Inspirational One Liners

It is my personal hobby to collect inspirational one-liners. Here are some of them. On a low day, it will cheer you up to go through a one-liner book, so why not start collecting your own set? Square brackets contain my own comments.

This page started out as a collection of quotes from others, but has now become a public repository of my own thoughts. Since this page is named inspirational one liners, i have left it thatway even though it may not be an appropriate title anymore.

-Shankar

My own observations (or perhaps I read them somewhere)

• Think of what you must do, don't think of what you want. If you do what you must do, what you want will take care of itself.
• Be willing to learn all your life.
• The most valuable gift that you can give someone is the freedom to be themselves. All that I am today and all my achievements are because of my parents who allowed me to choose my own vocation in life instead of compelling me to become an engineer or doctor or whatever fashionable professions that took their fancy.
• # Get rid of all languages other than english or use them only for poetry. I am not an english native and english is not my mother tongue, but still I support english fully because,
  1. It is impossible to translate all scientific advancements in all the languages. You will always be forever behind in science and technology if you stick to other languages.
  2. The world needs more and better communication in order to promote understanding and peace. Insisting on your mother tongue will lessen the chance of understanding others and this in turn will hinder world peace.
  3. Your patriotism to your current mother tongue is an accident of history. It was not the mother tongue of your ancestors. Sanskrit is the mother of all languages, is sanskrit known or understood widely anymore? Though the people who spoke them five thousand years ago would have shown patriotism to sanskrit where is sanskrit now? Similarly, though you show patriotism to your current mother tongue, your great great descendants would not even know your language and their dialects would have become completely different from what you are speaking today and to understand movies that are taken today they would have to use translators into their then dialects. So what's the use of lingual patriotism when your current mother tongue is going to die a natural death anyway (atleast as you speak it today) no matter what you do today?
• There are atleast two types of affection
  1. Real affection. Rare to find, especially in yourself unless you consciously cultivate your thoughts towards perfection and unconditional affection.
  2. Balance sheet affection. This is the common variety found everywhere, easy to spot even in yourself. This is affection that is bestowed conditionally like: She doesn't call me, why should I call her? He never visits me, why should I visit him? She never writes/emails to me, why should I write/email her? They have never given me anything, why should I give them anything? This is the type of affection that runs on a unconscious balance sheet maintained by yourself.
  Now that I have pointed it out, which affection do you prefer? If your phone is not ringing isn't it time you rung someone? If your email box is empty except for spam, isn't it time you wrote someone? If you are lonely and abandoned isn't it time you visited someone instead of waiting for someone to visit you?
  
  It is easy to convert balance sheet affection into real affection. Just start accumulating credit entries by reversing the above questions like: I will keep calling her so one day she will keep calling me. I will keep visiting him, so one day he will keep visiting me. I will keep writing her, so one day she will keep writing me. I will keep giving them so that one day they will keep giving me.
  
