“I think and think and think. I’ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”
– Jonathan Safran Foer
“Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kidness, we birth our future.”
– David Mitchell
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
– E.F. Schumacher
“It’s so simple, yet makes such a difference. Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important’.”
– Mary Kay Ash
“There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.”
– John Stuart Mill
“The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.”
– Henry James
“Not doing something that isn’t worth doing is a wonderful way to spend your time.”
– Jason Fried
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
– Simone Weil
“On one level, wisdom is nothing more profound than an ability to follow one’s own advice.”
– Sam Harris
“There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy.”
– Albert Ellis
“The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.”
– Dennis Waitley
“If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.”
– Leslie Lamport
“Being busy is a form of laziness - lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.”
– Tim Ferriss
“Money is a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.”
– Henry James
“Any system of education which does not inculcate moral values, simply furnishes the intellectual equipment whereby men and women can better satisfy their pride, greed, and lust.”
– Adm. Hyman G. Rickover
“While seeking revenge, dig two graves - one for yourself.”
– Douglas Horton
“The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs.”
– Joan Didion
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”
– James Baldwin
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
– Heraclitus
“One cannot lead a life that is truly excellent without feeling that one belongs to something greater and more permanent than oneself.”
– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.”
– Publilius Syrus
“Nothing satisfies the man who is not satisfied with a little.”
– Epicurus
“Difficulty is a coin which the learned conjure with so as not to reveal the vanity of their studies and which human stupidity is keen to accept in payment.”
– Michel de Montaigne
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
– H.L. Mencken
“People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.”
– F.M. Alexander
“If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.”
– Greg McKeown (Essentialism)
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
– Shakespeare’s Hamlet
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
“Choose not to be harmed - and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed - and you haven’t been.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices.”
“It’s impossible to learn that which you think you already know.”
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
– Epictetus
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
– Annie Dillard
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
– proverb
“Happiness has more to do with where you are heading than where you are.”
– Scott Adams
“If I had 20 days to solve a problem, I would take 19 days to define it.”
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
– Albert Einstein
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
– Aristotle
“I don’t count my sit-ups; I only start counting when it starts hurting because they’re the only ones that count.”
– Muhammad Ali
“Fortune favors the prepared mind.”
– Louis Pasteur
“Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you.”
– Byron Katie
“Be gentle to all, and stern with yourself.”
– St. Teresa of Avila
“The way we do anything is the way we do everything.”
– Martha Beck
“Ego is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”
– Booker T. Washington
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
– Arthur C. Clarke
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
– Henry David Thoreau
“A friend should always underestimate your virtues and the enemy overestimate your faults.”
– Mario Puzo (The Godfather)
“Perfect is the enemy of good.”
– Voltaire
“Certainty is the enemy of growth.”
– Mark Manson
“Skepticism is the virtuous mean between two vices: absolute knowledge and absolute ignorance.”
– Odo Marquard
“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”
– Neale Donald Walsch
“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“All cruelty springs from weakness.”
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
“There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living.”
“The greatest remedy for anger is delay.”
– Seneca
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
– Charles Darwin
“It took me time to adjust, but I came to realize that my new job was to ask the right questions that empowered our leaders to move forward with greater clarity about the outcome we sought. Said more succinctly, be clear about the ‘what’ and delegate the ‘how’.”
“Business is about translating vision and strategy into execution.”
“Life is a team sport, and a player who makes the team great is far more valuable than simply a great player.”
– Brad Smith
“If you want to go fast - go alone, if you want to go far - go together.”
– proverb
“Your business is nothing more than the collective energy and efforts of the people working with and for you.”
– Jim Bouchard
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The difference between theory and practice is even larger in practice than it is in theory.”
– Steve Crocker (attributed to)
“Deliberate complexity is the mark of an amateur. Elegant simplicity is the mark of a master.”
– Robert A. Crawford (quoted by)
“Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.”
– Alan Perlis
“It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.”
“Learning is not compulsory… neither is survival.”
“Experience by itself teaches nothing…Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one has no questions to ask. Hence without theory there is no learning.”
– W. Edwards Deming
“The most reliable components are the ones you leave out.”
– Gordon Bell
“Fast, Cheap, Good - pick any two.”
– J. Noel Chiappa