• A certain competitiveness is intrinsic to research, but institutional structures that encourage competitiveness should be viewed with caution. (David Aldous)
   
• Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Albert Einstein)
   
• The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. (Albert Einstein)
   
• Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. (Oscar Wilde)
   
• A theorem's formulation for provability is not necessarily the same as its formulation for applicability. (Original)
   
• Most [people] discover that they have often be working in the affine plane without realizing that it could be so designated. (H.S.M. Coxeter)
   
• The worst thing you can do is to completely solve a problem. (Dan Kleitman)
   
• The following "Zen Maxims for survival in a modern university" are stolen from Phil Pollett:
  
   
  • Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
     
  • It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
     
  • Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
     
  • Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
     
  • If you lend someone $20, and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
     
  • If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. (I have thought about it independently too and practice it! Alas, many people around me don't. Therefore, they have to spend a lot of time remembering why they have told that someone said to someone else that the other person didn't say what had to be said. This, actually, serves one purpose: it is a good exercise for politicians (interpreted broadly).)
     
  • Good judgment comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
  
   
• The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance. (Kong Fuzi = Confucius)
   
• The law of large numbers works: if, in interacting with someone for a number of years you have obtained nothing of interest from them then chances are that this person has done nothing interesting. (Original)
   
• When asking a question, you must have a basis of understanding. Thus, you may not go to a seminar on general relativity and ask a question of the form "is relativity related to quantum mechanics" without having some knowledge basis for both. (Paraphrasing Richard Feynman)
   
• When aspiring to become an olympic athlete, you need to have evaluated your capacities beforehand or do so at some stage. Likewise, if you're a student of mathematics or science; know thyself. You're not buying your right to be an athlete or a scientist. (Original)
   
• Political correctness can be as deleterious as religious fundamentalism. (Original)
   
• Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
   
• There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious. (Niccolo Machiavelli)
   
• Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until they speak. (Steven Wright)
   
• Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have. (Steven Wright)
   
• The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on - because they're dysfunctional to the institutions. (Noam Chomsky)
   
• Religiosity is a system of beliefs whose intensity is an increasing function of the amount of evidence against them. (Original) [Logical conclusions: claiming that Lord Shiva resides on mount Kailash is religiosity; supporting the flat earth society constitutes religiosity; voting for a politician expecting that his primary goal is your well-being is religiosity; scoring good grades in exams and thinking this has to do with knowledge is religiosity]
   
• Reality is that which when you stop believing in it doesn't go away. (Philip K. Dick)