Here’s a list of quotes I aspire to live my life by, or that I find thought-provoking for one reason or another; I’ll leave the interpretation up to you. I won’t always succeed at following those that are inspirational, but I’ll be damned if I don’t try. A few of these I picked up from The Eight Principles of Fun, which I highly recommend.
Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
— Judy Garland
My great mistake, the fault for which I can’t forgive myself, is that one day I ceased my obstinate pursuit of my own individuality.
— Oscar Wilde
When you come right down to it all you have is yourself … All the rest is nothing.
— Pablo Picasso
We’re lost, but we’re making good time!
— Yogi Berra
Don’t take life too seriously; you’ll never get out of it alive.
— Elbert Hubbard
Any 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
The trouble with so many of us is that we underestimate the power of simplicity.
— Robert Stuberg
The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
— Theodore Roosevelt
Tis nothing good or bad
But thinking makes it so.— William Shakespeare
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
— Ernest Hemingway
Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.
— John Lennon
The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.
— Oscar Wilde
True freedom doesn’t lie in the maximization of choice, but, ironically, is most easily found in a life where there is little choice.
— Steve Hagen
I think sometimes the best way to get inspiration is to face up to the things that make you very sad in your life, and use them.
— Michael Sandison, Boards of Canada
Damn it, Bones, you’re a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can’t be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They’re the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away! I need my pain!
— James T. Kirk, Star Trek
We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.
— Oscar Wilde
The universe doesn’t owe you anything but an education, and it gives you lessons every day.
— John Vorhaus [via Wil]
You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
— Mark Twain
The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.
— Oscar Wilde
In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone
— Rollo May [via PZ]
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
— Thomas Mann [via PZ]
Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.
— Will Wonka
We are what we frequently do.
— Aristotle
When technology delivers basic needs, user experience dominates.
— Don Norman [via ge]
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
— Arthur C. Clarke
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
— Larry Niven
To define is to limit.
— Oscar Wilde
Destiny is a fickle bitch.
— Benjamin Linas (Lost)
Haste is a form of violence.
— Unknown