“I know he’s a good general, but is he lucky?”
— Napoleon Bonaparte
Quotes
Mortar
“I’m more interested in the mortar than the bricks.”
— Jerry Seinfeld
The Practice of Principles
“The practice of principles must precede their derivation, articulation, and institutionalization.”
— John Lewis Gaddis
The Simplicity on the Far Side of Complexity
“I wouldn’t give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity; I would give my life for the simplicity on the far side of complexity.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes
A Self-Saving World
“Nobody can save the world, but any of us can help set in motion a self-saving world.”
— Stewart Brand
Amusing Contradictions
“If one is amused by a contradiction, it is because one supposes its terms to be very far apart.”
— Roland Barthes
Getting at the Real Meaning of Things
“It is only by selection, by elimination, and by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things.”
— Georgia O’Keeffe
The Next Larger Context
“Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context — a chair in a room, a room, in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.”
— Eliel Saarinen
What a Medium Is
“A medium is a technology within which a culture grows; that is to say, it gives form to a culture’s politics, social organization, and habitual ways of thinking.”
— Neil Postman
