What is your favorite motto?

Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

- Steve Jobs

And in similar vain:

Are you moving one step in 20 directions or 20 steps in one direction?

I collect a few of my favorite mottos/quotes here: https://nikitavoloboev.xyz/likes/#quotes

Most of these mottos and quotes are just pretty versions of my more generalized and practical rules I wrote for myself:

https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/focusing/rules

When I was in my 20s I lived on a bicycle for a year, going around the lower 48 and Canada, and then up to Alaska. I lived for two weeks in Joshua Tree with a guy named Tom, who slept in a cave the whole time.

One morning we were sorting our gear and a piece of paper fell out of his wallet. As I handed it back to him, I read the three lines on it:

Work hard.

Be strong.

Don't complain.

I asked him about it, and he said that was advice his grandfather had given him. He wrote those lines down and carried them with him to remind him of what his grandather had told him. Those words have echoed in my mind for decades now. They're not absolutes; there are times to let go of work, to let yourself not have to be strong, and times to stand up and complain and protest loudly. But the spirit of that advice has certainly been a guiding force in my life.

At a Christmas lunch in 1996 - I was 12 - My nan told me and my sister.

"Some bugger will always have a faster car, a flashier house, a glitzier watch - but you were the only kids that ever had me for a nana".

I've used variations on the same theme throughout most of my life!

"A witty saying proves nothing."

-- Voltaire

The world is far more complex than any human could possibly fathom, and reducing complex subjects to witticisms usually works against those subjects, whether intentional or not.

I don't think I have a motto, and I don't particularly want a single one. Instead I rely on a broad set of ideas and rules which guide my decisions. Here is one quote that guides my thinking about science and philosophy:

“Nell did not imagine that Constable Moore wanted to get into a detailed discussion of recent events, so she changed the subject. "I think I have finally worked out what you were trying to tell me, years ago, about being intelligent," she said.

The Constable brightened all at once. "Pleased to hear it."

“The Vickys have an elaborate code of morals and conduct. It grew out of the moral squalor of an earlier generation, just as the original Victorians were preceded by the Georgians and the Regency. The old guard believe in that code because they came to it the hard way. They raise their children to believe in that code– but their children believe it for entirely different reasons."

They believe it," the Constable said, "because they have been indoctrinated to believe it."

Yes. Some of them never challenge it– they grow up to be smallminded people, who can tell you what they believe but not why they believe it. Others become disillusioned by the hypocrisy of the society and rebel– as did Elizabeth Finkle-McGraw."

Which path do you intend to take, Nell?" said the Constable, sounding very interested. "Conformity or rebellion?"

“Neither one. Both ways are simple-minded– they are only for people who cannot cope with contradiction and ambiguity.” - Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age

First 3 would be:

- You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. (David Foster Wallace / Infinite Jest)

- 90% of everything is crap (Sturgeon’s Law)

- If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact - not to be solved, but to be coped with over time. (Shimon Peres)

I always loved Frank Herbert's quote about fear in Dune:

“I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.”

In fact, this quote resonates with me so much that I've been using it as my desktop background for the past 8 years.

It also has been my experience with fears in the past years, especially with those fears that come with decisions that you have to make for yourself: Once you face those fears and permit them to pass over you (e.g. by being mindful about the emotions), you give yourself the possibility to learn and grow, and a lot of times you will find yourself in situations which you could not have imagined in the first place.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

And also:

"Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks."

Lazarus Long, from Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love"

I sort of cycle through and meditate on the below quotes a few times a week.

"Humanity has no forgotten how infinitesimal, how impermanent and how ignorant it actually is. Ptolemy has been ridiculed for conceiving the earth to be the center of the universe, yet modern civilization is apparently founded upon the hypothesis that the planet Earth is the most permanent and important of all the heavenly spheres. Ignorant of the cause of life, ignorant of the purpose of life, ignorant of what lies beyond death, we devote the precious span of our earthly years to the futile effort of establishing ourselves as an enduring power in a realm of un enduring things." - anon

“It is not necessary for a man to be actively bad in order to make a failure in life; simple inaction will accomplish it. Nature has everywhere written her protest against idleness; everything which ceases to struggle toward an ideal, the constant effort to get higher and further, which develops manhood and character.”

― James Terry White

"How we spend our days is how we spend our lives"

“Concentrate every minute like a Roman— like a man— on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions." - Marcus Aurelius

Discipline = freedom

"This too shall pass."

Sure, it's kind of cheesy. But it has so many meanings. The bad and sad times will eventually pass, so take it in stride. The good times will pass too, so enjoy them while they're here. You won't always be the person you are now, and neither will others.

It seems to give some additional perspective when applied to any situation.

"slow is smooth, smooth is fast" - not sure where the origin is, perhaps military, but some of my friends/coworkers have laughed when I said this before. To me, personally, it has always turned out to be true. When you're working on something, don't rush it, take the time to do it right. This typically saves time in the long run because you tend to avoid rework.

