Echoes

I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.

The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die.

A man must shape himself to a new mark when the old one goes to ground.

The only certainty is that nothing is certain.

It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win.

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.

The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

If you're afraid — don't do it. If you're doing it — don't be afraid.

It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world! . . . Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discover's keen searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the heartless strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

Whenever one tries to suppress doubt, there is tyranny.

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

In prosecuting these discoveries, the dangers we are exposed to are obvious, but I rejoice that we are chosen to confront them.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure.