• "The modern devil is cheap dopamine."
  • "The things you own end up owning you."
  • “We are hunters; we are only truly alive in those moments when we improvise; no schedule, just small surprises and stimuli from the environment.”
  • "It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?"
  • "Home is the place where there is no friction."
  • "Hide your strength, bide your time."
  • "Beware of the tyranny of the trivial."
  • "We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions."
  • "You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results."
  • "Habits begin as cobwebs and end up as chains."
  • "You’re spending time to save money when you should be spending money to save time."
  • "Go slow to go fast."
  • "Less is more."
  • “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.​”
  • "Abundant time trumps abundant goods."
  • "You don't habituate to the things you love."
  • "Silence is a great canvas for your thoughts. That vacuum helps turn all of your inputs into output. That lack of interruption helps you flow."
  • "The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."
  • "Stay hungry, stay foolish."
  • "Part of waking up is that you live your life as you see fit. And understand: That is not selfish. The selfish thing is to demand that someone else live their life as YOU see fit. That’s selfish."
  • “If it costs you your peace, it’s too expensive.”
  • "Spend your money where you spend your time."
  • “These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized.”
  • "For everything, use boredom in place of a clock, as a biological wristwatch, though under constraints of politeness."
  • "The only person you need to be better than is the person you were yesterday."
  • "It's easier to change yourself than to change the world."
  • "All the best, happiest, and most creatively productive times in my life have something in common: being disconnected. No internet. No TV. No phone. No people. Long uninterrupted solitude."
  • "(T)he two things I can’t do without for long are solitude and silence."
  • "Highs that don’t lead to subsequent lows: meditation, gratitude, prayer, journaling, unconditional love; yoga, exercise, play, nature walks; creating art, reading for fun, singing, poetry; practicing a craft, pursuing curiosity, work done for its own sake, flow."
  • "The price of productivity is creativity."
  • "Social media is a force multiplier for mass hysteria and mass greed."
  • "A heuristic on whether you have control of your life: can you take naps?"
  • "If you know, in the morning, what your day looks like with any precision, you are a little bit dead – the more precision, the more dead you are."
  • "For a classicist, a competitive athlete is painful to look at; trying hard to become an animal rather than a man, he will never be as fast as a cheetah or as strong as an ox."
  • "No one wants the burden of being the answer to your dissatisfaction."
  • "Many things seem great in theory, but are not in practice."
  • "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor."
  • "We are born knowing that life is a magical adventure and it takes them decades to train us to believe otherwise."
  • "When you avoid failure, you also opt-out of greatness."
  • "The most important habit is saying no."
  • “We can spend decades climbing the ladder, only to realize too late that we have placed it against the wrong wall."
  • "When a person can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure."
  • "Get busy living or get busy dying."
  • "Value your time. It is all you have."
  • "For everything, there is a first time."
  • "Get out of the house, expand your route, linger in public, talk to everyone, and walk through the open doors."
  • "Meditation is turning off society and listening to yourself. It only 'works' when done for its own sake. Hiking is walking meditation. Journaling is writing meditation. Praying is gratitude meditation. Showering is accidental meditation. Sitting quietly is direct meditation."
  • "The modern struggle: Lone individuals summoning inhuman willpower, fasting, meditating, and exercising. Up against armies of scientists and statisticians weaponizing abundant food, screens, and medicine into junk food, clickbait news, infinite porn, endless games, and addictive drugs."
  • "I can think, I can wait, I can fast."
  • "The most important question is not 'How do I get what I want?' - it’s 'What do I want?'"
  • "Our best work is the work we find ourselves doing, when there is no obligation to do so."
  • “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hinderances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor.”
  • “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”
  • “But I have something he will never have — enough.”
  • "Being content with little is the ultimate civil disobedience in modern times."
  • “Set and enforce an aspirational hourly rate.”
  • "Aspire to move past room-mates, commutes, alarm clocks, and calendars."
  • “Heaven is the place where you think of nowhere else.”
  • "Imposter syndrome is a feature, not a bug, of growing as a person."
  • "Don’t practice what you don't want to become."
  • "Action is the antidote to anxiety."
  • "If you can't be happy with a coffee, you won't be happy with a yacht."
  • "Most problems are easily fixed. 90% of issues can be solved by a good sleep, a glass of water, a gym session, a walk outdoors or a chat with a friend."
  • "Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75."
  • "Don't set yourself on fire to keep others warm."
  • “The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep.”
  • "Before you buy anything, ask yourself: will this be something I use constantly? Or is it just something nice? Or worse still, a mere bargain?"
  • “Comparison is the thief of joy."
  • "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."
  • "Nine times out of ten, sitting around strategizing is just a form of procrastination."
  • "Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken."
  • "The American Dream has always been relatively simple: The ability to live one’s life on one’s terms. That is: financially, recreationally, personally, and creatively."
  • “You're efficient when you do something with minimum waste. And you're effective when you're doing the right something."
  • "Hedonic adaptation is more powerful for man-made things (cars, houses, clothes, money) than for natural things (food, sex, exercise)."
  • "Once you've truly controlled your own fate, for better or for worse, you'll never let anyone else tell you what to do."
  • "A taste of freedom can make you unemployable."
  • "It's not what you know, it's what you do consistently."
  • "Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you'd like to like."
  • "Explore or optimize? Do you optimize what you know will sell or explore with something new? Do you order a restaurant dish you are sure is great (optimize) or do you try something new? Do you keep dating new folks (explore) or try to commit to someone you met? The ideal balance for exploring new things vs. optimizing those already found is 1/3. Spend 1/3 of your time on exploring and 2/3 on optimizing and deepening. As you mature it is harder to devote time to exploring because it seems unproductive, but aim for 1/3."
  • "What would this look like if it was easy?"
  • “If I could never talk about this, would I do it?”
  • “What’s the point of having ‘fuck you’ freedom if you never say ‘fuck you’?”
  • “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.”
  • “Delaying gratification in the extreme means no gratification.”
  • “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
  • “You should fear wasting your life more than you fear running out of money.”
  • “When you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you.”
  • "Living within walking distance of your friends completely transforms your quality of life."