Newton said, "If I have seen further than others, it is because I've stood on the shoulders of giants." These days we stand on each other's feet!

If you don't work on important problems, it's not likely that you'll do important work.

True greatness is when your name is like ampere, watt, and fourier-when it's spelled with a lower case letter.

Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime.

You can tell other people all the alibis you want. I don't mind. But to yourself try to be honest.

A parable: A man was examining the construction of a cathedral. He asked a stone mason what he was doing chipping the stones, and the mason replied, "I am making stones." He asked a stone carver what he was doing. "I am carving a gargoyle." And so it went, each person said in detail what they were doing. Finally he came to an old woman who was sweeping the ground. She said. "I am helping build a cathedral." ...Most of the time each person is immersed in the details of one special part of the whole and does not think of how what they are doing relates to the larger picture.

If you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But ten years later somehow, you dont quite know what problems are worth working on.