As you can see above, I have been collecting quotes for more than half my life. Over the years I have had thoughts, ideas and observations I have written down. I have never sent out any of my ideas in my email Quote of the Day because I thought it perhaps inappropriate to quote myself.
Recently I decided I would like to add a section so I may share my ideas with you. Where do my ideas come from? A little voice in my head. I put forth the idea that all my ideas are my own. If I made a mistake and somehow memorized somebody else's quote and put them forth as my own, I will immediately remove them. That being said, I do not believe that to be the case.
I hope you enjoy my quotes:
1. The known Universe has existed for at least 12 billion years and time has existed for eternity going backwards. As a random act of the Universe each of us step out of eternity into what we call human life on earth. If we are fortunate we live seventy good years and anything after seventy is a bonus. Then we step back into eternity never to return.
This is why you have to live life to the fullest. Take risks, chase your dreams, go for it; make your life count!!! You won't enjoy being on your death bed thinking about what your life could have been. After you die you have the rest of eternity to sleep. —Jake Ehrlich III (9-7-2003)
2. Think about what your life really means. Every night I go to sleep not knowing if I will return. Every morning I wake up and think to myself, "It is good to be back." But I realize there will come a day in my life where I will close my eyes never to awake again. —Jake Ehrlich III
3. The path of least resistance gets you just that...the least. The road less traveled gets you more because less is always more. —Jake Ehrlich III
4. Honesty is in the mind of the beholder. —Jake Ehrlich III
5. There is no better feeling than making something better. —Jake Ehrlich III (10-27-2003)
6. Knowing what you want is the key to getting it. —Jake Ehrlich III (1-10-2003)
7. Some of the best new ideas are old ideas revisited. —Jake Ehrlich III (8-7-2003)
8. If you took Martin Luther King Jr., and Ted Turner and morphed them into a woman you would have Oprah Winfrey. —Jake Ehrlich III
9. Afterthought Design v. Thoughtful Design? Most peoples homes are decorated as an afterthought. They are slaves to what I like to refer to as Afterthought Design. It amazes me when I walk down the street and see into peoples homes how many people have all white walls. White walls are for mental institutions and hospitals. —Jake Ehrlich III
10. As master Yoda says, there is no try. There is do and do not. The difference is the difference between dough and donut. —Jake Ehrlich III
11. I am always in awe of things that I could not have created. —Jake Ehrlich III
12. Simplicity is the hallmark of great design. —Jake Ehrlich III
13. I like quotes because they are about the past, and the better you understand the past, the better you understand the future. —Jake Ehrlich III (10-4-2002)
14. It is usually easier to talk and think about the past as apposed to the future. We know the past but we are unfamiliar with the future. Understanding the future is about understanding the past. —Jake Ehrlich III
15. Good Perfume is to the nose what good chocolate is to the mouth. —Jake Ehrlich III
16. (On relationships) I really want somebody who really wants me…and I am not willing to settle for less. Passion is everything in a relationship. —Jake Ehrlich III (4-12-2002)
17. The objective of a successful Designer is to make the world a better place. —Jake Ehrlich III (2-16-2002)
18. You know you are getting older when you watch the Super Bowl and realize that you are older than everybody playing on the field. —Jake Ehrlich III (2-3-2002)
19. If you don’t focus on your own appearance know body else will. —Jake Ehrlich III (11-25-2001)
20. See with your own eyes, think with your own brain, feel with your own emotions, taste with your own mouth, hear with your own ears, come to your own conclusions, and your world will by yours. —Jake Ehrlich III (9-30-2001)
21. Beware of the visible, most importantly, beware of the invisible. —Jake Ehrlich III (9-28-2001)
22. It is easy for people to gamble with other people's money. —Jake Ehrlich III (6-15-2001)
23. What was once hard to remember is now hard to forget. —Jake Ehrlich III
24. Happiness is being able to dream with your eyes closed about what you dream about when you have your eyes open. —Jake Ehrlich III (3-1-2001)
25. Health and freedom are two of the most important things in life. —Jake Ehrlich III
26. I am not interested in being a slave to any man, woman, institution, animal, device, the sun or a clock. —Jake Ehrlich III (3-1-2001)
27. It often seems, in life, that there are more questions than answers. The truth is that there are more answers than questions. It just seems the other way around. —Jake Ehrlich III
28. If you examine the lie thoroughly enough, you will find the truth. —Jake Ehrlich III
29. Design must be interesting. —Jake Ehrlich III
30. The music you listen to in your life is the soundtrack of your life. —Jake Ehrlich III
31. Most people wait until they have money to go shopping. The challenge with that method is they end up buying all the wrong stuff because the money burns a hole in their pocket. I go shopping when I don't have money, figure out exactly what I want, and then figure out how to get the money. That way I never end up with anything I don't want. —Jake Ehrlich III
