Category: Quotes

23 quotes for 2023: How can he be happy that cannot abide in happiness? – Boethius

You will never outperform your self-image. Whoever you think you are deep down, you will never climb higher than that.

“In January 2012, I beat Nadal in the finals of the Australian Open. The match lasted five hours and fifty-three minutes. Many commentators have called that match the single greatest tennis match of all time. After I won, I sat in the locker room in Melbourne. I wanted one thing: to taste chocolate. I hadn’t tasted it since the summer of 2010. Miljan brought me a candy bar. I broke off one square—one tiny square—and popped it into my mouth, let it melt on my tongue. That was all I would allow myself. That is what it has taken to get to number one.” – Djokovic

In any bond of depth and significance, forgive, forgive, forgive. And then forgive again – Maria Popova

Inwardly, psychologically, be a nobody. – Bruce Lee

Biggest regrets I have are almost exclusively things I did *not* do. — Sam, 47

I was always destined to be that one warrior. Content to be the motherfucker who sharpens his sword alone. — David Goggins

We’re bold people, aren’t we? That’s the beauty – Peaky Blinders

You can make magic by going farther than most other people think is reasonable. When Warren (Buffett) was asked, “How’d you do it?” He said, “I read a couple thousand financial statements a year.”

All I want to do is make better sushi. I do the same thing over and over, improving bit by bit. There is always a yearning to achieve more. I’ll continue to climb, trying to reach the top, but no one knows where the top is. – Jiro

I do not like the idea of happiness — it is too momentary. I would say that I was always busy and interested in something — interest has more meaning to me than the idea of happiness. – Georgia O’Keefe

Always remember that at 42 years old, Lee Kuan Yew was sobbing live on television as his life’s work collapsed into ruin: Singapore had been expelled from Malaysia. It is never over.

Cut it out with the introspection. The mind is a den of scorpions better left running from, not towards. – Vigilante

Every time I work I know I’m going to experience an ungodly amount of humiliation. It’s just how it’s gonna go. There’s no way I can get through it without being humiliated. That’s part of like…letting go in some ways. – Joaquin Phoenix

I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. – Jordan

When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine – Picasso

In investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable. – Rob Arnott

Rather than steering your life to avoid surprises, aim directly for them – Kevin Kelly

One sign that determination matters more than talent: there are lots of talented people who never achieve anything, but not that many determined people who don’t. – Paul Graham

I would say being able to stay present in the work…is probably the most important part of it. – Rick Rubin

A vibe is an emotion pretending to be an explanation – Venkatesh Rao

I think I could potentially train harder, because you wanna be as close as possible to being injured, without actually being injured. And I haven’t pushed it as far as being injured yet, so, maybe I haven’t pushed it enough. – Magnus Mitdbo

How can he be happy that cannot abide in happiness? – Boethius

One lesson I’ve learned is that if the job I do were easy, I wouldn’t derive so much satisfaction from it. The thrill of winning is in direct proportion to the effort I put in before. I also know, from long experience, that if you make an effort in training when you don’t especially feel like making it, the payoff is that you will win games when you are not feeling your best. That is how you win championships, that is what separates the great player from the merely good player. The difference lies in how well you’ve prepared. – Nadal

From the seed-bed
The Dharma raises flowers.
Yet there is no seed
Nor are there flowers.

Two of world’s best chefs have tea: Jiro Ono and Rene Redzepi

I already shared this before, but I love the video and conversation so much that I rewatched it and took notes again.

Rene Redzepi and Jiro have a cup of tea

If you start saying “I don’t like this” or “this isn’t the job for me” you won’t become an expert in anything

If you don’t learn to love your work and remind your brain to make new steps every day, there can be no progress

How does he balance tradition and innovation
Innovation is good if what it creates is tastier than what existed before
If you are doing something new, it has to be an improvement on what came before

When did Jiro san feel he was a master?
Let’s say it’s 50. There is a lot of failure before that. You go through failures and success and more failures for years until it feels like you have achieved what you had in mind the whole time

Did he ever wanna stop?
No. Never. I never considered that question. The only question was, “How can I get better?”
Son: “I have been working at this for 37 years and I still feel I have only achieved half of what my father has. I am always chasing my father. Sometimes I feel like I am getting closer, but then I remember just how far I have to go”

I didn’t think to myself that I didn’t want to lose. I told myself that I wanted to overtake the others.

