Did I Say That - Quotes by Ernie Zelinski

Just discovered this webpage (that I have nothing to do with).

Quotes by Ernie J. Zelinski

I didn't know that I said all of these things — or at least I forgot that I said some of them!

Here are a few more quotations by yours truly (Ernie Zelinski) to add to those on that webpage:

"Around some people it's best to keep quiet
about what we know.
Fools care little about wisdom and will
resent us for sharing it with them.
It's sort of silly to try to delight the undelightable,
wouldn't you say?"
— from Life's Secret Handbook 

"Don't tell the world your problems.
The world doesn't care about your problems.
Instead, tell the world all the great
blockbuster solutions you have
generated for all your problems."
— from Life's Secret Handbook 

"Before you climb over the side of the fence to
where the grass appears greener, try watering your
side first!"
— from The Lazy Person's Guide to Happiness 

"Where is this incredible expansive
energy called "high intention"?
There is no place that it is not if that
is where you are coming from."
— from Life's Secret Handbook (Reminders for Adventurous Souls Who Want to Make a Big Difference in This World)

 "Anything great that has been accomplished in the history of humanity has started with one small thought. We all have those thoughts; few people do anything with theirs, however. What do you intend to do with yours?"
— from Look Ma: Life’s Easy 

"There are two principles for creative success — one general and one definitive.
The general principle is that everyone has the ability to be creative and make a big difference in this world.
The definitive principle is that almost everyone has volunteered to be exempt from the general principle."
— from The Lazy Person's Guide to Success (over 110,000 copies sold)

"The best advice that anyone can give you for choosing a specific career is never to accept someone else's advice. Indeed, one of the biggest reasons for choosing the career you have chosen should be that no one told you to."
— from Career Success Without a Real Job
"Being unemployed is the true test of who you really are."
— from The Joy of Not Working

Also see Inspirational Quotes by Ernie Zelinski

Corruption of Inspiration Quotations - Albert Einstein Did Not Say This:

If you are looking for great retirement quotations, then go to The Retirement Quotes Cafe website.

This blog is about a non-retirement quote that appears on many websites:

"The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been."
— Albert Einstein

Problem is, Albert Einstein never did say this. This is a variation (and a not-so-clever mangled corruption) of a great quotation that unfortunately appears on many quotation websites.

Fact is, someone (no doubt a devious woman) has taken the first two sentences of a great quotation, placed "woman" in these sentences and attributed it to Albert Einstein.

This is where the passage comes from:

"If you follow the crowd, you will likely get no further than the crowd. If you walk alone, you're likely to end up in places no one has ever been before. Being an achiever is not without its difficulties, for peculiarity breeds contempt. The unfortunate thing about being ahead of your time is that when people finally realize you were right, they'll simply say it was obvious to everyone all along. You have two choices in life. You can dissolve into the main stream, or you can choose to become an achiever and be distinct. To be distinct, you must be different. To be different, you must strive to be what no else but you can be.
— Alan Ashley-Pitt

and which at times was changed to:

“The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been.”
― Alan Ashley-Pitt

You can read this article in Guardian about how quotes "get misattributed or mangled all the time, especially inspirational quotations:"

Inspirational Quotes Misattributed or Mangled All the Time

Another quotation that apparently is not attributed properly is this one:

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!"

It has been attributed to Goethe all over the internet (including embarrassingly on one of my websites) and in books such as Joe Vitale's The Attractor Factor.

According to researchers, Goethe never did say this. Check out this article about Goethe's quote:

Goethe Did Not Say This

If you would like to read the many viewpoints about quotations, visit the home page of Sensational Quotes for Smart People.

Are You Subject Matter for This Book and Retirement?

I recently came across the Amazon listing for "Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America" because the Amazon page for The Joy of Not Working gives a list of the books that cite it.

Here is the publisher's description for the book:

"Couch potatoes, goof-offs, freeloaders, good-for-nothings, loafers, and loungers: ever since the Industrial Revolution, when the work ethic as we know it was formed, there has been a chorus of slackers ridiculing and lampooning the pretensions of hardworking respectability. Reviled by many, heroes to others, these layabouts stretch and yawn while the rest of society worries and sweats. Whenever the world of labor changes in significant ways, the pulpits, politicians, and pedagogues ring with exhortations of the value of work, and the slackers answer with a strenuous call of their own: “To do nothing,” as Oscar Wilde said, “is the most difficult thing in the world.” From Benjamin Franklin’s “air baths” to Jack Kerouac’s “dharma bums,” Generation-X slackers, and beyond, anti-work-ethic proponents have held a central place in modern culture. Moving with verve and wit through a series of fascinating case studies that illuminate the changing place of leisure in the American republic, Doing Nothing revises the way we understand slackers and work itself."

I am curious if anyone else here would admit to being subject matter for this book as well.

If you are, you are likely a great candidate for early retirement and living a life of leisure.

Here are some retirement quotations and other inspirational quotes to put leisure and retirement in proper perspective.

"It was such a pleasant morning that I thought it would be a pity to get up."
— Somerset Maugham

"How can they say my life is not a success? Have I not for more than sixty years
gotten enough to eat and escaped being eaten?"
— Logan Pearsall Smith

"He that lives upon hope will die fasting."
— Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth

"How lovely it is to do nothing all day and then to rest afterwards."
— Spanish Proverb

I Love the The 4-Hour Workweek

As the author of the international bestseller The Joy of Not Working (over 225,000 copies sold) and How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free (over 110,000 copies sold) I follow the principles in my books.

