"A year from now, you will wish you had started today."
-- x@karenlambauthor
Just start.
Stop making resolutions and start making something. Time is the most precious thing you own.
"Rising early makes the road short." (...)
"The person who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones." (...)
"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is right now."
-- vox populi
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
-- Lao Tzu [-571]
"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."
-- Confucius [-551]
"The beginning is the most important part of the work."
-- Plato [-427]
"While we wait for life, life passes." (...)
"While we are postponing, life speeds by."
-- Seneca [-004]
"You may delay, but time will not."
-- Benjamin Franklin [1706]
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
-- J.W. Goethe [1749]
"Do it, or don’t do it — you will regret both."
-- Soren Kierkegaard [1813]
"Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking."
-- W.B. Yeats [1865]
"Beginnings are always messy."
-- John Galsworthy [1867]
"Action expresses priorities."
-- Mahatma Gandhi [1869]
"Go and do the things you can’t. That is how you get to do them."
-- Pablo Picasso [1881]
"If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door."
-- Milton Berle [1908]
"I’ve been on a calendar, but I have never been on time."
-- Marilyn Monroe [1926]
"You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great."
-- Zig Ziglar [1926]
"Do something instead of killing time. Because time is killing you."
-- Paulo Coelho [1947]
"You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will."
-- Stephen King [1947]
"Did you know you can’t steer a boat that isn’t moving? Just like a life."
-- Paul Lutus [1949]
"Many fail to finish, but many more fail to start. The hardest work in any work is to start. You can’t finish until you start, so get good at starting."
-- Kevin Kelly [1952]
"If everybody contemplates the infinite instead of fixing the drains, many of us will die of cholera."
-- John Rich [1974]
"One of the most underrated secrets to success is to start before you’re ready."
-- Marie Forleo [1975]
"The lazy don’t know how to start. The losers don’t know how to finish. The legends don’t know how to stop."
-- x@alexhormozi
"Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough."
-- Josh Billings [1818]
Only fools rush in. Committing too quickly costs maneuverability.
"The cock that crows too early gets his head cut off." (...)
"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."
-- vox populi
"Desire makes slaves out of kings and patience makes kings out of slaves."
-- (imam) Al-Ghazali [1058]
"Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength."
-- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton [1803]
"Patience is also a form of action."
-- Auguste Rodin [1840]
"A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week."
-- (general) George Patton [1885]
"Not too soon and not too late; the secret of education lies in choosing the right time to do things."
-- Natalia Ginzburg [1916]
"The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining."
-- John F. Kennedy [1917]
"Waiting hurts. Forgetting hurts. But not knowing which decision to take can sometimes be the most painful."
-- Paulo Coelho [1947]
"About 99% of the time, the right time is right now."
-- Kevin Kelly [1952]
"Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years."
-- Bill Gates [1955]
"Stoicism is about the domestication of emotions, not their elimination." (...)
"Never threaten when angry. Never promise when joyful. Never plan when gloomy. Never reply when tired. Never buy when euphoric."
-- Nassim Taleb [1960]
"Better bored than busy."
-- Naval Ravikant [1974]
"Hesitation is always easy, rarely useful."
-- (fictional) Prof. Quirrel
"Speed is useful only if you are running in the right direction."
-- Joel Barker [1945]
Direction is more important than velocity.
Even if we can’t choose the starting point, we can often choose the direction. When possible, position yourself for victory by bringing the target closer. Location beats quantity so trade space for time.
"Choose the neighbour before choosing the house."
-- vox populi
"What’s well begun is half done."
-- Horace [-065]
"To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind."
-- Seneca [-004]
"I’m a slow walker, but I never walk back."
-- Abraham Lincoln [1809]
"Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise."
-- John Tukey [1915]
"Start as close to the end as possible."
-- Kurt Vonnegut [1922]
"If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else."
-- Yogi Berra [1925]
"No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant."
-- Warren Buffett [1930]
"A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner."
-- Seth Godin [1960]
First the essential. Then the details.
Focusing is an art. Time is not the limit, attention is. Busy means out of control. Lack of time means lack of priorities. Always look where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go.
"A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure." (...)
"If you want a well, only dig in one place."
-- vox populi
"The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither."
-- Confucius [-551]
"Learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference."
