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Ask YC: what is your favorite startup related quote?
So, what is your favorite startup related quote?
- cmos 19y ago"Cash is king. Every week figure out when you will run out of cash. Figure out when the last payroll checks will clear, in best and worst case circumstances. Assume the worst case." -what smart people told me + I found to be true
- moog 19y ago'Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!' - Andrew Carnegie
- edw519 19y agoTwo roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. - Robert Frost
- amichail 19y agoDo, or do not. There is no try.
- yangyang42 19y ago+1... by Jedi Master Yoda.
- dcurtis 19y agoMy Yoda TomTom voice says this when the TomTom turns on.
- soundsop 19y agoIf you have two choices, choose the harder. --Paul Graham in http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
- nreece 19y agoShakespeare' quote:"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we might oft win, by fearing to attempt." From: What They Don’t Tell You About Being An Entrepreneur ( http://how2livelife.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-they-dont-tell-you-about-being.html http://how2livelife.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-they-dont-tell... )
- blender 19y agoWhether it is urban legend or not is still an open question but this ad, supposedly placed by Ernest Shackleton in London newspapers before one of his expeditions, sums up a startup nicely: "MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS." Cheers Jason
- tim2 19y ago"Almost there"
- snowbird122 19y agoGreat spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
- amichail 19y agoNot a quote, but if you need inspiration: http://reddit.com/r/inspirational http://reddit.com/r/inspirational
- papersmith 19y ago"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." - Confucius
- vuknje 19y agoSuccess is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. (Winston Churchill)
- omarseyal 19y agonot a quote, but i like the poem "if" by rudyard kipling. it kind of describes the sort of evenness and perseverance that is required of an entrepreneur... http://www.swarthmore.edu/~apreset1/docs/if.html http://www.swarthmore.edu/~apreset1/docs/if.html
- run4yourlives 19y ago>If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; ...utter brilliance there. It's amazing how the poems I thought were cute in high school ring so true now that I'm in my 30's.
- dedalus 19y ago“Non notationes, sed notiones” (Not Notations, but Notions) - Carl Friedrich Gaus
- Allocator2008 19y agoThe difference between genius and insanity is measured only by success. - Eliot Carver
- zeantsoi 19y agoThis guy needs coffee and crullers, STAT! -- Wayne Campbell (Wayne's World)
- wallflower 19y ago"It's not important to get it right, it's important to get it going"
- andr 19y ago"When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." -- Paulo Coelho
- belhassen 19y agogenius is craziness controlled
- chengmi 19y agoHenry Ford: "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have asked for a faster horse."
- swax 19y ago"the future is in beta" Wired used to have great passages on the inside of the front cover. this one always stuck with me.
- skmurphy 19y agoThe future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed." William Gibson The challenge in a startup is to discern the harbingers from the outliers.
- martin 19y agohttp://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16031 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16031
- ken 19y ago"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat." Theodore Roosevelt
- ptn 19y agoThat's way too long and that makes it harder to remember.
- ken 19y ago"Do good work!" - entirety of a speech given by Gus Grissom, 1959
- run4yourlives 19y agoWisdom is seldom related in one sentence.
- ptn 19y agoZen maxims and the like are usually one-sentence.
- sutro 19y agoTwenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain For a true writer [hacker?] each book [project?] should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed. How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him. - Ernest Hemingway The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. -Fred Brooks Programming...gratifies creative longings built deep within us and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men. -Fred Brooks
- alex_c 19y agoI can't believe I'm quoting Donald Trump, but.. "If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big."
- poronski 19y agoIn 60s there was a campaign in Soviet Union with a slongan "If it's being done, let's do it big". It sounded really odd even untranslated.
- SwellJoe 19y agoThis is in the same genre of something that a couple of old former oil field managers said to me once (after they had left the oil and gas industry to start a company doing water table analysis for municipal water supplies): "You're going to bust your ass no matter what. You might as well bust your ass for $10 million instead of $10 thousand."
- skmurphy 19y ago"Do Something Small Useful Now." Bob Bemer, inventor of ASCII
- kradic 19y ago"Make something people want."
