190

Quotes

Memorable passages and insights from books I've read.

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“No matter who we are, life is going to put us through the changes we need to go through. The question is: Are we willing to use this force for our transformation? I saw that even very intense situations don't have to leave psychological scars, if we are willing to process our changes at a deeper level.”
The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life's Perfection

The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life's Perfection

Michael A. Singer

Success in any field, but especially in business is about working with people, not against them. - Keith Ferrazzi Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone. - Margaret Wheatley Today's most valuable currency is social capital, defined as the information, expertise, trust, and total value that exist in the relationships you have and social networks to which you belong. - Keith Ferrazzi It's better to give before you receive. And never keep score. If your interactions are ruled by generosity, your rewards will follow suit.
Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time

Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time

Keith Ferrazzi

“They'd been afloat now without food, water, shelter, or sleep for over forty hours. Of the 1,196 crew13 members who'd set sail from Guam three days earlier, probably no more than 600 were still alive. In the previous twenty-four hours alone, at least 200 had likely slipped beneath the waves or been victims of shark attack. Since the sinking, each boy had been floating through the hours asking himself the same hard question: Will I live, or do I quit?”
In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors

In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors

Doug Stanton

“When we are electing government officials, it is not stupid to ask yourself, “If a plague broke out, do I think this person could navigate the country through those times, on a spiritual level, but also on a pragmatic one? Would they be able to calmly solve one problem, and then another one, and then the next one? Or would bodies pile up in the streets?”
Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them

Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them

Jennifer Wright

“- My instructors in science and technology have taught us about how the brain works. It's full of electrical impulses. It's like a computer. If you stimulate one part of the brain with an electrode, it...
The Giver (The Giver, #1)

The Giver (The Giver, #1)

Lois Lowry

“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.”
Intention & PurposeLife & Living
On the Shortness of Life

On the Shortness of Life

Seneca

“You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it.”
The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman

“Most people don't know why they're doing what they're doing. They imitate others, go with the flow, and follow paths without making their own.”
Anything You Want

Anything You Want

Derek Sivers

“The bigger the change you're suggesting, the more it will sap people's self-control. And when people exhaust their self-control, what they're exhausting are the mental muscles needed to think creatively, to focus, to inhibit their impulses, and to persist in the face of frustration or failure. In other words, they're exhausting precisely the mental muscles needed to make a big change. So when you hear people say that change is hard because people are lazy or resistant, that's just flat wrong. In fact, the opposite is true: Change is hard because people wear themselves out. And that's the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.”
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

Chip Heath, Dan Heath

“Personalizing successes sets people up for disastrous failure. They begin to treat the successes totally as a personal reflection of their abilities rather than the result of capitalizing on a good opportunity, being at the right place at the right time, or even being just plain lucky. They think their mere involvement in an undertaking guarantees success.”
What I Learned Losing A Million Dollars

What I Learned Losing A Million Dollars

Brendan Moynihan

Networks do not offer a miracle drug, a strategy that makes you invincible in any business environment. The truly important role networks play is in helping existing organizations adapt to rapidly changing market conditions. The very concept of network implies a multidimensional approach. - Albert-László Barabási Most systems displaying a high degree of tolerance against failures are a common feature: Their functionality is guaranteed by a highly interconnected complex network. A cell's robustness is hidden in its intricate regulatory and metabolic network; society's resilience is rooted in the interwoven social web; the economy's stability is maintained by a delicate network of financial and regulator organizations; an ecosystem's survivability is encoded in a carefully crafted web of species interactions. It seems that nature strives to achieve robustness through interconnectivity. Such universal choice of a network architecture is perhaps more than mere coincidences. - Albert
Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life

Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life

Albert-László Barabási

If you don't Prioritize your life, someone else will. - Greg McKeown The ability to choose cannot be taken away or even given away it can only be forgotten. - Greg McKeown Our highest priority is to protect our ability to prioritize.
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Greg McKeown

THE FRAMEWORK: • Identify the routine • Experiment with rewards • Isolate the cue • Have a plan - Charles Duhigg Change might not be fast and it isn't always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped. - Charles Duhigg The Golden Rule of Habit Change: You can't extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it.” - Charles Duhigg Habits are powerful, but delicate. They can emerge outside our consciousness, or can be deliberately designed. They often occur without our permission, but can be reshaped by fiddling with their parts. They shape our lives far more than we realize—they are so strong, in fact, that they cause our brains to cling to them at the exclusion of all else, including common sense.
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Charles Duhigg