  The problem with a balance sheet is that it will always be balanced, the debits will match credits precisely and you will end up with a zero. If you want more than a zero, real affection is the way to go.
• When choosing friends or partners, forget money, forget personality, forget looks, choose only for character and you will never choose wrong.
• Get rid of the TV and you will double your lifespan, because at present you are wasting half or atleast one third of your life on emotional and negative junk.
• Stop buying printed newspapers and start reading online news. Every year a forest the size of the country of portugal is mashed into newsprint to print the worlds newspapers most of which goes unread and goes straight to the trash, where it belongs. Fifty years ago newspapers and television didn't exist in most countries, two hundred years ago they didn't exist at all. I am telling you this to show that newspapers and TV are not essential to life at all. People just got through life fine without these crutches. Your life will probably become better by discarding the emotional and negative junk that the newspapers and TV project daily.
  Another huge waste of trees is the telephone book. Every year millions of trees are ground into waste to produce the world's telephone books. Go online. I am sure most of you do already. Searching online telephone directories is much faster, verstalile and most up-to-date. Ask your telephone book provider to stop delivering printed telephone books. (Anectote: I lost a bundle of money advertising on such books before I realized that they are not producing value for money spent. Advertising on such books and advertising on newspapers is like throwing away your money.)
• People can't be saved from themselves all the time. You may be able to save them from external danger, but you can't protect them from their own thoughts and actions. Good thoughts and actions produce good results and bad thoughts and actions produce bad results. This is called karma. Karma doesn't mean reincarnation as the west thinks. Karma is a sanskrit word meaning work or action. If you do good actions you will get good results. If you do bad actions you will get bad results. Reincarnation belief is an extension of this karmic belief. If you don't get good results immediately you reassure yourself that you will get it in your next life. But reincarnation is just as much bullshit as life after death and ghosts and spirits and heaven and hell.
• Consider becoming a vegetarian. I am a pure vegetarian not because killing animals is bad or because I am an animal lover. In fact I dislike animals, I have especially come to dislike dogs and cats (I think both are dirty creatures. I apologize to dog and cat lovers). I am a vegetarian because
  • Plants don't shit.
  • Plants don't have sweat glands.
  • Plants don't have blood.
  • I don't like chewing on dead bodies.
  • I am not blood thirsty.
  • Vegetarians live longer.
  • Vegetarians are healthier.
  • Apart from salt which can be got from the sea, plants lack no nutrients that an animal can give because the animals themselves got those nutrients from plants. In fact animals may lack many nutrients that plants have because they may not have absorbed it.
  • Plant food is healthy food. All plant germs are destroyed by proper cooking. Whereas animal germs may survive even when fully cooked because the fat in animals protect the germs from being destroyed. Such fat is not present in plants.
  • Plants can't cause Pandemics like bird flu, SARS. There is a possibility that an animal virus can infect man, but there is not even a remote possibility that a plant dependent bacteria can migrate to humans.
  • Plant food is plentiful as they lie at the bottom of the food pyramid.
  • If the demand for animal food does not go down, then animals will continue being crammed into confined spaces in order to breed the largest numbers in the smallest area possible, which will increase the likelihood that an animal virus will migrate to man.
  • I live in India (The world's number one vegetarian country.). (We Indians have a terrible time finding good (healthy vegetarian) food when we travel outside of India.)
  • My ancestors have been vegetarians for thousands of years. We are pure vegetarians meaning we don't touch any animal product except milk (which all humans drink from their mothers when they are born, so don't tell me milk is harmful to man). We won't even touch fish, chicken and eggs.
  • Elephants are 1000 times more stronger than you. Elephants are the biggest land animals and elephants are pure vegetarians. I am pointing out this to bust the myth that vegetarians can't become big and strong.
• Give importance to people, animals and things in that order.
  • Many people will place sentimental attachment on their lucky ring, lucky watch, lucky car, pet dog, first home, home city. Throw away your lucky ring, lucky watch. Sell your lucky car, sell the home you were raised in, leave your home city and go far if necessity demands. Attach your sentiments only to people. Don't give a damn about things and places and animals and the dead.
  • Don't attach your sentiments to the dead. Stop visiting the dead at their graves and start visiting your living friends and relatives.
• One second of carelessness will lead to a day/week/month/year/lifetime of misery.
  • Spill boiled milk on your hand and you will have a day of misery.
  • Fall down the stairs and break your leg and you will have at least a month of misery.
  • Drive carelessly and break your spine, you may become a quadraplegic and have a lifetime of misery.
  • Be alert all the time and you will save yourself lots of miseries. If you are not alert, stop doing everything and sleep until you become alert. One day of lost work/pay is much better than spending a lifetime in a wheel chair.
