Quotes

"I operate on the physics approach to analysis. You boil things down to the first principles or fundamental truths in a particular area and then you reason up from there."

"When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor."

"The most counterintuitive secret about startups is that it's often easier to succeed with a hard startup than an easy one."

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

"Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare."

"Without effort, your talent is nothing more than unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn't."

"Yes, but the main thing is that greatness is doable. Greatness is many, many individual feats, and each of them is doable."

"One characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. And it wasn't social intelligence. It wasn't good looks, physical health, and it wasn't I.Q. It was grit. Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint."

"You don't need a history to have a future."

"Instead of dwelling on what I'd lost, I chose to focus on who I could become."

"You are the creator of your own destiny. Take control and make things happen."

"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

"There is no God. There is no Fate."

"Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get."

"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves."

"I'm looking for a job. In fact, I've made up my mind to find a career that I can learn and grow into. Who am I? I'm a hard worker. I set high goals and I've been told that I'm persistent. And I'm thinking, television news might just be something that I love as well as something I happen to be good at. Now I know that today's work culture no longer caters to the job loyalty that could be promised to earlier generations. But I believe that good things come to those who work their asses off and that good people who reach the top of the mountain, didn't just fall there. My motto is, 'if you want to win the lottery, you have to make the money to buy a ticket.'"

"Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

"No, I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated."

"Commitment is the nucleus of all success."

"As an entrepreneur, I try to push the limits. Pedal to the metal."

"You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems."

"Habits do not restrict freedom. They create it."

"Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress."

"Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations."

"Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior."

"The reason that most people don't possess these extraordinary physical capabilities isn't because they don't have the capacity for them, but rather because they're satisfied to live in the comfortable rut of homeostasis and never do the work that is required to get out of it. They live in the world of 'good enough.' The same thing is true for all the mental activities we engage in."

"So here we have purposeful practice in a nutshell: Get outside your comfort zone but do it in a focused way, with clear goals, a plan for reaching those goals, and a way to monitor your progress. Oh, and figure out a way to maintain your motivation."

"The only way to walk a journey of a thousand miles is to take one step at a time."

"The most important thing to know about prehistoric humans is that they were insignificant animals with no more impact on their environment than gorillas, fireflies or jellyfish."

"Legends, myths, gods and religions appeared for the first time with the Cognitive Revolution."

"In the future, a trillion times a trillion dollars will be spent on making antimatter to travel to other star systems."

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

"The minds of biological creatures occupy a small corner of a much larger space of possible minds that could be created once we master the technology of artificial intelligence."

"Solve intelligence, and then use that to solve everything else."