Inspirational One Liners
It is my personal hobby to collect inspirational one-liners. Here are
some of them. On a low day, it will cheer you up to go through a one-liner
book, so why not start collecting your own set? Square brackets contain my own comments.
This page started out as a collection of quotes from others, but has now become a
public repository of my own rambling thoughts not organized in any particular way.
Since this url page is named inspirational one liners,
i have left it thatway even though it may not be an appropriate title anymore.
-Shankar
My own observations (or perhaps I read them somewhere)
- Think of what you must do, don't think of what you want. If you do
what you must do, what you want will take care of itself.
- Be willing to learn all your life.
- The most valuable gift that you can give someone is the freedom to be
themselves. All that I am today and all my achievements are because of my
parents who allowed me to choose my own vocation in life instead of compelling
me to become an engineer or doctor or whatever fashionable professions
that took their fancy.
- # Get rid of all languages other than english or use them only for poetry.
I am not an English native and English is not my mother tongue, but still I support
English fully because,
- It is impossible to translate all scientific advancements in all the languages.
You will always be forever behind in science and technology if you stick to other languages.
- The world needs more and better communication in order to promote understanding
and peace. Insisting on your mother tongue will lessen the chance of understanding
others and this in turn will hinder world peace.
- Your patriotism to your current mother tongue is an accident of history.
It was not the mother tongue of your ancestors. Sanskrit is the mother of all languages,
is Sanskrit known or understood widely anymore? Though the people who spoke them five
thousand years ago would have shown patriotism to Sanskrit where is Sanskrit now?
Similarly, though you show patriotism to your current mother tongue, your great
great descendants would not even know your language and their dialects would have
become completely different from what you are speaking today and to understand
movies that are taken today they would have to use translators into their then
dialects. So what's the use of lingual patriotism when your current mother tongue
is going to die a natural death anyway (at least as you speak it today) no matter what you do today?
- There are at least two types of affection
- Real affection. Rare to find, especially in yourself unless you consciously cultivate your thoughts towards perfection and unconditional affection.
- Balance sheet affection. This is the common variety found everywhere, easy to spot even in yourself. This is affection that is bestowed conditionally like: She doesn't call me, why should I call her? He never visits me, why should I visit him? She never writes/emails to me, why should I write/email her? They
have never given me anything, why should I give them anything? This
is the type of affection that runs on a unconscious balance sheet maintained by
yourself.
Now that I have pointed it out, which affection do you prefer? If
your phone is not ringing isn't it time you rung someone? If your email box is
empty except for spam, isn't it time you wrote someone? If you are lonely and
abandoned isn't it time you visited someone instead of waiting for someone to visit you?
It is easy to convert balance sheet affection into real affection. Just start
accumulating credit entries by reversing the above questions like: I will keep
calling her so one day she will keep calling me. I will keep visiting him, so one
day he will keep visiting me. I will keep writing her, so one day she will keep
writing me. I will keep giving them so that one day they will keep giving me.
The problem with a balance sheet is that it will always be balanced, the debits
will match credits precisely and you will end up with a zero. If you want more
than a zero, real affection is the way to go.
- When choosing friends or partners, forget money, forget personality, forget looks, choose only for character and you will never choose wrong.
- Get rid of the TV and you will double your lifespan, because at present you
are wasting half or at least one third of your life on emotional and negative junk.
- Stop buying printed newspapers and start reading online news. Every year a forest the size of the country of Portugal is mashed into newsprint to print the worlds newspapers most of which goes unread and goes straight to the trash, where it belongs. Fifty years ago newspapers and television didn't exist in most countries, two hundred years ago they didn't exist at all. I am telling you this to show that newspapers and TV are not essential to life at all. People just got through life fine without these crutches. Your life will probably become better by discarding the emotional and negative junk that the newspapers and TV project daily.
Another huge waste of trees is the telephone book. Every year millions of trees are ground into waste to produce the world's
telephone books. Go online. I am sure most of you do already. Searching online telephone directories is much faster, versatile and
most up-to-date. Ask your telephone book provider to stop delivering printed telephone books. (Anecdote: I lost a bundle of money
advertising on such books before I realized that they are not producing value for money spent. Advertising on such books and advertising on newspapers is like throwing
away your money.)
- People can't be saved from themselves all the time. You may be able to save them from external danger, but
you can't protect them from their own thoughts and actions. Good thoughts and actions produce good results and bad thoughts and actions produce bad results. This is called karma. Karma doesn't mean reincarnation as the west thinks.
Karma is a sanskrit word meaning work or action. If you do good actions you will get good results. If you do bad actions you will get bad results. Reincarnation belief is an extension
of this karmic belief. If you don't get good results immediately you reassure yourself that you will get it in your next life. But reincarnation is just as much
bullshit as life after death and ghosts and spirits and heaven and hell.
- Consider becoming a vegetarian. I am a pure vegetarian not because killing animals is bad or because I am an animal lover. In fact I dislike animals, I have
especially come to dislike dogs and cats (I think both are dirty creatures. I apologize to dog and cat lovers). I am a vegetarian because
- Plants don't shit.
- Plants don't have sweat glands.
- Plants don't have blood.
- I don't like chewing on dead bodies.
- I am not blood thirsty.
