Please note: I have only confirmed the source for some quotes, if you re-quote them, you may need to be sure of the originator.
THINK DIFFERENTLY
If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re going.-Professor Irwin Corey, Vaudeville comedian
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ (I found it!) but ‘That’s funny …’-Isaac Asimov (1920 – 1992)
The only interesting answers are those that destroy the question.-Susan Sontag
I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones. -John Cage
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.-A. A. Milne
If they give you ruled paper, write the other way. -Juan Ramón Jiménez
It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.-Konrad Lorenz
TAKING CONTROL OF YOUR FUTURE
One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.” -Lewis Carroll
Either you’re an agent of change, or you’re destined to become a victim of change. You simply can’t survive over the long term if you insist on standing still.-Norm Brodsky, entrepreneur, “Street Smarts,” INC, February 2002, 44.
We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.-John W. Gardner
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -George Bernard Shaw
You can analyze the past, but you need to design the future. That is the difference between suffering the future and enjoying it.-Edward de Bono
If you don’t have a hook in the water, you’re not fishing.-Old fishing saying, John McPhee, Founding Fish
Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.-Jerry Garcia
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. -Henry Ford
DISCOVERY
Trust that little voice in your head that says “Wouldn’t it be interesting if…”; And then do it. -Duane Michals, American Photographer (1932 – )
If you haven’t found something strange during the day, it hasn’t been much of a day -John A. Wheeler, American physicist (1911 – )
BELIEVING
It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.-Walt Disney
I have learned to use the word ‘impossible’ with the greatest caution.-Werner von Braun
THINKING IN SYSTEMS
When one tugs at a single thing in nature … he finds it attached to the rest of the world.-John Muir (1838 – 1914) American naturalist, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911)
The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day we were aware of only one Earth!-Sultan Bin Salman Al-Saud, (1956 – ), astronaut, interviewed on returning from a shuttle mission, 1985
It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.-John Andrew Holmes
THE WISDOM OF SPORTS
You can’t hit what you can’t see-Washington Senators catcher Cliff Blankenship scouting newcomer/pitcher Walter Johnson in 1907
THE WISDOM OF LITERATURE
It’s a dangerous business going out your front door.-Bilbo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring, 1948, J. R. R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973)
Not all those who wander are lost.-Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring, 1948, J. R. R. Tolkien, also attributed to Aragorn, J. R. R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973)
“‘Now I’ll give you something to believe. I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.” I can’t believe that!” said Alice. “Can’t you?” the queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.” Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.” “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”-Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll (1832 – 1898)
Things are only impossible until they’re not.-Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, episode #17, February 15, 1988, teleplay written by Hannah Louise Shearer.
You’ll be sort of surprised what there is to be found once you go beyond ‘Z’ and start poking around! -Dr. Seuss (1904 – 1991), On Beyond Zebra, 1955
It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. -The Red Queen, Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll (1832 – 1898)
