Terry Zhang > Terry's Quotes

“If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for very long that final civil war between the forces of Reaction and the despairing convulsions of Revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war will fade into nothing, and which will destroy, whoever is victor, the civilization and the progress of our generation.”
― John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace

“External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn’t know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Then focus on truth, not logic. Stop trying to figure out why and look for what is.”
― Kristi Ann Hunter, A Lady of Esteem

“Where are all the reasonable people?” and realized the answer was that many reasonable people don't contact support.”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“Changing a name doesn't change reality. But I withheld judgment. The wise engage all new things with an open mind. I wouldn't learn anything new if I judged them before getting my hands dirty, despite how much more fun judging things with clean hands can be.”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“And the gap between what people think is wrong and what is actually wrong can be quite far indeed.”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“Starting a company, or even a project team, is an exceedingly hard challenge, but in the scramble to survive, founders often hire to solve immediate needs and simultaneously create long-term problems.”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“I will never stop learning. I won't just work on things that are assigned to me. I know there's no such thing as a status quo. I will build our business sustainably through passionate and loyal customers. I will never pass up an opportunity to help out a colleague, and I'll remember the days before I knew everything. I am more motivated by impact than money, and I know that Open Source is one of the most powerful ideas of our generation.”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“The responsibility of people in power is to continually eliminate useless traditions and introduce valuable ones. An organization where nothing ever changes is not a workplace but a living museum.”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“management is seen as a support role. The company stays as flat as possible for this reason. Schneider described his philosophy in this way: 1. Hire great people. 2. Set good priorities. 3. Remove distractions. 4. Stay out of the way.”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“Some things are never said, or heard, if more than one pair of ears is listening.”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“To understand who people really are, start a fire. When everything is going fine, you see only the safest parts of people's character. It's only when something is burning that you find out who people really are. Of course, it's wrong to set a fire on purpose, but if you have a small fire already burning, let it burn and see who, if anyone, complains, runs away, or comes to help.”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“little things done well consistently can have big effects—has merit.”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“safeguards don't make you safe; they make you lazy.”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“Laughter leads to running jokes, and running jokes lead to a shared history, and a shared history is culture.”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“It's deep in human nature to look to the top to define our own behavior,”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“he possesses uncommon patience. He rarely checked his phones or gadgets. When he was in the room, he was fully present and generous with his attention. He listened. More so, he was an amazing manager of his personal time and attention.”
― Scott Berkun, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

“Our society boasts 77,000 clinical psychologists, 192,000 clinical social workers, 105,000 mental health counselors, 50,000 marriage and family therapists, 17,000 nurse psychotherapists, 30,000 life coaches, as well as hundreds of thousands of nonclinical social workers and substance abuse counselors.”
― Zeke Pipher, In Pursuit: Devotions for the Hunter and Fisherman

“There’s no shortcut to becoming a good father. It takes showing sincere interest in our children’s lives. It involves tucking them in at night, praying with them at mealtimes, and sharing our difficulties and successes with them. It means taking our daughters on dates, or taking our sons on adventures. To be a good father, we need to wrestle, read, fish, tickle, shop, camp, and play games with our children. Fatherhood requires time.”
― Zeke Pipher, In Pursuit: Devotions for the Hunter and Fisherman

“stay a bit. No use of such questions as that but to produce ill-feeling. The captain has said too much or he has said too little, and I’m bound to say that I require an explanation of his words.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“the secret has been told to the parrot.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“I’ve come aboard to take possession of this ship, Mr. Hands; and you’ll please regard me as your captain until further notice.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“Certainly he took no pains to hide his thoughts, and certainly I read them like print. In the immediate nearness of the gold, all else had been forgotten: his promise and the doctor’s warning were both things of the past, and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the treasure, find and board the Hispaniola under cover of night, cut every honest throat about that island, and sail away as he had at first intended, laden with crimes and riches.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“That was Flint's treasure that we had come so far to seek, and that had cost already the lives of seventeen men from the Hispaniola. How many it had cost in the ammassing, what blood and sorrow, what good ships scuttled on the deep, what brave men walking the plank blindfold, what shot of cannon, what shame and lies and cruelty, perhaps no man alive could tell.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“All the stiffness and gloss had gone out of his beautiful furry coat. The hair hung down, limp and draggled, or matted with dried blood where Hal's club had bruised him. His muscles had wasted away to knotty strings, and the flesh pads had disappeared, so that each rib and every bone in his frame were outlined cleanly through the loose hide that was wrinkled in folds of emptiness. It was heartbreaking, only Buck's heart was unbreakable.”
― Jack London, The Call of the Wild

“He must master or be mastered; while to show mercy was a weakness. Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed.”
― Jack London, The Call of the Wild

“And there came a day when the hawk’s shadow did not drive him crouching into the bushes. He had grown stronger and wiser, and more confident. Also, he was desperate. So he sat on his haunches, conspicuously in an open space, and challenged the hawk down out of the sky. For he knew that there, floating in the blue above him, was meat, the meat his stomach yearned after so insistently.”
― Jack London, White Fang

“Had the cub thought in man-fashion, he might have epitomised life as a voracious appetite and the world as a place wherein ranged a multitude of appetites, pursuing and being pursued, hunting and being hunted, eating and being eaten, all in blindness and confusion, with violence and disorder, a chaos of gluttony and slaughter, ruled over by chance, merciless, planless, endless.”
― Jack London, White Fang

“The chance which now seems lost may present itself at the last moment.”
― Jules Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days

“Her shining tresses, divided in two parts, encircle the harmonious contour of her white and delicate cheeks, brilliant in their glow and freshness. Her ebony brows have the form and charm of the bow of Kama, the god of love, and beneath her long silken lashes the purest reflections and a celestial light swim, as in the sacred lakes of Himalaya, in the black pupils of her great clear eyes. Her teeth, fine, equal, and white, glitter between her smiling lips like dewdrops in a passion-flower’s half-enveloped breast. Her delicately formed ears, her vermilion hands, her little feet, curved and tender as the lotus-bud, glitter with the brilliancy of the loveliest pearls of Ceylon, the most dazzling diamonds of Golconda. Her narrow and supple waist, which a hand may clasp around, sets forth the outline of her rounded figure and the beauty of her bosom, where youth in its flower displays the wealth of its treasures; and beneath the silken folds of her tunic she seems to have been modelled in pure silver by the godlike hand of Vicvarcarma, the immortal sculptor.”
― Jules Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days