There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. 

(Nelson Mandela)

15 lessons from Mandela. 

1.Courage is not the absence of fear.

2.Be measured

3.Lead from the front

4.Look the part

5.Lead from the back

6.See the good in others

7.Keep your rivals close.

8.Have a core principle.

9.Know when to say no.

10.Know your enemy.

11.It's always both.

12.Love makes the difference.

13.It's a long game.

14.Quiting is leading too.

15.Find your own garden.

When writing the story of your life, 

don't let anyone else hold then pen. 

Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.

  (Alejandro Jodorowski)

Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong:

Why We Love France but Not the French

   (Thanks Red ! You're right !)

Mieux vaut s'attendre au prévisible que d'être surpris par l'inattendu. 

 (Pierre Dac) 

Haîti : land of high mountains

Haîtian : a person born to surmount high mountains

Adopt the pace of nature : her secret is patience. 

   (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Ce qui est nécessaire n'est jamais ridicule.

   (Cardinal de Retz)

And God said "Let there be sexy people". 

So he created Haïtians 

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. 
Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. 
   (Rumi)

Friendship isn't about whom you have known the longest.

It's about who came and never left your side.

And sometime it's both 

I can't keep calm 

I'm haitian

beautiful picture of a sunset in St Louis du Nord (Haîti)

Le monde appartient aux optimistes, 

les pessimistes ne sont que des spectateurs. 

   (François Guizot)

Thinking ... please be patient 

Life is funny and it is interesting how we make it as serious as possible.

   (Elisha Cuthbert)

La mémoire, c'est comme une valise. 
On met toujours dedans des choses qui ne servent à rien. 
 (Walter Pévost)

Skill Can Repeat A Performance; Luck Can't 

(@FredCuellar)

Avoir des attentions pour quelqu'un, c'est bien; 

avoir de l'attention, c'est mieux.   

   (Bernard Pivot, tweet)

Car la jeunesse sait ce qu'elle ne veut pas avant de savoir ce qu'elle veut.
   (Jean Cocteau)

Les bonnes idées n'ont pas d'âge, elles ont seulement de l'avenir.

    (Robert Mallet, Apostilles)

Si ces pensées ne plaisent à personne, 

elles pourront n'être que mauvaises; 

mais je les tiens pour détestables si elles plaisent à tout le monde.  

   (Diderot, cité par Christiane Taubira)

To reach a port, we must set sail. 

Sail, not tie at anchor. 

Sail, not drift. 

(Franklin D. Roosevelt) #linkedin

FDR - Fucking Delayed Release

Old hardware becomes obsolete; 

old software goes into production every night.

   (Robert Glass)

It has often been said that 'nature is simple' - illusion!  

It is our mind which looks for simplicity to avoid effort. 

   (L. Brillouin, in Scientific Uncertainty and Information)

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, 

but the right answer. 

Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. 

Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

 (John F. Kennedy)

Je viens à vous avec un rameau d'olivier dans la main gauche, 

et une mitraillette dans la droite. 

Ne faites pas tomber le rameau d'olivier.

  (Yasser Arafat, Discours à l'ONU, 13 novembre 1974)

Il est beau mon Olivier !

This is my wish for you: 

Comfort on difficult days, 

smiles when sadness intrudes, 

rainbows to follow the clouds, 

laughter to kiss your lips, 

sunsets to warm your heart, 

hugs when spirits sag, 

beauty for your eyes to see, 

friendships to brighten your being, 

faith so that you can believe, 

confidence for when you doubt, 

courage to know yourself, 

patience to accept the truth, 

Love to complete your life.

    (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

I am idealist without illusions. 

 (John F. Kennedy)

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. 

(John F. Kennedy)

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, 

it cannot save the few who are rich. 

(John F. Kennedy)

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.  

    (John F. Kennedy) #linkedin

Que Dieu te préserve de l‘ aveugle quand il commencer à voir.

   (proverbe Arabe)

Don't facebook your problems...

Face them !

- What if we train them and they leave ? 

- What if we don't ... and they stay ?

(HR dilemna)

Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time;

what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.

