Timothy Ferriss

“When you try to do something big its hard to fail completely.”

“Being able to quit things that don't work is integral to being a winner”

“If you let pride stop you, you will hate life”

“People are fond of using the its not what you know, its who you know adage as an excuse for inaction, as if all successful people are born with powerful friends. Nonsense.”

“Sports just happen to be excellent for avoiding foreign-language stage fright and developing lasting friendships while still sounding like Tarzan.”

“For all their bitching about what’s holding them back, most people have a lot of trouble coming up with the defined dreams they’re being held from.”

“Using people to leverage a refined process multiplies production; using people as a solution to a poor process multiplies problems.”

“Never automate something that can be eliminated, and never delegate something that can be automated or streamlined. Otherwise, you waste someone else's time instead of your own, which now wastes your hard-earned cash. How's that for incentive to be effective and efficient?”

“If you spend your time, worth $20-25 per hour, doing something that someone else will do for $10 per hour, it's simply a poor use of resources.”

“Becoming a member of the NR is not just about working smarter. It's about building a system to replace yourself.”

“The bottom line is that you only have the rights you fight for.”

“For the employee, the goal is to have full access to necessary information and as much independent decision-making ability as possible. For the entrepreneur, the goal is to grant as much information and independent decision-making ability to employees or contractors as possible.”

“Learn to be difficult when it counts. In school as in life, having a reputation for being assertive will help you receive preferential treatment without having to beg or fight for it every time.”

“Information is useless if it is not applied to something important or if you will forget it before you have a chance to apply it.”

“Simon received the Nobel Prize in 1978 for his contribution to organizational decision making: It is impossible to have perfect and complete information at any given time to make a decision.”

“But you are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn't making you stronger, they're making you weaker.”

“Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic.”

“Remember—boredom is the enemy, not some abstract "failure.”

“The question you should be asking isn't, "What do I want?" or "What are my goals?" but "What would excite me?”

“Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all.”

“Happiness can be bought with a bottle of wine and has become ambiguous through overuse.”

“What do you want?" is too imprecise to produce a meaningful and actionable answer.”

“If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.”

“I'll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.”

“To enjoy life, you don't need fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time and realize that most things just aren't as serious as you make them out to be.”

“Role models who push us to exceed our limits, physical training that removes our spare tires, and risks that expand our sphere of comfortable action are all examples of eustress—stress that is healthful and the stimulus for growth.”

“Relative income uses two variables: the dollar and time, usually hours.”

“Pacifists become militants.Freedom fighters become tyrants.Blessings become curses.Help becomes hindrance.More becomes less.”

“By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It's the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.”

“Alternating periods of activity and rest is necessary to survive, let alone thrive. Capacity, interest, and mental endurance all wax and wane. Plan accordingly.”

“The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That's a bittersweet ending.”

“It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice.”

“Different is better when it is more effective or more fun.”

“The goal is not to simply eliminate the bad, which does nothing more than leave you with a vacuum, but to pursue and experience the best in the world.”

“One evening, intending to ask my host mother to wake me the next morning (okosu), I ask her to violently rape me (okasu). She is very confused.”

“The first ten minutes of sorting through clothing was like choosing which child of mine should live or die.”

“I will take as a given that, for most people, somewhere between six and seven billion of them, the perfect job is the one that takes the least time.”

“$1,000,000 in the bank isn't the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows.”

“For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn't conspire against you, but it doesn't go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. "Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it's important to you and you want to do it "eventually," just do it and correct course along the way.”

“Slow Dance:Have you ever watched kids, On a merry-go-round? Or listened to the rain, Slapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight? Or gazed at the sun into the fading night? You better slow down. Don't dance too fast. Time is short. The music won't last. Do you run through each day, On the fly? When you ask: How are you? Do you hear the reply? When the day is done, do you lie in your bed, With the next hundred chores, Running through your head? You'd better slow down, Don't dance too fast. Time is short, The music won't last. Ever told your child we'll do it tomorrow? And in your haste, Not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch, Let a good friendship die, Cause you never had time, To call and say Hi? You'd better slow down. Don't dance so fast. Time is short. The music won't last. When you run so fast to get somewhere, You miss half the fun of getting there. When you worry and hurry through your day, It is like an unopened gift thrown away. Life is not a race. Do take it slower. Hear the music, Before the song is over.”

“Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitate to get in the way if you're moving.”

“Many a false step was made by standing still.”

“Life is too short to be small.”

“A person's success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”

“What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.”

“People will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.”

“The fishing is best where the fewest go and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone is aiming for base hits.”

“By using money as the scapegoat and work as our all-consuming routine, we are able to conveniently disallow ourselves to do otherwise: 'John, I'd love to talk about the gaping void I feel in my life, the hopelessness that hits me like a punch in the eye every time I start my computer in the morning, but I have so much work to do! I've got at least three hours of unimportant email to reply to before calling prospects who said 'no' yesterday. Gotta run!”

“The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is boredom.”