Jules Verne on risk

The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides.

The sea does not belong to despots. Upon its surface men can still exercise unjust laws, fight, tear one another to pieces, and be carried away with terrestrial horrors. But at thirty feet below its level, their reign ceases, their influence is quenched, and their power disappears.

Ah! sir, live⁠—live in the bosom of the waters! There only is independence! There I recognise no masters! There I am free!

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I…I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost1874–1963The Road Not Taken (1915), Mountain Interval (1916, 1920), The Road Not Taken, st. 4In context

A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.

Dwight D. Eisenhower1890–1969

• Leadership

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

Albert Einstein1879–1955