Quotations

“Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.”
— Alfred North Whitehead

“Give me three hours to chop down a tree and I'll spend the first two sharpening the axe.”
— Abraham Lincoln

“You’re only limited by your own creativity and the physics of the universe.”
— Jeff Bezos

“There is no other road to genius than through voluntary self-effort.”
— Napoleon Hill

“A minds mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.”
— Oliver Wendell Homes Sr

"Money is an information system for labor allocation."
— Elon Musk

“The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation”
— Henry David Thoreau

“If you speak the truth, then what happens is good. Regardless of what happens.”
— Jordan Peterson

“Escape competition through authenticity.”
— Naval Ravikant

“You can’t be normal and expect abnormal results. Extreme people get extreme results.”
— Sam Altman

“Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”
— Lee Iacocca

“Self-esteem is the reputation you have with yourself.”
— Brian Tracy

“Morality is the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike.”
— Oscar Wilde

“To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind.”
— Anne Lamott

“Ostinato rigore. Relentless rigor.”
— Leonardo da Vinci

“Desire is a contract with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
— Naval Ravikant

“Whenever I think about quitting, I remind myself that this is where most people stop and this is why they don’t win.”
— Alex Hormozi

“If you have to be told when to be at work, what to wear, and how to behave, you’re not a free person.”
— Naval Ravikant

“What percentage of what’s available to you would you like to make happen? Fifty or one hundred percent?”
— John Mayer

“You get rich by taking lots of risk with small amounts of money. You stay rich by taking small risks with lots of money.”
— Jack Butcher

“Fill your mind in the afternoons with books, learning, and socialization. Empty your mind in the evening with planning, journaling, and meditation. Use your mind in the mornings with things like creation, output, and focus.”
— Dan Koe

“There are three kinds of men: those who may be classified as lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of personal gain.”
— Plato

“The best armor of old age is a well-spent life preceding it; a life employed in the pursuit of useful knowledge, in honorable actions, and the practice of virtue; in which he who labors to improve himself from his youth will in age reap the happiest fruits of them; not only because these never leave a man, not even in the extremest, but because a conscience bearing witness that our life was well spent, together with the remembrance of past good actions, yields an unspeakable comfort to the soul.”
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Simplicity is the end result of long, hard work, not the starting point.”
— Frederic William Maitland

“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and, however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.”
— Thomas Henry Huxley

“Imagine you had a punch card with only twenty slots in it, and every financial decision you made used up one slot. You would resist the temptation to dabble.”
— Warren Buffett

“Stick to your circle of competence: yes, no, and too tough to understand.”
— Warren Buffett & Charlie Munger

“Look for an easy-to-understand, dominant business franchise that can sustain itself and thrive in all market environments.”
— Charlie Munger

“Take into account the current and prospective regulatory climate; the state of labor, supplier, and customer relations; the potential impact of changes in technology; competitive strengths and vulnerabilities; pricing power; scalability; environmental issues; and, notably, the presence of hidden exposures. A moat that widens every year.”
— Charlie Munger

“Never fool yourself—and remember that you are the easiest person to fool.”
— Richard Feynman

“Don’t focus on winning the point; focus on how well you played it.”
— Richard Zeckhauser

“Most players gain pleasure from feeling accepted or belonging to the group. The good player, however, gains pleasure from his ability to cope with the realities of the game.”
— John Finn

“The deep structure of the human mind requires that the way to full-scope competency of virtually any kind is to learn it all to fluency, like it or not.”
— Charlie Munger

“Develop the habit of committing far more time to learning and thinking than to doing.”
— Charlie Munger

“The future will belong not only to the educated man, but to the man who is educated to use his leisure wisely.”
— Charles K. Brightbill

“If you’re not willing to downgrade your lifestyle for a year to have a lifestyle you want forever, you care too much about what other people think.”
— Jim Carrey (attributed)

“The meaning of a word is coded in the relationship of words to one another.”
— Unknown

“Home is where you’re noticed when you’re not there.”
— Unknown

“In Turkey, when I thought of home, I thought of my village. In the Western world, home is your four walls and, if you’re lucky enough, your family. The Western world is experiencing a de facto spiritual homelessness problem. One in ten children are taking stimulant drugs to calm them, three in ten elderly take an antipsychotic drug to calm them, and one in five people in the Western world are on a psychiatric drug. The lowest demographic of people with attention problems, anxiety, and depression in the U.S. are the Amish.”
— Unknown

“The entire universe exists in your brain, so when you cease to exist, the universe ceases to exist for you.”
— Unknown

“God is a celestial dictator.”
— Christopher Hitchens

“The universe is expanding faster than the speed of light. The surfer relative to water is not moving, but the surfer relative to the shore is.”
— Lawrence M. Krauss

“Whenever you feel the compulsive need to drink, something deeper emotionally is going on. Pause and reflect on that. When you get hooked, you’re not having fun anymore. You’re just feeding your addiction to the point of avoiding withdrawals. Some people have a dream and the pressure of their dream is so intense and the dream feels too unreachable.”
— Unknown

“The unique aspect of the human mind is mental time travel: the ability to project ourselves in the past, present, and future. Without that type of consciousness, we’re limited to factual information.”
— Joseph LeDoux

