Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.

I think you ought to treat your spouse like you treat your friends. You clean your house for your friends, you make sure they’re taken care of. A spouse often comes second. So treat your spouse like their friends. Don’t just go halfway. If each spouse goes seventy-five percent of the way, it’s a perfect match.

The late Japanese puzzlemaker Maki Kaji expresses [the process of solving a puzzle] in beautifully succinct and poetic way:

? → !

Bafflement, wrestling, solution! That is the arc of puzzling— as well as much of art and life itself. (Side note: Has there ever been more brilliantly designed punctuation than the question mark turns and mystery. The exclamation point—so assertive and aggressive and final!)

Happiness does not lead to gratitude. Gratitude leads to happiness.

The earth belongs… to the living. The dead have neither powers nor rights over it.

We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

In an overwhelming attempt to capture memories, people have forgotten to make memories.

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.

A man strong in character hates no one, is angry with no one, envies no one, is indignant with no one, scorns no one, and is not at all proud.

The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.

Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.

There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag – and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-and vice versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.

What we see in people is determined, in large part, by what we expect to find.

We shall never have friends, if we expect to find them without fault.

One thing seems more and more evident to me now — people’s basic character does not change over the years … Far from improving them, success usually accentuates their faults or short-comings. The brilliant guys at school often turn out to be not so brilliant once they are out in the world. If you disliked or despised certain lads in your class you will dislike them even more when they become financiers, statesmen or five star generals. Life forces us to learn a few lessons, but not necessarily to grow.

Preparation is never wasted, regardless of outcome.

Good code is not just a “beautiful” code. It's code you can modify fast. That speed is crucial for the business and the key to building a successful product.

The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.

If you don’t know where you are, you probably don’t know who you are.