Brainy Thoughts

“The difference between ‘involvement’ and ‘commitment’ is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was ‘involved’ – the pig was ‘committed’.”

Author: Unknown

“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

Donald Rumsfeld (American Secretary of Defense)

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”

Author: Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

“Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.”

“For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat and wrong.”

Author(s) Unknown

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a late bloomer as long as you don’t miss the flower show.”

Author: Jane Fonda

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Author: Nelson Mandela
Rolihlahla “Nelson” Mandela (born July 18, 1918) is a former President of South Africa, was one of its chief anti-apartheid activists, and was also an anti-apartheid saboteur and guerrilla leader. He is considered by most people to be a freedom fighter, but the apartheid regime naturally considered him a terrorist. He spent his childhood in the Thembu chiefdom before embarking on a career in law.

“Talk does not cook rice.”

Chinese proverb

“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”

Author: Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Corollary:

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”

“If you know but do not do, then in fact you do not know.”

Author: Unknown

“Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart give yourself to it.”

Buddha

“Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most.”

Author: Ashley Brilliant

“A drunk mans’ words are a sober mans’ thoughts.”

“A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.”

“There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

Author: John F. Kennedy – Thirty-fifth President of the USA.

The Cuban Missile Crisis.
The,Cold War’ between the United States and the Soviet Union almost turned into a real war in October 1962 when an American spy plane secretly flew over Cuba and took pictures of military construction sites. President Kennedy saw from these pictures that the Russians were building nuclear missile launchers in Cuba, only 90 miles from Florida. President Kennedy faced a very difficult decision. Should he ignore the missiles even though they were very close to the United States? Should he use force to remove the missiles, even at the risk of starting a nuclear war?

“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth. “

George Bernard Shaw

“Be interested.”

Everyone wants to be interesting – but the vitalizing thing is to be interested. Keep a sense of curiosity. Discover new things. Care. Risk failure. Reach out.

Author: John W. Gardener

“Let life not become a comb that nature gives us after we have lost our hair.”

Author: Unknown

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

“I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation. “

George Bernard Shaw

“Your ability to generate power is directly proportional to your ability to relax.”

Author: David Allen

“It is the act of forgiveness that opens up the only way to think creatively about the future at all.”

Desmond Wilson

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are like. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, they make them.”

Author: George Bernard Shaw (1856, 1950), Irish playwright. Best known for Pygmalion (1913). Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925

“I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.”

Author: Ashley Brilliant

“Your identity is what you’ve committed yourself to.”

Author: John W. Gardner

“The barnacle is confronted with an existential decision about where it’s going to live. Once it decides, it spends the rest of its life with its head cemented to a rock.”

Original Author Unknown.

“The greatest and noblest pleasure which men can have in the world is to discover new truths; and the next is to shake off old prejudices.”

Author: Frederick the Great

Alice: … “would you tell me please which way we should go from here?”
The Cat: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”

Lewis Carroll (1832 – 1898)

“If you never look at the hole in the donut, you will never see the whole donut itself.”

Author: Jean-Luc Mommaerts – www.aurelis.org

“A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it.”

Author: Michelangelo

“You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.”

William Blake (November 28, 1757- August 12, 1827) was an English poet, mystic, painter and printmaker, or “Author & Printer,” as he signed many of his books.

“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example”

Author: Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)
Pseudo-name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens

US humorist, novelist, short story author, and wit; wrote novels “Tom Sawyer” 1876, “Huckleberry Finn” 1884, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” 1889

“Solvitas perambulum”

Roman saying, which literally means “solve it while you walk.”
Author: the Romans.

“If I said to you that I wanted to measure your efficiency at running, and in trial1 allowed you to use 100percent of your body, including arms and legs. Imagine we videoed your running and examined it for style & mechanical efficiency. Most of us would score pretty highly.

It is the same with your brain. When you use only one side of your cortical skills, your creativity is nothing in comparison to what it can be.
When you use both sides, your creative potential becomes infinite.”

Author: Tony Buzan; from his book “The Power of Creative Intelligence”

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

Michelangelo (full name Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni) (March 6, 1475 – February 18, 1564) was a Renaissance sculptor, architect, painter, and poet.

