“Obstacles cannot crush me; every obstacle yields to stern resolve.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Renaissance Master of Multiple Disciplines
Loading
Quotes · a working library
A collection of lines that shaped how I think about craft, systems, and the polymathic life — from Renaissance masters, engineers, and writers who refused the boundaries of their time.
“Obstacles cannot crush me; every obstacle yields to stern resolve.”
Browse
“Obstacles cannot crush me; every obstacle yields to stern resolve.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Renaissance Master of Multiple Disciplines
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Renaissance Master of Art, Science, and Engineering
“Learning never exhausts the mind.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Renaissance Polymath
“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Renaissance Master
“Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Renaissance Polymath
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
Alan Kay
Computer Scientist, Inventor of Object-Oriented Programming
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
Steve Jobs
Co-founder of Apple Inc.
“Technology is best when it brings people together.”
Matt Mullenweg
Founder of WordPress
“The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don't really even notice it, so it's part of everyday life.”
Bill Gates
Co-founder of Microsoft
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Arthur C. Clarke
Science Fiction Writer and Futurist
“The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.”
B.F. Skinner
Psychologist and Behaviorist
“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.”
Douglas Adams
Author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
“People don't know what they want until you show it to them... Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”
Steve Jobs
Co-founder of Apple Inc.
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
Steve Jobs
Co-founder of Apple Inc.
“Stay hungry, stay foolish.”
Steve Jobs
Co-founder of Apple Inc.
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.”
Steve Jobs
Co-founder of Apple Inc.
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Former First Lady and Human Rights Activist
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”
John C. Maxwell
Leadership Expert and Author
“The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.”
Tony Blair
Former British Prime Minister
“The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.”
Robert Greene
Author of Mastery
“The expert in anything was once a beginner.”
Helen Hayes
Actress and Performer
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Leader of Indian Independence Movement
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”
Dr. Seuss
Children's Author and Illustrator
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
Nelson Mandela
Former President of South Africa
“The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.”
B.B. King
Blues Musician
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
Benjamin Franklin
Founding Father and Polymath
“In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few.”
Shunryu Suzuki
Zen Master and Teacher
“The mind is everything. What you think you become.”
Buddha
Spiritual Teacher and Philosopher
“Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.”
Henry Ford
Founder of Ford Motor Company
“The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.”
Tony Robbins
Motivational Speaker and Life Coach
“Your limitation—it's only your imagination.”
Anonymous
Motivational Wisdom
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
Walt Disney
Founder of Disney
“Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.”
Peter Thiel
Entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
Aristotle
Ancient Greek Philosopher
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Winston Churchill
Former British Prime Minister
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
Alan Watts
Philosopher and Writer
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but action in spite of it.”
Mark Twain
American Writer and Humorist
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
Joseph Campbell
Mythologist and Writer
“The most valuable person in any business is the one who can think across disciplines.”
Charlie Munger
Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
Bill Gates
Co-founder of Microsoft
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
Walt Disney
Founder of Disney
“Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”
John D. Rockefeller
Business Magnate and Philanthropist
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
Chinese Proverb
Ancient Wisdom
“It's not about ideas. It's about making ideas happen.”
Scott Belsky
Entrepreneur and Author
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”
Albert Einstein
Theoretical Physicist
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
Einstein
Theoretical Physicist
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
Steve Jobs
Co-founder of Apple Inc.
“Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.”
Joe Sparano
Graphic Designer
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Albert Einstein
Theoretical Physicist
“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
Maya Angelou
Poet and Civil Rights Activist
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates
Ancient Greek Philosopher
“I know that I know nothing.”
Socrates
Ancient Greek Philosopher
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
Socrates
Ancient Greek Philosopher
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle
Ancient Greek Philosopher
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
Lao Tzu
Ancient Chinese Philosopher
“The world of the future will be an ever more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves.”
Norbert Wiener
Mathematician, founder of cybernetics
“Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.”
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Computer scientist, Turing Award laureate
“The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.”
Ada Lovelace
Mathematician, first programmer
“Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.”
Alan Kay
Computer scientist, Xerox PARC
“Software is eating the world.”
Marc Andreessen
Co-founder of Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz
“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.”
Linus Pauling
Chemist, two-time Nobel laureate
“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.”
E. O. Wilson
Biologist and naturalist
“The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.”
Reid Hoffman
Co-founder of LinkedIn
“Real artists ship.”
Steve Jobs
Co-founder of Apple Inc.
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Renaissance polymath
“Light is the first element of cinematography.”
Vittorio Storaro
Cinematographer, three-time Academy Award winner
“Colour is the language of the soul.”
Vittorio Storaro
Cinematographer, Apocalypse Now and The Last Emperor
“The screen is a magic medium. It has such power that it can retain interest as it conveys emotions and moods that no other art form can hope to tackle.”
Stanley Kubrick
Filmmaker, 2001: A Space Odyssey
“If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.”
Stanley Kubrick
Filmmaker
“Photography is truth. The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second.”
Jean-Luc Godard
Filmmaker, French New Wave
“Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out.”
Martin Scorsese
Filmmaker
Keep thinking
The rest of this site is where those ideas meet actual work: security platforms, AI systems, and products built in public.