-- Marcus Aurelius [0121]
"As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer [1788]
"Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest."
-- Hermann Hesse [1877]
"I want to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details."
-- Albert Einstein [1879]
"Anything I cannot transform into something marvelous, I let go."
-- Anais Nin [1903]
"A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention."
-- Herbert Simon[1916]
"When everything is a priority nothing is a priority. Attempting to maximize competing variables is a recipe for disaster. Picking one variable, and relentlessly focusing on it, which is an effective strategy, diverges from the norm. It’s hard to compete with businesses who have correctly identified the right variables to maximize or minimize."
-- Charlie Munger [1924]
"You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong."
-- Warren Buffett [1930]
"I will have to remember «I’m here today to cross the swamp, not to fight all the alligators."
-- Rosamund [1942] & Benjamin Zander [1939]
"You can do anything, but not everything."
-- David Allen [1945]
"People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying «no» to 1000 things."
-- Steve Jobs [1955]
"Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter."
-- Robert Greene [1959]
"A common mistake that builders make: optimizing a process that shouldn’t exist in the first place."
-- Elon Musk [1971]
"Doing something well does not make it important. I think this is one of the most common problems with a lot of time-management or productivity advice; they focus on how to do things quickly. The vast majority of things that people do quickly should not be done at all."
-- Tim Ferriss [1977]
"Social media says: do everything, everywhere, all at once. Reality says: focus on doing one or two things extremely well, in one place, consistently, over a long period of time." (...)
"You have a limited amount of fucks to give. Very few, in fact. And if you go around giving a fuck about everything and everyone without conscious thought or choice—well, then you’re going to get fucked."
-- Mark Manson [1984]
"Don’t solve problems you don’t have."
-- Sahil Lavingia [1989]
"As few as you can, as many as you must."
-- John Stuart Mill [1806]
Getting a lot of unnecessary things done is not productivity, it’s stupidity.
Saying yes to everything leads to mediocrity. Productivity is attention management. You don’t need to optimize everything. 20% of effort often yields 80% of results, and that may be enough. Do less to achieve more.
Protect your time like money. Guard real work hours and use early morning focus. Focus on 1–3 outcomes per day (include one important but not urgent task) and tackle the most important first in the morning. 80/20 is fractal: 4% of work can create 64% of benefits. Ruthlessly cut activities that produce no value. Always work with specific purpose. Set specific, measurable, realistic, time-bound goals. Mind the process, not just results (e.g., «write report for 45 uninterrupted minutes» instead of «finish report»). Learn to focus and be fully present on the current task. Work in layers: functional first, then excellence. Batch similar tasks. Switching costs are high. Minimize small decisions—do them quickly and in bulk. If a task takes <2 minutes, do it immediately. Buy time: delegate weaknesses, focus on strengths and what you enjoy most. To get anything done fast, ask a busy person.
"Don’t make 100 decisions when one will do."
-- Peter Drucker [1909]
"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
-- C. Northcote Parkinson [1909]
"Don’t tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done."
-- James J. Ling [1922]
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil."
-- Donald Knuth [1938]
"My life is better when I’m spontaneous after I’ve done my most important thing. Being spontaneous before that, that’s where it becomes a distraction and does me harm."
-- Gary Keller [1957]
"As a rule, whatever you need to optimize, don’t do."
-- Nassim Taleb [1960]
"Do something first, than talk about it."
-- Tom Ford [1961]
"The price of productivity is creativity." (...)
"If you’re not spending your time doing what you want, and you’re not earning, and you’re not learning — what the heck are you doing?" (...)
"Nothing will make you more productive than owning your time. Nothing will make you less productive than selling it." (...)
"Say no: «It doesn’t feel right to me.» No more explanations are needed."
-- Naval Ravikant [1974]
"Productive people are just people who are really good at ignoring everything that has nothing to do with their lives."
-- x@orangebook_
"If you live long enough, most people will get what they deserve."
-- Charlie Munger [1924]
Every outcome in life is guided by forces beyond individual effort. The best things often come from coincidence.
Luck is an open door. Chance is the willingness to step through. This creates the illusion that some people are «luckier». Unless you’re winning, life will seem unfair. Systemic bad luck is often bad planning. If it’s not, stay positive, the pendulum swings back. «Random» usually means you haven’t looked long enough for the pattern. «Surprises» only happen when they haven’t repeated in your lifetime. Everything is a pattern.