Indeed, I have a great lifestyle. I work only 4 to 5 hours a day and make a comfortable living. In my books I advocate that people leave corporate life as soon as possible and work less than half the hours of the average working stiff. I always considered that the paradigm that I operate with is much different than that of the average working person.

But after reading The 4-Hour Workweek, I realize that my paradigm is much closer to that of the average working person than that of Tim Ferris. I now want to operate closer to the level of Tim Ferris. I love this book.

There is a lot of valuable material in this classic that we all can use although we may never get to the point of working only 4 hours a week. We may be able to work only two hours a day, however, and still make a great living. Some of the most important principles in this book are:

• Get unrealistic.


• Practice the art of nonfinishing.


• Cultivate selective ignorance.


• Do not multi-task.


• Outsource as much of your life as you can.


• Being busy is a form of laziness - lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.


• Forget about time management.

This book is written for ordinary people who want to accomplish extraordinary things with minimal time involved. Here are five of several favorite inspirational quotes from The 4-Hour Workweek:

1. The blind quest for cash is a fool's errand.


2. It's lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for "realistic" goals, paradoxically making them the most time-consuming and energy consuming. It is easier to raise $10,000,000 than it is $1,000,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s.


3. The fishing is best where the fewest go, and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone is aiming for base hits.


4. Tens of thousands of people, most of them less capable than you, leave their jobs every day. It's neither uncommon nor fatal.

Free E-book about Work to Be Translated Into Kurdish

It's amazing the things that happen when you post free e-books on the Internet.

I received this e-mail the other day about my free e-book 1001 Best Things Ever Said about Work (and the Workplace) :

----- Original Message -----
From: abubakr abdulla
To: ez-books (at) telus (dot) net
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 12:39 AM
Subject: hi

Mr. Ernie J. Zelinski
iam abubakr from iraq
i wont to published you book (1001 best things ever said about work) by KURDSIH language.
Kurdsh People life in North of Iraq.
are you agree...
thank you for agreement
i wait for your answer.
good day

abubakr
Erbil - kurdistan - Iraq

For the record I gave this guy permission to publish the e-book given that it is a book of inspirational quotes and funny quotations.

This e-book is available at:

Free E-books at The Joy of Not Working

Free E-books at The Real Career Success Center

This free E-book in PDF format is the ultimate book of quotations about work for the professional speaker, journalist, author, career advisor, life coach, and connoisseur of great quotations. It also makes great reading for just about everyone.

Refer to the Table of Contents and you will see that this E-book is organized into over 125 subjects and categories for easy reference.

What's more, all you have to do is place your cursor on the category and you will taken to the respective page for the category.

Partial Table of Contents of Subject Areas

• Ability
• Accomplishing the Impossible
• Action
• Aggravations of Work Ambition
• Bad Days at Work
• Boring Work
• Bureaucracy
• Busyness
• Careers
• Career Advice
• Change in the Workplace
• Committees
• Dating People at Work
• Delegation

You can place 1001 Best Things Ever Said about Work (and the Workplace) on your website as an important retirement resource.

FALL DOWN SEVEN TIMES - GET UP EIGHT !

I received this e-mail the other day: (I have deleted the last name due to the personal nature of the e-mail).

----- Original Message -----
From: anne
To: Ernie Z.
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 9:12 AM

Dear Mr. Zelinski :

Every time I go down, I read one of your books. They have helped me so many times, you have no idea.

This time though I am having a hard time getting back on my feet. I am so tired.

How do you get back on your feet after many failures? And how do you cope with all that is going on in the world like sickness, children missing, starvation . . . sometimes it seems there is no hope at all.

You are an intelligent writer and I can't wish you anything but the best.

Anne L.

This was my response:

Hello Anne:

In reply to your questions about how I get back on my feet after many failures, I agree it is easier for some people in this world than for others.

And the world is full of misfortune.

But even individuals who appear to have it good have their own problems that they have to deal with.

For example, there are many things in my life that I have had to do without that others have and have got me down at times.

But we must look at our own situations and see what we can be thankful for.

Here are three inspirational quotes that I have on one of my websites:


Our disasters have been some of the best things that ever happened to us. And what we swore were blessings have been some of the worst.
— Richard Bach

Fall down seven times. Get up eight.
— Japanese proverb

There is no particular reason why you lost out on something. The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no compensation for misfortune. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless.
— Unknown wise person


Just for the record lately I have been affected by the recession in several ways:


1. I have lost about $65,000 in the stock market.
2. My half-duplex has gone down in value by over $40,000 since I bought at the height of the market (because I had no good place to live at the time).
3. My income is down dramatically because my retirement book sales have gone down dramatically due to house prices dropping in the U.S. and many baby boomers now not retiring.

But I am looking for opportunity in the recession.

I am about to reinvent myself as an Internet marketer.

My motto is "Do It Badly - But At Least Do It!"

Here are links to my latest projects on the Internet: (These are not the prettiest websites on the Interment - but this is no problem because the interment marketing gurus have found out that ugly websites make much more money than those professional-looking ones that cost a fortune to set up.)


1. Learn to Love a Recession
2. Fun Things to Do at Work Cafe
3. The Money Cafe
4. The Friendship Cafe

Thanks for your interest in my books.

Ernie Z.