Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.
— Ian Maclaren
WRITER
“It depends” is almost always the right answer in any big question.
— Linus Torvalds
SOFTWARE ENGINEER
Remember, you don’t owe anybody any explanations, you don’t owe your parents any explanations, you don’t owe your professors any explanations.
— Bono
MUSICIAN/ACTIVIST
If you can’t get what you wish for, forget about it.
— Antonio Pierro
WORLD WAR I VETERAN
Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.
— E. B. White
WRITER
When you see a good move, look for a better one.
— Emanuel Lasker
CHESS MASTER
Question everything! You never know where a “silly question” may lead you.
— Derek Abbott
PHYSICIST/ELECTRONIC ENGINEER
Unless you have a hundred unanswered questions in your mind, you haven’t read enough.
— Daniel J. Bernstein
MATHEMATICIAN/PROGRAMMER
Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.
— Samuel Beckett
WRITER
If you wish to be a writer, write.
— Epictetus
GREEK PHILOSOPHER
Live as if you were already living for a second time and as if you had made the mistakes you are about to make now.
— Viktor Frankl
PSYCHIATRIST
Don’t be humble. You’re not that great.
— Golda Meir
STATESWOMAN
If everything is under control, you are going too slow.
— Mario Andretti
RACE CAR DRIVER
Consult your friend on all things, especially on those that respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca
ROMAN PHILOSOPHER/STATESMAN
The world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving.
— Henri Cartier-Bresson
PHOTOGRAPHER
Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.
— Ray Bradbury
WRITER
Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions: Why am I doing it? What will the results be? Will I be successful? Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.
— Chanakya
POLITICIAN KNOWN AS THE INDIAN MACHIAVELLI
All suffering is caused by being in the wrong place. If you’re unhappy where you are, move.
— Timothy Leary
PROFESSOR/COUNTERCULTURE ICON
As long as you live, keep learning how to live.
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca
ROMAN PHILOSOPHER/STATESMAN
The important thing is not to stop questioning; curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when contemplating the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of the mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
— Albert Einstein
PHYSICIST
Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.
— Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)
WRITER
If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.
— Frank Zappa
MUSICIAN
It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
— Epictetus
ROMAN PHILOSOPHER
Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.
— Evelyn Waugh
WRITER
If you are praised, be silent. If you are scolded, be silent. If you incur losses, be silent. If you receive profit, be silent. If you are satiated, be silent. If you are hungry, also be silent. And do not be afraid that there will be no fruit when all dies down; there will be! Not everything will die down. Energy will appear; and what energy!
— Saint Feofil
RUSSIAN MYSTIC
The big secret in life is that there is no big secret.
— Oprah Winfrey
MEDIA MAGNATE
Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.
— Viktor Frankl
PSYCHIATRIST
When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.
— Ernest Hemingway
WRITER
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
— Mother Teresa
HUMANITARIAN
Learn to draw. Or to play the cello. Or to tap dance. Something impractical, even useless. Whatever it is, it ought to be hard for you, something you haven’t really got time for, and that by professional standards you probably won’t ever do well.
— John Walsh
ART HISTORIAN
Never memorize what you can look up in books.
— Albert Einstein
PHYSICIST
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
— Steve Jobs
APPLE COFOUNDER, QUOTING THE FINAL ISSUE OF THE WHOLE EARTH CATALOG AS WORDS THAT GUIDE HIS LIFE
Confront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing and challenging confrontation you will ever have.
— David Bowie
MUSICIAN
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.
— Marcus Aurelius
ROMAN EMPEROR
1. Control your destiny or someone else will.
2. Face reality as it is, not as it was or you wish it were.
3. Be candid with everyone.
4. Don’t manage, lead.
5. Change before you have to.
6. If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.
— Jack Welch
BUSINESSMAN
If you can’t convince them, confuse them.
— Harry S. Truman
STATESMAN
The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.
— Bob Marley
MUSICIAN
Back Up Your Hard Drive. What do I mean by that? Although your life may be cruising along smoothly, I recommend that every once in a while you stop and envision a sudden shipwreck occurring. Then think, re-think and remember what you would really want to hold on to if disaster should strike.
— Larry Bock
VENTURE CAPITALIST
I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
— Kurt Vonnegut
WRITER
Learn all you can.
— Classroom Rules
WESTON MIDDLE SCHOOL, WESTON, OREGON
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
— Abraham Maslow
PSYCHOLOGIST
The world only exists in your eyes. . . . You can make it as big or as small as you want.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
WRITER
Three meals a day. Work hard. Keep yourself clean. Get enough sleep. What else is there?
— Antonio Pierro
WORLD WAR I VETERAN
If you don’t do it excellently, don’t do it at all. Because if it’s not excellent, it won’t be profitable or fun, and if you’re not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing there?
— Robert Townsend
BUSINESSMAN
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you are a man, you take it.
— Malcolm X
RELIGIOUS LEADER/ACTIVIST
Rule No. 349
Talk is cheap. Show me the code.
— Linus Torvalds
SOFTWARE ENGINEER
If you’re about to get into a fight, and you know for sure you’re going to fight, make sure you punch first.
— Vincent Lecavalier
HOCKEY PLAYER
Don’t fear god,
Don’t worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.
— Epicurus
ROMAN PHILOSOPHER
Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden.
— Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
PHILOSOPHER/WRITER
Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!
— Jane Austen
WRITER
Don’t sidestep suffering. You have to go through it to get where you’re going.
— Katherine Anne Porter
WRITER
Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.
— Charles Dickens
WRITER
Just remember, we’re all in this alone.
— Jane Wagner
WRITER/DIRECTOR
I once complained to my father that I didn’t seem to be able to do things the same way other people did. Dad’s advice? “Margo, don’t be a sheep. People hate sheep. They eat sheep.”
— Margo Kaufman
WRITER
Rule No. 497
Make love when you can. It’s good for you.
— Kurt Vonnegut
WRITER
Never trust a man who speaks well of everybody.
— John Churton Collins
WRITER
Underpromise and overdeliver.
— Robin Li
BUSINESSMAN
When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.
— Epictetus
GREEK PHILOSOPHER
The first rule of holes: When you’re in one, stop digging.
— Molly Ivins
WRITER
Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age.
— Jon Stewart
COMEDIAN/TV SHOW HOST
All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl.
— Jean-Luc Godard
FILM DIRECTOR
Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.
— Janis Joplin
SINGER
And most important of all, never take advice from anyone: Confusing, I know. That is the point.
Take no advice, including this.
— Carl Sandburg
WRITER