"If you don't have time to do it right, make sure you have time to do it again"

--My great-great grandfather

‘If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. ’

- Kierkegaard

More quote than motto but something that has guided me through the years

"People work jobs they hate to buy shit they don't need." -- Tyler Durden (Fight Club)

That had a lot of influence over me when I heard it in High School. Something about it really clicked for me, and set me on a path to enjoying life for what it is instead of always chasing after money and possessions.

What would you do if you were not afraid?

From Dr. Spencer Johnson's book, “Who Moved My Cheese?”

Often what is holding us back from doing something is fear. The fear might be important, but asking yourself what you would do if fear was not involved has helped me a lot over the years.

"I am not a visionary. I'm an engineer. I'm happy with the people who are wandering around looking at the stars but I am looking at the ground and I want to fix the pothole before I fall in."

- Linus Torvalds (TED Talk 2016)

"Better one handful with tranquillity than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind."

(Ecclesiastes 4:6)

This is the NIV version. The Dutch version I'm more familiar with would translate more like:

"Better one handful of rest, than both fists full of labour and chasing after the wind."

"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people."

-- George Bernard Shaw

"You can only change yourself" (internet pop wisdom)

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"Always be nice twice"

This has been my motto for about 20 or 30 years now and helped me enormously (I think this is from an Irving book).

The idea behind is that you should give yourself and the other party a chance after a failed first impression. People have bad days, a tough meeting before, personal problems, ...

I met a few wonderful people and one very close friend after a horrible initial meeting. If I just told myself that they are assholes and I am an angel we would have missed a lot. I rather thought "they may be great and I may not have been great".

One word of caution: some people will take this for weakness.

Weeks of coding can save hours of planning

I live life by the following words:

"If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room"

I should find better mottos/quotes to adopt, but my favorites are, in no particular order:

* I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to. - J. R. "Bob" Dobbs

* The road to hell is paved with good intentions

* You can hope in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills the fastest. - My dad.

"It'll never be easier than right now"

People just want to be done with a task or not deal with it now.

* If you're already in a section of code and familiar with it, clean up a bit of technical debt. Even just write a couple comments. If you're not feeling patient enough to deal with it, add a #TODO comment with a couple brainstorms on how to deal with it so that next time it's easier to deal with.

I cleaned up an admittedly small (~1,000 LOC) but messy Excel macro codebase this way. Much of it was generated by the Macro Recorder, which makes anyone who has developed in VBA wince at the thought. While I never did refactor large sections as were needed because of other priorities, fixing things when they broke was far easier with intuitive variable names, nice function/sub names, and comments outlining generally what's happening or why this odd looking loop exists.

* If you disassemble something and there's rust, deal with the rust. The rust will make more headaches later and you're right there. It'll truly never be easier to sand it down and treat it.

* If you think you might need something for a project, just grab it. I was replacing brakes on my car recently and needed to remove a screw that was tight enough a normal screw driver was stripping it. I bought a $2 converter to let me throw a phillips head onto a wrench, a $15 set of Phillips drivers with socket backings, and a $99 impact driver. I broke the $2 solution, but the $15 solution worked great. I took the $99 solution back and saved myself ~25 minutes if the $99 solution was neeeded but not purchased.

* If your car engine with 120k miles on it is already disassembled to fix an issue and you can afford it, it might be worth doing the 125k maintenance items a bit early.

Interesting question. I believe that mottos can change the fortune of both institutions and people.

A motto when internalised can be very powerful. It becomes something you do;Something you are.

Some of my favourite are: Sapere aude and Acta non verba.

An excerpt from a blog https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/mottos-ideals-and-su...

" In 1662, The Royal Society, which was formed in 1660, was given a royal charter by Charles II. Its motto is Nillius in Verba which means take nobody’s word for it in English. This motto was intentionally chosen; At this time in the west, the objective of most educational institutions objectives was to pass on knowledge from ancient Greece. But here we had the Royal Society, at that time, choose a motto which means that evidence is the cornerstone of its existence. Evidence requires repeatable experiments in science. This was not the norm in the mid 17th century."

Festina lente.

Or Latin for "make haste slowly."

Augustus deplored rashness in a military commander and one of his favorite phrases was such that "that activities should be performed with a proper balance of urgency and diligence."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festina_lente

"Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

(Howard Thurman)

From Patrick Collison's advice page (https://patrickcollison.com/advice):

"More broadly, nobody is going to teach you to think for yourself. A large fraction of what people around you believe is mistaken. Internalize this and practice coming up with your own worldview. The correlation between it and those around you shouldn't be too strong unless you think you were especially lucky in your initial conditions."

"Life passes most people by while they're making grand plans for it."

Not one, but a couple I utter everyday (to my kids):

1. "You get what you get and you don't get upset" 2. "Don't worry about that which you cannot control"

The last is the deepest one which I struggle the most with: "When you’re 20, you care what everyone thinks, when you’re 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you’re 60, you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place!" - attributed to Churchill, but looks unlikely as he also said "It’s a good thing for an uneducated man to read a book of quotations." - https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/mar/08/viral-imag...

Everybody lies about two things: money and sex!