- Vegetarians live longer.
- Vegetarians are healthier.
- Apart from salt which can be got from the sea and vitamin B12 which can be manufactured,
plants lack no nutrients that an animal can give because the animals themselves got those nutrients from plants. In fact animals may lack many nutrients that plants have because they may not have absorbed it.
- Plant food is healthy food. All plant germs are destroyed by proper cooking. Whereas animal germs may survive even when fully cooked because the fat in animals protect the germs from being destroyed. Such fat is not present in plants.
- Plants can't cause Pandemics like bird flu, SARS. There is a possibility that an animal virus can infect man, but there is not even a remote possibility that a plant dependent bacteria can migrate to humans.
- Plant food is plentiful as they lie at the bottom of the food pyramid.
- If the demand for animal food does not go down, then animals will continue being crammed into confined spaces in order to breed the largest numbers in the smallest area possible, which will increase the likelihood that an animal virus will migrate to man.
- I live in India (The world's number one vegetarian country.). (We Indians have a terrible time finding good (healthy vegetarian) food when we travel outside of India.)
- My ancestors have been vegetarians for thousands of years. We are pure vegetarians meaning we don't touch any animal
product except milk (which all humans drink from their mothers when they are born, so don't tell me milk is harmful to man).
We won't even touch fish, chicken and eggs.
- Elephants are 1000 times more stronger than you. Elephants are the biggest land animals
and elephants are pure vegetarians. I am pointing out this to bust the myth that vegetarians
can't become big and strong.
- Give importance to people, animals and things in that order.
- Many people will place sentimental attachment on their lucky ring, lucky watch, lucky car, pet dog, first home, home city. Throw away your lucky ring, lucky watch. Sell your lucky car, sell the home you were raised in, leave your home city and go far if
necessity demands. Attach your sentiments only to people. Don't give a damn about things and places and animals and the dead.
- Don't attach your sentiments to the dead. Stop visiting the dead at their graves and start visiting your living friends and relatives.
- One second of carelessness will lead to a day/week/month/year/lifetime of misery.
- Spill boiled milk on your hand and you will have a day of misery.
- Fall down the stairs and break your leg and you will have at least a month of misery.
- Drive carelessly and break your spine, you may become a quadriplegic and have a lifetime of misery.
- Be alert all the time and you will save yourself lots of miseries. If you are not alert, stop doing everything and sleep until you become alert. One day of lost work/pay is much better than
spending a lifetime in a wheel chair.
- Competition and Cooperation are not mutually exclusive. Really intelligent people try to do both.
- When you improve yourself, you become more competitive. When you improve others you are being cooperative. Can you not improve yourself while at the same time try improving others?
- Always be willing to learn and teach. Learning is becoming more competitive, teaching is being cooperative.
- Always lookout for what can be done in a better method. Always lookout for ideas that you can give away freely to others to improve them.
- Neither poverty, nor wealth will lead to decadency, unless you let it. Neither poverty, nor wealth will give you self discipline. Work
and learning alone will give you self discipline and a lot of other good virtues.
- Learn to be happy by yourself. Nothing and nobody can make you happy except yourself. Only after you learn to be happy
by yourself, you will be able to be happy around others.
- Don't do anything unless you absolutely have to. I am an absolutely lazy person but I have an obsession to be working
all the time. Is that a contradiction? No! If we work only because we have to we will find the most efficient methods of
working. If we work because we want to busy then we might as well be busy by going round and round in circles and not doing
anything. We should work in order to get things done, not merely because we should be busy. If we work only when we
have to, we will find goals worthy to work towards.
- Don't learn anything unless you absolutely have to. Learning Latin is not going to be
useful to me in anyway so why should I learn it? Set up goals to be achieved and only learn
things that would enable you to achieve those goals.
- The key character that will determine success or failure is commitment. Look for the long haul guys, the people who will
not quit no matter what the hardships, whose commitment is unwavering, people who will do or die rather than quit. These
are the people, the only people who will succeed 99% of the time. Winners never quit, quitters never win.
- Pollution is the sign of life.
- Sterile purity implies an absence of life.
- Where would you prefer to live, a polluted but life bearing earth populated by billions or a lifeless but pure and unpolluted earth where no one other than you is present? Wouldn't you be
kind of lonely?
- I am not saying the you should pollute the environment or that anti-pollution measures should not be done. Try
not to pollute by all means but remember that there can be no life without pollution. Have you heard of the saying, an
orderly and clean house implies an absence of kids in that house?
- Just because you hate pollution don't start hating life because the alternative of no-life is meaninglessly pure emptiness.
- Use the right tools
- Tools increase productivity. The right tools increase productivity by orders of magnitude.
- Problem solving mostly involves making the correct tools that will make them solvable.
- Lies are like quicksand, soft and comfortable, but they will swallow us.
Truth is like bedrock, hard and uncomfortable, but we can always stand on it.
- No question is stupid. It is the lack of questioning that is stupid. Never hesitate
to ask anything even if it may appear stupid. Only by asking your knowledge will grow.
- The key to being important is to become useful. Most people hate to be used by others.
But only if you allow yourself to be used by others will you be useful to others, only then
you will become important to others. The key to being useful is to solve problems. To become
the most important, solve the most important problems in your field. The question that you
should be asking yourself is "What is the most important problem in my field and why am I
not working on it?"
