Quotes

To feel them at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue.

I think my biggest pet peeve is when people say, I want the thing, but I don't want to pay the price. But there is a price tag that is associated with the things that we want.

If you don't sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice.

We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us… that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.

Pain is the price of progress. And so if we want progress, we must accept the price of pain that's attached to it. You cannot both want progress and live an easy life.

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

It's not about not suffering. I think it's about finding something worthy of suffering.

In the beginning it's like you have to forego what you know for something that is unknown. And so you can quantify what you have to lose but not what you have to gain.

There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing.

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Spider-Man represents everything that I'm not! He's brave, powerful and unselfish! The truth is, I envy him! I, J. Jonah Jameson—millionaire, man of the world, civic leader—I'd give everything I own to be the man that he is!

If there was a fire in my house, my box of notes is the one thing I would go back to save.

I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop, I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.

Don't let insecurities hide behind what looks like reasonable excuses.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

Every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Everybody in the world is now a programmer. This is the miracle of artificial intelligence... you now have a computer that will do what you tell it to do to help automate your work to amplify your productivity.

Specialization is for ants.

You can escape competition through authenticity when you realize that no one can compete with you on being you.

That would have been useless advice pre-internet. Post-internet, you can turn that into a career.

Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.

You don't become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are. Outwork your self-doubt.

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

Art is subtraction.

An ignorant person is inclined to blame others for his own misfortune.

To blame oneself is proof of progress.

But the wise man never has to blame another or himself.

Set a goal to become a millionaire for what it makes of you to achieve it. Do it for the skills you have to learn and the person you have to become.

How much longer are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?

Discipline equals freedom.

Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.

Every action you take is a vote for the person you wish to become.

If more information was the answer, we'd all be billionaires with perfect abs.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going.

No feeling is final.

If you get into business to solve problems, you'll make money.

If you get into business to make money, you'll have problems.

Give away your secrets, sell the implementation.

You're not going through it

It's going through you

And once it's all gone

You become the new you

With a different perspective

From the same point of view

Fully unaffected by the old truth you once knew

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

It's like with everything I do

The beginning's so exciting

In the middle part, I doubt

And in the end, I'm disappointed

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

It's not just words. Action expresses priorities.

Selfish people don't care about you, unless you are doing something for them.

Notes aren't a record of my thinking process. They are my thinking process.

You must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

It's more important for something to be useful than true.

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

There are almost 7B people on this planet. Someday, I hope, there will be almost 7B companies.

You get paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of problems you solve.

Tell the truth or at least don't lie.

You don't lack resources, you lack resourcefulness.

Wake up, you need to make money.

Quit the wrong stuff. Stick with the right stuff. Have the guts to do one or the other.

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

Your business idea doesn't require more research, it requires action! "Market research" is just fancy procrastination.

I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's. I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create.

What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.

We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Because if you want the benefits of something in life, you have to also want the costs.

Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to struggle for.

I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the process. I was in love not with the fight, but only the victory.

What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.

When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.

A habit must be established before it can be improved.

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.

I don't know what I think until I write it down.

The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.