Shawn > Shawn's Quotes

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”
― Albert Einstein

“Bite off more than you can chew and then chew like hell.”
― Peter Brock

“A baseball manager recognizes a nonphysical talent, hustle, as an essential gift of great players and great teams. It is the characteristic of running faster than necessary, moving sooner than necessary, trying harder than necessary. It is essential for great programming teams, too.”
― Frederick P. Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering

“More importantly, our software worked. I don't just mean that it didn't bump, or that it performed according to the written specifications, or that it was efficient in producing reports. It really worked”
― Eliyahu M. Goldratt, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

“The job is what you do when you are told what to do. The job is showing up at the factory, following instructions, meeting spec, and being managed.

Someone can always do your job a little better or faster or cheaper than you can.

The job might be difficult, it might require skill, but it's a job.

Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.

I call the process of doing your art 'the work.' It's possible to have a job and do the work, too. In fact, that's how you become a linchpin.

The job is not the work.”
― Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
― Plato

“People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.”
― William Arthur Ward

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“when you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create.”
― Why The Lucky Stiff

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
― Socrates

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
― William Durant

“The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say "I." And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say "I." They don't think "I." They think "we"; they think "team." They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but "we" gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.”
― Peter Drucker

“Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.”
― Peter Drucker

“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”
― Lao Tzu

“If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life

“Instead of focusing on how much you can accomplish, focus on how much you can absolutely love what you’re doing.”
― Leo Babauta

“Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.”
― J.M. Barrie

“For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
― William Arthur Ward

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”
― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

“Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival.”
― W. Edwards Deming

“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.”
― Peter Drucker

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
― Victor Frankl

“[Dean] “My dear fellow, who will let you?”

[Roark] “That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”
― Ayn Rand