• Competition and Cooperation are not mutually exclusive. Really intelligent people try to do both.
  • When you improve yourself, you become more competitive. When you improve others you are being cooperative. Can you not improve yourself while at the same time try improving others?
  • Always be willing to learn and teach. Learning is becoming more competitive, teaching is being cooperative.
  • Always lookout for what can be done in a better method. Always lookout for ideas that you can give away freely to others to improve them.
• Neither poverty, nor wealth will lead to decadency, unless you let it. Neither poverty, nor wealth will give you self discipline. Work and learning alone will give you self discipline and a lot of other good virtues.
• Learn to be happy by yourself. Nothing and nobody can make you happy except yourself. Only after you learn to be happy by yourself, you will be able to be happy around others.
• Don't do anything unless you absolutely have to. I am an absolutely lazy person but I have an obsession to be working all the time. Is that a contradiction? No! If we work only because we have to we will find the most efficient methods of working. If we work because we want to busy then we might as well be busy by going round and round in circles and not doing anything. We should work in order to get things done, not merely because we should be busy. If we work only when we have to, we will find goals worthy to work towards.
• Don't learn anything unless you absolutely have to. Learning latin is not going to be useful to me in anyway so why should I learn it? Set up goals to be achieved and only learn things that would enable you to achieve those goals.
• The key character that will determine success or failure is commitment. Look for the long haul guys, the people who will not quit no matter what the hardships, whose commitment is unwavering, people who will do or die rather than quit. These are the people, the only people who will succeed 99% of the time. Winners never quit, quitters never win.
• The most important problem facing mankind is "How to reach the stars?"
  • Why is this the most important problem? Because all our eggs are in one basket. If anything happens to this earth or solar system then mankind will vanish with it. Life has got a precarious toehold on this planet.
  • So I think that this is the most important problem facing mankind, that must be solved the sooner the better.
  • If not the stars we should atleast colonize the other planets and asteroids. If you have no purpose in life at present, make this your primary purpose and think of ways to solve this problem.
  • I would even suggest that all humans adopt this as their purpose.
  • Sub problems:
    • How to cross distances spanning light years in a few years if not a few hours/minutes/seconds? (I think the idea of someone travelling at light speed or more and returning after a few years only to find that earth has aged 100 years ridiculous/rubbish/incomprehensible/ too difficult for me to comprehend/impossible. Such kind of ideas are cul-de-sacs that limit our potential to solve the problem of spanning light year distances.)
    • How to propel a rocket without losing mass? (A ridiculous way of travelling, there must be a better way of propulsion other than newton's third law. My opinion is that the current rocket science compared to what it should be is equal to comparing tumbling over the niagra waterfalls in a barrel to travelling in a transcontinental flight. And I keep hearing the phrase "it's not rocket science" with reference to other sciences/technologies, so what does my opinion of current rocket science say about the other sciences?)
    • How to create self sustaining ecologies that will support mankind in other planets/spaceships for many years without replenishment?
  • This problem has been in the back of my mind for many years but crystallized into words only last week (today is 2007/01/22) after I rewrote a poem that was authored by mozart (twinkle twinkle little stars).
• Pollution is the sign of life.
  • Sterile purity implies an absence of life.
  • Where would you prefer to live, a polluted but life bearing earth populated by billions or a lifeless but pure and unpolluted earth where no one other than you is present? Wouldn't you be kind of lonely?
  • I am not saying the you should pollute the environment or that anti-pollution measures should not be done. Try not to pollute by all means but remember that there can be no life without pollution. Have you heard of the saying, an orderly and clean house implies an absence of kids in that house?
  • Just because you hate pollution don't start hating life because the alternative of no-life is meaninglessly pure emptiness.
• Use the right tools
  • Tools increase productivity. The right tools increase productivity by orders of magnitude.
  • Problem solving mostly involves making the correct tools that will make them solvable.
• Lies are like quicksand, soft and comfortable, but they will swallow us.
  Truth is like bedrock, hard and uncomfortable, but we can always stand on it.
• No question is stupid. It is the lack of questioning that is stupid. Never hesitate to ask anything even if it may appear stupid. Only by asking your knowledge will grow.
• The key to being important is to become useful. Most people hate to be used by others. But only if you allow yourself to be used by others will you be useful to others, only then you will become important to others. The key to being useful is to solve problems. To become the most important, solve the most important problems in your field. The question that you should be asking yourself is "What is the most important problem in my field and why am I not working on it?"