What is the most important problem in your field/company/work/study? Why are you not working on it immediately?
What can be preventing you from working on the most important problem?
- Will you support a 100% Income tax?
- What does a 100% income tax mean? That what ever you earn will be taken from you by the government. Will you want to
work for such a country, such a world?
- What's unfair about a 100% income tax? After all you don't consider a 50% income tax as unfair. If 50% is not unfair
then you will not consider 51% as unfair, it is just one percent more. Then 52% is not unfair because it is just one percent more
and so on until you reach 100%. What's unfair about 100% income tax? What's unfair about robbery?
- What's the difference between the street gang that promises your safety in return for a 30% share of your income
and a government that promises your safety in return for a 30% share of your income?
- You can never reduce economic inequality to zero without robbing the rich. When you rob the rich not only do the rich
get poorer, the poor get even more poorer. When the poor get richer, the rich will get richer. You can't have the poor get
richer while the rich get poorer. Which will you rather have, that the rich get richer or that the poor get poorer?
- Would you be a poor man in a rich country or a rich man in a poor country?
- If you don't support a 100% income tax why do you support a 30% income tax?
- Ask yourself if a 100% income tax is fair, if not why not?
- Without hope of gain, you will be left only with fear of loss. When only fear of loss
is allowed by the government and the hope of gain is removed, then people will not take risks.
Without people who are willing to take enormous risks you will not have a progressive country.
Do you want the government to give you only fear of loss without hope of gain? Fear of loss
should be balanced by hope of gain otherwise the world will become unbalanced.
- Risk equals reward. Without risk there will be no reward. When economic inequality is not guaranteed there will be
no risk takers. Without risk takers there will be no risk taking and hence no rewards and no prosperity.
Economic inequality equals economic prosperity. Remove or try to remove economic inequality and that country is doomed.
- When you say "Economic inequality should be removed" you are actually saying
- No new companies should be formed and hence no new jobs should be generated and hence there should be more jobless. Because
if economic inequality is removed there will be no one willing to risk starting new companies.
- #Make personal income tax semi voluntary.
- We citizens are not against funding the government, but we are absolutely against being treated as criminals
by default. We are absolutely against the harassment of us by petty government officials in the name of tax.
- Remove all civil and criminal penalties for non payment of income tax. 80% of people who now pay tax will pay
it anyway without being threatened with such tactics. Citizens should be considered honest by default.
- Use direct taxes for direct democracy.
- For all direct taxes like personal income tax, corporate income tax, let the government provide an exhaustive
list of government expense account numbers like loan liability repayment, interest for loans, defense projects, highway construction projects, subsidies etc. Each account
number will identify a specific unique expense project of the government. The government will determine how much tax should
be paid, but it will be the taxpayer who will decide where his particular tax will be spent. He will apportion his tax to one
or more government expense account numbers.
- For all tax deducted at sources, the tax payer will specify to which government expense project account number
his tax deduction will be used for.
- For under funded and most important projects the government will use indirect taxes to make up for the deficit.
- Under funded projects that are not considered important (like discretionary expenditure quota accounts for the MPs) by the tax payers should be dropped by the government.
- The importance of a project is determined by the amount of taxes that it collects directly against the budget. If a project
collects more than 50% of its budgeted amount it should be considered important and the budget deficit should be funded by
the government using indirect taxes, other projects by the government should be dropped as they are not considered important
by the citizens.
- For projects which collect more than 100% of the budget directly, the government
should expand the size of the project as it is considered by the tax payers as more important than previously thought of.
- For a small list of expenses that are deemed perennially important like, defense, foreign affairs etc.,
the budget deficit is financed using indirect taxes regardless of the direct taxes collected.
- In this way the direct democracy will start supplementing representative democracy.
- The tax payers who select projects for which their tax should be used should be given full scrutiny powers
for the projects that they have paid for, to make sure that there is no unnecessary expense padding in the project for
kickbacks etc.
- The government should make the details of all expense project account numbers
available on the internet. Details like budgeted amount, direct tax amounts collected so far, expenses committed
so far and for what parts should be automatically updated by computerized accounting of the government.
- Cultivate Enthusiasm
- When enthusiasm is lost, old age sets in.
- If you have or cultivate enthusiasm you are young no matter how long you have lived.
- The way to cultivate enthusiasm is to act enthusiastic.
- Ignorance is bliss, knowledge is power.
- Get as many facts as possible. Don't trust to your opinions based on few facts.
- Go in search of facts, instead of jumping to conclusions. Conclusions based on
few facts are likely to be wrong.
- Don't form opinions on matters that you can find out for a fact.
- Don't dread the future. Think one day at a time.
- It took me a long time to learn that the magic formula for living a stress free,
tension free life is to live only for this day.
- No matter what hardships you face, you can bear it easily if you live only for today.
- It is the thinking about the future that gives you anxiety.
- Think one step at a time. You can achieve a lot if you keep thinking only about
doing the next step. You will not achieve much if you constantly keep thinking about all the
steps that have to be taken in the future.
- Anxiety about the future will tie you up in knots and make you feel helpless. Whereas
completing one step at a time, one day at a time will increase your feeling of being in control of your destiny.
