“Newton’s patience was limitless. Truth, he said much later, was ‘the offspring of silence and meditation.’ And he said: ‘I keep the subject constantly before me and wait ‘till the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light.’”
– James Gleick, Isaac Newton (2003)

“It’s important therefore to know who the real enemy is and to know the function, the very serious function of racism, which is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says that you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”
– Toni Morrison (1975)

“But over the years, no amount of wealth, education or prestige has distracted me from the discrimination, prejudice and segregation of opportunity that America’s communities of color endure. In my years on Wall Street, I have been doubted, discounted and judged reflexively on the basis of my skin color. The past few months have exposed our societal failures even further. We must heed the call to dismantle the inequality that makes careers such as mine the exception — rather than the rule.

“In finance, firms owned by white men manage 98.7 percent of the $69 trillion managed by the U.S. asset management industry. Similarly, 88 percent of senior fund managers are white and even analysts and associate managers, more junior positions, are more than 70 percent white. When it comes to the Federal Reserve, the State Department, the legal profession or myriad other fields, extraordinary qualifications are required for blacks to compete at the same level as their white colleagues.”
– Eddie Brown (2020)

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)

“I tried to look ahead by decades rather than by quarters, and to rebut economists who contended that the advanced economies were doomed to subpar growth for a long time. I told the graduates, ‘Both humanity’s capacity to innovate and the incentives to innovate are greater today than at any other time in history.’ In short, I tried to convince them that the New York Yankees Hall of Famer Yogi Berra was wrong when he said that the future ain’t what it used to be.”
– Ben S. Bernanke (2015)

“‘Let me taste the dish,’ said Brillat-Savarin, ‘and you can spare yourself the rhetoric on how well you cook.’” – As paraphrased by Rosser Reeves in Reality in Advertising (1961)

“Real G’s move in silence like lasagna.” - Lil Wayne

“Your opportunity here and beyond this campus is huge, demanding, and vital. You are singularly able more than previous generations; not because you are smarter (although you may be) or because you have tools your predecessors lacked, but because you have time. Time is on your side, as is a chance to fashion an amazing future. Relish it. Use it. Revel in it.” – Toni Morrison

“I was lucky to come off no worse than I did. None of this would have happened if, as I wish I had done, I had asked myself beforehand, ‘If you do this, what do you want to happen?’ and ‘If you do this, what do you think will happen?’ I wouldn’t have liked either answer. These two questions became valuable guides for me in the future.” – Ed Thorp