  What is the most important problem in your field/company/work/study? Why are you not working on it immediately? What can be preventing you from working on the most important problem?

• Will you support a 100% Income tax?
  • What does a 100% income tax mean? That what ever you earn will be taken from you by the government. Will you want to work for such a country, such a world?
  • What's unfair about a 100% income tax? After all you don't consider a 50% income tax as unfair. If 50% is not unfair then you will not consider 51% as unfair, it is just one percent more. Then 52% is not unfair because it is just one percent more and so on until you reach 100%. What's unfair about 100% income tax? What's unfair about robbery?
  • What's the difference between the street gang that promises your safety in return for a 30% share of your income and a government that promises your safety in return for a 30% share of your income?
  • You can never reduce economic inequality to zero without robbing the rich. When you rob the rich not only do the rich get poorer, the poor get even more poorer. When the poor get richer, the rich will get richer. You can't have the poor get richer while the rich get poorer. Which will you rather have, that the rich get richer or that the poor get poorer?
  • Would you be a poor man in a rich country or a rich man in a poor country?
  • If you don't support a 100% income tax why do you support a 30% income tax?
  • Ask yourself if a 100% income tax is fair, if not why not?
  • Without hope of gain, you will be left only with fear of loss. When only fear of loss is allowed by the government and the hope of gain is removed, then people will not take risks. Without people who are willing to take enormous risks you will not have a progressive country. Do you want the government to give you only fear of loss without hope of gain? Fear of loss should be balanced by hope of gain otherwise the world will become unbalanced.
  • Risk equals reward. Without risk there will be no reward. When economic inequality is not guaranteed there will be no risk takers. Without risk takers there will be no risk taking and hence no rewards and no prosperity. Economic inequality equals economic prosperity. Remove or try to remove economic inequality and that country is doomed.
  • When you say "Economic inequality should be removed" you are actually saying
    • No new companies should be formed and hence no new jobs should be generated and hence there should be more jobless. Because if economic inequality is removed there will be no one willing to risk starting new companies.
• Make personal income tax semi voluntary.
  • We citizens are not against funding the government, but we are absolutely against being treated as criminals by default. We are absolutely against the harrasment of us by petty government officials in the name of tax.
  • Remove all civil and criminal penalities for non payment of income tax. 80% of people who now pay tax will pay it anyway without being threatened with such tactics. Citizens should be considered honest by default.
• Use direct taxes for direct democracy.
  • For all direct taxes like personal income tax, corporate income tax, let the government provide an exhaustive list of government expense account numbers like loan liability repayment, interest for loans, defense projects, highway construction projects, subsidies etc. Each account number will identify a specific unique expense project of the government. The government will determine how much tax should be paid, but it will be the taxpayer who will decide where his particular tax will be spent. He will apportion his tax to one or more government expense account numbers.
  • For all tax deducted at sources, the tax payer will specify to which government expense project account number his tax deduction will be used for.
  • For under funded and most important projects the government will use indirect taxes to make up for the deficit.
  • Under funded projects that are not considered important (like discretionary expenditure quota accounts for the MPs) by the tax payers should be dropped by the government.
  • The importance of a project is determined by the amount of taxes that it collects directly against the budget. If a project collects more than 50% of its budgeted amount it should be considered important and the budget deficit should be funded by the government using indirect taxes, other projects by the government should be dropped as they are not considered important by the citizens.
  • For projects which collect more than 100% of the budget directly, the government should expand the size of the project as it is considered by the tax payers as more important than previously thought of.
  • For a small list of expenses that are deemed perenially important like, defense, foreign affairs etc., the budget deficit is financed using indirect taxes regardless of the direct taxes collected.
  • In this way the direct democracy will start supplementing representative democracy.
  • The tax payers who select projects for which their tax should be used should be given full scrutiny powers for the projects that they have paid for, to make sure that there is no unnecessary expense padding in the project for kickbacks etc.
  • The government should make the details of all expense project account numbers available on the internet. Details like budgeted amount, direct tax amounts collected so far, expenses commited so far and for what parts should be automatically updated by computerized accounting of the government.
• Cultivate Enthusiasm
  • When enthusiasm is lost, old age sets in.
  • If you have or cultivate enthusiasm you are young no matter how long you have lived.
  • The way to cultivate enthusiasm is to act enthusiastic.
• Ignorance is bliss, knowledge is power.
  • Get as many facts as possible. Don't trust to your opinions based on few facts.
  • Go in search of facts, instead of jumping to conclusions. Conclusions based on few facts are likely to be wrong.
  • Don't form opinions on matters that you can find out for a fact.
• Don't dread the future. Think one day at a time.
  • It took me a long time to learn that the magic formula for living a stress free, tension free life is to live only for this day.
  • No matter what hardships you face, you can bear it easily if you live only for today.
  • It is the thinking about the future that gives you anxiety.
  • Think one step at a time. You can achieve a lot if you keep thinking only about doing the next step. You will not achieve much if you constantly keep thinking about all the steps that have to be taken in the future.
  • Anxiety about the future will tie you up in knots and make you feel helpless. Whereas completing one step at a time, one day at a time will increase your feeling of being in control of your destiny.
  • Learn to enjoy this moment in time. Learn to enjoy what is. Enjoy the enternal now. Forget about the future. It hasn't happened yet. It will never happen.
• The true value of anything is known only after it is lost or after it is lost and gained again.
• In order to avoid feeling frustrated when things are not going the way you planned them, pretend that the way things are going is the way you already planned them.
• Get rid of all taxes and duties of all the governments.
  • To finance the expenditures of the government the government just prints money equal to the expenses and spends it.
  • This will lead to inflation but inflation happens anyway (and more) in the current tax ridden system.
  • Think of it, there will be no income tax, no sales taxes, no tax on labour, no tax on capital, no wealth tax, no property tax, no tax on anything, so all the hassles of dealing with the government will be (mostly) gone. This will unleash the power of the capital and labour.
  • Most of all the government expenditures will be reduced because the government will not have to employ a vast army of bureaucrats to administer these taxes and duties. This will lead to lesser inflation than under the current system.
  • On the other hand without a strong central bank that controls the issue of money outside of governmental control, the inflation will spiral out of control as the government will keep giving in to populist appeasement by printing scads of money, making the money worthless.
• Ultimately nothing matters. Everything is important for a very very short period only.
• Read other peoples' moral guides, but write and follow only your own.
• Burn your credit cards
  • Turn to debit cards or cash. If you are using credit cards it means that you are living on borrowed money which means that your finances are in the negative.
  • Burn your credit cards, turn down loans offered. Put your finances in the positive.
• When dreaming of money dream of how much you will earn not how much you will be spending, not about what and all you will buy.
  • Dreaming of earning will force you to think of how you are going to earn it.
  • Dreaming of spending accomplishes nothing, because there is no need to think how you are going to spend. Any fool can take money out of the bank and pay it out if they have it.
• Money represents work done already. If you have 100 rupees it means that you (or your ancestors) have contributed 100 rupees worth of work to society. Inflation is obsolescence of work. As time passes on, work done in the past deteriorates, like the paint peels off and the work loses some of its past value. Since money represents work done in the past, it loses some of its value as time passes on. This is called inflation.
• Who said reinventing the wheel is bad?
  
