Reputation is like a shadow. Sometimes it's bigger than you, and sometimes it's smaller.
— Shane Parrish
The right time was yesterday. The best time is now.
— Shane Parrish
Mastery is the best goal because the rich can't buy it, the impatient can't rush it, the privileged can't inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it through hard work. Mastery is the ultimate status.
— Derek Sivers
Sometimes fear does not subside and one must choose to do it afraid.
— Elisabeth Elliot (Discipline: The Glad Surrenderr)
There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
— Henry Kissinger
The amateur does not know what to do. The master knows what not to do.
— James Clear
The person who carefully designs their daily routine goes further than the person who negotiates with themselves every day.
— Shane Parrish
No man was ever wise by chance.
— Seneca
Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
— Maya Angelou
20 years from now, the only people who will remember that you worked late are your kids.
— David Clarke
The Gospel is not good advice to men but good news about Christ; not an invitation to us to do anything, but a declaration of what God has done; not a demand but an offer.
— John Stott (The Message of Galatians)
The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.
— Karen Blixen, writing as Isak Dinesen
If there is anything worse than being the second richest in the world it is being the former richest in the world.
— Tim Challies
The best goals are pursued from contentment instead of for contentment.
— Tim Challies
People pay to see others believe in themselves.
— Kim Gordon
In life the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what game you’re playing.
— Kwame Anthony Appiah
Sometimes it seems that it might be better to go back to those simpler days, that one might get more out of a less complex life. But it cannot be done. One changes with prosperity. We all think we should like to lead the simple life, and then we find that we have picked up a thousand little habits which we are quite unconscious of because they are a part of our very being-and these habits are not in the simple life. There is no going back-except as a broken man.
— Harvey Firestone, Men and Rubber (1926)
Even before you do anything to help, your wholehearted presence already brings some relief, because when we suffer, we have great need for presence of the person we love. If we are suffering and the person we love ignores us, we suffer more. So what you can do—right away—is to manifest your true presence to your beloved and say the mantra with all your mindfulness: "Dear one, I know you are suffering. That is why I am here for you." And already your loved one will feel better.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
The greatest successes are explained by the establishment of clever arrangements for the reduction of risks rather than by excessive risk taking.
— From Predators to Icons: Exposing the Myth of the Business Hero
You get no free pass from the sin of slander when it pertains to an enemy, a heretic, or a politician. Each of these people is made in the image of God and each of them deserves to be spoken of in a way that befits their humanity. Only ever speak of them what is demonstrably and provably true.
Don’t talk unless you can improve the silence.
— Jorge Luis Borges
Never let a day pass without doing something that will benefit you in a decade.
— James Clear
Many’s the person missed the opportunity to say nothing, and lost much because of it.
— The Quiet Girl
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
— John Gall - Systemantics: How Systems Really Work and How They Fail
But, some might say, what about heterosexual couples who can't have children? Are we saying their love doesn't matter? Of course not. But this objection reiterates the reality of sexual difference and bolsters my point. Why do we see infertility as a tragedy? Precisely because we expect and desire children as the fruit of a man and woman who come together in love. It's because the design of this coupling is oriented toward new life that we grieve when children don't come.
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
If you wait until you're motivated, you’ve already lost. Surgeons don’t always feel like doing surgery. Teachers don’t always feel like teaching. Parents don’t always feel like cooking. Firemen don’t always feel like rushing into a burning building. If you let motivation dictate your actions, inertia conspires to keep you in place. Action creates progress. Progress creates momentum. Momentum creates motivation.
"You see this goblet?" asks Achaan Chaa, the Thai meditation master. "For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, 'Of course.' When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”
— Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective
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.
— Jacob Riis
The people with the best defaults are typically the ones with the best environment. Sometimes it's carefully chosen, and sometimes it's just plain luck. Either way, it’s easier to align yourself with the right behavior in the right environment. The way to improve your defaults isn’t by willpower but by creating an artificial environment where your desired behavior becomes the default behavior.