I can work. That’s the first and most important thing. I can work. After that, it’s especially great if you enjoy what you do.

The person who has hit 60 or 70 and has achieved what they originally set out to do will never say “That’s enough”. They’ll keep looking for the next step, the next goal. I can assure you. Human are like that. When you have achieved something or begun to have a sense of accomplishment, you’re not going to say “This is enough”. You think about how you can challenge yourself in a new way

But from that struggle you can be bold and improve

If you aren’t a strong willed person, you can’t get to this. (Son: And you are sensitive, too). Both have to be there to become like this. See, the person who is recognized by the whole world wouldn’t ever quit so easily. They have so much skill. That’s why they have garnered so much attention.

Jake Paul: “You’re also gonna have battle scars if you have no ambition in life…”

Yup, that Jake Paul:

Everything in life is hard. It’s never going to be easy. You’re gonna have battle scars if you’re out in the world trying to cure world hunger or start a sports betting company or a VC fund, you’re gonna have battle scars, you’re also gonna have battle scars if you have no ambition in life, and you just sit on the couch everyday, cause your battle scars are just gonna be sadness and loneliness. So your battle scars are always gonna be there, while you’re trying to accomplish everything, or you’re just lazy and sitting there every day. Both are hard, so which one will you choose?

Recent interesting quotes: “Trust your instincts. Don’t think, just do.” – Tom Cruise in Top Gun

If we want everything to remain as it is, everything must change. – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Trust your instincts. Don’t think, just do. – Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick

A true believer, that one. There are few things so dangerous in a man as lack of doubt – from God of War

Today Jack (Nicklaus) plays such sensational golf with such apparent ease that many people who watch him probably gain the impression that his skills are heaven-sent rather than self-developed. That isn’t true. No one ever worked harder at golf than Nicklaus during his teens and early twenties. At the age of ten, in his first year of golf, Jack must have averaged three hundred practice shots and at least eighteen holes of play daily. In later years, he would often hit double that number of practice shots and play thirty-six — even fifty-four — holes of golf a day during the summer. I have seen him practice for hours in rain, violent winds, snow, intense heat — nothing would keep him away from golf. Even a slight case of polio failed to prevent him from turning up for a golf match.

Excellence is the capacity to take pain – Four Seasons founder

I think I could potentially train harder, because you wanna be as close as possible to being injured, without actually being injured. And I haven’t pushed it as far as being injured yet, so, maybe I haven’t pushed it enough. – Magnus Mitdbo

The reality is that everyone is a basket case on the inside. Some people just hide it better. Find me a normal person and I’ll show you someone you don’t know that well. – Scott Adams

One lesson I’ve learned is that if the job I do were easy, I wouldn’t derive so much satisfaction from it. The thrill of winning is in direct proportion to the effort I put in before. I also know, from long experience, that if you make an effort in training when you don’t especially feel like making it, the payoff is that you will win games when you are not feeling your best. That is how you win championships, that is what separates the great player from the merely good player. The difference lies in how well you’ve prepared. – Nadal

From the seed-bed
The Dharma raises flowers.
Yet there is no seed
Nor are there flowers.

Ser Otto Hightower : And yet I’ve never seen that side of you, my daughter. I even doubted its existence.
Queen Alicent Hightower : It was an ugly thing. I regret it.
Ser Otto Hightower : We play an ugly game. And now, for the first time, I see that you have the determination to win it.

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.

As you start to walk on the way, the way appears. – Rumi

21 random learnings for a very random 2021

1
there’s mounting evidence that insects can experience a remarkable range of feelings. They can be literally buzzing with delight at pleasant surprises, or sink into depression when bad things happen that are out of their control. They can be optimistic, cynical, or frightened, and respond to pain just like any mammal would
[source]

2
The right brain is in charge of present-moment awareness, and this is the part of the brain that meditation takes to the gym. Essentially, the longer we meditate, the more we’re able to balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain. The result of this is more attention, awareness, and computing power for the task at hand.
[source]

3
When the new individual was of the same gender […], the subjects sniffed their own shaking hand twice as much as before. In contrast, after handshakes across different genders, subjects more than doubled the amount of sniffing they did of their own nonshaking hand
[source]