- Learn to enjoy this moment in time. Learn to enjoy what is. Enjoy the eternal now. Forget about the future. It hasn't happened yet. It will never happen.
- The true value of anything is known only after it is lost or after it is lost and gained again.
- In order to avoid feeling frustrated when things are not going the way you planned them,
pretend that the way things are going is the way you already planned them.
- #Get rid of all taxes and duties of all the governments.
- To finance the expenditures of the government the government just prints money
equal to the expenses and spends it.
- This will lead to inflation but inflation happens anyway (and more) in the current
tax ridden system.
- Think of it, there will be no income tax, no sales taxes, no tax on labour, no tax
on capital, no wealth tax, no property tax, no tax on anything, so all the hassles of dealing
with the government will be (mostly) gone. This will unleash the power of the capital
and labour.
- Most of all the government expenditures will be reduced because the government will
not have to employ a vast army of bureaucrats to administer these taxes and duties. This will
lead to lesser inflation than under the current system.
- On the other hand without a strong central bank that controls the issue of money outside
of governmental control, the inflation will spiral out of control as the government will keep
giving in to populist appeasement by printing scads of money, making the money worthless.
- Ultimately nothing matters. Everything is important for a very very short period only.
- Read other peoples' moral guides, but write and follow only your own.
- Burn your credit cards
- Turn to debit cards or cash. If you are using credit cards it means that you are living
on borrowed money which means that your finances are in the negative.
- Burn your credit cards, turn down loans offered. Put your finances in the positive.
- When dreaming of money dream of how much you will earn not how much you will be spending,
not about what and all you will buy.
- Dreaming of earning will force you to think of how you are going to earn it.
- Dreaming of spending accomplishes nothing, because there is no need to think
how you are going to spend. Any fool can take money out of the bank and pay it out if
they have it.
- Money represents work done already. If you have 100 rupees it means that you (or your
ancestors) have contributed 100 rupees worth of work to society. Inflation is obsolescence of
work. As time passes on, work done in the past deteriorates, like the paint peels off and the work loses some of its past value. Since money represents work done in the past, it loses some of its value as time passes on. This is called inflation.
- Who said reinventing the wheel is bad?
When the wheel was first invented it was made of wood/stone and
was probably the size of an ox cart wheel.
Imagine if the wheel had never been reinvented and has remained the
same till today... Imagine...
- A bicycle using big ox cart wheels.
- A car being driven on ox cart wheels.
- A formula one car racing on ox cart wheels.
- A bus running on ox cart wheels.
- A train running on ox cart wheels.
- An aeroplane taking off on ox cart wheels.
Even a wheel is worth reinventing again and again. Never become a finished product. A finished
product atrophies and dies. When you think something is perfect, rigor mortis sets in and it will
all be over. Wikipedia is one of the greatest achievements of mankind because it will
always be a work in progress.
- Whatever you say (especially advices) WILL be used against you.
- I know this from experience because those around me quote my advices frequently... back to me.
- So I should be more careful, about what advice I give here...
- The most precious thing that you can easily waste is your youthful years.
- When you think that there is no one to help you, start helping yourself.
- The purpose of this cosmos is creation. The purpose of life is creation. So to achieve the purpose of life, CREATE
a purpose. There is no ready made purpose for you. You were not created with a purpose in mind. You were created with the freedom to choose your own purpose. You were created to allow
yourself the freedom to create further. You have to CREATE a purpose for yourself to achieve fulfillment.
- If you want something half-heartedly you will NEVER get it.
If you want something whole-heartedly (especially if you keep the thing not
in your heart but as your heart), go straight after it without shame, fear,
hesitation or reservation, only then you will get it. If you keep changing
your mind about whether you want
something or not, you will NOT get it.
- I used to say "The world is my country, India is my state." Now I have reversed my opinion.
A unified world will be a tyrannic world. No one will be able to escape a tyrannic world government, whereas one can always escape a tyrannic country through migration (Note India is
not tyrannic, yet. I mention India as a reference because it happens to be my country). Already
the united nations is showing its tyranny by proposing an emigration tax, yoking your neck
to the country of your birth permanently. Those who leave India have nostalgic memories
of India and feel a loyalty to India. Such an emigration tax will destroy that nostalgia and
loyalty completely. They will think "my dues to India has been collected when I left, I owe
nothing more to India". Do we want that kind of thinking to happen? Also it will filter back
the poor students from emigrating, they will not be able to afford the tax and will stay back
in India, thus unable to seek opportunities to better themselves. Also a unified world will
destroy competition between nations and thus make everything costlier for its citizens as
there will be no choice for its citizens.
- # Say no to forming a world government.
- A world government will add another layer of bureaucracy.
- It will add another layer of taxes and will add to the burden of the tax payers.
- No one will be able to escape a tyrannical world government, whereas one can always escape a tyrannical country by migration.
Already the world bank and IMF are showing their tyranny by proposing an emigration tax, yoking your neck to the country of your birth permenantly.
- The competition among nations to reduce their taxes and thus curtail government expenditure will be smothered thus leading to non-competition, higher taxes and higher government wastage. This will lead to economic stagnation of the world.
