84 Quotes for Inspiration

Some nice quotes if you are looking for inspiration.. or if you’re just bored..

This is from a book by Tim Ferriss about entrepreneurship and productivity. I didn’t read it, though I believe it would be a pretty interesting book. I love these quotes though, check them out and tell me which did you liked the best : )

  1. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
  2. Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. - Oscar Wilde
  3. An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. - Niels Bohr, Danish physicist and Nobel prize winner
  4. Ordinarily he was insane but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid. - Heinrich Heine, German critic and poet.
  5. Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. - Albert Einstein
  6. These individuals have riches just as we say that we “have a fever,” when really the fever has us. - Seneca (4 B.C – 65 A.D.)
  7. I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters. - Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
  8. I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time. - Herbert Bayard Swope, American editor and journalist; first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize
  9. Everything popular is wrong. - Oscar Wilde, the importance of being Earnest
  10. Many a false step was made by standing still. - Fortune cookie
  11. Named must your fear be before banish it you can. - Yoda, from Star Wars: the Empire Strikes Back
  12. Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. - Benjamin Disraeli, former British Prime Minister
  13. Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: “Is this the condition that I feared?” - Seneca
  14. There is no difference between a pessimist who says, “oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens. - Yvon Choinard, founder of Patagonia
  15. I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. - Mark Twain
  16. “Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?” ”That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the cat. ”I don’t much care where…” Said Alice. ”Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the cat. - Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
  17. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists
  18. The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in the state of boredom. - Victor Frankl Auschwitz survivor and founder of Logotherapy, Man’s Search for Meaning
  19. One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity. - Bruce Lee
  20. Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery, where international postal flight and author of Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)
  21. It is vain to do with more what can be done with less. - William of Occam, (1300-1350), originator of “Occam’s Razor”
  22. What gets measured gets managed. - Peter Drucker, management theorist, author of 31 books, recipient of Presidential Medal of Freedom
  23. I saw a bank that said “24 hour banking,” but I don’t have that much time. - Steven Wright, comedian
  24. Love of bustle is not industry. - Seneca
  25. We create stress for ourselves because you feel like you have to do it. You have to. I don’t feel that anymore. - Oprah Winfrey
  26. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and the need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. - Herbert Simon, recipient of the Nobel Memorial prize in economics and the A.M. Turing award, “Nobel Prize of computer science”
  27. Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. - Albert Einstein
  28. There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  29. Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace. - Robert J. Sawyer, Calculating God
  30. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. - Ralph Charell
  31. Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate. - Dave Barry, Pulitzer prize-winning American humorist
  32. The best defense is a good offense. - Dan Gable, Olympic gold medalist in wrestling and the most successful coach in history; personal record 299-6-3, with 182 pins
  33. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. - Annie Dillard, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction, 1975
  34. People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don’t realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world. - Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbes
  35. Scotty: she’s all yours, sir. All systems automated and ready. A chimpanzee and two trainees could run her! Captain Kirk: thank you, Mr. Scott. I’ll try not to take that personally. - Star Trek
  36. A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. - Henry David Thoreau, naturalist
  37. The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet. - William Gibson, author of Neuromancer; termed “cyberspace” in 1984
  38. Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it. - Malcolm X., Malcolm X. Speaks
  39. The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applies to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. - Bill Gates
  40. I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself a master. I want the full menu of rights. - Bishop Desmond Tutu, South African cleric and activist
  41. Just set it and forget it! - Ron Popeil, founder of Ronco; responsible for more than $1 billion in sales of rotisserie chicken roasters.
  42. 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. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  43. When I was younger… I [didn't] want to be pigeonholed. Basically, now you want to be pigeonholed. It’s your niche. - Joan Chen, actress; appeared in The last Emperor and Twin Peaks
  44. Some people are just into lavish dwarf entertainment. - Danny Black (4?2?) part owner of shortdwarf.com
  45. Genius is only a superior power of seeing. - John Ruskin, famed art and social critic
  46. I not only use all the dreams that I have, but all that I can borrow. - Woodrow Wilson
