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Brenda Ueland: Inspiration
“Inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.” —Brenda Ueland.
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David Swensen: Fundamentally uncomfortable
“In many instances, value investing proves fundamentally uncomfortable, as the most attractive opportunities frequently lurk in unattractive or even frightening places.” —David Swensen.
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Emily Kimbrough: Go hand in hand
“Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.” —Emily Kimbrough.
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Les Paul: Until you prove you can’t
“Don’t say you can’t until you prove you can’t.” —Les Paul.
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Scott Galloway: Try hard
“The world is not yours for the taking, but for the trying. Try hard.” —Scott Galloway.
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Jean-Marie Eveillard: Value investing
“Most people are not cut out for value investing, because human nature shrinks from pain.” —Jean-Marie Eveillard.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson: Preparation for victories
“Men succeed when they realize that their failures are the preparation for their victories.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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Richard Wiseman: Lucky people
“Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for.” —Richard Wiseman.
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Brian Chesky: Culture
“The habits you have when you’re three people—subtle habits like what time do you get up, what time do you go to bed, do you do these things together, do you communicate—extremely subtle habits became the habitual habits of thousands of people. And when a thousand people do something a thousand times, that’s your culture.”…
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James Dent: Intelligence versus wisdom
“Intelligence is when you spot the flaw in your boss’s reasoning. Wisdom is when you refrain from pointing it out.” —James Dent.
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Confucius: It does not matter
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” —Confucius.
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Warren Buffett: No strategic planning department
“We have no predetermined course of action whatsoever at Berkshire. We have no strategic planning department. We don’t have any strategic plan. We react to what we think are opportunities.” —Warren Buffett.
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Logan Pearsall Smith: What he whispers
“What I like in a good author isn’t what he says, but what he whispers.” —Logan Pearsall Smith.
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Martin J Whitman: Value investors
“When securities prices decline, an investor’s perspective can go in one of two directions. The vast majority of investors view a price decline as a loss of value. This has a basis in reality for those who are traders, those whose portfolios are financed with borrowed money, and those who have little or no knowledge…
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Hannah More: Absence in love
“Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much extinguishes it.” —Hannah More.
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Arthur Miller: Don’t be seduced
“Don’t be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.” —Arthur Miller.
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Josh Watzkin: Downward spiral
“One idea I taught was the importance of regaining presence and clarity of mind after making a serious error. This is a hard lesson for all competitors and performers. The first mistake rarely proves disastrous, but the downward spiral of the second, third, and fourth error creates a devastating chain reaction.” —Josh Watzkin.
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Oscar Wilde: Because a man dies for it
“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.” —Oscar Wilde.
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Howard Marks: Heady times
“In heady times, capital is devoted to innovative investments, many of which fail the test of time. Bullish investors focus on what might work, not what might go wrong. Eagerness takes over from prudence, causing people to accept new investment products they don’t understand. Later, they wonder what they could have been thinking.” —Howard Marks.
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Anne Lamott: Perfectionism
“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.” —Anne Lamott.
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Brad Stulberg: Sense of self
‘One of the most important parts of developing an identity that can thrive, persist, and endure change is to diversify your sense of self. You can think of identity like a house. You want the house to have multiple rooms. Perhaps there is a “parent” room; an “athlete” room; an “employee,” “entrepreneur,” or “executive” room;…
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Billionaires versus working class
“Billionaires need the working class. The working class does not need billionaires.” —Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
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Peter Drucker: Nothing so useless
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” —Peter Drucker.
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Alice Childress: Be kind to one another along the way
“Life is just a short walk from the cradle to the grave and it sure behooves us to be kind to one another along the way.” —Alice Childress.
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Bill Gates: Built by fanatics
“I think the world’s best companies are built by fanatics. [That means that you] work day and night. Sort of don’t worry about the possibility of failure. Every setback is just something to work a little bit harder at doing. And you really know what you’re trying to achieve…. And you’re going to change your…
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Tao Te Ching: The teacher will appear
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”—Tao Te Ching.
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Eleanor Roosevelt: Works of art
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” —Eleanor Roosevelt.
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Melba Moore: Other side of the rainbow
“Don’t let nobody tell you what you cannot do; don’t let nobody tell you what’s impossible for you; don’t let nobody tell you what you got to do, or you’ll never know … what’s on the other side of the rainbow… remember, if you don’t follow your dreams, you’ll never know what’s on the other…
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Lin Yutang: Elimination of nonessentials
“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.” —Lin Yutang.
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Bill Gates: Pretty fanatical
“People who are successful are often—but not always—pretty fanatical about the thing they’re planning to do.” —Bill Gates.
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Ivo Andric: Bridges
“From everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living, nothing in my eyes is better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are…
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Joan Didion: Innocence ends
“Innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself.” —Joan Didion, On Self Respect.
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John Train: Are you a fanatic?
“In discussing qualifications for business managers, [Warren] Buffett grinned and recommended a one-line employment form: ‘Are you a fanatic?’ A manager must care intensely about running a first-class operation; if his golf game is what he thinks about while shaving, the business will show it.” —John Train,The Money Masters.
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Elon Musk: How civilizations decline
“This is how civilizations decline. They quit taking risks. And when they quit taking risks, their arteries harden. Every year there are more referees and fewer doers. When you’ve had success for too long, you lose the desire to take risks.” —Elon Musk.
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Howard Marks: Assumption
“The assumption that something can’t happen has the potential to make it happen, since people who believe it can’t happen will engage in risky behavior and thus alter the environment.” —Howard Marks.
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Denis Diderot: Theologian
“Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: ‘My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.’ The stranger is a theologian.” —Denis Diderot.
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Sam Altman: Luck
“‘Give yourself a lot of shots to get lucky’ is even better advice than it appears on the surface. Luck isn’t an independent variable but increases super-linearly with more surface area—you meet more people, make more connections between new ideas, learn patterns, etc.” — Sam Altman.
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Rutherford B Hayes: Unrestricted competition
“The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.” —Rutherford B. Hayes.
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Thomas Wolfe: Forever a stranger
“Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?” —Thomas Wolfe.
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Jerry Seinfeld: Completely obsessed
“I am completely obsessed. And the audience wants that; they pay for that. I don’t want to see someone who’s kind of into it. … That’s what I care about. That’s all I care about. I don’t care what you do—I just want to see people and talk to people and be around people who…
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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: Encouragement of differences
“Civilization is the encouragement of differences.” —Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
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Herbert Simon: Poverty of attention
“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” —Herbert Simon.
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Daniel J Boorstin: Illusion of knowledge
“The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.” —Daniel J. Boorstin.
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Howard Marks: Allow for outliers
“Relying to excess on the fact that something ‘should happen’ can kill you when it doesn’t. Even if you properly understand the underlying probability distribution, you can’t count on things happening as they’re supposed to. And the success of your investment actions shouldn’t be highly dependent on normal outcomes prevailing; instead, you must allow for…
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Enid Blyton: Hatred
“Hatred is so much easier to win than love — and so much harder to get rid of.”—Enid Blyton, Six Cousins Again.
