Quotes about exam

A collection of quotes on the topic of exam, doing, thing, thinking.

Quotes about exam

“"It's not a shame to fail exams, but it's a shame to be satisfied with the habit of failing continuously." Ahmed Omaar”

Ahmed Omaar (1987)

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/ahmedomaar7/

“Do not be afraid to fail exams, be afraid to always be a witness to other students success.”

Ahmed Omaar (1987)

Success
Source: https://www.yourquote.in/ahmed-omaar-crc7k/quotes

Success

“It's not a shame to fail exams, but it's a shame to be satisfied with the habit of failing continuously.”

Ahmed Omaar

“I failed in some subjects in exam, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

“Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment.... Humanity is in ‘final exam’ as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in Universe”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)

Universe

“Our educational system is filled with the art of memorisation, how much you can recall in the exams hall, and nothing to do with the testing of our intelligence.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Intelligence, Art, Education

“Life is continuing education where you are tested every day and where final exams are actually never final; and what you’ve learned last year has been updated and requires relearning.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2007

Education, Life, Learning

“After school-leaving exams we were doing creampies.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

A po maturach chodziliśmy na kremówki. <br class="br">Spoken during Pope's last visit to his hometown Wadowice. Source: Papal Creampie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA2XZZEDAwY

School

“During the examinations, the students are not tested for their mental and physical strengths before entering the exams hall, or class.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Saying that Islam is in heart, is similar to giving back the exam's paper completely white and saying : knowledge is in brain.”

Tariq Ramadan (1962) Swiss muslim scholar

Knowledge, Heart

“When students cheat on exams it's because our school system values grades more than students value learning.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

School, Learning, Cheating

“The studying, the books, exams, arguments, theories. The jokes and pints, laughter, kisses and songs. Life was like running, ninety percent sweat and toil, ten per cent joy.”

Siobhan Dowd book Bog Child

Source: Bog Child

Life, Books, Kiss, Laughter

“Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact.”

Terry Pratchett book Moving Pictures

Source: Moving Pictures

Understanding

“Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they're allowed to be parents. Not just the practical, I mean.”

Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time

Source: Thief of Time

People, Thinking, Parent

“The talents of young people must not be stifled. Education is not just about getting the right grades in exams but it should encourage all students to develop their optimum capacity, whatever that may be. Schools and colleges should prepare young people for life.”

Richard Branson (1950) English business magnate, investor and philanthropist

From Branson's Foreword to the book: [Marcouse, Ian, 1996, Understanding Industry, Bath, Hodder & Stoughton, ix, 034067927-1, 2014]

Life, People, Education, School

“The central message is still that, as Keynes argued, fiscal policy is the answer to liquidity traps, financial or political. The arguments against fiscal policy in Japan, so far as I understand them are intellectually fallacious; they would receive failing grades in an undergraduate macro exam.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

"Reflections on Japanese Political Economy" (1999)

Understanding

“I have a very good handwriting, and when I was 15 year old I was selected from my college to be a ghost writer in the exams for this girl who had injured her hand. I received a pay check of Rs 2500 and was extremely happy.”

Sukirti Kandpal (1987) Indian actress

On her first pay cheque http://www.tellychakkar.com/tv/lifestyle/i-am-impulsive-when-it-comes-buying-clothes-and-jewellery-sukirti-kandpal/

Girl, Happiness

“Student: Dr. Einstein, Aren't these the same questions as last year's [physics] final exam?

Dr. Einstein: Yes; But this year the answers are different.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Question

“All I can say is, 'Damn the exam!”

William Shawcross (1946) British journalist

Source: The Queen Mother: The Official Biography

“I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Standup Comic (1999)
Source: Annie Hall: Screenplay

Soul, Boy, Cheating

“I was thinking about how people seem to read the bible a lot more as they get older, and then it dawned on me—they’re cramming for their final exam.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

People, Thinking, Reading, Funny

“When Vishous pushed open the door to the exam room, he got a gander at the kind of seating arrangement that made him think fondly of castration.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Unleashed

Thinking

“But love may have to be left off the exam. Most of us will never learn.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Love, Learning

“The entire ball game, in terms of both the exam and life, was what you gave attention to vs. what you willed yourself to not.”

