A collection of quotes for entrepreneurs curated in January 2025 around a them of dreaming big in the midst of disappointments and setbacks.
Quotes for Entrepreneurs Curated in January 2025
The theme this month is dreaming big in the midst of disappointments and setbacks.
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“The expression ‘to lose one’s faith’, as one might a purse or a ring of keys, has always seemed to me rather foolish. […] Faith is not a thing which one ‘loses’, we merely cease to shape our lives by it.”
Georges Bernanos in “The Diary of a Country Priest” (1936)
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“Eternity is not something that begins after you are dead. It is going on all the time.”
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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“A father’s banjo, an aunt’s frown, a statue of St. Anthony—are these but the trivia of a lifetime? Is it only by accident that some incidents are seared into the memory, and others lost? What memories do we bring with us out of childhood? The significant ones? I think we do, even though they often seem unimportant, unrelated one to another. Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit, and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.”
Susan B. Anthony II “The Ghost in My Life” (1971)
This is the grand niece of Susan B. Anthony the famous women’s rights activist.
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“The knowledge needed for a rational economic order never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess.”
Friedrich Hayek
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“You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it’s really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas.”
Stanley Kubrick quoted in Newsweek (26 May 1980)
Reminds me of another good chess quote for entrepreneurs I curated in May 2012 by Emanuel Lasker: “When you see a good move, look for a better one.” Of course, you want to avoid analysis paralysis (stuck looking for the best move when a good enough one is available and the clock is ticking; the clock is always ticking) and know that an effective move is in service of a larger strategy:
“It is not a move, even the best move that you must seek, but a realizable plan”
Eugene Znosko-Borovsky
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“Life only gets better once you figure out how to be consistently high-energy, cautiously optimistic, playfully hard-working, and authentically likable.”
Orange Book (@orangebook_)
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FOR SUCCESS
LORD, behold our family here assembled. We thank Thee for this place in which we dwell; for the love that unites us; for the peace accorded us this day; for the hope with which we expect the morrow; for the health, the work, the food, and the bright skies, that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth, and our friendly helpers in this foreign isle. Let peace abound in our small company. Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Offenders, give us the grace to accept and to forgive offenders. Forgetful ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the forgetfulness of others. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and, down to the gates of death, loyal and loving one to another. As the clay to the potter, as the windmill to the wind, as children of their sire, we beseech of Thee this help and mercy for Christ’s sake.
Robert Louis Stevenson in “>Prayers Written at Valima” (1906)
I used this as the closing quote and a final perspective on 2025 in “Entering 2025 as a Stranger in a Strange Land.”
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“I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.”
Frank Lloyd Wright
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“People say that your first reaction is the most honest, but I disagree. Your first reaction is usually outdated. Either it’s an answer you came up with long ago and now use instead of thinking, or it’s a knee-jerk emotional response to something in your past.”
Derek Sivers in “I’m a Very Slow Thinker” from “Hell Yeah or No“
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On Hats, Haircuts, and Tattoos
I think about decisions in three ways: hats, haircuts, and tattoos.
Most decisions are like hats. Try one and if you don’t like it, put it back and try another. The cost of a mistake is low, so move quickly and try a bunch of hats.
Some decisions are like haircuts. You can fix a bad one, but it won’t be quick and you might feel foolish for awhile. That said, don’t be scared of a bad haircut. Trying something new is usually a risk worth taking. If it doesn’t work out, by this time next year you will have moved on and so will everyone else.
A few decisions are like tattoos. Once you make them, you have to live with them. Some mistakes are irreversible. Maybe you’ll move on for a moment, but then you’ll glance in the mirror and be reminded of that choice all over again. Even years later, the decision leaves a mark. When you’re dealing with an irreversible choice, move slowly and think carefully.
James Clear
I like Clear’s metaphor of three levels of commitment in a decision, but I view all decisions on the same spectrum: an irrevocable commitment of resources. Some decisions entail investing a small amount of resources, some a significant amount. All commitments require time and effort and have risks and opportunity costs. There are no “reversible decisions.” In addition, just because you commit the resources, it does not mean you will get the results you want or that they will have the impact you hope for.
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“California forest fires are not black swans. More like black ravens.”
John D. Cook (@JohnDCook)
We fail to acknowledge fire as a natural inhabitant of any forest and actually contributes to its long-term health . Combined with high wind, fire can travel well beyond the edge of the forest to find a new home, one like yours or mine.
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“The biggest lesson that can be read from 70 years of AI research is that general methods that leverage computation are ultimately the most effective, and by a large margin. The two methods that seem to scale arbitrarily in this way are search and learning. The ultimate reason for this is Moore’s law, or rather its generalization of continued exponentially falling cost per unit of computation.”
Rich Sutton “The Bitter Lesson” (2019)
I am more a fan of intelligence augmentation or amplification instead of artificial intelligence. It’s an interesting conjecture
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“Because our system is designed to encourage both differences and dissent, because its checks and balances are designed to preserve the rights of the individual and the locality against preeminent central authority, you and I, Governors, recognize how dependent we both are, one upon the other, for the successful operation of our unique and happy form of government. Our system and our freedom permit the legislative to be pitted against the executive, the State against the Federal Government, the city against the countryside, party against party, interest against interest, all in competition or in contention one with another. Our task–your task in the State House and my task in the White House–is to weave from all these tangled threads a fabric of law and progress. We are not permitted the luxury of irresolution. Others may confine themselves to debate, discussion, and that ultimate luxury–free advice. Our responsibility is one of decision–for to govern is to choose.”