I can't recall who said this to me as a teenager, but at the time it felt wrong! I had not yet much experience with either. Navigating the adult world changed that, but I didn't grow beyond a vague feeling of the need for caution in delicate human matters. It was only when I learned about crypography, security and distributed systems, that I understood the value, and indeed necessity, of having attacker models. I realised that the social world, too, has benign and adversarial parts (and many shades inbetween): for example you can trust your mathematics teachers nearly 100% when they talk about mathematics, but you should probably be prepared for being taken advantage off in financial transactions, whence the aphorism.

"If you're going through Hell, keep going."

I _think_ it was Winston Churchill who said it.

But I like that it can apply to all kinds of situations. A stressful time a work? Hard times in personal relationships? Feeling depressed? The quote applies to any difficult situation I've ever found myself in.

This is my favorite one:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

Ideas that keep coming back to me:

A ship in a harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are for.

It is what we read [and watch and listen to] when we don’t have to that determines what we’ll be when we can’t help it.

The quality of our thoughts determines the quality of our life.

It is not enough to say you work hard, so does the devil work hard

"...perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away..." - Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Also

"Perfect is the enemy of good" - Voltaire

Not a life motto, but I also like:

“Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch, and a kick, just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick. Now that I understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick.” - Bruce Lee

“Motivation follows action”

Waiting for motivation to take an action often means you’ll wait forever.

Dont structure for the sake of structure. Structure to enable. Release the guardrails in execution.

In military ops in the mission field... these were some of the most surreal human experiences where the structure that trained us was no longer in place when we were executing. It's not a about dress-right-dress in execution... we were already enabled for what we needed to do & trust was instilled.

You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.

Make love, not war. as a rule of thumb for social stuff.

When I was raising my kids, I went by the rule of thumb "All is fair in love and war -- and this is love." to justify making up our own rules for games (like "youngest goes first") and generally making life more pleasant, and to hell with what other people thought we should be doing as a family.

"Perfection is usually expensive and frequently impossible. Settle for excellence."

"Real laziness is doing it properly the first time."

-Instructor at a field bus training course I did sometime around 2000.

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

I don't have a single favorite motto, but here's what I'm striving to live like, described in two minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4

Ships in the harbour are safe, but that’s not what ships were made for

IT Related : "Morty relax, it's just a bunch of ones and zeros out there, you're gonna be fiiiiiine"- Rick Sanchez in Dota 2

"We choose to go to the moon and do these other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard" - JFK

"If you want to succeed, increase your failure rate" - Thomas J Watson

"Dead fish go with the flow" - Andy Hunt

"Be hard to beat, but easy to like" - Me :)

https://linguaholic.com/topic/1987-famous-greek-quotations/

«Πάν μέτρον άριστον»

Everything in moderation. Can’t say I manage to get by following it.

- The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who needs the least.

- When you try to replicate someone's life, you don't live yours.

Inscribed on the inside of my wedding band: Ηθος Ανθρωπος Δαιμων (ethos anthropos daimon) which means "Character is destiny", to remind myself that my character (and the values I choose to live by) will drive my destiny.

“Until you stalk and overrun, you can’t devour anyone.”

https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/11/20

A young man of my acquaintance has on the headset of his bicycle

   "There's only one way to get home".  

Something his father told him during a long bike ride once, when he was in despair of ever finishing.

"What you do at 8PM matters [...] what you do at that time will determine what you'll be in 10 years."[1], back then I was playing video games at 8PM, or watching Netflix, probably until 2-3 in the morning, I sold my gaming computer and replaced that time with learning new things, working on my side projects, reading, or sleeping. Every time I feel like getting some cheap dopamine shot I simply remember that quote, and immediately get motivated to do something better for myself.

[1]https://youtu.be/uVqoU2FzBiA?t=255

I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific. -- Andy Rooney

"Whenever the word 'they' enters your consciousness, ask yourself, 'what is the distribution?'" -- my psychology professor

Overgeneralization about groups of people is one of the most pernicious natural biases.

“By searching, you can always find someone who made a well-sounding statement that confirms your point of view--and, on every topic, it is possible to find another dead thinker who said the exact opposite.” — Nassim Taleb

"If you can pay it with money, it's cheap".

It means that if you can use money istead of family, health, sanity, etc... it is going to be easier for you.

It comes from the Valencia expression "Si es paga amb diners, barato!"

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood" - Daniel Burnham

Or the more complete quote;

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and our grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty."

My favourite moto is very hard to translate from French. It’s a quote from Chateaubriand. “Il faut etre econome de son mepris tant les necessiteux sont nombreux”. Clumsy translation that misses the elegance of the formulation: “one must use disdain sparingly given how numerous are the needy”.

Also eternal truths passed on to me by my various managers:

“The more you climb in the hierarchy, the more you realise it is the same idiots at every level”

“The optimal number of people in an organisation is 3. As soon as you add one more you lose efficiency. So passed 100,000...”

“Assumptions are the mother of all fuckups”

This isn't particularly profound, but when I find myself getting distracted, I say "One thing at a time." to myself to reset my focus on the task at hand. Pretty simple, but it seems to help.