  When the wheel was first invented it was made of wood/stone and was probably the size of an ox cart wheel.
  
  Imagine if the wheel had never been reinvented and has remained the same till today... Imagine...
  
  
  1. A bicycle using big ox cart wheels.
  2. A car being driven on ox cart wheels.
  3. A formula one car racing on ox cart wheels.
  4. A bus running on ox cart wheels.
  5. A train running on ox cart wheels.
  6. An aeroplane taking off on ox cart wheels.
  Even a wheel is worth reinventing again and again.
• Whatever you say (especially advices) WILL be used against you.
  • I know this from experience because those around me quote my advices frequently... back to me.
  • So I should be more careful, about what advice I give here...
• The most precious thing that you can easily waste is your youthful years.
• When you think that there is no one to help you, start helping yourself.
• The purpose of this cosmos is creation. The purpose of life is creation. So to achieve the purpose of life, CREATE a purpose. There is no readymade purpose for you. You were not created with a purpose in mind. You were created with the freedom to choose your own purpose. You were created to allow yourself the freedom to create further. You have to CREATE a purpose for yourself to achieve fulfilment.
• If you want something half-heartedly you will NEVER get it. If you want something whole-heartedly (especially if you keep the thing not in your heart but as your heart), go straight after it without shame, fear, hesitation or reservation, only then you will get it. If you keep changing your mind about whether you want something or not, you will NOT get it.
• I used to say "The world is my country, India is my state." Now I have reversed my opinion. A unified world will be a tyrannic world. No one will be able to escape a tyrannic world government, whereas one can always escape a tyrannic country through migration (Note India is not tyrannic, yet. I mention India as a reference because it happens to be my country). Already the united nations is showing its tyranny by proposing an emigration tax, yoking your neck to the country of your birth permenantly. Those who leave India have nostalgic memories of India and feel a loyalty to India. Such an emigration tax will destroy that nostalgia and loyalty completely. They will think "my dues to India has been collected when I left, I owe nothing more to India". Do we want that kind of thinking to happen? Also it will filter back the poor students from emigrating, they will not be able to afford the tax and will stay back in India, thus unable to seek opportunities to better themselves. Also a unified world will destroy competition between nations and thus make everything costlier for its citizens as there will be no choice for its citizens.
• # Say no to forming a world government.
  • A world government will add another layer of bureaucracy.
  • It will add another layer of taxes and will add to the burden of the tax payers.
  • No one will be able to escape a tyrannical world government, whereas one can always escape a tryrannical country by migration. Already the world bank and IMF are showing their tyranny by proposing an emigration tax, yoking your neck to the country of your birth permenantly.
  • The competition among nations to reduce their taxes and thus curtail government expenditure will be smothered thus leading to non-competition, higher taxes and higher government wastage. This will lead to economic stagnation of the world.
  • A world government will lead to robin hood kleptocracy (rob the rich countries give a little to poor countries with corrupt dictatorship, pocket the rest) on a world scale .
  • There is no guarantee that a democracy will not become a dictatorship overnight. Many democratic governments like pakistan have become dictatorships overnight. If the world democratic government is overthrown by a dictatorship, the dissidents will have nowhere to run to and can't find any place of refuge to make their voices heard.
  • The ability of the world federal government to create world institutions that can mediate differences that arise because of linguistic, ethnic, religious, or other regional differences is an important challenge. The inability to meet this challenge may lead to the secession of parts of the federation or to civil war, as occurred in United States and Switzerland. A civil war on a global scale may mean Atomic World War III. It may be better to remain independent and cooperate rather than lose independence and fight for it later.
• # The surest way to break a relationship is by cutting off all contact. You are in effect saying that you dont care if a person lives or dies. Conversely the surest way to build a relationship is by keeping in close touch. Though a relationship may be damaged by too many careless words, no relationship was ever built by not talking. Many people erect a wall of silence in the hope that the other person will break it down and contact and hence prove their worth or whatever. This is counter productive and will lead to loneliness. A little absence will make people miss you. A long absence will make people forget you.
• # It is ironic that India is **now** known as a poor country, because it was the richest country of the world for thousands of years.
  • It was the riches of India that led to discovery of America and the emergence of Europe as a Sea Power. In their greed to find the riches of India they had to make themselves sea worthy.
  • India is the only country in the world after which an Ocean is named.
  • Native Americans are called Indians and many parts of the world were named after India because of the prominence of India in world thinking at that time.
  • Indians are gold maniacs and India is the Gold Siphon of the world. Even though it has only one gold mine (now empty) India has more gold in ***private*** hands (distributed among the "poor" masses) than all the governments of the world have, put together.
  • India has one millionaire for every person on the continent of Australia.
  • I once told an American this and he said it was the land mass of India that was rich while the people have always been poor. I asked him, then if America is now known as the richest country, it must be because the American land mass is rich but the American people are poor?
  • Indian rupee was the world currency until the late 1800s.
• # Today (20080623) I feel sentimental about my father as I had to hospitalize him. So let me thank him publicly here, though he is never going to read it as he knows nothing about internet or computers. Many years ago when I was younger and he was posted in another city for more than five years, he used to telephone me every day to talk about something or the other. Even when there was nothing to talk about he would call. I became used to eagerly awaiting his call. Those calls made me feel like someone special and made me feel that I was important to someone. Not a single time did he say that I am calling you every single day but you are not calling me at all (I couldn't call because at that time I had no money). Thank you father, for showing me by example, the difference between real affection and balance sheet affection. Update: My father passed away in his sleep on 20080727. I miss him terribly. We never realize how much of a moral support someone is, until they are gone.
• # As you might have guessed by now, I abhor debt. So I make this suggestion. Forbid banks from lending out OUR money. We have no other choice but to keep OUR savings in the bank for the purposes of safety from being robbed. Since all of us HAVE to keep our money in the bank, the purpose of banking should be to account for our savings, the purpose of banking should not be for the purpose of lending OUR money out to make profit. To forbid banks from lending out our money we should also forbid them from giving us interest to make things fair.

