"Audacious and achievable goals"
What are yours? I'm trying to up the audacity-level on mine.
"Don't throw anything away, there is no away."
I was surprised to come across such a succinct and thought-provoking quote about green issues from an oil company, but I suppose they're all busy trying to find the next way to make lots of money when the oil runs out.
According to my search on google it isn't clear who first coined the phrase, but I'll give Shell the link as they're the ones currently daubing it across half-page spreads of newspapers.
They started yesterday, and for the next two weeks the Guardian is featuring a great 20th Century speech each day.
It's a great opportunity to listen to some important moments in history, as they're posting mp3s of each one.
"I don't have ambition like a ruthless thing. But I do want to do good things. I suppose it's a polite ambition. Nobody's going to get hurt. - Danny Wallace.
Polite ambition. I like that description, given that I'm politely ambitious myself.
Halley Suitt must be ODing on happiness today, my favourite is:
"The best things in life aren't things" - Buchwald.
Life is NOT a journey to the grave with the goal of arriving safely in a prettily preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways in a shower of gravel and party shards, thoroughly used, utterly exhausted, and loudly proclaiming: "Fuck ME, that was BRILLIANT!" - Sal @ Farting Through My Fingertips
"The only constant in a healthy city is change. When there is no change the city will be dead. And cities mark change on their skyline." - Peter Rees, chief planning officer for the Corporation of London.
This quote comes from an article in the Financial Times Magazine today, about the new architecture of skyscrapers gracing London's skyline
"Real Artists Ship" - Steve Jobs
This is probably my favourite quote regarding product development. It is said that Steve Jobs wrote it on the wall to urge the developers of the first Mac to complete the project.
It highlights how important it is to actually ship product! The world has far more to gain from the imperfect tool in the hands of many than it has from the perfect tool in the hands of one.
"The best is the enemy of the good." - Voltaire
Now we just have to agree on the correct level for "good"...
"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough" - Mario Andretti.
American Rhetoric: Ronald Reagan -- Address to the Nation on The Space Shuttle "Challenger" Disaster
Includes mp3 audio of entire address.
American Rhetoric: Martin Luther King, Jr. - "I Have a Dream"
Includes mp3 audio of entire speech.
Remarks in the rudolph wilde Platz, 6/26/63 speech by John F. Kennedy.
Even has an audio recording of it.
And also available on American Rhetoric in mp3 format.
I'm currently reading "Working the Room" by Nick Morgan, which seems to be a very good text on public speaking (I don't know if it is, seeing as I've not done any public speaking since starting it :-). Anyway, it refers to a few memorable speeches, such as JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner", or Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream", so I figured I'd look them out...
"I do not fear an army of lions, if they are led by a lamb. I do fear an army of sheep, if they are led by a lion." - Alexander the Great.
"Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught." - Sir Winston Churchill.
"The scariest thing about the future is that the future isn't necessary" - Hillary Johnson.
"There's an old story about the person who wished his computer were as easy to use as his telephone. That wish has come true, since I no longer know how to use my telephone." - Bjarne Stroustrup
(I think I first saw this in "The design of everyday things" by Donald Norman, but I found it through Google at j b o x . d k - Quotations on simplicity in software design)
"Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen." - Edward V. Berard
(From j b o x . d k - Quotations on simplicity in software design)
"Are you really finding fault with not motivating employees to work more than 40 hours a week? Unless you're motivating them with time-and-a-half, you can forget it. You sign a contract with an employee for 40 hours, and you don't complain when a contractee fails to deliver more than was agreed. Nor do you expect it, nor hinge your profit margin upon it. That's just bad business." - Tom Wilson in a comment on The Rise and Fall of ArsDigita.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt
(via Heidi Wright's comment on The Rise and Fall of ArsDigita)