“A baseball manager recognizes a nonphysical talent, hustle, as an essential gift of great players and great teams. It is the characteristic of running faster than necessary, moving sooner than necessary, trying harder than necessary. It is essential for great programming teams, too.” - Frederick P. Brooks Jr. “As time passes, the system becomes less and less well-ordered. Sooner or later the fixing cease to gain any ground. Each forward step is matched by a backward one. Although in principle usable forever, the system has worn out as a base for progress. ...A brand-new, from-the-ground-up redesign is necessary.” - Frederick P. Brooks Jr. “Adding manpower to a late software project, makes it later.” - Frederick P. Brooks Jr. “For the human makers of things, the incompletenesses and inconsistencies of our ideas become clear only during implementation.”
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering

Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

“Understand: people will constantly attack you in life. One of their main weapons will be to instill in you doubts about yourself – your worth, your abilities, your potential. They will often disguise this as their objective opinion, but invariably it has a political purpose – they want to keep you down.”
The 50th Law

The 50th Law

Robert Greene, 50 Cent

"The depth with which you master the basics influences how well you understand everything you learn after that." - Edward B. Burger "Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten." - B. F. Skinner "A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for."
The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking

The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking

Edward B. Burger

“Working extra hours can hurt team dynamics. Not everyone on the team will have the flexibility to pitch in the extra hours. Perhaps one team member has children at home whom he has to take care of. Maybe someone else has a 2-week trip planned in the upcoming months, or she has to commute a long distance and can't work as many hours. Whereas once the team jelled together and everyone worked fairly and equally, now those who work more hours have to carry the weight of those who can't or don't. The result can be bitterness or resentment between members of a formerly-happy team.”
The Effective Engineer: How to Leverage Your Efforts In Software Engineering to Make a Disproportionate and Meaningful Impact

The Effective Engineer: How to Leverage Your Efforts In Software Engineering to Make a Disproportionate and Meaningful Impact

Edmond Lau

“What she needs are stories. Stories are a way to preserve one's self. To be remembered. And to forget. Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books. Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.”
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

V.E. Schwab

Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man's soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it. - Laura Hillenbrand The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormentors suffer. In seeking the Bird's death to free himself, Louie had chained himself, once again, to his tyrant. During the war, the Bird had been unwilling to let go of Louie; after the war, Louie was unable to let go of the Bird. - Laura Hillenbrand Without dignity, identity is erased. In its absence, men are defined not by themselves, but by their captors and the circumstances in which they are forced to live.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

Laura Hillenbrand

“Get out there and expose yourself. Open yourself up and find what makes you happy. Yes, that will mean you’ll probably get hurt. But so what? The best things in life don’t come easily.”
Models: Attract Women Through Honesty

Models: Attract Women Through Honesty

Mark Manson

"The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don't wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy."
How to See

How to See

Thich Nhat Hanh

“The community of the Giver had achieved at such great price. A community without danger or pain. But also, a community without music, color or art. And books.”
The Giver (The Giver, #1)

The Giver (The Giver, #1)

Lois Lowry

“Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you've got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don't start, you never get a chance.”
Poke the Box

Poke the Box

Seth Godin

“In your life, there are going to be constant demands for your time and attention. How are you going to decide which of those demands gets resources? The trap many people fall into is to allocate their time to whoever screams loudest, and their talent to whatever offers them the fastest reward. That's a dangerous way to build a strategy.”
How Will You Measure Your Life?

How Will You Measure Your Life?

Clayton M. Christensen

“You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire”
Fear & AnxietyDesire & Passion
On the Shortness of Life

On the Shortness of Life

Seneca

“What if I was wrong? What if there was no other side. What if, in all the eons of eternity, this was the one and only time that I would be alive. How would I live my life if that were the case?”
The Life We Bury

The Life We Bury

Allen Eskens

“You're alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you can change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you're dead, it's gone. Over. You've made what you've made, dreamed your dream, written your name. You may be buried here, you may even walk. But that potential is finished.”
The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman

“Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves their strengths, their values, and how they best perform.”
Managing Oneself

