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Great Quotes

paulgraham.com

147 pointsjeremynixon73 comments

This quote, followed by google, followed by this video http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/0ap2000000146968/Garo-Y..., made my night.

"Many big people were chasing me. I didn't know what to do. So I thought I would surprise them and throw it."

- Garo Yepremian, Miami placekicker, after a disastrous attempt to throw a pass in the Super Bowl.

Same here. I had no idea who Yepremian was before I read that quote. In addition to the video, Google led me to his story, which I found fascinating, particularly how he got into football:

Yepremian and his brother Krikor emigrated to the U.S. to set a foundation for their parents' arrival. At a loss for a viable life plan, Yepremian happened to watch a few minutes of a football game on television. Yepremian told Krikor he knew the key to success in America: He believed he could kick field goals for a living.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garo_Yepremian

"The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act."

I feel many investors or even people in general misinterpret being relaxed and non-intense (vs. being serious) as someone who's not passionate or uninterested or not a go-getter.

It's been reoccurring to get advice of the nature that you have to wow people with a high-intensity pitch in order to win investors over, though that feels completely wrong to me - which this quote nicely encompasses.

Unfortunately this is not a problem limited to VCs. It is everywhere apparent. Confidence, imo, is one of the top five worst words of this decade. "Girls like confident men," "Boss wants a confident problem solver," "the coach wants a confident lead player."

To my kids, I will teach Courage, instead.

I'm adding this my my list of great quotes!

This reminds me of something I heard a long while ago, you should ask your children how they want to be when they're older, not what they want to be.

I think people confuse confidence with bluster.

Confidence is delivering "I don't know" with an air of acceptance.

"The passionate state of mind is often indicative of a lack of skill, talent or power. Moreover, passionate intensity can serve as a substitute for the confidence born of proficiency and the possession of power. A workingman sure of his skill goes leisurely about his job, and accomplishes much though he works as if at play. On the other hand, the workingman who is without confidence attacks his work as if he is saving the world, and he must do it if he is to get anything done."

-- Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind

It should be noted that "Tara Ploughman" is an anagram of "Not Paul Graham".

Here's Paul Graham's explanation of why he quoted himself using an anagram. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=554915

> (It turns out if you want to write one-sentence essays, you have to attribute them to someone else.)

A concise summary of the use case for twitter.

Seems like people did enjoy the news at the time https://twitter.com/taraploughman

Thanks did not know that.

Also, I think he changed it. It used to read something like, "The more confident you are, the less you need the props".

"As all these results were obtained, not by any heroic method, but by patient and detailed reasoning, I began to think it probable that philosophy had erred in adopting heroic remedies for intellectual difficulties, and that solutions were to be found merely by greater care and accuracy. This view I have come to hold more and more strongly as time went on, and it has led me to doubt whether philosophy, as a study distinct from science and possessed of a method of its own, is anything more than an unfortunate legacy from theology."

- Bertrand Russell, "Logical Atomism"

Could someone explain this quote more?

I believe the following is a reasonably accurate but more explicit paraphrase.

1. Philosophers have sometimes attempted to deal with the big questions they face by giving big grandiose answers. ("Heroic remedies for intellectual difficulties".)

2. What actually appears to be more effective in producing genuine solutions to hard problems is simply very careful and clear thinking. ("Greater care and accuracy".)

3. Careful and clear thinking isn't really a special subject all to itself: it's just what one should be doing in every field of study, and when systematized and taken very far it turns into science and mathematics.

4. So maybe it's a mistake to think of philosophy as a separate field of activity with special methods, because the most effective way of dealing with philosophical problems is just to apply the same methods of thinking that are useful everywhere, and especially those of science.

5. Why might we have thought otherwise? Perhaps because a lot of philosophical topics were formerly within the purview of theology, and a distinctive philosophical method seemed necessary only by contrast with the even more unhelpful methods of theology.

One of my favorite computer science quotes:

"The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer."

— Ellen Ullman, http://www.amazon.com/Close-Machine-Technophilia-Its-Discont...

Peter Medawar is the best science writer—even Dawkins & Gould agree on that. He writes clearly with style and wit. His collection of essays "The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice" is a great read.

The Strabo quote reminds me of Confucius: "Man differs from the animals only by a little; most men throw that little away."

"If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late."

– Reid Hoffman, founder, LinkedIn

“They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds.”

a Mexican proverb, recently used to refer to the 43 disappeared in Mexico.

Regarding the "Audience" quote, how do you explain movies like The Shawshank Redemption or The Big Lebowski, which were initially panned by audiences but then later went on to big success and acclaim?

What is it that marks them as successes now? Still audience opinion, just not those audiences who first watched it.

>>> "Many large and high class greengrocers of my acquaintance have never heard of the Golden Wonder potato."

