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BEST QUOTES TO BOOST YOUR GROWTH

MONEY | INVESTING | ENTREPRENEURSHIP | CRITICAL THINKING | MINDSET

Quotes provide us with a quick and timely burst of wisdom, offering the inspiration needed for the occasion and introducing us to great minds and works. Enjoy this list of favourite quotes, regularly collected and updated. 

 

MONEY QUOTES

  • Money is not important. A lot of money is important. But that [100 M $] is not enough. Zlatan Ibrahimovic
  • People would rather believe they have been robbed than that they have been fools on the advice of fools. Fred Schwed Jr
  • Stop asking $3 questions and start asking $30,000 questions. Rami Sethi [ I Will Teach You To Be Rich ]
  • While money can’t buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery. Groucho Mark
  • Money is like water. Everyone uses it, but we all tend to waste it. Few of us are able to store it properly or leverage its power. If we leave it idle, we spoil it. Sweat Your Assets
  • The money you have gives you freedom, the money you pursue enslaves you. JJ Rousseau
  • When most people say, they want to be a millionaire, what they might actually mean is ‘I’d like to spend a million dollars.’ And that is literally the opposite of being a millionaire.Morgan Housel [ The Psychology of Money ] 
  • Instead of asking, “What should I do in my portfolio?” Ask, “What should I do outside of my portfolio? ”Because, in the grand scheme of things, your investment portfolio is just one part of your financial picture. There are many other levers that you can pull if you want to improve your finances. However, those levers will be dependent on where you currently are in your financial journey”. Of Dollar and Data [ Just Keep Buying ]
  • if you think too much about money, you can’t see the forest from the tree! Look for the productive assets (the forest), not the money (the tree). Sweat Your Assets
  • Taxes are indeed very heavy (but) we are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly. Benjamin Franklin [The Way to Wealth: Ben Franklin on Money and Success ]
  • It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. Upton Sinclair
  • Read people’s incentives and you’ll understand their behaviour. Tariq Fancy 
  • I want to give my kids enough so that they could feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing. Warren Buffett
  • You’re free when no one can buy your time. Shane Parrish
  • Unless the millennials learn a small amount about finance, they’ll fall victim to the Five Horsemen of Personal Finance Apocalypse: failure to save, ignorance of financial theory, unawareness of financial history, dysfunctional psychology, and the rapacity of the investment industry. William J. Bernstein [ The Four Pillars of Investing ] 
  • You must pay taxes. But there’s no law that says you gotta leave a tip. Morgan Stanley 
  • If you overlook money management, you will end up with money problems. You become financially insecure. The best way to avoid such a scenario is to tackle saving and investing decisions immediately. Once you set up and automate a system to save and invest “enough”, you are done. As long as you don’t step away from your chosen financial habits, you can “finally” overlook money talks for good. Sweat Your Assets
  • It is not what you earn that makes you rich, but what you spend on. Charles Jaffe
  • The real value of money is what you create with it. Edmond De Rothschild
  • The real value of money is its actual purchasing power. Nothing less, nothing more. Sweat Your Assets
  • I remember saying to my mentor, ‘If I had more money, I would have a better plan.’ He quickly responded, ‘I would suggest that if you had a better plan, you would have more money.’ You see, it’s not the amount that counts; it’s the plan that counts. Jim Rohn [ Seven Strategies for Wealth & Happiness ]

SAVING QUOTES

  • In Texas they call them “big hat, no cattle”. Don’t pretend, don’t show what you are not. Don’t be a joke! Live within your means. Sweat Your Assets
  • If the amount of money I saved each month didn’t hurt, I wasn’t saving enough. Sam Dogen  [ Buy This, Not That ]
  • No one ever complained of having too many savings.  Sweat Your Assets
  • The habit of saving is itself an education; it fosters every virtue, teaches self-denial, cultivates the sense of order, trains forethought, and so broadens the mind.  T.T. Munger

WEALTH QUOTES

AFFORD QUOTES

  • There is a wise saying among boat owners. You know you can truly buy and maintain a boat when you could even buy (and maintain) ten of them. This is a good heuristic when you “feel” buying yourself an expensive toy with high running costs and fast depreciation (sports cars, boats, etc.). Alex Baroni
  • You can never get enough of what you don’t need. Dallin G. Oaks
  • You can afford ANYthing, but not EVERYthing. Paula Pants

KIDS FINANCIAL EDUCATION QUOTES

  • My kids are older now. […], but they don’t understand. I tell them all the time: We ain’t rich. I’m rich.  Shaquille O’Neal

