Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
-- Sun Tzu
Fools and Fanatics
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
-- Bertrand Russell
Stupidity
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
-- Albert Einstein
Simplicity
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.
-- Albert Einstein
Clarity
Accomplishment and Credit
You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit
-- Harry S. Truman
Curiosity
That's what makes death so hard -- unsatisfied curiosity.
-- Beryl Markham, West with the Night
The Stockdale Paradox
Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
-- Jim Collins in Good to Great paraphrasing Stockdale
Do not rock the boat
You've got five apes in a cage. You've got a banana hanging by a string in the middle of the cage. You've got some stairs going to the banana. Now pretty soon one of those apes is going to go for the banana and as soon as he hits the stairs you take a hose and you spray all five apes with freezing cold water for five minutes.
Now, some time passes and pretty soon another one of the apes is going to make the same attempt with the same result. All five apes get sprayed with a cold water. Now you turn off the cold water. You never use it again. One of the apes is going to go for the banana. He hits the stairs, the other four apes pounce on him and beat the shit out of him. Right? Okay, understandable.
Now you replace one of those original apes with a new ape. After a while that new ape is going to spy that banana and when he goes for the stairs, the other four apes are going to jump on him and beat the shit out of him. Right? Now, time passes, you replace another one of the original apes with a new ape. That new ape is going to go for the banana. The other four apes beat the shit out of him. Right? Including the first new ape who has no idea why he's so enthusiastically beating the shit out of this poor guy nor why he himself had the shit beat out of him. Okay?
Now you keep replacing these original apes with new apes until finally you've got a cage filled with fives apes who have never had the freezing cold water sprayed on them and never the less not one of those apes will never attempt to climb those stairs again. Why not? Because that's the way it's always been done around here.
-- Jackson Evans, The Contender
Statistics
A statistic should tell a story
-- Margaret Thatcher