Dijkgraaf Van Quotes & Sayings

Our schools teach the opposite: institutionalized education traffics in a kind of homogenized, generic knowledge. Everybody who passes through the American school system learns not to think in power law terms. Every high school course period lasts 45 minutes whatever the subject. Every student proceeds at a similar pace. At college, model students obsessively hedge their futures by assembling a suite of exotic and minor skills. Every university believes in "excellence," and hundred-page course catalogs arranged alphabetically according to arbitrary departments of knowledge seem designed to reassure you that "it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you do it well." That is completely false. It does matter what you do. You should focus relentlessly on something you're good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future. — Peter Thiel

I think you forget that I'm still alive. It's like you don't expect me to keep on existing now that I'm not in your life every day. — Rachel Higginson

I'm not engaged in predicting random number generators. I actually get phone calls from people who want to know what lottery numbers are going to win. I don't have a clue. — Bruce Bueno De Mesquita

To my mind, those who can, do. Those who can't, gripe. — Chuck Palahniuk

It is therefore not to be wondered at that Lincoln's single term in the House of Representatives at Washington added practically nothing to his reputation. — John George Nicolay

I was trying to be a better man, Perry. For you." I shifted in my seat. "Dex ... " "And I'll keep trying," he quickly said, voice low and somber. "Until I get it right. — Karina Halle

People love for so many different reasons. Some love you for only what you can do for them. Others love you for how much money you have or various material things. Love is sometimes tossed around like throwing a bone to a dog. And, some people have love confused with lust or infatuation. Those are both temporary and artificial, not genuine. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

I think it's important to have a good hard failure when you're young. I learned a lot out of that. Because it makes you kind of aware of what can happen to you. Because of it I've never had any fear in my whole life when we've been near collapse and all of that. I've never been afraid. I've never had the feeling I couldn't walk out and get a job doing something. — Walt Disney Company

O benefit of ill! Now I find true
That better is by evil still made better;
And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
So I return rebuk'd to my content,
And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent. — William Shakespeare

I want good and different parts, different from what I've done. — Joan Severance

If you've 'eard the East a-callin', why you won't 'eed nothin' else.
No! you won't 'eed nothin' else, but them spicy garlic smells, an' the sunshine an' the palm trees, an' the tinkly temple-bells. — Rudyard Kipling

Since cancer, I feel like I have dreams rather than ambitions, visions rather than plans. — Eve Ensler

Love, I thought to myself abstractedly. Not 'This is love' or 'Is this love?' Not a sentence, not a certainty, not a thought with moving parts or direction. Just love, all of it, as it is. Whether it's enough or not. Wthether it's real or we're making it up. However shoddy it gets, or bent out of shape. It's still extraordinary. However foolish, however vain. However badly it ends. Love. — Julian Gough

If you limit worship to where you are, the minute you leave that place of worship you will leave your attitude of worship behind like a crumpled-up church bulletin. — Tony Evans