Thread by @shreyas

Dee Hock is the founder of Visa

His writing after retiring from Visa is even more fascinating than Visa's success

I feel very lucky to have found @deehock's work

Decades before Twitter, Dee was packing a lifetime of wisdom in his tweet-sized observations

Here's a few of them:

(consider reading them slowly)

Every mountain is two mountains: the one that urges us to climb and the one that punishes us when we do.

- Dee Hock

The ferocity with which a dog defends its bone tells us a great deal more about the nature of the dog than the quality of the bone.

- Dee Hock

Habits are never in a hurry.

- Dee Hock

Nature will never take direction from us no matter how much havoc we create in the attempt.

- Dee Hock

Despite the desperate effort of parents to teach their children good behavior, children continue to behave pretty much like their parents.

- Dee Hock

Politicians are addicted to mendacity, indecision, and inaction because they know that such things are rarely noticed, readily forgiven, and quickly forgotten, while a mistake is usually detected, seldom forgiven, and rarely forgotten.

- Dee Hock

People who set out to rule are never free. They are forever chained to the mob whether it be rebellious or subservient.

- Dee Hock

A fool is no less a fool when a wise man errs.

- Dee Hock

Tyranny shouts, “You must!”
Leadership whispers, “Perhaps we should.”

- Dee Hock

The pleasures of youth are the pains of old age, just as the pleasures of old age are the pains of youth.

- Dee Hock

To speak is craft; to listen is art.

- Dee Hock

We judge others harshly by the standards we profess rather than those we practice. Yet we resent it bitterly when they return the favor.

- Dee Hock

Vice and virtue have one thing in common: the more people have of either, the less they think they have.

- Dee Hock

Without purpose will is blind. Without will purpose is impotent. Without ethical and moral content both are barren at best and dangerous at worst.

- Dee Hock

One should not read like a dog obeying its master, but like an eagle hunting its prey.

- Dee Hock

When we fully attend to the management of self, excellent management of all else is unavoidable.

- Dee Hock

Old people have so little left of life they should cease trying to make it bring what they desire and make the most of what it offers. Come to think of it, that’s not bad policy for young people as well.

- Dee Hock

Man is the only animal that will squander living to prolong existence.

- Dee Hock

It is not more answers we need, but better questions. It is not more action we need, but deeper reflection. It is not more knowledge we need, but profounder wisdom. It is not more technology we need, but greater aspirations.

- Dee Hock

Those who despise people are the most desperate to be favorably recognized by them.

- Dee Hock

Ignorance is a great deal more eager to instruct wisdom than wisdom is to instruct ignorance.

- Dee Hock

The world of Homo sapiens is, indeed, a fantasyland, for we seek to control organizations, peoples, economies, and nature with minds that can’t control their own thoughts and emotions for thirty seconds.

- Dee Hock

Love, share, accept, care; what else matters?

- Dee Hock

Best part is that Dee Hock is active on Twitter.

Here's his account:
@deewhock

(I misspelled it in my original tweet)