I'm loving this thread, especially the baby vs thesis bit. However, being somewhat passed the having-a-baby stage myself, I've never heard of a thesis, all grown up now, grabbing the keys and crashing the car. In my experience a thesis rarely answers back, trashes the room or leaves the milk out all day...although come to think of it, I have stayed awake all night worried sick about it...Oh for the baby stage again.

Life handed us a paycheck, we said "We worked harder than this!"

Einstein- "if you knew what you were doing it wouldn't be called research"

Good for when you need motivation and feeling unconfident

'energy accomplishes more than genius'

'noone can make you feel inferior without your consent'

'If you do your best today, you will have the best day possible'

'nothing worth doing is easy'

'better three days without food, than one day without tea' - this might just be me though....

"phd's are not completed, they are abandonned" -my supervisor interview c. March 2005

Remember "when it comes right down to it, when the rubber meets the road, you are alone!" Inspirational or not depending on how you look at it but reminds me that this PhD is my baby, period.

Got to say since i read this one from Olivia it's helped me immensely...

"You do not need to feel motivated to work..."

It frees me from analyzing whether or not I’m enjoying the PhD and enables me to just get on with it. Thanks Olivia!

"True love is friendship set on fire". What we do everyday, we do with our friends but you do not know who your real friends are. That's why I love this quote. took it from

The longest journey
Is the journey inwards.
Of him who has chosen his destiny,
Who has started upon his quest
For the source of his being. (Hammarskjold 1964)

I found this very early on in my research so kept it nearby & safe for the next 5.5 years.

Mog :)

Why God doesn't have a PhD:
1) He had only one major publication.
2) It was in Hebrew.
3) It had no references.
4) It wasn't published in a referreed journal.
5) Some even doubt he wrote it by himself.
6) It may be true that he created the world, but what has he done since then?
7) His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
8) The scientific community has had a hard time replicating his results.
9) He never applied to the ethics board for permission to use human subjects.
10) When one experiment went awry he tried to cover it up by drowning his
subjects.
11) When subjects didn't behave as predicted, he deleted them from the sample.
12) Some say he had his son teach the class.
13) He expelled his first two students for learning.
14) He rarely came to class, and he just told students to read the book.
15) Although there were only 10 requirements, most of his students failed his
tests.
16) His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountaintop.

Perhaps this?

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever."

It would also be operative as a warning from a supervisor to a new, young, naiive PhD student. :-)

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)


(Taken from George Orwell's 1984.)

Hi

I have a quote too, but in my own language, Urdu. It is from a famous Urdu poet Ghalib. I hope you don't mind posting it here.

دام ہر موج میں ہے، حلقہ صد کام نہنگ
دیکھیں کیا گزرے ہے قطرہ پہ گوہر ہونے تک

غالب

And here is the translation if anyway near it:

whirpool in every tide, open mouthed crocodiles,
lets see what misfortunes befall on a water-droplet till it becomes a pearl

Ghalib