Thoughts I keep coming back to.
- On work
- The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool. — Richard Feynman
- Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. — Octavia Butler
- Perfection is achieved when there is nothing left to take away. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. — David Foster Wallace, This Is Water, 2005
- On judgment
- What can be said at all can be said clearly. — Ludwig Wittgenstein
- I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something. — Richard Feynman
- Simple can be harder than complex: you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. — Steve Jobs, BusinessWeek, 1998
- On systems
- The purpose of a system is what it does. — Donella Meadows
- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. — John Gall
- The most dangerous phrase in the language is, ‘We’ve always done it this way.’ — Grace Hopper
- On attention
- Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. — Simone Weil
- There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. — David Foster Wallace
- On self
- Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. — Paul Graham
- Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it. — Daniel Kahneman
- If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish. — David Foster Wallace