32. People who are very friendly towards small children but cold toward adults do so because they lack the maturity of adulthood. —Jake Ehrlich III
33. The objective of education should not be to fill peoples heads with answers to questions, but rather to fill peoples heads with questions that need to be answered. —Jake Ehrlich III
34. The best teachers are the best students, because all teaching is, is sharing what you have learned. —Jake Ehrlich III (11-12-2000)
35. There is no such thing as a bad student—only bad teachers. The teacher deserves the grade the student gets. If the student fails, the teacher also fails. —Jake Ehrlich III (1-7-2001)
36. The best technology is invisible. —Jake Ehrlich III (11-2-2000)
37. There can only be one Captain on a ship. —Jake Ehrlich III
38. The teacher who does not learn while he is teaching is not teaching. He is a broken record; nothing but a parakeet regurgitating what it has heard. —Jake Ehrlich III (4-11-2000)
39. I am a glutton for wisdom. —Jake Ehrlich III (3-14-2000)
40. When you don't have great teachers, but you want to learn great things, you have two options: One is you don't learn great things, or, two; you become a great teacher yourself. —Jake Ehrlich III (3-10-2000)
41. Music is food for my soul. —Jake Ehrlich III
42. Life should always be viewed as a work of art in progress that will never be completed but should always be appreciated and reflected upon. —Jake Ehrlich III
43. No matter what the price was I had to pay I always stayed true to my vision. It never ceased to amaze me how petty and ungenerous people could be. So much of my success has had to do with my attitude and my ability to overcome obstacles. For much of my life I felt like a row of bowling pins with life being the person aiming a bowling ball at me. —Jake Ehrlich III (12-12-99)
44. So much of success is simply knowing what you want and going after it until you get it. —Jake Ehrlich III (12-16-99)
45. I am here to have fun. —Jake Ehrlich III (12-12-99)
46. Growth is the key to happiness and peace is the rest between stages of growth. —Jake Ehrlich III
47. Opportunity is like an envelope. Once you lick it you are ready to go onto the next one. —Jake Ehrlich
48. Death should be a celebration of life. —Jake Ehrlich
49. I once asked my Aunt, Dora Jane, who raised me as if she were my mother where we stood on the spectrum between rich and poor. I said, "I know we live well and have money, but we don't have millions of dollars. What does that make us?" She responded by saying, "I beg your pardon! We are rich, we have always been rich and we will always be rich!" I responded, "But Auntie, we don't have money like the Getty's?"
She interrupted me and said as she pointed to her heart, and then to her head, "Rich is in here and up here. You will always be rich in heart and mind. If you have a lot of money that makes you wealthy. If you have no money, that makes you broke. You see, richness is a state of mind; not how much money you have. It does not matter how much you have that counts in life. It's what you do with what you have than counts. And so long as you remember that you will always be rich." —Jake Ehrlich III
50. I have always believed that if you know something is inevitable you should try to execute it as soon as possible. —Jake Ehrlich III
51. Every time I catch myself getting upset about someone else, I must remind myself that it servers no real purpose, and is, if anything, a waste of time. It is much healthier to snap myself out of it and focus on something positive. —Jake Ehrlich (12-11-99 Noon)
52. Power is useless without control; as is knowledge without application. —Jake Ehrlich III
53. So much of success in life has to do with how well you are able to bounce like a ball. Some of us bounce like a multi-colored super-ball while others like a lead cannonball. —Jake Ehrlich III (11-27-99)
54. The further away you get from obstacles that once blocked your path the smaller they seem. —Jake Ehrlich III (11-22-99)
55. I have so many answers because I ask so many questions. —Jake Ehrlich III (10/16/99)
56. In order to understand what constitutes good design, you must first understand bad design. —Jake Ehrlich III
57. You can't teach a quantity dog quality tricks. —Jake Ehrlich III
58. Design is the supreme art. —Jake Ehrlich III
59. Don't assume that if you can't see something that it is not there. —Jake Ehrlich III
60. Dependency is a form of laziness. —Jake Ehrlich III
61. After somebody called me a lazy bum, I thought about it and said, no, actually, I am a decadent genius. —Jake Ehrlich III
62. Good design ultimately is about utility. —Jake Ehrlich III
63. I love to dress women, but I love to undress them even more. —Jake Ehrlich III
64. I have very simple taste. I simply like the best of everything. —Jake Ehrlich III
65. Just like you can't teach an old dog new tricks, you can't teach a cat to walk on a leash. —Jake Ehrlich III
66. All men may be dogs, but some are better behaved that others. I happen to be a pretty well behave dog. —Jake Ehrlich III
67. I want to know everything about everything. —Jake Ehrlich III
68. Do not confuse being busy with being productive. Busy is a highly subjective term. —Jake Ehrlich III (Note: years after writing these words, I came across Ernest Hemingway's similar thought where he said: "Never mistake motion for action.")
