Selected Quotations

• "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant." (Robert L. Stevenson)

• "You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." (Colette)

• "Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one."  (Malcom S. Forbes)

• "It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what is required. (Winston Churchill)

• "We must become the change we want to see" (Mahatma Gandhi)

• "Blowing out another man's flame doesn't make yours shine any brighter, but less."

• "To handle yourself, use your head. To handle others, use your heart."

• "It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change". (Charles Darwin).

• "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."

• "He who loses money, loses much. He who loses a friend, loses much more. He who loses faith, loses all."

• "When the winds of change are blowing, some put up shelters while others put up wind mills." (Chinese proverb)

• "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." (From the song Freewill by Neal Perth, Rush)

• "The measure of a man is what he does with power" (Pittacus, Greek stateman and military leader)

• "If you own too many things, they may end up owning you" (from the movie "Fight Club")

• "The best thing about the future is that it always comes one day at a time." (Abraham Lincoln)

• "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people." (Victor Borge)

• "In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

• "In waking a tiger, use a long stick."  (Mao Tse-tung)

• "If someone betrays you once, it is his fault. If he betrays you twice, it is your fault."

• "Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, they will never cease to be amused."

• "Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals." (Henry Ford, 1863-1947)

• "Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself."

• "Boredom sets into boring minds."

• "The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards." (Arthur Koestler)

• “People who aren’t willing to take risks should realize that there is no such thing as a risk-free future. 
  You take an enormous risk by not doing anything.” (Brealey & Myers: Principles of Corporate Finance)

• "We become what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is NOT an act but a habit!" (Aristotle)

• "I would rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong." (Keynes)

• "When you are in the right you can afford to keep your temper, and when you are in the wrong, you cannot afford to lose it."
  (Ghandi had this sign on the wall in his room at Sevagram, his last home)

• "A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit by them, and strong enough to correct them." (McKenzie)

• "Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius." (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

• "The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; 
  wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality;
  science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice." (Mahatma Ghandi)

• "Choose to be optimistic, it feels better."  (The Dali Lama)

• "Confrontation between theory and reality is the major source of knowledge." (Thierry Villiers-Moriamé, 1998)

• "A man's character never changes radically from youth to old age. 
  What happens is that circumstances bring out characteristics 
  which had not been obvious to the superficial observer." (Dickens: his character)

• "There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it." (Dostoevsky)

• "Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause & effect." 
  (Ralph Waldo Emerson: Conduct of Life)

• "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them" (Albert Einstein)

• "Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides." (Margaret Thatcher)

• "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

• "Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly". (Dalai Lama ’Instructions for Life’)

• "When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done." (Lou Holtz)

• "No amount of travel on the wrong road will bring you to the right destination." (Ben Gaye III)

• "The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators." (Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)

• "The smallest deed is better than the grandest intention." (Larry Eisenberg)

• "Either find a way, or make one." (Hannibal, Carthaginian general, b.247 BC)

• "Reasonable men adapt themselves to their environment; unreasonable men try to adapt their environment to themselves.
  Thus all progress is the result of the efforts of unreasonable men." (George Bernard Shaw)

• "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." (Antoine de Saint Exupery)

• "I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back." (Abraham Lincoln)

• "If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." (Mario Andretti)

• "Why is an M.B.A. student who has learned about DCF [Discounted Cash Flow] like a baby with a hammer? Answer: Because to a baby, everything looks like a nail." (Brealey & Myers: Principles of Corporate Finance)

• "A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship." (John D. Rockefeller, 1874-1960)

• "If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first hour sharpening the axe." (Abe Lincoln)

• "Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." (Henry Ford)

• "The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining." (John F. Kennedy)

• "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

• "Theories are not rejected by circumstantial evidence: it takes a theory to beat a theory." (Georg Stigler)

• "They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel." (Carl Buehner)

• "People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise." (Somerset Maughan)

• "A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities; 
  an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties." (Harry Truman)

• "Great minds have purposes; others have wishes." (Washington Irving)

• "If you are poor, though you dwell in the busy marketplace, no one will inquire about you; 
  if you are rich, though you dwell in the heart of the mountains, you will have distant relatives." (Chinese proverb)

And finally, keep in mind that:

• "You are not necessarily happy just because you are successful,
  but if you are happy then you are necessarily successful". (Yours truly)

     "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing.   
     The worst thing you can do is nothing." (Theodore Roosevelt)