Tuesday, January 02, 2024

WORDS OF WISDOM - P

 

P

 

Paid from the neck down.

 

Pain is brief - pride is forever.

 

Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to go to his class.

 

Pain is weakness leaving the body.

 

Pain makes man think; thought makes man wise; wisdom makes life endurable.

 

Pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until in our despair there comes a wisdom through the awful grace of God.

 

Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.

 

Paintings are lies that tell the truth.

 

Pandering to people who don’t pay attention.

 

Panic is not evidence of danger; it’s evidence of panic.

 

Paralyze their resistance with your persistence.

 

Parenting is not a popularity contest – but grandparenting is.

 

Parenting really is a heartache business. At the end of the day, there is no end of the day.

 

Parents: I was once their dream; now they are mine.

 

Parents should learn to love the child they have, not the child they wish they had.

 

Pareto’s Law can be summarized as follows: 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs.

 

Parkinson’s law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

 

Part of being an adult is developing the capacity to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over.

 

Part of the problem with perfectionism is that, by nature, you’re always failing.

 

Part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time.

 

Participating in a gun buy-back program because you think that criminals have too many guns is like having yourself castrated because you think your neighbors have too many kids.

Passion is momentary, love is enduring.

 

Passion without precision is chaos.

 

Past a certain point of collaboration, I lose the belief that a piece of work is truly and fully mine.

 

Past results are no guarantee of future performance.

 

Past sins never vanish, they simply wait.

 

Pathogens are inevitable, but that they turn into pandemics is not.


Patience can be learned.


Patience is a professional liability.


Patience is an overrated virtue.


Patience is the companion of wisdom. 


Patience is worth the most when it’s the most difficult to find.


Patience was no answer to injustice. (MLK)


Patience to go slow to go fast.


Patience will achieve more than force.


Patton:  Don’t like to pay twice for same real estate.

 

Pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend.


Pay attention to where the power lies.


Pay peanuts and you get monkeys.

 

Pay your debts. It’s never about the money, it’s always about the disappointment and betrayal.

 

Paying for his own beating.

 

Peeing on the electric fence.

 

Peerspective.

 

Peloton is like the best parts of community—but without the people!

 

Pentimento:  The paint becomes opaque and you can see beneath the paint the lines that were in the layers down below.

 

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.  I don't believe in circumstances.  The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

 

People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.

People are disturbed not by what happens to them, but by their view of what happens to them. (Epictetus)

 

People are either charming or tedious.

 

People are going to believe what they need to believe.

 

People are herd animals – heat begets heat.

 

People are more important than things.

 

People are most afraid of things (like technology) that they depend on, but can’t entirely control

 

People are not afraid of change.  They fear the unknown.

 

People are so busy protecting what is that they no longer see what can be.

 

People are starving for spontaneity.

 

People are strange: they are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.

 

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.

 

People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.

 

People buy stories, not things.

 

People change for two main reasons: either their minds have been opened or their hearts have been broken.

 

People choose with their hearts and then use numbers to justify their choices.

 

People commit to other people, not to institutions.

 

People die for these little pieces of cloth.

 

People do not buy from clowns.

 

People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.

 

People do not follow robots.

 

People do not lack strength; they lack will.

 

People do what is easy more often than they do what is right.

 

People do what you inspect, not what you expect.

 

People don’t always know where they’re going; they just know they don’t want to go there alone.

 

People don’t buy what you do; people buy why you do it.

 

People don't care who made the first one.  They only want to know who makes the best one. 

 

People don’t change when they see the light, they change when they feel the heat.

 

People don’t embrace change for the sake of change.  They have to believe in it.

 

People don’t fake depression, they fake being OK.

 

People don't give to orgs because orgs have needs; they give because orgs meet needs.

 

People don’t know what they like. They only like what they know.

 

People don’t know what they want until they’ve seen it.

People don't know what they want until you show it to them.

 

People don't know why they come to work until they don't have to come to work.

 

People don’t leave jobs; they leave managers.

 

People don’t like change, but they can manage change. They can’t handle uncertainty. It’s the leader’s job to eliminate uncertainty.

 

People don’t rely only on their own judgments; they think in social networks.

 

People don’t resist change. They resist being changed.

 

People don’t want to be marketed to; they want to be communicated with.

 

People don’t want to negotiate the price of things they buy every day.

 

People feel good or bad about a deal – not because of the money – but because of how you arrive at the deal.

 

People finding out they are not destined to be who they were convinced they were.

 

People get outlandish when they’re tired.

 

People get the history they deserve.

 

People get used to change when change is expected.

 

People hope vaguely but dread precisely.

 

People in America aren’t stupid, but they are busy.