- Roy Genders, Vegetables for the Epicure

A small fact but the entire UK crop of Golden Wonder potatoes is absorb by the crisp (US: potato chip) industry. You literally cannot buy them in normal mainstream channels.

It's late and I thought it was interesting that that breed of potato was mentioned ... Not sure why it was to be honest...

I can't find the actual numbers, but something makes me think they're a fair chunk of the world's potato population, with the fact that you can't buy them in a store being the point.

A few gems in there for entrepreneurs:

"The public should always be wondering how it is possible to give so much for the money." - Henry Ford

In other words, the best way to get more customers may be to delight them by providing a lot more value than they expect.

"Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it." - Alan Kay

Pretty much sums up the best way to think about innovation and disruption.

"But the audience is right. They're always, always right. You hear directors complain that the advertising was lousy, the distribution is no good, the date was wrong to open the film. I don't believe that. The audience is never wrong. Never." - William Friedkin

Will the market validate your idea/product? That is what matters the most in the end - so it is vital to understand clearly what the market wants.

"Focusing is about saying no." - Steve Jobs

"As it turned out, the obvious clearly stated, and combined with new observations, was sometimes close to revolutionary." - Wallace Stegner

The next big thing always appears obvious and simple in retrospect!

"I hate quotation. Tell me what you know" Emerson :-)

"I see what you did there."

My favorite:

"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire

But "If Truth was self evident, Eloquence would not be needed."

"But it moves something."

> "None ever wished it longer than it is." > - Johnson on Paradise Lost

It's a tough read but has some of the most poetic passages in literature, many of which are better than any of those on the linked page.

Those are all very interesting, but I wish Paul had not included the quote from the crusaders. I am not sure what the point of including this quote was. It is quite possible that the crusaders did not get the best impression from the greeks, but considering that the crusaders raped and pillaged as they traveled through Greece, one may understand why the greeks did not treat them very well.

Any quote from the crusaders should be taken with a lot of historical background. The crusaders caused a lot of suffering often to their supposed fellow christians.

For me, I think it was just cleverly stated. Considering that the quote is an attribution of an attribution, we can't think PG, or even the source PG is quoting, actually believed such things about the Greeks.

I'm personally glad the crusades happened, since the alternative would have cost a lot more suffering. The crusades were a reaction on the enchroaching of Islam on the European continent. If we'd live under muslim leadership like pretty much all Arabic country we'd have much slower progress with science, technology and human rights.

Thanks to Christianity, the Enlightment was possible in Europe. In Islamic countries a similar Enlightment would not be possible, since Muslims are not allowed to doubt Allah or change (reinterpret) the Quran making much scientific progress impossible.

Wow, racist much? "Christians be like this, Muslims be like this"

There's a lot of ignorant assumptions going on in your post, but let me just remind you that those "unenlightened muslims" are those to whom we owe modern mathematics.

  Wow, racist much? "Christians be like this, Muslims be like this"

Muslims are not a race. My post was not meant in a racist way.

  There's a lot of ignorant assumptions going on in your post, but let me just remind you that those "unenlightened muslims" are those to whom we owe modern mathematics.

I never claimed no science was part of the Islamic or Arabic world, but I'd argue that compared to the Judeo-Christian (or Western) world practicing and advancing science is much harder and therefore less progress is made.

>Wow, racist much? "Christians be like this, Muslims be like this"

Please don't abuse terminology.

Christian rulers tried their own hardest to prevent the Enlightenment, and then sailed off to go colonize the Middle East. Stop apologizing for them.

>If we'd live under muslim leadership like pretty much all Arabic country we'd have much slower progress with science, technology and human rights.

Algebra is named after the Muslim who invented it. Zero, and the Arabic numeral system, came to Europe by way of Fibonacci, by way of the Muslim world, and revolutionized trade once the Church stopped fearing the concept of zero because it thought it was witchcraft. Muslim scholars also preserved a great deal of the knowledge of the classical world during the Dark Ages, which might have been lost to Europe entirely after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Were it not for Islam, the Enlightenment may not have occurred, or would possibly have had to occur without the influence of Aristotle, Euclid or Plato.

And you can take your last paragraph and switch out Islam with the Church and the relationship between religion and science would be exactly the same. Both religions of the time allowed for the exploration and understanding of the natural world (science) with the caveat that the religion itself was a given. Look up what happened to Giordano Bruno for an example of how much freedom of intellect the Christian world was willing to permit. (TL;DR he believed the sun was merely one star out of many, and that other stars could harbor other planets, and possibly life, and wound up burned at the stake, because obviously that's heretical nonsense.)

Of course Christianity was hard on scientists in the past, but in Christianity there is room for interpretation. This was made possible since translations were eventually accepted and some texts could not be translated directly (e.g. Hebrew texts). Any Muslim knows the Islamic texts should be read in Arabic and that no man may change the original Arabic texts or be punished with death.