69. I would rather fail at chasing my dreams, than succeed at being mediocre. —Jake Ehrlich III
70. The core belief behind being an eternal optimist is that you must always believe your best days are ahead of you. —Jake Ehrlich III (9-11-99)
71. In one way or another, everything is derivative. —Jake Ehrlich III (12-8-2001)
72. My fist name Jake, a 1-syllable boy's name of Hebrew origin, means: One who supplants; replaces. My last name is Ehrlich which in German means honest.
73. I refuse to reward ill behavior. —Jake Ehrlich III
74. What is life? Life is a bunch of people and things tripping out on each other. —Jake Ehrlich III (1985)
75. This is the first Poem I ever wrote. It is about overcoming obstacles:
"Butterflies where they don't belong.
A feeling of cautiousness is strong.
Arrive at this winter wonderland, and skate.
Skate till the butterflies have gone.
—Jake Ehrlich III (1987)
76. Elvis ain't got nothing on me. —Jake Ehrlich III
77. Mick Jagger is God! —Jake Ehrlich III
78. Howard Stern is the modern Groucho Marks. —Jake Ehrlich III
79. Cats and Dogs: Men are just like dogs, and women are just like cats. Men are kind of dumb and friendly like dogs. I used to have a barber named Ralph who once asked me, "Why are men just like dogs?" and then he answered, "Men are just like dogs because anything they can't eat or fuck, they piss on." Kind of true if you think about it?
Women on the other hand, are sneaky, conniving and unpredictable; like cats. If you try to pick up a cat to pet it, it will typically run away. If you ignore a cat, it will rub itself up against your legs. If you treat your women well she may stay loyal, but if you treat her poorly, and your neighbor puts out milk for her, she will go and kick it with your neighbor and lay on his lap with her legs spread up in the air, purring away. Trust me. There is a reason why they call them pussy cats and not pussy dogs. —Jake Ehrlich III
80. What is the bottom line with life? What is the one thing that governs every decision every human makes? Genetic preservation. —Jake Ehrlich III
81. The day that you retire is the day that you die, because that is all that you have to look forward to. —Jake Ehrlich III
82. It never ceases to amaze me how things I anticipate as being difficult end up being easy and conversely, things I think will be easy end up being difficult. I guess its called life?. —Jake Ehrlich III 12-5-2003
83. People are basically just like houses. Just because a house looks beautiful on the outside does not mean it is beautiful on the inside. I would rather have a house that is cozy, nice, and beautiful on the inside and not so great on the outside as apposed to the opposite...the vast majority of living is done on the inside of the house. Jake 3, October 29 2004
84. Every man is ultimately accountable to himiself. Don't get me wrong. A man can hold himself accountable to his family, friends, business associates, but in the final analysis, he is ultimately accountable to himself. Jake 3 (August 25, 2004)
85. The difference between a toy and a tool? toys enable imagination. Tools bring imagination to life. -Jake3
90. Did you ever notice that the word retired and retarded sound very similar? –Jake 3 (10-16-2005)
91. Your language should always become you since you become your language. –Jake3
92. A problem is only a mistake you refuse to rectify. –Jake 3
93. As I grow older, one of the most amazing things I keep noticing is how different every human being is. This is amazing, since we are all so similar in so many ways. We all have two nostrils, two eyes, two hands, two feet, yet our minds, habits and belief systems are so disparate. –Jake 3 (Saturday, July 29, 2006)
94. The right accessory can make the outfit. --Jake3
95. The only real poverty is ignorance. Jake Ehrlich III (September 27, 2006)
96. Anybody can see things subjectively from thier side of the coin, but most people can't seem to see things from the other side of the coin. Understanding both sides of the coin creates real objectivity. –Jake 3 (September 28, 2006)
97. Buy it like you are going to keep it forever. Keep it like yo uare going to sell it forever. –Jake 3
98. Today was tomorrow & soon it will be yesterday. –Jake 3
