Whether it is urban legend or not is still an open question but this ad, supposedly placed by Ernest Shackleton in London newspapers
before one of his expeditions, sums up a startup nicely:
"MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES,
BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS,
CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS."
not a quote, but i like the poem "if" by rudyard kipling. it kind of describes the sort of evenness and perseverance that is required of an entrepreneur...
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain
For a true writer [hacker?] each book [project?] should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed. How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.
- Ernest Hemingway
The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination.
-Fred Brooks
Programming...gratifies creative longings built deep within us and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men.
-Fred Brooks
This is in the same genre of something that a couple of old former oil field managers said to me once (after they had left the oil and gas industry to start a company doing water table analysis for municipal water supplies):
"You're going to bust your ass no matter what. You might as well bust your ass for $10 million instead of $10 thousand."
73 comments
[ 55.4 ms ] story [ 242 ms ] thread- Robert Frost
--Paul Graham in http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
From: What They Don’t Tell You About Being An Entrepreneur ( http://how2livelife.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-they-dont-tell... )
"MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS."
Cheers
Jason
http://reddit.com/r/inspirational
http://www.swarthmore.edu/~apreset1/docs/if.html
...utter brilliance there. It's amazing how the poems I thought were cute in high school ring so true now that I'm in my 30's.
- Eliot Carver
Wired used to have great passages on the inside of the front cover. this one always stuck with me.
The challenge in a startup is to discern the harbingers from the outliers.
Theodore Roosevelt
- entirety of a speech given by Gus Grissom, 1959
For a true writer [hacker?] each book [project?] should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed. How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him. - Ernest Hemingway
The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. -Fred Brooks
Programming...gratifies creative longings built deep within us and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men. -Fred Brooks
"If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big."
"You're going to bust your ass no matter what. You might as well bust your ass for $10 million instead of $10 thousand."