At Phira we’re unabashed in our love of pithy, witty, and insightful quotes. A well-chosen phrase is like a quantum of language: immense power compressed into the smallest unit. Brevity is not merely the soul of wit, but often the spark of genuine insight. Quotes are information-compression at its finest — as shareable as memes, but more melodious and beautiful.
In their spirit of concision, let’s plough straight into our initial list:
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Winston Churchill
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt
“Du musst hart bleiben, wenn der Dschungel weint.”
Stay strong, even when the jungle weeps.
Knossi
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
Sun Tzu
“People. Ideas. Machines… In that order.”
Colonel John Boyd
“In many aspects of government, as in the tech world and investing, brains and temperament smash experience and seniority out of the park.”
Dominic Cummings
“Don't be an idiot. Before I do anything, I ask myself, 'Would an idiot do that? ' And if the answer is yes, I do not do that thing.”
Dwight Schrute [Ironically, perhaps the single best business advice we’ve ever heard.]
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
Stephen Hawking
“In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.“
Mary Poppins
“Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell.”
Frank Borman
“When a manager with a good reputation meets an industry with a
bad reputation. It is normally the industry that leaves with its reputation intact.”
Warren Buffett
"The quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten."
Sir Henry Royce
“Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.”
Yvon Chouinard
“Le doute n'est pas un état bien agréable, mais l'assurance est un état ridicule.”
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
Voltaire
“So if we want to think like a scientist more often in life, those are the three key objectives — to be humbler about what we know, more confident about what’s possible, and less afraid of things that don’t matter.”
Tim Urban
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
Isaac Newton
“I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
Antonio Gramsci
"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."
Elie Wiesel
These are lines that shape how we build. More will come — and so will the ventures they inspire. Subscribe to follow along.