 

People in wood houses shouldn’t light matches.

 

People know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

 

People learn more from observation than from conversation.

 

People like us, do things like this. (Seth Godin)

 

People look at the living and wish for the dead.

 

People may or may not say what they mean or want.  But they always say something designed to get what they want.

 

People today increasingly move from online (discovery) to on-air.

 

People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed.

 

People need to have a sense of possibility. 

 

People never forget how you make them feel.

 

People never learn anything from a happy ending.

 

People notice only what you tell them to notice. And then only if you remind them.

 

People of ferocious emptiness.

 

People only see the things for which they are looking.

 

People overestimate what you can do in a year and underestimate what you can do in 10 years

 

People passionate about the premise and the promise.

 

People process the world through story.

 

People protect what they love. They love what they understand. They understand what they are taught. (Cousteau)

 

People quickly forget how fast you did a job - but they always remember how well you did it.

 

People respond to incentives.  The rest is commentary.

 

People respond well to people who are sure of what they want.

 

People see only what they are prepared to see.

 

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

 

People seldom want to walk over you until you lie down.

 

People (entrepreneurs) always take their needs into consideration, but rarely their abilities.

 

People think luck is something that comes to them, but it never does.  You have to go out and catch it, and grab it with your own two hands.

 

People think that local media is this one-ton gorilla, but in fact, it’s 2,000 one-pound monkeys.

 

People today worship their work, work at their play, and play at their worship.

 

People trust people more than brands.

 

People understand energy better than facts.

 

People want an eagle to lead them, but usually a chicken is running against a duck.

 

People want talent, but all too often they can't accept those things that go along with it.

 

People were blown around the country like dust on the wind.

 

People were going to believe what they needed to believe.

People were to be given authority in this new order not in recognition of their gifts, hard work, accomplishments, or contributions to society, but in inverse proportion to the disadvantages their group had suffered, as defined by radical ideologues. 

People will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

 

People won’t remember what you said, but how you made them feel.

 

People who attack others aren’t wise, they’re afraid.

 

People who become legends in their own time usually have very little time left.

 

People who buy things usually say they're great, they're invested in them, take their opinion on the product or procedure with a grain of salt.

People who can’t control their own emotions try to control other people’s behavior.

 

People who come from backgrounds suffused with love, praise and security often have the ability to dismiss criticism out of hand; people who don’t often devote great effort to building structures of refutation.

 

People who don’t experience shame have no capacity for human empathy or connection.

 

People who eat white bread have no dreams.

 

People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours.  The inference is false; a gift confers no rights.

 

People who have no weaknesses are terrible.

 

People who have severe mental disabilities often argue with one another because arguing turns out to be one of the least cognitively challenging ways to interact.

 

People who live entirely by the fertility of their imagination are fascinating, brilliant, charming and not fit to live with.

 

People who make things happen, people who watch things happen, and people who wonder what happened.

 

People who once believed nothing could happen now believe anything can happen.

 

People who not only manage change, but have an appetite for it.

 

People who say they’re not afraid of anything are liars.  I’m afraid every time I go up there, not of being hit, but of failure.

 

People who tell you to “follow your passions” are already rich.

 

People who want their love easy don’t really want love.

 

People who will lie for you will lie to you.

 

People will hang on to illusion as eagerly as life itself.

 

People wish to be liked, not endured.

 

People won’t behave if they have nothing to lose.

 

People work for money.  If you want loyalty, buy a dog.

 

People’s greatest strengths can also be their greatest weaknesses.

 

Perception is discontinuous. You are what you are, whatever it is. And then there’s an aha! moment when people say you’re something else.

 

Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize. (Robert Hughes)

 

Perfect is nice, but no one can afford it. (Have a Plan B) (Zeno’s Paradox)

 

Perfect results count . . . not perfect processes.

 

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.

 

Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem, in my opinion, to characterize our age.

 

Perfection of planning is a symptom of decay.  During a period of exciting discovery, growth and progress, there is no time to plan the perfect anything.  The time for that comes later, when all the important work has been done.

 

Perfectionism is often an excuse for procrastination.

 

Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

 

Perhaps we miss the vision not because the vision is not there, but because we darken the window.

 

Permanently enshrined in the reptilian hall of fame.

 

Permission can’t hurt, but it rarely helps. You’ve got to sell your own story

 

Permission to fail without acceptance of failure.

 

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

 

Perpetual self-improvement requires you to go on to the next big thing (for new “challenges”) even if doing so means being promoted beyond your natural abilities.

 

Persist or pivot.

 

Persistence beats resistance.

 

Persistence prevails when all else fails.

 

Persistence with intention.

 

Persistence without empathy is a form of mental illness.

 

Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event.

