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Quotes For Entrepreneurs–August 2010
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“I don’t watch metrics on a daily basis because I don’t make metrics-based decisions on a daily basis”
Patrick Mckenzie
From “Back Office Exposed: Bingo Card Creator” an interview with Patrick Mckenzie
Q: Can you share the key metrics you watch on a daily basis? Why are they important to you?
A: I have published a variety of stats but I don’t watch metrics on a daily basis because I don’t make metrics-based decisions on a daily basis, and absent making decisions watching metrics is only as productive as playing WoW.
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“I used to think I had ambition, monsieur, but now I’m not so sure. It may have been only discontent. They’re easily confused.”
Rachel Field dialog from her novel “All This and Heaven Too“
More context, from a conversation about Marie Antoinette:
“I say ‘poor soul,’ and I mean it. She paid dearly for what she learned too late.”
“So do we all.” The old bitterness tinged his voice. “We all pay for experience, and then it’s too late to make use of it. But I was thinking that you’re rather alike in one respect. She was ambitious, Mademoiselle Deluzy, and so are you.”
“I used to think I had ambition, monsieur, but now I’m not so sure. It may have been only discontent. They’re easily confused.”
Rachel Field dialog from her novel “All This and Heaven Too“
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“Late to bed, and late to rise, makes a man sick, poor, and stupid.”
Goodman Ace
A riff on Benjamin Franklin: “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
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“No man is rich whose expenditure exceeds his means; and no one is poor whose income exceeds his outgoings.”
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
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“The point of forecasting is not to attempt illusory certainty, but to identify the full range of possible outcomes.”
Paul Saffo
From his blog entry for July 26, 2008: “Strong Opinions, Weakly Held” I offered additional commentary in “Paul Saffo: Forecasting is Strong Opinions, Weakly Held” I am a big fan of Paul Saffo and have blogged about him in these posts:
- Paul Saffo: “Best Strategy is Ready Fire Steer”
- What Happens When 70 EDA Blogs Become 500 in 2011
- Another Perspective on Paul Saffo’s Talk Aug 28
- Paul Saffo on Forecasting Innovation in Silicon Valley
- Paul Saffo at Churchill Club Breakfast Tue Aug 28
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“The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.”
Paul Valery
I used this quote in a postscript to “Paul Saffo: Forecasting is Strong Opinions, Weakly Held” I thought that it neatly summarized the “entrepreneur’s perpetual challenge: we have to let go of our nostalgia for our imagined (or anticipated) future and deal with the real options that we have created or are otherwise available to us.”
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“The only real training for leadership is leadership.”
Anthony Jay
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“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
Heraclitus
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“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
Ursula K. Le Guin
I checked to see if I had used this quote already and found I had already used it three times, in March 2013, February 2012, and August 2010. I really like it.
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“I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.”
Henry David Thoreau “On Civil Disobedience“
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