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Paul Graham Quotes

If you leave a bunch of eleven-year-olds to their own devices, what you get is Lord of the Flies. Like a lot of American kids, I read this book in school. Presumably it was not a coincidence. Presumab...

Paul Graham

If you leave a bunch of eleven-year-olds to their own devices, what you get is Lord of the Flies. Like a lot of American kids, I read this book in school. Presumably it was not a coincidence. Presumab...

Tags: children, geeks

Dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as 'suits'.

Paul Graham

Dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as 'suits'.

Tags: good, ideas, suits

About Author
Paul Graham may refer to:

Paul Graham (American football) (1892–1985), American college football player and coach
Paul Graham (basketball player) (born 1967), former NBA player
Paul Graham (basketball coach) (born 1951), college basketball coach
Paul Graham (bodybuilder), Australian professional wrestler and bodybuilder
Paul Graham (novelist), American novelist
Paul Graham (photographer) (born 1956), British photographer
Paul Graham (programmer) (born 1964), Lisp programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

You can't distinguish your group by doing things that are rational and believing things that are true. If you want to set yourself apart from other people you have to do things that are arbitrary and...

Paul Graham

You can't distinguish your group by doing things that are rational and believing things that are true. If you want to set yourself apart from other people you have to do things that are arbitrary and...

Tags: identity, rationality, religion

Everyone by now presumably knows about the danger of premature optimization. I think we should be just as worried about premature design - designing too early what a program should do.

Paul Graham

Everyone by now presumably knows about the danger of premature optimization. I think we should be just as worried about premature design - designing too early what a program should do.

Tags: design

If you imagine someone with 100 percent determination and 100 percent intelligence, you can discard a lot of intelligence before they stop succeeding. But if you start discarding determination, you ve...

Paul Graham

If you imagine someone with 100 percent determination and 100 percent intelligence, you can discard a lot of intelligence before they stop succeeding. But if you start discarding determination, you ve...

Tags: intelligence, determination, start

It's hard to say exactly what it is about face-to-face contact that makes deals happen, but whatever it is, it hasn't yet been duplicated by technology.

Paul Graham

It's hard to say exactly what it is about face-to-face contact that makes deals happen, but whatever it is, it hasn't yet been duplicated by technology.

Tags: technology, happen, whatever, say

People who write about politics, whether on the left or the right, have a consistent bias: they take politics seriously.

Paul Graham

People who write about politics, whether on the left or the right, have a consistent bias: they take politics seriously.

Tags: politics

At every period of history, people have believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you risked ostracism or even violence by saying otherwise. If our own time were an...

Paul Graham

At every period of history, people have believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you risked ostracism or even violence by saying otherwise. If our own time were an...

Tags: beliefs, ethics, history, ideas, morals, relativism

Being strong-willed is not enough, however. You also have to be hard on yourself. Someone who was strong-willed but self-indulgent would not be called determined. Determination implies your willfulnes...

Paul Graham

Being strong-willed is not enough, however. You also have to be hard on yourself. Someone who was strong-willed but self-indulgent would not be called determined. Determination implies your willfulnes...

Tags: determination

Keep your identity small.

Paul Graham

Keep your identity small.

Tags: ego, success

If you'll laugh about something one day, you may as well start now.

Paul Graham

If you'll laugh about something one day, you may as well start now.

Tags: laughter

What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task at first is to build something people want. If you don't do that, it won't matter how clever your bus...

Paul Graham

What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task at first is to build something people want. If you don't do that, it won't matter how clever your bus...

Tags: people, clever, want