I’ve co-opted Nike’s motto, and say it to myself in my head when I’m trying to get something done and am stumbling over anxiety, distraction, procrastination, perfectionism, etc.

Just do it.

May be trite, but it can be helpful for me.

Play iterated games. - Naval

All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.

It "...never gets easier, you just go faster." -- Greg Lemond

About the refusal to be at ease in your comfort zone. If it's easy for you now, you better push harder before the competition catches-up.

"Competence means keeping your head in a crisis, sticking with a task even when it seems hopeless, and improvising good solutions to tough problems when every second counts. It encompasses ingenuity, determination and being prepared for anything." Chris Hadfield -- Canadian astronaut

"A person becomes a person through other people." -- philosophy of Ubuntu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy)

Something along the lines of

Face the world with an open heart and good things will happen / life will pay you back.

Asking someone to play cards on the train or simply gifting someone a smile can give you a positive feeling for the day. People usually mirror how you approach them, I believe being kind will make your life so much easier because others will respond with kindness (at least in the moment).

This one encouraged me to speak to strangers as I'm rather introverted and I've been carrying the idea in my heart for quite some time now.

A dirty mind is a joy forever.

My dad. I miss you.

Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin F. Of course it depends on what one sees as essential

Almost everything I know about the world, I learned through consuming mass media. One of the things I learned from the mass media is that the mass media cannot be trusted.

“If you’re not willing to go too far, you’ll never go far enough.”

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

I like it because it has wide applicability outside of literal violence; all of life is a struggle, and the more prepared for that one is, the easier life can be made.

This is a fun thread. Here are some I thought of:

"envy is ignorance...imitation is suicide" --Emerson. For me it's about embracing your own weirdness

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self" --Hemingway. Similar to above.

"regression to the mean" - The idea that any outcome that is especially good or bad is more likely an outlier than a predictor of future outcomes.

"what you see is all there is" - people always have a kind of tunnel-vision and will always need reminders to be aware of anything

"extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - a non-theist's mantra

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" - such a bold declaration of human value from the 1700s

"These are the times that try men's souls" - an eloquent way of framing an age

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" - pacifism is not a great strategy, but this statement is inspiring.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" - idealogical fervor and often leads to the best and worst in humanity

"measure twice, cut once" -- an actual motto

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth" --Tyson. Defeating opponents is satisfying.

"It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so."

"change is the only constant" - for when things change

Few worthwhile efforts are successful on the first attempt.

A ship at dock is safe but that is not what ships are for.

Some people like mottos that are steeped in historical depth or psychological meaning. I'm much more simple... mine is from the 2015 film, Cinderella: "Have courage and be kind".

Means all sorts of things... have the courage to; stand by your decisions, own up when you made the wrong decision, follow a path, take a different path, be yourself, be something else, put others first, etc. etc.

And there's nothing wrong with being kind.

Wherever something is wrong, something is too big. -- L. Kohr

My goal in life is to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am.

Most people are not rational, they are TRIBAL: "my gang yay, your gang boo!" It really is that simple. The rest is cosmetics. -- War Nerd

All things come into being by conflict of opposites. ― Heraclitus

More often than not what's new isn't good, and what good isn't new.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. -- Edward Abbey

"There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable." Gilbert K. Chesterton

"Why do it right when you can do it twice?"

I use it sarcastically when people want to hack things together so I don't think it counts as a motto.

"The Future Begins Tomorrow", motto of Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems [1], from the film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

[1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/spookytreasures/7162735516/in/...

What a colleague always told be before I asked him a question: "Remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid people" :D.

"Adapt and overcome."

Motto/mantra from my time in the Marine Corps. I think, officially, it was "Improvise, Adapt and Overcome." but rarely was the first word included in my exposure.

Related to that mantra's concept was: "Semper Gumby - Always Flexible."

Both are useful in acknowledging that 1) Change is constant and 2) To thrive, you must be able to work with that change.

There are two kinds of people who never amount to much: those who cannot do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else.

“If you can piss while you walk, why not shit while you run?” —Aesop

The short poem "I will not die an unlived life" by Dawna Markova has had a profound impact on me. I don't think about it often, only when I am making big decisions, but it has convinced me to take some of the biggest and most rewarding steps outside of my comfort zone, including living in Germany for 6 months.

Be yourself. It's easier and you won't get found out.

Ad augusta per angusta.

Ars longa, vita brevis.

We had a dictionary, Petit Larousse 1989, and I used to read it a lot, learning new words and their origins. It was the equivalent of a Wikipedia rabbit hole. There was a pink section in the middle that contained many latin phrases. I loved reading those as a child and they stayed with me.

'Mercy triumphs over judgement.' (James 2:13, NIV)

Also:

'Esse quam videri'. "To be, rather than to seem"

'If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.'

'In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.'

'If' by Rudyard Kipling was a compass of mine for a long time, practically every line is a motto.

