Quotes from Dee Hock

Certainty is the place where questions go to die.

Knowledge is never in doubt. Wisdom is never certain.

Intent is in the composer, interpretation is in the conductor, rendering is in the instrumentalist, perception is in the listener, sound is in the notes, and rhythm is in the intervals. Music is the harmonious relationship between them all. Relationship is beauty.

There is nothing that dictates behavior more than what we want others to think of us. When that happens, we become a reflection in our own mind of what we believe is reflected in the mind of another, neither of which has the slightest chance of being correct. Talk about dogs chasing tails.

The greatest achievement in life is to become your own best self. Nothing external can help with that.

Far better than a precise plan is a clear sense of direction and compelling beliefs. And that lies within you. The question is, how do you evoke it?

Great thought, great achievement, and great love have this in common: all involve great risk.

Do not get angry, stubborn, and imperious. Get curious.

If we pay great attention to the meaning of each moment of our unique life, the meaning of life in general will attend to itself.

The ultimate profanity is to invoke any deity in support of death or destruction in any form, particularly war.

Mix a quart of uncertainty, a quart of complexity, a quart of mystery, and a quart of adventure and you have a gallon of life.

We enter into each moment holding hands with a future composed of infinite possibilities and a past composed of infinite realities.

Ideas are so transcendent and alive compared to language that thousands of variations of each may be written without fully capturing any.

If Satan were twins, one the Republican nominee for president, the other the nominee of the Democrats, and God ran as an independent, can there be any doubt who would come in last?

Accomplishment is one part commitment, one part ability, one part persistence, and one part circumstance. Circumstance we cannot control. The rest we might.

Of this we can be certain: at no time, in no place, and in no way is anything in the universe separate, independent, or unrelated.

Don't preach. Don't teach. Don't judge. Take a loved child by the hand and explore something fascinating together.

Only an unimaginative man would think that mechanistic, command-and-control organizations could ever produce an equitable, enduring, free society. Only a thoughtless man would create them. Only an arrogant man would run them. Only a cruel man would perpetuate them.

Religion claims we must obey the mandates of God and clergy can tell us what they are. Science claims we must obey the laws of nature and scientists can tell us what they are. Both claims are absurdly pretentious.

With every inhalation, I take. With every exhalation, I give. How grand it is not to buy, sell, hold, or hoard breath. Would that it were so with money. Enjoy breathing while you can, for unless something changes, it won't be long until government awards ownership of the atmosphere to some commercial corporation to price and meter out as they please.

If a plethora of learning with a paucity of teaching is an approach to heaven and a plethora of teaching with a paucity of learning an approach to hell, the devil is hard at work in our educational systems.

The wise make great use of adversity. The foolish whine about it.

In Visa, we tried to create an invisible organization and keep it that way. It's the results, not the structure or management that should be apparent

We can never escape the tension between emotion and reason; neither should we wish to, for life is meaningless without it.