Quotations

When ideas fail, words come in very handy – Goethe

Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it – Jane Wagner

Insomnia: the mind’s revenge for all the thoughts you forgot to have in the day – Alain de Botton

Don’t cross a river if it is four feet deep on average – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used. Towne v Eisner (1918) 245 US 418 at 425

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is always astonished when others do – Charles De Gaulle

Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working – Pablo Picasso

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge – Charles Darwin

Autobiography is an unrivalled vehicle for telling the truth about other people – Philip Guedella

Communications technology allows us to arrange the world so that we don’t have to experience it – Max Frisch

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done – Peter Drucker

It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so – Mark Twain

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken – Oscar Wilde

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool – Richard Feynman

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy – H.L. Mencken

Self regulation stands in relation regulation the way self importance stands in relation to importance – Willem Buiters

Consistency is the playground of dull minds. Yuval Noah Harari in his book “Sapiens”

These days, citizens are talking to their governments using 21st century technology. Governments are listening using 20th century institutions. And delivering 19th century responses – Madeleine Albright

It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live – Victor Hugo