Wisdom by Suslick
17 pieces of wisdom
“If all you have is a scalpel, everything needs a suture.”
“When there is no data, there is complete certainty.”
“If you put a spoonful of science in a barrel full of politics, you get politics. If you put a spoonful of politics in a barrel full of science, you get politics.”
“If it isn't worth doing, it isn't worth doing right.”
“Knowledge comes by the truckload, but wisdom arrives one mouthful at a time.”
“It always takes three times to do anything right. The first time you either overshoot or undershoot; the second time you either over-compensate or under-compensate; it's not until the third time that you have a chance to get it right.”
“I have always found my life dividing into three parts: things I must do, things I ought to do, and things I want to do (with the last category being the smallest, of course). To my great relief, as I finally retired, I was delighted to find that almost nothing was left in the first category!”
“For every will there is a won't, for every can there is a Kant.”
“Ties are what administrators use to cut off the flow of blood to their brains.”
“High School education is learning that which most people know. Undergraduate education is learning that which most people don't know. Graduate education is learning that which no one knows.”
“Ego is a house cat. It's nice to stroke, but watch out for the claws; it needs feeding often, and heaven help you if it gets out the front door.”
“There is no such thing as a pet shark.”
“If you bring in a shark to get rid of a shark, all you get is a bigger, meaner shark.”
“All countries are the same size—one map page. (Many Europeans do not realize the sense of scale of the U.S. For example, a visiting French postdoc a few years ago was bitterly disappointed to discover that he couldn't just drive from Illinois over to Colorado to go skiing for the weekend.)”
“You can't fall off the floor.”
“It takes an infant 6 months to learn this.”
“Cynicism is the first refuge of the romantic.”