Jan Machek > Jan's Quotes

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“The dead outnumber the living fourteen to one, and we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril”
― Niall Ferguson, Civilization: The West and the Rest

“The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
― Carl Sagan

“Modern money is not necessarily a physical item or something with intrinsic value but is merely a medium of exchange and a record of account.”
― Cullen Roche, Pragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Know About Money and Finance

“Closet indexing is mimicking an index fund and charging a fee in excess of that charged by a correlated index, even though the fund is not adding any value.”
― Cullen Roche, Pragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Know About Money and Finance

“The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said:

'Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“Suckers think that you cure greed with money, addiction with substances, expert problems with experts, banking with bankers, economics with economists, and debt crises with debt spending”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

“If I could live again my life,
In the next – I’ll try,
- to make more mistakes,
I won’t try to be so perfect,
I’ll be more relaxed,
I’ll be more full – than I am now,
In fact, I’ll take fewer things seriously,
I’ll be less hygienic,
I’ll take more risks,
I’ll take more trips,
I’ll watch more sunsets,
I’ll climb more mountains,
I’ll swim more rivers,
I’ll go to more places – I’ve never been,
I’ll eat more ice creams and less lima beans,
I’ll have more real problems – and less imaginary ones,
I was one of those people who live
prudent and prolific lives -
each minute of his life,
Of course that I had moments of joy – but,
if I could go back I’ll try to have only good moments,

If you don’t know – that’s what life is made of,
Don’t lose the now!

I was one of those who never goes anywhere
without a thermometer,
without a hot-water bottle,
and without an umbrella and without a parachute,

If I could live again – I will travel light,
If I could live again – I’ll try to work bare feet
at the beginning of spring till the end of autumn,
I’ll ride more carts,
I’ll watch more sunrises and play with more children,
If I have the life to live – but now I am 85,
- and I know that I am dying …”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.

Morpheus, The Matrix”
― Lana Wachowski, The Matrix: The Shooting Script

“I know something about dread myself, and appreciate the elaborate systems with which some people fill the void, appreciate all the opiates of the people, whether they are as accessible as alcohol and heroin and promiscuity or as hard to come by as faith in God or History.”
― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
― Mark Twain

“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.”
― Carl Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

“I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.”
― Albert Einstein