VitWit
Vitamind
Essential (Vital) Vials of
Wit and Wisdom
001 Knowledge
"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there."
~ Richard Feynman, Letter to Armando Garcia J, December 11, 1985
"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." ~ John Wooden
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." - Richard Feynman (1918 - 1988)
Caltech commencement address, 1974
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
-- Naquib Mahfouz
119 Number & quantity
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers."
~ Richard Feynman
136 Sexes
"Men are stupid and women are crazy. And the reason women are so crazy is because men are so stupid." ~ George Carlin
150 Psychology, Mental Faculties
"The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson: Self-Reliance (1841)
Change
"Old habits die hard - if you don't kick them, they kick you." ~Donald E. Westlake (writing under
nom de plume, "Richard Stark") in The Hunter. Also recited by the narrator in Payback (1999) after watching his wife stumble home in a drugged state
"Nobody likes a monkey on his back: I had three, and they were cramping my style. I was gonna' have to lighten the load…"
~ Donald E. Westlake (writing under the nom de plume of "Richard Stark") in The Hunter. Also recited by the narrator in Payback (1999)
Creativity
"Curiosity is the key to creativity."
~ Akio Morita (1921 - ), Made in Japan (1986)
"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."
~ Scott Adams (1957 - ) 'The Dilbert Principle'
"Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts." ~ Rita Mae Brown, Author
"Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction."
"The chief enemy of creativity is ‘good' sense."
Taste is the enemy of creativeness"
"Creativity often consists of merely turning up what is already there … right and left shoes were thought up only a little more than a century ago?"
"Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."
"Another word for creativity is courage"
- George Prince, founder of Synectics
The Practice of Creativity (1970)
Motivation
"If we possess our why of life, we can put up with almost any how."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (1895) trans. by R. J. Hollingdale, Penguin Books, Baltimore, 1968, p. 23 (Maxim& Arrow #12)
Resilience
"What does not kill me, makes me stronger."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (1895) trans. by R. J. Hollingdale, Penguin Books, Baltimore, 1968, p. 23 (Maxim& Arrow #8)
Thought
"Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions."
~ Joseph Conrad, Nostromo p. 66
(q.v., The Review of English Studies 1997 XLVIII(190):211-217; doi:10.1093/res/XLVIII.190.211 Oxford University Press)
Thinking
"Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth." ~ Albert Einstein
"When everyone is thinking the same, no one is thinking." ~ John Wooden
"Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken."
~ Oscar Wilde
158.1 Self help
Procrastination
"There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!" ~ Richard Feynman
160 Logic
Yogi Berra
You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours.
"You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six."
"This is like deja vu all over again." ~ Yogi Berra
"You can observe a lot just by watching."
"He must have made that before he died." Referring to a Steve McQueen movie.
"I want to thank you for making this day necessary." On Yogi Berra Appreciation Day in St. Louis in 1947.
"I'd find the fellow who lost it, and, if he was poor, I'd return it." When asked what he would do if he found a million dollars.
"Think!?! How the hell are you gonna think and hit at the same time?"
"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."
"I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early."
"If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else."
"If you can't imitate him, don't copy him."
"You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six."
"Baseball is 90% mental – the other half is physical."
"It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much."
"Slump? I ain't in no slump. I just ain't hitting.
"A nickel isn't worth a dime today."
"Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded.
"It gets late early out there. Referring to the bad sun conditions in left field at the stadium.
Yogi's wife:"Yogi, you grew up in St. Louis, we live in New Jersey, and you played ball in New York. If you go before I do, where would you like me to have you buried?"
Yogi "Surprise me."
"Do you mean now?" When asked for the time.
"I take a two hour nap, from one o'clock to four."
"If you come to a fork in the road, take it."
"You give 100 percent in the first half of the game, and if that isn't enough in the second half you give what's left."
"90% of the putts that are short don't go in."
"I made a wrong mistake."
"I always thought that record would stand until it was broken."
"Yeah, but we're making great time! In reply to "Hey Yogi, I think we're lost."
"If the fans don't come out to the ball park, you can't stop them."
"Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel."
"It's never happened in the World Series competition, and it still hasn't."
"How long have you known me, Jack? And you still don't know how to spell my name." Upon receiving a check from Jack Buck made out to "bearer."
"I'd say he's done more than that." When asked if first baseman Don Mattingly had exceeded expectations for the current season.
"The other teams could make trouble for us if they win."
"He can run anytime he wants. I'm giving him the red light." On the acquisition of fleet Ricky Henderson.
"I never blame myself when I'm not hitting. I just blame the bat, and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn't my fault that I'm not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?
The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase.
I didn't really say everything I said.
200 Religion
"In the bullshit department, a businessman can't hold a candle to a clergyman. … When it comes to … big-time major-league bullshit, you have to stand in awe … at the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims … Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky, who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do ANY of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire, and smoke, and burning, and torture, and anguish, where he will send you to live and burn, and suffer, and choke, and scream, and cry, forever and forever, till the end of time! But he loves you."
~ George Carlin, You Are All Diseased: Feb 6, 1999
"It enrages me that I, as a clearly superior person, should have less money than my neighbor, whose wife I would love to fuck if I weren't so busy eating pork chops and sleeping all day."