President John F. Kennedy in “Address at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 4, 1962“
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“We’re gonna need an expanded program for ‘controlled burns’ of accumulated ‘well-intentioned policies,’ lest tiny sparks of harsh reality create future disasters. If only ‘red tape’ were flammable, we could controlled-burn it all away.”
Gordon Mohr (@gojomo) [xavy.com]
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“A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short.”André Maurois in “Memoirs: 1885-1967” (1970)
This is also true for successful collaborations between writers, artists, or entrepreneurs.
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“Let no one be deluded that a knowledge of the path can substitute for putting one foot in front of the other.”
Mary Caroline Richards in “Centering: In Pottery, Poetry, and the Person” (1989)
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“Live as if everything you do will eventually be known.”
Hugh Prather in “Notes on Love and Courage” (1977)
Always a good rule a thumb to help leaders avoid the temptations of power and privilege. I am guided by Prather’s injunction in negotiation: see “Honesty in Negotiations.”
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“i was born for a storm and a calm does not suit me.”
Andrew Jackson
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“Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation– the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the “impossible,” come true.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald in “The Crack-Up” (1936)
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“No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.”
Sulla
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“Any observant local knows more than any visiting scientist. Always. No exceptions.”
Roger Payne in “Among Whales” (1994)
h/t Kirk Webster in “The Limitations of Science; the Wisdom of Indigenous People; and the Farmers Who Live in Between.” Applies to entrepreneurs studying unfamiliar markets: the ground truth is hard to see from afar.
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“When your organization is out of ideas they bring on a VP of Innovation.”
Brian Norgard (@BrianNorgard)+ + +
Easy?
Easy is a word people use to describe other people’s jobs. Be careful not to assume the things you don’t know, or don’t routinely do, are easy. Would it be fair to call what you do “easy”?
https://37signals.com/31
I tend to use “straightforward” in preference to simple or easy; people understand it’s still possible to screw up the straightforward. Calling something simple or easy encourages people to neglect planning, checklists, and the necessary level of care required.
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“Change blindness in the world of facts and knowledge is also a problem. Sometimes we are exposed to new facts and simply filter them out. But more often we have to go out of our way in order to learn something new. Our blindness is not a failure to see the new fact; it’s a failure to see that the facts in our minds have the potential to be out-of-date at all.”
Samuel Arbesman in “The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date“
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“Although knowledge of how things work is sufficient to allow manipulation of nature, what humans really want to know is why things work. Children don’t ask how the sky is blue. They ask why the sky is blue.”
Michael Crichton
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“Customers must understand how a startup sees itself: what it’s trying to build and the vision it’s working toward. I would be very skeptical if startup executives can’t articulate that vision or show a roadmap. Buying enterprise software from small or upstart companies is hard enough—you don’t know if they’ll even be in business a year from now. But if they’re not focused on solving the problems you care about or are moving in a direction aligned with your goals, they’re certainly not going to be helpful.”
Micah Boster in “Micah Boster on Market Insertion“
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“It may be observed in general that the future is purchased by the present. It is not possible to secure distant or permanent happiness but by the forbearance of some immediate gratification.”
Samuel Johnson in “Rambler No. 178. Many advantages not to be enjoyed together“
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“If you cannot be loyal and avoid manipulation, then your life is going to be a succession of discovered deceits. Put others first, or your treachery will not be forgiven, and you will be abandoned. Act rationally and live an orderly life.”
Hugh Prather in “Notes on Love and Courage” (1977) [condensed from third entry.]
I meet entrepreneurs whose default action is manipulation; they have trapped themselves in “a succession of discovered deceits.” I am at a loss for how to encourage commit to an orderly life. I think some people grow up in chaos and instead of wanting to rise above it, create it whenever they cannot find it.
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“No easy problems ever come to the President of the United States. If they are easy to solve, somebody else has solved them.”
Dwight David Eisenhower (quoted in Parade Magazine 8 April 1962)
h/t Oxford Treasury of Sayings and Quotations edited by Susan Ratcliffe. This is also true for startup founders.
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“Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.”
Bertrand Russell in Skeptical Essays, “ On the Value of Skepticism” (1928)
More context:
“There are matters about which those who have investigated them are agreed; the dates of eclipses may serve as an illustration. There are other matters about which experts are not agreed.
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. Einstein’s view as to the magnitude of the deflection of light by gravitation would have been rejected by all experts not many years ago, yet it proved to be right. Nevertheless the opinion of experts, when it is unanimous, must be accepted by non-experts as more likely to be right than the opposite opinion.
The skepticism that I advocate amounts only to this:
- that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain;
- that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and
- that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.
“These propositions may seem mild, yet, if accepted, they would absolutely revolutionize human life.”
Bertrand Russell in Skeptical Essays, “On the Value of Skepticism” (1928)
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