Commonplace Truths and Useful Thoughts

[tesseract]

I thought it would be nice to have a place to pass along proverbs and useful saws. Please feel free to share bits of wisdom here with your forum members. I caught this today and would like to pass it along.

Mexican proverb: "The house does not rest upon the ground, but upon a woman."

[arthurs]

"I don't have to taste dog **** to know I won't like it"

~ My Dad in response to being urged to "just try something"

[dguarnaccia]

"Better is the enemy of good."

Of course, if we actually listened to that advice, we'd be out of this hobby :)

[fitzwaddle]

"Better is the enemy of good."

Of course, if we actually listened to that advice, we'd be out of this hobby :)

"Perfect is the enemy of good" is the original quotation (Voltaire) - better is just - well, better. :poke:

[Sandbagger]

"you're only as young as the women you feel... and lately, I've been feeling about 24."

[skullguise]

Variations on a theme

"I don't think so....therefore, I probably am not"

"I'm pink....therefore, I'm spam"

And something useful:

"Eagles may soar, but weasels will never get caught in an aircraft engine"

[dguarnaccia]

"Perfect is the enemy of good" is the original quotation (Voltaire) - better is just - well, better. :poke:

ouch! Well..I stole it from some french canadian guy, so go figure ;)

[Ray3]

"You can defend against evil, but you are powerless against stupidity"

"You don't learn anything when you are talking"

[fitzwaddle]

Ninety percent of everything is crap. - Theodore Sturgeon

Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. - Michael Crichton

A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch paper cannot be understood. - Mark Ardis

We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones. -Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others. - Friedrich Nietzsche

So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work. - Peter Drucker

Many a man who falls in love with a dimple make the mistake of marrying the whole girl. - Evan Esar

The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided. - Casey Stengel

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made. - Jean Giraudoux

I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something. - Jackie Mason

(the last one seems to apply the most here)

[django1]

ouch! Well..I stole it from some french canadian guy, so go figure ;)

Well I think you had it right.

The original is "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" which translates literally as "The better is the enemy of the good"

Wikiquote gives
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
and
"The best is the enemy of the good."
as variant translations.

As a native French speaker I can tell you that the words "perfect" and "best" are not in the original.

My above post illustrates another Voltaire quote:

"The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.":biglaugh:

[django1]

"I don't have to taste dog **** to know I won't like it"

~ My Dad in response to being urged to "just try something"

We have to get your dad and my mom together...:yes:

[Mike_TX]

"Science is a full contact sport."
- (my PhD mentor)

[fitzwaddle]

As a native French speaker I can tell you that the words "perfect" and "best" are not in the original.

I can't possibly be wrong, I found it on the internet! :sly:

Wrong or not - I find the "perfect" interpretation more compelling.

[Mike_TX]

A few quotes...

- Andretti, Mario
“If everything’s under control, you’re probably moving too slow.”

- Cage, John
“If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.”

- Drucker, Peter
"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."

- Feynman, Richard, American Physicist
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts."

- Holt, J. Gordon
"The better the ad, the worse the product."

- Lang, Michael (about Woodstock)
"The time was right, the place was right, the spirit was right, and we were right.
What resulted was a celebration and confirmation of our humanity -- one of the few instances in history, to my knowledge, when joy became big news."

- Lenin
“The best and quickest way to undermine any society is through it’s music.”

- Mayo, Charles H.
1931 – “It took the world from the day of its creation to the time of the sixteenth century to raise a doubting thomas of sufficient mental strength and courage to state that questions were not answered by authority, but by experiment.”

- Moby
“I had an epiphany a few years ago where I was out at a celebrity party and it suddenly dawned on me that I had yet to meet a celebrity who is as smart and interesting as any of my friends.”

- Nietzsche, Friedrich
"A “scientific” interpretation of the world, as you understand it, might therefore be one of the most stupid of all possible interpretations of the world, meaning that it would be one of the poorest in meaning."

"Without music life would be a mistake."

- Pauling, Linus
"The first step in applying the scientific method consists in being curious about the world."

- von Recklinghausen, Daniel R.
"If it measures good and sounds bad, -- it is bad.
If it sounds good and measures bad, -- you've measured the wrong thing."

- Sharma, Chris
“In Zen they talk about keeping a beginner’s mind and experiencing each moment fresh and completely open without the hindrances of expectations and regret.

"The expert’s mind thinks it knows everything and therefore sets up extra standards that are not really necessary.”

[mojave]

"A married man should forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing!"