Jiří > Jiří's Quotes

“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.”
― Albert Einstein

“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?”
― Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

“Never memorize something that you can look up.”
― Albert Einstein

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
― Isaac Asimov

“Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.”
― Albert Einstein

“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
― Albert Einstein

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
― Mark Twain

“At every period of history, people have believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you risked ostracism or even violence by saying otherwise. If our own time were any different, that would be remarkable. As far as I can tell it isn't.”
― Paul Graham

“Being strong-willed is not enough, however. You also have to be hard on yourself. Someone who was strong-willed but self-indulgent would not be called determined. Determination implies your willfulness is balanced by discipline.”
― Paul Graham

“The main reason nerds are unpopular is that they have other things to think about.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“if you can imagine someone surpassing you, you should do it yourself.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“Paying attention is more important to reliability than moving slowly. Because he pays close attention, a Navy pilot can land a 40,000 lb. aircraft at 140 miles per hour on a pitching carrier deck, at night, more safely than the average teenager can cut a bagel.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“It’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.”
― Paul Graham

“In business, there is nothing more valuable than a technical advantage your competitors don’t understand. In business, as in war, surprise is worth as much as force.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“The same recipe that makes individuals rich makes countries powerful. Let the nerds keep their lunch money, and you rule the world.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“Likewise, in any social hierarchy, people unsure of their own position will try to emphasize it by maltreating those they think rank below. I’ve read that this is why poor whites in the United States are the group most hostile to blacks.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“Here, as so often, the best defense is a good offense. If you can develop technology that’s simply too hard for competitors to duplicate, you don’t need to rely on other defenses. Start by picking a hard problem, and then at every decision point, take the harder choice.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“This is why so many of the best programmers are libertarians. In our world, you sink or swim, and there are no excuses. When those far removed from the creation of wealth — undergraduates, reporters, politicians — hear that the richest 5% of the people have half the total wealth, they tend to think injustice! An experienced programmer would be more likely to think is that all? The top 5% of programmers probably write 99% of the good software.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“Attacking an outsider makes them all insiders.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“To become more popular, you need to be constantly doing things that bring you close to other popular people, and nothing brings people closer than a common enemy.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“Before you develop a conscience, torture is amusing.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“Cold War teaches the same lesson as World War II and, for that matter, most wars in recent history. Don’t let a ruling class of warriors and politicians squash the entrepreneurs. The same recipe that makes individuals rich makes countries powerful. Let the nerds keep their lunch money, and you rule the world.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“learn to program by looking at good programs — not just at what they do, but at the source code.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“One of the less publicized benefits of the open source movement is that it has made it easier to learn to program.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“You have to be able to see things from the user’s point of view.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“People who write about politics, whether on the left or the right, have a consistent bias: they take politics seriously.”
― Paul Graham