RISK = THREATS x VULNERABILITIES
Risk is everything you left over and didn’t thought about.
"The devil always takes back his gifts." (...)
"The day you decide to do it is your lucky day." (...)
"Luck sometimes visit a fool, but it never sits down with him."
-- vox populi
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."
-- Seneca [-004]
"We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of other people."
-- François de La Rochefoucauld [1613]
"What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer [1788]
"Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803]
"To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself."
-- Soren Kierkegaard [1813]
"In the realm of scientific observation, luck is granted only to those who are prepared."
-- Louis Pasteur [1822]
"Necessity is the mother of taking chances."
-- Mark Twain [1835]
"Opportunity is missed by most of people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
-- Thomas Edison [1847]
"Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous." (...)
"God is subtle but he is not malicious."
-- Albert Einstein [1879]
"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far it is possible to go."
-- T.S. Eliot [1888]
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
-- Anais Nin [1903]
"People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year."
-- Peter Drucker [1909]
"Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny."
-- Frank Hubbard [1920]
"Opportunity dances with those on the dance floor."
-- H. Jackson Brown Jr. [1940]
"What do I want to know about investing that we can’t know? The exact role of luck in successful outcomes."
-- Robert Schiller [1946]
"Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day."
-- Paulo Coelho [1947]
"If you risk nothing, then you risk everything."
-- Geena Davis [1956]
"The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably deal with."
-- Tony Robbins [1960]
"Things that come with little help of luck are more resistant to randomness." (...)
"I know that history is going to be dominated by an improbable event, I just don’t know what that event will be."
-- Nassim Taleb [1960]
"Karma is just you, repeating your patterns, virtues, and flaws until you finally get what you deserve."
-- Naval Ravikant [1974]
"The odd person is exceptionally lucky or unlucky. But in the vast majority of cases, people are exactly where they belong."
-- Andrew Tate [1986]
"Risk is what’s left over when you think you’ve thought of everything."
-- x@behaviorgap
"Taking risk is the ultimate expression of optimism."
-- x@rapahelz
"Luck is probability engineering."
-- x@schisofrenia
"You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink."
-- vox populi
Disorder is the default; order is artificial and temporary.
Control what you can: your inputs, your circle, your focus, your problems. Ignore the rest. Consuming information gives control freaks the illusion of control. They refuse to accept the universe doesn’t make sense and distrust their ability to handle real disorder beyond their skillset.
"Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche [1844]
"One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead."
-- Oscar Wilde [1854]
"Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go."
-- Hermann Hesse [1877]
"Our only security is our ability to change."
-- John C. Lilly [1915]
"If things seem under control, you’re just not going fast enough."
-- Mario Andretti [1940]
"If you change the way you look at things, the thing you look at change"
-- Wayne Dyer [1940]
"Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security there is."
-- John Allen Paulos [1945]
"You get pseudo-order when you seek order; you only get a measure of order and control when you embrace randomness."
-- Nassim Taleb [1960]
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
-- Albert Einstein [1879]
Life is a balancing act. Most things are not binary.
The dose makes the poison: excess turns good into bad. The hardest skill is knowing when to stop. Balance isn’t equal time in every area of your life either, it’s steady progress in health, wealth, relationships, and growth.
"Where there is too much, something is missing." (...)
"Sunshine all the time makes a desert."
-- vox populi
"The middle way is the right way."
-- (buddha) Siddahrta Gautama [-564]
"Life is a balance between holding on and letting go."
-- Rumi [1207]
"You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough."
-- William Blake [1757]
"Everything in moderation, including moderation."
-- Oscar Wilde [1854]
"Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, learn when to stop."
-- Robert Greene [1959]
"The optimal zone for performance is «slightly hungry»." (...)
"Don’t settle and don’t struggle. Life is what flows in between." (...)
"You get paid for being right first, and to be first, you can’t wait for consensus."
-- Naval Ravikant [1974]
"An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behaviour."
-- Victor Frankl [1905]
Overcompensate. Many people draw their deepest passion from the very thing they once struggled with.
"Your life is tetris. Stop playing it like chess."
-- x@torbair
Plans are not static.