INVESTING QUOTES

  • Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered  Old Wall Street expression
  • The Concept of surviving on average is irrelevant. You have to survive every day. Which means, really, that you have to survive on the bad days. Howard Marks
  • In most fields, the harder you try, the better you do. There is a strong correlation between effort and outcome. That’s not the case in investing. Morgan Housel
  • Markets can remain irrational more than you can remain solvent.  John Maynard Keynes
  • Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections or trying to anticipate corrections than has been lost in corrections themselves. Peter Lynch [ Learn to Earn : A Beginner’s Guide to Basics of Investing and Business ]  
  • Time in the market beats timing the market. Anonym
  • The trick in risk management is in recognising that normal is not a state of nature but a state of transition and that trend is not destiny. Peter L. Bernstein [ Against the Gods: the remarkable story of risk ]
  • I view diversification not only as a survival strategy but as an aggressive strategy because the next windfall might come from a surprising place. Peter L. Bernstein [ Against the Gods: the remarkable story of risk ]
  • In the short run, returns are virtually unknowable, but in the long run, they are virtually inevitable. Anonym
  • I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men. Isaac Newton (on his experience Investing in a Bubble)
  • Just keep buying. Nick Maggiulli [ Just Keep Buying ]
  • When investing, keep a margin of safety. Survival is the highest return of all. Anonym
  • We buy stocks so we can eat well, but we buy bonds so we can sleep well. Investment Adage
  • On Investing: chasing the last [investment] winners is like choosing the last winner lottery number. Anonym
  • To everyone who finds the current investment climate hard and difficult and somewhat confusing, I would say: Welcome to adult life. Charlee Munger
  • Virtually all investors – even the best – diversify their portfolios. We may have a sense for which holding is the absolute best, but I’ve never heard of an investor with a one-asset portfolio. They may overweight favorites to take advantage of what they think they know, but they still diversify to protect against what they don’t know. That means they sub-optimize, potentially trading off some of their chance at a maximal return to increase the likelihood of a merely excellent one. Howard Marks [ The Most Important Thing ]
  • Benign neglect is the secret to long-term investing success. Charles Ellis [Winning the Loser’s Game ] 
  • One thing a lot of investors do is cut their flowers and water their weeds. They sell their winners and keep their losers, hoping the losers will come back even. Generally, it’s more effective to cut your weeds and water your flowers. Sell the things that didn’t work out, and let the things that are working outrun. Lou Simpson
  • If you’re not willing to react with equanimity to a market price decline of fifty per cent two or three times a century, you’re not fit to be a common shareholder and you deserve the mediocre result you’re going to get compared to the people who do have the temperament, who can be more philosophical about these market fluctuations.Charlie Munger
  • Successful investing is to avoid anything that is too hard. Mohnish Pabrai  [ The Dhandho Investor: the Low Risk Value Method to High Returns ]
  • Investing is a constant process of calculating the odds. It’s all probabilities. There is no certainty. Bill Miller
  • Free trading is like giving chainsaws to toddlers. William J. Bernstein [ The Four Pillars of Investing ] 
  • Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. Warren Buffett
  • Be Fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. Warren Buffett
  • Give every dollar a job. Alex Baroni
  • If past history was all that was needed to play the game of money, the richest people would be librarians. Warren Buffett
  • The most important investment you can make is in yourself. Warren Buffett
  • You don’t need to be a rocket scientist. Investment is not a game where the guy with 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ. Warren Buffett
  • Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1. Warren Buffett
  • The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.  Warren Buffett
  • The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. Chinese proverb