Praxis Tendatum Docebit!- C.F. Gauss Translation: "Practice will teach those who try"

"We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time." T.S. Eliot

"What one fool can understand, another can." R.P. Feynman

A few personal favorites:

Nil Magnum Nisi Bonum - from Life of Pi by Yann Martel Translates roughly to No Greatness Without Goodness

Ars longa, vita brevis - Art is long, life is short

“He who is afraid to ask is ashamed of learning.” — Danish proverb

"Fortune favors the prepared mind." -Pasteur

“Champions behave like Champions before they are Champions” - Bill Walsh

Some off the top of my head:

“Oh my soul don’t aspire for immortal life but exhaust the limits of the possible” -Pindar

“Man is nothing without the gods.” -Odyssey

“Why ask my age Diomedes, very like leaves upon this earth are generations of men. The old the wind cast to the ground, the young the greening forest bears as the spring comes in. So mortals pass one generation flowers as another dies.” -Illiad

“That which you see as righteousness and unrighteousness, beyond this cause and effect, beyond what has been and what is to be—-tell me That.” -Upanishads

“Get up and fight.” -Bhagavad Gita

“To every man on this earth death comes soon or late, what better way to die than to face fearful odds for the ashes of our fathers and the temple of our gods.” -Horatius

“My lord my rock, prepares my fingers for battle and my hands for war.” - Psalm 144:1

I think a lot about this quote as of late No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable. James Baldwin We seem to be in a period of history with many pure hearts

Trust the process

Anything worthwhile takes time and persistence - you need to think long term and trust your decisions, even if in the short term you don't see the results.

As any NBA fan knows, this is the de facto motto of Philadelphia 76ers - a team that was in a very bad spot some years ago and hired a general manager with a long term vision. They went through the "process" of rebuilding - based on rational, long term decisions - which is not what sport franchises usually want to do. In 3 painful years, they went from a mediocre team with no future to a team build to compete for the championship for the next decade. Here is the resignation letter from Sam Hinkie (the said general manager) - https://www.espn.com/pdf/2016/0406/nba_hinkie_redact.pdf - he left at the moment when the foundations for the future were in place. It's pure gold - it feels like reading Warren Buffett letters.

PS. Here is a funny video of one of the best Phili (and NBA) players who calls himslef the Process -> https://twitter.com/SBNation/status/915208453760614402.

PS2. Here is short excerpt from Sam Hinkie letter - you really should read it:

To begin, let’s stand on the shoulders of Charlie Munger, a giant to me. He is a man that’s been thinking about thinking longer than I’ve been alive. Let’s start with him and his approach. His two-part technique is:

1. First, what are the factors that really govern the interests involved, rationally considered?

2. Second, what are the subconscious influences where the brain at a subconscious level is automatically doing these things—which by and large are useful, but which often malfunctions?

To do this requires you to divorce process from outcome. You can be right for the wrong reasons. In our business, you’re often lionized for it. You can be wrong for the right reasons. This may well prove to be Joel Embiid. There is signal everywhere that Joel is unique, from the practice gyms in Lawrence, Kansas to Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania to Doha, Qatar where he does something awe inspiring far too regularly. We remain hopeful (and optimistic) about his long-term playing career, but we don’t yet know exactly how it will turn out. The decision to draft Joel third, though, still looks to me to be the correct one in hindsight given the underlying reasoning. But to call something that could be wrong (“failed draft pick”) right (“good decision”) makes all of our heads hurt, mine included.

When was the last time you really pushed yourself?

Another one: (I forget who this is about, but someone famous, apparently on their death bed said this):

What a wonderful life I have had. If only I had realized it earlier!

1. Love is the only truth, everything else is illusion

2. Ubi vera amicitia est, ibi idem velle, et idem nolle. Which roughly would be: A genuine friendship is found in same likes and same dislikes.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

I love Aphorisms/Quotes/Mottos/Sayings/Passages and have a collection of books in that vein. The reason i like this format is the high S/N ratio; the pithiness really challenges your mind and forces it to consider different interpretations under different contexts which leads to wisdom.

As an example, the sayings of "Wolf Larsen" from "The Sea Wolf" by Jack London have had a profound influence on my thinking.

Here is a passage;

Do you know, I sometimes catch myself wishing that I, too, were blind to the facts of life and only knew its fancies and illusions. They’re wrong, all wrong, of course, and contrary to reason; but in the face of them my reason tells me, wrong and most wrong, that to dream and live illusions gives greater delight. And after all, delight is the wage for living. Without delight, living is a worthless act. To labour at living and be unpaid is worse than to be dead. He who delights the most lives the most, and your dreams and unrealities are less disturbing to you and more gratifying than are my facts to me.” He shook his head slowly, pondering. “I often doubt, I often doubt, the worthwhileness of reason. Dreams must be more substantial and satisfying. Emotional delight is more filling and lasting than intellectual delight; and, besides, you pay for your moments of intellectual delight by having the blues. Emotional delight is followed by no more than jaded senses which speedily recuperate. I envy you, I envy you.” He stopped abruptly, and then on his lips formed one of his strange quizzical smiles, as he added: “It’s from my brain I envy you, take notice, and not from my heart. My reason dictates it. The envy is an intellectual product. I am like a sober man looking upon drunken men, and, greatly weary, wishing he, too, were drunk.” “Or like a wise man looking upon fools and wishing he, too, were a fool,” I laughed. “Quite so,” he said. “You are a blessed, bankrupt pair of fools. You have no facts in your pocketbook.” “Yet we spend as freely as you,” was Maud Brewster’s contribution. “More freely, because it costs you nothing.” “And because we draw upon eternity,” she retorted. “Whether you do or think you do, it’s the same thing. You spend what you haven’t got, and in return you get greater value from spending what you haven’t got than I get from spending what I have got, and what I have sweated to get.