Switch strategies when needed to reach your goal. When problems shift faster than your adaptation rate, you lose. Adapt instead of react. An opportunity can look like an unwanted job. Listen to predict collapse.
"At high tide the fish eats ants; at low tide the ants eat fish." (...)
"When the winds of change blow, some people build walls while others build windmills."
-- vox populi
"One should not be too straightforward. Go & see the forest. The straight trees are cut down, the crooked ones are left standing."
-- Kautilya [-375]
"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
-- Charles Darwin [1809]
"Things do not change; we change."
-- Henry David Thoreau [1817]
"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."
-- Leo Tolstoy [1828]
"Be the change you want to see in the world."
-- Mahatma Gandhi [1869]
"This is the joy of the rose, that it blows, and then it goes."
-- Willa Cather [1873]
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
-- Winston Churchill [1874]
"If I don’t have red, I use blue."
-- Pablo Picasso [1881]
"I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times."
-- Everett Dirksen [1896]
"You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending."
-- C.S. Lewis [1898]
"Whatever space and time mean, place and occasion mean more."
-- Aldo van Eyck [1918]
"At Berkshire there has never been a master plan. Anyone who wanted to do it, we fired because it takes on a life of its own and doesn’t cover new reality. We want people taking into account new information."
-- Charlie Munger [1924]
"The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging."
-- Warren Buffett [1930]
"Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change."
-- Jim Rohn [1930]
"Change before you have to."
-- Jack Welch [1935]
"Change is inevitable, it’s our job to exploit it."
-- Eli Goldratt [1947]
"What got you here won’t get you there."
-- Marshall Goldsmith [1949]
"My luggage is always ready."
-- Jorge Jesus [1954]
"You don’t do well by trying to be right; it is impossible for humans. You do well by figuring out when you’re wrong faster than others do."
-- Nassim Taleb [1960]
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
-- Mike Tyson [1966]
"The directions to get you anywhere include a few turns:
Sometimes you need to say YES to everything and be open to growth;
Sometimes you need to say NO to everything and focus.
It’s scary to make those direction choices but fear is a great road sign."
-- Derek Sivers {paraphrased} [1969]
"The best way, perhaps the only way, to change others is to become an example." (...)
"Everybody wants to change others. Nobody wants to be changed." (...)
"Everybody likes to conjecture, nobody likes to correct errors." (...)
"People think they can’t change themselves, but they can. People think they can change others, but they can’t." (...)
"Sometimes it’s easier to change the world than to change people’s minds."
-- Naval Ravikant [1974]
"When things break, it’s not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again. It’s because a little piece gets lost — the two remaining ends couldn’t fit together even if they wanted to. The whole shape has changed."
-- John Green [1977]
"It is much easier to change how you think by changing your behavior, than it is to change your behavior by changing how you think. Act out the change you seek."
-- Kevin Kelly [1952]
There are limits to change: willpower and attention are finite. But in complex systems, small changes can trigger large effects.
"The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new."
-- Socrates [-470]
"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."
-- St. Francis of Assisi [1181]
"Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." (...)
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
-- George Bernard Shaw [1856]
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a model that makes the existing model obsolete."
-- Buckminster Fuller [1895]
"The key to change... is to let go of fear."
-- Rosanne Cash [1955]
"Preach the need for change, but never reform too much at once."
-- Robert Greene [1959]
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte [1769]
Strategy wins before the battle begins; tactics exploit weakness during it.
Leverage is a force multiplier. Target your opponent’s weaknesses to raise your odds. Use unpredictability, charm, mirroring, or deception when needed. If you control the overall direction and framing of the battle, anything they do will play into your hands. Divide and conquer. Beware of counter-attacking: audacious moves can create disguised problems, remedied by greater audacity. Any change requires injecting more energy than the system extracts. Once you step into a fight not of your choosing, you lose all initiative. Drain opponent morale with unexpected defeat or strong defense. Every strength has a complementary weakness. Look for people when they are bluffing.
"Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I will move the earth."
-- Archimedes [-212]
"Make others dependent on you: hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one. More is to be got from dependence than from courtesy."
-- Balthasar Gracian [1601]
"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history."
-- George Orwell [1903]
"The most basic idea of strategy is the application of strength against weakness. Or if you prefer, strength applied to the most promising opportunity. A good strategy doesn’t just draw on existing strength; it creates strength. Rumelt’s definition of strategy as creating strength is particularly important. You don’t deplete yourself as you execute your strategy. You choose tactics that reinforce and build strength as they are deployed."
