Tag: quotes

Pedagogic experts have spent an enormous amount of time attempting to unravel the definition of ‘educated’. It used to be the 3 R’s–reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. The problem with that metric is that, in the fullness of time, those who excelled in the three areas weren’t necessarily the ones who succeeded. As long ago as the early 1900’s, Teddy Roosevelt warned:

“C students rule the world.”

It’s the kids without their nose in a book that notice the world around them, make connections, and learn natively. They excel at activities that aren’t the result of a GPA and an Ivy League college. Their motivation is often failure, and taking the wrong path again and again. As Thomas Edison said:

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, and Albert Einstein are poster children for that approach. Both became change agents in their fields despite following a non-traditional path.

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If you liked the last Humor that Inspires (Part 1, and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4), here are more to kick-start your day:

1. “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.”
   – A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
2. “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
   – H. M. Warner (1881-1958), founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927
3. “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”
   – Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962
4. “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
   – Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
5. “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”
   – Mark Twain (1835-1910)
6. “A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.”
   – General George S. Patton (1885-1945)
7. “After I’m dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.”
   – Cato the Elder (234-149 BC, AKA Marcus Porcius Cato)
8. “He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”
   – Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
9. “Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.”
   – last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923)
10. “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”
    – Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935) (more…)

If you liked the last Humor that Inspires (Part 1, and Part 2 and Part 3), here are more to kick-start your day:

1. “It is time I stepped aside for a less experienced and less able man.”
   – Professor Scott Elledge on his retirement from Cornell
2. “Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.”
   – Robert Orben
3. “The cynics are right nine times out of ten.”
   – Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)
4. “There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.”
   – George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
5. “Attention to health is life’s greatest hindrance.”
   – Plato (427-347 B.C.)
6. “Plato was a bore.”
   – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
7. “Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal.”
   – Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
8. “I’m not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy.”
   – Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
9. “Hemingway was a jerk.”
   – Harold Robbins
10. “Men are not disturbed by things, but the view they take of things.”
    – Epictetus (55-135 A.D.)
11. “What about things like bullets?”
    – Herb Kimmel, Behavioralist, Professor of Psychology, upon hearing the above quote (1981)
12. “How can I lose to such an idiot?”
    – A shout from chessmaster Aaron Nimzovich (1886-1935)
13. “Not only is there no God, but try finding a plumber on Sunday.”
    – Woody Allen (1935-) (more…)

If you liked the last Humor that Inspires (Part 1 and Part 2), here are more to kick-start your day:

1. “A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”
   – Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
2. “Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”
   – John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
3. “Logic is in the eye of the logician.”
   – Gloria Steinem
4. “No one can earn a million dollars honestly.”
   – William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)
5. “Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”
   – Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
6. “Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.”
   – Martin Fraquhar Tupper
7. “Thank you for sending me a copy of your book – I’ll waste no time reading it.”
   – Moses Hadas (1900-1966)
8. “From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.”
   – Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
9. (more…)

If you liked the last Humor that Inspires, here are more to kick-start your day:

1. “It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion.” – Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
2. “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” – Mario Andretti
3. “I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure — that is all that agnosticism means.” – Clarence Darrow, Scopes trial, 1925.
4. “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” – Henry Ford (1863-1947)
5. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” – Warren Zevon
6. “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” – Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
7. “If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
8. “The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head.” – Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)
9. “Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together.” – Georg Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
10. “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it” – Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
11. “While we are postponing, life speeds by.” – Seneca (3BC – 65AD)
12. “Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?” – Bumper Sticker
13. “God, please save me from your followers!” – Bumper Sticker
14. “Fill what’s empty, empty what’s full, and scratch where it itches.” – the Duchess of Windsor, when asked what is the secret of a long and happy life
15. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
16. “Luck is the residue of design.” – Branch Rickey – former owner of the Brooklyn Dodger Baseball Team
17. “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.” – Mel Brooks
18. (more…)

Some great quotes to start your week with a touch of humor:

1. “Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.” – H. G. Wells (1866-1946)
2. “Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.” – Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
3. “Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.” – Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)
4. “Don’t be so humble – you are not that great.” – Golda Meir (1898-1978) to a visiting diplomat
5. “His ignorance is encyclopedic” – Abba Eban (1915-2002)
6. “If a man does his best, what else is there?” – General George S. Patton (1885-1945)
7. “I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.” – A. J. Liebling (1904-1963)
8. “People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.” – Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
9. “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.” – Saint Augustine (354-430)
10. “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” – Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
11. “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” – Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
12. “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” – Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
13. “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” – Galileo Galilei
14. “The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” – Emile Zola (1840-1902)
15. “This book fills a much-needed gap.” – Moses Hadas (1900-1966) in a review
16. (more…)