   (Sydney J. Harris)

Il faut plus de force et de talent pour conserver que pour acquérir.

  (Jean Pucelle, Le temps)

Expectations ahead !

Progress always involves risk; 

you can't steal second base and keep your foot on first.

 (Frederick Wilcox) #linkedin

Price is what you pay. 

Value is what you get.. 

   (Warren Buffett) #linkedin

Ne cherchez pas la faute, 

cherchez le remède. 

  (Henry Ford) #linkedin

Changer, c’est d’abord changer de point de vue.

 (Jean-Bertrand Pontalis) 

Où que nous regardions, l'ombre gagne. 

L'un après les foyers s'éteignent. 

Le cercle d'ombre se resserre, parmi des cris d'hommes et des hurlements de fauves. 

Pourtant, nous sommes de ceux qui disent non à l'ombre. 

Nous savons que le salut du monde dépend de nous aussi. 

Que la terre a besoin de n'importe lesquels d'entre ses fils. Les plus humbles. L'Ombre gagne... " Ah ! tout l'espoir n'est pas de trop pour regarder en face ! " Les hommes de bonne volonté feront au monde une nouvelle lumière.

   (Aimé Césaire, cité par Christiane Taubira le 17/11/2013)

Tu ne sais jamais à quel point tu es fort

jusqu'au jour où être fort reste la seule option. 

  (Bob Marley)

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel 

until he comes home

and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. 

(Lin Yutang) 

Je ne crains pas le suffrage universel : les gens voteront comme on leur dira.

   (Alexis de Tocqueville) -- Thanks Christian

The tiny SEED knew that 

in order to GROW it 

needed to be dropped in DIRT, 

covered in darkness, 

and STRUGGLE 

to reach the LIGHT. 

Sometimes we expect more from others, 

because we would be willing to do that much for them. 

Nos parents faisaient tout avec rien ....

Alors que nous on fait rien et on a tout !!

Your plan vs Reality

Les intérêts composent toujours.

Les passions jamais. 

     (Vauvenargues)

An old Indian Grandfather said to his grandson who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice.

"Let me tell you a story.

I too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do.

But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die.

I have struggled with these feelings many times."

He continued...

"There is a battle that goes on inside us all. It is as if there are two wolves battling inside each of us.

One is Good.

He is joy, peace, perseverance, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, empathy, generosity, truth, and faith.

He does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way. He saves all his energy for the right fight.

The other wolf is Evil.

He is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, and ego.

The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger, for his anger will change nothing.

Sometimes, it is hard to live with these two wolves inside of us, for both will try and dominate our spirit."

The boy looked intently into his Grandfather's eyes and asked...

"Which wolf wins, Grandfather?"

The Grandfather smiled and quietly said...

"The one you feed."

In calm waters, everyone is a good captain. 

It's how you perform in the storm that matters. 

   #thingsweforget 

Un étourdi moderne (selon des tweets de Bernard Pivot) : 
- Il s’est surpris à appuyer sur la télécommande pour faire taire les enfants. 
- La porte ne s’ouvrait pas parce qu’il faisait le code de l’immeuble de son ex. 
- Il a envoyé un texto de rupture à la jeune femme qu’il voulait garder et non à celle qu’il voulait larguer. 
- Il a envoyé sur Twitter un texto très confidentiel.

None of us can change our yesterdays, 

but all of us can change our tomorrows.

  (Colin Powell)

Ne doutez jamais qu'un petit nombre de personnes peuvent changer le monde. 

En fait c'est toujours ainsi que cela s'est produit.

  (Margaret Mead) #linkedin

I need a coffee !

(Thanks Claudine)

[...] celui qui regarde vers le haut ne peut jamais avoir le vertige.
   (Milan Kundera, Jacques et son maître) #linkedin

Organisation dans les sociétés Software/Internet ...

Seul sur la scène un violoniste joue avec passion. 
Deux Britanniques commentent : 
- Que pensez-vous de son exécution ? 
- Je suis pour !

Chose paradoxale : c'est avec les gens intelligents qu'on déconne le mieux.
   (Frédéric Dard.) #quote

Dieu ? Cela fait longtemps que j'ai fait une croix dessus ... 

