quotations about advice
Everyone (including ourselves) colors their advice with their own biases and experiences. Most people mean well. Listen to them. Appreciate their time. Don't take their advice.
PATRICK VLASKOVITS
"How to respond to unsolicited advice about your startup", Wichita Business Journal, March 1, 2016
If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply it himself.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
One of the trickiest forms of bad advice is seemingly good advice that contradicts other seemingly good advice. Take for example "Know your limitations" and "Man's reach should exceed his grasp." Which is it? It can't be both, can it? No! But for years I have bounced between the frustration of having my reach exceed my grasp and the boredom of the certain knowledge of my limitations. Don't make the same mistake. When you encounter seemingly good advice that contradicts other seemingly good advice, ignore them both. "Turn the other cheek" cancels "An eye for an eye," leaving us free to render justice in accordance to whatever cockamamie principles we happen to come up with that morning.
AL FRANKEN
Oh, the Things I Know!
To ask and give advice is the cheapest bargain.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.
OSCAR WILDE
The Portrait of Mr. W. H
For most of my life I was a girl with zero relationship experience whose favorite advice was "Dump him." It was because I thought there was nobody alive good enough for my friends, and because so many boyfriends are truly useless, but it was also because I wanted the friend in question to spend less time with the boyfriend and more with me, and because I wanted to feel that aloneness was normal, even virtuous. Everyone has an agenda -- be it self-preservation, pacifying reassurance, or simple shit-stirring. Most people give advice they just hope is true.
KATIE HEANEY
"Why I've Stopped Giving And Asking For Advice", Buzzfeed, March 1, 2016
To ask advice is in nine cases out of ten to tout for flattery.
JOHN CHURTON COLLINS
Maxims and Reflections
We do not attend to the advice of the sage and experienced because we think they are old, forgetting that they once were young and placed in the same situations as ourselves.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
Generic advice is like junk mail. To be useful, you have to customize it--one size does not fit all.
HERANT A. KATCHADOURIAN
Guilt: The Bite of Conscience
The brain may take advice, but not the heart.
TRUMAN CAPOTE
Other Voices, Other Rooms
The business man who is constantly asking advice is advertising the fact of his uncertainty of his own actions. Your great problems must be decided by yourself.
WILLIAM CROSBIE HUNTER
Dollars and Sense
Advice is a peculiar commodity. Those who have the capacity to give good advice generally have too much sense to waste their time trying to get rid of it.
WILLIAM HENRY MCMASTERS
"On the Matter of Advice"
It's a great thing to get advice from a man who knows, but it's an unfortunate thing to get advice when he doesn't know.
GEORGE H. KNOX
Ready Money
Advice is like food, and teaching is a menu.
OSHO
The Royal Way
Never ask advice from someone who has something at stake or something to lose from your decision. The more objective the person is the greater value you should place on the input.
DAVID J. LIEBERMAN
Get Anyone to Do Anything
Advice is overrated. It's good to listen to what other people say, [but] ultimately you have to make the call for yourself and have the courage of your own convictions.
SARAH WOOD
"Who is Sarah Wood?", startups, February 22, 2016
The vanity of being asked advice often makes us confirm the opinion of those that consult us.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Giving advice is like playing pinball: only by pushing and pulling can you encourage the ball to go in a new direction and increase your score. But too much pushing and pulling can cause a tilt and stop the game.
CHIP R. BELL
Managers as Mentors
We can give advice, but we cannot give conduct.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
Based on all the people whom I have seen in my 35 year professional career, good advice doesn't often come from hanging around the water cooler at work, your brother-in-law muttering a few words between bites of turkey or the neighbor who is quitting his job to become a day trader. Good advice is advice that suits your personal situation, not that of a broad class of people like you.
JOHN NAPOLITANO
"Making Cents: Defining good advice", Dover Post, March 1, 2016