4
The life of every individual, viewed as a whole and in general, and when only its most significant features are emphasized, is really a tragedy; but gone through in detail it has the character of a comedy. – Arthur Schopenhauer

5
We settled things with our only two neighbors – Canada and Mexico – well before our first centennial and immediately got down to the more serious business of arguing amongst ourselves. More Americans died in the Civil War than in all our military conflicts with all our adversaries throughout all our history, combined
[source]

6
When you ask a stranger a personal question, you make that person happy. Your question relieves the stress of awkward silence and gets the conversation moving. Best of all, it signals that you have interest in the stranger, which most people interpret as friendliness and social confidence…
[source]

7
That is [the critic’s] real evil. Not that we believe them, but that we believe the Resistance in our own minds, for which critics serve as unconscious spokespersons. The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment. The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.
The War of Art, Steven Pressfield

8
In lake of some reptiles, when they overpopulate it and there is a surplus of refuse, there is trigger in nature: a monster is born to them. A lizard many times the size of a normal one is born, who deals out destruction and culls the lake.
[source]

9
Ask a wage slave what he’d like to accomplish (when he retires early or wins the lottery).
Chances are the response will be something like “I’d start every day at the gym and work out for two hours until I was as buff as Brad Pitt. Then I’d practice the piano for three hours. I’d become fluent in Mandarin so that I could be prepared to understand the largest transformation of our time. I’d really learn how to handle a polo pony. I’d learn to fly a helicopter. I’d finish the screenplay that I’ve been writing and direct a production of it in HDTV.”
[source]

10
Our conventional sense of self is an illusion; positive emotions, such as compassion and patience, are teachable skills; and the way we think directly influences our experience of the world.
[source]

11
The trials of twenty-two former Auschwitz officers had revealed a common personality type: ordinary, conservative, sexually inhibited, and preoccupied with bourgeois morality. “I do think that in a society that was more free about sexuality, Auschwitz could not have happened”
[source]

12
Once you take this far enough, you enter a cycle of accelerated returns in which the practice becomes easier and more interesting, leading to the ability to practice for longer hours, which increases your skill level, which in turn makes practice even more interesting. Reaching this cycle is the goal you must set for yourself
-Mastery by Robert Greene

13
We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient. – Jeff Bezos

14
Bitcoin, the asset, is likely crossing into the early majority while Bitcoin, the network, is on the cusp of moving from innovators to early adopters. So, overlapping the two, Bitcoin, overall, is still early in its adoption curve, likely somewhere in the early adopter phase
[source]

15
Both versions of tea come from China. How they spread around the world offers a clear picture of how globalization worked before “globalization” was a term anybody used. The words that sound like “cha” spread across land, along the Silk Road. The “tea”-like phrasings spread over water, by Dutch traders bringing the novel leaves back to Europe.
[source]

16
Pixar storytelling guide
Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
[source]

17
If we’re all the average of the five people we spend the most time with, then the only way to remain a true believer in a seemingly impossible goal is to spend all of your time with other true believers
[source]

18
But what the world has shown in the last year is the opposite […] We’re willing to permanently give up our livelihoods, friends, and freedom, slowly and passively falling into the “new normal”, without really much of a second thought.
[source]

19
Rather, he finds it was the 13th-Century response of Benedictine monks to the devotion: Never become idle. Sure enough, the clock proved the perfect machine to keep us busy. And if not achievement enough, Benedictines had a correspondingly swell idea that would come to dominate our planet–connecting a daily schedule of activity to the clock.
[source]

20
History weighs heavily on Mr Xi, who keeps mentioning the Soviet collapse. He is waging a campaign against what he calls “historical nihilism”—that is, any grumbling about communism’s past. One Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, is held up as the archetypal nihilist for denouncing Stalin’s brutality in 1956. That event haunts Mr Xi. Party literature says it led to the Soviet Union’s demise. Much of Mr Xi’s energy is focused on making sure the party learns the Soviet lesson. Mao must remain a saint.
[source]

21
By one estimate, in a given ant colony, three percent of the ants are workaholics and never stop, about a third seem to do absolutely no work at all, and the rest work some and slack some
[source]