A Muslim knows it's a sin to doubt Allah, so any thoughts that might give doubts in the beliefs of a Muslim should immediately be discarded. Any Muslim that abandons his faith should be killed even! In Christianity it's not a sin to doubt the existence of God and nowhere in the Bible does God ask for the killing of apostates by the believers (this in contrast with Islam).

  Were it not for Islam, the Enlightenment may not have occurred, or would possibly have had to occur without the influence of Aristotle, Euclid or Plato.

I doubt this very much, otherwise we'd have seen an Enlightenment in the Arabic world.

You do not know much about the crusades. The crusades actually helped the muslims in the east. The forth crusade completely destroyed the byzantine empire which was the force holding the muslims in the east. Why did the crusaders attack the christian byzantine empire? Because it was the richest place in the world at the time, full of gold and silver and the crusaders were more interested in loot than in defending the faith.

After the crusaders took constantinople, the byzantine empire broke up into several countries, some controlled by crusaders, some by greeks. Eventually the greeks took constantinople back but by that time it was depopulated from continuous war. And the greeks were never able to get the entire empire back together. The turks then easily took over the various parts of the empire and took over constantinople. Then the turks took over southeastern europe.

Thus the crusaders doomed most of southeastern europe to be ruled over by the turks.

I am not going to get into the debate of whether christianity is better than islam. But it is obvious to me that self determination is better. Thus it was better for the christian peoples of south eastern europe to be ruled by their own christian rulers rather than the foreign muslim turks.

This was quite a tragedy for most eastern european peoples. The turks dealt with them with various degrees of cruelty. They tried to completely wipe the armenians out, for example. And yes the crusaders were mostly responsible for it.

"Do not take Stelara if you are allergic to Stelara"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZzRAGeXtgU&t=0m31s

Hulu has been showing me this stupid commercial during almost every show I've watched for almost a month, and that line bugs me every time!

Don't forget the ending, "Do not take Stelara if you are allergic to Stelara or any of its ingredients."

"Quotes on the Internet are often fake." - Abraham Lincoln

(I don't know if any of these specifically are misquotes, but I can't take most quotes seriously without an awfully thorough citation.)

You could judge them by their content

"filter(P, S) is almost always written clearer as [x for x in S if P(x)]"

- Guido van Rossum on Python

I've always felt the opposite about the python list comprehension syntax.

I'm pretty convinced that this quote is meant to be sarcastic.

Is the sarcasm from van Rossum or PG? If Rossum I find this quote much more interesting. :)

It is a well placed jab at Guido's (poorly worded) statement.

I'm prone to indecision, and try to remember this one at all times:-

"He who deliberates fully before taking a step will spend his entire life on one leg."

- Chinese Proverb

I didn't remember this one. Worth paying attention to by any politician or economist.

"Modern invention has been a great leveller. A machine may operate far more quickly than a political or economic measure to abolish privilege and wipe out the distinctions of class or finance."

- Ivor Brown, The Heart of England

It's especially ironic today.

"But camels, though odious to view and endowed with the offensive spirit, did not enjoy the blessing of pachydermaty."

- F. E. Adcock, The Greek and Macedonian Art of War

Modern translation - no matter how badass you think you are, you're still not as badass as a war elephant.

"What you mistaken for your Confidence is Arrogance, or at best, Ignorance."

"I feel there's an existential angst among young people. I didn't have that. They see enormous mountains, where I only saw one little hill to climb." - Sergey Brin. Maybe a little self centered but true.

Can someone explain me this one :

Arrogance "The condition of man is already close to satiety and arrogance, and there is danger of destruction of everything in existence."

It's an observation of metastasized hubris [1].

Normally an individual with overweening pride got smote down by the gods with some, but limited, collateral damage.

But what happens when the whole nation ("the condition of man") forgets Providence and deems herself hubristically self-sufficient ("satiety and arrogance")?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris

Note also the date.

"Many large and high class greengrocers of my acquaintance have never heard of the Golden Wonder potato."

- Roy Genders, Vegetables for the Epicure

Wisdom for the Ages.

"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value" -Albert Einstein

"Focusing is about saying no."

- Steve Jobs

Anyone else surprised by this collection? I thought they'd be better.

I made a news timeline of Paul G. Let me know what you think: http://newslines.org/paul-graham/

> "When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of schoolchildren."

> - Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, 1985

This is of course an invented quote, but it tells you where the head of the person quoting it is at.

The whole CCSS (Common Core State Standards) is an example of groups with power/influence in the system pushing changes that benefit the true customers of the 'educational system' (which are not the kids, but Pearson et al.). New educational standards mean new textbooks, new revenue streams, new consulting engagements, teacher trainings, golf outings to wine/dine superintendents - it goes on and on.