Quotes For Entrepreneurs–June 2010

You can follow @skmurphy to get these quotes for entrepreneurs hot off the mojo wire or wait until the end of the month when they are collected on the blog. Enter your E-mail if you would like new blog posts to your inbox.

Quotes For Entrepreneurs–June 2010

+ + +

“Amateurs practice until they can get it right;  pros practice until they can’t get it wrong.”
Mark Zimmerman in “Makes Perfect” (although may not be original with him)

+ + +

A startup walks into a bar and says “I’m going to revolutionize the way people walk into bars.”
Kevin Owocki

+ + +

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.”
Louis L’Amour opening lines to “Lonely on the Mountain“

+ + +

“If people who make millions of dollars a year were as honest as people who do not, we all might be a whole lot better off.”
Stanley Bing in “New York. Honestly.“

+ + +

“We cannot recapture the past, but sometimes it can recapture us–if we are not careful.”
Thomas Sowell in “Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene (June-8-2010)”

+ + +

“All is pattern, all life, be we can’t always see the pattern when we are part of it.”
Belva Plain in Crescent City (1984)

More context:

“A butterfly had settled on her wrist; its resting wings, erect as sails, were opalescent mauve. The common wood nymph, probably, she thought, surprising herself with this recollection from the frontispiece in one of David’s enormous books. The lovely substance of the living wings was patterned like Oriental silk. All is pattern, all life, but we can’t always see the pattern when we’re part of it.”

Belva Plain in Crescent City (1984)

+ + +

“Were all men equal tonight, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier tomorrow.”
Elizabeth Gaskell

One reason to get out of bed to get to a 7:30am Bootstrappers Breakfast.

+ + +

“The Revolution will not be televised. The Revolution will be no rerun, brothers. The Revolution — will be live.”
Gil Scott-Heron, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,

+ + +

“Best Practices, n.: Making the same mistakes everyone else does.”
Chris Barts in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283262

+ + +

“I got a feeling, and it won’t go away. oh, no.
Just one thing, then I’ll be okay.
I need a miracle every day.”
John Perry Barlow lyricist on “I Need a Miracle”

+ + +

“Life is full of miracles, but they are not always the ones that we pray for. ”
Eve Arden

+ + +

“The three requirements for influence are relevance, credibility, and insight.”
Dan Holden (@Dan_Holden)

I really like Dan’s triad of relevance, credibility, and insight;  any two are probably not sufficient. Deft influence can unlock tremendous value.

+ + +

“Empires build Death Stars, rebels build X-Wing fighters”
Sean Murphy “Finding a Co-Founder: 3 Months is a Long Time“

+ + +

“The human race has now become almost a single entity, divided by time zones rather than the natural frontiers of geography.”
Arthur C. Clarke

see also Beat the Clock

+ + +

“Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.”
Leo Rosten

+ + +

“History unfolds in the space between difficult and impossible.”
John Hayward in “The Pillars of Apathy“

More context

Every time I write something optimistic about the future of the United States, I hear from some doomsayers who assure me things will never get any better. Pessimistic conservatives say we’re locked into a death spiral, at the mercy of a system running on autopilot and programmed to crash. I also hear from some liberals who maintain there is no morally acceptable alternative to unsustainable Big Government, so we’re honor-bound to hold our course… right into the giant iceberg of insolvency approaching off the port bow.

I maintain my optimism by rejecting the ideas serving as the pillars of apathy.

I refuse to believe government programs launched in the Forties, Sixties, and Seventies are indestructible features of our lives, immune to repeal or reform. I don’t believe a nation with a 234-year history of courage and industry is destined to suffocate in a shallow pool of nanny-state cement, poured only a few generations ago. It will be difficult for the American giant to rise again… but history unfolds in the space between difficult and impossible.

There is no such thing as eternal legislation. Even the Constitution can be amended. It’s only a question of how much willpower it will take for us to cast aside the intolerable acts of our political class. We are descended from men who showed great vigor in resisting intolerable acts.”

John Hayward in “The Pillars of Apathy“