Quotes
“To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people.”
― Charlie Munger
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
― Anaïs Nin
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I'm looking for the truth,’ and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.”
― Michel de Montaigne
“Learn the rules like a pro, so that you can break them like an artist.”
― Pablo Picasso
“I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up, and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.”
― Charlie Munger
“I never allow myself to hold an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do.”
― Charlie Munger
“I think that, every time you see the word EBITDA, you should substitute the words ‘bullshit earnings.’”
― Charlie Munger
“Warren, think it over and you'll agree with me because you're smart and I'm right.”
― Charlie Munger
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
― Albert Camus
“I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
"The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook."
― William James
“The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.”
― William Blake
"No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings."
― William Blake
“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is—infinite.”
― William Blake
“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
― Steve Jobs
"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
― Steve Jobs
“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you, and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.”
― Steve Jobs
“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”
― Bruce Lee
“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”
― Bruce Lee
“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
― Bruce Lee
“The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.”
― Bruce Lee
“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed. He’s making sure your imagination withers. Until it’s as useful as your appendix. He’s making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it’s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what’s in your mind. With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.”
― Chuck Palahniuk
“To laugh often and much: To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
“We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it’s all gone.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”
― Ayn Rand
“To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul—would you understand why that's much harder?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can't stand still. It must grow or perish.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“The truth is not for all men but only for those who seek it.”
― Ayn Rand
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.”
― Ernest Hemingway
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
― Ernest Hemingway
“Courage is grace under pressure.”
― Ernest Hemingway
“Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”
― Ernest Hemingway
“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
― Robert A. Heinlein
“Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love.”
― John Steinbeck
“The strength of a person's spirit would then be measured by how much 'truth' he could tolerate, or more precisely, to what extent he needs to have it diluted, disguised, sweetened, muted, falsified.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
“We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.”
― Yousuf Karsh
“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.”
― James A. Michener
“It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover.”
― Henri Poincaré
“Many a false step was made by standing still.”
― Fortune cookie
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
― Thomas Edison