Don't believe everything you think.

unironically "Git Gud".

It boils down to stop complaining and better yourself, stop being mad - don't get angry - and just work to surpass the problem/wall.

The only thing you can reliably change is yourself.

“Time is money friend” - greedy goblin in world of Warcraft

No but seriously that’s a precious advice. Don’t waste your time, our time in this earth is limited, better make the most of it!

"Everybody lies." ~ Gregory House

"Talk is cheap; show me the code." ~ Linus Torvalds

"To understand a program you must become both the machine and the program." ~ Alan Perlis

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. - Romans 8:28

In this verse I have grown in confidence that by desiring to become a good person, God is going to help me in all aspects of my life, ALL of them. Not just finances, or my career, or health, EVERYTHING. It is very powerful [essential] to have this belief; it carries me through life and will until the end.

Mottos (or just quotes) I remember from medical training:

“There is no problem that can’t be made worse with surgery” - a cautionary phrase to counter “a chance to cut is a chance to cure”

“Never be the first or the last to do something” - in regards to the countless new widgets, fads, techniques etc that are all the rage at the time

“50% of of our current understanding is wrong, but we don’t know which 50%”

“A smart man learns from his mistakes, a wise man learns from the mistakes of others”

Don’t forget nothing. Have your musket clean as a whistle, hatchet scoured, sixty rounds powder and ball, and be ready to march at a minute’s warning.

"The years don't come without the days."

1. what does not kill me makes me stronger 2. Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. 3. What a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, and ever rarer, thing that might be worth saying. What we’re plagued by these days isn’t any blocking of communication, but pointless statements.

It's just life. Don't take it so seriously.

“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.” ―Stephen Covey

A decision is either easy, or it doesn't matter

"Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness." (Wittgenstein)

It's easy to get stuck in problem-solving because you think things have to be a certain way. By letting go of the felt-need to think "realistically", you can reach a more complete view of the situation. You can always reclaim your worries later.

my mates will burn me on this one but "if it doesn't spark joy, get rid of it" - marie condo. i blame my wife for getting me hooked on organizing our whole house. but it applies to real life situations too. for example, last year i was contemplating quitting my job. i asked myself if it sparked joy and with that i quit the next day. lol

I'm not sure of the exact definition of a motto, but I'll give it a try:

1. The Devil is in the details.

2. You never hit rock bottom, it can always get worse. Someone is always worse off than you, truly, so stop pitying yourself. Self-pity is a mean downward spiral - most people don't realize it's potential to cause havoc.

3. Nothing's ever so bad, it's good for nothing.

I don't remember where I got this, but this has been my working philosophy for the past couple years:

> Make it work, then make it better.

Follow your curiosity. Don't listen to people who say you're spreading yourself too thin. In time, you'll find you've out-paced your detractors, because while they were forcing themselves to focus and be disciplined, you were working on things that interested you, and discipline loses to interest every time.

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because in the end those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter.”

~Dr. Seuss

If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you will learn the things you never knew you never knew. - From the Pocahontas song.

I reminds me that I don't even know what I don't know. There is a complete unknown out there of which I can't even guess at its existence. It's a humbling thought, makes you reserve judgement.

I am smart and i am ready to do leg work. Alot of it.

What i am and what i am gonna do has nothing to do with what i was

Do what you made for

Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. - Learning by Anne rice after reading Franz Kafka work.

If at first it doesn't work, force it.

“Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain’t the lead dog, the scenery never changes.” - Lewis Grizzard

"be the change you want to see in the world" - misattributed to Ghandi (can't remember if completely or heavily paraphrased).

It reminds me that there's usually nothing wrong with being an example as well as taking initiative. Be kind, do good.

Plus I share Ghandi's birthday.

"expectation is the road to disappointment" can't remember where it's from.

Pájaro viejo no entra en jaula (Spanish for "Senior bird doesn't enter cages")

Praise makes me humble but when I am abused, I know I have touched the stars. -- Oscar Wilde

"This, too, shall pass."

"What I cannot create, I do not understand" -Richard Feynman

“Chi cerca dove non deve, trovarà qualcosa che non gli piace.” [“He who looks where he shouldn’t, will find something he will not like”.] [Sicilian proverb]

"Sew in wind, reap the whirlwind" Hosea 6

"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur"

"Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound"

Try and live your life so that you never end up inspiring a warning label. -- knodi123’s Dad http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8541004

I've always liked "Mens sana in corpore sano" and it's even better that they have almost the literal same saying Arabic (which I speak) that goes "العقل السليم في الجسم السليم"

Since Uni, I haven't changed this motto.