-- Richard Rumelt [1942]
"You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you."
-- Eric Hoffer [1902]
"Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance."
-- Sam W. Brown Jr. [1943]
"To bankrupt a fool, give him information."
-- Nassim Taleb [1960]
"You are strong only where you were broken." (...)
"It’s hard to defeat a high-morale defender with an unlimited supply line." (...)
"Leverage converts knowledge into power." (...)
"Fortunes require leverage. Business leverage comes from capital, people and products with no marginal cost of replication (code and media). Capital means money. To raise money, apply your specific knowledge, with accountability and show resulting good judgment. Labor means people working for you. It’s the oldest and most fought-over form of leverage. Labor leverage will impress your parents, but don’t waste your life chasing it. Capital and labor are permissioned leverage. Everyone is chasing capital, but someone has to give it to you. Everyone is trying to lead, but someone has to follow you. Code and media are permissionless leverage. They’re the leverage behind the newly rich. You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep. An army of robots is freely available — it’s just packed in data centers for heat and space efficiency. Use it."
-- Naval Ravikant [1974]
"Asymmetries reward those who see them first. They’re invisible rules that control your life. Most people never see them. But once you learn to spot these hidden imbalances, in your salary, your relationships, your career, you gain an unfair advantage."
-- x@paulskallas
"The most underrated super power in the world is simply asking for things."
-- x@realestatetrent
"To combat an adversary, become their friend."
-- Kevin Kelly [1952]
Charm the enemy to find his weaknesses. Then exploit them.
People’s need for validation and recognition is the easiest weakness to exploit. Persuade up with interests; persuade down with emotions. Use absence and bait to draw people in. Make winning your affection a challenge. The power to make others come to you is stronger than aggression—use it sparingly. Charm the snake to fight the other snakes. Listen actively, maintain rapport. Trust must come first. Keep your word, prove your worth—the newcomer always has to prove himself.
"We catch more flies with honey than vinegar." (...)
"Abuse often starts with praise."
-- vox populi
"Kind words don’t cost much. Yet they accomplish much."
-- Blaise Pascal [1623]
"We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter."
-- Denis Diderot [1713]
"If a man starts with certain assumptions, he will naturally arrive at certain conclusions; if you wish to change his conclusions, you must first attack his assumptions."
-- Bertrand Russell [1872]
"Know all theories, master all the techniques, but as you touch a human soul, be just another human soul."
-- Carl Jung [1875]
"I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let people fool themselves. They didn’t bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn’t argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn’t."
-- Marilyn Monroe [1926]
"Treating a person to a meal never fails, and is so easy to do. It’s powerful with old friends and a great way to make new friends." (...)
"Compliment people behind their back. It’ll come back to you."
-- Kevin Kelly [1952]
"Make other people come to you: use bait if necessary." (...)
"Use absence to increase respect and honor." (...)
"Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim." (...)
"Play a sucker to catch a sucker: seem dumber than your mark." (...)
"Pose as a friend, work as a spy." (...)
"Work on the hearts and minds of others." (...)
"Discover each man’s thumbscrew." (...)
"Court attention at all cost." (...)
"Play to people’s fantasies." (...)
"Create compelling spectacles." (...)
"Stir up waters to catch fish."
-- Robert Greene {laws of power} [1959]
"You will never fully convince someone that he is wrong; only reality can."
-- Nassim Taleb [1960]
"If you don’t care to be liked, they can’t touch you."
-- Naval Ravikant [1974]
"The moment a magician says, «now we begin» you’re already screwed!"
-- Brian Brushwood [1975]
"The quicker you want something, the easier you are to manipulate."
-- x@farnamstreet
"Appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak."
-- Sun Tzu [-544]
Deceiving is not lying. Lying is a nuclear bomb with long-lasting fallout.
Appear weak when strong, strong when weak. If we play by the rules too strictly, we are crushed by those who aren’t foolish. Fair players on shady markets rarely thrive short-term. Seem stronger via occasional reckless, bold acts to deter attacks. It’s hard to cheat an honest opponent, disappointment destroys trust. In subordinate positions, unpredictability reduces trust also. Don’t attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence or busyness. Never be mean to anyone who can hurt you by doing nothing. The only time you enjoy hearing a lie is when you already know the truth. The only thing worth praying for is truth. Rule one in life: never give out all the information. It will be used against you.