- A world government will lead to robin hood kleptocracy (rob the rich countries give a little to poor countries with corrupt dictatorship, pocket the rest) on a world scale
.
- There is no guarantee that a democracy will not become a dictatorship overnight. Many democratic governments like Pakistan have become dictatorships overnight. If the world democratic government is overthrown by a dictatorship, the dissidents will have nowhere to run to and can't find any place of refuge to make their voices heard.
- The ability of the world federal government to create world institutions that can mediate differences that arise because of linguistic, ethnic, religious, or other regional differences is an important challenge. The inability to meet this challenge may lead to the secession of parts of the federation or to civil war, as occurred in United States and Switzerland. A civil war on a global scale may mean Atomic World War III. It may be better to remain independent and cooperate rather than lose independence and fight for it later.
- # The surest way to break a relationship is by cutting off all contact. You are in effect
saying that you don't care if a person lives or dies. Conversely the surest way to build
a relationship is by keeping in close touch. Though a relationship may be damaged by too
many careless words, no relationship was ever built by not talking. Many people erect a wall
of silence in the hope that the other person will break it down and contact and hence prove
their worth or whatever. This is counter productive and will lead to loneliness. A little
absence will make people miss you. A long absence will make people forget you.
- # It is ironic that India is **now** known as a poor
country, because it was the richest country of the world for thousands of years.
- It was the riches of India (gotten through the manufacture of spice) that led to discovery of America by Columbus and the emergence of Europe
as a Sea Power. In their greed to find the riches of India they had to make themselves sea
worthy.
- India is the only country in the world after which an Ocean is named.
- Native Americans are called Indians and many parts of the world were named after India
because of the prominence of India in world thinking at that time.
- Indians are gold maniacs and India is the Gold Siphon of the world. Even though it
has only one gold mine (now empty) India has more gold in ***private*** hands (distributed
among the "poor" masses) than all the governments of the world have, put together.
- I once told an American this and he said it was the land mass of India that was rich
while the people have always been poor. I asked him, then if America is now known as the
richest country, it must be because the American land mass is rich but the American people are poor?
- Indian rupee was the world currency until the late 1800s.
- # Today (20080623) I feel sentimental about
my father as I had to hospitalize him. So let me thank him publicly here, though he is
never going to read it as he knows nothing about internet or computers. Many years ago
when I was younger and he was posted in another city for more than five years, he used
to telephone me every day to
talk about something or the other. Even when there was nothing to talk about he would
call. I became used to eagerly awaiting his call. Those calls made me feel like someone special
and made me feel that I was important to someone. Not a single time did he say that I
am calling you every single day but you are not calling me at all (I couldn't call because at
that time I had no money). Thank you father, for showing me by example, the difference
between real affection and balance sheet affection. Update: My father passed away in his sleep on 20080727. I miss him terribly. We never realize how
much of a moral support someone is, until they are gone.
- # As you might have guessed by now, I
abhor debt. So I make this suggestion. Forbid banks from lending out OUR money. We have no
other choice but to keep OUR savings in the bank for the purposes of safety from being robbed.
Since all of us HAVE to keep our money in the bank, the purpose of banking should be to
account for our savings, the purpose of banking should not be for the purpose of lending OUR money out to make profit. To forbid
banks from lending out our money we should also forbid them from giving us interest to make
things fair.
A man goes to a bank and asks for a loan.
The banker looks at him suspiciously and asks 'do you have any collateral?'.
The man asks 'What is collateral?'
The banker says any document giving title to your property like real estate, vehicles etc.
You have to give this to us so that we have assurance that you will pay back the money we give
you.
The man gives some collateral and takes the loan.
After some time the man appears and pulls out a huge wad of cash, takes out a few bills
and pays off his loan.
The banker looks at the huge wad of cash remaining and asks 'why do you carry so much cash
if you deposit it with us we will give interest'.
The man looks suspiciously at the banker and says 'Do you have any collateral, so that I have
assurance that you will pay it back?'.
The highlight of this story is that WE give OUR money to the banks without any collateral
whatsoever, whereas when we ask for a loan we are asked all sorts of collateral. Why should
WE give OUR money to the bankers for them to play with? Banks should be forbidden to play around with OUR money. Till that happens I advise you to split your savings among a few (or
several hundred or several thousand banks if you have that much) to protect your savings. It pays to be paranoid.
Than ayuthamum, than kai porulum, pirar kayil kodukkum,
pathaiyum patharae. - Thiruvalluvar
What this poem says is there is no one more foolish than he who gives his weapon or his
property to someone else to look after.
- # Forbid marketing of loan/debt instruments
like credit cards. When I was given credit cards during my college days, money used to
drain out of my credit cards like a sieve and I was up to my eye balls in debt. Only after
I burned my credit cards, I was able to shore up my finances. It is (or should be) criminal to market credit cards to anyone especially college kids.
- # Jail Robert Mugabe (the dictator of Zimbabwe), for
life. Any ruler who doesn't care about the welfare of his subjects should be deposed. Why
doesn't the UN care about the humanitarian disaster in Zimbabwe? Why are such people robbing
racist creatures like Mugabe allowed to come to and retain power?
