• "Play iterated games. All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest."
  • “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”
  • “The more you know, the less you diversify.”
  • “To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.”
  • "The reason to win the game is so that you can be free of it."
  • "10,000 iterations, not 10,000 hours."
  • "Experience plus intelligence equals wisdom."
  • “What the pupil must learn, if he learns anything at all, is that the world will do most of the work for you, provided you cooperate with it by identifying how it really works and aligning with those realities. If we do not let the world teach us, it teaches us a lesson.”
  • "Lying is the foundation of all crimes and follies."
  • "The fundamental delusion — there is something out there that will make me happy and fulfilled forever.”
  • "The source of wisdom is pain."
  • "Hope is the belief that this moment isn’t good enough."
  • "Learning to enjoy being alone is a superpower."
  • "Actions, not words, reveal our real values."
  • "Cocktail parties are more useful than classrooms."
  • "Those who have a ‘why’, can bear almost any ‘how'."
  • "The only way is through."
  • “The best way to get what you want in life is to deserve it.”
  • "We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we have only one."
  • "Your first reaction is usually outdated."
  • “The imagination of the genius vastly surpasses his intellect; the intellect of the academic vastly surpasses his imagination.”
  • “You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits."
  • "If you're not seeking approval, they have no power."
  • "You can’t awaken someone who is pretending to be asleep."
  • "The test of any good system is: you build a system, hand it over to your enemies to run for the next decade."
  • "Do not go gentle into that good night; Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
  • "Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from."
  • "The problem is taking any one person’s advice too seriously. Ideally, asking advice should be like echolocation. Bounce ideas off of all of your surroundings, and listen to all the echoes to get the whole picture. Ultimately, only you know what to do, based on all the feedback you’ve received and all your personal nuances that no one else knows."
  • “In any situation in life, you only have three options. You always have three options. You can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. What is not a good option is to sit around wishing you would change it but not changing it, wishing you would leave it but not leaving it, and not accepting it. It's that struggle, that aversion, that is responsible for most of our misery. The phrase that I probably use the most to myself in my head is just one word: accept.”
  • “Every person you have ever met, every person you will pass in the street today, is going to die. Living long enough, each will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime?”
  • "Never underestimate the laziness of your predecessors."
  • "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."
  • "Sacrifice is the giving of a value and expecting either nothing or something less in return."
  • "The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure."
  • “Don't fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”
  • "We can't guarantee success, but we can deserve it."
  • "Wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire."
  • "It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners."
  • "Judging others is good for a quick dopamine hit, but how long until you’re addicted?"
  • “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.”
  • "You get through things by going through them."
  • “Impatience with actions, patience with results.”
  • "The hardest thing is not doing what you want - it’s knowing what you want."
  • "Don’t do things that you know are morally wrong. Not because someone is watching, but because you are. Self-esteem is just the reputation that you have with yourself. You’ll always know."
  • "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there."
  • "You can spend a lot of time trying to fix stuff later, but starting with the right raw materials makes a huge difference."
  • "The man who chases two rabbits catches none."
  • "Most of life is about searching, it's not about doing. People spend too much time doing and not thinking about what they should be doing."
  • "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about."
  • "Let go or be dragged."
  • "Honesty without kindness is brutality. Kindness without honesty is manipulation."
  • "Character is what you do when no one is looking."
  • "When I ask myself what I've found life is too short for, the word that pops into my head is 'bullshit.' I realize that answer is somewhat tautological. It's almost the definition of bullshit that it's the stuff that life is too short for. And yet bullshit does have a distinctive character. There's something fake about it. It's the junk food of experience."
  • "Most of life is about searching, it's not about doing. People spend too much time doing and not enough time thinking about what they should be doing."
  • "That has been the lesson for me: be careful what you let become critical to you. Try to get yourself into situations where the most urgent problems are ones you want to think about."
  • "What's for you won't go by you."
  • "While most of us would never choose to play life on hard mode, that’s exactly what we do when we put ourselves in a bad position. One way to visualize this is through the lens of billiards. We become so focused on making the first shot that we fail to consider how we position the ball for the next shot. When we go to take the next shot, it’s harder than it had to be."
  • "Don't practice what you don't want to become."
  • “If you get the answer, you should hang up the phone.”
  • “In life, we must choose our regrets.”
  • "The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind."
  • "Risk is what is left over when you think you've thought of everything."
  • "Good advice for a lot of things is just, 'Identify the price and be willing to pay it.'"
  • "Leave the children enough so that they can do anything, but not enough that they can do nothing."
  • “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
  • "Do what you feel you need to do, and let things happen."
  • “If you risk something that is important to you in order to gain something that is unimportant to you, that is foolish.”
  • "I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people who do."
  • "Wisdom is knowing when to end."
  • "As people, the real universe is within your reach, always. Everything not within your reach is basically unconfirmed rumor."
  • "What the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end."
  • "In Buddhism, the opposite of pleasure is not pain but delusion."
  • "Not destroying the means of correcting errors is the heart of morality."
  • "Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious."
  • “Where there is anger, there is not yet understanding.”
  • "Who looks outside; dreams. Who looks inside, awakes."
  • "Power corrupts; powerlessness corrupts more."
  • "Wisdom is prevention."
  • "You are what you do. Not what you say, not what you believe, not how you vote, but what you spend your time on."
  • "Three things you need: the ability to not give up something till it works, the ability to give up something that does not work, and the trust in other people to help you distinguish between the two."
  • “If you want to shrink something, you must first allow it to expand.”
  • “To understand is to forgive.”
  • “Everything we do is either an act of love, or an act of fear.”
  • “I have come to use the word ‘impossible’ with great caution.”
  • “How am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want?”
  • "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."
  • “To me, ‘young’ has no meaning. It’s something you can do nothing about. Nothing at all. But youth is a quality. And if you have it, you never lose it.”
  • “On one level, wisdom is nothing more profound than an ability to follow one's own advice.”
  • "Cultivate 12 people who love you, because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you."
  • “It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.”
  • "The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are."