“Every day you’re presented with two choices: evolve or repeat. What did you choose today?”
— Anonymous

“Surfers dance on the edge of chaos and order.”
— Jordan Peterson

“Attachment leads to jealousy, jealousy leads to fear, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. Train yourself to let go of all you fear to lose.”
— Yoda / George Lucas

“Gradually, I learned to be indifferent to myself and my deficiencies; I came to center my attention increasingly upon external objects: the state of the world, various branches of knowledge, and individuals for whom I felt affection.”
— Bertrand Russell

“Stable is that step backward between successful and failing.”
— Unknown

“The moment you feel like giving up, remember all the reasons you held on this long.”
— Anonymous

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
— Herbert A. Simon

“Joy is the feeling of power increasing.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“The men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all.”
— Will Durant

“If you go out looking for a friend, you’re going to find they are very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.”
— Zig Ziglar

“Your business is nothing more than a distinct reflection of who you are. If your thinking is sloppy, your business will be sloppy. If you are disorganized, your business will be disorganized.”
— Michael E. Gerber

“A business is not a business, but a place to go to work.”
— Michael E. Gerber

“The typical business owner is only 10% entrepreneur, 20% manager, and 70% technician.”
— Michael E. Gerber

“Things in excess become the opposite.”
— Tim Ferriss

“You don’t have to do a lot every day, but you have to do something. Something. Every day.”
— Callie Oettinger

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”
— Unknown (often misattributed to Winston Churchill)

“Imagine what you could accomplish if you didn’t care who got all the credit.”
— Harry S. Truman (attributed)

“Think in the morning, act in the afternoon, read in the evening, and sleep at night.”
— William Blake (adapted)

“In private, watch your thoughts. In family, watch your temper. In society, watch your tongue.”
— Anonymous

“Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control things.”
— Andrew Carnegie

“A man who acquired the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.”
— Andrew Carnegie

“We don’t get what we deserve; we get what we take.”
— Unknown

“Society confers wealth, prestige, and power upon those who have control of assets.”
— Unknown

“His control is, first of all, over his mind and his attitudes; if these are right, the body will follow. A man accessing the warrior archetype has a positive mental attitude. This means that he has an unconquerable spirit, that he has great courage, that he is fearless, that he takes responsibility for his actions, and that he has self-discipline. Discipline means that he has rigor to develop control and mastery over his mind and over his body, and that he has the capacity to withstand pain, both physical and psychological. He is willing to suffer to achieve what he wants to achieve.”
— Robert Moore & Douglas Gillette

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
— Henry David Thoreau (attributed)

“How you do anything is how you do everything.”
— Unknown (often attributed to various modern writers)

“Focus on passion, competency, and money—in that order.”
— Unknown

“Think and structure before you question or answer.”
— Unknown

“The best way to get something is to deserve it.”
— Charlie Munger

“Instead of focusing on impressing or envying people, focus on how you can learn from or help people.”
— Unknown

“Never make any important investing decisions when you are stressed, uncertain, confused, short of time, or under pressure.”
— Unknown

“It’s a better idea to hold on to cash than to invest your money poorly.”
— Unknown

“Focus on competence, not desire. Work on your potential, not success; you will be happy.”
— Unknown

“Interest rates are to asset prices sort of like gravity is to the apple—assets go up in price when interest rates are low.”
— Warren Buffett

“When there is a conflict between your heart and brain, follow your heart.”
— Swami Vivekananda

“Investing is all about protecting your downside. The upside will take care of itself.”
— Warren Buffett (attributed)

“Obvious prospects for physical growth in a business rarely translate into obvious profits for investors.”
— Benjamin Graham

“Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.”
— Warren Buffett

“As the price of an asset rises compared to its value, the risk also increases regardless of the quality of the asset.”
— Howard Marks

“Don’t buy any stock when the market is open.”
— Mohnish Pabrai

“Commodity stock prices are like sinusoidal waves; wait for the low points in commodity prices before you buy.”
— Unknown

“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”
— A. Gary Shilling (often misattributed to John Maynard Keynes)

“Don’t seek masters; seek what they sought.”
— Matsuo Bashō

“Who is strong? He who masters his own passions.”
— Ben Zoma, Pirkei Avot 4:1

“You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end.”
— Charlie Munger

“The cure for this is to have an iron rule that you are qualified to speak only when you can argue equally well for the other side.”
— Charlie Munger

“Avoid working directly under somebody whom you don’t admire and don’t want to be like.”
— Charlie Munger

“Pay close attention to discomforting evidence. Avoid looking for evidence that suits your wishes or beliefs.”
— Charlie Munger

“Checklist routines help in keeping your thoughts straight.”
— Charlie Munger

“Treat every missed opportunity life presents as an opportunity to behave well and learn.”
— Epictetus (adapted)

“If you have a goal in life that takes a lot of energy, that incurs a great deal of interest, and is a challenge to you, you will always look forward to waking up to see what the new day brings. But if you find a person in your life that understands you completely, shares your ideas, and believes in everything you do, you will always look forward to the night because you will never be lonely.”
— Susan Polis Schutz