I don’t do quagmires.
Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal.
Don’t blame the boss. He has enough problems.
Plan backwards as well as forward. Set objectives and trace back to see how to achieve them. You may find that no path can get you there. Plan forward to see where your steps will take you, which may not be clear or intuitive.
It isn’t making mistakes that’s critical; it’s correcting them and getting on with the principal task.
It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.
Prune – prune businesses, products, activities, people. Do it annually.
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
It is impossible to love and to be wise.
In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
The quieter you become, you more you are able to hear.
Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?
Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.
No matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.
Round numbers are always false.
The only sin that we never forgive in each other is a difference in opinion.
Switzerland is simply a large, lumpy, solid rock with a thin skin of grass stretched over it.
To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.
The connection between us runs so strong and deep. It’s like a steel cable stretching across the ocean bed, so many fathoms below, that even the most skilled and courageous of deep sea divers cannot reach it to cut it. It remains strong, silent, invisible, invincible.
A lot of power and bravery is practice. And some of that is taking the risk to try and be at the table. And then when you’re at the table, taking that first risk to open your mouth and risk being rejected.
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.
