Things I Wish I Had Said - Volume Four
The best quotes crystallise elusive aspects of the human experience - our struggles and aspirations, fears and longings.
They distil life's messy complexities down to their essence. A well-turned phrase makes me nod in recognition, feeling suddenly that a veil has been lifted, and I understand something about myself or the world on a deeper level.
Profound quotations give voice to our shared humanity across time and culture. They confirm that others have walked this winding path and grappled with the big questions.
Quotes hint at life's meaning amidst the chaos, providing anchors of wisdom that steady us during storms of confusion or forgetfulness. The right words open our eyes to nuances and perspectives we'd overlooked.
They serve as compasses pointing the way to what matters most.
They illuminate shards of the great mystery of being alive.
In Praise Of David Rose
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - David Rose
“We must also see ourselves as wizards and artists, enchanters and storytellers, psychologists and behaviourists.” - David Rose
“Always design a thing by considering it in its next-larger context—a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.” - David Rose
“Between 50 billion and 1 trillion devices will be connected to the Internet in this decade, resulting in $14.4 trillion of economic impact.” - David Rose
“It took some time for me to understand why the smartphone, while convenient and useful for some tasks, is a dead end as the human-computer interface. Once I saw it, the reason is blindingly obvious: it has little respect for humanity.” - David Rose
“The clock “is completely useless if you want to know the time, but otherwise very informative.” - David Rose
“The life that you seek you never will find.” - David Rose
“When the gods created mankind, death they dispensed to mankind.” - David Rose
“The important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.” - David Foster Wallace
“Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if you have to dig a little.” - Tori Amos
“I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.”- Baruch Spinoza
“If you want to know where your heart is, look to where your mind wanders.” - Unknown
“Climb mountains not so the world can see you, but so you can see the world.” - Unknown
“The future has already arrived. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” - William Gibson
“One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings.” - Diogenes Of Sinope
“It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory.” - Unknown
“Have the maturity to sometimes know that silence is more powerful than having the last word.” - Unknown
“You misinterpret everything, even the silence.” - Unknown
“The purpose of Art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.” - Unknown
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” - John Quincy Adams
“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” - Harvey S. Firestone
“You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader” - Henry Ford
“I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.” - Herbert Swope
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” - Jack Welch
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” - Warren G. Bennis
“Successful leaders see the opportunities in every difficulty rather than the difficulty in every opportunity.” - Reed Markham
“True leadership lies in guiding others to success — in ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.” - Bill Owens
“Control your own destiny or someone else will.” - Jack Welch
“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” - Ralph Nader
“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” - Henry Ford
“A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” - Rosalynn Carter
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right thing.” - Peter F. Drucker
“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” - Max DePree
“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” - Albert Einstein
“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.” - Vince Lombardi