"A tiger wearing a bell will starve."
-- vox populi
"The evil that men do lives after them; The good is often interred with their bones."
-- Julius Caesar [-100]
"Let silence be your general rule; say only what is necessary and in few words."
-- Epictetus [0050]
"Have more than you show, speak less than you know."
-- William Shakespeare [1564]
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said." (...)
"Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do."
-- Voltaire [1694]
"A man is not deceived by others, he deceives himself." (...)
"The senses do not deceive; it is the judgment that deceives."
-- J.W. Goethe [1749]
"Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it." (...)
"If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything." (...)
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
-- Mark Twain [1835]
"Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed." (...)
"I’m not upset that you lied to me. I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe on you." (...)
"They muddy the water, to make it seem deep."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche [1844]
"Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance."
-- George Bernard Shaw [1856]
"Lies are often much more plausible, more appealing to reason, than reality, since the liar has the great advantage of knowing beforehand what the audience wishes or expects to hear."
-- Hannah Arendt [1906]
"Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone."
-- Alan Watts [1915]
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool."
-- Richard Feynman [1918]
"Honesty is a very expensive gift, don’t expect it from cheap people."
-- Warren Buffett [1930]
"Conceal your intention." (...)
"Say less than necessary." (...)
"Keep others in suspended terror: cultivate an air of unpredictability." (...)
"Assume formlessness."
-- Robert Greene [1959]
"When you have something to say, silence is a lie."
-- Jordan Peterson [1962]
"One thing I learned at 3 AM: everyone lied to survive. Truth is a luxury we day-people take for granted."
-- James Altucher [1968]
"Any sufficiently advanced negligence is indistinguishable from malice."
-- Deb Chachra [1971]
"It’s the nature of truth that once you see it, you can’t unsee it." (...)
"If it hurts to hear, look for the truth in it. If it comforts to hear it, look for the lie in it."
-- Naval Ravikant [1974]
"Poker is about maximizing deceptiveness while extracting information from your opponent."
-- x@liv_boeree
"Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect."
-- Robert Greene [1959]
Reciprocation is the foundation of human evolution.
Our ancestors survived by sharing food and skills in networks of mutual obligation. We feel compelled to repay favors, match concessions, and mirror behavior.
"Being pacifist in face of wolves is the source of endless tragedy."
-- vox populi
"A violent man will die a violent death."
-- Lao Tzu [-571]
"With a gentleman I try to be a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half."
-- Otto von Bismarck [1815]
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche [1844]
"To successfully change a status quo maintained by a minority you only need to unite the majority. How? Make a non-violent revolution: low risk will make more people to participate."
-- Srdja Popovic [1973]
The only successful changes come from within.
"If you want to destroy any nation without war, make adultery or nudity common in the young generation."
-- Saladin [1137]
"Revolutions spring not from accident, but from necessity. A revolution is a return from the factitious to the real. It takes place because it must."
-- Victor Hugo [1802]
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
-- Buckminster Fuller [1895]
"Every joke is a tiny revolution."
-- George Orwell [1903]
"Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something."
-- Robert A. Heinlein [1907]
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy [1917]
"Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments."
-- Isaac Asimov [1920]
"A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution."
-- Martin Luther King Jr [1929]
"Never argue with someone with the aim of changing his or her mind; focus instead on changing the much less invested minds of the audience."
-- Nassim Taleb [1960]
"If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start."
-- Charles Bukowski [1920]
Starting is fun, but success belongs to finishers.
Going halfway is a waste. Before starting anything, figure out how to finish it. When the end comes, it comes quickly.
"Ultimately the only peace and security you can hope for from your enemies is their disappearance." (...)
"You finished ahead of time, that means you forgot something." (...)
"There are lots of overnight tragedies. There are rarely overnight miracles." (...)
"Everything will be ok in the end. If it’s not ok, it’s not the end."
-- vox populi
"All cruelty springs from weakness."
-- Seneca [-004]
"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone."
-- Pablo Picasso [1881]
"When you try to accomplish something difficult, surround yourself with friends."
-- Kevin Kelly [1952]
"All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time."
