Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Interpretation
Value others' time by engaging meaningfully, ensuring they find worth in the interaction.
This quote by Kurt Vonnegut emphasizes the importance of being considerate of other people's time. It suggests that when we interact with strangers, we should strive to make those encounters meaningful and rewarding, so that the other person feels their time was used wisely rather than wasted. This reflects a fundamental respect for others and promotes positive social interactions.
In practice
During a networking event, you could quote this to emphasize the importance of making valuable connections.
But by accident, not by cunning calculation, books, because of their weight and texture, and because of their sweetly token resistance to manipulation, involve our hands and eyes, and then our minds and souls, in a spiritual adventure I would be very sorry for my grandchildren not to know about.
I was not an anthropology student prior to the war. I took it up as part of a personal readjustment following some bewildering experiences as an infantryman and later as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany. The science of the Study of Man has been extremely satisfactory from that personal standpoint.
How subservient to Jesus, or to a humane God Almighty, were the leaders of this country back in the 1840's, when Marx said such a supposedly evil thing about religion? They had made it perfectly legal to own human slaves, and weren't going to led women vote or hold public office, God forbid, for another eighty year.
All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States - and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!
Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - "God damn it, you've got to be kind."
If what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever, no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be, I am not overjoyed. Still--if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice.
Your mindset matters. It affects everything - from the business and investment decisions you make, to the way you raise your children, to your stress levels and overall well-being.
The world has long observed that small acts of immorality, if repeated, will destroy character. It is equally manifest, though never said, that uttering nonsense and half-truth without cease ends by destroying Intellect
The obvious choice isn't always the best choice, but sometimes, by golly, it is. I don't stop looking as soon I find an obvious answer, but if I go on looking, and the obvious-seeming answer still seems obvious, I don't feel guilty about keeping it.
Never sit at a table you canβt walk away from.
As my father taught me, and he drove home that point, he said, 'Just remember something. You don't need to tell anybody how good you are. You show them how good you are.' And he drove that home with me. So I learned early not to brag about how good I was or what I could do but let my game take that away and show them that I could play well enough.
The power of generalizing ideas, of drawing comprehensive conclusions from individual observations, is the only acquirement, for an immortal being, that really deserves the name of knowledge.
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