  47. Creation is a better means of self-expression and possession; it is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed. - Vida D. Scudder, The Life of the Spirit in the Modern English Poets
  48. Many of these theories have been killed off only when some decisive experience exposed their incorrectness… Thus the yeoman work in any science… Is done by the experimentalist, who must keep the theoreticians honest. - Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist and cocreator of String Field Theory, Hyperspace
  49. The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment. - Warren G. Bennis, University of Southern California professor of business administration; adviser to Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy
  50. The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, more men are wild beasts and would never devour one another but for this protection. - Henry Ward Beecher, US abolitionist and clergyman “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit”
  51. A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear…. If the employees come first, then they’re happy. - Herb Kelleher, cofounder of Southwest airlines
  52. Look, kiddie. I built this business by being a bastard. I run it be by being a bastard. I’ll always be a bastard, and don’t you ever try to change me. - Charles Revson, founder of Revlon, to a senior executive within his company
  53. Orders are nobody can see the great Oz! Not nobody, not nohow! - Guardian of the emerald city gates, the Wizard of Oz
  54. The system is the solution. - AT&T
  55. Companies go out of business when they make the wrong decisions or, just as important, make too many decisions. The latter creates complexity.- Mike Maples, cofounder of Motive Communications (IPO to $260 million market cap), founding executive of Tivoli (sold to IBM for $750 million), and investor in companies such as Digg.com
  56. By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work 12 hours a day. - Robert Frost, American poet and winner of four Pulitzer prizes
  57. On this path, it is only the first step that counts. - St. Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney, Catholic saint, “Cure d’Ars”
  58. I was asked if I was going to fire an employee w forho made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. Now, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. - Thomas J. Watson, founder of IBM
  59. Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. - George Bernard Shaw
  60. All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer . - Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
  61. If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time. - Chinese proverb
  62. The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain. - Colin Wilson, British author of the Outsider; New Existentialist
  63. Only those who are asleep make no mistakes.- Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA, worlds largest furniture brand
  64. Before the development of tourism, travel was conceived to be like study, and its fruits were considered to be the adornment of the mind and the formation of the judgment.- Paul Fussel, Abroad
  65. The simple willingness to improvise is more vital, in the long run, then research.- Rolf Potts, Vagabonding
  66. There is more to life than increasing its speed.- Mohandas Gandhi
  67. Thanks to the interstate highway system, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything. - Charles Kuralt, CBS news reporter
  68. This is the very perfection of a man to find out his own imperfection. - St. Augustine (354 AD – 430 AD)
  69. Traveling is the ruler of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building here after seeing Italy. - Fanny Burney (1752-1840), English novelist
  70. It is fatal to know too much at the outcome: boredom comes as quickly to the traveler who knows his route as the novelist who is over certain of his plot. - Paul Thoreau, To the Ends of the Earth
  71. To being grossed by something outside ourselves as a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass. - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
  72. There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do. - Bill Watterson, creator of the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip
  73. Man I was so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another. - Anatole France, author of The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
  74. People say that what we are seeking is in for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive. - Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
  75. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. - Viktor E. Frankl, Holocaust survivor; author of Man’s Search for Meaning
  76. Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many people still speak in foreign languages. - Dave Barry
  77. Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike. - Oscar Wilde
  78. Adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas. - Paula Poundstone
  79. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive. - Thich Nhat Hanh
  80. If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake. - Frank Wilczek, 2004 Nobel Prize winner in physics
  81. Ho imparato che niente e impossibile, e anche che quasi niente e facile…(I’ve learned that nothing is impossible, and that almost nothing is easy…) - Articolo 31 (Italian rap group), “Un Urlo”
  82. There is nothing that the busy man is less busy with then living; there is nothing harder to learn. - Seneca
  83. For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and ask myself: “if today was the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something… Almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. - Steve Jobs, college dropout and CEO of Apple Computer, Stanford University commencement, 2005
  84. The hypocrite is a person who–but who isn’t? - Don Marquis

