
Ask HN: What quote most inspires you? - nickfrost
I&#x27;m looking to compile some amazing quotes... please share one :)<p>and please vote up! Thanks!
======
GFischer
We have one of those "quotes of the day" at the company intranet, so I see a
lot of interesting ones.

Some good ones are

"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of
it" attributed to Thomas Jefferson

One that resonates with me is this one by Cato:

"I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to
gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right."

(I used not to know when to shut up or stop defying authority, and my career
paid for it)

~~~
Avalaxy
"I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to
gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right." (I used not
to know when to shut up or stop defying authority, and my career paid for it)

Oh, that is one problem I have... I ALWAYS tell people the truth. If I think
what they're saying is bullshit, I tell them that, without sugarcoating it. It
has got me into trouble a few times, but it surprises me that people have
accepted it for so long :) It's something that I have to work on though...
Restraint is very difficult when you're in the right.

~~~
xauronx
We have a guy at my work like that and people don't mind it. I actually like
going to him for advice since he's going to be blunt. I think it's a matter of
being a dick and being right. If you're a dick and you're wrong/opinionated it
could quickly turn the tides against you.

------
xijuan
The following quote didn't really inspire me. But I still love it because I
think what it says is really true.

“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And
when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether
your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should
ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not
excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is
not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake
at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don't
blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which any
fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned
away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.”― Louis de Bernières,
Captain Corelli's Mandolin

------
ScottWhigham
Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart
enough to know they were impossible. ~Doug Larson

------
sandipagr
I really like these two from Randy Pausch.

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep
us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we
want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t
want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”

~~~
EvanKelly
The second quote is the same sentiment as the Frankl quote I posted as well.
It's an empowering thought. We can always choose how we approach any given
situation.

------
pcmonk
“If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like
Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music ...
Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all
the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great
street sweeper who swept his job well.” -- Martin Luther King Jr.

~~~
seanccox
I believe Bertrand Russel would have replied:

"Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not
the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed
throughout the community. The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and
the modern world has no need of slavery."

------
priyeshnarain
One of my favorite :-

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games.
Twenty six times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.
I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I
succeed." —Michael Jordan

------
EvanKelly
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through
the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may
have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can
be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose
one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

-Viktor Frankl

It's rare that something immediately changes my outlook on life, but this
quote did it. I was hesitant to read "Man's Search For Meaning" thinking it to
be a pithy self-help book. I was wrong. Frankl's book helped me through what I
hope to be the most difficult period of my life.

~~~
kio
I had a similar experience as yours and was changed by the following simple
thought. Here is a sentence out of the book Peony by Pearl S Buck, pg 170. "
It is within a man's power to choose happiness and reject sorrow." Just a few
words but when deeply understood more powerful than any monolith of
philosophy.

------
acc0229
"And just as Steve loved ideas, and loved making stuff, he treated the process
of creativity with a rare and a wonderful reverence. You see, I think he
better than anyone understood that while ideas ultimately can be so powerful,
they begin as fragile, barely formed thoughts, so easily missed, so easily
compromised, so easily just squished."

[http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/24/jonathan-ive-on-
steve...](http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/24/jonathan-ive-on-steve-jobs-
and-the-fragility-of-ideas/)

------
Arjuna
_" On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit, and you
then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'OK, this is
the limit.' As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you
suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your
determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very
high."_

\- Ayrton Senna

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayrton_Senna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayrton_Senna)

~~~
asenna
ayee! Another fan of Senna :)

------
seanccox
"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'.” \- K.Vonnegut Jr.

------
5555624
It's easy to make something 'Idiot Proof' because idiots are easily
discouraged; but nothing will stop a demented fool with a screwdriver.

~~~
wikwocket
Reminds me of Douglas Adam's great quote, "A common mistake people make when
trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the
ingenuity of complete fools."

------
6thSigma
“It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times
you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures,
and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around
you because… All that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then
everyone can tell you how lucky you are." \- Mark Cuban

------
chiragdodiya
This is on top of my list...

"Give an Entrepreneur a Napkin & An Idea & he’ll turn it into a Million Bucks.
Give it to Anyone Else & He’ll wipe his face with it."

And 29 others from the source i compiled..

[http://lab.plorez.com/30-entrepreneurship-quotes-that-
will-m...](http://lab.plorez.com/30-entrepreneurship-quotes-that-will-
motivate-you-to-succeed/)

------
gesman
"The past is created from the present, not the other way around."

"The measure of change is not whether the outside is changed, the measure of
change is whether you respond differently to the outside even if its still
looks the same. That’s how you know you’ve changed"

\--Bashar

------
gmig
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't
do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the
safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
-Mark Twain

------
sourc3
This is my favorite:

"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable." \-
Seneca

~~~
rfergie
I've always liked "if you don't know where you're going any road will take you
there" which is from Lewis Carroll.

Interesting to see that he was predated in his sentiments by such a long time

~~~
seanccox
That is a brilliant quote. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson arrived at the pen name
'Lewis Carroll' by translating his own name into Latin and then translating it
back into English... and then reversing it. So, he was most certainly aware of
Seneca when he quipped about the efficacy of planning a trip with no specific
definition.

------
Avalaxy
"Always aim for the Moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."

------
wikwocket
I like this eloquent poem by Piet Hein, a favorite of Donald Knuth's I
believe:

    
    
      The road to wisdom? — Well, it's plain
      and simple to express:
      Err
      and err
      and err again
      but less
      and less
      and less.

------
adamwong246
"Perhaps today is a good day to die!" \- Lieutenant Commander Worf

------
GABaracus
A couple of my favourites:

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. - Isaac
Newton

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of
the human race. - H. G. Wells

------
xijuan
"In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born
great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em."\--
Twelfth Night.

~~~
cafard
This is inspiring? It is part of a letter written to lure Malvolio on to
impudence and humiliation.

------
gadders
"Aut inveniam viam aut faciam", Latin for "I shall either find a way or make
one."

Supposed to have been said by Hannibal, but a good phrase for a project
manager.

------
jlengrand
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of
strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.

Vince Lombardi

------
asenna
"Every successful enterprise requires three men - a dreamer, a businessman,
and a son-of-a-bitch." \-- Peter McArthur

------
wunna
_Dreams are not what happen when you sleep, dreams should be what keep you
from sleeping._ \- (not sure who said this)

------
frans
\- I don't know where we are going, but we are getting there very fast.

\- Hope is not a strategy.

\- Hope is an expensive emotion.

------
baconomatic
"Fortune favors the bold"

------
stephanos2k
_If they give you ruled paper, write the other way._ \- Juan Ramón Jiménez

------
hello_newman
"To find bigger seas, we must not be afraid to lose sight of shore."

------
meintpost
He who is right first, is wrong for the longest period of time (my own afaik)

------
joshsusser
"It's never too late to have a happy childhood." \- Tom Robbins

~~~
gesman
That's super. 99% likely do not understand the depth of this statement.

------
patatino
There are more people who surrender, than those who fail. - Henry Ford

------
beat
"Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!" -Hamlet, Act I, Scene V

------
RollAHardSix
"Stockton, motherfucker. Stockton." \- Nick Diaz

------
meintpost
Grass does not grow harder by pulling on it