ENTREPRENEURSHIP QUOTES

    • Don’t go all in. In fact, do the opposite. don’t quit your day job. In 24 hour day, work 8 hours, sleep and eat for another 8, then spend the final 8 trying to figure out if your idea is a good one. (Marc Randolph)
    • You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later stage. Donald Rumsfeld
    • Your calendar is a better measure of success than your bank account. James Clear
    • Figure out what you like, and what you can likely do, for which there is sustainable and underserved demand. Yes, you need to be (or become) good at it. Yes, you need to be passionate about it. Even more, you need to be nearly fanatic at it, to overcome challenges and endure until it works. Sweat Your Asset
    • The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary. Nassim Nicholas Taleb [ Fooled by Randomness: the hidden role of Chance in Life and in the Markets ]
    • The first step—perhaps the most enormous step—is to find what you are genuinely interested in. If you are genuinely interested, you will discover endless opportunities for improvement. But if you are disinterested, even obvious improvements will feel like a chore.And, if you can maintain your genuine interest and curiosity as the years accumulate, you will become hard to compete with because you will have the skills to go with your passion. If you’re interested, you’re dangerous. James Clear [ Atomic Habits ]
    • it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you will do things differently. Warren Buffett
    • Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets. Kevin A. Plunk
    • If you’re always right, you’re not learning. If you’re never failing, you’re not reaching. The objective is to be right. The objective is to succeed. But if you’re always winning, you’re undershooting your potential. James Clear [ Atomic Habits ]
    • If you want to make everyone happy don’t be a leader. Sell ice cream. Steve Jobs
    • Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. Pablo Picasso
    • Progress, not perfection. Perfectionism is just an advanced form of procrastination. Jeff Walker
    • Of course I’ve got lawyers. They are like nuclear weapons. I’ve got them cause everyone has. But as soon as you use them, they screw everything up. Danny DeVito
    • Lawyers are like nuclear weapons. By all rights, they shouldn’t exist, but if some people have them, then you’d better have one too, just in case. John Gierach
    • How to build a career in 7 steps: (1) Do great work (2) Share it publicly (3) Cold email people 2 steps ahead of you (4) Talk about your work and trade ideas. (5) Host events and meet in person. (6) Become friends. (7) Rise together. James Clear [ Atomic Habits ]
    • Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years. Bill Gates
    • The first draft of everything is s#hit. Ernest Hemingway
    • Entrepreneurship is a personal growth engine disguised as a business pursuit. James Clear [ Atomic Habits ]
    • Ignore the hype of the startups that you see in the press. Mostly it’s a pack of lies. Half of these startups will be dead in a year. So focus on building your business so you can be the one left standing. Jules Pieri
    • If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. Reid Hoffman
    • Start before you feel ready. Anonymous saying
    • If you haven’t started, then taking action is more important than finding a better strategy.  James Clear [ Atomic Habits ]
    • You are not separate from your goals by a number of years but by a number of actions. Douglas Kruger [ Is Your Thinking Keeping You Poor ?]
    • To open a business is very easy; to keep it open is very difficult. Ancient Chinese saying 

OPTIMISM and PESSIMISM QUOTES

  • A pessimist is never disappointed. However, a pessimist never gets lucky. You choose. Alessandro Baroni / Sweat Your Assets
  • I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. Winston Churchill
  • Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. Antonio Gramsci
  • Optimism is a tool that permits us to solve problems more effectively. If used wisely, it brings enthusiasm, inspiration and hope to projects that benefit from them. [And pessimism is a tool as well–it can help you with budgeting, scheduling and other projects. If it works for you, that’s great. Choose your tools wisely.] Seth Godin
  • It is better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is always right. Mark Twain

FEAR QUOTES

  • I tell my kids, what is the difference between a hero and a coward? What is the difference between being [cowardly] and being brave? No difference. Only what you do. They both feel the same. They both fear dying and getting hurt. The man who is [cowardly] refuses to face up to what he’s got to face. The hero is more disciplined and he fights those feelings off and he does what he has to do. But they both feel the same, the hero and the coward. People who watch you judge you on what you do, not how you feel. Cus D’amato (boxing trainer of Mike Tyson).

  • Those who are afraid die every day. Those who are unafraid will only die once. Paolo Borsellino

  • I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. Nelson Mandela
  • Everything you have ever wanted is sitting on the other side of fear. George Addair

PLANNING QUOTES

  • No enemy is worse than bad advice. Sophocles
  • Everyone has a plan until he gets punched in the face. Mike Tyson
  • A year from now you will wish you had started today. Karen Lamb
  • Every Battle Is Won Before It Is Ever Fought. Sun Tzu
  • A Goal without a Plan is just a wish. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
  • The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. Chinese Proverb
  • I remember saying to my mentor, ‘If I had more money, I would have a better plan.’ He quickly responded, ‘I would suggest that if you had a better plan, you would have more money.’ You see, it’s not the amount that counts; it’s the plan that counts. Jim Rohn
  • No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main enemy forces. Only the layman believes that in the course of a campaign he sees the consistent implementation of an original thought that has been considered in advance in every detail and retained to the end. Helmuth von Moltke

TAKING ACTION QUOTES

  • If you haven’t started, then taking action is more important than finding a better strategy. If you’re already taking action, then ensuring you’re working on the right thing is more important than working harder. Your effort sets your floor. Your strategy sets your ceiling. James Clear [ Atomic Habits ]

  • In a world of information overload, it’s common to feel angst when making choices. You never know whether you’re making the best one. Call it optimizer guilt. Just make good enough Choices, and take good enough actions! Procrastination or inaction is an expensive TAX. Anonym

RISKS QUOTES

  • There is no reason to risk what you have and need for what you don’t have and don’t need. Morgan Housel  [ The Psychology of Money ]

  • Risk means more things can happen than will happen. Elroy Dimson [ Triumph of the Optimist:101 Years of Global Investment Returns ]

  • The gulf between “risky” and “feels risky” is huge. And it’s getting bigger. If your compass for forwarding motion involves avoiding things that feel risky, it pays to get significantly better informed about what actually is risky. Set Godin

