Ted Chaffman > Ted's Quotes

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein

“North Korea invites parody. We laugh at the excesses of the propaganda and the gullibility of the people. But consider that their indoctrination began in infancy, during the fourteen-hour days spent in factory day-care centers; that for the subsequent fifty years, every song, film, newspaper article, and billboard was designed to deify Kim Il-sung; that the country was hermetically sealed to keep out anything that might cast doubt on Kim Il-sung's divinity. Who could possibly resist?”
― Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.”
― Machiavelli Niccolo, The Prince

“The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.”
― Niccolo Machiavelli

“All were merged into one smoothly working machine; they were, in fact, a poem of motion, a symphony of swinging blades.”
― Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

“In his youth Albert Einstein spent a year loafing aimlessly. You don't get anywhere by not 'wasting' time- something, unfortunately, that the parents of teenagers tend frequently to forget.”
― Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

“Genius hesitates.”
― Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

“I am my mother’s caresses, and the serene kindness with which my father calmly guided me; I am my adolescent travels; I am what my reading has deposited in layers in my mind; I am my loves, my moments of despair, my friendships, what I’ve written, what I’ve heard; the faces engraved on my memory. I am, above all, the one who a minute ago made a cup of tea for himself. The one who a moment ago typed the word “memory” into his computer. The one who just composed the sentence that I am now completing. If all this disappeared, would I still exist? I am this long, ongoing novel. My life consists of it.”
― Carlo Rovelli, L'ordine del tempo

“First find out what you are capable of, then decide who you are.”
― Tara Westover

“One!
O man! Take heed!
Two!
What says deep midnight's voice indeed?
Three!
"I slept my sleep-
Four!
"From deepest dream I've woke and plead:-
Five!
"The world is deep,
Six!
"And deeper than the day could read.
Seven!
"Deep is its woe-
Eight!
"Joy- deeper still than grief can be:
Nine!
"Woe says: Hence! Go!
Ten!
"But joys all want eternity-
Eleven!
"Want deep profound eternity!"
Twelve!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“Many a serious thinker has been produced in prisons, where we have nothing to do but think.”
― Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power

“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
― W.B. Yeats

“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
― Albert Einstein

“Love, too, has to be learned.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

“Deeds need time, even after they are done, in order to be seen or heard.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

“The good men of every age are those who go to the roots of the old thoughts and bear fruit with them.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

“For fanaticism is the only form of willpower that even the weak and insecure can be brought to attain.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

“Smooth ice
is paradise
for those who dance with expertise.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

“One pays dearly for any kind of mastery on earth, where perhaps one pays too dearly for everything; one is master of one's trade at the price of also being its victim.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

“We sleepwalkers of the day! We artists! We who conceal naturalness! We who are moon- and God-struck! We untiring wanderers, silent as death, on heights that we see not as heights but as our plains, as our safety.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

“The secret of realizing the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships out into uncharted seas! Live in conflict with your equals and with yourselves! Be robbers and ravagers as soon as you ca not be rulers and owners, you men of knowledge! The time will soon past when you could be content to live concealed int he woods like timid deer!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“One could argue that it is essential for any democracy to do all it can to keep its population free of a mindset of scarcity in order to make better decisions.”
― Andrew Yang, The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future

“Knowing what’s truly normal or average in a big country like America requires some work.”
― Andrew Yang, The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future

“Fighting for peace, is like f***ing for chastity”
― Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis

“Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It’s a feeling inside that can hardly be contained.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky