Prabha Manepalli > Prabha's Quotes

“A desire to choose the hardest might be a confession of weakness in itself.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Anyone can become angry —that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way —this is not easy. ARISTOTLE, The Nicomachean Ethics”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“Feelings are self-justifying, with a set of perceptions and "proofs" all their own.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. HORACE WALPOLE”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
― Viktor E. Frankl

“Darwinism may be a fine theory in other contexts, but in startups, intelligent design works best.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

“In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“The past was always there, lived inside of you, and it helped to make you who you were. But it had to be placed in perspective. The past could not dominate the future.”
― Barbara Taylor Bradford, Unexpected Blessings

“That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

“There needs to be a reason for a grade. I’d rather play video games, write software, and read books than try and get an A if there’s no point in getting an A.”
― Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Inventing the Future

“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,”
― Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Inventing the Future

“He seems to feel for the human species as a whole without always wanting to consider the wants and needs of individuals.”
― Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future

“To me, Elon is the shining example of how Silicon Valley might be able to reinvent itself and be more relevant than chasing these quick IPOs and focusing on getting incremental products out,”
― Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future

“They were great men, with huge flaws, and you know what – those flaws almost made them greater.”
― Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two

“But luxury has never appealed to me, I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands.”
― Daphne du Maurier

“Under the table, I crossed my legs so hard it hurt. I was using all the strength it would take to run away, only to stay still.”
― David Levithan, Every You, Every Me

“It's peculiar how no-words can be better than words. Silence can say more than noise, in the same way that a person's absence can occupy even more space than their presence did.”
― Ali Benjamin, The Thing About Jellyfish

“It is in the nature of democracies, perhaps, that while visionaries are sometimes necessary to make them, once made they can be managed by mediocrities.”
― Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy

“In 1951 Dec 20th, Nehru, while campaigning for the first democratic elections in India, took a short break to address a UNESCO symposium in Delhi. Although he believed democracy was the best form of governance, while speaking at the symposium he wondered loud...
the quality of men who are selected by these modern democratic methods of adult franchise gradually deteriorates because of lack of thinking and the noise of propaganda....He[the voter] reacts to sound and to the din, he reacts to repetition and he produces either a dictator or a dumb politician who is insensitive. Such a politician can stand all the din in the world and still remain standing on his two feet and, therefore, he gets selected in the end because the others have collapsed because of the din.
-Quoted from India After Gandhi, page 157.”
― Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy

“All I know is that I know nothing.”
― Socrates, Apology

“Soon, books will read you while you are reading them.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow

“Capitalism did not defeat communism because capitalism was more ethical, because individual liberties are sacred or because God was angry with the heathen communists. Rather, capitalism won the Cold War because distributed data processing works better than centralised data processing, at least in periods of accelerating technological change.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow

“If pupils suffer from attention disorders, stress and low grades, perhaps we ought to blame outdated teaching methods, overcrowded classrooms and an unnaturally fast tempo of life.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow

“This is the paradox of historical knowledge. Knowledge that does not change behaviour is useless. But knowledge that changes behaviour quickly loses its relevance. The more data we have and the better we understand history, the faster history alters its course, and the faster our knowledge becomes outdated.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow

“If we think in term of months, we had probably focus on immediate problems such as the turmoil in the Middle East, the refugee crisis in Europe and the slowing of the Chinese economy. If we think in terms of decades, then global warming, growing inequality and the disruption of the job market loom large. Yet if we take the really grand view of life, all other problems and developments are overshadowed by three interlinked processes: 1.​Science is converging on an all-encompassing dogma, which says that organisms are algorithms and life is data processing. 2.​Intelligence is decoupling from consciousness. 3.​Non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms may soon know us better than we know ourselves. These three processes raise three key questions, which I hope will stick in your mind long after you have finished this book: 1.​Are organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing? 2.​What’s more valuable – intelligence or consciousness? 3.​What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow

“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“I'd rather be myself," he said. "Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“No social stability without individual stability.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World