You can tell other people all the alibis you want. I don't mind. But to yourself try to be honest.
Interpretation
Being honest with oneself is crucial, regardless of what excuses one shares with others.
This quote emphasizes the importance of self-honesty. While it is easy to fabricate excuses or justifications to present to others, true integrity requires that one confronts their own truths and limitations without deception. Self-reflection and honesty with oneself lead to personal growth and authenticity.
In practice
During a motivational speech on personal growth, this quote can show the importance of self-honesty.
When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did [Claude Elwood] Shannon in. After information theory, what do you do for an encore? The great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing right off. And that isn't the way things go. So that is another reason why you find that when you get early recognition it seems to sterilize you.
Science is composed of laws which were originally based on a small, carefully selected set of observations, often not very accurately measured originally; but the laws have later been found to apply over much wider ranges of observations and much more accurately than the original data justified.
Does anyone believe that the difference between the Lebesgue and Riemann integrals can have physical significance, and that whether say, an airplane would or would not fly could depend on this difference? If such were claimed, I should not care to fly in that plane.
If you don't work on important problems, it's not likely that you'll do important work.
Beware of finding what you're looking for._x000D_ _x000D_ A favorite aphorism he often used.
One of the characteristics of successful scientists is having courage. Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can. If you think you can't, almost surely you are not going to.
To spend more money, you have to have more money, but time is fixed and we all have the same amount to spare. How we choose to spend it can make a significant difference on the impact we have in our careers or in the world.
The humblest praise most, while cranks & malcontents praise least. Praise almost seems to be inner health made audible
There's a reason you can learn from everything: you have basic wisdom, basic intelligence, and basic goodness.
Among a man's many good possessions, A good command of speech has no equal. Prosperity and ruin issue from the power of the tongue. Therefore, guard yourself against thoughtless speech.
Control what you can control. Don't lose sleep worrying about things that you don't have control over because, at the end of the day, you still won't have any control over them.
One of the things I learned, the easiest of lessons, was that the better you do your job, often going against conventional mores, the less popular you are likely to be.
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