David Foster Wallace book The Pale King

Source: The Pale King

Life, Game

“For any exam in history, here is the answer: all human history is the struggle between systems that attempt to shackle the human personality in the name of some intangible good on the one hand and systems that enable and expand the scope of human personality in the pursuit of extremely tangible aims. The American system is the most successful in the world because it harmonizes best with the aims and longings of human personality while allowing the best protection to other personalities.”

Ben Stein (1944) actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

How to Ace an Exam, The American Spectator, 15 December 2004 http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=7511,], 2006-11-19]

World, History, Success, Personality

“Kindness is a part of human nature, this is what we have forgotten in our educational system. We emphasize a lot on exams and test results that we forgot the very basic human element in every single individual – kindness.”

Maszlee Malik (1974) A Malaysian politician

Maszlee Malik (2018) cited in " Maszlee pledges to introduce more kindness into school system https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2018/10/01/need-for-wellrounded-youths-maszlee-pledges-to-introduce-more-kindness-into-school-system/" on The Star Online, 1 October 2018

Education, Nature, Parting

“[wrote_the_exam]What keeps me awake at night: wondering whether human species is just too stupid to figure out the Universe. I just wonder. I lose sleep over that. Because we define ourselves as intelligent— because we made up the test to say that. And we sit alone at the top of the intelligence chart because we invented the exam, and all the other species of life on Earth are not. So who's to say that the first species (us) to be intelligent (us) has just enough intelligence to actually decode everything that's decodable in the Cosmos? […] Think of the next closest thing to us, the bonobo chimp— 98½% identical DNA, yet you cannot teach them trigonometry, they have no concept of it. So if that's only 1½% difference in our DNA— and so imagine 1½% beyond us, rather than below us, in intelligence. […] Their toddlers would be talking about things that would completely confound us.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Nerdist podcast, Episode #489 http://www.nerdist.com/2014/03/nerdist-podcast-neil-degrasse-tyson-returns-again/ (2014-04) <br class="br">2010s

Life, Stupidity, Imagination, Intelligence

“School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like Feldwebel (sergeants). I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam. What I hated most was the competitive system there, and especially sports. Because of this, I wasn't worth anything, and several times they suggested I leave. This was a Catholic School in Munich. I felt that my thirst for knowledge was being strangled by my teachers; grades were their only measurement. How can a teacher understand youth with such a system?... from the age of twelve I began to suspect authority and distrust teachers. I learned mostly at home, first from my uncle and then from a student who came to eat with us once a week. He would give me books on physics and astronomy. The more I read, the more puzzled I was by the order of the universe and the disorder of the human mind, by the scientists who didn't agree on the how, the when, or the why of creation. Then one day this student brought me Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Reading Kant, I began to suspect everything I was taught. I no longer believed in the known God of the Bible, but rather in the mysterious God expressed in nature.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: William Hermanns, Einstein and the Poet: In Search of the Cosmic Man (1983), First conversation, p. 8

God, Hate, Books, Youth

“I've been hearing that from envious people since I was in standard 1. Between 1971 when I started Primary School to when I completed by Bar Exams, I became number 1 numerous times and whenever that happened, those who had performed dismally would shout "Pride Comes Before A Fall!" Mediocre performers have continued to shout the same thing at me ever since. The good news is that green envy has never sabotaged the progress of any determined organic intellectual and visionary leader. So, yours are like the croaks of toads in a pond. They will never deter the Lion from drinking water.”

Miguna Miguna (1962) lawyer, author and columnist

Reply to a Facebook detractor who said "pride goes before a fall", 2016
2016

People, School, Drink, Water

“You didn't like it when you got a B in your French exam. You're not gonna like it now, because you've got the big F – you're fired! (firing Nicholas de Lacy-Brown in episode 1).”

Alan Sugar (1947) British business magnate, media personality, and political advisor

The Apprentice, Series 4

“More generally, Schumpeter seemed to be playing the role of grand seigneur, and he tended to flatter where flattery was not due, no doubt satirically. All this went along with his reputation as a casual and easy grader. We used to say that he threw the exam books up a staircase: the ones that stuck at the top got an A, the ones that fell to the bottom an A minus. I was surprised to learn that in Austrian universities he had the reputation of a stern taskmaster.”

