Douglas Hofstadter Quotes

No reference is truly direct—every reference depends on some kind of coding scheme. It's just a question of how implicit it is.

Douglas Hofstadter

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Quotes to Explore

• Figure out what you're good at and start helping other people with it; give it away. Pay it forward. Karma sort of works because people are very consistent. On a long enough timescale, you will attract what you project.

  

  Naval Ravikant
  • People
  • Good
  • Long

• Maybe 10 times a year I'll do a corporate date, but no casinos or no nightclubs or no comedy clubs.

  

  Gabe Kaplan
  • Comedy
  • Year
  • Corporate

• In my opinion, all relationships between people have some sort of violence, and it is central.

  

  Park Chan-wook
  • People
  • Opinion
  • Violence

• Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

  

  Carl Sagan
  • Imagination
  • Never
  • Carry

• It's an error in judgment to bounce into starting a small business before you cash in on building a strong foundation.

  

  Fabrizio Moreira
  • Business
  • Strong
  • Small

• If monarchy is corrupting - and it is - wait till you see what overt empire does to us.

  

  Daniel Ellsberg
  • See
  • Wait
  • Monarchy

• I like the discipline of well-cut, impeccable clothes. I think it's a very healthy discipline.

  

  Karl Lagerfeld
  • Discipline
  • Healthy
  • Clothes

• One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the position of writing to find out what I was writing.

  

  E. L. Doctorow
  • Writing
  • Myself
  • Trust

• Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself, I have failed three times, and what happens when he says, I am a failure.

  

  S. I. Hayakawa
  • Failure
  • Difference
  • Happens

• The Honorable Elijah Muhammad says that we should be separate, all right, but in this separate state or separate existence, the black man should be given the opportunity and the incentive to do for himself what the white man has done for himself.

  

  Malcolm X
  • Done
  • Man
  • Black

• People are not perfect... very often the relationships that are strongest are those where people have worked through big crises, but they've had to work through them. So the challenge to us is to work through that.

  

  Patricia Hewitt
  • People
  • Work
  • Perfect

• Marilyn and I were rumored to be an item. We were friends. Nothing more. Marilyn was one of the sweetest creatures that ever lived.

  

  Sammy Davis, Jr.
  • Friends
  • Nothing
  • More

• It is ingrained in all living creatures, first of all, to preserve their own safety, to guard against what is harmful, to strive for what is advantageous.

  

  Saint Ambrose
  • First
  • Safety
  • Strive

• I've always said that I benefit, as an actor, from not having the illusion of security.

  

  Hal Sparks
  • Said
  • Security
  • Illusion

• If you have read me for any length of time, you know I am less than enthralled with much of what passes for financial news.

  

  Barry Ritholtz
  • Financial
  • News
  • Enthralled

• The power chords in 'Come Sail Away' were super heavy to me as a kid. Metal? No. Hard rock? At times, for sure.

  

  Eddie Trunk
  • Power
  • Rock
  • Kid

• The brunette phase just came about because I was fed up with this 'Blonde Angel Image'. The rebel in me demanded a new color.

  

  Magdalena Neuner
  • Up
  • Me
  • Color

• If we want to impact hundreds - or millions - of people, we have to do things differently. If we look at the problem as an infrastructural problem, we cannot make an impact because it requires a lot of effort. But when we convert this problem into a knowledge problem, suddenly the problem is manageable.

  

  Naveen Jain
  • People
  • Knowledge
  • Problem

• Very old are the woods; And the buds that break Out of the brier's boughs, When March winds wake, So old with their beauty are-- Oh, no man knows Through what wild centuries Roves back the rose.

  

  Walter de La Mare
  • Men
  • Rose
  • Break

• The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything.

  

  J. D. Salinger
  • Kids
  • Bad
  • Fall

• The question of one versus two species of African elephants isn't about settling an arcane DNA argument; it's about life or death for these majestic, extraordinary creatures.

  

  Lydia Millet
  • Life
  • Death
  • Question

• We do not wish to impoverish the environment any further, and yet we cannot for a moment forget the grim poverty of large numbers of people. Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters?

  

  Indira Gandhi
  • People
  • Wish
  • Environment

• I am an emotional person, and soccer is sheer emotion. For me, it is the best way to unwind.

  

  Martin Winterkorn
  • Emotional
  • Soccer

• No reference is truly direct—every reference depends on some kind of coding scheme. It's just a question of how implicit it is.

  

  Douglas Hofstadter
  • Question