-- Mitch Albom [1958]
"Crush your enemy totally." (...)
"Do not wait for a coronation; the greatest emperors crown themselves."
-- Robert Greene [1959]
"Ends reveal themselves through means."
-- x@incentivising
"Maintain reserves. A man should not employ all his capacity and power at once and on every occasion. Even in knowledge there should be a rearguard, so that your resources are doubled. One must always have something to resort to when there is fear of a defeat."
-- Balthasar Gracian [1601]
Giving yourself permission to lose guarantees a loss.
It’s not just about winning, the way you win sets up the next round. Winning is a stop, not the end of the road.
"A fool only wins the first game."
-- vox populi
"To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting." (...)
"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."
-- Sun Tzu [-544]
"Man conquers the world by conquering himself."
-- Zeno of Elea [-490]
"Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception."
-- Niccoló Machiavelli [1469]
"The war will be ended by the exhaustion of nations rather than the victories of armies."
-- Winston Churchill [1874]
"Never cut what you can untie."
-- Robert Frost [1874]
"No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making other bastards die for their country."
-- (general) George Patton [1885]
"Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is."
-- Vince Lombardi [1913]
"You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out."
-- Warren Buffett [1930]
"You don’t win by predicting the future; you win by getting the odds right."
-- Will Bonner [1948]
"If winning becomes too important in a game, change the rules to make it more fun. Changing rules can become the new game."
-- Kevin Kelly [1952]
"Win through your actions, never through argument." (...)
"Make your accomplishments seem effortless."
-- Robert Greene [1959]
"You might be winning but you’re not growing, and growing might be the most important form of winning."
-- Jordan Peterson [1962]
"Moral victories are for minor league coaches."
-- Jay-Z [1969]
"We prefer to see winners as naturally talented rather then hard working. Because if it were reversed, what would that inply to us?"
-- Naval Ravikant [1974]
"Winners are overgivers."
-- x@codie_sanchez
"It only hurts when you don’t have time to prepare for the fall."
-- Tony Hawk [1968]
Letting go allows progress.
Accept loss. Surrender conceals great power: lull the enemy into complacency, gain time to recoup, undermine, and seek revenge. To come back, you must first go away. Use surrender to re-create yourself. If you never quit anything, you’d still be playing with toddlers. Every story has an end, but in life every end is a new beginning. Surrender to constant reinvention.
"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box." (...)
"They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds."
-- vox populi
"Develop strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer."
-- Niccoló Machiavelli [1469]
"You are never destroyed by anyone except yourself."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche [1844]
"Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896]
"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."
-- Victor Frankl [1905]
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
-- Isaac Asimov [1920]
"Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong."
-- Leo Buscaglia [1924]
"Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering." (...)
"Close some doors today. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere." (...)
"You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it."
-- Paulo Coelho [1947]
"In all things — except love — start with the exit strategy. Prepare for the ending. Almost anything is easier to get into than out of."
-- Kevin Kelly [1952]
"You never cure structural defects; the system corrects itself by collapsing."
-- Nassim Taleb [1960]
"The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive."
-- John Green [1977]
Hatred is a curse that poisons the hater, not the hated.
Forgiveness is release. Holding a grudge keeps us in the victim role, preserving our «rightness» while prolonging our suffering. We punish ourselves most. If you don’t reconcile, you’re postponing war. But forgiving too easily invites being taken for granted.
"The axe forgets; the tree remembers."
-- vox populi
"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."
-- Confucius [-551]
"An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind."
-- Mahatma Gandhi [1869]
"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us."
-- Hermann Hesse [1877]
"I hate victims who respect their executioners."
-- Jean-Paul Sartre [1905]
"The greatest revenge is success."
-- Frank Sinatra [1915]
"Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously."
-- Hunter S. Thompson [1937]
"To heal a wound you must stop scratching it."
-- Paulo Coelho [1947]
"It’s not just other people we need to forgive. Sometimes we need to forgive ourselves."
-- Mitch Albom [1958]
"Today’s victims will be tomorrow’s oppressors."
-- Nassim Taleb [1960]
"People find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right."
-- J.K. Rowling [1965]
"Once you had put the pieces back together, even though you may look intact, you were never quite the same as you’d been before the fall."
-- Jodi Picoult [1966]