Robert Solow (1924) American economist

"Heavy Thinker" (2007)

Books, Learning, Universe

“Truth be told, within the chapters that make up this dreadful story, the children will face snapping crabs, strict punishments, dripping fungus, comprehensive exams, violin recitals, S. O. R. E., and the metric system.”

Daniel Handler book The Austere Academy

The Austere Academy (2000)

Children, Truth

“As long as learning is connected with earning, as long as certain jobs can only be reached through exams, so long must we take the examination system seriously. If another ladder to employment was contrived, much so-called education would disappear, and no one be a penny the stupider.”

E.M. Forster book Aspects of the Novel

Source: Aspects of the Novel (1927), Chapter One: Introductory

Stupidity, Education, Learning

“To stimulate the brain or not to stimulate? Whether 'tis nobler to take the exam after the sleepless night, with the brain darkened, but not stimulated, or in the chemicals to seek help? To waste a year or to pay health for quick success? I will not advise you.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Vetulani, Jerzy (2010): Mózg: fascynacje, problemy, tajemnice. Homini, Kraków, pp. 221–229.

Health, Success, Help, Night

“I went to Cambridge to do higher mathematics, that was my first goal and appearing in the university exams in mathematics. You are given a menu of various branches of mathematics, pure as well as applied. So I found that applied aspects, especially application to astronomy were very interesting. And the speakers on both courses, that is the lecturers were also very good. At that time, I also read a book by Fred Hoyle called ‘Frontiers of Astronomy’, which gave a very readable account for a layman for what was happening in astronomy. So, all these factors made me go into the research field of astronomy. Because one is required to choose which branch of mathematics one takes as research field. In Cambridge, astronomy is treated as a branch of mathematics. So I choose that.”

Jayant Narlikar (1938) Indian physicist

An Exclusive Interview with Prof. Jayant Vishnu Narlikar

Books, Mathematics, Universe, Appearance

“Inclusive. It’s one of those ghastly, politically correct words that have survived the demise of New Labour. Schools have got to be ‘inclusive’ these days. That means wheelchair ramps, the complete works of Alice Walker in the school library (though no Mark Twain) and a Special Educational Needs Department that can cope with everything from dyslexia to Münchausen syndrome by proxy. If [then education secretary, Michael] Gove is serious about wanting to bring back O-levels, the government will have to repeal the Equalities Act because any exam that isn’t ‘accessible’ to a functionally illiterate troglodyte with a mental age of six will be judged to be ‘elitist’ and therefore forbidden by Harman’s Law.”

Toby Young (1963) British journalist

Spectator magazine (2012)

Age, Education, School, Law

“Professors everywhere deplored examinations as an archaic technique, a fossil that recalled little red schoolhouses and memorizing the capitals of all the states. Regular progress and daily diligence mattered more, they felt, not an hour spent compressing months of learning onto a few sheets of paper. Far better to stress homework, classroom participation and the professor’s judgment. Regrettably, the large size of classes, and the requirements of society itself for pseudo-objective standards kept the exam structure firmly in place.”

Gregory Benford Artifact

Part 4, Chapter 1 (pp. 155-156)
Artifact (1985)

Learning

“If I get to Heaven, which I very much doubt, I will ask of God just one thing, and that is to send Shakespeare back down to earth, and make him sit a University of Madras examination in Shakespeare, just for the pleasure of watching him failing the exam.”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Ancient and Modern : A Journey through the Twentieth Century, 1935-45 BBCTV

God, Pleasure, Universe

“Every year right after the Christmas holidays, our IQ scores were posted on the bulletin board at the Academy. We, the juniors and seniors, had taken our tests several weeks ago, and for the last few days we were all nervous wrecks waiting to see our results. Of course, we were all told that what was really crucial for us to get into the college of our choice was the grade point average of our last two years of high school, plus our SAT scores. But we knew that our IQ score could also make a big difference because our IQ, we’d been told, was what gave us a true measure of our intelligence. So if we hadn’t worked real hard in school or hadn’t tested well in our college entrance exams, then our IQ could make all the difference.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