  A man goes to a bank and asks for a loan.
  The banker looks at him suspiciously and asks 'do you have any collateral?'.
  The man asks 'What is collateral?'
  The banker says any document giving title to your property like real estate, vehicles etc. You have to give this to us so that we have assurance that you will pay back the money we give you.
  The man gives some collateral and takes the loan.
  
  After some time the man appears and pulls out a huge wad of cash, takes out a few bills and pays off his loan.
  The banker looks at the huge wad of cash remaining and asks 'why do you carry so much cash if you deposit it with us we will give interest'.
  The man looks suspiciously at the banker and says 'Do you have any collateral, so that I have assurance that you will pay it back?'.
  

  The highlight of this story is that WE give OUR money to the banks without any collateral whatsoever, whereas when we ask for a loan we are asked all sorts of collateral. Why should WE give OUR money to the bankers for them to play with? Banks should be forbidden to play around with OUR money. Till that happens I advise you to split your savings among a few (or several hundred or several thousand banks if you have that much) to protect your savings. It pays to be paranoid.

  Than ayuthamum, than kai porulum, pirar kayil kodukkum,
  pathaiyum patharae. - Thiruvalluvar

  What this poem says is there is no one more foolish than he who gives his weapon or his property to someone else to look after.

• # Forbid marketing of loan/debt instruments like credit cards. When I was given credit cards during my college days, money used to drain out of my credit cards like a sieve and I was up to my eye balls in debt. Only after I burned my credit cards, I was able to shore up my finances. It is (or should be) criminal to market credit cards to anyone especially college kids.
• # Jail Robert Mugabe (the dictator of Zimbabwe), for life. Any ruler who doesn't care about the welfare of his subjects should be deposed. Why doesn't the UN care about the humanitarian disaster in Zimbabwe? Why are such people robbing racist creatures like Mugabe allowed to come to and retain power?
• # My paranoia warns me that the world is on the brink of a planet wide disaster. If the Al-queda or some terrorist organization brings down the production of oil in the gulf, the entire planet will be plunged into a mega depression that will make the depression of the 1930s appear a picnic in comparison. Prices of fuel will soar and hence all other dependent stuff like food will also soar. It is highly important that the world switches to using alternate power sources like wind and solar power extensively and immediately.
• # Too much thinking leads to worry and paranoia. That is why most people blank out their minds with entertainment and refuse to think. But for me thinking is as important as breathing. Though thinking leads to worry and paranoia, over the years I have found ways to control my worries and paranoia (a little bit) by using a few simple rules. 1) Think only of pleasant things. When thinking of the past, skip the unpleasant time periods and dwell only on the sweet, funny, pleasant happenings. 2) When you must think of unpleasant things in the present like the humanitarian disasters in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Darfur, concentrate your thinking on what can be the solution to these crisises. 3) Read the end of a story book before you start. When I was a child I used to naively start reading a story book from the start, but a bad ending will disgust me leaving me a unpleasant feeling. There is enough unpleasantnesss in this world of reality for me to want unpleasantness in the world of make believe too. 4) Wait for others to view a film before viewing it. Same as a story book, i watch only films with happy endings. 5) Work. While working my thinking is focused on solving problems so it doesnt lead to worry or paranoia. 6) Dont let the sweetness and love of youth turn into bitterness and hate in old age.
• # Wash your behind with water and soap instead of or in addition to using toilet paper.
  • I recently came across someone in a forum laughing at Indians for using soap and water instead of using tissue paper.
  • Let me tell you water and soap is much more cleaner and fresher than using toilet paper.
  • If you think tissue paper is so much more cleaner than water and soap, why don't you take a bath everyday with tissue paper instead of bathing with water and soap? Do you already bath only using tissue paper? I wouldn't know.
  • Since I took care of my bedridden father, I know that a tissue paper is good for wiping away without getting your hand messy. But it is not enough. A little water and soap will go a long way in cleaning the last layer that can't be removed by any amount of wiping with paper.
• # The last shameful apartheid of mankind: Passport and visas.
  • Segregation and discrimination still exists worldwide in the form of passports and visas.
  • People don't want people of other countries to mingle with them, they oppose all forms of immigration and free movement of people.
  • Though I don't support forming a world government, I do support a world without borders. Just as a person can have a state for tax residency but can move about freely into and out of any other state within a country, A person should be able to have a country of tax residency and should be able to move freely into and out of any country without any form of documentation.
  • Why do people keep dissing people of other countries in forums? First and foremost we are ALL humans and the word foreigner should be banned from our minds because we are ALL related to each other.
  • Keeping certain people away from your section of the world is called segregation or apartheid. Passports and visas are the most modern form of apartheid, don't you think so? It is the last shameful remenant of xenophobia and racial segration.
• # Build a permanent Olympic venue in Greece.