 

Personal data is the oil of the digital age.

 

Personal license is to real freedom what masturbation is to sex. It’s not bad, but it’s not the real thing. (Bruce Springsteen)

 

Personality—an unbroken series of successful gestures.

 

Perspective is worth 30 IQ points.

 

Perspective matters … it’s difficult to read a label from inside the bottle. 

 

Persuasion, not compulsion, is the only way to convince people.

 

Persuasion – the purpose of argument – has been replaced with public shaming. Facts are replaced with feelings. Ideas are replaced with identity. Excellence with equity.

 

Pessimism always sounds more sophisticated than optimism.

 

Pessimistic, joyless, deracinated, trapped in his own charmlessness and isolation, with a yearning vulnerability, a brooding self-hatred and an eye that could cut through any hint of phoniness or complacency, he had the psychological acuity of an artist – or a sociopath.

 

Pets:  a worry sponge.

 

Pets:  responsibility without romance.

 

Philosophy teaches hopelessness and hopelessness teaches comedy.

 

Photography is one percent talent and ninety-nine percent moving furniture.

 

Phygital space

Physical beauty is enormously, almost morbidly, important to me.

 

Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.

 

Pick a lane.

 

Pick any 2: Good, Cheap or Fast. Today Cheap and Fast = Good

 

Pick the future as against the past.

 

Pictures are for entertainment; messages should be delivered by Western Union.

 

Pilot’s life:  Long periods of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror.

 

Pity doesn’t alleviate oppression; it simply assuages guilt.

 

Pity is not for the receiver, but for the giver.

 

Pity was invented by the weak.

 

Pixar: Story is the big picture. Story is process. Story is research.

 

Placate the people you can't avoid and avoid the people you can't placate.

 

Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

 

Plan for the wreck instead of the ride (motorcycle advice)

 

Plan meticulously, execute mercilessly.

 

Plan with audacity and execute with vigor.

 

Plan the dive and dive the plan.

 

Planning for the future without a sense of history is like planting cut flowers.

 

Planning:  You want to avoid being at the airport when the ship arrives.

 

Planning is great; analysis is great.  But most of the time, when you get 80% of the facts, that’s really all you need.  We want our people to be unafraid of making mistakes.  The only time people don’t make mistakes is when they’re asleep.

 

Plans are useless but planning is indispensable.

 

PLAs = Product Listing Ads

 

Play has begun to do real work.

 

Plausible impossibilities are more acceptable than implausible possibilities.

 

Plenty of babies in that bathwater

 

Plenty of people got it – they just couldn’t bring themselves to believe it.

 

Plenty of people might not be good at something themselves, but they know what’s good.

 

Poetry is about grief. Politics is about grievance.

 

Poetry is what gets lost in the translation.

 

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

 

Poetry makes nothing happen. (Auden)

 

Point of view is worth 80 IQ points. (Alan Kay)

 

Point the camera at the money.

 

Pokemon:  a Jamaican proctologist


Political analysis is obsessed with style, strategy, and optics at the expense of structural forces.


Politics is covered like drama, elevating the actions and decisions of individuals. Focus less on the personalities and more on the structural impediments to progress.


Political Hobbyism


Politicians and diapers must be changed often and for good reason.

 

Politicians make their living through addition, not subtraction.

 

Politics are more dangerous than war, for in war you are only killed once.

 

Politics generates rage, but rarely hope.

 

Politics is for losers.  Business is for those who can get things done.

 

Politics is one of those endeavors where everyone thinks they are qualified to have an opinion.

 

Politics is show business for ugly people.

 

Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. (Max Weber)

Politics is upstream of culture.

 

Politics isn’t broken, it’s fixed.

 

Pollsters should worry that their profession might soon be regarded as more like astrology than political science.

 

Poptarts: They never get stale because they were never fresh.

 

Popular theatre:  It wants to tell us a truth that we already know or a falsehood we want to believe in.

 

Pornography is sensation without experience.

 

Portmanteau – “Classting” – combo of “class” and “meeting”

 

Post-truth is pre-fascism.

 

Potential counts for nothing until it's realized.

 

Power concedes nothing without a demand.

 

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will. (Frederick Douglass)

 

Power = Size of Platform Multiplied by Level of Persuasion Skills

 

Power in a motorcycle is like revenge.  You never get enough until you get too much.

 

Power is a function of value added—if you don’t add value to your employees, you’re ignored.

 

Power is delicate-you must handle it carefully.

 

Power is like the skin of a leopard.  Two people can't sit on a single spot.

 

Power is more important than dignity.

 

Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.

 

Power is nothing without control.

 

Power is when your circle of influence is greater than your circle of control.

 

Power leaves hope in its wake.