School, Intelligence, Waiting, Holiday

“But now for the final exam: If you expect to be a net saver during the next five years, should you hope for a higher or lower stock market during that period? Many investors get this one wrong. Even though they are going to be net buyers of stocks for many years to come, they are elated when stock prices rise and depressed when they fall. In effect, they rejoice because prices have risen for the "hamburgers" they will soon be buying. This reaction makes no sense. Only those who will be sellers of equities in the near future should be happy at seeing stocks rise. Prospective purchasers should much prefer sinking prices.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

1997 Chairman's Letter
Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)

Hope, Sense, Future, Happiness

“My first memories are of the early '60s at mount road which was then an emerging area. We were a close-knit family and the four of us -- Dipti, Nina, Anil and I -- were left to do what we wanted. There were boundaries, of course, but within those, we were not micro-managed. Things have changed so much now. When my kids, Isha and Akash, were in the third standard, we behaved as though it was our exam.”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Always invest in businesses of the future and in talent

Family, Memory, Change

“In this situation, any feeling of gee-wiz exhilaration would be out of place. Consternation and fear would be closer to the mark; but the most appropriate attitude may be a bitter determination to be as competent as we can, much as if we were preparing for a difficult exam that will either realize our dreams or obliterate them.”

Nick Bostrom book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

Source: Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014), Ch. 15

Fear, Dreams, Feeling

“I used to do Grade Exams, but my mum will tell you I didn't over-practise for them at all. I never practised, just played. I loved to play. I loved to play a lot* If one mistake is made with young children, it is trying to make them practise rather than just letting them play.' She played hymns at church ('My parents were very religious when we were young') and 'all the Top of the Pops number ones next morning at school. Things like David Bowie's "Life On Mars". That's got a very good piano part. And ever since I was six or seven years old, I always liked Bach - that's why I recorded the Anna Magdalene Notebook, little 16-bar preludes that Bach wrote for children.' I was amazed at how serious the other kids were about the whole thing, much more disciplined than I was, and with this attitude of "Ooh, I can't play sports because I might hurt my fingers" or "I can't listen to pop music because that's really terrible.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

Childhood

Love, Life, Children, School

“Now all these new cats with they hats flipped backwards
fingers intertwined in sum gang sign madness
I got an exam lets if you pass it
Now who can quote a Daddy Kane line the fastest?”

Nas (1973) American rapper, record producer and entrepreneur

Carry on Tradition
On Albums, Hip Hop Is Dead (2006)

Quotes, Cats, Madness

“Excuse me pal! This is IELTS; you understand? This is International English Language Testing System…not a Bihar Board exam where candidates are accompanied by their friends, neighbours and relatives until they finish writing the test.”

Gaurav Sharma (author) (1992) Author and novelist

Gone are the Days (2016)

Understanding

“Hunter was picked as a promising electronics technician because he aced the Air Force radio-tech exam. Hunter shrugged off the the triumph. Tests were easy. You didn't have to know about radio and electronics; you just needed to be savvy in answering multiple-choice questions. He scored so high, the military thought he was the second coming of Marconi.”

William McKeen (1954) American academic

Source: Outlaw Journalist (2008), Chapter 2, Square Peg, Round Hole, p. 23

Question

“I spent a couple of years between eleven and thirteen analysing the social evaluations that were taken for granted, also acquiring a thorough scepticism about processes regarded as causal, and the consistency of the physical world, as well as the reliability of my own mental processes. By the time I was thirteen I was running out of things to think about, so starting on a run of exam-taking seemed all the more appropriate, as I was finding it difficult to make use of spare time.”

Celia Green (1935) British philosopher

Letters from Exile (2004)

World, Thinking, Time

“After your first job, is anyone asking you what your GPA was? No, they don't care. They ask you: Are you a good leader? Do people follow you? Do you have integrity? Are you innovative? Do you solve problems? Somebody's got to do that homework and redesign the educational system so that it can actually train people to be successful in life.I think the greatest teachers are not the ones that are best trained at educational tactics. I don't know a person who's ever said, "Boy, that teacher is so good! The teacher gives such good exams. That teacher gives such good homework sets!"”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

No one has said that about a great teacher. That's not what people remember about the great teachers they've had.
2000s, Global Ideas from Pluto's Challenger (May 21, 2009)