For Michelangelo, the job of the sculptor is to free the forms that, he believed, were already inside the stone.

“I got no time That I got to get to Where I don’t need to be”

“But you cant stop nothing
If you got no control
Of the thoughts in your mind
That you kept in, you know
You dont know nothing
But you dont need to know
The wisdoms in the trees
Not the glass windows
You cant stop wishing
If you dont let go
But things that you find
And you lose, and you know
You keep on rolling
Put the moment on hold
The frames too bright
So put the blinds down low”

Author: Jack Johnson, song “Breakdown“, from album “In Between Dreams” (2005)

“If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?”

“Only dead fish go with the flow.”

Authors: Unknown

“Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid. ”

“Don’t trust reality. After all, it’s only a collective hunch.”

Authors Unknown

Brainy Thoughts given by the man up a pole:

“Protect me from knowing what I don’t need to know.
Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don’t know.
Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things I decided not to know about.”

Author: Douglas Adams
From,Mostly Harmless’

“All there is to writing is having ideas. To learn to write is to learn to have ideas.”

Author: Robert Frost
American poet, winner of Pulitzer prize in 1923, ’30, ’36, & ’42

“Education is . . . hanging around until you’ve caught on.”

Author: Robert Frost
American poet, winner of Pulitzer prize in 1923, ’30, ’36, & ’42
from 30-Jan-63

“If you learn some stuff, you can learn even more more stuff”

BrainyThoughts.com – Jan 2005

I think Nietzsche liked my quote, so he paraphrased it;

“No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

“Just do it.”

Author: Unknown
Popularised over the past decade by a certain sports clothing manufacturer.

“Without purpose, all material success is meaningless.”

Author: Unknown.

“A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.”

Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose original profession and calling was as a Unitarian minister, left the ministry to pursue a career in writing and public speaking. Emerson became one of America’s best known and best loved 19th century figures.

“You teach best what you most need to learn.”

Author: Richard Bach (1936-)
American author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull
from Illusions

“We all like to congregate at boundary conditions. Where land meets water. Where earth meets air. Where bodies meet mind. Where space meets time. We like to be on one side, and look at the other.”

Author: Douglas Noel Adams (1952-2001)
English humorist & science fiction writer
from Mostly Harmless

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

Author: Lao Tzu (c.604-531 B.C.)
Chinese philosopher & mystic, founder of Taoism

“Worry is a misuse of the imagination.”

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.”

Authors Unknown.

“Softly, softly, catchee monkey”

Author Unknown.

“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Great minds discuss ideas.
Average minds discuss events.
Small minds discuss people.”

Author Unknown.

“Happiness isn’t having what you want, it’s wanting what you have.”

“If 50 million people say a foolish thing, it’s still a foolish thing.”

Author’s Unknown.

“Don’t believe everything you think.”

“Eagles may soar, but rabbits don’t get sucked into jet engines.”

“Push the envelope,
watch it bend.”

Brainy Thought

“A good vision is a feasible dream that makes future and past intensely alive in the present.”

Source: Aurelis Website

“What is required for effective change is continuity of sincere effort to release and let go of inefficient thought patterns from the past.”

Author: Doc Childre

“F u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng.”
Anonymous Brainy Quote

“All generalisations are dangerous, even this one.”
Anonymous Brainy Quote

Never argue with a fool, people might not know the difference.

Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.

Heisenberg indetermination principle applied to ill luck:
The better you know the amount of ill luck that will strike you, the worse you know when this will happen, and vice-versa.

Relativistic correction of Murphy’s law:
Whether things can go wrong or not, it depends on your frame of reference.

Corollary (otherwise said: ill luck is actually absolute):
Regardless of your frame of reference, things will go wrong anyway.

Murphy’s Law of Thermodynamics
Things get worse under pressure.

The Murphy Philosophy
Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse.

Quantization Revision of Murphy’s Laws
Everything goes wrong all at once.

Murphy’s Constant
Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value

Murphy’s Law of Research
Enough research will tend to support whatever theory.

Addition to Murphy’s Laws
In nature, nothing is ever right. Therefore, if everything is going right … something is wrong.

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

Rule of Accuracy: When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer.
Corollary: Provided, of course, that you know there is a problem.