  • The trick in risk management is in recognising that normal is not a state of nature but a state of transition and that trend is not destiny. Peter L. Bernstein [ Against the Gods: the remarkable story of risk ]
  • I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men. Isaac Newton (on his experience Investing in a Bubble)
  • What is known is familiar yet unsatisfying. What is unknown is feared yet desired. Life thrives in risks and Dies in stasis. Live. Wu Hsin
  • There is the risk you cannot afford to take, and there is the risk you cannot afford not to take. Peter Drucker
  • The biggest risk is not taking risks…in a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. Mark Zuckerberg
  • Not taking a risk is a risk itself.  Anonymous saying
  • Risk Avoidance vs Risk Management: not all risks are meant to be avoided. Some are just meant to be managed. Anonymous saying

LEARNING QUOTES

  • Hey! Even Tiger Woods needs a swing coach.  Anonymous saying
  • Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. John C. Maxwell
  • Teaching is successful only as it causes people to think for themselves. What the teacher thinks matters little; what he makes the child think matters much. Alice Moore Abbard

NUMBERS, DATA & STATISTICS

  • Numbers don’t lie, but people can lie with numbers. Daniel J Levitin
  • There are Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics. popular saying
  • Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? T.S. Elliot
  • Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? Where is the information we have lost in Data? Sweat Your Assets

 

LUCK QUOTES

  • Most lucky events in life are opportunities, not outcomes. The value of an opportunity changes depending on how it is treated. Without effort, good luck becomes a missed opportunity. With effort, good luck can become a life-changing event. You need luck and hard work. It’s not either/or. It’s both/and. The result will not walk through the door on its own. James Clear [ Atomic Habits ]
  • I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all. King Solomon, (Ecclesiastes 9:11)

UNCERTAINTY QUOTES

  • The trick in risk management is in recognizing that normal is not a state of nature, but a state of transition and that trend is not destiny. Peter L. Bernstein [ Against the Gods: the remarkable story of risk ]
  • Even the most serious efforts to make predictions can end up so far from the mark as to be more dangerous than useless
  • While we can learn from the long run about how bonds and stocks respond to changing environments and to each other, the long run can tell us perilously little about what kinds of environments lie ahead. Peter L. Bernstein [ Against the Gods: the remarkable story of risk ]
  • The greatest tragedies occur when people forget about uncertainty. Peter L. Bernstein [ Against the Gods: the remarkable story of risk ]
  • The constant lesson of history is the dominant role played by surprise. Just when we are most comfortable with an environment and come to believe we finally understand it, the ground shift under our feet. Peter L. Bernstein [ Against the Gods: the remarkable story of risk ]
  • Trying to control our lives puts us in a position of failure before we start and causes endless, unnecessary pain and suffering. Taking charge of our lives means owning our lives and having a respond-ability to our lives”. Anne Wilson Schaef 
  • I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men. Isaac Newton (on his experience Investing in a Bubble)

  • The Commanding General is well aware that [my] forecasts are no good [i.e. no better than chance]. However, he needs them for planning purposes. Ken Arrow

  • It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong. John Maynard Keynes
  • It is better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is always right. Mark Twain
  • Perfectionism is paralyses and procrastination. Anonymous saying
  • Investing is a constant process of calculating the odds. It’s all probabilities. There is no certainty. Bill Miller
  • Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating. Carl Von Clausewitz
  • Earlier theorists aimed to equip the conduct of war with principles, rules, or even systems, and thus considered only factors that could be mathematically calculated (e.g., numerical superiority; supply; the base; interior lines).  All these attempts are objectionable, however, because they aim at fixed values. In war everything is uncertain and variable, intertwined with psychological forces and effects, and the product of a continuous interaction of opposites. Carl Von Clausewitz
  • No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main enemy forces. Only the layman believes that in the course of a campaign he sees the consistent implementation of an original thought that has been considered in advance in every detail and retained to the end. Helmuth von Moltke

HAPPINESS and GRATITUDE QUOTES

  • If we exclude prodigious and single moments that fate can give us, loving one’s work (which unfortunately is the privilege of a few) constitutes the best concrete approximation to happiness on earth” Primo LEVI
  • It is not happy people who are thankful, it is thankful people who are happy. Ann Wilson [ The Wealth Chef : Recipes to Make Your Money Work Hard, so you don’t have to ]
  • There must have been some deeper reason why God created human beings. And one of the fairly obvious things is that people who are busy with some really useful work are happier than the ones who are idle. Sir John Templeton 

  • While money can’t buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery. Groucho Mark