People, Education, Boy, Problem

“Dicko: Hayley, hair looks great by the way. Curls are good for you. I've got to say, look, I don't think you're a natural at this. You have to work really hard at everything you do and it's pleasing to see the way you're moving in the right direction. I think that was a really tough song to chose. Some of those timings in there, it was a bit like a maths exam at times for me trying to keep up. But I think it's a really good style for you. That type of song. That type of artist, George as well. The only problem I have with you, I've had it for the past few weeks, is I can see you concentrating and I can hear you thinking about what you're trying to do as you're doing it and I don't know. Sometimes I just think if you could switch all of that off and just let yourself go a bit I think you'd be a lot better for it. But that was very good.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Final Performances, Final 8

Way, Nature, Problem, Thinking

“Negationism and history-distortion require a large-scale effort and a very strong grip on the media of information and education. As soon as the grip loosens, at least the most blatant of the negationist concoctions are bound to be exposed, and its propounders lose all credibility. In 1988, the schools in the Soviet Union decided to suspend the history exams because "the history books are full of lies anyway."”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

The great lies and distortions of Soviet historiography are now items in the gallery of ridicule.... Just like the Russians have thrown Soviet historiography into the dustbin, Indian negationism will also be thrown out in the near future.
1990s, Negationism in India, (1992)

Books, Education, School, History

“Why clog your head with tedious facts about the past when you can simply demand an exam review sheet or consult Google or Wikipedia?”

Laura Penny (1975) Canadian journalist

Source: More Money than Brains (2010), Chapter One, Don't Need No Edjumacation, p. 23

Past

“"I wish there were no more exams ever," said Kestrel.
"I wish nothing bad happens to Kess," said Bowman.
"I wish my darling children to be safe and happy for ever," said their mother. She always wished like that when she was worried.
"I wish the wind singer would sing again," said their father.”

William Nicholson (1948) British screenwriter, playwright and novelist

Source: The "Wind on Fire" Trilogy (2000-2003), The Wind Singer (Book 1), p. 42

Children, Singing, Happiness

“Bowing to the reality of harried lives, Rudwick recognizes that not everyone will read every word of the meaty second section; he even explicitly gives us permission to skip if we get “bogged down in the narrative.” Readers absolutely must not do such a thing; it should be illegal. The publisher should lock up the last 60 pages, and deny access to anyone who doesn't pass a multiple-choice exam inserted into the book between parts two and three.”

Stephen Jay Gould book An Urchin in the Storm

"The Power of Narrative", p. 88
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)

Books, Reality, Reading, Parting

“I know that if I'd had to go and take an exam for acting, I wouldn't have got anywhere. You don't take exams for acting, you take your courage.”

Edith Evans (1888–1976) British actress

Speech to the annual actors' Equity meeting (1951)

Courage

“If you take a look at science in its everyday function, of course you find that scientists run the gamut of human emotions and personalities and character and so on. But there’s one thing that is really striking to the outsider, and that is the gauntlet of criticism that is considered acceptable or even desirable. The poor graduate student at his or her Ph. D. oral exam is subjected to a withering crossfire of questions that sometimes seem hostile or contemptuous; this from the professors who have the candidate’s future in their grasp. The students naturally are nervous; who wouldn’t be? True, they’ve prepared for it for years. But they understand that at that critical moment they really have to be able to answer questions. So in preparing to defend their theses, they must anticipate questions; they have to think, “Where in my thesis is there a weakness that someone else might find — because I sure better find it before they do, because if they find it and I'm not prepared, I'm in deep trouble."”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Wonder and Skepticism
Skeptical Inquirer
19
1
1995
January-February
0194-6730
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/wonder_and_skepticism/

Hostility, Understanding, Question, Nature

“Childhood, after all, has to be an age of discovery. These are days you'll remember vividly all your life, even when you're old and forget why you came into a room. It must never be allowed to become the age of anxiety.
The anxiety has been greatly increased by this government's multiplication of exams and emphasis on starting training as a middle manager in a computer company from the age of six. Parents have made things worse by worrying unduly about exam results and seeing that their children work a great deal harder than most middle managers in computer companies.”

John Mortimer (1923–2009) English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author

Source: Where There's a Will: Thoughts on the Good Life (2003), Ch. 14 : Living with Children

Life, Children, Age, Parent

“Once you stop learning, you start dying.’ I first heard this maxim by Albert Einstein in my twenties. At the time I thought it was nonsense. How wrong I was. Learning and success are totally interlinked. Do not make the mistake of thinking that learning ends when you complete your final exams.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Thinking, Learning, Time, Success

“If this is a lecture and the lecturer writes down one thing and you take down something else, how are you going to pass your exams?”