- # My paranoia warns me that the world
is on the brink of a planet wide disaster. If the Al-queda or some terrorist organization
brings down the production of oil in the gulf, the entire planet will be plunged into a mega
depression that will make the depression of the 1930s appear a picnic in comparison. Prices of fuel
will soar and hence all other dependent stuff like food will also soar. It is highly important
that the world switches to using alternate power sources like wind and solar power extensively and
immediately.
- # Too much thinking leads to worry and paranoia.
That is why most people blank out their minds with entertainment and refuse to think. But for
me thinking is as important as breathing. Though thinking leads to worry and paranoia, over
the years I have found ways to control my worries and paranoia (a little bit) by using a few simple rules.
1) Think only of pleasant things. When thinking of the past, skip the unpleasant time periods
and dwell only on the sweet, funny, pleasant happenings. 2) When you must think of unpleasant
things in the present like the humanitarian disasters in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Dar fur,
concentrate your thinking on what can be the solution to these crises. 3) Read the end of
a story book before you start. When I was a child I used to naively start reading a story
book from the start, but a bad ending will disgust me leaving me a unpleasant feeling. There
is enough unpleasantness in this world of reality for me to want unpleasantness in the world of
make believe too. 4) Wait for others to view a film before viewing it. Same as a story book,
i watch only films with happy endings. 5) Work. While working my thinking is focused on solving
problems so it doesn't lead to worry or paranoia. 6) Don't let the sweetness and love of youth
turn into bitterness and hate in old age.
- # Wash your behind with water and soap instead of or
in addition to using toilet paper.
- I recently came across someone in a forum laughing at Indians for using soap and water
instead of using tissue paper.
- Let me tell you water and soap is much more cleaner and fresher than using toilet paper.
- If you think tissue paper is so much more cleaner than water and soap, why don't you take
a bath everyday with tissue paper instead of bathing with water and soap? Do you already bath
only using tissue paper? I wouldn't know.
- Since I took care of my bedridden father, I know that a tissue paper is good for wiping away
without getting your hand messy. But it is not enough. A little water and soap will go a long
way in cleaning the last layer that can't be removed by any amount of wiping with paper.
- # The last shameful apartheid of mankind: Passport and visas.
- Segregation and discrimination still exists worldwide in the form of passports and visas.
- People don't want people of other countries to mingle with them, they oppose all forms
of immigration and free movement of people.
- Though I don't support forming a world government, I do support a world without borders.
Just as a person can have a state for tax residency but can move about freely into and out of
any other state within a country, A person should be able to have a country of tax residency
and should be able to move freely into and out of any country without any form of documentation.
- Why do people keep dissing people of other countries in forums? First and foremost
we are ALL humans and the word foreigner should be banned from our minds because we are ALL
related to each other.
- Keeping certain people away from your section of the world is called segregation or
apartheid. Passports and visas are the most modern form of apartheid, don't you think so?
It is the last shameful remnant of xenophobia and racial segregation.
- Be cautious about allowing Muslims into your country though, as even though most Muslims
are not bad but as soon as they become a significant minority like in India, their
violent vicious Islamic hate ideology will start tearing your country apart.
I wish we had kicked them all out during partition, now it seems too late. We should let
Muslims rot under Islamic theocracies until they willingly want to come out from under the
Islamic dark ages.
- # Build a permanent
Olympic venue in Greece.
The last thing that the world needs is for poor countries like China or India to be spending billions and billions of dollars on creating stadiums, venues every four years. If we have a PERMANENT Olympic venue in Greece, the world can spend for it ONCE and use it again and again, without wasting billions of dollars of world resources every four years. Also it will separate the
Olympics from the politics of any particular government. (OK, this contradicts my above post that states India to be a rich country. Even if it was rich, spending
for constructing stadiums again and again is a thing the world can't afford as long as
there are poor people, (and there are millions of poor people in India and China).)
- # Fear of being caught and NOT fear
of punishment is the greatest deterrent to crime.
- It is legal to station a cop at a public road junction.
- It is legal for a cop standing at a public road junction to use a video camera to record
the traffic flow and people and analyze it.
- So it must be legal for a cop to monitor a public road junction from a remote station using
technology.
- Install cameras at all public road junctions. Once the public becomes aware that their
movements can be traced back in time, very, very few people will engage in crime, because they
will KNOW that they can be found out. These cameras can be connected to a police station or directly to the internet, so anyone can log in to a camera and see past shots of it. Better still let everyone start putting cameras in front of their houses and connect them to the internet. The cameras need not take continuous video, a high resolution shot (2 meg pixel or more) b&w picture without sound once every second will do.
- As for privacy considerations, you should not expect privacy in a public space. Privacy is the opposite of publicly so how can you expect privacy in a public place? Anyway in this modern
world, there is very little privacy, so get over it.
- As for the fear of a police state monitoring a subjugated populace, this is not the twentieth
century for us to still fear for democracy. Democracy has now got very deep roots in many countries and there is no immediate danger of a police state taking over. Anyway if a police state does take over your country being
monitored will be the least of your concerns. In fact the new police state
can install these cameras without asking your permission so not installing
public cameras is no protection from a police state taking over a democratic country.
- A system of public cameras will be incredibly useful in solving terrorist attacks like
serial blasts. To find out who planted the bomb, you have to log in to a camera and see the
past shots of it. You can even follow the planter after the fact by jumping from camera to
camera as he moves back to his hideout in the past.