  • 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
  • Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. Viktor Frankl [ Man’s Search For Meaning ]
  • If you don’t get everything you want, think of the things you don’t get that you don’t want. Oscar Wilde
  • Whereas pain is a physical experience, suffering is a mental one. It is the sense that things should be other than they are. Its antidote is Acceptance. Wu Hsin
  • The expectation is the grandfather of disappointment. The world can never own a man who wants nothing. Wu Hsin
  • To search for happiness Implies its absence. This implication is a fundamental flaw. Happiness is ever-present. It may become obscured, Such obscuration being temporary. Wu Hsin
  • There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. Budda
  • Happiness is ultimately free. It is unhappiness that is truly expensive. Alex Baroni
  • If I feel unhappy now when I will ever feel happy? Probably never. So, I decide to be happy now! Anonymous saying 
  • You don’t need a reason to be happy.  Alex Baroni
  • Be happy for no reason like a child. If you are happy for a reason you are in trouble because that reason can be taken away from you. Deepak Chopra
  • Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. Dale Carnegie

IDEAS QUOTES

  • The value of an idea lies in the using of it. T. Edison
  • Ideas are commodities. Execution of them is not. Michael Dell
  • People don’t have ideas. Ideas have people. Carl Jung
  • Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.  Emile Chartier Alain

OPPORTUNITIES / OPTIONS / COMMITMENT | QUOTES

  • The surefire way to end up worse off is to agonize over unchosen options and fail to make the most of the one you selected. Every minute spent yearning for your unlived lives is a moment you can’t invest in the one you actually have. Choices matter, but so does your level of commitment.” James Clear [ Atomic Habits ]

  • Life is a series of tradeoffs, and greater results usually require greater tradeoffs. The question is not, “Do you want to be great at this?” The question is, “What are you willing to give up in order to be great at this?” FS

FREEDOM | QUOTES

TIME | QUOTES

  • it is not the years in your life, but the life in your years that count. Adlai Stevenson

  • Time is more valuable than money. you can get more money, but you cannot get more time. Jim Rohn

  • Asset allocation matters, but attention allocation matters far more. Nick Maggiulli [ Just Keep Buying ]
  • Time is what we want most, but what we use worst. William Penn
  • Life is long if you know how to use it. Seneca
  • Time is your most valuable asset. Don’t waste it. Don’t let anyone steal it.  Unknown

LIFESTYLE – MINIMALISM – INTENTIONAL LIVING | QUOTES

  • You can never get enough of what you don’t need. Dallin G. Oaks

LIFESTYLE| QUOTES

  • 20 years from now, the only people who will remember that you worked late are your kids. Anonym

QUALITY SHOPPING | QUOTES

  • When you buy something cheap and bad, the best you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it. When you buy something expensive and good, the worst you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it. Anonym

DREAMS | QUOTES

  • Don’t let anyone argue with your dreams, not even yourself. Alex Baroni
  • Dreams are not what you see in sleep. A dream is something that doesn’t let your sleep. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

FAILURE & MISTAKES | QUOTES

  • If you “Fail”, never give up because F.A.I.L. means First Attempt In Learning. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
  • If you’re always right, you’re not learning. If you’re never failing, you’re not reaching. The objective is to be right. The objective is to succeed. But if you’re always winning, you’re undershooting your potential.  James Clear [ Atomic Habits ]
  • Nothing succeeds like failure. Failure is a natural call for attention, like pain. To pay attention is to step out of your trance. Wu Hsin
  • A man who has committed a mistake and doesn’t correct it is committing another mistake. Confucio
  • You should never, when faced with one unbelievable tragedy, let one tragedy increase into two or three because of a failure of will. Charlie Munger

HEALTH | QUOTES

  • A healthy man wants a thousand things, a sick man only wants one. Confucius
  • Your body is your temple. Treat it well. 

HABITS & DISCIPLINE | QUOTES

  • My Daily Exercise routine is horrible. Because of that, everything else is easy. Joe Rogan
  • If you commit to nothing, you will be distracted by anything. James Clear
  • It doesn’t make sense to continue wanting something if you’re not willing to do what it takes to get it. If you don’t want to live the lifestyle, then release yourself from the desire. To crave the result but not the process is to guarantee disappointment. James Clear

  • The difference between good and great results is often found in consistently doing the boring things you know you should do exactly when you feel like doing them the least. FS

  • One of the most valuable skills you can adopt in life is doing things when you don’t feel like doing them. A lot of people get stuck negotiating with themselves. A little voice in their head says, “I don’t feel like doing this right now, let’s do it later.” The minute you entertain that thought, it’s over. FS

  • It is easy to talk about Habits, good habits, etc. It is less sexy to talk about discipline. However, you need some discipline to build good habits. You need the discipline to stick to good habits. Discipline is a muscle to exercise, habits are routines to be built. You need both but don’t fall for those that prioritize habits, and laugh about discipline. Discipline helps you when you fall out of the habit. It is your inner help. Timone

