Uitspraken, opmerkingen & gedachten

Better to have someone who knows what he talks about than someone who talks about what he knows.

De ultieme manier van delegeren: honderd mensen de opdracht geven om ieder een stukje van het Kanaal over te zwemmen, ze applaudisserend opwachten en zeggen: “Dat hebben we als team goed gedaan!”

Ik ben tot de stellige conclusie gekomen dat ik niet dood zal gaan. Als ik sterf, weet ik niet meer dat ik dood ben. Ik leef dus tot ik dood ben, en als ik doodga, weet ik dat niet.

Werkgevers hebben genoeg werknemers die zeggen: “Kijk, daar ligt een papiertje op de grond.” Maar weinig werknemers die het direct oprapen.

Kindreacties

“Ik heb ze gewaarschuwd.” “Ik mocht toen niet.” “Ik moest toen dit.” De medewerker wordt kinderlijk behandeld en de manager wordt de ouder. De relatie is daarmee compleet kapot.

Een discussie is zinloos, want het gaat er niet om te achterhalen wat een ander vindt, maar waarom je zelf iets vindt.

A democracy can make sure many religions coexist. One religion cannot ensure democracy nearly as well.

Ik dacht dat mensen het niet in mij zagen en dat ik daarom geen succes ervoer. Maar ik zie het niet in mijzelf, en daarom ervaar ik het niet.

Does Brexit show that people are too stupid to govern — or to be governed?

One person is all right. But add just one more, and all human behaviour — good and bad — starts to come out.

Is it a sickness or a need of humans to want to lead, or to be led? Which hormones are conflicting here — dopamine and testosterone?

All human behaviour can be explained by hormones. None of it is understood by it.

War is not the worst thing men can do. Not caring about your fellow men is.

People need to be united, and there is only one thing that does that: we are all people. People are always divided, and there is only one reason for that: we are all people.

Democracy used to be a system that embraced different opinions and freedom of speech. Now it can no longer absorb the disinformation, and might collapse into itself — like a sponge thrown into the sea.

Youth carries this great, admirable torch of making the world a better place — only to burn itself from carrying the flame too long.

Evolution is not instant. It just needs a bit of time before it wipes out mankind.

In Western countries people would rather fight amongst themselves about the environment, LGBTQ+ and moral issues than defend their own country.

If you really want people to feel good about themselves, let them watch the poor, the hungry, the destitute or the sick.

Love for all people and not caring about anyone have basically the same beneficial effect on mankind. The first prevents wars; the latter prevents contact altogether.

Caring about others takes no time at all; caring for others takes way too much. Doing the latter without the first would be better for mankind than doing the first without the latter.

There is a place where doing good is compulsory. Everyone is monitored, and heavily punished if they break the rule.

We live in a time where nothing means anything to anyone, and no one cares about anyone — except when they think exactly the same, at the same time and the same place, for only that exact moment. A time in which we can only love others who are an ethereal reflection of our own self.

Humans really do not need to worry about comets, a dying sun or the loss of our magnetic field. By the time those problems arise, mankind will have killed itself ten times over.

We would rather figure out how to go to Mars than make the effort to make Earth a hospitable place.

Als ik de mens als inherent slecht zie, ben ik verbaasd en verrast over wat we hebben bereikt. Als ik de mens als goed zie, ben ik teleurgesteld in wat ik zie in de wereld. Als optimist kies ik voor het eerste.

Er kunnen niet te veel anderen zijn, want dan worden het onbekenden. And there is one inevitable pitfall of humans: they cannot care for people they do not know.

Eerst hoopte ik op aliens: een gedeelde vijand die de mens eindelijk verenigt. Toen kwam corona, en dat verdeelde de wereld weer — om een gebrek aan beademingsapparaten.

Zonder mens was er geen god meer — en dat is meteen het grootste bewijs dat hij bestaat.

God did not create man; man created God. And that is the reason he exists in all of us.

When environmentalists talk about preservation, they really mean keeping man in place on Earth. The Earth doesn’t care whether it starts as a hot blob and ends as a cold clump. It has been through worse than mankind.

If you had two minutes to live, would you become CEO of a large company, or give all your time to your family and friends? If the most valuable time goes to the latter — why do you want to be the first?

Most justice is good. Only men discriminate in whom they bring to justice.

Everyone knows Hitler, but he was not the worst of mankind at all. The worst were all the men around him that nobody really knows.

If people could choose between shooting their boss or killing a dictator, most would go for the first and chicken out — or shoot the second and regret it once they’re back at work.

The worst thing about democracy is capitalism: everyone votes, but few have the power and the money.

When it went wrong with mankind is really irrelevant; why is an even more useless question. There never was a good mankind… nor a bad one, for that matter.

There is enough empty space in the galaxy to see us humans as one species, instead of dividing ourselves by pseudo-differences just to feel part of a group.

Our religious biology teacher had removed a rib from the classroom skeleton, to make it match the way God had designed men and women. Not because he thought God was right — but because he thought the model was wrong.

De tweede immigrant

He won the battle. The second immigrant had a bigger car and a bigger house. He saw me looking, and we both knew what the other was thinking. He thought he had won the battle — but I knew he had fought my battle.

People are great at solving problems, but utterly lousy at preventing them.

There is no greater wrong than the relationship between employers and employees. People should all be employers, while most think all should be equal employees.

Most think dictators should be more human. That is a misconception of how the world would become a better place. All people should be more like dictators.

They all wanted to leave, and stayed together — because in the end they all shared the same attitude: saying things and wanting things, without daring to bear the consequences.

I have thought the worst things about other people. But hate made me love less, and become a worse person to the ones who did care for me.

Everything goes wrong when people connect themselves to organisations instead of to people. Ik verbind mijzelf aan mensen, niet aan organisaties.

As long as we cannot find assurance in looking for the truth, we will always fall victim to beliefs.

Ik dacht dat genoeg geld de grens van geluk was. Maar toen was mijn tijd op.

“I am the CEO of…” No. You have the responsibility for it, for now. You have the role. You are not the CEO — nobody is, or everybody can be. Saying that you are something imprints the wrong message. You are here temporarily, and only because others gave you the role.

The only relevant question about mankind’s fate is whether we wipe ourselves out, or a cosmic event does it for us.

A Christian and a Buddhist should understand each other perfectly: both come to terms with what God — respectively Life — throws at them.

Ik hoef dit leven niet te lijden

Ik hoef dit leven niet te lijden Anderen doen dat wel voor mij Ik geef ze de ruimte, want hun wensen zijn zoals die van mij Ik hoef niet te doen, want anderen willen net als ik Noem het luiheid dat ik anderen laat doen wat ik wil Ik noem het zinloosheid, want ik ben niet anders dan wat anderen willen