“Good marketing can sell once, but only a good product can sell twice. In the long run, your performance reverts to the value you provide.”
James Clear, Blog
“If you can’t solve the problem in front of you, solve an easier version of it—and then see if that solution offers you a starting point, or a beacon, in the full-blown problem. Maybe it does.”
Brian Christian, Algorithms To Live By
“Develop the habit of suspending the need to judge everything that crosses your path. Consider and even momentarily entertain viewpoints opposite to your own, seeing how they feel. Do anything to break up your normal train of thinking and your sense that you already know the truth.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 109)
“Real life is found only in the present. If people tell you that you should live your life preparing for the future, do not believe them. We live in this life, and we know this life only, and therefore all our efforts should be directed toward the improvement of this life. Not your life in general but every hour of this life should be lived in the best way you know how.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 93)
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
Blaise Pascal, The Daily Laws (Page 106)
“Charity can be a lifestyle, not merely a gift. Read charitably. Give the author your most favorable interpretation. Listen charitably. Donate your undivided attention. Work charitably. Be generous with your expertise. In this way, you make charity a daily habit.”
James Clear, Blog
“If today was a holiday in your honor, what would it be about. If we had to examine everything about you, your work, your impact, your reputation–what would be the positive caricature we would draw? What sorts of slogans, banners and greetings would we use to celebrate you and your work? It’s never accurate to boil down an organization or a person’s work to a simple sentence or two, but we do it anyway. What’s yours?”
Seth Godin, Blog
“If you see that some aspect of your society is bad, and you want to improve it, there is only one way to do so: you have to improve people. And in order to improve people, you begin with only one thing: you can become better yourself.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 89)
“Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know. Among the most necessary knowledge is the knowledge of how to live well, that is, how to produce the least possible evil and the greatest goodness in one’s life. At present, people study useless sciences, but forget to study this, the most important knowledge.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 88)
“Most people don’t have the patience to absorb their minds in the fine points and minutiae that are intrinsically part of their work. They are in a hurry to create effects and make a splash; they think in large brush strokes. Their work inevitably reveals their lack of attention to detail—it doesn’t connect deeply with the public, and it feels flimsy. You must see whatever you produce as something that has a life and presence of its own.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 99)
“The mind and the body are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate out their effects on us. Feeling energized influences our mood, which influences our work in very direct ways. And feeling confused or disorganized in our work can have a terrible effect on us physically as well.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 97)
“When a machine malfunctions, you do not take it personally or grow despondent. It is in fact a blessing in disguise. Such malfunctions generally show you inherent flaws and means of improvement. You simply keep tinkering until you get it right.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 96)
“Never postpone a good deed which you can do now, because death does not choose whether you have or haven’t done the things you should have done. Death waits for nobody and nothing. It has neither enemies, nor friends.”
Indian Wisdom, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 84)
“I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.”
May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
“I believe in anger. Anger’s like fire, it can burn out all the dross and leave some positive things. But what I don’t believe in is bitterness. Forgiveness is imperative because you don’t want to carry that weight around, who needs to? And it will throw you down. It doesn’t help you to live life. I don’t make myself vulnerable if I can help it.”
Maya Angelou
“Your entire life happens inside your body. It’s the one home you will always occupy and can never sell. But you can renovate it. If you can only pick one habit to build, exercise might be the one. Everything is downstream from how your body is functioning.”
James Clear, Blog
“Knowledge is always progressing. Don’t let your ego fool you. You are always knowledge’s inferior.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 94)
“All living creatures fear pain and death. Try to understand yourself in every living creature: do not torture and do not kill. Stop suffering and dearth. All living creatures want what you want; all living creatures praise their lives.”
Dhammapada, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 82)
“The greatest impediment to creativity is your impatience, the almost inevitable desire to hurry up the process, express something, and make a splash.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 93)
“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
Franz Kafka, The Daily Laws (Page 92)