  (Pierre Desproges)

Les ratés ne vous rateront pas.
   (Georges Bernanos)

No point in stressing over something you can't change. 

Move on and grow stronger. 

You must learn from your past mistakes, 

but not lean on your past successes. 

  (Denis Watley) #linkedin

Il faut rêver très haut pour ne pas réaliser trop bas. 
   (Alfred Capus) #linkedin

To achieve the impossible dream, 

try going to sleep.

    (Joan Klempner)

Decisions are the hardest moves to make, 

especially when its a choice between what you want and what is right.

(Unknown) 

Every block of stone has a statue inside it 
and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. 
  (Michelangelo)

Work iteratively. 

Expectations to do things perfectly are stifling.

#linkedin

"Well yeah, great advances for mankind don't happen every year"
(Steve Wozniak, in answer to "oh my gosh, two years have passed and we need something really new and great from Apple")

It is not the job of Search Engine Optimization to make a pig fly.

It is the job of the SEO to genetically re-engineer the web site so that it becomes an eagle. 

(Bruce Clay)

Il faut collectionner les pierres qu'on vous jette. 
C'est le début d'un piédestal.
   (Hector Berlioz)

Si tes rêves s’écroulent, ramasses les morceaux et garde-les. 

On peut trouver des éclats d’espoir parmi les débris des rêves brisés.  

(Cherry Hartman), Merci Claudine

Une petite impatience peut ruiner un grand projet. 
   (Confucius)

We're still heavily into the box. We love the box. We have amazing computers today, and amazing hardware in the pipeline. I still spend a lot of my time working on new computers, and it will always be a primal thing for Apple. But the user experience is what we care about most, and we're expanding that experience beyond the box by making better use of the Internet. The user experience now entails four things: the hardware, the operating system, the applications, and the Net. We want to do all four

   (Steve Job) 

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the term of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

John F. Kennedy Moon Speech - Rice Stadium  on September 12, 1962, -- http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm

Pressés comme des citrons, 

jetés comme des kleenex ... 

 (entendu sur Europe 1 ce matin)

It’s much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than by doubling your traffic.
  (Jeff Eisenberg) 

Trying to increase sales simply by driving more traffic to a website with a poor customer conversion rate is like trying to keep a leaky bucket full by adding more water instead of plugging the holes.
  (Bryan Eisenberg, Call to Action)

HIPPO ? Highest Paid Persons Opinion, 

   (Avinash Kaushik)

We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance  

    (Benjamin Disraeli) #linkedin

18 people were killed in Jackson that night. 10 white and 8 black. 
I don't think God has color in mind when he sets a tornado loose.
  (Aibileen Clark, in The Help / La couleur des sentiments)

If you keep your food in refregerator, 

            your clothes in a closet, 

If you have a bed to sleep in, 

and a roof over your head, 

You are richer than 75% of world population.

Appreciate what you have !

Winning is not everything but losing is hell !

(la loi d'airain du clan Kennedy, in "On a tiré sur le Président" de Philippe Labro)

Concision in style, 

precision in thought, 

decision in life.

  (Victor Hugo)

Never bring the problem solving stage into the decision making stage. Otherwise, you surrender yourself to the problem rather than the solution.
   (Robert H. Schuller)

How to make smarter decision ? 

The way is not the sky. 

The way is in the heart. 

Morano devrait lire Frederic Dard : 

"Traiter son prochain de con n’est pas un outrage, c’est un diagnostic" 

  (Stéphane Guillon)

By December it had become clear that Job's iCEO status had evolved from interim to indefinite.
(see also http://beariscool.blogspot.fr/2013/10/thats-why-i-dropped-interim-from-my.html#links)

There is always a way. 

If we wait until we're ready

we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives.

Il ne faut pas laisser aux singes la gestion des "peanuts"

(...)

Losers visualize the penalties of failure. 

Winners visualize the rewards of success. 

(William S. Gilbert)

We have a "strategic plan". 

It's called doing things. 

(Herb Kelleher) #linkedin