Krishna Pothula > Krishna's Quotes

“If you want a thing--truly want it, want it so badly that you need it as you need air to breathe, then unless you die, you will have it. Why not? It has you. There is no escape. What a cruel and terrible thing escape would be if escape were possible”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

“          Your desires,           Whether or not you achieve them           Will determine who you become.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

“Choose your leaders
with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward
is to be controlled
by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool
is to be led
by the opportunists
who control the fool.
To be led by a thief
is to offer up
your most precious treasures
to be stolen.
To be led by a liar
is to ask
to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant
is to sell yourself
and those you love
into slavery.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."

[Cosmos, Part 11: The Persistence of Memory (1980)]”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe”
― Simon Sinek, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
― Mark Twain

“When interacting with someone from another culture, try to watch more, listen more, and speak less.”
― Erin Meyer, The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business

“Multicultural teams need low-context processes.”
― Erin Meyer, The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business

“The Chinese manager learns never to criticize a colleague openly or in front of others, while the Dutch manager learns always to be honest and to give the message straight. Americans are trained to wrap positive messages around negative ones, while the French are trained to criticize passionately and provide positive feedback sparingly.”
― Erin Meyer, The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business

“A reliable way of making people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.”
― Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

“The premise of this book is that it is easier to recognize other people’s mistakes than our own.”
― Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

“Indeed, there is evidence that people are more likely to be influenced by empty persuasive messages, such as commercials, when they are tired and depleted.”
― Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

“Hierarchy (or, more specifically, the fear it creates when not handled well) reduces psychological safety.”
― Amy C Edmondson, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth

“What I hope is clear at this point is that you don't have to be the boss to be a leader. The leader's job is to create and nurture the culture we all need to do our best work. And so anytime you play a role in doing that, you are exercising leadership.”
― Amy C. Edmondson, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

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

“Anger is a natural emotion. It is energy. It is the product of passion. It cannot be eliminated. The best we can do is to control it and channel it. Like fire, which can either consume us or be a useful tool.”
― Anand Neelakantan, The Asura Way: The Contrarian Path to Success

“Never associate any evil with a group. Hate their sins, but not the people.”
― Anand Neelakantan, Ajaya: Roll of the Dice

“When you start a sentence with “no,” “but,” “however,” or any variation thereof, no matter how friendly your tone or how many cute mollifying phrases you throw in to acknowledge the other person’s feelings, the message to the other person is You are wrong.”
― Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here, Won't Get You There

“If you keep your mouth shut, no one can ever know how you really feel.”
― Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here, Won't Get You There

“There’s nothing wrong with understanding. Understanding the past is perfectly admissible if your issue is accepting the past. But if your issue is changing the future, understanding will not take you there. My experience tells me that the only effective approach is looking people in the eye and saying, “If you want to change, do this.”
― Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here, Won't Get You There

“Treat every piece of advice as a gift or a compliment and simply say, “Thank you.”
― Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here, Won't Get You There

“Good times become good memories, but bad times become good lessons.”
― Uncle Iroh

“In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength.”
― Uncle Iroh

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning