Quotes

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“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”

Peter Thiel’s famous interview question

“What's the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

Gary Keller

"I just really like to find my own ideas."

Michael Burry

“Investors in the habit of overturning the most stones will find the most success.”

Michael Burry

"...reciprocity with erring on the side of generosity because there's just no downside to that in an iterated game." Jordan Peterson

“THE PROBLEM IS, I DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING UNLESS I UNDERSTAND IT INSIDE OUT. AND EVEN ONCE I UNDERSTAND SOMETHING, IT IS NOT UNCOMMON THAT I DISAGREE WITH ACCEPTED VIEW (EVEN IF IT’S A NOBEL LAUREATE). SO I STRUGGLE PRETTY MIGHTILY WITH MY OWN PERCEPTIONS AND DEFINITIONS EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE. THAT’S WHERE I AM NOW.”

Michael Burry (Mike, Silicon Investor)

“I am autistic and have one eye. I am only glad I neither was given the opportunity to use either as an excuse, nor held anyone else accountable for their two eyes, or their neurotypical phenotype.”

Michael Burry (Twitter, April 3, 2022 8:26 PM) 

"Travel and tell no one, live a true love story and tell no one, live happily and tell no one, people ruin beautiful things."

Kahlil Gibran

“One of the things I like about technology is that when technology’s un-regulated you can change the world without getting the approval from other people. At its best it’s not subject to democratic control, and not subject to the majority, which I think is often hostile to change.”

Peter Thiel

"Armies cannot stop an idea whose time has come."

Victor Hugo, French paraphrasing/translation.

“...for me, a computer has always been a bicycle of the mind.”

Steve Jobs

“When you’re starting a company it never goes at the pace you want or the pace you expect. You imagine everything to be linear, ‘I’m going to do this, then this is going to happen and this is going to happen.’ You’re imagining steps and they’re progressive. You start, you build it, and you think everyone’s going to care. But no one cares, not even your friends.”

Brian Chesky

"Never complain, never explain."

Anthony Bourdain (Origins: Benjamin Disraeli)

“Twenty million Napster users can't be wrong.”

Gene Kan

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

Lao Tzu

“The problem with the deferred life plan is that everyone can kind of tell that that’s what you’re on.”

Sam Altman

“When the enemy finds itself in a predicament and wants to engage us in a decisive battle, wait; when it is advantageous for the enemy but not for us to fight, wait; when it is expedient to remain still and whoever moves first will fall into danger, wait; when two enemies are engaged in a fight that will result in defeat or injury, wait; when the enemy forces, though numerous, suffer from mistrust and tend to plot against one another, wait; when the enemy commander, though wise, is handicapped by some of his cohorts, wait.”

The Wiles of War: 36 Military Strategies from Ancient China, Translated by Sun Haichen, 1991

“You either want to be below the radar or big enough that you are an institution. The worst is being somewhere in between.”

Brian Chesky 

“He is a great fish and I must convince him, he thought. I must never let him learn his strength nor what he could do if he made his run. If I were him I would put in everything now and go until something broke. But, thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they are more noble and more able.”

Excerpt from The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

“I once went to Steve’s house and he had 12 sweaters lined up, and He said, you know, I want you to wear black and white.  He chose one, and he said it shows the importance of what you’re talking about and people will focus on the message and not you, and so I still do that.  I wear that today.”

Dr. David Agus regarding Steve Jobs 

“Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like the tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf shall not wither--whatever they do prospers. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.”

Psalm 1, Bible, New International Version