My Favourite Inspirational Quotes on Life and Design
by Olegs Belousovs •
My collection of random famous (and not) quotes, taken from various books, articles, and said by parents/friends, on the topics of life, work, and design.
If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
The beginning is the half of every action.
Many of the things you can count, don’t count. Many of the things you can’t count really count.
Those who tell the stories rule society.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
Art is theft.
Data explains, stories inspire.
The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.
The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
È meglio essere primi che meglio degli altri.
What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.
If our eyes are always looking for weakness, we begin to lose the intuition to notice the beauty.
…a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention…
View obstacles as opportunities for growth.
Everything popular is wrong.
Quit picking fights and go make something!
The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply.
Life is too short to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again.
Meglio vivere d’istanti e d’istinti che distanti e distinti.
Every entrepreneur I have ever met is an artist. They are all forced to become comfortable with failure. And for entrepreneurs, their canvas is their company.
There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.
Dovete andare fieri del vostro nemico; allora i successi del vostro nemico saranno anche i vostri successi.
You can fool everyone else, but you can’t fool your own mind.
You can’t TRY to do things, you must simply DO them.
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
Come il ferro è consumato dalla ruggine, così gli invidiosi sono consumati dalla loro stessa passione.
Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
It always seems impossible until it’s done.
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
Waiting for inspiration is like standing at the airport waiting for a train.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Without great solitude no serious work is possible.
It is difficult to judge beauty: beauty is an enigma.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
La motivazione è il carburante del lavoro intellettuale.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Hell is other people.
Fall seven times and stand up eight.
Your work is something you do, not who you are.
When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.
Finché la gente accetterà la spazzatura, sarà redditizio venderla.
The good life consists in enjoying the creativity of others, and in sharing our own, not just in having our basic needs met.
Don’t criticize unless you can do better.
There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.
Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
When you are tired of saying it, they are starting to hear it.
La conoscenza non è sufficiente, dobbiamo applicarla. La volontà non è abbastanza, dobbiamo agire.
You can do anything, but not everything.
You aren’t learning anything when you’re talking.
It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
Good design is as little design as possible.
Music is the space between the notes.
Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
Ciò che conta è quello che impari quando sai già tutto.
Comparison is the death of joy.
A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
The best design tool is a long eraser with a pencil at one end.
Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.
Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.
What we fear of doing most is usually what we most need to do.
Serious-minded people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.
You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.
It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
A true leader does not give orders. A true leader gives explanations.
The future is a journey, not a destination.
Without data you’re just another person with an opinion.
The problem contains the solution.
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.
What people say, what people do, and what people say they do are entirely different things.
The things you own end up owning you.
When the wind of change blows, some people build walls, others build windmills.
Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.
An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory.
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.
Non lo so quale sia la chiave del successo, ma la chiave per il fallimento è nel cercare di accontentare tutti.
In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.
Believe in yourself and stop trying to convince others.
The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.
Even the strongest man cannot lift himself up.
The best way to predict your future is to create it.
Senza crisi non ci sono sfide, senza sfide la vita è una routine, una lenta agonia.
Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.
If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
You never know what you can do till you try.
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
I don’t know what I think until I write it down.
Moderation is a fatal thing… Nothing succeeds like excess.
To understand is to know what to do.
The most important things in life aren’t things.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.
Decide what you stand for. And then stand for it all the time.
I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car.
Leave something for someone but don’t leave someone for something.
The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.
Whatever we say, we are always talking about ourselves.
You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don’t know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.
Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.
Design is like air, you only notice it when it’s bad.
Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Everybody is interesting when they are interested in something.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
You can only organize something if you understand how it works.
What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.
It’s better to see once than hear a hundred times.
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
Being right keeps you in place, being wrong forces you to explore.
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.
If our eyes are always looking for weakness, we begin to lose the intuition to notice the beauty.
The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.
Never reply when you are angry. Never make a promise when you are happy. Never make decision when you are sad.
For the want of a nail the shoe was lost, For the want of a shoe the horse was lost, For the want of a horse the rider was lost, For the want of a rider the battle was lost, For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost, And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.
The days are long, but the years are short.
As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.
I think you just have to work hard for about 10 years before you know what you’re doing.
I think you travel to search and you come back home to find yourself there.
Diciamo di ammazzare il tempo come se, purtroppo, non fosse il tempo ad ammazzare noi.
If you get on the wrong train, get off at the nearest station; the longer it takes you to get off, the more expensive the return trip will be.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Always in motion is the future.
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without the work.
Time is the only resource we have that is nonrenewable.
You are as great as the cause that you serve and as young as your dreams.
Не имей сто рублей, а имей сто друзей.
It’s better to burn out than to fade away.
…there is nothing new under the sun.
When you stop moving, the music stops.
Love your job but don’t love your company, because you may not know when your company stops loving you!
It’s easier to make things people want, than it is to make people want things.
Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.
Change will lead to insight far more often than insight will lead to change.
Success is not delivering a feature; success is learning how to solve the customer’s problem.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.
Fear is often just the imagination taking a wrong turn.
When there’s nothing, you can do anything.
Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.
What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
If you get, give. If you learn, teach.
A goal without a plan is just a wish.
The real risk is in not changing. I have to feel that I’m after something. If I make money, fine. But I’d rather be striving. It’s the striving, man, it’s that I want.
What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.
Men have become the tools of their tools.
Work to become, not to acquire.
It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.
Do not judge me by my successes; judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Everywhere is a walking distance if you have the time
The days are long, but the years are short.
It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
The distance between dreams and reality is called discipline.
If you can’t solve a problem, then there is an easier problem you can solve: find it.
The best defense is a good offense.
Designer can design a solution to a problem, but they can’t design a solution to a disagreement.
He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.
Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.
If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success.
If our eyes are always looking for weakness, we begin to lose the intuition to notice the beauty.
A dream will not become an innovation if there is no realisation.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
If everything is important, then nothing is.
The best design is the simplest one that works.
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.
Make yourself become who you are.
Gran parte dello stress deriva da impegni – presi con se stessi o con gli altri – gestiti in modo non adeguato.