Is Social Media a Fad?

Is Social Media a Fad?

Something interesting I found, it sorta frightens me though. Sometimes you just sit and wonder how crazy this world is, and then you realize you are a part of it rofl!

  • Is Social Media a Fad?Or the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution?
  • Welcome to the revolution
  • Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30 years old
  • 96% of Millennials have joined a social network
  • Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.
  • Social Media has overtaken pornography as the #1 activity on the Web
  • 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. met via social media
  • Years to reach 50 million users:
    • Radio 38 years
    • TV 13 years
    • Internet 4 years
    • iPod 3 years

  • Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year
  • iPod application downloads hit 1 billion in 9 months
  • If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 3rd largest
    [behind China and India, ahead of the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh...]
    Yet QQ and Renren dominate China
  • US Department of Education study revealed that online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction…
  • 80% of companies use social media for recruitment
  • % of those using LinkedIn…95%
  • The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
  • Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Sweden, Israel, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway, [or] Panama.
  • 50% of mobile Internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook
    Imagine what this means for bad customer experiences
  • Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé
  • Some universities have stopped distributing e-mail accounts
    Instead they are distributing eReaders, iPads, Tablets
  • What happens in Vegas stays on
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Renren
    Kohtakte
    Flickr
    YouTube
  • YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world
  • While you watch this [4' 26" video] 100+ hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube
  • Wiki is an Hawaiian term = Quick
  • Wikipedia has over 15 million articles
    Studies show it’s as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica
    78% of those articles are non-English
    If you were paid $1 for every article posted on Wikipedia you would earn $1712.32 per hour
  • There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
  • 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
  • 34% of bloggers post opnions about products and brands
  • Do you like what they are saying
    about your brand?
    You better because
  • People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them
  • 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
  • Only 14% trust advertisements
  • Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
  • 90% of people skip ads via TiVo/DVR
  • Kindle eBooks Outsold Paper Books on Christmas [2009]
  • 24 of the 25 Largest Nespapers are Experiencing Record Declines in Circulation
  • 60 million status updates happen on Facebook daily
  • We no longer search for the news, the news finds us…
  • We will no longer search for products and services
    they will find us via social media
  • Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.
  • Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like Mad Men
    Listening first, selling second
  • The ROI of Social Media is [that] Your Business Will Still Exist in 5 years
  • Still think social media is a fad?
  • Welcome to the World of Socialnomics

Crazy ain it? I think so too : )

Super Mario on Violin???

Something interesting I found : ) This tickled me to no end when I first saw it.. Enjoy!




Disputing for Waivers

large money trash

Hiya everyone! This is my first post so I’d like to share some information that everyone.. well at least everyone in Singapore is bound to use at some point of your life.




Disputing for Waivers!

First of all, I’m a singapore blogger and this is a sg blog so being Singaporean and all, we are very careful how money is spent.

NOoooooooooo!

We are not stingy, just picky on whether our money is well spent or not like how we make it a part of our lifes to find whats cheap in singapore. I am absolutely sure that everyone, at some point in their life, will see the need to erm.. ‘convince’ their service providers that they are suffering a grievance.

The most common I suppose, are telco charges that you have.. ‘technically’ not incurred. There might also be other instances where you will dispute over a faulty product with an expired warranty, but since some products have an option of an extended warranty purchasable during the initial buying of the product, is it really so hard to make an exception for people like us who, in great faith of the brand *wink, chose not to take the extension? Can’t they make anything in singapore free unless we get creative lol? So anyway..

For the record, here are a list of my experiences and successful disputes. Some are personal while some others were charges that my family members incurred which I helped with .




Successful waivers

  • 2 GPRS cases, 1 amounting to $1327.80 (this was a few years back when there were no caps on the amount you could incur on GPRS charges) and the other at $216.20
  • 1 roaming usage bill – $189
  • 1 IDD bill – $116
  • 1 broken cellphone contract – $300
  • 1 Nokia N80 bought at contract price without contract renewal
  • 1 laptop repair charge of $1700 caused by replacement of processor, hard disk, ram, wifi and motherboard + a faulty video card.

