who spend way too much time talking about 'people stuff' over discussing events or ideas (in any field).

What's your go to quote?

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Champion Kenyan runner being interviewed on what makes Kenyans better runners: "when I train with foreigners, they don't keep up. I ask why and they say they feel like they're going to die. I feel that way too. But I keep running"

“The inability to predict outliers implies the inability to predict the course of history”

"This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is a risk, that it is a bad thing ..." -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Just love his writing.)

We cannot predict the future. Period. Stop trying. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you can. Randomness (serendipity, change encounters, mixing of ideas, meeting new people, etc.) is the spice of life and often can lead to breakthroughs. Seek it out.

Thank you. This was really insightful.

"What's true? What to do about it?"

This is from Ray Dalio's book "Principles". The whole book really blew my mind but this quote especially. Our perception and interpretation of reality isn't actual reality. This is a humbling reminder that the motivations that I think are driving people aren't reality. It's a good reminder to stay open minded, and seek the truth, instead of assuming.

I too am a huge fan of Principles.

The quote here is “ Think for yourself to decide 1) what you want, 2) what is true, and 3) what you should do to achieve #1 in light of #2...”

Stop and let that sink in. That’s petty deep algorithm for achievement in life.

“What makes most people’s lives unhappy is some disappointed romanticism, some unrealizable or misconceived ideal. In fact you may say that idealism is the ruin of man, and if we lived down to fact, as primitive man had to do, we would be better off.” — James Joyce

“The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognizing a truth which has already been recognized by others.” — Goethe

“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.“ — George Santayana

"Volere è potere" - it is Italian. I do not know the origin.

Volere - "to want"

è - "is"

potere - "to be able to" / "to be capable"

It is a much more succinct version of "if you want something bad enough you will do what it takes to get it".

I can't remember where I first heard it, but there are a few variations of "don't let the process get in the way of the end result". I usually remember it when in large and long meetings...

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." -- Mark Twain

"Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it... Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again" -- Steve Jobs

I've never been entirely clear if these are two separate quotes, or variations of the same original quote. But as widely reported:

Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is essentially your own. -- Bruce Lee

Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it. -- Bruce Lee

“There are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.” — multiple attributions and versions

"Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think" Louis Prima

"Life sucks but: consider the alternative"

"You're a long time dead"

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