- ca 19y agoRandy Pausch (speaking of apparent barriers between you and your goals): "The wall is there for you to show how bad you want it." (From his "Last Lecture", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo)
- aditya 19y ago"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (from http://workhappy.net http://workhappy.net)
- codeLullaby 19y ago'Do it Fu*king Now' [http://seoblackhat.com/2007/01/29/do-it-fucking-now/ http://seoblackhat.com/2007/01/29/do-it-fucking-now/]
- nreece 19y ago"Go the extra mile. It's never crowded."
- oronno 19y agoYou cannot hide two things: 1. Talent 2. Itching
- xirium 19y agoDon't be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the ark and a large group of professionals built the Titanic.
- BostonDave 19y agoWe're like _____ for _______. (comparison quote that almost guarantees failure)
- pg 19y agoI think this is a good way to describe startups.
- fish 19y ago"SPLIT YOUR LUNGS WITH BLOOD AND THUNDER! When you see the white whale! Break your backs and crack your oars, men! If you wish to prevail! This ivory leg is what propels me! Thrust your harpoons to the sky, Aim directly at his crooked brow, And look him straight in the eye! WHITE WHALE-- HOLY GRAIL!" I took this quote to heart when I first read (guess what book) and it seems to apply to nearly every situation I've been in, somehow.
- ptn 19y agoConsistency, not novelty, is the key to success - John Berardi Shove the sun aside - Dave Weiner
- m0nty 19y agoI didn't realise this was a pg quote until I Googled it: "If you want to win in a software business, just take on the hardest problem you can find, use the most powerful language you can get, and wait for your competitors' pointy-haired bosses to revert to the mean." I've seen enough PHBs around software to know you won't be waiting long.
- lowkey 19y ago"Anything you can conceive and believe, you can achieve" - anonymous
- ambition 19y agoThat one's Napoleon Hill, from "Think and Grow Rich."
- microcentury 19y agoA book that never fails to invoke in me the opposite feeling this thread is looking for.
- briztar 19y ago"In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
- deleted 19y ago[deleted]
- pjf 19y ago"Read Paul Graham"
- rmason 19y agoWhen the winds of change are blowing some people are building shelters, and others are building wind mills. - Chinese proverb
- smoody 19y ago"The quickest route to describing a seed's output is to sprout it." - Kevin Kelly, 'Out of Control'
- lampy 19y agoGuy Kawasaki: "Too many companies duke it out on the same curve. If they were daisy wheel printer companies, they think innovation means adding Helvetica in 24 points. Instead, they should invent laser printing."
- sutro 19y agoLife shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anais Nin
- sammyo 19y ago"billions and billions" -Carl Sagan
- tyohn 19y agoBecause its there...
- simplegeek 19y agoTo lead people, walk behind them. - Sun Tzu
- vpweb 19y agoHappyness is a positive cash flow - A sign on an CFO desk at Digital Equipment Corporation. From: http://www.cryan.com/quotes/ http://www.cryan.com/quotes/
- cm 19y ago"Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades" - James M. Kilts, CEO and President, The Gillette Company.
- Ghy 19y agoFrom one of the best Onion articles out there: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930 http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930
- wataguy 19y ago"Build your castles in the air. That is where they belong. Then go build foundations under them." -- Henry David Thoreau
- tjr 19y ago"We don't have venture capital, we just have money." --Philip Greenspun
- LukeG 19y ago“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.”
- CHIEFARCHITECT 19y ago"The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire." -John N. Mitchell
- johnyzee 19y agoLots of these are trivialisms and quite a few are contradicting eachother.
- garret 19y ago"The work of intellectuals is ordered and paid for by Governments or rich men, whose aims probably seem absurd, if not pernicious, to the intellectuals concerned. But a dash of cynicism enables them to adjust their consciences to the situation." - Bertrand Russell
- fleaflicker 19y agoTwo somewhat related quotes: Short version: "Bad shit is coming. It always is in a startup." -Paul Graham Long version: "First, and most importantly, realize that a startup puts you on an emotional rollercoaster unlike anything you have ever experienced. You will flip rapidly from a day in which you are euphorically convinced you are going to own the world, to a day in which doom seems only weeks away and you feel completely ruined, and back again. Over and over and over. And I'm talking about what happens to stable entrepreneurs." -Marc Andreessen