Success and Failure

After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting.

Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, in Success and Failure

No man who needs a monument ever ought to have one.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, in Success and Failure

Never try to out-stubborn a cat.

Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, in Success and Failure

The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of management is that success equals skill.

Robert Heller, in Success and Failure

Prophecy is many times the principal cause of the events foretold.

Thomas Hobbes, in Science and Religion and Success and Failure

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.

Doug Hofstadter, in Success and Failure

Success is like a fart -- only your own smells nice.

James P. Hogan, in Success and Failure

Action cures fear, inaction creates terror.

Doug Horton, in Success and Failure

Change occurs in direct proportion to dissatisfaction, but dissatisfaction never changes.

Doug Horton, in Success and Failure

Desperation is like stealing from the mafia: you stand a good chance of attracting the wrong attention.

Doug Horton, in Success and Failure

First rule of Economics 101: our desires are insatiable. Second rule: we can stomach only three Big Macs at a time.

Doug Horton, in Success and Failure

Good ideas are a dime a dozen, bad ones are free.

Doug Horton, in Success and Failure

If wishes were fishes we'd all be throwing nets. If wishes were horses we'd all ride.

Doug Horton, in Success and Failure

Perfection is perfectly simple; fouling things up requires true skill.

Doug Horton, in Success and Failure

Only the mediocre are always at their best.

Jean Giraudoux, in Success and Failure

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in Success and Failure

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

Nick Gorski, in Success and Failure and Work and Recreation

You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty.

Sacha Guitry, in Success and Failure

When everyone is against you, it means you are absolutely wrong -- or you are absolutely right.

Albert Guinon, in Success and Failure

If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.

Doug Horton, in Success and Failure