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1 " Everyone is an idiot, not just the people with low SAT scores. The only differences among us is that we're idiots about different things at different times. No matter how smart you are, you spend much of your day being an idiot. "
― , The Dilbert Principle: A Cubicle's-Eye View of Bosses, Meetings, Management Fads & Other Workplace Afflictions
2 " The best you can hope for in a relationship is to findsomeone whose flaws are the sort you don’t mind. It isfutile to look for someone who has no flaws, or someonewho is capable of significant change; that sort of personexists only in our imaginations. "
― , God's Debris: A Thought Experiment
3 " Never use naughtiness in mixed company, unless your witticism is so funny that your audience will shoot tears of happiness out of their eyes with a velocity sufficient to powerwash a small bus. Any joke that falls short of that standard will make you lose respect in the eyes of everyone except your best friends, who, as you know, lost respect for you long ago. "
― , The Joy of Work: Dilbert's Guide to Finding Happiness at the Expense of Your Co-Workers
4 " By the early-afternoon hours, if your brain is normal, it's running strictly on inertia and reflex. All you can do during those hours are the things that are exactly like other things you've done in similar situations. Creativity is out of the question. You might argue that you don't notice any difference in your thinking during the afternoon. That's because you're too dazed to notice anything during those hours. I'm sure it's true for me; I believe you could set my eyebrows on fire during the afternoon and I wouldn't notice until sometime the next morning. "
5 " Idiocy in the modern age isn't an all-encompassing, twenty-four-hour situation for most people. It's a condition that everybody slips into many times a day. Life is just too complicated to be smart all the time. "
6 " Theory of Evolution (Summary)First, there were some amoebas. Deviant amoebas adapted better to the environment, thus becoming monkeys. Then came Total Quality Management. "
7 " A goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or don't sometime in the future. A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, its a system. If you're waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it's a goal. If you achieve your goal, you celebrate and feel terrific, but only until you realize you just lost the thing that gave you purpose and direction. Your options are to feel empty and useless, perhaps enjoying the spoils of your success until they bore you, or set new goals and reenter the cycle of permanent presuccess failure. All I'm suggesting is that thinking of goals and systems as very different concepts has power. Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous presuccess failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The goals people are fighting the feeling of discouragement at each turn. The systems people are feeling good everytime they apply their system. That's a big difference in terms of maintaining your personal energy in the right direction. "
― , How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life
8 " You can change only what people know, not what they do. "
9 " The human mind is a delusion generator, not a window to trurh. "
10 " Intelligence is a measure of how well you function within your level of awareness. "
11 " If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it. It sounds trivial and obvious, but if you unpack the idea it has extraordinary power. "
12 " Happiness has more to do with where you are heading than where you are. "
13 " it is not belief to say God exists and then continue sinning and hoarding your wealth while innocent people die of starvation. When belief does not control your most important decisions, it is not belief in the underlying reality, it is belief in the usefulness of believing. "
14 " The most important form of selfishness involves spending time on your fitness, eating right, pursuing your career, and still spending quality time with your family and friends. "
15 " Be careful that what you write does not offend anybody or cause problems within the company. The safest approach is to remove all useful information "
16 " The ability to work hard and make sacrifices comes naturally to those who know exactly what they want. "
17 " In most groups the craziest person is in control. It starts because no one wants the problems that come from pissing off a crazy person. It’s just smarter and easier sometimes to let the crazy person have his or her way. "
18 " Avoid career traps such as pursuing jobs that require you to sell your limited supply of time while preparing you for nothing better. "
19 " Free yourself from the shackles of an oppressive reality. What’s real to you is what you imagine and what you feel. If you manage your illusions wisely, you might get what you want, but you won’t necessarily understand why it worked. "
20 " Failure always brings something valuable with it. I don’t let it leave until I extract that value. "