Quotations
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The truth is that the limit of human faculties often imposes upon
us, as a condition of advance, temporary departure from the standard
of strict method. The work of the discoverer may thus precede that of
the systematizer; and the division of labour will have its advantage
here as well as in other fields.
-- Lord Rayleigh, Nature, Vol. 43 (1890), p.26.
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Until one is commited, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation),
there is one elementary truth, that ignorance of which kills countless ideas
and splendid plans:
That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, BEGIN IT.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Begin it now.
--Goethe
- Some things deserve to be done mediocre.
-- Ms. White (Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, 1993)
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It is all too easy to equate multiple windows with hard work, and
multiple contour plots with progress.
-- J.P. Boyd (Chebyshev & Fourier Spectral Methods, preface)
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It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the
strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is
marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and
comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great
devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in
the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with
those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.
-- Theodore Roosevelt (Paris Sorbonne,1910)
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The physicists say that I am a mathematician, and the mathematicians
say that I am a physicist. I am a completely isolated man and though
everybody knows me, there are very few people who really know me.
-- Albert Einstein
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If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them;
everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run
into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go
through it, or work around it.
-- Michael Jordan
- Modified Nike's Theorem: Just DO it, NOW!
-- Unknown
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The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'
-- Isaac Asimov
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Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways
something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because
every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward....
-- Thomas A. Edison
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I don't believe I can really do without teaching. The reason is, I have to
have something so that when I don't have any ideas and I'm not getting
anywhere I can say to myself, ``At least I'm living; at least I'm
doing something; I am making some contribution'' -- it's
just psychological.
When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK? So they don't get any ideas for a while: They have every opportunity to do something, and they are not getting any ideas. I believe that in a situation like this a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you, and you begin to worry about not getting any ideas. And nothing happens. Still no ideas come.
Nothing happens because there's not enough real activity and challenge: You're not in contact with the experimental guys. You don't have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!
In any thinking process there are moments when everything is going good and you've got wonderful ideas. Teaching is an interruption, and so it's the greatest pain in the neck in the world. And then there are the longer periods of time when not much is coming to you. You're not getting any ideas, and if you're doing nothing at all, it drives you nuts! You can't even say ``I'm teaching my class.''
If you're teaching a class, you can think about the elementary things that you know very well. These things are kind of fun and delightful. It doesn't do any harm to think them over again. Is there a better way to present them? The elementary things are easy to think about; if you can't think of a new thought, no harm done; what you thought about it before is good enough for the class. If you do think of something new, you're rather pleased that you have a new way of looking at it.
The questions of the students are often the source of new research. They often ask profound questions that I've thought about at times and then given up on, so to speak, for a while. It wouldn't do me any harm to think about them again and see if I can go any further now. The students may not be able to see the thing I want to answer, or the subtleties I want to think about, but they remind me of a problem by asking questions in the neighborhood of that problem. It's not so easy to remind yourself of these things.
So I find that teaching and the students keep life going, and I would never accept any position in which somebody has invented a happy situation for me where I don't have to teach. Never.
-- Richard P. Feynman (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman)
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... as you go into adulthood, you develop a certain confidence that you can
discover things; but if they've already been discovered, that shouldn't
bother you at all. What one fool can do, so can another, and the fact that
some other fool beat you shouldn't disturb you: you should get a kick out
of having discovered something. Most ... problems ... have been worked
over many times, and many ingenious solutions have been devised for them.
But if you keep ... [doing] ... stuff that others have done, getting
confidence, increasing the complexities of your solutions -- for the fun of
it -- then one day you'll turn around and discover that nobody actually
did that one!
So I went through life like this, discovering next something that had first been discovered in 1889, then something from 1921 ... and finally I discovered something that I had the same date as when I discovered it. ... You're unlikely to discover something new without a lot of practice on old stuff ...
-- Richard P. Feynman (Feynman Lectures on Computation)
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It's much easier to understand things after you've fiddled with them before
you read the solution.