HATRED AND FORGIVENESS | QUOTES

  • I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it. George Bernard Shaw
  • People don’t like you or what you do? Don’t worry, most people don’t like themselves either. Anonym
  • Forgiveness does not change the past but enlarges the future. Paul Boese
  • Others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself. Richard Nixon
  • It is possible for two things to be true at the same time: We might be “justified” if we hate someone AND it is still in our best interests to refrain from hating. There are viable alternatives to hatred. You can move from hatred to indifference. If you have been treated poorly in a personal or business context, disassociate and move on. The Rational Walk
  • Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head. Ann Landers

LIES | QUOTES

  • Excuses are lies. Jocko Willink
  • If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything. Mark Twain
  • Lies multiply, branching out into more lies; truth doesn’t. Nassim Nicholas Taleb [ Incerto ]
  • Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others.  Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • If you are ever going lie, you go to jail for the lie rather than the crime. So believe me, don’t ever lie.  Richard Nixon

ABOUT READINGS / The Value of Books | QUOTES

  • To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history? Marcus Tullius Cicero
  • “On the coming of evening, I return to my house and enter my study; and at the door, I take off the day’s clothing, covered with mud and dust, and put on garments regal and courtly; and reclothed appropriately, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them with affection, I feed on that food which only is mine and which I was born for, where I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their kindness answer me; and for four hours of time I do not feel boredom, I forget every trouble, I do not dread poverty, I am not frightened by death; entirely I give myself over to them”. Niccolo’ Macchiavelli
  • Reading good books is like engaging in conversation with the most cultivated minds of past centuries who had composed them, or rather, taking part in a well-conducted dialogue in which such minds reveal to us only the best of their thoughts. René Descartes
  • I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don’t believe in just sitting there and trying to dream it up all yourself. Nobody’s that smart. Charles Munger
  • A good book library is your self-guided mentorship program. Sweat Your Assets
  • It would be idiotic and unethical to not take advantage of such accumulated experiences. If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you. General Jim Mattis [ Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead ]
  • When you buy a book, you establish a property right in it, just as you do in clothes or furniture when you buy and pay for them. But the act of purchase is actually only the prelude to possession in the case of a book. Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it— which comes to the same thing— is by writing in it.” Mortimer Adler