  The last thing that the world needs is for poor countries like China or India to be spending billions and billions of dollars on creating stadiums, venues every four years. If we have a PERMANENT Olympic venue in Greece, the world can spend for it ONCE and use it again and again, without wasting billions of dollars of world resources every four years. Also it will separate the Olympics from the politics of any particular government. (Ok, this contradicts my above post that states India to be a rich country. Even if it was rich, spending for contructing stadiums again and again is a thing the world can't afford as long as there are poor people, (and there are millions of poor people in India and China).)

• # Fear of being caught and NOT fear of punishment is the greatest deterrent to crime.
  • It is legal to station a cop at a public road junction.
  • It is legal for a cop standing at a public road junction to use a video camera to record the traffic flow and people and analyse it.
  • So it must be legal for a cop to monitor a public road juction from a remote station using technology.
  • Install cameras at all public road junctions. Once the public becomes aware that their movements can be traced back in time, very, very few people will engage in crime, because they will KNOW that they can be found out. These cameras can be connected to a police station or directly to the internet, so anyone can log in to a camera and see past shots of it. Better still let everyone start putting cameras in front of their houses and connect them to the internet. The cameras need not take continous video, a high resolution shot (2 meg pixel or more) b&w picture without sound once every second will do.
  • As for privacy considerations, you should not expect privacy in a public space. Privacy is the opposite of publicly so how can you expect privacy in a public place? Anyway in this modern world, there is very little privacy, so get over it.
  • As for the fear of a police state monitoring a subjugated populace, this is not the twentieth century for us to still fear for democracy. Democracy has now got very deep roots in many countries and there is no immediate danger of a police state taking over. Anyway if a police state does take over your country being monitored will be the least of your concerns. Infact the new police state can install these cameras without asking your permission so not installing public cameras is no protection from a police state taking over a democratic country.
  • A system of public cameras will be incredibly useful in solving terrorist attacks like serial blasts. To find out who planted the bomb, you have to log in to a camera and see the past shots of it. You can even follow the planter after the fact by jumping from camera to camera as he moves back to his hideout in the past.
  • Crimes committed by outside people like kidnapping etc will become trivial to solve, leaving more resources to be concentrated on internal crimes. It may even result in a crime free world.
• # Those who bitc h get results. If you never complain you are never going to see any change.

Quotes by unknown authors

• Failure is always temporary, only giving up makes it permenant.
• Do a little more every day than you think you can.
• Character equals destiny.
• When character is gained, everything is gained.
• The best way to predict the future is to create it.
• Be critical of both new ideas and accepted wisdom.
• Trust me: Never trust someone who says "trust me".
• A programmer is not a designation its a diagnosis. [I liked this one since I am a programmer.]
• Taxation is a way to force people to work for money.
• It was Chanakya who first wrote that a government should tax its people like a shepherd shears his flock or a bee gets nectar from a flower. But apparently that fiscal wisdom died with him. The modern Indian state has taxed its people like the French get perfume from flowers - by the time they are through, nothing much of the flower remains. Similarly, right from the prohibitive peak income tax rate of 97.5% in the heydey of state control to the current system of state taxes, the formula is a familiar one: by the time the state is through with the taxpayer, nothing much was left of him.

Thiruvalluvar from 'Thirukural'

• Yakavarayinum nakaakka kaavakkal sokaappar
  sol izhukap pattu

  [Even if you don't guard anything else, guard your tongue, otherwise you will guard sorrow after words are drawn out from you.]