 

Powerful advertising is anticipated, personal, and relevant.

 

Practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent.

 

Pragmatism – an account of the way people think.

 

Praise by name, criticize by category.

 

Pray, as if everything depended on God, act as if everything depended on you.

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.

 

Pray for the grace of accuracy

 

Praying is good but penicillin is better. 

 

Preaching patience in an impatient age

 

Precise execution is as important as precise strategy.

 

Precision guesswork.

 

Predicting rain doesn't count.  Building arks does.

 

Predicting the future based on the past is a fool’s game.

 

Preferring punctuality to productivity

 

Prehab over Rehab. (Tom Brady philosophy)

 

Pre-K to gray

 

Premature pliability, agreeableness, so that the underlying stubbornness is never touched.

 

Preparation is everything.

 

Presentation is as important as context.

 

President of me and my friends

 

Pressure is a privilege.

 

Pressure is not being prepared for what you want to do.

 

Pressure is nothing more than the shadow of great opportunity.

 

Presume not that I am the thing I was.

 

Preternatural talent depends on preternatural ruthlessness

Pretty is what it's about.

 

Preventing errors isn’t always cheaper than fixing them. (depends on nature of the work)

 

Prevention over cure.

 

Price is what you pay; value is what you get

 

Price might make a sale, but quality and service make a customer.

 

Pricing transparency is to a dealer what daylight is to a vampire.

 

Pride goes before a fall.

 

Primum non nocere.  (First, do no harm.)

 

Printed lyrics of a folk song are like a photograph of a bird in flight.

 

Privacy is a technical, economic and aesthetic inconvenience.

 

Privilege: it’s a gift you did nothing to earn.

 

Problem with recovery of seriously depressed person is that they’re finally organized enough to carry something out.

 

Problems do not age well.

 

Problems have solutions, but dilemmas have horns.

 

Process is more important than outcome.

 

Producers peddling their scripts were just dogs with bones in their mouths that they couldn’t let go of.

 

Producing is an invisible art.  If you're any good at it, you leave no fingerprints.

 

Producing results, not predicting results.

 

Productivity gains are the foundation of prosperity.

 

Productivity growth is sustainable when driven by creativity, risk-taking, innovation and new technology.  It is fleeting when it is driven simply by downsizing and longer hours.

 

Productivity-the real ability to do something combined with the desire to do it.

 

Productivity should be about producing more with less rather than more with more.

Products are not released, they escape.

 

Profit is like the horizon; it always recedes as you get closer.

 

Profit is not the objective of a business.  The objective is to provide a service or product that's good enough for people to pay you a profit for providing it.

 

Profit-proof

 

Profitless prosperity

 

Profusion of confusion

 

Program passionates

 

Progress depends on the belief that things can always be better.

 

Progress grows out of motion.

 

Progress is direct from activity.

 

Progress is not merely doing away with what is bad, it is replacing the best with something better.

 

Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.

 

Progress, not perfection

 

Project management:  careful planning, followed by flawed execution, rescued by heroic effort as the deadlines loom.

 

Prolonged life has ruined more men than it ever made.

 

Promises always come with peril.

 

Promotions cannot produce more than a temporary kink in the sales curve.

 

Proof point pudding (Ann Winblad)  Polluted pond

 

Propeller heads.

 

Propensity to spend.

 

Prophets don’t get to be king. Kings have to make choices prophets don’t. 

 

Protect me from what I want.


Protect the thing that allows you to do what you do.

 

Prototype for 1x, build for 10x, engineer for 100x

 

Proud but not happy.

 

Proximity: pushing production closer to the point of demand.

 

Psychoanalyst:  why do you hate me?  I haven’t done anything to help you.

 

Public money drives out private money.

 

Publicity is selling what you have – Marketing is selling what you don’t have. (The art of the tease.)

 

Punk will never die until something more dangerous comes along to replace it. (Jello Biafra)

 

Purdue - two things most important in student's time in college (1) independent project and (2) personal connection to faculty member.

 

Pure scientists have become more detached from the mundane needs of humanity, and applied scientists have become more attached to immediate profitability.

 

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. (Mencken)

 

Purity of Heart:  To will one thing, to sell all that you have, and take up your cross.

 

Purpose without performance is just a dream.

 

Purveyors of false demand.

 

Put a rookie into the line-up every year.

 

Put quality ahead of schedule and cost.

 

Put your best people on your biggest problems

 

Put your own oxygen mask on first.

 

Put on your big girl panties and deal with it.

 

Put your hands on some available object and make something new.

 

Put your heart where your mouth is.

 

Put yourself on the line.


Pygmies placed on the shoulders of giants see more than the giants themselves.