Taken out of context, most "inspirational quotes" seems to me to be startlingly vapid.
1. "Be the change you want to see in the world."
How? This might just mean, "It's up to you to change the world," (a questionable assumption), but this actually says to "be change." What the hell does that mean?
2. "The real leader has no need to lead -- he is content to point the way."
Leaving aside the fact that Henry Miller is a questionable authority on this subject, one might wonder what leadership would actually look like if the leader actually did nothing but "point the way."
3. "A leader is a dealer in hope."
Let's hope the CEO doesn't come in Monday morning with this one.
4. "To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult."
Why?
I could go on (and on and on).
I don't mean, of course, to impugn the authority of Napoleon, Gandhi, Nietzsche, or Miller (maybe Miller in this case). But I do think little micro-quotes from these thinkers are not simply poor substitutes for their writings, but distillations of those writings into near nothingness.
There are writers who are very aphoristic, but damn few of them. Most set their clever phrases within a much wider web of contemplation and argument. The person who mistakes one thing for the other is likely succumbing to the illusion that they are learning something.
A: Objects and Methods evolve onto the onomatopoeiac holotrope. For example, holomorphic functions' identity of change: "I am that whose rate of change is myself", or more familiar: d/dt e^t gets e^t. Read YC Hacker News daily to know the fomenting currents of today's market transactions, so to effectively code what you are able; into what is desired and therefore become successful.
Nicely done!
Shameless plug for my own random thought a day with pseudo-random flickr image background:
http://penny-for-your-thoughts.appspot.com/
also has an api if anyone wants to use it.
There was a site that did this with the quotes on top of a nice picture. Would love to see you automate the quote collecting, the old site eventually stopped getting updates.
Most inspirational quotes, including some (if not most) of these, are bogus in the sense that they've been falsely attributed to the famous person. Your site would be better than the rest if you tracked down sources and dropped the bogus ones.
The list of quotes gets an additional quote added to it every day and shows all quotes that have been sent/posted so far. It is the same quote that is emailed, posted on twitter and facebook.
Unfortunately, not everyone will agree with every quote that is sent out. I'll try to do my best to accommodate as many people as I can and gladly will take into consideration any feedback. You can get an idea of the kind of quotes that will be sent out by what is listed on the site already. That being said, if you are not happy with the quotes that you receive there is an unsubscribe link in every email.
[+] [-] sramsay|13 years ago|reply
1. "Be the change you want to see in the world."
How? This might just mean, "It's up to you to change the world," (a questionable assumption), but this actually says to "be change." What the hell does that mean?
2. "The real leader has no need to lead -- he is content to point the way."
Leaving aside the fact that Henry Miller is a questionable authority on this subject, one might wonder what leadership would actually look like if the leader actually did nothing but "point the way."
3. "A leader is a dealer in hope."
Let's hope the CEO doesn't come in Monday morning with this one.
4. "To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult."
Why?
I could go on (and on and on).
I don't mean, of course, to impugn the authority of Napoleon, Gandhi, Nietzsche, or Miller (maybe Miller in this case). But I do think little micro-quotes from these thinkers are not simply poor substitutes for their writings, but distillations of those writings into near nothingness.
There are writers who are very aphoristic, but damn few of them. Most set their clever phrases within a much wider web of contemplation and argument. The person who mistakes one thing for the other is likely succumbing to the illusion that they are learning something.
[+] [-] e3pi|13 years ago|reply
Q: What the hell does that mean?
A: Objects and Methods evolve onto the onomatopoeiac holotrope. For example, holomorphic functions' identity of change: "I am that whose rate of change is myself", or more familiar: d/dt e^t gets e^t. Read YC Hacker News daily to know the fomenting currents of today's market transactions, so to effectively code what you are able; into what is desired and therefore become successful.
[+] [-] marcuskaz|13 years ago|reply
I have a similar app which if you want more quotes I've collected a few dozen, a JSON list of them available here http://quotaculous.appspot.com/a/quotaculous.json
I create the app http://quotaculous.appspot.com/ to be a screen in Safari top sites so whenever I create a new tab I will see it
[+] [-] poissonpie|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmb320|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] manuw|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkmatter33|13 years ago|reply
old site: http://www.inspiremyday.com/
[+] [-] gruseom|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pramodliv1|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ConceitedCode|13 years ago|reply
I'm actually thinking about opening up an API for other people to use to get a quote a day, but I'm not sure if there is a demand for that.
[+] [-] signed0|13 years ago|reply
If it is a "quote a day" service I would expect to see just one quote.
[+] [-] ConceitedCode|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sramsay|13 years ago|reply
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5232643
[+] [-] shail|13 years ago|reply
Just one thing which may be a bit off-topic too. What if you receive a quote in the morning and you tend to not agree to it?
[+] [-] ConceitedCode|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ortonruk|13 years ago|reply
Perhaps you could add server-side validation for the signup if you're looking for ways to improve it?
[+] [-] xijuan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ConceitedCode|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jtheory|13 years ago|reply
They refer directly to "men", or "man", use masculine pronouns only, etc..
Do you need a different stream for women? Or even optionally tweak the gendered words on the fly?
I'm not sure if this was just a random sampling, but it really struck me, just scanning down the list on the front page....
[+] [-] Felix21|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petercooper|13 years ago|reply
"That's not how quotes work." - Mary Magdalene.
[+] [-] eps|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ConceitedCode|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] afshinmeh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nuttendorfer|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ConceitedCode|13 years ago|reply
http://feeds.feedburner.com/inspirationalquoteaday/wAuk
On a side note, Django made this incredibly easy!
[+] [-] afshinmeh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grdeken|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] opensandwich|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ConceitedCode|13 years ago|reply