- Crimes committed by outside people like kidnapping etc will become trivial to solve, leaving
more resources to be concentrated on internal crimes. It may even result in a crime free world.
- # Those who bitc h get results. If you never
complain you are never going to see any change.
- # Traditional media like newspapers and TV are obsolete.
They just don't have the balls to stand up to Islam and its vicious hate. It is the internet
that is our last hope against Islam. The vast majority of Muslims are the victims of Islam.
Just as a brain washed elephant will help man in capturing more elephants, brain washed
victimized Muslims will help Islam in victimizing even more non-Muslims, even though the entire
Islamic world is reeling and suffering under the dark ages of Islam. Muslims are oppressed more
by Muslims than by anyone else.
- # Science is the best antidote to religion, poverty,
hunger. If you have time and/or money to spend on others spend it on scientific research and
scientifically educating others. No other type of charity or work matches what science has
contributed to humankind's prosperity. If possible aim to get a Nobel prize.
- # Embrace non-violence.
- If a solution involves killing, it is most probably wrong. Violence is a vicious circle.
- Don't lay down your weapons. Arming yourself is the best way to keep peace. The most
vicious atrocities are committed against those who are powerless or
unwilling to defend themselves.
- Offense is the worst form of defense. Not because it will not work, but because anyone
can use the argument 'Offense is the best form of defense' to kill without provocation.
- Don't follow books that advocate murder. Both the Bible and the Qu'ran advocate murder of
humans.
- # We want everyone to be like us. (This is the root of most strife, conflicts)
At the same time we want to be different from everyone else. (This is the root of most progress)
- # The fastest growing religion in the world is
having no religion at all. i.e. atheist or agnostic or humanistic.
- # Disband the United Nations.
- # Ban religious schools especially Islamic madrasas.
- Enough is enough. Dump these teachers of religious intolerance into the dustbin of history.
- If we don't force the Muslims to get modern education they will never come out of the
dark ages, and the world will always be at the mercy of Islamic terrorism.
- # It is just a question of WHEN not a question of IF before nuclear Islamic terrorism happens. Any takers on which
city is going to be the first? If the world refuses to recognize Islam as a threat millions
and millions maybe even billions are going to die. And when the last city goes up the Islam
apologists both Muslim and non-Muslim will still manage to blame the victims and exonerate
the evil cult Islam of all responsibility and say that the victims deserved it and say "peaceful religion" Islam
is being maligned because of a few handful of extremists and a growing number of islamophobes.
To prevent such a holocaust the following things must be done and urgently.
- Attack and burn militant training camps in Pakistan and Bangladesh and other countries.
- Stop selling arms to Islamic countries.
- France and Russia should drop plans to build nuclear reactors for Libya and Iran
respectively. Are you crazy to arm your enemies with weapons with which they can wipe you out. It is easy to pilfer nuclear material from a reactor and build a bomb (if you are the government). We Indians did it way back
in 1970 from the reactor that Canada built us. I am not proud of that fact but I am telling
you to let you know it has been done. I am not a fan of nuclear energy anyway. Close all
reactors and turn to wind energy.
- Stop giving any sort of humanitarian aid to Islamic countries. Such aid only funnels money
into the hands of the terrorists.
- Stop whitewashing Islam, stop using the word Islamist or any other word when Islam is the
word you want to label this evil cult.
- Shut down all madrasas in India and other countries.
- Muslims should wake up to the evilness of Islam and leave religion altogether because once
nuclear terrorism happens the backlash against Muslims is going to be something terrible. Or
are you going to keep fooling yourself that nuclear Islamic terrorism is not going to happen?
The attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated and don't make any bets that they have not tried to acquire a nuclear bomb yet. They have just not managed to get one......yet.
- Migrate away from cities. Sell your house in the city and move to a smaller town, today.
- # Maintain a balance sheet for those who help you.
Never forget those who help you when you are down. If you make it big remember to help those
who helped you back when you were helpless.
- # We trust people we shouldn't and then don't trust people whom we can trust.
- #Opportunity takes such a long time to come that by
the time it arrives we are asleep at the switch. Since we don't grab it, it goes away again
for a long time perhaps never to return. Just because opportunity has not come yet, don't stop
being alert. Don't fall asleep at the switch.
Quotes by unknown authors
- Failure is always temporary, only giving up makes it permenant.
- Do a little more every day than you think you can.
- Character equals destiny.
- When character is gained, everything is gained.
- The best way to predict the future is to create it.
- Be critical of both new ideas and accepted wisdom.
- Trust me: Never trust someone who says "trust me".
- Taxation is a way to force people to work for money.
- It was Chanakya who first wrote that a government should tax its people like a
shepherd shears his flock or a bee gets nectar from a flower. But apparently that
fiscal wisdom died with him. The modern Indian state has taxed its people like the
French get perfume from flowers - by the time they are through, nothing much of the
flower remains. Similarly, right from the prohibitive peak income tax rate of 97.5%
in the heydey of state control to the current system of state taxes, the formula is
a familiar one: by the time the state is through with the taxpayer, nothing much was
left of him.
