Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

– from Steve Jobs' Commencement address in 2005

We are repeatedly what we do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

– Aristotle

Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.

– Henri Bergson

A man can't think his way to proper action; He has to act his way to proper thinking.

– Aristotle

It is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.

– Clay Shirky

Art is anything you can get away with.

– Marshall McLuhan

Promotion wins quarters. Innovation wins decades.

– P&G CEO Bob McDonald

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

– Mark Twain

If you don’t take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful, that hasn’t been seen before?

– Francis Ford Coppola      

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.

– Lawrence Pearsall Jacks

Many people think that technology is a problem in that it dehumanizes people. And, instead, I think it’s a great thing because it humanizes objects.

– Paola Antonelli

In order to change something, you actually have to do something

– Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia

Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious.

– David Broder

Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.

– Jim Rohn

I have seen no more evident monstrosity and miracle in the world than myself. We become habituated to anything strange by use and time; but the more I frequent myself and know myself, the more my deformity astonishes me, and the less I understand myself.

– Montaigne

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

– Dorothy Parker

When asked "What thing about humanity surprises you the most?", the Dalai Lama answered: "Man…. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

– Machiavelli

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are headed.

– Lao Tzu

I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

– Michael Jordan, Nike Commercial entitled “Failure”

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

– Oscar Wilde

No plan survives the battle field.

– Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

Capitalism is based on the economics of the industrial era, economics of scarcity. And they don’t fit the information world.

– Monitor Group founder Chris Meyer at TED Global

Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.

– Hunter S. Thompson

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.

– Gary Provost

And, Charles Kettering, my current favorite, left us too many to choose.