“Keep ignoring feedback and life will keep teaching you the same lesson.”
James Clear, Blog
“Is there anything more absurd than a person having a right to kill me because we live on two opposite banks of the river, and our kings quarrel with each other?”
Blaise Pascal, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 285)
“So much of power is not what you do but what you do not do—the rash and foolish actions that you refrain from before they get you into trouble. Plan in detail before you act—do not let vague plans lead you into trouble. Unhappy endings are much more common that happy ones—do not be swayed by the happy ending in your mind.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 337)
“Most people act, not according to their meditations, and not according to their feelings, but as if hypnotized, based on some senseless repetition of patterns.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 284)
“The need for space is psychological as well as physical: you must have an unfettered mind to create anything worthwhile.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 336)
“Never take it for granted that your past successes will continue in the future. Actually, your past successes are your biggest obstacle: every battle, every war, is different, and you cannot assume that what worked before will work today.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 335)
“Whatever age you are today, your future self would love to be it. Most people do not consider 65 to be a young age… but when you’re 75, you’d love to rewind to 65 and regain those years. Few people would describe 35 as your youth, but in your mid-50s your mid-30s will seem like the “young you.” Today is a great opportunity, no matter your age. Looking back in a few years, today will seem like the time when you were young and full of potential or the moment when you could have started early or the turning point when you made a choice that benefited your future. The moment in front of you right now is a good one. Make the most of it.”
James Clear, Blog
“If it were not so blindly accepted as a part of our customs and traditions, how could any sensitive person accept the thought that in order to feed ourselves we should kill such a huge number of animals, in spite of the fact that our earth gives us so many different treasures from plants?”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 280)
“What nature of struggle for existence or kind of madness forces you to shed blood with your hands in order to eat animals? Why do this, if you have all the comforts of life?”
Plutarch, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 280)
“The true artist has no public; he works for the sheer joy of it, with an element of playfulness, of casualness. Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 140)
“If you do anything at the last minute that takes more than a minute, you’re not organizing your project properly. The last minute is not a buffer zone, nor is it the moment to double-check your work. The last minute is simply sixty seconds to enjoy and to remind yourself that you successfully planned ahead.”
Seth Godin
“[Hemingway] would always end a writing session only when he knew what came next in the story. Instead of exhausting every last idea and bit of energy, he would stop when the next plot point became clear. This meant that the next time he sat down to work on his story, he knew exactly where to start. He built himself a bridge to the next day, using today’s energy and momentum to fuel tomorrow’s writing.”
Tiago Forte
“The problem isn’t that you’re too busy. You are too busy, but that’s not the problem. If you view being busy as the problem, there is no solution. You will always be too busy, and that will never change. As Andy Grove once noted: ‘A manager’s work is never done. There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done.’ The problem is that you’re acting like a firefighter instead of a fire marshal.”
Ed Batista
“I often hear phrases like, ‘If you don’t take action on what you learn, it’s pointless.‘ I think it’s bullshit. From late 2016 to 2020, I binged around 130 self-development books and hours of Tim Ferriss Show podcast episodes. I took direct action, maybe on 0.5% of the advice I heard. But the real change happened with my beliefs. Hearing stories, struggles, and behind-the-scenes from various people who did dope shit stretched my thinking of what’s possible.”
Janis Ozolins
“We cannot prevent birds from flying over our heads, but we can keep them from making nests on top of our heads. Similarly, bad thoughts sometimes appear in our mind, but we can choose whether we allow them to live there, to create a nest for themselves, and to breed evil deeds.”
Martin Luther, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 277)
“Art is never decoration, embellishment; instead it is work of enlightenment. Art, in other words, is a technique for acquiring liberty.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 135)
“Art is communication of feelings.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 134)
“Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.”
Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird
“To many, the word ‘success’ seems to be a paradise, but now that I’m in the midst of it, it is nothing but circumstances that seem to complicate my innate feeling toward simplicity and privacy.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 126)