The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Quotes

Lots and lots of great quotes

  • Quantum flapdoodle

    EyeKen Wilber comes out against quantum flapdoodle:

    The central question of this dialogue has to do directly with the relation of modern quantum physics and spirituality. In effect, does physics prove God? Does the Tao find proof in quantum realities?

    Answer: “Categorically not. I don’t know more confusion in the last thirty years than has come from quantum physics….”

    Heh! Take that, fans of the What the Bleep movie.

    There seems to be a very powerful desire among some proponents of spiritual thinking to use the mysterious and baffling nature of quantum physics to validate spiritual phenomena. This is a bad idea which ends up diminishing both quantum physics and spirituality.

  • Quote

    Finding your calling is a wonderful thing, but how do you do that? Will you know your calling when you see it?

    Here’s my definition: You know you’re doing the right work when you would rather do it and fail, than not do it.

    – Alexander Kjerulf

  • Quote

    I’m away all day at a conference about children’s right to play – that ought to be fun :o)

    Meanwhile, please enjoy this quote by Dave Winer on why we can kiss the media goodbye:

    Why do you think they call it media?

    They’re middlemen.

    In the future we won’t need middlemen.

    Why?

    Because the Internet disintermediates.

    Which is a fancy word for “gets rid of the middlemen.”

    Or, if you prefer, “gets rid of the media.”

    – Dave Winer

    Via The Obvious.

  • La-la-la-la – we’re not listening – la-la-la-la

    A Danish study published today shows that

    1. 56% of respondents believe that involving the organization is the second-most important factor for successful strategic development
    2. Only 4% of businesses involve all employees in strategic development

    Which made me think of this sign found in a barracks of the Israeli army:

    Privates will refrain from giving advice to officers.

    – From Leo Rosten’s Giant Book of Laughter

    Via Arun’s musings.

  • Quote

    One day early in this journey it dawned on me that they way I’d been running Interface is the way of the plunderer. Plundering something that is not mine, something that belongs to every creature on earth.

    And I said to myself “My goodness, a day must come where this is illegal, where plundering is not allowed. I mean, it must come.”

    So I said to myself “My goodness, some day people like me will end up in jail.”

    – Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, the world’s largest carpet manufacturer

    In this quote from the interesting documentary The Corporation, Ray Anderson explains how Interface started the journey towards sustainable productions. Articles on it here and here.

  • Quote

    You can always find reasons to work. There will always be one more thing to do. But when people don’t take time out, they stop being productive. They stop being happy, and that affects the morale of everyone around them.

    – Carisa Bianchi

  • Quote

    Control: Never had it, don’t want it.

    – Herb Kelleher. ex-CEO of Southwest Airlines

  • Quote

    The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

    – Hunter S. Thompson

  • Quote

    Really cool quote:

    What work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn’t have done it. Who was it who said, “Blessed is the man who has found his work”? Whoever it was he had the right idea in his mind. Mark you, he says his work–not somebody else’s work. The work that is really a man’s own work is play and not work at all. Cursed is the man who has found some other man’s work and cannot lose it. When we talk about the great workers of the world we really mean the great players of the world. The fellows who groan and sweat under the weary load of toil that they bear never can hope to do anything great. How can they when their souls are in a ferment of revolt against the employment of their hands and brains? The product of slavery, intellectual or physical, can never be great.

    – Mark Twain

  • Quote

    I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

    – Douglas Adams