My philosophy evolves slightly with every experience. So to write a philosophical dissertation about how I see the world would be silly as it will become outdated the moment I hit the save button. Alternatively I thought it would simply be more fun and insightful to share some of my favorite quotes, thoughts, phrases, excerpts, passages, taglines and blurbs that I find useful, thought provoking or just plain amusing. Most are from individuals much wiser than I, some are of my own creation and others are just bits that caught my attention.

I will prepare and someday my chance will come.
- Abraham Lincoln

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
- Abraham Lincoln

I never discovered anything with my rational mind.
- Albert Einstein

Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.
- Anita Roddick

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Learn something new every day.
- Barry Farber

If we stand still, we move backward as the world keeps moving forward without us.
- Barry Farber

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
- Benjamin Franklin

Energy and persistence conquer all things.
- Benjamin Franklin

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
- Bill Gates

We're only at the beginning of what we have to do here.
- Bill Gates

Don’t worry about a thing, cause every little thing gonna be all right.
- Bob Marley

If you don't have a consensus that it's nonsense, you don't have a breakthrough.
- Burt Rutan

Research should be defined as doing something where half of the people think that’s impossible. And half of them think ...eehhhh, maybe that will work. Whenever there’s a breakthrough, a true breakthrough, you can go back and find a time period when the consensus was, well that’s nonsense. So what that means is that a true creative researcher must have confidence in nonsense.
- Burt Rutan

We’re going to the stars. This is so cool.
- Burt Rutan

What I do is I find the fun stuff to experiment with and learn from. Then I go out and find something else to learn from. - Burt Rutan

Dad, can one person really make a difference?
- Cameron Poe (my 12 year old son)

Blessed are they that laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be entertained. - Chinese Proverb

Today we sailed on.
- Christopher Columbus

If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep.
- Dale Carnegie

As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.
- Donald Trump

Think left and think right and think low and think high.
Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!
- Dr. Seuss

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
- Edgar Allan Poe

Traditional thinking is all about what is. Future thinking will also need to be about what can be.
- Edward de Bono

I want to have fun doing my work. I want the kind of people I can sit over dinner with on a weekend. In my profession you need to be able to trust your people. I want the kind of people I like in my heart-people I can still like when I’m exhausted at 3am.
- Egon Zehnder

Choose Well.
- Ewing Marion Kauffman

Make a job, don’t take a job.
- Ewing Marion Kauffman

I don't think there's any artist of any value who doesn't doubt what they're doing.
- Francis Ford Coppola

In every triumph there is a lot of try.
- Frank Tyger

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
- George Bernard Shaw

You see things; and you say, Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say, Why not?
- George Bernard Shaw

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that crates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.
- Goethe

To be a teacher is to be a prophet. We are not preparing children for the world we have lived in but for a future that we can barely imagine.
- Gordon Brown, Former Dean of the MIT Engineering School

Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
- Helen Keller

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
- Herm Albright

None of us are as smart as all of us.
– Japanese proverb

An amazing thing, the human brain. Capable of understanding incredibly complex and intricate concepts. Yet at times unable to recognize the obvious and simple.
- Jay Abraham

An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it.
- Jef Mallett

Always remember...the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing!
- Jim Barksdale

Take our own company as an example: We're living proof, we jump with our own parachutes.
- Jim Barksdale

We have 3 rules at netscape... The first rule is if you see a snake, don't call committees, don't call your buddies, don't form a team, don't get a meeting together, just kill the snake. The second rule is don't go back and play with dead snakes. Too many people waste too much time on decisions that have already been made. And the third rule of snakes is: all opportunities start out looking like snakes.
- Jim Barksdale

First Who…then What.
- Jim Collins

It is no harder to build something great than to build something good. It might be statistically more rare to reach greatness, but it does not require more suffering than perpetuating mediocrity.
- Jim Collins

Put your best people on your best opportunities. Not on your biggest problems.
- Jim Collins

Behind the storm of daily conflict and crisis, the dramatic confrontations, the tumult of political struggle, the poet, the artist, the musicsion, continues the quiet work of centuries, building bridges of experience between peoples, reminding man of the universality of his feelings and desires and despairs, and reminding him that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide.

