A Pensieve

[a-pensieve]

The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.

T.H. White, The Once and Future King

[a-pensieve]

...the goal of ink and wash painting is not simply to reproduce the appearance of the subject, but to capture its spirit. To paint a horse, the ink wash painting artist must understand its temperament better than its muscles and bones. To paint a flower, there is no need to perfectly match its petals and colors, but it is essential to convey its liveliness and fragrance. East Asian ink wash painting may be regarded as a form of expressionistic art that captures the unseen.

wikipedia on ink wash drawing

[a-pensieve]

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.

— Winston Churchill

[a-pensieve]

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

- Winston Churchill

[a-pensieve]

If you're going through hell, keep going.

Winston Churchill

[a-pensieve]

Search the parks in all the cities. You'll find no statues to committees.

David Ogilvy, in response to the rise of Japanese management style of concensus — teams vs allstars — in the 1980s

[a-pensieve]

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

Albert Einstein

[a-pensieve]

...the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

Jack Kerouac

[a-pensieve]

Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn.

Gore Vidal

[a-pensieve]

The difference between an inventor and an entrepreneur is an inventor comes up with an idea, an entrepreneur is able to take the idea and turn it into an opportunity.

Andy Rachleff

[a-pensieve]

Instead of making myself write the book I ought to write, the novel that was expected of me, I conjured up the book I myself would have liked to read, the sort by an unknown writer, from another age and another country, discovered in an attic

Italo Calvino, 20th century writer & journalist

[a-pensieve]

The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.

Bertrand Russell, Nobel Laureate in Literature 

[a-pensieve]

When people make great art, it hurts me... you know, it inspires me.

Kanye West

[a-pensieve]

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.

Bertrand Russell, Nobel Laureate in Literature

[a-pensieve]

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, Polish poet

[a-pensieve]

In this very real world, good doesn't drive out evil. Evil doesn't drive out good. But the energetic displaces the passive.

Bill Bernbach, founder & creative director of DDB

[a-pensieve]

It is insight into human nature that is the key to the communicator's skill. For whereas the writer is concerned with what he puts into his writings, the communicator is concerned with what the reader gets out of it. He therefore becomes a student of how people read or listen.

Bill Bernbach, founder & creative director of DDB