Nothing is as easy as it looks.

Everything takes longer than you think.

Everything takes longer than it takes.

In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.

“You only grow up when you realise that no-one is coming to the rescue.”

Author Unknown.

“Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”

Author unknown.

“A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.”

“After all is said and done, more is said than done.”

“Always do what your boss wants. If you don’t like what your boss wants, change what your boss wants. But always do what your boss wants.”

Ken Blanchard & Hal Burrows, The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey

“A lie would make no sense, unless the truth were felt to be dangerous.”

Carl Jung Quote

“If you want someone to be for you, never let him feel that he is dependant on you. Make him feel that you are in some way dependant on him.”

General George C. Marshall Quote

“If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.”

George W. Bush Quote

“If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.”

Albert Einstein Quote

“Judge not, lest ye be judged judgmental”

Florence King

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”

Sun Tzu – Quote – The Art of War

Desiderata

”
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
“

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

A poet and lawyer from Terre Haute, Indiana, who lived from 1872 to 1945. It has been reported that Desiderata was inspired by an urge that Ehrmann wrote about in his diary:

“I should like, if I could, to leave a humble gift — a bit of chaste prose that had caught up some noble moods.”

Desiderata was produced as a single record by Warner Brothers in 1971, and as a track on LazyBoy’s,TV‘ album by Universal records in 2004.

Desiderata

“You are only as rich and diverse as the freaks you spend time with.”

“The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created–created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination. “

Author: John Schaar

“Everything that is created is created twice, first in the mind, and then in concrete form.”

All works of Art, all technological inventions, all great works of architecture, and even a child’s sandcastle are all constructed through creating first in the mind with ideas, and then manifesting in the world through action.

“Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out. “

James Bryant Conant
US chemist, diplomat, & educator (1893 – 1978)

The list of new words to appear in the 2006 Oxford English Dictionary;

TESTICULATING – Waving your arms around and talking bollocks.

BLAMESTORMING - Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER – A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS - The process by which people seem to absorb success and advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.

SALMON DAY – The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die.

CUBE FARM – An office filled with cubicles.

PRAIRIE DOGGING – When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see that’s going
on.

(This also applies to applause from a promotion because there may be
cake.)

MOUSE POTATO – The on-line, wired generation’s answer to the couch potato.

SITCOMs - Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids or start a “home business”.

STRESS PUPPY – A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE – The fine art of whacking the cr*p out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

ADMINISPHERE - The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the “adminisphere” are often
profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve. This is often affiliated with the dreaded”administrivia” needless paperwork and processes.

OHNOSECOND - That minuscule fraction of time in which you realise that you’ve just made a BIG mistake (e.g. you’ve hit ‘reply all’)

AEROPLANE BLONDE – One who has bleached/dyed her hair but still has a ‘black box’.

AUSSIE KISS – Similar to a French Kiss, but given down under.

BEER COAT – The invisible but warm coat worn when walking home after a booze cruise at 3 in the morning.

BEER COMPASS – The invisible device that ensures your safe arrival home after booze cruise, even though you’re too drunk to remember where you live, how you got here, and where you’ve come from.

BOBFOC – Body Off Baywatch, Face Off Crimewatch.

BREAKING THE SEAL – Your first pee in the pub, usually after 2 hours of drinking. After breaking the seal of your bladder, repeat visits to the toilet will be required every 10 or 15 minutes for the rest of the night.

JOHNNY-NO-STARS – A young man of substandard intelligence, the typical adolescent who works in a burger restaurant. The ‘no-stars’ comes from the badges displaying stars that staff at fast-food restaurants often wear to show their level of training.

MILLENNIUM DOMES – The contents of a Wonderbra, i.e. extremely impressive when viewed from the outside, but there’s actually nought in there worth seeing.

MONKEY BATH – A bath so hot, that when lowering yourself in, you go: “Oo! Oo! Ho! Aa! Aa! Aa!”.

MYSTERY BUS – The bus that arrives at the pub on Friday night while you’re in the toilet after your 10th pint, and whisks away all the unattractive people so the pub is suddenly packed with stunners when you come back in.

MYSTERY TAXI – The taxi that arrives at your place on Saturday morning before you wake up, whisks away the stunner you slept with, and leaves a 10-Pinter in your bed instead.