-- Richard P. Feynman (Feynman Lectures on Computation)
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To be mature is to accept imperfections.
-- Fortune Cookie
- Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit
there.
-- Fortune Cookie
- Begin...the rest is easy.
-- Fortune Cookie
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Paying taxes is always good. There are lots of people who pay no taxes
each year ... because they have no money.
-- Bob Petersen
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Criticism is easy . . . creation is hard.
-- me
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You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.
-- Michael Jordan
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There are 3 types of people in this world...
1) The ones who say they're going to accomplish something yet they never even attempt it.
They talk the talk and never walk the walk. They spend their lives making excuses for their problems and never actually getting off of their asses to do something about it.
They will waste their years wishing but never having. They will resent and criticize those who succeed because they know that they will never succeed themselves.
They lack willpower and discipline. They are doomed to a life of mediocrity but will never accept responsibility for this.
2) The ones who say they're going to accomplish something, attempt it, and quit soon thereafter.
They talk the talk, begin to walk the walk, but fall down in exhaustion, never reaching their goals or enjoying the fruits of their labour on any kind of long term basis.
They lack patience. They lack perseverance. They too will never stand among the elite and will struggle time and time again but continually fall short.
They deserve some credit for their attempts at success, but simply do not possess the tools needed to follow through.
3) The ones who say they're going to accomplish something, form a blueprint for how they will get there, and then, quite simply, they get there.
They make firm decisions that contain no hints of "maybe" or "try". They understand that there are 2 possible outcomes in any decision: success or failure. They crave success, and they will do anything they have to do to achieve it.
When they make a decision to accomplish something, they already know that they will succeed. They don't question their ability to achieve a goal, they only question the time that it will take to get there.
They understand that within their minds lies all of the tools necessary to accomplish anything in the external world. They have faith in their talents and beliefs and truly feel that they can accomplish anything they want.
They make no excuses. They understand that they are in complete and total control of their destiny, and that every man and woman is responsible for their own lives.
They are ready and willing to battle through setbacks, physical and mental pain, discomfort and exhaustion. They know that anything worth having does not come easy, and that no man or woman ever achieved anything great without a struggle.
They are willing to struggle to be great.
They never fail in the long run. They only experience momentary setbacks and bumps in the road. When a setback or bump in the road presents itself , they form a plan for how they will get past it.
They don't stop, stare and question whether to quit or keep going. Quitting is not an option in their minds, and they thrive on the battle and understand that setbacks and mistakes serve no other purpose than to make their inevitable victory that much sweeter.
They see the big picture.
And when the smoke clears and dust settles, they stand among the elite. They soak up the satisfaction of their victories and look back on their accomplishments with a feeling of pride and fulfillment. They gain the respect and envy of others and know that they deserve it.
-- Sean Nalewanyj (bodybuilding expert)
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Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but rather by the
moments that take our breath away.
-- Mother Theresa
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It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the
Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to
put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can
only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did
he know that?
-- Christopher Gardner in "Pursuit of Happiness"
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Don't ever let somebody tell you... You can't do something. ...
You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do somethin'
themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it. If you want somethin', go
get it. Period.
-- Christopher Gardner in "Pursuit of Happiness"
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Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination along are omnipotent.-- Calvin Coolidge
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When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away
at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.
Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two and I will know that
it was not that blow that did it -- but all that had gone before.
-- Jacob Riis
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Believe it! Achieve it!
-- Random Phrase from IMSA t-shirt
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You must sleep sometime between lunch and dinner, and no halfway measures.
Take off your clothes and get into bed. That's what I always do. Don't think
you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That's a
foolish notion held by people who have no imaginations. You will be able
to accomplish more. You get two days in one -- well, at least one and a
half.
-- Winston Churchill
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Be prepared: "luck" is where preparation meets opportunity.
-- Randy Pausch
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We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
-- Randy Pausch
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A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
-- Lau-tzu
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Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.
-- Marston Bates
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Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
-- Thomas Edison
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Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is
why it is called The Present.
-- Master Oogway (Kung Fu Panda)
