Isaacson Gentle Quotes & Sayings

Shopping for shoes has nothing to do with need, and everything to do with lust. Do you know how many pairs I own?"
"No."
"Neither do I! — Nora Roberts

If you want to be a writer, you don't want to live in a comfortable place. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

When a man has his heart in the right place and good taste, he can not only do well in politics but is even predetermined for it. If someone is modest and does not yearn for power, he is certainly not ill-equipped to engage in politics; on the contrary, he belongs there. What is needed in politics is not the ability to lie but rather the sensibility to know when, where, how and to whom to say things. — Vaclav Havel

I had no idea that he was going to write that, but I've always believed that insecurity was what would keep you always in your innocence, no matter what the business did. — Sally Kirkland

They had money, but don't you go talking about class. — Kate Morton

Socrates' method of building an argument through gentle queries, he "dropped my abrupt contradiction" style of argument and "put on the humbler enquirer" of the Socratic method. By asking what seemed to be innocent questions, Franklin would draw people into making concessions that would gradually prove whatever point he was trying to assert. — Walter Isaacson

There's something mathematically satisfying about music: notes fit together and harmony and all that. And mathematics has to do with abstractions and making connections. — Tom Lehrer

Spank me, whip me, let me come back home. Break out the leather, baby. — Ray Parker Jr.

Modesty is only arrogance by stealth. — Terry Pratchett

A founder who is in for the short run, or has no passion for the sector he is in, doesn't give me a great deal of comfort. — Ratan Tata

Franklin was worried that his fondness for conversation and eagerness to impress made him prone to "prattling, punning and joking, which only made me acceptable to trifling company." Knowledge, he realized, "was obtained rather by the use of the ear than of the tongue." So in the Junto, he began to work on his use of silence and gentle dialogue. — Walter Isaacson

When you have very lax parents, you tend to get more conservative kids. — Hanya Yanagihara

Being productive and being busy are not necessarily the same thing. Doing things won't create your success; doing the right things will. — Jeff Olson

Everything you have is now worth nothing and yet nothing, true nothing, is worth everything to you. For a man covered in shameful lies, to suddenly possess nothing would be a luxury. If you cannot even grasp the true value of nothing then how can you possibly appreciate the cost of all the shiny trinkets weighing down your feeble life? — Christian Cook

To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It's freedom. — Patti Smith

Wozniak would be the gentle wizard coming up with a neat invention that he would have been happy just to give away, and Jobs would figure out how to make it user-friendly, put it together in a package, market it, and make a few bucks. — Walter Isaacson

Game theorists analyze negotiations as if they were split-a-pie games involving selfish players. — Yanis Varoufakis