Managing Oneself

Peter F. Drucker

“Emotions can override…the more powerful fundamental motives that drive our lives: hunger, sex, and the will to survive. People will not eat if they think the only food available is disgusting. They may even die, although other people might consider that same food palatable. Emotion triumphs over the hunger drive! A person may never attempt sexual contact because of the interference of fear or disgust, or may never be able to complete a sexual act. Emotion triumphs over the sex drive! And despair can overwhelm even the will to live, motivating a suicide. Emotions triumph over the will to live!”
Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life

Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life

Paul Ekman

“Presentations are a very human medium. And that's what sets them apart. It's you. You are unique. You are the only one like you from anywhere for all time. You have your own fingerprint, your own experiences and your own story that can be told like no one else can tell it. Your passion is your own and its expression can only come from you.” - Nancy Duarte “Epiphanies and profoundly moving experiences come from moments of clarity. Think like a designer and guide your audience through ideas in a way that helps, not hinders, their comprehension. Appeal not only to their verbal senses, but to their visual sense as well.” - Nancy Duarte “They didn't come to your presentation to see you. They came to find out what you can do for them.Success means giving them a reason for taking their time, providing content that resonates, and ensuring it's clear what they are to do.”
Slide:ology

Slide:ology

Nancy Duarte

"The reason that water coolers are so important isn't just that they slake our thirst for cool, refreshing H20, but rather that they create a nexus of social activity in the workplace. Water coolers are where you bump into people in the office that you haven't seen in a while, and they're where you gossip about coworkers or talk about last night's game. They serve a crucial social function that desks and meeting rooms can't provide." "A major benefit of cohesive networks is that they create high levels of trust within the group. This trust comes directly from the structure of interactions in these networks."
People Analytics: How Social Sensing Technology Will Transform Business and What It Tells Us about the Future of Work

People Analytics: How Social Sensing Technology Will Transform Business and What It Tells Us about the Future of Work

Benjamin Waber

Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man's soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it. - Laura Hillenbrand The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormentors suffer. In seeking the Bird's death to free himself, Louie had chained himself, once again, to his tyrant. During the war, the Bird had been unwilling to let go of Louie; after the war, Louie was unable to let go of the Bird. - Laura Hillenbrand Without dignity, identity is erased. In its absence, men are defined not by themselves, but by their captors and the circumstances in which they are forced to live.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Laura Hillenbrand

Distinguishing the signal from the noise requires both scientific knowledge and self-knowledge: the serenity to accept the things we cannot predict, the courage to predict the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. - Nate Silver The signal is the truth. The noise is what distracts us from the truth. - Nate Silver One of the pervasive risks that we face in the information age, as I wrote in the introduction, is that even if the amount of knowledge in the world is increasing, the gap between what we know and what we think we know may be widening.
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't

Nate Silver

“Your fears are a kind of prison that confines you within a limited range of action. The less you fear, the more power you will have and the more fully you will live.”
The 50th Law

The 50th Law

Robert Greene, 50 Cent

The Anabolic Phase is the forty-five-minute window following a workout in which your muscle machinery, in the presence of the right combination of nutrients, initiates the repair of damaged protein and replenishes muscle glycogen stores. - John Ivy & Robert Portman A high-protein diet consisting of 41 to 48 percent carbohydrate, 19 to 26 percent protein, and 33 percent fat is an excellent one for strength athletes. - John Ivy & Robert Portman Lifestyle factors can increase the insulin sensitivity of the muscle cells and thereby create a body that is generally disposed to build muscle proteins and less disposed to store body fat.
Nutrient Timing: The Future of Sports Nutrition

Nutrient Timing: The Future of Sports Nutrition

John Ivy, Robert Portman

Distinguishing the signal from the noise requires both scientific knowledge and self-knowledge: the serenity to accept the things we cannot predict, the courage to predict the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. - Nate Silver The signal is the truth. The noise is what distracts us from the truth. - Nate Silver One of the pervasive risks that we face in the information age, as I wrote in the introduction, is that even if the amount of knowledge in the world is increasing, the gap between what we know and what we think we know may be widening.
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don't

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don't

Nate Silver

“Ask yourself this: why would you want to be intimate with someone who doesn't appreciate you? Why would you ever settle for such a person? Because she's hot? Come on, have a little more self-respect. Have some higher standards.”
Models: Attract Women Through Honesty

Models: Attract Women Through Honesty

Mark Manson

“But it was not the boyish grin she had known when he bounded along the low-gravity inner corridors of Battle School. This smile had weariness in it, and old fears long mastered but still present. It was the smile of wisdom.”
Shadow Puppets (Ender's Shadow, #3)

