Not So Stupid Quotes:
Philosophy, Strategy, and Poetry
if we listended to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair,
we'd never have a friendship, we'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical.
Well that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build
your wings on the way down." Ray Bradbury
"Pay close attention to the person with hidden intentions. The shrewd person distracts someones will
in order to attack it. Once it wavers it is easily defeated. These people conceal their intentions to
get what they want and put themselves second in order to come out first. Their aim is
best when no one sees them take aim." Baltasar Gracian
"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them.
The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills.
It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will
kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
Ernest Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms
Sun Tzu's 36 Strategies:
Strategy 1 - Deceive the sky to cross the ocean.
Strategy 2 - Surround Wei to rescue Zhao.
Strategy 3 - Borrow another's hand to kill. (Kill with a borrowed knife.)
Strategy 4 - Make your enemy work while you wait at leisure.
Strategy 5 - Use the opportunity of fire to rob others. (Loot a burning house).
Strategy 6 - Display in the east and attack in the west.
Strategy 7 - Create something from nothing.
Strategy 8 - Secretly utilize the Chen Chang passage. (Pretend to take one path while sneaking down the other. E.g., the Allied invasion of Normandy and the Pas de Calai deception).
Strategy 9 - Watch the fires burning across the river.
Strategy 10 - Knife hidden under the smiling face.
Strategy 11 - Plum tree sacrifices for the peach tree.
Strategy 12 - Walk the sheep home, just because it is there. (Take the opportunity to pilfer a goat.)
Strategy 13 - Disturb the snake by hitting the grass.
Strategy 14 - Borrow another's body to return the soul. (Raise a corpse from the dead).
Strategy 15 - Entice the tiger to leave the mountain.
Strategy 16 - In order to capture, one must let loose.
Strategy 17 - Bait a piece of jade with a brick.
Strategy 18 - Defeat the enemy by capturing their chief.
Strategy 19 - Remove the firewood under the cooking pot.
Strategy 20 - Fish in troubled waters.
Strategy 21 - Slough off the cicada's shell. (False appearances mislead the enemy).
Strategy 22 - Shut the door to catch the thief.
Strategy 23 - Befriend a distant state while attacking a neighbor.
Strategy 24 - Obtain safe passage to conquer the Kingdom of Guo.
Strategy 25 - Replace the beams and pillars with rotten timber.
Strategy 26 - Point at the mulberry and curse the locust.
Strategy 27 - Pretend to be a pig in order to eat the tiger. (Play dumb.)
Strategy 28 - Cross the river and destroy the bridge.
Strategy 29 - Deck the tree with bogus blossoms.
Strategy 30 - Make the host and the quest exchange places.
Strategy 31 - The beauty trap. (The tender trap, use a woman to ensare a man.)
Strategy 32 - Empty city.
Strategy 33 - Let the enemy's own spy sow discord in the enemy camp. (Use double agents.)
Strategy 34 - Inflict injury on one's self to win the enemy's trust.
Strategy 35 - Chain together the enemy's ships.
Strategy 36 - Run away to fight another day. (Escape is the best policy.)
Sun Tzu
The bowl overfilled will spill
The blade oversharpened will dull
A house of gold and jade
cannot be protected
Wealth and titles invite disaster
Retire when the work is done
this is Tao
NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay
Robert Frost
"Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue." [Proverbs 17:28]
"It's to a man's honour to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel." [Proverbs 20:3]
"Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration. "
Machiavelli
"The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning
and does not stop until you get into the office."
Robert Frost
"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large
brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice." Albert Einstein
"If we lack emotional intelligence, whenever stress rises the human brain switches to autopilot
and has an inherent tendency to do more of the same, only harder. Which, more often than not, is precisely the wrong
approach in today’s world."Dr. Robert K. Cooper
"I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells."
Dr. Seuss
"You'll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind."
Irish proverb
"There are three different kinds of brains, the one understands things unassisted, the other understands things when shown
by others, and the third understands neither alone nor with the explanations of others. The first kind is
most excellent, the second kind also excellent, but the third useless."Niccolo Machiavelli
"Brain: an apparatus with which we think that we think.
Mind, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain."
Ambrose Bierce
"A mob is a group of persons with heads but no brains."Thomas Fuller
"A certain Liquor which they call Coffee...which will soon intoxicate the brain."G. W. Parry (1601)
Moderately drunk, coffee removes vapours from the brain, occasioned by fumes of wine,
or other strong liquors; eases pains in the head, prevents sour belchings, and provokes appetite.
Aldous Huxley, Doors of Perception
To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funnelled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet. To formulate and express the contents of this reduced awareness, man has invented and endlessly elaborated those symbol-systems and implicit philosophies which we call languages. Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he or she has been born — the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to he accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it be-devils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." James Baldwin
" That never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes,
will never be wiser tomorrow than he is today." Tryon Edwards
"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and then leave a trial." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, "Make me feel important."
Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life. Mary Kay Ash
Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.
Walk beside me and be my friend. Albert Camus
Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. Confucius
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Dale Carnegie
Friendship consists of forgetting what one gives and remembering what one receives. Alexander Dumas
I destroy my enemy when I make him my friend. Abraham Lincoln
Always be nice to people on the way up; because you'll meet the same people on the way down. Wilson Mizner
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said. Peter F. Drucker
A word is not a bird. Once on the wing, it can never be caught again. Russian Proverb
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. Lilly Tomlin
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. Will Durant
You cannot teach a man anything--you can only help him to find for himself. Galileo Galilei
The important thing is to never stop questioning. Albert Einstein
A joke is a very serious thing. Winston Churchill
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, if he
gets angry, he'll be a mile away--and barefoot. Sarah Jackson
Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. Abraham Lincoln
That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest. Henry David Thoreau
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. Oscar Wilde
Anyone who has never made mistake has never tried anything new. -Albert Einstein
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. -Bill Cosby
Men occasionally stumble on the truth, but most of them pick themselves up
and hurry off as if nothing had happened. -Winston Churchill
Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. -Henry Ford-
Even if you fall on your face, you're still moving forward. -Gallagher
Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. -Robert F. Kennedy
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether
you are content with your failure. -Abraham Lincoln
The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. -Dolly Parton
One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks. -Jack Penn-