“If my idea isn’t worth copying then it’s not a very good idea. If my product or business can’t handle a new competitor, then it’s not a very good product.”
- Nathan Kontny
From this interesting post on competition: Group email address. Did 37Signals Copy my idea?
(thanks Nate)
“If you perceive the universe as being a universe of abundance, then it will be. If you think of the universe as one of scarcity, then it will be. … I always thought there was enough of everything to go around-that there are enough ideas in the universe and enough nourishment.”
— Milton Glaser
(via Maira Popova’s TOC Keynote, very end)
“Enthusiasm is the element of success in every thing. It is the light that leads, and the strength that lifts men on and up in the great struggles of scientific pursuits and of professional labor. It robs endurance of difficulty, and makes a pleasure of duty.”
- Bishop Doane
(via Wiki Quotes)
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
(via Zach)
“Invest your life in what you love!”
- Jessica Jackley
“I’m not a genius. I’m just a tremendous bundle of experience.”
- R. Buckminster Fuller
“If you look at the careers of great entrepreneurs and you look at the moment they took their plunge, the plunge is rarely a great financial or material risk, it’s a social risk. At the moment they started their new businesses, everyone around them said ‘you’re an idiot’.”
— Malcolm Gladwell
(via rusty)
“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”
- Andy Warhol
(via this isn’t happiness)
“The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”
-Joseph Addison
(via the Happiness Project)
“Make it simple but significant!”
- Don Draper in Mad Men
6. “Everything good needs time. Don’t do work in a hurry. Go into details; it pays in every way. Time means power for your work. Mediocrity is always in a rush; but whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with consideration. For genius is nothing more nor less than doing well what anyone can do badly.”
- Amelia E. Barr
9 Rules for Success by British Novelist Amelia E. Barr, 1901
“You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.”
- Henry Ford
(via)
“You should bring something into the world that wasn’t in the world before. It doesn’t matter what that is. It doesn’t matter if it’s a table or a film or gardening — everyone should create. You should do something, then sit back and say, “I did that.’”
- Ricky Gervais
From this Ricky Gervais Interview.
(via Mighty Girl)
“The best way to honor someone who has said something smart and useful is to say something back that is smart and useful. The other way to honor them is to go do something with what you learned.
Good listeners get what they deserve–better speakers.”
- Seth Godin on How to Listen
‘Be so good they can’t ignore you.’
- Steve Martin
(via this excellent post over on Michael’s blog)
“Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.”
-Leo Tolstoy
(via Gretchen)
“Success corrupts and limits potential as soon as you start to think you could do it alone.”
- Scott Belsky
“I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime.”
- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
- Kurt Vonnegut
(via Carly)
“What we learned from conversation with high achievers is that challenging our assumptions, objectives, at times even our goals, may sometimes push us further than we thought possible.”
Secret Ingredient for Success, by Camille Sweeney
“Avoid compulsively making things worse.”
- Debbie Millman
Debbie was interviewed in The Great Discontent. Read it here.