• Thaeran thelivum thelinthankan iyuravum
  theera idumbaitharum

  [Deciding before questioning and questioning after deciding will both give you unending trouble.
  • What ever you want to do, whether you want to get married, get divorced, join a job, leave a job, start a project, get out of a project, for anything that you want to do, you should do lots of self questioning and self doubting before you decide. Deciding an action without lots of questioning is foolish. You may waste a lot of time doing it before you regret it.
  • Doubts after deciding is equally foolish. Once you have commenced your action all questions except for how best to do the job at hand should be rigourously eliminated. Doubts and fears will bring down your capacity to do the job. Once you have decided never look back, never ask whether it is worth doing, whether you are going anywhere or whether you will get anywhere or whether you are making a mistake. Just cease your questions and simply go on doing until you execute what you have decided.]

• Anbirkumundo Adaikkum thazh, aarvalar,
  punnkanir pusal tharum
  [Can any door lock love? its unstoppable like the tears that fill our eyes.]

Lord Krishna from the Essence of Bhagavad Gita

• Whatever has happened, has happened well,
  whatever is happening, is happening well,
  whatever is going to happen, will happen well.
  what did you lose? what are you crying for?
  what did you bring into this world for you to lose it?
  what ever did you create for it to be wasted?
  what ever you took was taken from here.
  what ever you gave was given here.
  what is yours today will belong to someone else tomorrow.
  and the day after tomorrow it will belong to someother person
  this is the way of this world.

Sun Tzu

• Know yourself, know your enemies, one hundred battles, one hundred victories.
• He who fights first and then looks for victory shows a supreme lack of intelligence.
• One may know how to win, without being able to do so.

Isaac Asimov

• Happiness is doing it rotten your own way.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

• Violence is the refuge of the incompetent.
• Non violence in a more powerful force than violence.
• It requires more courage to be non violent than it takes to be violent.

Thomas Alva Edison is my favorite.

• Success is 1% inspiration and 99% work. [slightly modified by me. Actually he said 'Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration'.]
• Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
• The surest way to succeed is to always try just one more time.

Quotes by James Allen from 'As a man thinketh'

• Only the wise man, only he whose thoughts are controlled and purified makes the winds and storms of life obey him.
• With the majority of people the barque of thought is allowed to drift upon the ocean of life.

Ted Turner

• Insecurity breeds greatness. To get to the top in virtually anthing you really have to make a superhuman effort. You won't ever find a superachiever anywhere who wasn't or isn't motivated at least partially by insecurity [or paranoia].

Calvin Coolidge

• “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

Jim Rohn

• In the homes of poor people you'll find a big TV. In the homes of wealthy people you'll find a big library.

Vic Johnson

• one of my most favorite inspirational examples about persistence is the story of an Asian Bamboo species that even after five years of watering, weeding and fertilizing is barely visible. Then in a span of about six weeks it grows two and a half feet a day to 90 feet and higher. It grows so fast that you can literally "hear" it growing. The question to ask is did the bamboo grow 90 feet in six weeks or did it grow 90 feet in five years?
  
  Obviously it grew 90 feet in five years, for all the time when growth wasn't visible it was developing a massive root system that would later support it's magnificent growth. Can you see where the current circumstances in your life are developing your massive root system? Can you see where you must continue to "fertilize" and "water" yourself even though maybe you can't see any visible changes today?

Jeremy Chatfield

• a failure is only a failure when you fail to learn

Lazarus Long

• I don't believe anything. Gets in the way of learning.

Steve Pavlina

• It's far better to happily achieve than it is to feel you must achieve in order to be happy.
• Character trumps personality. Where personal honor is sacred, every individual assumes responsibility for the project. When honesty is paramount, suspicion and distrust cannot gain a foothold. And where mutual respect is high, petty personality differences simply don't matter.
• Failure is not the opposite of success. It is an essential part of success. Once you succeed, no one will remember your failures anyway. Microsoft wasn't Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's first business venture. Who remembers that their original Traf-o-Data business was a flop? The actor Jim Carey was booed off many a stage while a young comedian. We have electric light bulbs because Thomas Edison refused to give up even after 10,000 failed experiments. If the word "failure" is anathema to you, then reframe it: You either succeed, or you have a learning experience.
• you'll learn a lot more by doing than you ever will by thinking indefinitely
• Realize that nothing is free if it costs you time. Before you sign up for any new free service or subscription, ask how much it will cost you in terms of time.
• Thinking and planning are important, but action is far more important. You don't get paid for your thoughts and plans -- you only get paid for your results. When in doubt, act boldly, as if it were impossible to fail. In essence, it is.
• Don't chase money. Chase your passion.

Newt Gingrich

• Perseverance is the hard work that you do after you get tired of doing the hard work that you already did.

Richard Feynman

• Imagination of nature is greater than the imagination of man. [My twist: The imagination of the users of your product is a magnitude greater than your own imagination, or the imagination of society as a whole is greater than your imagination.]

Ben Franklin

• if you love life, don't waste time, because time is what life is made of

Will Rogers

• Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

Albert Einstein

• Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler

George Carlin

• The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have.