acrobat

“I improve on misquotation.”
– Cary Grant

acumen

"I've turned my mental illness into a business model."
- Stephen Colbert

novus homo

“The renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail. Mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession.”
– Sallust [86-35 BCE]

fantasy novelist

“I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.”
– Sir Terry Pratchett

advantage

“When you lose a couple of times, it makes you realize how difficult it is to win.”
– Steffi Graf

10000 hours

"I grew up in a musical family. When my father was declining, I took over the piano. I stored it all, which prepared me for the Beatles."
- Sir Paul McCartney

where the bison play

"Ever since I was a little boy, I've been in "survival mode."
- Ted Turner

ministry of silly walks

“If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.”
– John Cleese

Or fail to do

"It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do."

- Jane Austen

founding father

“It is better to be alone than in bad company.”
- George Washington

history

Source here.

you're fired

Before making it big, Walt Disney was fired for not being creative enough. Jerry Seinfeld and Thomas Edison were also fired in their early careers. 

natural resources

Source: CIA Factbook

mashugana

“Your life story would not make a good book. Don’t even try.”
– Fran Lebowitz

in the moment

“True happiness is… to enjoy the present without anxious dependence on the future.”
- Seneca [c. 4 BCE – AD 65]

on buddhism

on creativity

“The future is uncertain, but this uncertainty is at the very heart of human creativity.”
– Ilya Prigogine

epic failure until he wasn't

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill

Impressionism

Monet studied landscapes; Renoir studied people.

warrior monk

"You're technically illiterate unless you've read at least a couple of hundred books."
- General James "Mad Dog" Mattis, who has a 7000 volume library

on anxiety

Themistocles

god is dead

“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche [1844 - 1900]

polytheistic axiom

"Rome can only succeed with the gods on its side."

on history

"To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child."
- Cicero [106 BC – 7 December 43 BCE]

personal computing

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
– Bill Gates

stoic

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

- Marcus Aurelius [112 AD - 180 AD]

M*A*S*H

first self-made man

"I choose the likely man in preference to the rich man; I want a man without money rather than money without a man."

- Themistocles [c.524 BCE - 459 BCE]

father of geometry

"QED - Quod erat demonstrandum"
- Euclid [Mid-4th century - Mid-5th century BCE]