I do not profess to be the best at disputing for sure. I know some people who do better but I am sure from my previous experiences, I know a thing or 2 about disputing (I use to work in the customer service line) and I would very much like to share them : )

Soooooooo here are some things to keep in mind when you are disputing:




1. Be reasonable,
or at least SOUND reasonable, even if your request borders along the lines of ridiculousness.
Remember that the representative is here to help you with a diplomatic solution to your problems. He or she can only play the role if you are open to discussion and willing to compromise. So remember, the representative will be making a mental judgment from the very minute he says ‘Hello’, to see if you are someone he can help or if you are calling in for no other reason than to rage. So be nice, sound nice and give him the impression that you are willing to accept explanations or compromise on your dispute. You only need to let him feel this way so he would go to further lengths to sympathize with your problems. Later in the conversation, you can show your true colors by insisting on a full waiver when you have fully convinced him to help.




2. Treat the representative as a friend
Lets face it, we all go extra lengths for friends don’t we? A representative picks calls after calls from unhappy customers and trust me, they do have a temper like any other ordinary person does.

Wait, you’re right.. We are customers eh? What can they do about it eh? We’re the boss here right? WRONGGGGGG!

Look, not being able to say STFU in your face doesn’t mean they cannot go all the way out to make things difficult for you. If you want to retain that smug and stucked-up “I’m a customer and customers are ALWAYS right!” kinda attitude, then be ready to end up like the other 12000 customers who called and failed their disputes in that very same day.




3. Be nice to the representative.
Tell them that this might be a long call due to the nature of the problem you have and ask them if their shift is ending soon or if their break time is in 5 mins. If so, tell them that you don’t mind being transferred to another colleague. Even though they can’t do that, this adds points to you being a considerate person and I truly can’t express how important this is to your goal. Trust me, nothing is worse than picking up a dispute just 5 minutes to the end of your shift.

If you are going like “Nah thats just too cheesy, I can’t bring myself to say that”. I’ll say that you are right, it is cheesy, it is some thing people will not do.. Which is why you are going to do it. Lets face it, anything that has the words singapore discount will require you to have a bit of thick skin anyways.




4. Be firm about your innocence
and what you want from the dispute. You are a customer after all and this entitles you to certain benefit-of-the-doubts. I always say, a smart person knows how far to go too far (or in singlish – Kiang zu ho mai ke kiang). Every representative is given a limit to how much they can offer as compensation. If the waiver given is not up to your expectations, politely reject it and ask if there is another alternative (although what you would want is a full waiver). If you notice, there is really nothing the representative can do about it as long as you reject his suggestions. He would need to come up with a sweeter deal for you or bring this up to a superior if he is at his limits. All you have to do, is wait. Even if his superior’s offer is up to your expectations, politely reject this again and be asked to transferred to a higher authority. I repeat – All you need to do, is wait. They cannot refuse your request to speak to a higher authority, this is just how customer service goes. Once you have the ears of someone in position, there is a better chance of a successful full waiver. If you have truly reached the end of the line, request for the email of the CEO. Note, this should only be done if you have arrived at the hands of someone in high position e.g – V.P of customer service and the like.




5. Be patient.
The dispute will take time like all the other money saving deals in singapore and this is a fact that we need to accept. Some procedures in organizations are time consuming, especially if dispute is a huge one. Do be generous and cooperate as much as possible, try to fulfill your end of the bargain and they will be expected to provide you with nothing less then a satisfactory result.




6. Listen carefully.
Remember that all conversations are recorded. Thus, the representative needs to be very careful with everything he/she says. If you can catch any mistake in the information provided by him/her, the odds shifts in your favor. Use that mistake correctly and you will find yourself winning the dispute. An example is if he/she promises to get back to you in 2 hours and doesn’t. There, you already have something you can use. I would not say that this alone will win you the dispute but it gives you more bargaining power when you talk to their superiors.




7. Keep your argument as straight to the point as possible.
If you have something you want to say, make sure it is relevant and not random rantings. I mean, well, it is fine to complain and be unhappy about some things, but if you go on for 30 mins just talking about your emotions then it would just drag the case and waste valuable time for both you and the representative. Most of these officers have a CPI to meet, meaning, they need to hit a certain number of calls to show that they are efficient. These targets usually range from 9 – 11 calls per hour. So they have well… roughly 6 mins to spend per call. In which case, anything more then 6 mins is considered inefficient. That makes them unhappy. Which… is bad for you.




I guess that is about it from this singapore blogger, I’ll post a part 2 if I think of any more. Hope you find this useful and leave a comment if you have anything to add yourself. : )