Shadow Puppets (Ender's Shadow, #3)

Orson Scott Card

"It seems that the more you try to get reality to fit within your comfort zone, the more unprepared you are to deal with a world full of surprise, complexity, and change. Likewise, if we persist in trying to get our relationships to conform to our expectations instead of letting them be how they actually are, we may miss important opportunities to know ourselves and others more deeply."
Getting Real: 10 Truth Skills You Need to Live an Authentic Life

Getting Real: 10 Truth Skills You Need to Live an Authentic Life

Susan Campbell Ph.D.

“There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth. Not going all the way, and not starting.” Siddhrtha Gautama”
Poke the Box

Poke the Box

Seth Godin

“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.”
Meditations

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius

“It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. ... The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.”
Intention & PurposeLife & Living
On the Shortness of Life

On the Shortness of Life

Seneca

“We are surrounded every day by the wonders of life, wonders beyond comprehension that we simply take for granted. I decided that day that I would live my life—not simply exist. If I died and discovered heaven on the other side, well, that'd be just fine and dandy. But if I didn't live my life as if I was already in heaven, and I died and found only nothingness, well…I would have wasted my life. I would have wasted my one chance in all of history to be alive.”
The Life We Bury

The Life We Bury

Allen Eskens

“Just pay close attention to what excites you and what drains you. Pay close attention to when you're being the real you and when you're trying to impress an invisible jury.”
Anything You Want

Anything You Want

Derek Sivers

“Like so many brilliant people, he believes that ideas move mountains. But bulldozers move mountains; ideas show where the bulldozers should go to work.”
Managing Oneself

Managing Oneself

Peter F. Drucker

“Successful careers are not planned. They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values.”
Managing Oneself

Managing Oneself

Peter F. Drucker

“There are three ingredients required to initiate any and all behaviors: (1) the user must have sufficient motivation; (2) the user must have the ability to complete the desired action; and (3) a trigger must be present to activate the behavior.”
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

Nir Eyal

Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance. - Jim Loehr We live in a world that celebrates work and activity, ignores renewal and recovery, and fails to recognize that both are necessary for sustained high performance. - Jim Loehr To be fully engaged, we must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused and spiritually aligned with a purpose beyond our immediate self-interest.
The Power of Full Engagement

The Power of Full Engagement

Jim Loehr, Tony Schwartz

In the last 3,421 years of recorded history only 268 have seen no war. - Will Durant The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding. - Ariel Durant We must operate with partial knowledge, and be provisionally content with probabilities. - Ariel Durant It is not the race that makes the civilization, it is the civilization that makes the people: circumstances geographical, economic, and political create a culture, and the culture creates a human type.
The Lessons of History

The Lessons of History

Will Durant, Ariel Durant

The best way to reduce stress in your life is to stop screwing up. - Roy F. Baumeister For most of us, though, the problem is not a lack of goals but rather too many of them. - Roy F. Baumeister “Monkey Mind”, a mind plagued with constantly shifting thoughts, like a money leaping widely from tree to tree.
Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength

Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength

Roy F. Baumeister

When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as "rootless and stemless." We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don't condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is. - W. Timothy Gallwey When the mind is free of any thought or judgment, it is still and acts like a mirror. Then and only then can we know things as they are. - W. Timothy Gallwey Fortunately, most children learn to walk before they can be told how to by their parents.
The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance

The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance

W. Timothy Gallwey

“If a period is a stop sign, then what kind of traffic flow is created by other marks? The comma is a speed bump; the semicolon is what a driver education teacher calls a “rolling stop”; the parenthetical expression is a detour; the colon is a flashing yellow light that announces something important up ahead; the dash is a tree branch in the road.”
Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

Roy Peter Clark

"Leaders don't change lives. Teachers do." - Richard L. Godfrey "A key element of being a great leader and teacher lies in the ability to see reality clearly." - Richard L. Godfrey "Facts are important in presenting information, but, as discussed in an earlier chapter, leaders must handle them with care and creatively present them to ensure that listeners can learn, retain, and remember them."
The Seven Laws of Learning: Why Great Leaders Are Also Great Teachers

The Seven Laws of Learning: Why Great Leaders Are Also Great Teachers

Richard L. Godfrey