Ivan > Ivan's Quotes

“See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.”
― Douglas Adams

“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right.”
― Ricky Gervais

“You won’t burn in hell. But be nice anyway.”
― Ricky Gervais

“I see Atheists are fighting and killing each other again, over who doesn't believe in any God the most. Oh, no..wait.. that never happens.”
― Ricky Gervais

“You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
― Bob Dylan

“Behind every beautiful thing, there's some kind of pain.”
― Bob Dylan

“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”
― Albert Camus

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

“You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

“Creativity comes from applying things you learn in other fields to the field you work in.”
― Aaron Swartz

“Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity.”
― Aaron Swartz

“And learning, for Musk, is simply the process of “downloading data and algorithms into your brain.”3 Among his many frustrations with formal classroom learning is the “ridiculously slow download speed” of sitting in a classroom while a teacher explains something, and to this day, most of what he knows he’s learned through reading.”
― Tim Urban, The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why

“Instead of a blank canvas, school hands kids a coloring book and tells them to stay within the lines.4 What”
― Tim Urban, The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why

“It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”
― Elon Musk

“One thing that Musk holds in the highest regard is resolve, and he respects people who continue on after being told no.”
― Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Inventing the Future

“It bothers Musk a bit that his kids won’t suffer like he did. He feels that the suffering helped to make him who he is and gave him extra reserves of strength and will. “They might have a little adversity at school, but these days schools are so protective,” he said. “If you call someone a name, you get sent home. When I was going to school, if they punched you and there was no blood, it was like, ‘Whatever. Shake it off.’ Even if there was a little blood, but not a lot, it was fine. What do I do? Create artificial adversity? How do you do that? The biggest battle I have is restricting their video game time because they want to play all the time. The rule is they have to read more than they play video games. They also can’t play completely stupid video games. There’s one game they downloaded recently called Cookies or something. You literally tap a fucking cookie. It’s like a Psych 101 experiment. I made them delete the cookie game. They had to play Flappy Golf instead, which is like Flappy Bird, but at least there is some physics involved.”
― Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Inventing the Future

“I would like to allocate more time to dating, though. I need to find a girlfriend. That’s why I need to carve out just a little more time. I think maybe even another five to ten—how much time does a woman want a week? Maybe ten hours? That’s kind of the minimum? I don’t know.”
― Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Inventing the Future

“Constantly seek criticism. A well thought out critique of whatever you’re doing is as valuable as gold.”
― Elon Musk

“If you told him that you made a particular choice because ‘it was the standard way things had always been done,’ he’d kick you out of a meeting fast.”
― Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Inventing the Future

“I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it’s like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.”
― Elon Musk

“I'm not trying to be anyone's savior. I'm just trying to think about the future and not be sad.”
― Elon Musk

“I’d rather play video games, write software, and read books than try and get an A if there’s no point in getting an A.”
― Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future

“No, I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated”
― Elon Musk

“When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far, it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning.”
― Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY - MAN

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
― Isaac Asimov