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The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
-Alvin Toffler
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How we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives.
-Annie Dillard
-My AP English teacher, Mrs. McGoldrick
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...one of the most dominant elements [in our lives] is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside. [...] Unless you take measures to prevent it, this desire is going to be one of the chief motives of your life, from the moment you enter your profession until you are too old to care. [...] As long as you are governed by that desire you will never get what you want. You are trying to peel an onion; if you succeed there will be nothing left. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain. [...] If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters.
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When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, [...] reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one's ability to persuade.
-RBG
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I've always noticed that the most successful and happiest people I've ever known share two characteristics. One is they find ways to spend their lives focused on other people, and two, that they're able to cope with and adapt to change.
-Martha Pollack
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We are never done learning as people or professionals.
-Lance Collins
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The goal isn't to be 'happy'. Happiness is an illusory concept; the point is to find meaning in our work and our relationships. The thing to know is this: there will likely be no permanent, perfect solution - no person or activity that completely fulfills you. The beautiful and hard thing about growing up is coming to terms with that, embracing loneliness and doubt, and trying to find direction, staying true to yourself, and seeing the beauty in everyday things.
-some random Redditor
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A good player will get upset when they lose the ball. A great player will win it back.
-a former soccer coach
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If you don't believe you are the best, then you will never achieve all that you're capable of.
-CR7
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We don't make mistakes. We have happy accidents.
-Bob Ross
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There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for.
-Samwise Gamgee
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There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
-Carl Sagan
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It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.
-Bill Bryson
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Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.
-Bill Bryson
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If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here - and by 'we' I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: we enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp.
-Bill Bryson
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SVM is the lamborghini of hyperplanes.
-Professor Kilian Weinberger
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The main driver for success in grad school is not your institution or your advisor or your classmates. It's you. Strive beyond the capabilities of your advisor.
-Professor Jin Suntivich (paraphrased)
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My advice to young scientists trying to discover the next breakthrough in materials science is relatively simple:
1. Know and develop your own scientific vision and voice.
2. Enjoy what you do and believe in the importance of your explorations.
3. Be stubbornly curious without fear that your questions expose lack of knowledge; your questions may open up new ways of thinking.
4. Be willing to challenge and test conventional wisdom and dogma.
5. Compete against problems, not people; generous and open dialogue in collaboration with others, particularly those of different backgrounds and skills, opens the mind and challenges our assumptions.
-Dr. John B Goodenough