SALAD DODGER – An excellent phrase for an overweight person.

“The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”

Author Unknown.

“Prejudice seldom shows much reason.”

BrainyThoughts.com

“The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, and the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”

Albert Einstein Quote

“If you don’t know which way to turn,
You don’t know where you are.”

Author Unknown.

Plato said; “In vino veritas” (“Truth in wine”)

BrainyThoughts.com postulates; “With beer, anything is possible”

“In my time as Prime Minister, I have found that the hard part is not taking the decision, it is spotting when it has to be taken. It is understanding the difference between the challenges that have to be managed and those that have to be confronted and overcome. “

Tony Blair

Source Prime Minister Tony Blair’s address to the EU Parliment.

“Ideals survive through change, they die through inertia in the face of challenge.”

Tony Blair – UK Prime Minister
Today – in a public statement about the European Constitution and survival of the EU.

“We become the things we do.”

Author Unknown.

The golden rule in human relations is;

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

But it could be said that the Platinum Rule is;

“Do unto others as they want to be done unto.”

There is a saying in professional sports, that;

“Ordinary athletes train to increase their chance of winning.
True champions train to eliminate their chance of loosing.”

“To be truthful means using the customary metaphor, in moral terms: the obligation to lie according to a fixed convention, to lie herdlike in a style obligatory for all.”

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
(1844-1900) German Philosopher, Poet

“There are no facts, only interpretations.”

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
(1844-1900) German Philosopher, Poet

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
And if I am only for myself, what am I?
And if not now – then when?”

Hillel – Jewish rabbi and teacher 70 BC-10 AD

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner:

“Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.”

When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied:

“The one I feed the most.”

“If you understand, things are just as they are;
if you do not understand, things are just as they are.”

Zen proverb

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

Victor Frankl – Author of the ground-breaking book Mans Search for Meaning.

Self-Image

“This is the true joy in life: the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

George Bernard Shaw

Irish dramatist, critic, and social reformer George Bernard Shaw used his plays and essays as vehicles for his theories and causes, some of which were very political and economic socialism, a new religion of creative evolution, antivivisection, vegetarianism, and spelling reform.

“Lose this day loitering – ’twill be the same story
To-morrow – and the next more dilatory;
Each indecision brings its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days,
Are you in earnest? sieze this very minute -
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated -
Begin it, and then the work will be completed!”

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 – 1832)

“Everything in life is a paradox,
The less you care whether you get approval,
The more you get.”

Wayne W. Dyer

“Before enlightenment
Chopping wood
Carrying water.

After enlightenment
Chopping wood
Carrying water.”

Zen Proverb

Founded in China in the sixth century and widespread in Japan by the twelfth century, Zen Buddhism emphasizes achieving enlightenment by the most direct means possible.

“If man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer”

Henry David Thoreau, from Walden

“When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.”

Leo Burnett

“Most plans are just inaccurate predictions”

Ben Bayol

“The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been.”

Alan Ashley-Pitt

You know how people often say that we humans only use 2% of our brain power, well this guy Win Wegner has figured out some techniques to access a bunch more of it!

If any of these keywords sound interesting to you, then check out the links;
Image-Streaming in brief
Image-Streaming
The Einstein Factor
Genius Code
The Socratic Method
Over the Wall
High Thinktank
Einstein and Socrates

All BrainyThoughts Approved good reading!!

“The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.”

Richard Bach

“Noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”
Martin Luther King, Jr – Talking about Henry David Thoreau, in his autobiography.

“Be true to your work, your word, and your friend. “
Henry David Thoreau

Lyrics
It is interesting to note the invisible growing subconscious longing that crowds & listeners have for something of meaning, regardless of whether they understand it or not.

More often than not, a good musical band will have a talented lyricist, who is obviously well-read!

If you have any good lyric’s, email them to me; matt [at] brainythoughts [dot] com

Extra-for-experts: See if you can find reference from where those lyrical ideas may have originally come from.

“Laws do not act, people do. If you act, according to a law, and commit a wrong, it is you who has committed that wrong.”
Paraphrased Henry David Thoreau – Civil Disobedience