k2 > k2's Quotes

“However, like many creatures that dwell in cold and darkness, they fear light and warmth, which we shall therefore call to our aid should the need arise.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

“It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

“In a complex system, we can’t go in to take a look at what’s happening in the belly of the beast. We need to rely on indirect indicators to assess most situations.”
― Chris Clearfield, Meltdown: What Plane Crashes, Oil Spills, and Dumb Business Decisions Can Teach Us About How to Succeed at Work and at Home

“we simply can’t understand enough about complex systems to predict all the possible consequences of even a small failure.”
― Chris Clearfield, Meltdown: What Plane Crashes, Oil Spills, and Dumb Business Decisions Can Teach Us About How to Succeed at Work and at Home

“But need alone is not enough to set power free: there must be knowledge.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard’s power of Changing and of Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“And the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do .”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“Pride was ever your mind’s master,”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“To hear, one must be silent”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“those who do the world’s work most dearly pay the price of the world’s pain.”
― Glen Cook, The Tyranny of the Night

“Don’t do what you can’t undo, until you’ve considered what you can’t do once you’ve done it.”
― Robin Hobb, Assassin's Apprentice

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“The diplomacy of the knife.”
― Robin Hobb, Assassin's Apprentice

“A known mistake is better than an unknown truth.”
― Mark Hodder, The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack

“Everything Life places in your path is an opportunity.
No matter how difficult.
No matter how upsetting.
No matter how impenetrable.
No matter how you judge it.
An opportunity.”
― Mark Hodder, The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack

“She had not realized how very different people were, how differently they saw life. She felt as if she had looked up and suddenly seen a whole new planet hanging huge and populous right outside the window, an entirely strange world, one in which the gods did not matter.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan

“do flies need rules to tell them not to enter in a spider’s web?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan

“Bitterness is repaid more often than kindness.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Well, I myself find that respect is like manure. Use it where needed, and growth will flourish. Spread it on too thick, and things just start to smell.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Sometimes we find it hardest to accept in others that which we cling to in ourselves.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“I once saw a spindly man carrying a stone larger than his head upon his back, the passage went. He stumbled beneath the weight, shirtless under the sun, wearing only a loincloth. He tottered down a busy thoroughfare. People made way for him. Not because they sympathized with him, but because they feared the momentum of his steps. You dare not impede one such as this. The monarch is like this man, stumbling along, the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders. Many give way before him, but so few are willing to step in and help carry the stone. They do not wish to attach themselves to the work, lest they condemn themselves to a life full of extra burdens.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“It’s not what you do that counts, it’s the quality of your attention.”
― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships

“Eventually, the conversation will flow to other things—typically, to The Past and How Great It Was, Even Though We Didn’t Know It at the Time, and The Future, that shimmering, mercurial beast, constantly breaking our hearts.”
― Chana Porter, The Seep

“All I have is my uncertainty. And really, that’s all I’ve ever had. Everything else was a lie.”
― Chana Porter, The Seep

“through the boredom and the freedom of unexpected immortality.”
― Chana Porter, The Seep

“about why humans are so focused on the past and the future, all at once. it’s about learning! that’s the great gift of linear time! you can look back on your experiences in the past and use them to make choices for the future. time is embodied learning! that’s why memory exists! why failures are never truly failures, and mistakes are always glorious! no matter what, no matter what, no matter what, no matter what!”
― Chana Porter, The Seep

“Racing cars that are just spinning their wheels in a garage rather than racing. You open that garage door, and man, those people will take you somewhere”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“I’m looking for disagreeable people who are givers, not takers. Disagreeable givers often make the best critics: their intent is to elevate the work, not feed their own egos. They don’t criticize because they’re insecure; they challenge because they care. They dish out tough love.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“It’s common for people who lack power or status to shift into politician mode, suppressing their dissenting views in favor of conforming to the HIPPO—the HIghest Paid Person’s Opinion. Sometimes they have no other choice if they want to survive.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“A single line of argument feels like a conversation; multiple lines of argument can become an onslaught.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know