Lim Guan Eng (1960) Finance Minister of Malaysia

Lim Guan Eng (2018) cited in " Guan Eng hits out at BN media for ‘twisting facts’ https://www.themalaysianinsight.com/s/32089/" on The Malaysian Insight, 12 January 2018

“This is crunch time for the whole human species, and not just for us but for the intergalactic civilization whose existence depends on us. This is the hour before the final exam and we're trying to get as much studying done as possible.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979) American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher

Question 5 in Less Wrong Q&A with Eliezer Yudkowsky (January 2010) http://lesswrong.com/lw/1lq/less_wrong_qa_with_eliezer_yudkowsky_video_answers/ <br class="br">Context: This is crunch time for the whole human species, and not just for us but for the intergalactic civilization whose existence depends on us. This is the hour before the final exam and we're trying to get as much studying done as possible. It may be that you can't make yourself feel that for a decade or thirty years or however long this crunch time lasts, but the reality is one thing and the emotions are another... If you confront it full on, then you can't really justify trading off any part of intergalactic civilization for any intrinsic thing you could get nowadays, and at the same time, it's also true that there are very few people who can live like that (and I'm not one of them myself).

Study, Time, Dependency

“Her claim was denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wanted the birth control to prevent pregnancy. She’s gay, so clearly polycystic ovarian syndrome was a much more urgent concern than accidental pregnancy. After months of paying over $100 out of pocket, she just couldn’t afford her medication anymore and had to stop taking it. I learned about all of this when I walked out of a test and got a message from her that in the middle of her final exam period she’d been in the emergency room all night in excruciating pain. … Without her taking the birth control, a massive cyst the size of a tennis ball had grown on her ovary. She had to have surgery to remove her entire ovary.”

Sandra Fluke (1981) American women's rights activist and lawyer

U.S. Congressional testimony (February 23, 2012)

Pain, Birth, Night, Learning

“Aren’t we all, in one way or another, trying to find a solution to the problem of reality? If I get this job, this girl, this guy, these shoes. If I pass this exam, eat this pizza, drink this booze, go on this holiday. Learn karate, learn yoga. If West Ham stay up, if my dick stays up, if I get more likes on Facebook, more fancy cookbooks, a better kitchen, cure this itchin’, if she stops bitching. Isn’t there always some kind of condition to contentment? Isn’t it always placed in the future, wrapped up in some object, either physical or ideological? I know for me it is, and as an addict that always leads me to excess and then to trouble. Do you feel like that? Are you looking for something? It’s not just me, is it? Do you sometimes feel afraid, self-conscious, lonely, not good enough? I mean, you’re reading this, so you must want to change something. Don’t leave me out on a limb, all vulnerable and exposed. Are you reading this on a yacht, through your Ray-Bans with, I dunno, a pair of glistening Russian sisters and a gob oozing with lobster juice as the sun shines down on you and the sisters smile up at you? And even if you are, especially if you are, is it working, behind the salty tang and priapic pang, is it real, is it real, is it like God is holding your hand?”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

God, Drink, Reading, Girl

“I never planned ahead for anything in my life -- not for my exams, not when I had to buy clothes for an occasion -- I always do things at the last moment. So when I got the captaincy, I kept doing what I always did. I never thought about success, failure, future or past.”

Mashrafe Mortaza (1983) Bangladeshi international cricketer and politician

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/26113613/espn-world-fame-100-2019#mashrafe-bin-mortaza

Clothes, Success, Past, Future

“For me, success is not only defined by what others deem you as, but also who you consider yourself to be. I don’t think I received a perfect score on any exam yet, and it’s also possible that I’ll never achieve that, but I’ll still feel satisfied at the end.”

Liu Wen (model) (1988) Chinese model

Source: "Liu Wen opens up about fame, responsibility and finding meaning in her career" in Vogue https://vogue.sg/liu-wen-cover-vogue-singapore-leslie-zhang/ (1 March 2021)

Perfection, Success, Thinking, Feeling