Tidbits & Quotes: May 2004

All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

It's not important how many people I've killed; what is important is how I get along with the people who are still alive.

The most elementary and valuable statement in science, the beginning of wisdom is: "I do not know".

Indeed, for all the churning that global capitalism brings to a society, the spread of capitalism has raised living standards higher, faster and for more people than at any time in history. It has also brought more poor people into the middle classes more quickly than at any time in human history. So while the gap between rich and poor is getting wider -- as the winners in today's globalization system really take off and separate themselves from everyone else -- the floor under the poor has been rising steadily in many parts of the world. In other words, while relative poverty may be growing in many countries, absolute poverty is actually falling in many countries. According to the 1997 United Nations Human Development report, poverty has fallen more in the past fifty years than in the previous five hundred. Developing countries have progressed as fast in the past thirty years as the industrialized world did in the previous century. Since 1960, infant mortality rates, malnutrition and illiteracy are all significantly down, while access to safe water is way up. In relatively short periods of time, countries that have been the most open to globalization, like Taiwan, Singapore, Israel, Chile and Sweden, have achieved standards of living comparable to those in America and Japan, while the ranks of the middle class in countries like Thailand, Brazil, India and Korea have swelled, due partly to globalization.

It's funny that on old photos people look younger.

The rule of my life is to make business a pleasure, and pleasure my business.

Nobody in TV makes as much money as Robert Redford, who likes to make movies for several million dollars only on the condition that they contain some sort of social message. I can't take very seriously a social message delivered by an actor who's paid nine million dollars to deliver it, and who charges you five dollars to see it.

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.

Mallory: And we went to the moon. Do we really have to go to Mars?
...
Sam: Because it's next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of Man is hung on the timeline of exploration, and this is what's next.

To the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name knowledge.

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Friend: One who knows all about you and loves you just the same.

God created the flirt as soon as He made the fool.

Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again.

Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied.

I was wrong. I was. I was just. I was wrong. Come on, we know that. Lots of times we don't know what right and wrong is. But lots of time we do. And come on, this is one. I may not have had sinister intent at the outset, but there were plenty of opportunities for me to make it right. No one in government takes responsibility for anything any more. We foster, we obfuscate, we rationalize. 'Everybody does it.' That's what we say. So we come to occupy a moral safe house where everyone's to blame so no one's guilty. I'm to blame. I was wrong.

There's a rule they don't teach you at the Harvard Business School. It is, if anything is worth doing, it's worth doing to excess.

There is, therefore, only one categorical imperative. It is: Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.

What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left.

To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.

Give us the luxuries of life and we will dispense with the necessities.

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.

I may not understand, but I am willing to admire.