One of the most overlooked opportunities in life is how you are positioned when circumstances hit. Good positions create options, while bad positions reduce them. You don’t have to be an expert decision-maker to get better results, you only need to put yourself in a good position. Anyone looks like a genius when all the options are good. If you’re forced to do something because you need to and not because you choose to, things quickly spiral from bad to worse. The person in the good position eventually takes advantage of the person in the poor position. Good positions are expensive, but poor ones cost a fortune. Spend less time worrying about maximizing your immediate results and more time maximizing your ultimate results. Giving yourself options in the future always appears suboptimal in the moment. Putting yourself in a good position for tomorrow means paying today. This might mean a lower return, living below your means, or sitting on the sidelines when everyone else is having fun. Poor positioning kills more dreams than poor decisions. Decisions matter, but it’s easier to make good decisions when all your options are great. Good positions allow you to master your circumstances rather than be mastered by them.
Estamos tão acostumados com a linguagem que podemos passar por cima dela com um bocejo, em especial quando o tema é a educação. Tendemos a pensar que a linguagem representa apenas mais uma ferramenta útil, como uma tabela de multiplicação ou uma caneta. Contudo, a linguagem une várias partes da vida de forma poderosa. Ela é bem mais que uma simples ferramenta. A Escritura coloca a linguagem no centro de muita coisa. Deus criou o mundo falando. A Queda proveio de um discurso falso. A Lei surgiu sob a forma de "Dez Palavras". A redenção adveio da Palavra feita carne. O Espírito foi derramado por meio das línguas de muitas nações. No final, seremos julgados "por cada palavra frívola" proferida.
— Douglas Wilson: Educação Clássica e Educação Domiciliar
The other point worth making though is that we seem to believe the Holy Spirit lacks power. How will our children stand for Christ at school? The same way I stood for Christ at school. Incidentally, the same way the Lord preserved his people when they were surrounded by pagan Roman culture and the church was barely even recognisable as a thing. We don’t stand in the power of our own will and fortitude, but in the power of the Holy Spirit who preserves those who belong to God. That is how our children will be saved, through a work of the Spirit. It is equally how they will be preserved whether home schooled, Christian schooled or state schooled. People require the Spirit to work whatever school they’re in and whatever culture they are surrounded by.
Nine sources of advantage
- Raw talent/intelligence – Some people are just naturally better and smarter. \
- Hard work – Some people work harder. \
- Differentiation – Seeing the world differently. Doing something different. Reading different books. Interpreting the same information differently. \
- Process / Discipline – Creating a process and following it. Working out every day is a great example. \
- Talent Collector – The ability to hire the best people and get the most out of them. \
- Patience – A lack of patience changes the outcome. \
- Ability to take pain – Are you willing to look like an idiot to get better? How much risk are you willing to take, AND, importantly, can you handle the losses? \
- Temperament – Keeping your head when everyone else is losing theirs. \
- Luck
Most of these are within your control.
Which brings me to one final example of a universal truth made vivid by parenting, and which I write about in Four Thousand Weeks: in the end, the reason actually doing things matters so much isn’t because it’s the right way to raise a successful adult, complete a novel, or achieve some other beneficial future goal. It’s because you’ll be using a bit of your actual time on the planet to live how you want to live.
For finite creatures, this time right now really counts, for itself. And it’s generally a better use of that time to do things that matter, rather than building habits or making plans to do what matters later. An hour I don’t spend scrolling through my smartphone might in some small way help my son live a more focused life. But it’s also just an hour I didn’t spend scrolling through my smartphone, so that two humans got the chance to pay attention to each other instead.
— Oliver Burkeman
Humans love to waste time: it makes them feel immortal. Anyone with time to kill must have plenty of it, and it is chiefly this false feeling of eternity that they are bolstering by pouring their free time down the drain.