 MINDSET | QUOTES

      • Curiosity killed the cat but also cured polio. Patrick Jane
      • On the importance of motivation and passion to fight mediocrity: “It is easier to adjust ourselves to the hardships of a poor living than it is to adjust ourselves to the hardships of making a better one”. (E.N. Grey)
      • Ambition is when you expect yourself to close the gap between what you have and what you want. Entitlement is when you expect others to close the gap between what you have and what you want. James Clear
      • Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want. Howard Marks
      • Do not confuse Motion with Action (E. Heminway) + Do not confuse Effort with Results. Anonym
      • Evolve so hard that they have to get to know you again. Anonym
      • Negative things happen. Negative mindsets make them harder. FS
      • Don’t take control. Take charge. Only fools think they can control their fortune or prevent bad things from occurring through worry or endless work. Only a tyrant thinks they can determine everything other people do and say. A wise person, on the other hand, takes responsibility for themselves and says, “I might not be in control of what happens to me in life, but I am in charge of how I respond to it. Ryan Holiday
      • Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. Henry Ford
      • The quicker you want something, the easier you are to manipulate. FS
      • What we know is good for us, in the long run, seems contrary to what we think is pleasant or pleasurable in the short run. Anonym
      • God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. The Serenity Prayer
      • The surefire way to end up worse off is to agonize over unchosen options and fail to make the most of the one you selected. Every minute spent yearning for your unlived lives is a moment you can’t invest in the one you actually have. Choices matter, but so does your level of commitment. James Clear [ Atomic Habits]
      • The only real obstacles you have are those you create for yourself. Marian Pare
      • There’s a Zen Koan where the teacher holds a stick. He says to his student: “if you tell me this stick is real, I will beat you with it. If you tell me it is not real I will be you with it. If you say nothing, I will beat you with it”. And so the student reaches out, grabs the stick, and breaks it. (if a situation is untenable, break that stick!)  Zen Koan
      • The trap of self-pity: Nobody’s going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you’re rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things befall you. Self-pity is a dead-end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It’s up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out. Cheryl Strayed
      • There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. Roger Staubach
      • A bad laundress never finds the right stone / la cattiva lavandaia non trova mai la pietra giusta. Italian proverb
      • Poor thinking is Prohibitively Expensive. Sweat Your Assets
      • Most problems come from our internal state. When we are internally calm, we reason and then respond; we don’t just react. When someone slights us, we don’t lash out with angry words or angry fists. We turn the other cheek. When someone cuts us off, we give them the benefit of the doubt. When things go slower than we want, we wait patiently. When someone is passive-aggressive, we refuse to take the bait. At our best, we put behavior in perspective—both other people’s and our own. We do the right thing, not the easy thing, regardless of influence or pressure. A calm mind is not the absence of conflict or stress, but the ability to cope with it. (FS) Shane Perris
      • Don’t wish for a better year, wish for a better you this year. Marcello Sidoti 
      • Keeping one’s distance from an ignorant person is equivalent to keeping company with a wise man. Ali Bin Abi-Taleb
      • When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before. Stonecutter’s Credo by Jacob Riis
      • To conquer the large, Begin with the small. To change your world, Begin by changing yourself. What needs to be changed? Only the point of view. Wu Hsin
      • Not every problem needs to be overcome, just the ones stopping you from getting where you want to be. Ann Hill
      • When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Elbert Hubbard
      • “My son, the battle is between two “wolves” inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.” Cherokee story
      • If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Isaac Newton
      • Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance. Shane Parrish
      • Only the educated are free. Epictetus
      • Discipline equals freedom. Jocko Willink
      • We are long past searching for ideal solutions. We’re now hunting for adequate. Megan McArdle
      • Do something that sucks every day, in constant pursuit of one’s true capacity. David Goggins
      • If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. Sun Tzu
      • We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Anonymous saying
      • If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea./ Si tu veux construire un bateau, fais naître dans le cœur de tes hommes et femmes le désir de la mer. Antoine de Saint-Exupery
      • All models are wrong but some are useful. George Box
      • When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure (Goodhart’s Law). Charles Goodhart
      • D= S-M. (D)espair equals (S)suffering without (m)eaning.  The moment you can see a meaning in your [accidental] suffering, you can mould it into an achievement. Turn a tragedy into a personal triumph. Viktor E. Frankl
      • Life can only be understood backwards but must be lived forwards. Soren Kierkegaard
      • Experience comes from mistakes. Success comes from good judgement. Anonymous saying
      • Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Viktor E. Frankl
      • What would this look like if it were easy? Tim Ferriss
      • It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time. Julia Cameron
      • What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. (Hitchens’s razor). Christopher Hitchens
      • One way to spot a poor thinker is to see how many of their decisions boomerang back to them. If poor thinkers make poor decisions, it stands to reason those decisions will eventually create more problems. More problems consume more time, leaving them even less time to think about new problems. The time used to correct poor thinking comes from the time that could be used for good thinking. Good thinkers understand a simple truth: you can’t make good decisions without good thinking, and good thinking requires time. Good thinking is expensive, but poor thinking costs a fortune. Shane Parrish
      • I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble. Rudyard Kipling
      • One of the biggest things holding people back from doing great work is the fear of making something lame. And this fear is not an irrational one. Many great projects go through a stage early on where they don’t seem very impressive, even to their creators. You have to push through this stage to reach the great work that lies beyond. But many people don’t. Most people don’t even reach the stage of making something they’re embarrassed by, let alone continue past it. They’re too frightened even to start. Paul Graham
      • One of the biggest keys to success at anything hard is believing that you can figure it out as you go along. A lot of people won’t start until they figure it out. And because most hard things can’t be figured out in advance, they never start. Shane Parris
      • What’s boring doesn’t get attention and what’s exciting doesn’t drive results. Most people are so focused on optics that they forget that it’s the repetition of the boring basics that makes a difference. Shane Parris
      • We have met the enemy, and he is us. Naval officer Oliver Hazard Perry
      • Dig the well before you’re thirsty. Chinese Proverb
      • When you genuinely have passion for what you are doing, failing at it or succeeding is almost irrelevant because you are taking pleasure from the process. It absorbs you. Not surprisingly, passion is a cornerstone for mastery. Alex Baroni
      • I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change. Jim Rohn
      • If you need things to be a certain way, you are held hostage by them. Jonny Wilkinson
      • More effort is wasted doing things that don’t matter than is wasted doing things inefficiently. Elimination is the highest form of optimization. James Clear [ Atomic Habits ]
      • The magic is that there is no magic. Start where you are. Don’t stop. Seth Godin
      • The burnt customer certainly prefers to believe that he has been robbed rather than that he has been a fool on the advice of fools. Fred Schwed
      • The person who thinks it is impossible should not interrupt the person doing it. Chinese Proverb
      • A healthy man wants a thousand things. A sick man only wants one. Confucius
      • It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. Eleanor Roosevelt
      • When you’re young, you have so much time but never enough money. When you’re old, you have money but never enough time. How you perceive and value time and money will change many times throughout your life, but in the end, there’s only one you’ll want more of, would give anything for, but it won’t be available at any price. Cherish it while you can. John Boorman
      • Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. Andre Gide
      • If the direction is correct, sooner or later, you will get there. Chinese Proverb
      • Any decision is, in essence, a prediction about the future. Annie Duke
      • The teacher learns more than the student. The author learns more than the reader. The speaker learns more than the attendees. The way to learn is by doing. James Clear [Atomic Habits]
      • Poor thinking is prohibitively expensive. Alex Baroni
      • You can never get enough of what you don’t need. Dallin G. Oaks

