Famous Quotes

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Determine never to be idle. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

— Thomas Jefferson

Beethoven tells you what it’s like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you what it’s like to be the universe.

Find three hobbies you love: one to make you money, one to keep you in shape, and one to be creative.

I’m not sure the provenance of this quote, but I read it and it really resonated with me, and I’ve found myself repeating it frequently.

Within your heart keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go, and sheltered so, may thrive and grow where doubt and fear are not. Oh, keep a place within your heart, for little dreams to go.

Listen now . When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling. Try that for practice.

I believe that basically you write for two people; yourself to try to make it absolutely perfect; or if not that then wonderful. Then you write for who you love whether she can read or write or not and whether she is alive or dead.

— Ernest Hemingway to Arthur Mizener, 1950 Selected Letters, p. 694.

I got it from Hemingway on Writing which is a short and pleasant read I’m going through right now. It turns out Hemingway was 64 years ahead of me in his advice about who to write for .

Somebody once told me, “Manage the top line, and the bottom line will follow.” What’s the top line? It’s things like, why are we doing this in the first place? What’s our strategy? What are customers saying? How responsive are we? Do we have the best products and the best people? Those are the kind of questions you have to focus on.