"Amicus Plato, amicus Aristoteles, magis amica veritas" (my greatest friend is truth)

[0] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton

1. Make a plan, stick to the plan -- my colleague at my first internship

2. Mr. Winston, everyone knows what is in room 101--1984, orwell

These are the two I can remember right now. Was remined of the second one because it was referenced in cory doctorow's new book.

Een schip op het strand is een baken in zee.

[A ship on the beach is a lighthouse to the sea.]

- the Dutch proverb Frederick Brooks uses to kick off Chapter One of "The Mythical Man-month". Why, yes, as a matter of fact I AM in IT security. Why do you ask? :)

If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

An honest man has nothing to fear.

Not sure who said it but it's definitely one I try to live by.

"Per aspera ad astra"

“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” Marcus Tullius Cicero

A corny phrase that's had an outsized effect on me is, "Esteemable people do esteemable things."

Do you imagine yourself to be the kind of person who does x, y, and z? Or are you actually the kind of person who does?

"A sucker is born every minute" - Nixon during his famous China visit.

They can kill you, but the legalities of eating you are quite a bit dicier.

If you like these, try my fortune descendant at https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup

"I'll be happy to sell you my business for a $100k, and half for $1million" -- My Old Man

The gist is that if he sold half the buyer would get him as a partner and that would be more valuable. xD

I have always liked the simple expression "fail to plan, plan to fail". And by extension a modified quote of Eisenhower's: "plans are worthless, but planning is essential."

Don't mess with Texas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Mess_with_Texas

Nothing matters; keep moving forward.

Or as the movie Collateral framed it:

> Now we gotta make the best of it, improvise, adapt to the environment, Darwin, shit happens, I Ching, whatever man, we gotta roll with it.

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible" — Walter Elias Disney

"Sometimes, you can either be right, or you can be happy." — My mother (though probably some other people, too)

"Design depends largely on constraints." - Charles Eames

"Read the f* manual!"

Seriously, a lot of questions anwer themselves after I read the related manual. Ever since I got that as a reply on my StackOverflow question, it becomes my motto.

Too much attachment, the Dali Llama's answer to everything

"The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on."

Also when I think I have problems in life, this helps a lot: "Things could be (much) worse." (I think it is from Stoicism)

Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve. -- Alan Perlis

In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice ...

Don Quixote: "To attain to eminence in letters costs a man time, watching, hunger, nakedness, headaches, indigestions, and other things of the sort."

This one's always been a favorite.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

- How you do anything, is how you do everything.

- Fall 7 times, stand up 8

All creativity is an extended form of a joke. Most creativity is a transition from one context into another where things are more surprising. -- Alan Kay

I've always been partial to "Do your duty, come what may" not that applied it. I believe the quote is attributed to the Knights Templar

Bite off more than you can chew, and chew like buggery.

If you find yourself in deep shit keep moving forward.

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

These are the three mottos which I like the most.

- If you want to succeed increase the failure rate.

- When you stop learning, you stop growing.

- Don't Stop, Don't give up Keep Trying.

A relatively new favorite that seems to fit the times:

"Fear leads to panic, panic leads to pain, pain leads to anger, anger leads to hate."

-- Idles, Danny Nedelko

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

"aut inveniam viam aut faciam"

"I will find a way or make one"

Reputedly said by Hannibal when proposing taking his army (and elephants) across the alps.

   Live Free or Die

State Motto of New Hampshire

   Eleftheria i thanatos

   Freedom or Death

Motto of State of Greece

"Never give up, Never surrender !" although taken from a comedy movie Galaxy Quest, I find it very much carrying me on !

"Life is meaningless." - Kapil Gupta

"If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you always got".

I can't remember who said that

Lately I've been a big fan of:

"Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere. Everybody's gonna die. Come watch TV"

I like to live by:

"Why own it if you are afraid to take it apart?"

Tempered a bit by:

"Don't take it apart if you can't put it back together."

"Sabulum in apparatu" makes me smile.

"Sand in the machine!" suddenly sounds less contrary and anarchist in Latin :-)

"if I can't fix it, it ain't broke" - I first came across this in a DOS game called God of Thunder.

"The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you." - Lost in Translation

Be the change you want to see in the world.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Be quick but don’t hurry. -John Wooden

If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? -John Wooden

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. -- John Adams

[Pacifism] is only possible to people who have money and guns between themselves and reality. -- George Orwell

The best way to prepare for death is to spend every day of life as though it were your last. — St. Philip Neri

If it is too hard you’re doing it wrong.

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”

― Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

The motto of the billionaire french family/dynasty Mulliez: Everyone in everything (Tous dans tout).

"Life if for those who dare" - my grandma ;)

(Originally in Dutch: "Het leven is aan de durvers")

Dear Lord, give me chastity and self-restraint ... but not yet, O Lord, not yet! -- Saint Augustine

Veritatem Dilex ("I delight in the truth")

Truth _is_. I strive to find more accurate forms to know it by.