-John F. Kennedy

If you can’t imagine it, you probably will not be able to achieve it.
- John C. Maxwell

The learning process can be summarized in the following 5 steps: 1. Observe 2. Act. 3. Evaluate. 4. Readjust. 5. Go back to step 2
- John C. Maxwell

You can’t change yesterday. You can’t count on tomorrow. But you can choose what you do today.
- John C. Maxwell

In the world today there’s plenty of technology, plenty of entrepreneurs, plenty of money, plenty of venture capital. What’s in short supply is great teams.
- John Doerr

When I found that I lacked the knowledge I needed to push forward in a particular area, I’d fine the resource and go learn it.
- John Netto

There are going to be times when we can’t wait for somebody. Now, you’re either on the bus or off the bus.
- Ken Kesey

The wicked leader is he whom the people revile
The good leader is he whom the people revere
The great leader is he of whom the people say, we did it ourselves.
- Lao Tzu

I have had all of the disadvantages required for success.
- Larry Ellison

Be the change you want to see in the world.
- Mahatma Gandhi

We set our own limitations and our own boundaries.
- Marion Luna Brem

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Do the most important people in you life envision a positive future for you? Do they see great things ahead of you?
- Mark Twain

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
- Mark Twain

Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway.
- Mary Kay Ash

We cannot become what we need to be by reamining what we are.
- Max DePree, Founder Herman Miller Furniture

Why rant when you can rave?
- Me

Inside every block of stone or marble dwells a beautiful statue; on eneed only to remove the excess material to reveal the work of art within.
- Michelangelo

The first great step of any entrepreneur is to get kicked out of High School.
- Nick Graham, Founder Joe Boxer

More persons, on the whole, are humbugged by believing in nothing, than by believing too much.
- P.T. Barnum

What should exist? To me, that's the most exciting question imaginable. What do we need that we don't have? How can we realize our potential?
- Paul Allen

Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm.
- Ralph Waldo Emmerson

Are you a Tigger or an Eyore? - Randy Pausch

Are you green and growing or ripe and rotting?
- Ray Kroc

You're only as good as the people you hire.
- Ray Kroc

Success is a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.
- Robert Strauss, Recipient Presidential Medal of Freedom

Keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final.
- Roger Babson

Property may be destroyed and money may lose its purchasing power; but, character, health, knowledge and good judgement will always be in demand under all conditions.
- Roger Babson

The finest command of language is often shown by saying nothing.
- Roger Babson

Rule #6: Lighten Up
- Rosamund Zander

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he'll quickly learn how to chew it.
- Roy Ash

High expectations are the key to everything.
- Sam Walton

I want kids to think: when I grow up, shall I be a pop star, a footballer, or an entrepreneur?
- Simon Woodroffe

Motto: CAN I? standing for Constant And Never ending Innovation.
- Simon Woodroffe

To move the world we must first move ourselves.
- Socrates

Only mediocre people are always at their best.
- Somerset Maugham

I want to put a ding in the universe.
- Steve Jobs

Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?
- Steve Jobs

From his neck down a man is worth a couple of dollars a day, from his neck up he is worth anything that his brain can produce.
- Thomas Edison

If parents pass enthusiasm along to their children, they will leave them an estate of incalculable value.
- Thomas Edison

If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
- Thomas Edison

Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Thomas Edison

My message to you is: Be courageous! I have lived a long time. I have seen history repeat itself again and again. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has com on stronger and more prosperous. Be as brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!
- Thomas Edison

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. ,Thomas Edison
Pretty much everything will come to him who hustles while he waits. I believe that restlessness is discontent, and discontent is merely the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure. ,Thomas Edison

Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability. We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.
- Thomas Edison

If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.
- Thomas J. Watson

The great accomplishments of man have resulted from the transmission of ideas and enthusiasm.
- Thomas J. Watson

The way to succeed is to double your error rate.
- Thomas J. Watson

My future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.
- Timbuk3

Do not disregard your mistakes.
Money is not meant to be served.
Love your work, then you will find pleasure in mastering it.
Appreciate the many things that make your life so valuable.
Act the part and you will become the part.
Don’t criticize others when you are angry with yourself.
Don’t wait for the ideal time to begin something.
Stay on a clear course.
- Unknown book excerpt

Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.
- Warren Buffett

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak.; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
- Winston Churchill

Patience. Persistence. Perseverance.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets with opportunity.