2099 Quotations Found

When we work hard for something we don’t believe in, it’s called stress. When we work hard for something we do believe in, it’s called passion.

Author: Simon Sinek | Subjects: Career, Personal Improvement

If you trade passion for stability, you basically trade one fiction for another. Both are products of our imagination.

Author: Esther Perel | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement

Genius is always recognized in hindsight, with the benefit of positive results in mind. We “cherrypick” the good results of divergent thinkers, but forget that we use the results to decide who’s a genius and who isn’t. Thus, tolerating divergent, genius-level thinking requires an ability to tolerate failure, loss, and change if it’s to be applied prospectively.

Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

A genius combines the characteristics that produce resounding failures (stubbornness, lack of discipline, ignorance), a few ingredients of success (elements of intelligence, a capacity to put mistakes behind him or her, unquenchable motivation), and exceptional good luck.

Author: James March | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Psychology | Behavior

Everybody is reinforcing their structure of the universe over and over again and you meet [each other] like two huge things meeting. We enter into these conspiracies. You say, I’ll make believe you are who you think you are if you make believe I am who I think I am.

Author: Ram Dass | Source: BuzzFeed | Subjects: Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

In our culture we’ve been trained to make individual differences to stand out. You look at each person and think, ‘Brighter, dumber, older, younger, richer, poorer’ and we make all these dimensional distinctions, put them in categories and treat people that way. And we only see others as separate from ourselves. One of the dramatic characteristics of the psychedelic experience is being with another person … [ Read more ]

Author: Ram Dass | Source: BuzzFeed | Subjects: Life & Society, Relationships

People’s inflated belief in the importance of personality traits and dispositions, together with their failure to recognize the importance of situational factors in affecting behavior, has been termed the “fundamental attribution error.”

Author: Lee Ros | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Instead of being told to change their environment, the prominent self-help advice continues to charge people to change themselves. I can’t emphasize enough how terrible this advice is. It’s actually impossible to change yourself without also changing your environment. Your environment and you are two indivisible parts of the same whole. […] Continuing to focus on mind-set, willpower, and goal-setting is an outdated and misplaced … [ Read more ]

Author: Benjamin Hardy | Source: ChangeThis | Subject: Personal Improvement

Making sustainable and lasting change requires focus. Not just momentary “let’s do it” enthusiasm, but the willingness to make a sustained and consistent effort over time. This is best achieved by identifying one behavior (or even one part of one behavior), and working on it until you see evidence of progress. That’s because making small changes, and repeating them until they become habitual, is more … [ Read more ]

Authors: Marshall Goldsmith, Sally Helgesen | Source: ChangeThis | Subject: Personal Improvement

Resistance is a powerful force, a demon that holds all of us back from making changes we know would improve the quality of our lives. Our neural systems are designed to favor the path of least resistance, the path that uses the least energy, the path we’ve created by our prior thoughts and actions. When we repeat actions or behaviors, we establish neural pathways that … [ Read more ]

Authors: Marshall Goldsmith, Sally Helgesen | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

It is madness to hate all roses because you got scratched with one thorn. To give up on your dreams because one didn’t come true. To lose faith in prayers because one was not answered, to give up on our efforts because one of them failed. To condemn all your friends because one betrayed you, not to believe in love because someone was unfaithful or … [ Read more ]

Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupery | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement

The desire to control change is the greatest obstacle to wisdom.

Author: Ram Dass | Subjects: Change, Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Personal Improvement

Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience.

Author: George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon | Subject: Education | Scholarship

The paths that lead to new ideas tend to look unpromising. If they looked promising, other people would already have explored them. How do the people who do great work discover these paths that others overlook? The popular story is that they simply have better vision: because they’re so talented, they see paths that others miss. But if you look at the way great discoveries … [ Read more ]

Author: Paul Graham | Subjects: Discoveries, Education | Scholarship, Psychology | Behavior

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Author: Winston Churchill | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Most accidents never end up being profitable or valuable in a measurable way. But they’re necessary because they’re part of the process of developing something new. Accidents fuel creativity.

Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Personal Improvement

People who are more creative also tend to be more playful, unconventional, and unpredictable, and all of this makes them harder to control. No matter how much we say we value creation, deep down, most of us value control more. And so we fear change and favor familiarity. Rejecting is a reflex.

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When the same tests are applied to decision-makers and authority figures … [ Read more ]

Authors: Kevin Ashton, Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior

Freedom aggravates at least as much as it alleviates frustration. Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual. And as freedom encourages a multiplicity of attempts, it unavoidably multiplies failure.

Author: Eric Hoffer | Subjects: Concepts, Freedom | Liberty

The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.

Author: Eric Hoffer | Subject: History

A few major opportunities, clearly recognizable as such, will usually come to one who continuously searches and waits, with a curious mind, loving diagnosis involving multiple variables. And then all that is required is a willingness to bet heavily when the odds are extremely favorable, using resources available as a result of prudence and patience in the past.

Author: Charlie Munger | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement