
Great Quotes - jeremynixon
http://paulgraham.com/quo.html
======
guiomie
This quote, followed by google, followed by this video
[http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-
videos/0ap2000000146968/Garo-Y...](http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-
videos/0ap2000000146968/Garo-Yepremian-attempted-throw), 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.

~~~
roshanr
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garo_Yepremian)

------
loceng
"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.

~~~
rokhayakebe
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.

~~~
lostcolony
I think people confuse confidence with bluster.

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

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

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

~~~
IvyMike
> (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.

------
notnickwolf
"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?

~~~
gjm11
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.

------
spullara
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...](http://www.amazon.com/Close-Machine-Technophilia-Its-
Discontents/dp/1250002486)

------
kevbin
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.

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

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

– Reid Hoffman, founder, LinkedIn

------
personlurking
“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.

------
raldi
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?

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

------
lifeisstillgood
>>> "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...

~~~
mcguire
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.

------
pitchups
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!

------
Jun8
"I hate quotation. Tell me what you know" Emerson :-)

~~~
calebm
"I see what you did there."

------
serve_yay
My favorite:

"A witty saying proves nothing." \- Voltaire

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

------
foobarqux
> "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.

------
hristov
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.

~~~
wsc981
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.

~~~
juliangregorian
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.

~~~
wsc981

      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.

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

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

~~~
yaddayadda
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."

------
acheron
"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.)

~~~
furyofantares
You could judge them by their content

------
sinemetu11
"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.

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

~~~
sinemetu11
Is the sarcasm from van Rossum or PG? If Rossum I find this quote much more
interesting. :)

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

------
gaving
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

------
read
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

~~~
mcguire
It's especially ironic today.

------
cushychicken
"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.

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

------
anges244
"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.

------
daok
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."

~~~
ky3
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris)

~~~
mcguire
Note also the date.

------
mcguire
"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.

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

------
tiler
"Focusing is about saying no."

\- Steve Jobs

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

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

------
pastProlog
> "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.

~~~
wallflower
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.

See also, the demise of Outbox

> What does “Disruption” mean to DC?

When Evan and Will got called in to meet with the Postmaster General they were
joined by the USPS’s General Counsel and Chief of Digital Strategy. But
instead, Evan recounts that US Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe “looked at
us” and said “we have a misunderstanding. ‘You disrupt my service and we will
never work with you.’” Further, “‘You mentioned making the service better for
our customers; but the American citizens aren’t our customers—about 400 junk
mailers are our customers. Your service hurts our ability to serve those
customers.”’

According to Evan, the Chief of Digital Strategy’s comments were even more
stark, “[Your market model] will never work anyway. Digital is a fad. It will
only work in Europe.”

Evan and Will would later call the meeting one of the most “surreal moments of
their lives.”

Donahoe’s comments are even more incredible for people with technology
backgrounds. In tech vernacular, “disruption” is an extremely positive term
for when an old market model is displaced by a new market model that is better
for the consumer and often cheaper to provide.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7667068](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7667068)

~~~
codingdave
What are we doing here? Seeing how many tangents we can go down in the least
number of comments?

~~~
HCIdivision17
We're definitely past one cuil here, but you raise another interesting idea:
could you imagine measuring something like a cuil for a block of quotations?

I've noticed a lot of quote sets are just bunches of interesting ideas. Some
are very finely selected to avoid overlap, forming a sort of axiom basis for
the curator, but many are just a honkin' pile of neat quips. So how would you
measure along that scale? To date, the cuil is largely a witty remark on
bizarrely off-topic search results, but it'd be entertaining to think about
measuring curation quality.

------
tiatia
Maybe the IT guys appreciate this one:

"A complex equation describing complex data isn't a law since it does not
possess simplicity" Leibnitz

------
otherusername
These are surprisingly worthless, without the quoty explaining the context.
Kind of like Zen Koans, you can make of them what you will.

