Cole Strider > Cole's Quotes

“Always wrong but never in doubt.”
― Alex Berenson, The Faithful Spy

“Rosette disappeared onto the dance floor. Wells sat in silence for a minute, watching the dancers. The worldwide cult of fast money spent stupidly. The worldwide cult of trying too hard. Moscow, Rio, Los Angeles, Tokyo, New York, London, Shanghai--the story was the same everywhere. The same overloud music, the same overpromoted brand names, the same fake tits, about as erotic as helium balloons. Everywhere an orgy of empty consumption and bad sex. Las Vegas was the cult's world headquarters, Donald Trump its patron saint. Wells had spent ten years in the barren mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He never wanted to live there again. But if he had to choose between an eternity there or in the supposed luxury of this club, he'd go back without a second thought.”
― Alex Berenson, The Silent Man

“Wells played God in the most elemental way: Who shall live and who shall die, who shall reach the end of his days and who shall not, who by water and who by fire, who by sword and who by beast . . . But snatching the world’s secrets from their graves gave Shafer his own taste of absolute power.”
― Alex Berenson, Twelve Days

“Afternoon. I’m Rick. What can I do you for today?” “Put the preposition in the right place.”
― Alex Berenson, Twelve Days

“humans can build as easily as destroy,”
― Alex Berenson, The Faithful Spy

“Everything depends which side of the shotgun you’re on,”
― Alex Berenson, The Faithful Spy

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

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

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
― Andre Gide

“It's not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“Women don't get raped because they were drinking or taking drugs. Women don't get raped because they weren't careful. Women get raped because someone raped them.”
― Jon Krakauer, Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town

“He immersed himself in anthropology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, accumulating hundreds of credit hours without collecting a degree. He saw no reason to. The pursuit of knowledge, he maintained, was a worthy objective in its own right and needed no external validation.”
― Jon Krakauer on the Mayor of Hippie Cove

“I didn't doubt the potential value of paying attention to subconscious cues...problem was, my inner voice resembled Chicken Little: it was screaming that I was about to die, but it did that almost every time I laced up my climbing boots.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

“Police and prosecutors are morally and professionally obligated to make every effort to identify specious rape reports, safeguard the civil rights of rape suspects, and prevent the falsely accused from being convicted. At the same time, however, police and prosecutors are obligated to do everything in their power to identify individuals who have committed rape and ensure that the guilty are brought to justice. These two objectives are not mutually exclusive. A meticulous, expertly conducted investigation that begins by believing the victim is an essential part of prosecuting and, ultimately, convicting those who are guilty of rape. It also happens to be the best way to exonerate those who have been falsely accused. Rape victims provide police with more information--and better information--when detectives interview them from a position of trust rather than one of suspicion.”
― Jon Krakauer, Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town

“An extended stay in the wilderness inevitably directs one’s attention outward as much as inward, and it is impossible to live off the land without developing both a subtle understanding of, and a strong emotional bond with, that land and all it holds.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“I don't know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact, I don't know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty.”
― John Krakauer

“I was stirred by the dark mystery of mortality. I couldn’t resist stealing up to the edge of doom and peering over the brink (…) That was a very different thing from wanting to die.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“But it also demonstrates how difficult it is to correct a false belief after people have made an emotional investment in that belief being true. When our heroes turn out to be sleazebags, self-deception is easier than facing the facts.”
― Jon Krakauer, Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way

“The courtroom oath--"to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"--is applicable only to witnesses. Defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges don't take this oath--they couldn't! Indeed, it is fair to say the American justice system is built on the foundation of not telling the whole truth. It is the job of the defense attorney--especially when representing the guilty--to prevent, by all lawful means, the "whole truth" from coming out.”
― Jon Krakauer, Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town

“In Joe’s experience, the person who talked the most very often had the least to say.”
― C.J. Box

“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favour.”
― Elon Musk

“It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”
― Elon Musk

“My proceeds from the PayPal acquisition were $180 million. I put $100 million in SpaceX, $70m in Tesla, and $10m in Solar City. I had to borrow money for rent.”
― Elon Musk

“Don't confuse schooling with education. I didn't go to Harvard but the people that work for me did.”
― Elon Musk, Elon Musk

“You should take the approach that you’re wrong. Your goal is to be less wrong.”
― Elon Musk

“I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better.”
― Elon Musk

“I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it’s like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.”
― Elon Musk

“It is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.”
― Elon Musk

“I think it would be great to be born on Earth and die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact.”
― Elon Musk