Thomas R. Cech Quotes
I think there is value in having practising scientists as leaders of research institutions.
Quotes to Explore
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My career is a black comedy of sorts. I spent a lot of time explaining myself to various different groups. But more and more, I'm finding that the desire to communicate, which all these audiences share, is a powerful thing.
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Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.
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I'm the Jerry Lewis of crime fiction.
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Faith is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking.
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People love a good story, even if it's a story that has very little truth to it.
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I don't even know what my favourite food is anymore, as they are all such bad foods!
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My dad was my first coach and drove me extremely hard from a very young age.
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There's a bootleg album that was recorded when I was 14 or 15, a compilation of things live at different clubs. Songs like Girl from Ipanema and Cry Me A River. I don't know what the title of it is.
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What I don't like to hear in music is something has not been thought through: that a sound is just there randomly. I want to make sure that every single little noise that's in my song is there because it's supposed to be there.
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The focus of Congress is on keeping the nation secure - and it doesn't see that food security is an essential part of that responsibility. Instead of putting more food on the tables of America, they are busy finding ways to take it away.
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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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For a long time, I lived in West Hollywood and watched young gay men strolling through life having no idea what came before. They didn't know about the riots at Stonewall, the vice squad, the raids.
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I've always seen the world through the eyes of a scientist. I love the predictable outcomes that science gives us, the control over the world that that can render.
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When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.
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The terrorists that we are up against today do not rely upon cell phones and SAT phones and emails. They rely on couriers. You cannot intercept what a courier is telling somebody.
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One thing I'm not going to do is chase staying alive. You spend so much time chasing staying alive, you won't live.
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I prefer to find craftspeople I can be colleagues with and who take an area of responsibility and run with it.
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Managing to tell a story is very gratifying.
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Martin Luther King was a leader for all Americans on our own professed values.
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All these boundaries - Africa, Asia, Malaysia, America - are set by men. But you don't have to look at boundaries when you are looking at a man - at the character of a man. The question is: What do you stand for? Are you a follower, or are you a leader?
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A leader must separate his or her own emotional being from that of his or her followers while still remaining connected. Vision is basically an emotional rather than a cerebral phenomenon, depending more on a leader’s capacity to deal with anxiety than his or her professional training or degree. A leader needs the capacity not only to accept the solitariness that comes with the territory, but also to come to love it. These criteria are based on the recognition that “no good deed goes unpunished”; chronic criticism is, if anything, often a sign that the leader is functioning better! Vision is not enough.
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You should not do an autobiography if you want to tell the truth. There are a lot of things I know about people. If I can't say something good about a person, I don't want to say anything. And since I don't want to say anything bad, I won't write a book.
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The key is - I'll say the key - number one, I pray every day.
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I think there is value in having practising scientists as leaders of research institutions.