"Measure twice, cut once."

Not sure I have a favorite motto, but my favorite amalgamation of mottos is Tohuvabohu by KMFDM.

It is best to act with confidence no matter how little right you have to it. -- Lillian Hellman

‘He who angers you, conquers you.’

"It will be alright in the end - if it's not alright, it's not the end"

"stultus quaestionum peteret, stultus respondeo impetro"

Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.

A small error at the beginning of something is a great one at the end. -- Thomas Aquinas

"Sure it'll be grand"

Because to be fair it normally will be so no point stressing about it.

You are what you consistently do.

"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great."

You can't fly with the eagles if you sleep with the pigeons.

This quote resonated with me very well

I’m part of the disease. -- John Drake, in the Dangerman epsode “The Man on the Beach”

Proverbs 27:17 - "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another."

Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Instead of "live within your means", "live within your needs".

vitam impendere vero — Rousseau quoting Juvenal, “stake your life on truth”

"Be prepared."

It's a double whammy. From the Boy Scouts, and also Japeth the Goat.

Not exactly motto or phrase, but just a word to remind myself that

This too shall pass.

In its original form:

Anicca (impermanence)

Being healthy is underrated.

Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.

"You can't always get what you want" -- The Rolling Stones

There are always tradeoffs.

"What I cannot create, I do not understand" ― Richard Feynman

Very humbling.

Done is better than perfect. This from a self-diagnosed perfectionist.

Help people (including yourself) become the best version of themselves.

“Focus on your high-order bit.”

-Kim Cameron

Sometimes You Eat the Bear, and Sometimes the Bear Eats You.

- several authors credited

Some say: learn as long as you live.

I say the converse: you live as long as you learn.

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

"When normal sense makes good sense, seek no other sense."

Life is about the decisions you make when you give up your freedom.

Envy is ignorance, imitation is fear. Fear is the mind-killer.

- Ralph Waldo Herbert

"Smile it confuses people." - chaotic neutral motto ;)

"In the long run we are all dead," John Maynard Keynes

A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what it was built for.

"With great power comes great responsibility"

Spiderman's Uncle :)

If you can endure, endure. Stop complaining. - Marcus Aurelius

"Geeks don't have interests, they have passions."

I live by this.

"keep the heid"

i.e. Stay calm

My mother always said this to me before exams at school.

If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing yourself.

If not now, then when?

"You must beware of shadows."

page 109 of The Little Schemer

There's no easy way out. There's no shortcut home.

- Rocky Balboa

A genius is the one most like himself. -- Thelonious Monk

"All happiness depends on courage and work."

-Honoré de Balzac

Not sure where it came from or who said that:

"Now Go Create"

"Keep Moving Forward" - Meet The Robinsons

Kind heart. Kind thoughts. Kind words. Kind actions.

Chance favors the prepared mind. - Louis Pasteur

The unexamined life is not worth living - Socrates

If i had more time, I would have made it shorter

"No problems, just work" - Seth Feroce

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

“They did not know it was impossible so they did it”

― Mark Twain

Janky shit will always come back to haunt you.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

THE ONLYES POWER IS NO POWER ~ Riddley Walker

Don't quit before the miracle happens.

NEVER DON'T GIVE UP!

focus on what matters y'know..

Nothing ever works. Everything is fixable.

Everything in moderation; even moderation.

Work harder.

Never give up.

Nothing to it but to do it (Ronnie Coleman)

The journey is the reward (I think this is Steve Jobs)

What can I do to move myself towards my goals right now?

These are things I usually say to myself throughout the day.

"Inch is a sinch, yard is hard"

The impossible costs a little more

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing!

Beauty is worth living and dying for it.

Family motto is:

Good times, bad times, all times change.

Three is two, two is one, one is none.

C'mon, we're all dying here.

Things have always been getting worse.

SpaceX and Tesla driving principles.

There Is More Than One Way To Do It

Early is on-time. On-time is late.

He conquers who conquers himself!

Fitter, happier, more productive.

Brute force is rarely the answer.

Do it right, first fucking time.

Half of life is just showing up

'How hard can it be?'

"code wins arguments"

Start before you're ready

Worked Like Socks on a Rooster

Never hide from objective data

You gotta be in it to win it.

Memento mori. Unus sed leo.

“Think”

"Not my problem"

Amor fati. Love your fate.

Everything in moderation.

God is in the rain

He who dares wins Rodney!

We must know. And we will know.

- Hilbert

Shepard's Prayer.

The will is decisive.

Clean your room. ;)

live and let live

Easy is boring.

Pitter patter.

Pay attention.

everyone is fighting their own battle

turn on, tune in, drop all from all.

bad decision make great stories.

Amor Fati

Imagine.

che sera, sera

and

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.

People say I don't take criticism well, but I say, what the hell do they know? -- Groucho Marx

What is measured, improves!

"The only way to be wisely selfish is to care for others." -Sam Harris

never a dull day

2 + 2 = 4

“It is passion that makes man live; wisdom makes one only last.” -― Nicolas Chamfort