Thiruvalluvar from 'Thirukural'
Yakavarayinum nakaakka kaavakkal sokaappar
sol izhukap pattu
[Even if you don't guard anything else, guard your tongue, otherwise you will guard sorrow
after words are drawn out from you.]
Thaeran thelivum thelinthankan iyuravum
theera idumbaitharum
[Deciding before questioning and questioning after deciding will both give you unending trouble.
- What ever you want to do, whether you want to get married, get divorced, join a job, leave a job, start a project, get out of a project, for anything that you want to
do, you should do lots of self questioning and self doubting before you decide. Deciding an action without lots of questioning is foolish. You may waste a lot of time doing it before you regret it.
- Doubts after deciding is equally foolish. Once you have commenced your action all questions except for how best to do the job at hand should be rigourously eliminated. Doubts and fears will
bring down your capacity to do the job. Once you have decided never look back, never ask whether it is worth doing, whether you are going anywhere or whether you will get anywhere or whether you
are making a mistake. Just cease your questions and simply go on doing until you execute what you have decided.]
Anbirkumundo Adaikkum thazh, aarvalar,
punnkanir pusal tharum
[Can any door lock love? its unstoppable like the tears that fill our eyes.]
Lord Krishna from the Essence of Bhagavad Gita
Whatever has happened, has happened well,
whatever is happening, is happening well,
whatever is going to happen, will happen well.
what did you lose? what are you crying for?
what did you bring into this world for you to lose it?
what ever did you create for it to be wasted?
what ever you took was taken from here.
what ever you gave was given here.
what is yours today will belong to someone else tomorrow.
and the day after tomorrow it will belong to someother person
this is the way of this world.
Sun Tzu
- Know yourself, know your enemies, one hundred battles, one hundred victories.
- He who fights first and then looks for victory shows a supreme lack of intelligence.
- One may know how to win, without being able to do so.
Isaac Asimov
- Happiness is doing it rotten your own way.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
- Violence is the refuge of the incompetent.
- Non violence in a more powerful force than violence.
- It requires more courage to be non violent than it takes to be violent.
Thomas Alva Edison is my favorite.
- Success is 1% inspiration and 99% work. [slightly modified by me. Actually he said 'Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration'.]
- Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- The surest way to succeed is to always try just one more time.
Quotes by James Allen from 'As a man thinketh'
- Only the wise man, only he whose thoughts are controlled and purified
makes the winds and storms of life obey him.
- With the majority of people the barque of thought is allowed to drift
upon the ocean of life.
Ted Turner
- Insecurity breeds greatness. To get to the top in virtually anthing you really have
to make a superhuman effort. You won't ever find a superachiever anywhere
who wasn't or isn't motivated at least partially by insecurity [or paranoia].
Calvin Coolidge
- “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
Jim Rohn
- In the homes of poor people you'll find a big TV. In the homes of wealthy people you'll find a big library.
Vic Johnson
- one of my most favorite inspirational examples about persistence is the story of an Asian Bamboo species that even after five years of watering, weeding and fertilizing is barely visible. Then in a span of about six weeks it grows two and a half feet a day to 90 feet and higher. It grows so fast that you can literally "hear" it growing. The question to ask is did the bamboo grow 90 feet in six weeks or did it grow 90 feet in five years?
Obviously it grew 90 feet in five years, for all the time when growth wasn't visible it was developing a massive root system that would later support it's magnificent growth.
Can you see where the current circumstances in your life are developing your massive root system? Can you see where you must continue to "fertilize" and "water" yourself even though maybe you can't see any visible changes today?
Jeremy Chatfield
- a failure is only a failure when you fail to learn
Lazarus Long
- I don't believe anything. Gets in the way of learning.
Steve Pavlina
- It's far better to happily achieve than it is to feel you must achieve in order to be happy.
- Character trumps personality. Where personal honor is sacred, every individual assumes responsibility for the project. When honesty is paramount, suspicion and distrust cannot gain a foothold. And where mutual respect is high, petty personality differences simply don't matter.
- Failure is not the opposite of success. It is an essential part of success. Once you succeed, no one will remember your failures anyway. Microsoft wasn't Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's first business venture. Who remembers that their original Traf-o-Data business was a flop? The actor Jim Carey was booed off many a stage while a young comedian. We have electric light bulbs because Thomas Edison refused to give up even after 10,000 failed experiments. If the word "failure" is anathema to you, then reframe it: You either succeed, or you have a learning experience.
- you'll learn a lot more by doing than you ever will by thinking indefinitely
- Realize that nothing is free if it costs you time. Before you sign up for any new free service or subscription, ask how much it will cost you in terms of time.
- Thinking and planning are important, but action is far more important. You don't get paid for your thoughts and plans -- you only get paid for your results. When in doubt, act boldly, as if it were impossible to fail. In essence, it is.
- Don't chase money. Chase your passion.
Newt Gingrich
- Perseverance is the hard work that you do
after you get tired of doing the hard work that you already did.
Richard Feynman
- Imagination of nature is greater than the imagination of man. [My twist: The imagination of the users of your product is a magnitude greater
than your own imagination, or the imagination of society as a whole is greater than your imagination.]
Ben Franklin
- if you love life, don't waste time, because time is what life is made of
Will Rogers
- Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Albert Einstein
- Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler
George Carlin
- The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have.
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