Show me a person who's afraid to look bad, and I'll show you a person you can beat every time.

A witty saying proves nothing.

You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.

Study the past, if you would divine the future.

I want peace and I’m willing to fight for it.

War is a series of catastrophes which result in a victory.

What we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.

The final delusion is the belief that one has lost all delusions.

We learn from history that we do not learn from history.

The person who focuses on fewer things goes further than the person distracted by many.

There are a lot of things you don't control.

You don't get to pick your parents.

You don't get to pick the country you are born in.

You don't get to pick your given talent.

You don't get to pick the test.

You don't control where you start, but you can change where you go.

Integrity is a choice.

Kindness is a choice.

Hard work is a choice.

Preparation is a choice.

Consistency is a choice.

Your attitude is a choice.

Your response is a choice.

The people you hang around are a choice.

Changing your trajectory is a choice.

Science is the only news.

When you scan through a newspaper or magazine, all the human interest stuff is the same old he-said-she-said, the politics and economics the same sorry cyclic dramas, the fashions a pathetic illusion of newness, and even the technology is predictable if you know the science.

Human nature doesn’t change much; science does, and the change accrues, altering the world irreversibly.

The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.

Bluntness is appealing to busy people.

Art is just money on walls.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “The function of the artist is to make people like life better than before.”

Asked whether he’d ever seen this done, he said, “Yes, the Beatles did it.”

(From Dan Wakefield’s introduction to Vonnegut’s If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?, 2013.)

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

The battles were so ferocious because the stakes were so small.

A game is over when you start to wonder if the game is worth it.

In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.