Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because 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.

[...]

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

[...]

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

(Steve Jobs, extract from Steve Job’s Stanford Commencement Address)

The ancient track - La piste très ancienne

The ancient track

There was no hand to hold me back
That night I found the ancient track
Over the hill and strained to see
The fields that teased my memory.
This tree that wall - I knew them well,
And all the roofs and orchards fell
Familiarly upon my mind
As from a past not far behind.
I knew what shadows would be cast
As the late moon came up at last
From back of Zaman's Hill, and how
The vale would shine three hours from now.
And when the path grew steep and high,
And seemed to end against the sky,
I had no fear of what might rest
Beyond that silhouetted crest.
Straight on I walked, while all the night
Grew pale with phosphorescent light,
And wall and farmhouse gable glowed
Unearthly by the climbing road.
There was the milestone that I knew
-"Two miles to Dunwich" - now the view
Of distant spire and roofs would dawn
With ten more upward paces gone...

The was no hand to hold me back
That night I found the ancient track,
And reached the crest to see outspread
A valley of the lost and dead;
And over Zaman's Hill the horn
Of a malignant moon was born,
To light the weeds and vines that grew
On ruined walls I never knew.
The fox-fire glowed in field and bog,
And unknown waters spewed a fog
Whose curling talons mocked the thought
That I had ever known this spot.
Too well I saw from the mad scene
That my loved past had never been -
Nor was I now upon the trail
Descending to that long dead vale.
Around was fog - ahead, the spray
Of star-streams in the Milky Way...
There was no hand to hold me back
That night I found the ancient track
(Howard Phillips Lovecraft)

La piste très ancienne

Il n'y eut pas de main amie qui me retienne
La nuit où je trouvai la piste très ancienne
Qui franchissait les monts, quand je crus découvrir
Ces champs qui depuis peu hantaient mon souvenir.
Cet arbre et puis ce mur, je les reconnaissais,
Les toits et les vergers et les ombrages frais
M'étaient très familiers, présents à ma mémoire
Comme pour raconter une récente histoire.
Je savais quelles ombres je verrais s'allonger
Lorsque finalement la lune à son lever
Apparaîtrait, brillante, au-dessus de Zaman,
Pour baigner la vallée de sa lueur safran.
Et lorsque le sentier devint plus raide encor,
S'élançant vers le ciel dans un ultime essor,
Je le gravis sans peur, sans craindre un seul instant
Ce que je trouverais, là sur l'autre versant.
Je marchais vaillamment, dans la phosphorescence
Du clair de lune pâle, dont la lumière dense
Révélait les pignons, les murs, les colombiers
De ces fermes spectrales qui bordaient le sentier.
J'aperçus une borne et je la reconnus -
« Une lieue pour Dunwich » - et maintenant la vue
De lointaines maisons et d'un clocher pointu
S'étendrait devant moi, après dix pas de plus...

Il n'y eut pas de main amie qui me retienne
La nuit où je trouvai la piste très ancienne
Et atteignis la crête pour voir les contreforts
D'une vallée perdue, d'une vallée de morts :
Au-dessus de Zaman, le mince croissant d'une
Maléfique et sombre et redoutable lune
Se levait sur les lierres et les pierres moussues
De ruines lézardées que je n'avais pas connues.
Les feux follets dansaient sur landes et marais.
Des étranges ruisseaux une brume montait
Dont les grises volutes niaient à mon effroi
Que jadis j'avais pu connaître cet endroit.
Sous mes yeux éclatait l'amère vérité,
Mon passé bien-aimé n'avait pas existé
Je ne me trouvais pas non plus sur cette sente
Descendant vers la tombe pleine d'âmes errantes.
Autour de moi la brume - au-delà la jonchée,
De poussières d'étoiles parmi la Voie Lactée ...
Il n’y eut pas de main amie qui me retienne
La nuit où je trouvai la piste très ancienne.
(Howard Phillips Lovecraft)

For example

Example isn't another way to teach ; it's the only way.
(Albert Einstein)

What you do is who you become

The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way. (Heraclitus)

Original Sin

We are sinful not merely because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not eaten of the Tree of Life.
(Franz Kafka)

We are the universe...

If Mind brought humans forth from Matter, enabling the universe to comprehend itself - to do its own homework.
(Gregory Benford)

Side effect

Science is like sex : sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.
(Richard Feynman)

A vague idea

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have to make it precise.
(Bertrand Russell)

A man of experience

Experience is what enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
(Earl Wilson)

Where speech is not...

True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.
(Thomas Hobbs, Leviathan)

Dare to be wrong

Dare to be wrong, and to dream.
(Friedrich von Schiller)

Escaping the old ideas

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.
(John Maynard Keynes)

The activities of a philosopher

Philosophy can be said to consist of three activities : to see commonsense answer, to get yourself so deeply into the problem that the commonsense answer is unbearable, and to get from that situation back to the commonsense answer.
(Wittgenstein)

Writing a novel

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
(Edgar Lawrence Doctorow)

The point of Philosophy

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
(Bertrand Russell)

Make it interesting !

Knowledge which is felt to be boring is of little use but knowledge which is assimilated eagerly becomes a permanent possession.
(Inconnu)

The brain, the brain...

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
(Lyall Watson)

Plasticity is a double-edged sword

Plasticity is a double-edged sword : the more flexible an organism is the greater the variety of maladaptive as well as adaptive, behaviors it can develop ; the more teachable it is, the more fully it can profit from the experiences of its ancestors and associates and the more it risks being exploited by its ancestors and associates.
(Donald Symons)

True optimism

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
(Winston Churchill)

The danger of knowledge

If a little knowledge is dangerous where is the man who has so much that he is out of danger ?
(Thomas Huxley)