description
The personal blog of Brian McBreen. Items of interest, topics of study and the occasional essay.
“Do not internalize the industrial model. You are not one of the myriad of interchangeable pieces, but a unique human being, and if you’ve got something to say, say it, and think well of yourself while you’re learning to say it better.”
— David Mamet
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
— Sun Tzu (thanks @BobLarrivee)
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Eloquence didn’t imply intelligence or deep analysis.”
— Ender Wiggin, Ender in Exile
“Ask yourself how many shots you would have saved if you always developed a strategy before you hit, always played within your capabilities, never lost your temper, and never got down on yourself.”
— Jack Nicklaus
“Imagine a world where everyone was constantly learning, a world where what you wondered was more interesting than what you knew, and curiosity counted for more than certain knowledge. Imagine a world where what you gave away was more valuable than what you held back, where joy was not a dirty word, where play was not forbidden after your eleventh birthday. Imagine a world in which the business of business was to imagine worlds people might actually want to live in someday. Imagine a world created by the people, for the people not perishing from the earth forever.”
— From The Cluetrain Manifesto by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger
“Just think about it deeply and then forget it… and an idea will jump up in your face.”
— Don Draper, Mad Men.
“Read not the Times. Read the Eternities.”
— From the essay Life Without Principle by Henry David Thoreau, who was complaining about gossip and the trivialities of the daily news long before any of us were born. (via jackcheng)
“Except in exceptional circumstances, I don’t like consulting books on matters which seem to me to be capable of being worked upon and dealt with through isolated mental activity, on the basis of direct personal observation.”
— Paul Valéry
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
— Margaret Thatcher
“The things I most like to read, which force me to read them - and re-read them - are those I feel are moving me forward the most, which are not concerned with local matters, but growth, promise, extension - an outward detour which leads me back to myself, more enlightened and better armed.”
— Paul Valéry
“Many of our examples suggest that clarity and excellence in thinking is very much like clarity and excellence in the display of data. When principles of design replicate principles of thought, the act of arranging information becomes an act of insight.”
— Edward Tufte, Visual Explanations
“If you look after truth and goodness, Beauty looks after herself.”
— Eric Gill