IMPACT | SOLIDARITY | PHILANTROPHY | QUOTES

  • The best way to change the world is in concentric circles: start with yourself and work your way out from there. James Clear
  • Ambition is when you expect yourself to close the gap between what you have and what you want. Entitlement is when you expect others to close the gap between what you have and what you want. James Clear
  • We make a living by what we earn – we make a life by what we give. Winston Churchill
  • Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Anonymous saying 
  • it was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped. Hubert H. Humphrey
  • A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Greek Proverb
  • No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well. Margaret Thatcher
  • A moral test of a society is how that society treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped. Hubert H. Humphrey
  • A good man draws a circle around himself and cares for those within – his woman, his children. Other men draw a larger circle and bring within their brothers and sisters. But some men have greater destiny. They must draw around themselves a circle that includes many, many more. 10,000 B.C. (movie)

MISCELLANEOUS | QUOTES

  • The greatest advantage of gambling comes from not playing it at all. French philosopher and mathematician
  • Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it earns it… he who doesn’t… pays it. Anonymous
  • “Too many people spend money they earned… to buy things they don’t want… to impress people that they don’t like.” Will Rogers
  • We never want to count on the kindness of strangers in order to meet tomorrow’s obligations. When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night’s sleep for the chance of extra profits. Warren Buffett
  • Stocks are investments. Cash is not. “The one thing I will tell you is the worst investment you can have is cash. Everybody is talking about cash being king and all that sort of thing. Cash is going to become worthless over time. But good businesses are going to become worth more over time.” Warren Buffett
  • When you invest, you are buying a day you won’t have to work. Aya Laraya
  • We have long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune-tellers look good. Warren Buffett
  • Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” In a bull market, everybody’s a genius. But a bear market reveals who’s got what it takes to achieve long-term success — and who doesn’t. Warren Buffett
  • What we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history. When investors get either too fearful or too greedy, they sometimes hide behind the notion that “This time it’s different.” Usually, they regret it. Warren Buffett
  • Diversification is a hedge against ignorance. Warren Buffett
  • If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die. Warren Buffett
  • The shortest route to wealth is the contempt of wealth. Seneca (the younger)
  • A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. Henry David Thoreau
  • Money is a great servant but a bad master. Francis Bacon
  • If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. Lewis Carroll
  • Money does not solve money problems; it is not the answer to your money woes, but financial literacy is: understanding how money works to solve money problems. If you’ve got a faulty money flow pattern, more money will just magnify it. Ann Wilson [ The Wealth Chef : Recipes to Make Your Money Work Hard, so you don’t have to ]
  • You have one life. Invest it wisely. Sweat Your Assets
  • Don’t major in minor things. Jim Rohn
  • Money can buy many things, but nothing is more valuable than your time, your freedom and your peace of mind. Sweat Your Assets
  • You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Wayne Gretzky
  • We don’t have problems. We have situations. If you deal with a situation, it never becomes a problem. Deal with it while it is a situation. When it gets to be a problem, now you gonna have issues. Tim S. Grover
  • Profit is the applause you get from taking care of your customers, treating people well, your Environment, and clients for the service you give. Making Money is not a worthwhile goal. It is a by-product of doing good things. Ken Blanchard
  • We generally change ourselves for one of two reasons: inspiration or desperation. Jim Rohn
  • Wealth is the slave to the wise but master of the fools. Seneca
  • Buying a bond only for its yield is like getting married only for the sex. Benjamin Graham
  • How many arbitrary parameters did you use for your calculations? I remember my friend J. von Neumann used to say: with four parameters, I can fit an elephant, and with five, I can make him wiggle his trunk. Enrico Fermi
  • The Stock Market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient. Warren Buffett
  • Don’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money, and I’ll tell you what they are. James W. Frick
  • Do not revel in great luxury, lest you become impoverished by its expense. Do not become a beggar by feasting on borrowed money when you have nothing in your purse. Sirach 18:32-33 (Book of Ecclesiasticus)
  • It can be your diet. Your daily habit. Your gym’s schedule. Your job. You plan. Maybe you like it, maybe you are used to that. Maybe it was suggested to you. Maybe…it is what it is. However, ask yourself a question: is it serving you well? Otherwise, change it! Sweat Your Assets
  • Our grand business undoubtedly is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.  Thomas Carlyle

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