~ George Carlin Bird Droppings p 196 uses all seven deadly sins -- anger, pride, greed, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth -- in a single sentence
324 Republican Institutions
Election Integrity / Fraud
"It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting." ~ Tom Stoppard, Jumpers
"With all the mechanical improvements they have in the way of adding machines, and counting machines, they can't seem to invent anything to take the place of the old Political mode of counting – two for me and one for you. More people have been elected between Sundown and Sunup, than ever were elected between Sunup and Sundown."
~ Will Rogers, The Illiterate Digest (1924)
American Democracy
"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." ~Emma Goldman
Even in the best of circumstances
"Democracy, too, is a religion. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses." - H.L. Mencken
"Democracy: The state of affairs in which you consent to having your pocket picked, and elect the best man to do it." ~Benjamin Lichtenberg
"The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them." ~Karl Marx
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." ~ Winston Churchill
"Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor." ~James Russell Lowell
Good idea; clumsy wording
"Political campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster."
~ James Harvey Robinson, The Human Comedy, 1937
370 Education
"The educated person is not the person who can answer the questions, but the person who can question the answers" ~ T. Schick Jr.
"Humans have an instinct for creativity and a moral instinct. A good educational system ought to ... allow them to flourish. But of course that ... means that you will encourage challenge of authority and domination. It will encourage questioning of powerful institutions. So schools actually ... filter out independence of thought, creativity, imagination, and in their place foster obedience and subordination." - Noam Chomsky
Education in America
"[E]ducation sucks … because the owners of this country … don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. … they don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they've been getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard … They want obedient workers … who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it."
~ George Carlin, LIfe Is Worth Losing: Nov. 5, 2005
420 Language
(More Yogi Berra )
"Texas has a lot of electrical votes." ~ Yogi Berra
During an election campaign, after George Bush stated that Texas was important to the election
"It ain't the heat; it's the humility." ~ Yogi Berra
"Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself." ~ Yogi
Berra after being told he looked cool.
"Even Napoleon had his Watergate." ~ Yogi Berra
"Glen Cove." He referred to actress Glenn Close on a movie review television show by the name of this New York city suburb. (The first time I heard the name, I also thought it was Glen Cove, and was very confused because, of course, it's a man's name.)
501 Philosophy of Science
Truth
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Thus the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer
"If you're going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh; otherwise they'll kill you." ~ George Bernard Shaw
"If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you." ~ Billy Wilder
"Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived."
~ Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist
613 peak performance
"There are no limits. There are plateaus, and you must not stay there; you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you." ~ Bruce Lee
"Failing to prepare is preparing to fail"
~ John Wooden
"Be quick, but don't hurry." ~ John Wooden
658 Leadership
793 Dance (Indoor amusements)
If you can talk, you can sing.
If you can walk, you can dance.
~ African Proverb
"If you don't dance you will grow moldy"
~ Yupik Indian Song
973 America
"When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front row seat." ~ George Carlin
"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities." ~ Winston Churchill
(maybe from The great democracies 1958)
Unnumbered
Kindness
Kindness in thought leads to wisdom.
Kindness in speech leads to eloquence.
Kindness in action leads to love.
-- Lao-Tsu
Sensemaking
"I'll play it first and tell you what it is later."
~ Miles Davis
Innovation
"Don't play what's there, play what's not there." ~ Miles Davis
Purpose
"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."
~ George Bernard Shaw
Action/regrets
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'
~ John Greenleaf Whittier.[1]
Denial
"You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep." ~Navajo Proverb
Risk
To be completely safe is to be completely dead.
~ Camus
If you risk nothing, then you risk everything
Geena Davis
In flying I have learned that carelessness and overconfidence are usually far more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks.
~ Wilbur Wright in a letter to his father, Sep. 1900
It is not because things are dangerous that we do not dare. It is because we do dare not that things are dangerous.
Seneca
Gentleness
"All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer. "
IBM maintenance manual, 1925
Freedom
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. "
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
peace
"peace is not the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice. "
Martin Luther King, Jr
Keys to Productivity
"Work, finish, publish." ~ Michael Faraday
"The secret is comprised in three words — Work, finish, publish." Farady's advice to young William Crookes, who had asked him the secret of his success as a scientific investigator. Michael Faraday (1874) by John Hall Gladstone, p. 123
Balance/action
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.
Einstein
[1] The final lines from Maud Muller, by John_Greenleaf_Whittier:
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
Though the quote itself seems to resonate, it's otherwise noteworthy only for a Bret Harte parody it inspired, "Mrs. Judge Jenkins" in which the Judge marries Maud, and which he ends with the lines:
Maud soon thought the Judge a bore,
With all his learning and all his lore;
And the Judge would have bartered Maud's fair face
For more refinement and social grace.
If, of all words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, "It might have been,"
More sad are these we daily see:
"It is, but hadn't ought to be."
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Greenleaf_Whittier
I say seems to resonate, because my experience is otherwise. It might have been is a nice thought and inevitable since we only have one life to live.
This page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
In short, you may use this work freely with proper attribution. We appreciate, also, that you inform us of how and where you reprint, repost, use or adapt. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available by writing to:
